Liberty Prime: the Brotherhood's Giant Anti-Communist Robot

Liberty Prime is a giant combat robot designed before the Great War to drive Chinese forces out of Anchorage, Alaska. It was never finished in time. The Brotherhood of Steel found it under the Pentagon, got it walking in Fallout 3 and rebuilt it for Fallout 4. It throws nuclear bombs, fires a laser from its head and never stops shouting anti-communist slogans. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

Where did Liberty Prime come from?#

Liberty Prime was a pre-war superweapon, and Scribe Rothchild calls it "The first joint operation between RobCo and General Atomics International." It was meant to help liberate Alaska from the Chinese, but it was never completed. The Army had to go in without it, and it won, at heavy cost. (Fallout 3)

The project files in the Citadel fill in the rest. The robot's body, voice and weapons were finished, but nobody could build a power source compact enough to run everything at once. It could only walk with its weapons switched off. The project lead asked Vault-Tec for help, but the one man who might have solved it had already gone into his own vault. Prime stayed in its bay under the Pentagon. (Fallout 3)

How did the Brotherhood get it working?#

The Capital Wasteland Brotherhood found Prime when it moved into the Pentagon and made the building its fortress, the Citadel. Rothchild has led the work "since we first found him, well over twenty years ago", and the problem was still energy. (Fallout 3)

The lab logs from 2277 are a list of failures. Trying to trick Prime's AI into releasing power from its weapons fried its circuits and cost three months. A test of a new fusion module burned one scribe, and a weapon discharge nearly killed Elder Lyons, who tightened control of the team. Only the voice module ever worked properly, reeling off old propaganda whenever it had power. (Fallout 3)

The breakthrough came when Dr. Madison Li, James's research partner on Project Purity, took shelter at the Citadel after the Enclave seized the purifier. Her work with portable generators solved the power management problem. Rothchild says afterwards that it was the real issue all along. (Fallout 3)

Liberty Prime in Fallout 3#

Lyons sent Prime out without proper testing. A crane lifted it out of the Citadel, and it walked to the Jefferson Memorial with Lyons' Pride and the Lone Wanderer behind it, shooting down Vertibirds and tearing apart the Enclave's force fields ("Probability of mission hindrance: zero percent!"). It held the perimeter while the Lone Wanderer and Sarah Lyons went in to start the purifier. (Fallout 3)

Broken Steel shows the next two weeks, with Prime as the Brotherhood's battering ram. During the assault on the Enclave's satellite relay station, it punches open the wall, and the Enclave calls in an orbital strike from the Bradley-Hercules platform. Prime crawls out of the wreck and shuts down its core with the words "I die, so that democracy may... live..." Rothchild says the loss sets the Brotherhood back years. (Fallout 3: Broken Steel)

Liberty Prime in Fallout 4#

Elder Arthur Maxson ordered the robot restored, and Proctor Ingram spent the better part of several years putting the salvaged parts back together. The Brotherhood carried them to the Commonwealth aboard the Prydwen and built a gantry at Boston Airport. (Fallout 4)

Ingram needs a scientist who understands its power systems, starting with a fragile CPU that blows itself out whenever power reaches it. The Sole Survivor talks Dr. Li, recruited back from the Institute, into helping, or finds another scientist if Li isn't available. New electromagnetic actuators replace the old limbs, a stockpile of Mark 28 nuclear bombs gives it ammunition, and a beryllium agitator from the Mass Fusion building powers it up. The finished robot calls itself Liberty Prime Mark II. (Fallout 4)

In "Ad Victoriam", Prime walks from the airport to the C.I.T. ruins. It stops to salute at Bunker Hill, a memorial site, then spots the Institute underground ("Composition: sand, gravel, and Communism") and lasers a hole straight down into it. (Fallout 4)

The other factions can turn it into a target. On the Institute's side, the Sole Survivor guards a synth while it uploads a virus that makes Prime see the Prydwen as a communist vessel. Prime shoots the airship down. On the Railroad or Minutemen routes the Prydwen is destroyed by other means. (Fallout 4)

Liberty Prime in the TV series#

Prime hasn't appeared on screen yet. In a scene after the credits of the season two finale, with the Brotherhood's chapters fighting each other at Area 51, Scribe Dane brings Elder Cleric Quintus the blueprints for "Liberty Prime Alpha", and Quintus declares himself "Quintus the destroyer". (Fallout, "The Strip")

Todd Howard, an executive producer, told Collider after the finale that a giant robot is "something we've wanted", adding "I love giant robots." He joked that Jonathan Nolan's love of practical effects made the show "an excuse to build a giant robot for real." (Todd Howard and Jonathan Nolan on season 3)