The Brotherhood of Steel

The So Called Brotherhood of Steel. Here's what I have to stay about that:

The Brotherhood of Steel is a quasi-religious technological military order operating across the ruins of post-War North America, with its roots stemming from the United States Armed Forces and the government-sponsored scientific community from before the Great War. 
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See also: History of the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel, History of the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, History of the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel

OriginsEdit

The Brotherhood of Steel was founded by Roger Maxson, a captain in the United States Army. Led by Colonel Robert Spindel, Maxson was part of a team sent on January 3, 2076 to monitor progress at a West-Tek facility in California, which was conducting research on behalf of the American government. On January 7, 2077, all West-Tek research and personnel – Maxson and his team included – were relocated to the newly constructed Mariposa Military Base in an effort to enhance security.

On October 10, 2077, Captain Maxson and his men discovered, to their horror, that the West-Tek scientists at Mariposa were using military prisoners as unwilling test subjects for their genetically engineered Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.). Morale in the base quickly collapsed and Colonel Spindel suffered a mental breakdown, eventually committing suicide five days later. In the midst of the crisis, Maxson's men turned to him for leadership. Captain Maxson proceeded to interrogate Robert Anderson, the chief scientist of the West-Tek research team stationed at Mariposa, learning the extent of their experiments. Anderson, along with most of his research team, were subsequently executed for their crimes.

Maxson, now in control of the base, declared his desertion from the United States Army via radio on October 20. To his confusion, he received no response from the chain-of-command, as the U.S. Army was currently focused on escalating conflicts with the Chinese. Three days later on October 23, both nations launched their entire nuclear arsenals. Within two hours, the Great War had ended and much of the Earth was reduced to a radioactive wasteland. On October 21 Maxson ordered that the families, including his, be brought inside the base to protect them.^[1] The Mariposa Military Base survived the onslaught, its numerous safety protocols protecting the soldiers within from the radiation and the F.E.V., which had been accidentally released and was now seeping into the newborn Wasteland. Two days after the attack, on October 25, Captain Maxson sent one of his men, Platner, outside in protective power armor to scout the area and gather readings on the atmosphere. Platner reported no significant amounts of radiation in the surrounding area.

After burying the bodies of Anderson and his executed staff members, Captain Maxson and his men raided the base for various supplies and weapons schematics before sealing Mariposa and venturing off into the desert. The following weeks of travel inflicted casualties on the party at the hands of various raider gangs and the harsh conditions of the Wasteland. In November 2077, Captain Maxson eventually led his band of survivors to the safety of Lost Hills, a government fallout shelter. This journey came to be immortalized in Brotherhood lore as “the Exodus”.

In time, Captain Maxson set the bunker as the headquarters for his new organization, the Brotherhood of Steel. As the Brotherhood's first High Elder, Maxson sought to use Lost Hills' resources to help rebuild civilization – no matter the cost.

Early YearsEdit

Relatively little is known about the early years of the Brotherhood of Steel. In 2134, an emerging faction of the Brotherhood, led by Sergeant Dennis Allen, petitioned the Council of Elders for permission to explore the remnants of the West-Tek research facility in search of technological artifacts. In the wake of the Great War, the facility was left a highly irradiated ruin referred to by locals as “the Glow”. The Elders thus denied Sergeant Allen's request, prompting him and his followers to splinter from the Brotherhood, taking some advanced weapons and technology with them. Despite this incident, the Brotherhood of Steel continued to grow in strength under the guidance of Elder Maxson, further refining their technology and gradually forming the orders of Knights, Scribes, and Paladins that are known today. That following year, Roger Maxson died of cancer. His son, Maxson II, succeeded him as High Elder.

In the 2150's, the Brotherhood began extending their influence out into the surrounding areas, quickly asserting their place as one of the major powers of New California of the post-War West Coast. The early 50's saw the emergence of a prominent raider group known as the Vipers, who quickly established a base of operations in the badlands to the south of Lost Hills. Driven by a near-religious frenzy, the Vipers' raids become bolder and more frequent over time, eventually attracting the attention of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Rhombus

In 2155, the Brotherhood sent a handful of squads out into the Wasteland to track the Vipers down. To the Elders, this seemed a glorified training exercise, as they were convinced that a small detachment of Brotherhood troops in power armor would be sufficient to deal with a band of raiders, no matter how large. One Brotherhood squad, led by High Elder Maxson II himself, located the Vipers. Expecting the raiders to break and run at the sight of such a heavily armed force, Maxson did not take into account the Vipers' zeal and ferocity... or their poisoned weapons. A single arrow nicked the High Elder while he had his helmet off, leading to his death a few hours later. John Maxson, grandson of Roger, took up the role of High Elder.

