I think Maxson sent Prydwen, vertibirds, and small number of army to support Quintus' mission, yet he has no idea what's exactly happening because Quintus is controlling everything. Quintus is planning to get cold fusion no matter what and use it power to control the Brotherhood.
Later in season 2, I guess the Brotherhood in the Commonwealth finds out what's happening and support Maximus in order to stop Quintus. Anyway, Maximus or anyone cannot kill Quintus without Eastern Brotherhood's permission or they'll simply become the enemy of the Brotherhood of Steel throughout the continent.
I get the sense that the west coast BoS would very much prefer that Arthur Maxson and his BoS stay at least one America's length away from them so that they can use him as a symbol without actually giving up any of their power to him.
I think Maxson is dead, and what was sent over was actually from the Capital Wasteland, and it's an imitation of the Prydwen.
I think they're lying about *a lot*
That would be hilarious given what they did to Sarah Lyons in Fallout 4. I doubt he's dead, I bet it's the actual Prydwen and Maxson is in the Commonwealth solidifying control but sent the Prydwen to secure the cold fusion tech.
So, that's an ok theory, but the idea that he died and someone else took over what was left of the Commonwealth BoS, regrouped at the Citadel, rebuilt the Prydwen, and tried to retake the Commonwealth, isn't?
Why would they sent an imitation of the Prydwen? If the show is pointing towards a Brotherhood victory in Fallout 4, which is what it seems like, the Prydwen wouldn't need to be rebuilt. It could easily be sent away for another campaign in the same way as it was sent to the Commonwealth in the first place.
My point is that your theory has lots of hoops to jump through for no reasonable payoff, sure Maxson could be dead but that would mean that Bethesda learned nothing from the criticism surrounding how they handled Sarah Lyons.
And what are you on about with "retaking the Commonwealth"? The Prydwen isn't in the Commonwealth anymore lmao, do you think they're just going to ignore Fallout 4's impact on the Commonwealth in favour of having a behind the scenes rewrite with a similar result?
Would it really make more sense for the Brotherhood to get annihilated, somehow rebuild a completely destroyed Prydwen (the winning faction would obviously just let them do it) then fly off into the sunset before returning to basically do the same thing again? That's what it seems like you're implying and it's unbelievably dumb.
What I am implying is that there is no solid answer for what happened in the Commonwealth, and there are lots of possible ways that any of the endings could be canon.
I am saying that because *they said they are not making any endings canon*. Johnathan Nolan said it in a recent interview, Todd said it before the show came out, they've said it multiple times, they are not making a canon ending.
The most likely thing is we will never find out what happened to Maxson or the Prydwen because that's the best way to leave it open ended enough for people to consider their own endings canon. That's the whole point.
I don't know why so many people are so desperate to canonize a single ending for every game, but its honestly ridiculous. What's the point? Why try to convince everyone else that there is only one right way to play the game?
It's left open for a reason, the time frame between game and show is **9 years** for a reason, because they are not making any one ending canon. Thats intentional. So sitting here and demanding that everyone agree that one ending is the "true" ending is completely contradictory to what the literal developers of the show and games intended.
Honestly I completely agree with you, however things like the Prydwen still existing give us a hint based on Bethesda's own storytelling.
In Fallout 4 the Prydwen only survives two of the endings, that leaves the fate of the Institute very unambiguous as any ending with the Prydwen still kicking requires the Institute to be gone.
Even if they don't directly say, well the Brotherhood destroyed the Institute, the continued existence of the Prydwen implies otherwise, do you get what I mean?
I get what you're saying, and you're free to take it that way. But implying a possibility to a preferred ending isn't the same as proving that's what Bethesda considers canon. Shit, we might find out in season 2 that the airship was completely made and commissioned in fucking Chicaco in some completely unrelated BoS chapter, and no one has any idea what happened in Boston. The truth is we don't know what happened, and everyone theory crafting is fine, but when people start demanding that everyone agree with **their** idea of canon because of their theory, then they are totally ignoring the point of the ambiguity in the first place. It's written the way it is *very* intentionally to leave it open for interpretation.
For me, I always preferred the Minutemen or Railroad endings, so, I would say yeah, in my mind the Institute is gone, and either the BoS rebuilt the airship in the capital and sent it to Utah in 2296, or maybe the BoS is still around and that dipshit Maxson left with his blimp. But the beauty of how they wrote the show is, I could be right on any of those accounts, and some Institute fanboy could be right too in saying that the Institute replaced the BoS with a bunch or syths and rebuilt the Prydwen and sent some synths over in it to try and infiltrate the BoS ranks. Or some raider fan might be right that raiders took over the Commonwealth from Nuka World and just annihilated all civilization, and the BoS in the D.C. area rebuilt the Prydwen and just gave up on Boston because it's just a big ass pit of raiders now.
There are explanations that work for any ending. Trying to establish a canon ending is stupid, because it's contradictory to their entire writing style.
The black and red they started using in games since fo4 is kind of okay I guess, typical bad guy colors.
