ok i love the story and i woulnt want it to be different but i choose to fight the brotherhood because unlike fallout 3 not only do they not care but they fear too much they fear anyone with tech meaning that they are unstable and violent i mean look at them they didnt even try reasoning with the institute or asking to be allies they just go in guns blazing out of fear of what they do not understand and that has always been dangorous plus if you over hear them talking the soldiers are ordered to remove any tech from the settlers so basically they might remove any chances that they have to defend themselves

The way I interpreted the Brotherhood was that they saw the Great War as a result of technology getting into the wrong hands. Therefore to stop this ever happening again they think they must completely restrict people from having access to such technology even if this is done pre-emptively which may be why they struck at the institute before its too late as they may see it.

Well, since the Brotherhood are remnants of the old US Army IIRC, it'd make sense that their "leadership" has been as divisible as the thirteen commonwealths were before the bombs fell. Each had the same goal in mind, but different methods to achieve it. I feel there's a sneaking suspicion that Lyons thought the same as any other Elder would, but due to age... was rather slow about it, until the Lone Wanderer came to fix that. The Brotherhood were sitting on a gold-mine, it was just fortunate that the greater of the two evils wanted to control the purifier as much as the Brotherhood.

You then stop and think: "Hmm.... doesn't this sound like the EXACT SAME THING the Enclave hoped to achieve? A Wasteland where only pure-DNA reigned supreme?" It's just the Enclave took it a step further by wiping out merely anyone who hadn't been in some sort of shelter... or try to, at least. That being said, I sided with the Brotherhood not with rose-tinted glasses, but their drive to get the job done.

Just wish they didn't follow the Enclave's example and attempt to commit mass-genocide on everything though.

i went with the minutemen because they believe in working together you see with the brotherhood i think that in their attempt to prevent tech from falling into the wrong hands using a shoot first ask questions never approach they will end up being the one to destroy the world once again because they would just be repeating the past

They became a bunch of gun totting lunatics who despise and want to kill everything that isn't human. It's almost astonishing how much they have changed and Maxson is the only person to blame, he grew up under Elder Lyons guidance and ruined everything he built up until that point. Separated a noble cause and made them no better than the Enclave in my opinion.

The BoS has its pros and cons. The on thing that people seem to sometimes forget is that the Brotherhood has always been like that. The faction under the command of Elder Lyons in Fallout 3 weren't following what the brotherhood really stands for and chose the help people instead of safe guard prewar technology, and as a result they were exiled (If i remember correctly). So in my opinion they haven become anything, they are the same, the brotherhood in fallout 3 are the ones that became something else. Like i said, Pros and cons, and like @redmooose said, the Great War is the result for there paranoia, and fear that it will happen again if in the wrong hands. So can blame them, but they are also a bit too trigger happy and willing to blast anything willing to serpass their advancement and ideology.

I've yet to play 4 yet, but 'm pretty sure they are acting just as they are supposed to. The real BoS don't care about people very much. They only wish to capture and store away technology. The BoS we meet in FO3 is actually a rogue splinter group. Their leader saw all the pain and suffering in DC and hated that they weren't helping them so he disobeyed orders and changed their ways to help. Then some members left and forged the BoS Outcasts(guys with black armor). They hated what the DC branch had become and then continued their mission on their own.

I'm not sure about FO4's branch, but it sounds like they are true BoS members. True BoS are SoBs. They will kill people over technology. They don't care for helping people. They view taking away technology is helping better than protecting.

TL;DR: FO3's BoS is actually a rebel faction of BoS and real BoS is nothing like them.

If anything the Brotherhood in FO4 returned to its roots.  Elder Lyons went so far off the reservation that he was not only exiled from the West Coast org, but he also had an uprising in his own ranks.  In FO3, Maxson was just a squire and was learning not only about the history (and political side) of the BOS he was also being trained as a soldier.  From what I gathered in FO3, it was always the intention that Maxson would one day be an elder - they just didnt plan on both Lyons and Sarah being taken out of the picture so soon...  He didnt really have a mentor to lean on so he went back to what he had been taught.  The current BOS is a reflection of that teaching. In all honesty I find them to be the best of all three choices actually (minutemen dont count..)...

