Just like the rest of the factions in FO4, the Brotherhood of Steel is an a "moral grey" area. Their goals ARE GOOD. They want to eradicate super mutants, ghouls (and judging on them not hating Hancock, just Feral Ghouls), and synths, who, depending on your stance, are arguably even MORE dangerous than the other two combined.
Good goals, right? I mean, each of those things are an issue.
The problem is that they go about those goals in often times absolutely ruthless ways.

Same goes for the Institute. They WANT to help humanity. Issue is, same as the brotherhood, they want to help humanity as a whole, and not necessarily the individual represented.

Railroad: Single-Minded in their goals of helping synths (refer to another one of my posts for why the RR suck)

And the Minutemen, as has been stated before, are COMPLETELY unreliable, and have proven to be corrupt due to power struggles.

So Brotherhood good or bad? All depends on your definition and if you believe the ends justify the means.

TL;DR
They're a little bit of an antihero. They'll do good things and absolutely atrocious things to accomplish their goals. Just like everyone else.

it's for the greater good they said.

I personally see that the brotherhood of steel in fallout 4 as bad. If you think about it, they are a racist bunch that are unwilling to listen to reasons and will commit genocide if they have enough manpower/firepower. You'll get a glimpse of what they are like in fallout 3 near the washington monument when the ghouls complaint that they cant differentiate feral and non-feral and will shoot first and ask questions later. Think of them as the KKK, racist towards other race, which are non-human, conservative in certain ways, will not adapt to other people's point of view, and have a thing for big weapons.

I think the Brotherhood is closer to "good guy" status than any other faction in 4. Their mission, the kill all synths one, is possibly the most important thing the Brotherhoods done since helping the Vault Dweller. Why? Because, I've done research, fact checked, and come to the conclusion that hidden deep within Fallout 4's story and setting is a lie. One, apparently no one else has noticed, about the true nature of synths. I won't just go into the details, as that would be lengthy and certainly go off topic, unless someone wants to hear it, but the conclusions I've come to, dictate the only safe course of action to be the complete extermination of all gen three synths.

Yang1200 wrote:

I personally see that the brotherhood of steel in fallout 4 as bad. If you think about it, they are a racist bunch that are unwilling to listen to reasons and will commit genocide if they have enough manpower/firepower. You'll get a glimpse of what they are like in fallout 3 near the washington monument when the ghouls complaint that they cant differentiate feral and non-feral and will shoot first and ask questions later. Think of them as the KKK, racist towards other race, which are non-human, conservative in certain ways, will not adapt to other people's point of view, and have a thing for big weapons.

Thing is, they're nowhere near as bad as the KKK in that respect. If you listened to the ghoul that said that, she said that the Brotherhood have the courtesy to miss. One does not miss with a laser weapon unless they're intentionally missing. While they certainly don't -like- ghouls, they also don't go out of their way to kill non-feral ones. It also isn't really racism so much as the fact that feral ghouls are inherently dangerous towards basically everyone that isn't a ghoul, and ghouls that aren't feral can become feral over time. As for the super mutants and synths, super mutants are obviously bad for everyone given their unsavory appetites as well as the habit of turning people into more super mutants. Synths are representative of the absolute worst applications of science that the Brotherhood is sworn to never allow to see the light of day again. To them, a free-thinking machine is an extremely dangerous and unpredictable thing that can't be allowed to run rampant. While I don't necessarily agree with their treatment of synths, it's what I would expect from them.

All in all, the Brotherhood does have a -lot- of faults, but so does everyone else. Unlike most people, they have the manpower, technology, and training to actually make their ideals a reality. While they can be seen as power-armored bullies, and certainly are in some instances, they can also bring about stability and safety to the areas they control. They also usually won't directly interfere in the lives of normal folk unless they're tampering with things they shouldn't or if the brotherhood is in dire straits, just like basically any other group except the Institute that experiment on people for kicks and giggles.

Out of the groups you can ally yourself with, I would rather go with the Brotherhood than the other options simply because they're the most logical. Institute are essentially Enclave 2.0 and care so little about the sanctity of human life that they'd happily murder an entire settlement (University Point) for some energy research. Railroad are good at heart but lack the manpower and fortitude to protect everyone instead of just synths, and they can't even do that properly. Minutemen are also good at heart, but they lack organization, training, and discipline and will likely fall to pieces as soon as the General strolls off to wherever Bethesda protagonists go.