In the wake of this incident, the newly appointed Head Paladin Rhombus launched a full-scale campaign against the Vipers, hunting them down and driving them to near-extinction over the course of a month. The few remaining Vipers managed to scatter north and east to the Sierra Madre mountain range. It was towards the end of this campaign that the Brotherhood sent a handful of scouts and emissaries to the Hub in order to track down these runaway Vipers. It was from these beginnings that the Hub and the Brotherhood of Steel opened full trade relations. (Caravans had delivered to the Brotherhood in the past, but in the wake of the Vipers' destruction, caravan trains now ran directly from the Hub to the Brotherhood's headquarters at Lost Hills on a regular basis.)

The Super MutantsEdit

Scribe Vree

Several years after the Viper campaign, the Brotherhood of Steel encountered an enemy far more formidable than any band of raiders. In October of 2161, a Brotherhood patrol stumbled upon the corpse of a super mutant. The remains were transported back to Lost Hills for study by Head Scribe Vree.

In 2162, the Vault-Dweller arrived at the Lost Hills bunker, seeking entry into the Brotherhood. His request was not taken seriously and he was tasked with retrieving the records of Sergeant Dennis Allen's expedition from the hazardous ruins of the Glow, a fool's errand commonly used to deter would-be Brotherhood members. To the Brotherhood's surprise, not only did the Vault-Dweller return from the West-Tek facility alive, but he had also succeeded in his fool's errand and recovered a holodisk recording of Allen's doomed expedition. As a result, the Vault-Dweller became the first outsider in decades to be accepted into the Brotherhood of Steel, despite the protests of a few members.

It was from the Vault-Dweller that the Brotherhood subsequently learned of the Master's mutant army and its plans to forcibly convert the surviving human population into Super Mutants. With the support of High Elder John Maxson, the Vault-Dweller was able to convince the Council of Elders to deploy a squad of Paladins to Mariposa, where the Master's F.E.V. vats were located. With the assistance of the Brotherhood, the Vault-Dweller managed to defeat the Master and disrupt his mutant army. They also helped drive some mutants away from other human outposts.^[2] At this point in time, the Brotherhood of Steel stood as the most technologically advanced faction in New California. Although the remaining super mutants and the nascent Gun Runners had access to comparably advanced weaponry, the Brotherhood had a monopoly on power armor, supercomputers, and advanced medical technologies, such as cybernetics. With this technology slowly being introduced into New California, the Brotherhood of Steel became a major research and development house.^[2]

AftermathEdit

In the wake of the Master's defeat, the Brotherhood of Steel began arguing amongst itself over the need for new recruits versus their secrecy as an organization. In the end, most of the Elders ruled against the sharing of their technology with outsiders, confident that their organization could survive on their traditional principles. The minority who opposed this ruling were sent eastward to track down the last remnants of the Master's army via a small fleet of airships. When these airships crash-landed near the ruins of Chicago, the surviving individuals founded the Midwestern chapter of the Brotherhood. In the following years, the Brotherhood continued to expand somewhat, establishing small outposts throughout California, as well as launching expeditions to regions such as Washington, D.C., and the Mojave.

In addition, the end of the Master was accompanied by the birth of the New California Republic (NCR). What began in the small farming community of Shady Sands quickly blossomed into a spirited effort to reclaim what was lost in the Great War. As the young NCR expanded, the Lost Hills region was incorporated into the growing nation in the form of the newly founded state of Maxson. While the bunker itself still remained under the control of the Brotherhood, the NCR held jurisdiction over the lands outside. Though tensions simmered between the two factions, peaceful relations remained. 

The EnclaveEdit

At the San Francisco outpost, Matt assigns an important task to the Chosen One.

By 2242, the Brotherhood of Steel were but a fraction of the power they had been once before. With the emergence of the Enclave, the Brotherhood found that they were no longer the most advanced faction in the Wasteland. Intimidated and lacking the resources to deal with this new foe, the best the Brotherhood could manage was just to keep an eye on the newcomers. To this end, several previously-dormant bunkers and outposts in areas of Enclave activity were reactivated.

Eventually, the Brotherhood learned of the Enclave's Vertibird technology. Lacking any similar technology of their own, the Brotherhood saw itself as vulnerable to a possible Enclave invasion. In light of this possibility, Matthew, an operative stationed in the San Francisco outpost, was requested to enlist the aid of the Chosen One to steal a set of Vertibird schematics from a major Enclave outpost at Navarro.

Although the Chosen One was successful in his mission, it is unknown if the Vertibird plans ever reached the High Council, as Operative Matthew was killed by Agent Frank Horrigan a short time after the mission's completion. However, with the destruction of their oil rig base and NCR forces subsequently hunting down remaining members, the Enclave ceased to pose a threat on the West Coast.