I totally agree. The BoS has been brought back to being selfish tech-hoarders. Unlike Fallout Tactics and 3 where their mission was actually to help people, their mission is just to snatch-n-grab any useful equipment in the Commonwealth and destroy the Institute (for their technology)

I loved the BoS a lot more like what @FoVet20 said. I feel as if they will destroy anyone who gets in the way, preventing the wasteland settlements from being annihilated.

While I haven't played Fallout 4 (or any other Fallout game besides 3 and NV) yet, I always thought the BoS from 3 was the best one. They weren't as unreasonably aggressive as the other ones, who (as far as I know) just shot everything that didn't cooperate with them. I always wanted to help the Brotherhood in Fallout 3, and not just because I had to. The one in NV however I just gunned down as soon as I met them.

Everyone has their own preference about how BoS should be or how they should behave. It actually depends on how you first relate to them, depending on which FO game you've played first or if you are particular about true FO lore. Personally, I'm with overwatch029 on this as my first taste of FO was with the PS2's Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel & then followed by FO3 & FNV. I wanted them to be more like heroes rather than antagonists. I kinda had no problem with FO4's set-up, up until I had to make moral faction choices. FO4 is just really bad when it came to that. It does not give you any opposing options at all to change any outcome. Heck, in FNV, there were 2 factions within BoS to choose from. 7 years of dev & they couldn't even put into place such important RPG elements. Hope the game engine's easily manipulated so we could have mods like the Paarthunax Dilemna.

@rgordonjr ii kinda have to disagree i mean to be honest i think the institute is the best option but thats based on your character for example an asshole character would use the institute to destroy where as a character
like all of mine are 100%good almost and would use the institute to help i made it clear during the speech bit of my intentions

Having loved Fallout all my life, I can say that Maxson's new Eastern Brotherhood is still not nearly a big of dicks as in the original Fallout. Still, having them sort of return to how the Brotherhood was meant to be is good. And t9 comment on your thought they go in guns blazing on things they do not understand is actually only true of this one instance, as in the original Fallout they first studied the mutants before battling the Master, in 2 they captured and reverse engineered Enclave tech (Why the Giant eyesore has vertibirds). Even here, they simply think that free thinking machines are a bad choice, and if you have ever seen a terminator film you know why.

You have to take account that BoS (East Coast) was crumbling before Maxson was promoted to an elder. Outcasts splintered off BoS. Lyons died and all of the other leaders promoted in between had similar ideals and were largely ineffective. If BoS didn't become "assholes" or "dicks" there would have been a good chance the BoS wouldn't have existed in the East Coast unless you consider Outcasts as BoS. The only way for the BoS not to disappear was to go back to its original roots and reunite the splintered BoS factions. As you can see it worked out with BoS as they became a pretty strong force in the Commonwealth. The last 10 years was not kind to the BoS. Maxson was credited with saving the East Coast BoS chapter.

Esentially the Brotherhood in Fallout 4.The pic speaks for itself.

Spoiler:

@BoomBewm in other words sooner or later the BoS will be the one's shooting themselves.

The Brotherhood have always been zealots in my opinion. Sort of a... Cult... Worshiping technology.
They steal, horde and covet any sort of pre-war tech with the supposed goal of preventing another great war. Personally... I do believe that the brotherhood thinks they're doing the right thing, but this goal seems like utter bull. If your goal is to eliminate the possibility of another great war and keep dangerous tech out of the hands of man... Then why not destroy the technology once you acquire it? Why the vendetta against impure humans (Ghouls and Mutants)? Why go into a literal state-spanning technological war against the Institute? That's literally what you're trying to prevent.

The Brotherhood in FO4 are definitely more aggressive in the pursuit of their ideals. While it is true that the Capital Wasteland branch was more on the philanthropic side of the line, they still adhered to the tenet of acquiring and preserving the technology they recovered. What everyone sees in FO4 versus FO3 is realistically just a zeroing towards their ideals as an organization; while not exactly being as lawful good as they were in the Capital Wasteland, they aren't evil. They will protect and assist those that help them, and their hatred of ghouls is (as far as I can recall it) merely against ferals; while they dislike regular ghouls, they have never been openly hostile to them. Also, it must be remembered that the entire presence of the Brotherhood in FO4 is almost strictly a military one; they are not there to settle the area or just investigate the Commonwealth. They are there specifically due to the presence of the Institute and the creation of synths. While there are arguments for whether they are there due to the dangers they see in synths or simply using that as an excuse to grab all the Institute's technology, the Brotherhood is still following the tenets of their organization almost to the letter.