While not perfect, as no faction is, I would have to say the BOS are good guys.  Especially when compared to groups like the Institute.

I was kind of curious where Yang1200 got their information.
not insulting but merely just dissecting what was said.

"I personally see that the brotherhood of steel in fallout 4 as bad. If you think about it, they are a racist bunch that are unwilling to listen to reasons and will commit genocide if they have enough manpower/firepower. "

Well they are racist?  Against whom? Super Mutants? Feral Ghouls? The Enclave? The Institute?
well those groups I don't count so much as races as factions now, though the Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls are mostly beyond the realm of reason except say for Virgil and Strong.

Unwilling to listen to reason? How? You convince Maxon to spare the life of a certain Synth who infiltrated the BOS.  That seems like the ability to listen to reason, plus they dont shoot on sight Mr.Hancock which is a plus whom is a ghoul.

Commit Genocide?  Where do they even hint at that? The only organization that seems to be conducting a subversive action is the Institute, and they are committing genocide on settlements across the commonwealth (See University Point)  With aspirations to wipe out the Warwick Homestead farm as soon as their experiment on their crops is complete.  The Institute is also abducting people to replace them with Synths and use the captives for the purpose of creating more Super Mutants (See Swan).  In addition to continuing the FEV research that is best described as war crimes that the BOS put a stop to after they held a trial for the scientists conducting the experiments at Mariposa during/ after the great war.


"You'll get a glimpse of what they are like in fallout 3 near the Washington monument when the ghouls complaint that they cant differentiate feral and non-feral and will shoot first and ask questions later. "

as Gyrard stated, They will shoot Feral Ghouls and shoot a warning shot at NON Feral Ghouls when they approach a BOS secure position.  So with that, they will shoot, and on purposely miss and then proceed to ask questions as to why a ghoul is approaching their position.  Largely because many ghouls do go feral after a bit, not all, but enough to where its an issue, as they are described that "the radiation eats at their brain eventually turning them feral"


"Think of them as the KKK, racist towards other race, which are non-human, conservative in certain ways, will not adapt to other people's point of view, and have a thing for big weapons."

KKK? Klu Klux Klan?  Racist? well like I said, they distrust Ghouls, because of a tendency to go feral, Super Mutants because All their encounters with them are bad, from Master, Mariposa, Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout NV.  Fallout BOS.. in all those games the Super Mutants are not good nor kind to the BOS, so the BOS repay in kind.  Synths? yes they are hostile to them, because they view them as robots designed to infiltrate and control human society...  Also, Conservative views/ Republican?  Well, the KKK has actually since their inception been the militant arm of Democrats/ Liberals.  The Democratic Party fought them (the conservative republicans) and tried to maintain and expand slavery. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, passed in 1865 with 100% Republican support but only 23% Democrat support in congress.

So yeah, from looking at FO4, I can say that the BOS are not perfect, but no faction is in the game.  They are the better of the choices I am presented.

Gyrard wrote:

Yang1200 wrote:

I personally see that the brotherhood of steel in fallout 4 as bad. If you think about it, they are a racist bunch that are unwilling to listen to reasons and will commit genocide if they have enough manpower/firepower. You'll get a glimpse of what they are like in fallout 3 near the washington monument when the ghouls complaint that they cant differentiate feral and non-feral and will shoot first and ask questions later. Think of them as the KKK, racist towards other race, which are non-human, conservative in certain ways, will not adapt to other people's point of view, and have a thing for big weapons.

Thing is, they're nowhere near as bad as the KKK in that respect. If you listened to the ghoul that said that, she said that the Brotherhood have the courtesy to miss. One does not miss with a laser weapon unless they're intentionally missing. While they certainly don't -like- ghouls, they also don't go out of their way to kill non-feral ones. It also isn't really racism so much as the fact that feral ghouls are inherently dangerous towards basically everyone that isn't a ghoul, and ghouls that aren't feral can become feral over time. As for the super mutants and synths, super mutants are obviously bad for everyone given their unsavory appetites as well as the habit of turning people into more super mutants. Synths are representative of the absolute worst applications of science that the Brotherhood is sworn to never allow to see the light of day again. To them, a free-thinking machine is an extremely dangerous and unpredictable thing that can't be allowed to run rampant. While I don't necessarily agree with their treatment of synths, it's what I would expect from them.

