While its well known that the East Coast Enclave (FO3 Enclave) were defeated by the BOS during the BOS - Enclave war of 2277 one may wonder what could of happened if the Enclave won. Would it be a failure? Would it work? Or do you think the Enclave would of just killed everyone.

Personally I think if the Enclave were to win the war, the Capital Wasteland would have been much more well structured as it would of been united under one banner, the Enclave.

Corruption would be much smaller then it was with the Brotherhood as higher standards, and more severe punishments were applicable to those caught. In Broken Steel we see Scribe Bigsley, who is the head scribe at the Purifier. It can be found that Bigsley was a part of a scam operation in the Underworld selling Aqua Pura to a ghoul who would in turn scam the settlers of the Underworld. If the Enclave was in power an event like this would likely never occur as the punishments for something like this are very severe.

The question of resistance also comes into play as not everyone likes to be under the control of a power like the Enclave. I believe resistance would be less likely given once reconstruction efforts begun to restore the Capital as not many people would like to go against the faction which is trying to create a change. That and the Enclave would have control over the water so....

Really looking at it the whole DC area would of been much safer as mutant abominations would have been annihilated and the people worked together to restore society. The thought of a better tomorrow would in my opinion be enough to get support of the people to actually make a change.  

That's just my opinion though, if you want to discuss mines or have your own opinion make sure to comment.

yeah, the enclave would create peace and a safe wasteland, but as with mister house is a dictatorship, yeah resistances are bound to happen in that type of goverment, either the enclave changes or resistances will keep coming, also if the enclave manages to get rid of all opposition, with the type of government they're going for its also unavoidable inner fights, so the enclave could win, but would have to take care of revolutions and inner fighting's.

Didn't they (in FO3, I can't say for other games) just want to kill all the mutated people and things of the wastelands?
Eden gave you that Virus thing at the end of 3 and gave you that choice
Did Eden represent the entire Enclave or was he an General Autumn just a one off?

As for what they would have done in 3 (because I haven't played 1-2) I believe their goals are ultimately flawed if we go by their in-game logic and reasoning.
They want to wipe out everyone who's infected with mutation, well that's all fine and dandy, congratz you've killed everything, now you get to rule over the remaining survivors... which are the Enclave. They literally already have everything they want.
they have (presumably) an infinite source of water, food, weapons, ammo and an entire army of highly trained loyal people at their command and they all exist within an impregnable vault safe from everything and everyone.
I simply don't understand their motives for trying to take on DC.

To me at least it feels like they where written as the bad guys, for the sake of being the designated "endgame" bad guys

The problem with the Enclave in FO3 is that they are just a bunch of underdeveloped idiots. I don't think we can answer that question because of the way Bethesda made them, just a group of killing machines that want to take over the country.

Eden was probably not quite right in the cpu, and neither was Autumn -- Autumn will shoot you even if you want to help him. They're crazily and compulsively violent.

A world turned into a graveyard, I suppose, would be a quiet, orderly place.

I agree with you, problem with the perception of the Enclave is many people view them as evil mass murderers who want to basically wipe all life out in the US and start over with just themselves and perhaps a few "pure humans" and while this was true for the Enclave under Eden or in Fallout 2s Richardson the Enclave under Colonel Autumn had a very different plan..
Sure I have no doubt that he would have his men wipe out all ghouls and other mutants but as for the regular waster his plan wasn't to kill them like the above names, he planned on taking control of project purity and using it as a means to take control of the Capital, want clean water? commit supplies and recruits to the Enclave and we will have ur water air dropped to ur settlements easy as can be.

This would have been an amazing system and I think it is safe to say the wasteland (at least the capital) would be a much better place, I mean the BOS are basically on the Enclaves level of tech by 2287 so that gives the Enclave 10 years of progress ahead of the BOS, and unlike the BOS the Enclave would commit more men to clearing the ruins, securing settlements, establishing trade routes and safe zone while the BOS are probably still flying around the Capital raiding various buildings for tech.

The reason the Enclave keeps getting fucked is because it keeps being put in charge by "evil" men I mean we get to see in FNV that standard Enclave soldiers where not bad people just people following orders, its sad that by the time Autumn got control of the Enclave the damage had already been done by Eden and the BOS was at their front door looking for blood.

I suppose the only hope the Enclave really has now of returning to power and actually having a chance to be the "good guys" for once is if its canon that the Lone Wanderer "let him escape like that" meaning Autumn and he makes an appearance in another title.

