The world of Fallout: New Vegas makes sense

If I am not mistaken, the bos wasn't near extinction between Fo1 and Fo2, they were a constituant of the ncr, with trade and military power, voice on the ncr politic, and enough manpower to send missions east.

In Fo2, you are far from lost hills, and the bos only started to expand recently in that area, and only started recently to investigate on the enclave. They have an active role in helping the ncr defeating remnants of the enclave after Fo2.

The Bos decline started after that, when some elder ( I think it is Jeremy maxson, but I am not sure) brought the bos into an harsher policy, and actively attacking the ncr, blowing their gold reserve for Instance. Van burden was supposed to twelve on that, but I suppose, beth wanted fonv to be further in the timeline, so we see the bos already after the decline.
 
From what I remember the BOS was already somewhat weaker after Fallout 1 and before Fallout 2.
They did indeed trade with the NCR and also were involved with dealing with parts of the Master's Army, but the bunkers you encountered in Fallout 2 were not established but rather recently re activated to monitor the Enclave.
This suggests to me that the BOS already had these bunkers but not the man power to permanently occupy them. Even when active they were only manned by one BOS member.

I don't recall the BOS aiding the NCR with defeating the Enclave being mentioned anywhere. Rather they took Navarro without aid of the Brotherhood.

But yes, the BOS really went into decline after Jeremy Maxson decided to restore the BOS to strength by taking "inappropriate technology" away from wastelanders including the NCR. (anything the BOS felt they should have and they alone)
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
But yes, the BOS really went into decline after Jeremy Maxson decided to restore the BOS to strength by taking "inappropriate technology" away from wastelanders including the NCR. (anything the BOS felt they should have and they alone)
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Not taking technology=/=decline
I never got that.
 
Dr Fallout said:
Not taking technology=/=decline
I never got that.
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I think the decline is more akin to stagnation rather than decline. If anything, their tech is still quite advanced by Wasteland standards (not gonna acknowledge those nitwits at the Institute) but it's almost the same as before.

The BoS remained the same (except for behavior since their portrayal in New Vegas indicate that the BoS resorted to following the Codex with fervor rather than be pragmatic about it) but the world around them changed and advanced beyond what they could keep up with. Kinda like forgetting to level grind. When they opposed this development (by taking tech etc.), that world managed to overwhelm them (though at heavy cost as the NCR-BoS war indicates).

In a way, I do like this portrayal since it depicts the dangers of stagnation and the risk of not wanting to adapt for a group that has devolved from its original selves. The Mid-Western BoS (in their good ending) managed to avoid that through a more pragmatic approach in handling Wasteland matters IIRC.
 
CerberusGate said:
In a way, I do like this portrayal since it depicts the dangers of stagnation and the risk of not wanting to adapt for a group that has devolved from its original selves. The Mid-Western BoS (in their good ending) managed to avoid that through a more pragmatic approach in handling Wasteland matters IIRC.
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But the thing is that the idea of them stagnating was introduced only in the later games. There's very little evidence of them stagnating in the first game, hell they trade with others and lead campaigns against mutants and raiders!
 
Dr Fallout said:
But the thing is that the idea of them stagnating was introduced only in the later games. There's very little evidence of them stagnating in the first game, hell they trade with others and lead campaigns against mutants and raiders!
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A gap in time? The BoS by the time of the later games has become rather old. The time gap between 2 and New Vegas makes the stagnation thing feasible since the time between 2 and New Vegas provides plenty of time to misinterpret the Codex and the ways of the Brotherhood.

But I get what you mean by them being alright in 1, in fact they would not be stagnating in 1 since the group would still be young. They did have the tech, making them the most advanced faction at the time, and were reasonably pragmatic in approaching the Wasteland (only rejecting people who volunteer to join them, though sending said people to the Glow was rather unreasonable on their part...).
 
CerberusGate said:
A gap in time? The BoS by the time of the later games has become rather old. The time gap between 2 and New Vegas makes the stagnation thing feasible since the time between 2 and New Vegas provides plenty of time to misinterpret the Codex and the ways of the Brotherhood.

But I get what you mean by them being alright in 1, in fact they would not be stagnating in 1 since the group would still be young. They did have the tech, making them the most advanced faction at the time, and were reasonably pragmatic in approaching the Wasteland (only rejecting people who volunteer to join them, though sending said people to the Glow was rather unreasonable on their part...).
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So why was their decline not shown to us? It happens off screen.
 
Dr Fallout said:
So why was their decline not shown to us? It happens off screen.
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Who knows? Perhaps Van Buren might have shown that or perhaps their decline is a case of telling, rather than showing. I didn't mind the stagnation of the BoS in either situations since it made for new stories to tell for the BoS (plus their circumstances allowed for people like Elijah to come about).
 
CerberusGate said:
Who knows? Perhaps Van Buren might have shown that or perhaps their decline is a case of telling, rather than showing. I didn't mind the stagnation of the BoS in either situations since it made for new stories to tell for the BoS (plus their circumstances allowed for people like Elijah to come about).
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I wouldn't mind if the reason was clearly shown and the player could see it.
 
The NCR-BOS war was supposed to happen in van Buren. FoNV is further on the timeline.
 
Dr Fallout said:
I wouldn't mind if the reason was clearly shown and the player could see it.
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True but what can any of us do about it? Since New Vegas took place after the stagnation commenced, I doubt they could depict this (unless a spin-off game is made to depict those times).
 
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CerberusGate said:
True but what can any of us do about it? Since New Vegas took place after the stagnation commenced, I doubt they could depict this (unless a spin-off game is made to depict those times).
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Yeah, unfortunately. Hell I'd be fine if it was explored in more detail in a later game.
 
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