All in all, the Brotherhood does have a -lot- of faults, but so does everyone else. Unlike most people, they have the manpower, technology, and training to actually make their ideals a reality. While they can be seen as power-armored bullies, and certainly are in some instances, they can also bring about stability and safety to the areas they control. They also usually won't directly interfere in the lives of normal folk unless they're tampering with things they shouldn't or if the brotherhood is in dire straits, just like basically any other group except the Institute that experiment on people for kicks and giggles.

Out of the groups you can ally yourself with, I would rather go with the Brotherhood than the other options simply because they're the most logical. Institute are essentially Enclave 2.0 and care so little about the sanctity of human life that they'd happily murder an entire settlement (University Point) for some energy research. Railroad are good at heart but lack the manpower and fortitude to protect everyone instead of just synths, and they can't even do that properly. Minutemen are also good at heart, but they lack organization, training, and discipline and will likely fall to pieces as soon as the General strolls off to wherever Bethesda protagonists go.

I know that poeple tend to choose to go for the lesser evil here, but in fallout 4, I choose not to stand by their side. The faction I put myself in that I can really trust, that can do the commonwealth good is the minutemen. Sure BOS might bring stability for the whole country, but under Maxson's rule? I doubt that. He sounds delusional, and have this hatred vibe in every one of his speech. Bad things don't just happen, it happens because it was left unchecked for a period of time. You've seen how they treat non-humans, and somewhere along the line, things may go bad for them if no one was to put their foot down and say "I will not let you do this"

Regarding the quote from the ghoul, they still will shoot first and ask questions later, and may change to shoot to kill if they decided that ghouls are a threat as well if they decided to turn feral.

@ Yang1200

well, once again that is alot of speculation on your part, or rather writing them into fit your own narrative of how they should be (The BOS)

remember the BOS are the ones who tell you when riding as the door gunner of a vertibird to not shoot civilians.  They actually care to not hurt/ murder the people of the commonwealth.  Those orders and moral standings come from above, Maxon is definitely harsh, and it doesnt really say what happened to Sarah Lyons that changed Maxon so much.  But Maxon was Raised by Elder Lyons and Sarah Lyons, idolizing her and having a crush on her... but she was killed and something about that seems to have changed Maxon.

Also how they treat non humans?  Feral Ghouls? they shoot them. Super Mutants? They shoot them.  Hancock a non feral ghoul, they dont shoot him.  A certain Synth Infiltrator who was in the BOS, the banish him but not kill him, even though he has intricate knowledge of the BOS, its abilities, tactics, weapons and technology... that says that even if the is a synth they apparently still have some regard for him.  He is just a liability knowing that he has a vocal command that will shut off his free will and turn him into an obedient Institute Synth all over again.

but yeah, you put alot of speculation into what you are saying perhaps even to re-writing FO3/4 to fit your narrative, and its your game you can create what you will.  But as per lore its not.

But yes, the Minutemen are a good group, just completely ineffective and incompetent.  I watch patrols of 5 minutemen killed by rad stags.  Even when I have alot of settlements everywhere, they just die in droves to the point where I cant see them as effective at anything, they lost their power when they were betrayed and defeated by the Gunners, and I dont think they will really truly recover (maybe with mods) but even with the Sole Survivor working with them, their average soldiers are about on par with the feral dogs in terms of combat strength sadly.  I wanted to see more from them, but they are just to pathetic.  

They are Idealistic (almost to the point of being naive) and living in their own world or view of what the wasteland is.  Its a noble vision, but the people of the wastes (Scavengers) really are not willing to share or help others really...

the writers of FO4 either on purpose or by accident made it so that the two factions with the ability to do anything, were mired by moral flaws; the Institute as perfectly put are Enclave 2.0.. the BOS are so focused on their mission that they will hurt some feelings until they get everything set up, and thats even if they stay, it says they are only there to beat the Institute, who knows if they will move on like they did from the Capital Wasteland in FO3.

