Maximus: the Shady Sands Orphan Who Joined the Brotherhood of Steel

Maximus is one of the three leads of the Fallout TV series, a Brotherhood of Steel recruit who survived the nuclear destruction of Shady Sands as a child and wants, more than anything, to matter. He lies his way into a knight's power armour in season 1 and in season 2 becomes the top knight of his chapter, then breaks with it. He is played by Aaron Moten. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

Who is Maximus?#

Maximus was born in Shady Sands, capital of the New California Republic. When the city was bombed, his parents put him in the family refrigerator, and he climbed out to a burning crater and an armed Brotherhood knight in power armour. The knight took him in. That memory decides the rest of his life. (Fallout, "The Past"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

The Brotherhood gave him a name, food and a place, but he was an outsider among the aspirants. Thaddeus led the beatings, and only Dane stood by him. Asked by Elder Cleric Quintus why he joined, he answers: to hurt the people who hurt him. (Fallout, "The End")

Maximus in season 1#

When Dane is promoted to squire and then injured, Maximus is suspected. Quintus clears him and makes him squire to Knight Titus instead, sent with Titus to bring back the Enclave defector Siggi Wilzig. Titus turns out to be a coward and a bully. A yao guai mauls him, and Maximus withholds the stimpak he asks for and watches him die. Then he climbs into Titus's T-60 armour and takes his identity. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Target")

In Filly he shields Lucy MacLean from the Ghoul, who beats him by attacking the suit's weak points. The Brotherhood sends Thaddeus as Titus's new squire, and Maximus bullies him in turn until they bond after fighting a gulper. Thaddeus steals the armour's fusion core once he learns who is inside it. (Fallout, "The Target"; Fallout, "The Head"; Fallout, "The Past")

Lucy frees him, and the two travel together through the Shady Sands crater and into Vault 4. He enjoys vault comforts until he thinks Lucy is about to be executed and storms in, only to learn they were letting her go. He tells her the truth about Titus, and she forgives him. They kiss before parting at a radio station. (Fallout, "The Past"; Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Radio")

He brings Quintus a fake head and is nearly executed, saved when Dane confesses to injuring themselves. In the battle for Griffith Observatory he frees Lucy's father Hank, learns from Lucy that Hank bombed Shady Sands, and is knocked out by Hank. He wakes to find Lucy gone with the Ghoul and Lee Moldaver dying, and the Brotherhood credits him with her death. (Fallout, "The Beginning"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

Maximus in season 2#

Season 2 finds him a celebrated knight of his chapter. He recovers a piece of technology that lets the chapter open up Area 51, which becomes its new base, and Quintus calls the other West Coast chapters there to unite them, with the cold fusion relic as his bargaining chip. Maximus wants to believe in it, though he is starting to see how brutal the Brotherhood is. At the gathering he is challenged by a much bigger knight, fights him out of armour and kills him with the man's own knife, to Quintus's approval. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

Paladin Xander Harkness, envoy of the Commonwealth Brotherhood, tries to win him over and takes him out in his vertibird. At a bottling plant they find Thaddeus hiding ghoul children. Harkness prepares to kill the "abominations", and Maximus caves in his helmet with a super sledge. (Fallout, "The Profligate")

He tries to cover it up, confronts Quintus with a gun and can't fire. Quintus calls him a heretic and shoots at him. War breaks out between the chapters, Dane hands him the relic, and Maximus escapes with Thaddeus as the chapters turn on each other. (Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow")

On the road they ditch the power armour because the Brotherhood can track it. Maximus wants the diode to go to Lucy, because she's a good person. Dogmeat leads them to the wounded Ghoul, who offers to take them to Lucy in Vegas. At a hidden cache the Ghoul offers its weapons and power armour, which they'll need against the deathclaws, in exchange for the diode, and Maximus hands it over. (Fallout, "The Other Player"; Fallout, "The Handoff")

Maximus and the deathclaws#

In the power armour he covers the Ghoul's run into the Lucky 38, fighting the deathclaws on the Strip. The fight spills into Freeside, where he takes on the pack while the Freesiders bet on whether he'll win, and Thaddeus tries to help. Maximus ends up fighting on out of his armour, which wins the locals' respect, until NCR troops arrive, kill the deathclaw and take over. (Fallout, "The Handoff"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Afterwards he finds Lucy on the Strip. In the Lucky 38 penthouse, with Caesar's Legion marching on the city, she says the coming war will be her fault, and he answers, "Welcome to the Wasteland." (Fallout, "The Strip")

Test yourself: take the Fallout TV show quiz, twelve questions on Maximus, Lucy, the Ghoul and both seasons of the show. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule")