I'm trying to figure some things out about the Enclave

[AeonG]

For a story I'm writing, I want to put a destroyed government bunker somewhere, but to do that, I need to understand more about the Enclave. To my knowledge, these things are true:
1. The Enclave were the ones responsible for giving vaults the all clear signal
2. The Poseidon Oil and Navarro Enclave lost contact with other branches of the Enclave.
3. Somehow despite this, the President Eden was able to contact them from Raven Rock once they were defeated.
4. The enclave used poseidonet to monitor the vaults.
5. Cheyenne Mt, most likely housing one of the Enclave branches due to it's connection to Poseidonet, was completely obliterated according to Fallout 2 and Van Buren. it is the farthest area Poseidonet can connect to. Whether the network got severed, only extended that far, or was not fully shown is unknown.

So if that's the case:
How in fucks name did they loose complete contact with other government branches? Fallout 2 shows they are capable of radio communication, so Poseidonet being cut off doesn't sound like it would completely inhibit them from contacting their other branches. I find it very hard to believe that Poseidon oil rig was the only surviving Enclave branch. I mean did most of the control vaults outside the west coast not get the all clear signal and just say "fuck it, let's open anyway"? I'm not sure I understand why the story writers picked an oil rig to be the only surviving government installation.

 

[Atomic Postman]

The Enclave aren't just the normal US government, they're a cadre of "shadow government" insiders with a specific plan. The simple fact of the matter is that they, this secret society, survived and nobody else did.

 

[mithrap]

The Enclave didn't need to have militant branches until the post-apocalypse though. They were in the political/industrial scheming, but they didn't need to actually have an army, or to have big numbers. The U.S. Government had one, after all, so it's possible that the other branches were basically companies, spies, lobbyists, oil reserves, engineers, etc, which are not useful anymore, since there's no puppet state to rule over anymore.

Yes, Eden managing to contact the Enclave is a problem. It would imply that radio lines are restored on a national scale, which is not the case (we know that the outcasts don't have radio contact with the council of elders, and we know that the midwest brotherhood doesn't have contact with the western brotherhood. The NCR didn't have any contact with anything east of the mountains either, until they sent scouts to the Mojave). What is possible though, is that Eden actually sent his message way earlier than we thought, maybe in the first years after the bombs fell. The message managed to reach Chicago just before the last radio lines went down, and the message was only uncovered when the Enclave took over the Chicago base, after their defeat in California. Which led them to actually awake Eden, who was turned off for about two centuries.
It's a bit of narrative gymnastic, but you know.

Another problem introduced by Fallout 4 when it comes to communications : it is implied that the Brotherhood is in constant contact with the council of Elders, which would mean that :
-The Washington Brotherhood knows that the council of Elders is about to be exterminated by the NCR, and doesn't do a thing.
-The Midwest Brotherhood now has contact with the Californian Brotherhood too, which has many implications that will never be explained further.

 

[Veers]

The problem with the Enclave and discussing things like lost contact issues or Eden rallying them is the Enclave's actual size seems to shift game to game. Sometimes they have bases as far north as Alaska, sometimes no one can even get a message out past Navarro, and sometimes they can migrate across the country. It's not like Bethesda's writing helps too much.

I prefer to think Eden rallied only specific remnants together, and that the Enclave's still kicking alive and well, just hidden away. For now.

 

[Atomic Postman]

The problem with the Enclave and discussing things like lost contact issues or Eden rallying them is the Enclave's actual size seems to shift game to game. Sometimes they have bases as far north as Alaska, sometimes no one can even get a message out past Navarro, and sometimes they can migrate across the country. It's not like Bethesda's writing helps too much.

I prefer to think Eden rallied only specific remnants together, and that the Enclave's still kicking alive and well, just hidden away. For now.

I prefer the opposite. The idea that the Oil Rig and Navarro were all they had. It's because I like the idea of the Old World in Fallout being like a lost ancient civilization in a medieval fantasy setting, and I like the Enclave as the "ancient evil" from eons ago that is awakened and eventually slain by the heroes of the new world. The fact that they're effectively what's left of the Old World government, and they're a tiny band of insane fascists who end up getting blown up and scattered to the wind, leaving the old world truly dead in their aftermath, makes the setting stronger for me rather than the idea that there's a pocketed network of the US government surviving all across the continent.

 

[Veers]

I prefer the opposite. The idea that the Oil Rig and Navarro were all they had. It's because I like the idea of the Old World in Fallout being like a lost ancient civilization in a medieval fantasy setting, and I like the Enclave as the "ancient evil" from eons ago that is awakened and eventually slain by the heroes of the new world. The fact that they're effectively what's left of the Old World government, and they're a tiny band of insane fascists who end up getting blown up and scattered to the wind, leaving the old world truly dead in their aftermath, makes the setting stronger for me rather than the idea that there's a pocketed network of the US government surviving all across the continent.

To each their own, of course.

Still, despite how just about everything in 4 was disappointing, one thing I was personally let down by was no Enclave presence, and in general the lack of any ability in the series, beyond a few half-baked opportunities and New Vegas' remnant, to side with the Enclave. There's a New Vegas mod out there that has the Enclave reform itself on the idea that they'll always be outnumbered in the Wasteland and so it's a better idea to try to cooperate with good-intentioned wastelanders rather than considering them all to be mutants, which is how it lets you join them. Something like that would be fun.