The Minutemen are really weak, even if you help them, really poorly organized as Ronnie Shaw points out... I would say probably in 30 to 50 years they may be capable if they salvage more weapons or something and they really have to get serious which will probably see them becoming more like the BOS....

The Railroad, only cares for Synths as slaves, and doesnt care for people who are slaves, so focused so much that its comical....

They are (usually) isolationist, zealously protective of their technology and will spare close to no expense to acquire more.
Believing that the end always justifies the means, they have no qualms killing to gain/protect tech.

The whole reason they do that, however, is not for personal gain, but to protect the world. Believing that giving advanced technology to the remnants of humanity (see, non-brotherhood members) will inevitably cause the destruction of the world all over again. By taking weapons and harmful knowledge out of the hands of savages, they truly believe they are helping to restore the world.

From the point of view of an onlooker, killing civilians who do not want to part with their tech is definitely an act of evil.
From the point of view of the brotherhood, it is just, noble and absolutely vital to preserve life in the wasteland.

What could be construed as "evil" is the fact that they have the means and methods to improve the life for many, many people. But they actively choose not to, due to their policies of only using acquired tech internally. Their role as protectors of the weak is usually one they only take up when they have something to gain from it, otherwise they prefer to leave people to their own devices.

I would not consider them good or bad. They are much closer to being neutral, and barely neutral good in some cases. Many of the things they do undoubtedly help the world in the long run, while other actions keep setting back progress hundreds of years. They're rather want people to slave away in the sun for meagre rewards and die of hunger than help them reach a higher level of scientific know-how which would better their lives immensely. The reason people seem to think the BoS is "evil" tends to stem from how distrustful they are of outsiders, their general protective and stand-offish natures and the almost religious reverence of military rank and file which leads to them having little to no regard for savages without discipline or what they perceive as "honor".

After all, the first time we meet them in a Fallout game, they send the player to die from a radiation overdose as a prank.

@ Waffenbaum

Excellently put, the BOS does what they can to protect technology, and they do intend to protect people from technology. Though the extent isnt quite correct, people can have laser weapons, plasma weapons, even power armor. It has become so common that the BOS doesnt even care according to lore now... (thank you Bethesda.. *completely sarcastic in thanking Bethesda for that*)
But, as Paladin Danse states, they are interested in protecting the world from the type of tech that destroyed it, essentially super weapons, FEV (which created Ghouls and Super Mutants in addition to the radiation), Bio/ Chemical weapons and of course nukes.

So on those grounds, I do think that raiders should never get FEV weapons Technology, Bio and Chemical Weapons of mass destruction, and the Nukes that destroyed the world, not simply the little ones like the fatman. Will they kill individuals who are not willing to give up per say an FEV weapon System from the old world, definitely. Will they kill someone for a laser rifle.. nope.. dime a dozen now.

But that was truly funny in FO1 where they ask you to go to the glow, I got irradiated and my stats all went to 10... so at first I wasnt sure if that was suppose to happen.. but it did.

the writing of FO1 and FO2 was so much better...

Am gonna be honest with you, the Brotherhood of Steel under Elder Maxson greatly concerns me.

While Elder Maxson has done good things for the BoS, being able turn the Eastern Chapter into a very powerful force. We also seen Maxson has had his improving technology like Veronica wanted the BoS take.

But... They are starting become what the Military was like in Pre War Fallout, you're either with them or against them as Teagan put it. They are becoming dangerously zealot and are making choices that truly disgust me. Elder Maxson turning on Danse like that is one, the fact he just ignored Danse's loyality just like that is unforgivable.

Elder Maxson needs realize if he doesn't wake up, his doom to restart mistakes made by his great grandfather, Jeremy Maxson, the one who started the war with the NCR. So longest Elder Maxson doesn't harm the people or my friends in Fallout 4, I will remain civil with them and willing do an alliance but I will not stand idley if the people's freedom and justice gets ignored.

So it really depends on how you want view them, this is just how I view Maxson's BoS, great concern.