Not so much rule over but complete take over through genocide, every time they tried their goal was to wipe the slate clean for themselves. Even though as some pointed out there might some people don't agree with that idea within their ranks from what has been shown in the games those people aren't in any position to change anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLXAO_OWSxA

In fallout 2, they absolutely planned on killing the whole world, barring a few people like themselves (they were capturing vault dwellers, the "pure" people, for experiments.). I don't trust them and never will. An organization that utterly insane and evil is hopeless. Honestly I wish that their being nuked in Fallout 2 had been the end of them, and we'd seen something new in DC.

@MrEggs0925 there's a moral argument here, no and yes, while the ''wasteland'' itself would likely be eradicated by the enclave and replaced with ''pure'' humans, or useful members of society, society being the enclave themselves, vaults would be tracked down and cracked open for humans that haven't been exposed to radiation, like you said mutants would be killed off, so the roads would be safer, from a lore standpoint raiders wouldn't mess with walking tanks equipped with fat-man's? (Fat-men?) flamers and Plasma weaponry, likely leading to a decrease in people becoming raiders as a way of making money, creating a better new safer society built on the dead body of the old one, whether that's governing the wasteland or making something new i don't know, i guess i'd say what they'd end up creating in the long run would be a safe well governed wasteland, if you could even call it a wasteland at this point, more like a deadland.

@fermindal Infighting within the Enclave in my opinion would be quite rare at least during the Enclaves startup in the Capital. The elite Enclave troops we see in Fallout 3 are loyal and have grown up in the Enclave from birth. This indoctrination would keep the military loyal to the cause though how long that will last is questionable.

@loneheart9 In Fallout 3 President Eden the ZAX AI wanted to kill all the irradiated inhabitants of the wasteland by using a modified strain of FEV to kill off irradiated lifeforms. While this is what Eden had envisioned, Autumn had a different plan. When President Eden tells his soldiers to stand down and allow the Lone Wanderer to pass they do but as soon as Colonel Autumn tells them to start shooting, they violate a direct order from the president and open fire on the LW. This and the fact that Autumn had Eden's self destruct codes shows us that Eden was in fact a puppet leader. Autumn even admits his plan to the Lone Wanderer during the final fight scene showing us that Autumn had real control over the Enclave, not Eden meaning Autumns way would have been the Enclave way not Edens genocide route. Also a note that the Vault Dwellers would have survived Edens plan and would have been used to repopulate the Wasteland, though the effectiveness of this plan is exposed to Eden when the LW and Eden meet.

@Firiox While they are pretty underdeveloped in Fallout 3 one who looks deeper into the Enclave finds a story of a power struggle between Autumn and Eden, with Autumn looking to have played Eden by giving it the illusion of power, while Autumn held actual power among the troops. Autumns snip bits of speech we hear through out the game show us his real plan, to restore government to the Wasteland and unite the people under the banner of the Enclave.

@Sirdanest Autumn only tries to kill the LW while you are a prisoner in Raven Rock. At that point the LW had solidified his/her side in the war as the LW was caught trying to get the purifier. At the initial confrontation at the Purifier, Autumn tells the staff on site that they would be working with the Enclave to restore the facility to working order not killed. Autumn realizes that violence gets people to talk especially in such a primitive world filed with the worst of humanity. Just to be clear Edens way would have never worked and no one in the Enclave had the want to follow Edens plan, they were all following Autumn.

@BritishBoyStar While the Enclave would be known for the BOS - Enclave War hate would fade once opposition disappeared. People like Three Dog would be removed from the picture and someone else would take his place. Besides how can you hate the people who are rebuilding and defending your town? How could you hate the faction that gives hope, and who could turn down purified water in the wasteland?

I believe it would of been very interesting to see an Enclave victory. The LW grew up in a vault after all and I'm pretty sure the learning content would be very patriotic. While the BOS was interesting the Enclave would a lot more technologically advanced and would of shown something like the NCR but a lot less of a joke.

As much as I like the Enclave, I believe its time they died off. A return as maybe one location in a future game would be interesting like the Chicago outpost but as a major faction with satellite arrays and a mobile base, maybe not. They have been in to many games and now should just die off. Like you said a shame the Enclave died off like this, as they had the potential to become much more then what they were. Especially in Fallout 3.

@Sirdanest While the Enclave's agenda on the West is questionable what was going on in the East Coast is a different story. In fallout 3 only a smaller group of members exist with President Eden and Colonel Autumn taking command of the faction. While Eden was the president Autumn had real control over the faction. Autumn tells the LW his plan during the final confrontation. His plan was to use the purifier as a way to draw in the crowds to support the Enclave and rebuild not kill everyone like Eden wanted to do.