Well, when you read fallout lore, it wasnt so much the military that was the problem but the government, the doctors and the Corporations.

The Government gave the go ahead that the scientists wanted to start the human experiments like the FEV and had the corporations provide for the Doctors/ Scientists.

The Military/ Soldiers realized that the Doctors/ Scientists/ Researchers were experimenting on Chinese POW's and stopped them and held a trial for the Doctors for Crimes against humanity.

I guess the Reason Maxon turns against Danse is because he doesnt view him as loyal but simply just a robot following its programing to win the BOS trust and ultimately betray them, but if the Sole Survivor talks to and does a charisma check can convince Maxon to spare Danse, Even though Danse wants to die. This is solely because the BOS just views Synths as machines following a program which they cant know until their objectives are revealed. So with that I can kind of understand why the BOS is wary of Danse.

But within regards to Whether the BOS is good or bad, once again.

Institute, wants to conduct human experiments on unwilling settlers, abduct them and genocide them like they did at University Point and intend to do at Warwick. They are the source of Super Mutants, abductions, murders and fear in the Common Wealth.

Minutemen, while noble they are horribly under trained, under equipped, and under manned. Realistically they dont have the ability to affect change except without the aid of a super human player character/ Sole Survivor. And even then its slow going as "Another settlement needs your help" Its a group where the average soldier is incompetent, and the "General" has to rush to each settlement to help because his soldiers are hot garbage.

Railroad, excellent with stealth, but doesnt care about anything except their single minded devotion to freeing Synths slaves while ignore human slaves and everything else. They suffer from tunnel vision and are not adaptive which is why the Institute is killing them off.

The Brotherhood of Steel, The Expeditionary force that arrives in the commonwealth is small, but their impact is great. Excellent training, equipment and commitment to cause. They have morals as they will tell you specifically to NOT shoot civilians, or they will shoot you. They fire warning shots at ghouls and are able to tell the difference between ferals and normals, shooting the ferals. They despise SuperMutants, because the ENTIRE BOS history has them at odds. They state that they are here to fight the institute and once that mission is done they will move on as per Danse, they also will NOT be taking everyones technology, Laser weapons, plasma weapons and now even Power Armor are so common that they dont care about them, (once again.. thanks bethesda...) So as Paladin Danse says, they are only here to take WMD's out of the hands of Bandits and Raiders.

Agree. History will repeat itself, so Minutemen will fail soon or later. It's really not worth to give any resources since raiders or gunners will defeat them. Even the mirelurks took their fortress!! How can I believe them? It's not about good or evil. Minutemen is a fantasy of holy knights. If an outsider could become their leader in 15 minutes, I won't trust such a faction.

Railroad. Are they stupid or they are full of lies? Consider they are spies, so they are smart for sure. Their real agenda is hidden behind their good intentions. It's more like you don't understand your old friend after 15 years.

Depends on your perspective. They could be Knights in shining armor or bigoted zealots only out for themselves. With most people there's no doubt the latter is tied to the Western BoS, but with the Eastern and Lyons Chapter BoS, that's what your perspective defines.

Depends on your definition of "Bad guy", I personally think they're the best option for the wasteland at that point in time, if a little misguided.

The brotherhood remind me an awful lot of the templars from assassins creed, The brotherhood of steel (like the templars) believe order is better than freedom, like the templars the brotherhood isn't always represented well by it's members, way I see it the brother hood isn't bad per say but maxim and the poor brainwashed soul that is danson don't exactly represent what the brotherhood was in fallout 3.

Personally I always saw the enclave from fo3 in the fo4 brotherhood of steel.

IDk in my opinion they felt like they were occupying the commonwealth! They had patrols every "holding the peace". They have a huge flying blimp called the prydwen that I can only assume rains hellfire from above on whoever they please. They follow maxons orders blindly, and they stick their noses where they don't need to be! So yeah I think they were bad so I took that prydwen down!

Well, it is always a definition of morality, isn't it? It is the same thought that runs into the old argument of the Legion and if they are actually preserving their cause and the wastelands by their harsh measures or if they are actually forcing people down into a slavers society with the draconian law.

Personally I have the view of Machiavelli on this: It is easier to be feared, than to be respected.