@Kaiser Atlas Like I said in some of my earlier responses the Enclave under Autumn's leadership had no intentions of exterminating the human population. Abominations like mutants would obviously be killed by people like those in Rivet City while irradiated would not have been killed. Edens plans were ignored by the Enclave as the Enclave really followed Autumn not Eden. That is why Eden in an act of desperation asks you to deliver the FEV sample to the Purifier because Eden was a puppet leader played by Autumn.

I can't cite the reference right now because it's been such a long time. But I seem to recall the enclave's original plan was actually to go into space. For some unknown reason they seem to have abandoned it for mass genocide of one sort or another. Maybe they're still working on it in the Chicago area and the plan is being threatened by locals on such a scale large enough to give them a reason of sorts to consider mass extermination.

@Sirdanest holy shit yes, ENCLAVE BASE ON THE MOON! the plan, bombard earth with nukes before returning with many G.E.C.K. to terraform a new world order, or is that too much for the enclave

The issue with the Enclave is not if they would be able to govern the wasteland, it's who they would govern. If we think of Eden's plan in Fallout 3, it is very much a genocide of the people of the wasteland. So there would be no people to really govern, but with the mutants gone, it would be much easier to govern the Capital Wasteland.

What would have been more interesting in FO3 would be if you would be able to side with Colonel Autumn as he wanted to use the purifier but not the FEV, he wanted people to flock to the Enclave much like they did to the BOS in Broken Steel. This would have been a great ending to FO3, say you were to support Autumn at the end and kill Sarah Lyons and then activate the Purifier. This is the RPG aspects of FO that Bethesda can't deliver on.

Kaiser Atlas wrote:

@Sirdanest holy shit yes, ENCLAVE BASE ON THE MOON! the plan, bombard earth with nukes before returning with many G.E.C.K. to terraform a new world order, or is that too much for the enclave

I think fallout should try a space sequel one of these days. Either with the enclave or Mr. House's grand plan coming to fruition. Or hell, even maybe the hubologists got their act together.
In order to not completely jump the shark, it could maintain the fallout aesthetic by sticking to tropes like Captain Cosmos and other black-and-white era sci fi, and early sci fi ideas about the planets that were cool but just plain wrong.
Colony building would completely make sense in that regard.
And any planets found should not be particularly hospitable in order to stick within the harsh desolate concepts.
Deadly foggy toxic alien Jungle on venus, Canals of Mars with mysterious desolate ruins, etc.

@Sirdanest ehhhhhhh, yeah something in space would be cool but an entire game? just no.

@Sirdanest Yes I do remember hearing about this. I think it was a theory video. Though I Im pretty sure there was something in Van Buren talking about space and the BOMB stations. Though I dont really know more since Van Buren isn't lore.

@Tribal Raven Exactly. Fallout had the story of the Enclave all setup. A perfect ending to keep the Enclave relevant in Fallout lore. Instead we get the Brotherhood who while are semi competent at fighting mutants are incapable of establishing a effective government. That and the BOS lack the educational material that the Enclave possessed, knowledge the for the most part the BOS destroyed.

The wasteland is a ruthless place, and ruthlessness is necessary to turn it into something resembling civilization once more. Sure, there are places where the coexistence of ghouls and humans, sometimes even super mutants, is possible and even viable in the short term.

The question, to me, is another: The Enclave is about the survival of mankind and western civilization. It is not an organization dedicated to preservation of the wasteland's mutated life. I believe that they are right in this, simply because an stable government that can technologically rebuild and defend itself effectively is better in such an extreme scenario as nuclear annihilation than unstable and fragmented communities surrounded by vast, lawless wastes.

That being said, the Enclave has enough technology and educated personnel to ensure that all that can be saved to reconstitute mankind will be, while unfortunately those that whould cause damage to future generations, be it intended or not, cannot be a part of this effort.

To my mind, the realization of this efforts require someone like Autumn in charge, someone that will understand that genocide isn't the answer and that rebuilding requires cooperation, but that also understand what type of society we must strive to (re)build.

Also, much better writing and characterization, but I guess realistic personalities with believable motives is too much to ask for in Bethesda games these days...

Maybe if they really focused on being a stabilizing force, rather than an army with no clear purpose. From what we see in Fallout 3, they don't really make allies, contact settlements or trade, they simply behave like the classic US grunt, but with a thirst for blood. It would have been nice if they were less of an evil antagonist force with faceless goons and more of a neutral force. I wish we could have chosen a better enclave ending.

I totaly agree with @fermindal Enclave could win...for a time, but at the cost of freedom and the real world history at big scale shows clearly that dictatorship can not win undefinately.