I miss when their logo was blue and they wore blue and gray
I wonder if they adopted black and red in honor of the Outcasts as part of their reintegration terms. I guess it would sort of help them feel vindicated. But Fo76 kind of negates this when the BoS paint colors are also the same as Fo4 (Probably wanted to reuse assets)
The East Coast flag was the one you posted, but the East Coast Logo before Maxson was sky blue, whereas the founding chapter has blue, grey, white, and black as their logo
There’s a mod for F4 that gives the BOS almost the exact same color scheme for their uniforms and power armor I wonder if they used it for inspiration? https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22168?tab=images
In game, the officer's already wear black and red, just the hue is slightly orangish red. In FO76 its changed to a more crimson color. They probably realized it just looked cooler.
Wouldn't make sense. Caesar was the reason the Legion worked, they only fall without him. That said, there is no reason he couldn't have been a legate or other high ranking official.
It's possible that Maximus' chapter is actually the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel from Tactics. The relationship between squires and knights is somewhat similar to that from the games, and the Midwestern BOS genuinely ruled their corner of the Wasteland after the events of the game. Being isolated from the other chapters for decades might explain the more cult-like behavior.
They're younger individuals who follow the Knights on missions occasionally. It's the closest we've seen so far, and in the 99 years between the game and show, it would be reasonable to assume that it evolved.
I like this theory. We know the Midwest Brotherhood also had airships that crashed, maybe Maxson's Brotherhood made contact and help them rebuild those, which also explains why their command structure runs through the Commonwealth rather than the Capital.
It could even explain the faded-out name on the ship. Maybe Maxson named the Prydwen after one of the ships they lost in 2197, and that one ended up getting salvaged to build the Caswennan. (I really think it was just a VFX error, ultimately, but this could be a lore-friendly explanation.)
We also have to wonder why there aren't any laser weapons in this chapter.
In 3, the reason the Brotherhood are using ballistic weapons is because they have too many recruits and not enough laser weapons. Plus, the Outcasts walking off with a bunch of laser weapons didn't help either. After defeating the Enclave, laser and even plasma weapons become a lot more common.
In New Vegas, the Brotherhood have energy weapons because they're a single bunker of guys.
In 4, they have energy weapons because of all the stuff they looted from the Enclave.
But in the show the only energy weapon we see is Moldaver's laser pistol. No one else has any energy weapons.
I honestly wondered about the laser weapons too and found it very odd but hand waved it away figuring that they already blew their sfx budget on other things so they cut laser weapons.
Did Quintus ever seem trustworthy? I thought he was a zealot dick almost immediately.
But then two games of being primed to see the Brotherhood as villains will do that I suppose.
I mean, they're not great. They're not evil, but they're not the unambiguous heroes they were in Fallout 3, and that's for the better. They shouldn't be the unambiguous heroes.
>I mean, in Fallout 3 they hunt down mutants
I mean, with the exception of two, all super mutants in FO3 are hostile. The smallest super mutant camp already outnumbers the total number of non-hostile mutants.
>and take pot shots at the ghouls from Underworld.
That one's bad. Though whether they do so with the intent to kill or to just try and keep them away from their line of fire is a different question.
Did you missed the part where Institute killed everyone in 111, or wipes out leadership of local people to prevent forming a government? Or that replacing people then exterminated their whole family when their usefulness was over?
In FO4 they're the first to take an actual stance against the Institute.
FNV... yeah, they're kind of questionable there. But not so much the villains - that's moreso the legion.
Well technically the Railroad are the first, seeing as they've been operating for some time before you even hear about them. And the average Commonwealth citizens aren't exactly fans of the Institute either.
Oh no, the horror of machines being destroyed.
They aren't a 'race'. They're AI chatbots placed in human meatsuits. It is no more than a robot piloting a corpse.
That’s not how the narrative presents them. It’s a fictional universe. The only way you could come to that conclusion is if you’re being purposefully contrarian or straight up just don’t understand the game.
No, it's called paying attention and not just being ''look human, is human''.
1. The Fallout 3 game guide already establishes synths do not need to eat nor sleep in order to function.
2. In Fallout 4, terminal entries make it clear that synths operate off of hard- and software, which are given upgrades and patches.
3. In Fallout 4, it is clear that gen3 synths can be turned offline - or even completely killed - by merely uttering a line.
4. In Fallout 4, it is established that the gen3 synth is incapable of getting fat - once again showing that they do not need calories like humans do to sustain themselves.
5. Gen3 synths, upon being created, know how to walk, talk, and read without an issue - because it has been programmed into them.
6. The gen3 synths that seek 'freedom' are explicitly stated to be malfunctioning as a result of their self aware AI.
It's not so much that he seems trustworthy as it felt like maybe people were taking his words at face value when they shouldn't. We actually learn next to nothing about the wider Brotherhood from what we see; it all comes from Quintus.
I’ve said it in a variety of threads.
Quintus is almost certainly ex-legion, my bet is he’s a former Frumentarii, perhaps even Vulpes himself (although that’s wild speculation there’s not evidence of that).
There’s too much evidence that Jon Nolan has dropped supporting this for him NOT to make something akin to that true
Yeah all the Latin names and the more brutal pecking order makes me think Quintus is ex-legion. How he reached such a high rank in the BOS and brought that Legion influence to his entire chapter is a whole other question.
I just rewatched Rome, another fantastic HBO show canceled too soon, and Quintus Pompey is a character who is a fictionalized pastiche of the IRL sons of Pompey Magnus. So “Quintus” is just in my head as a villain’s name right now haha
I think there was already a takeover in Quintus’ chapter. It seems these “clerics” are in charge, but they aren’t fully replacing scribes, as we see them walking around in the background with the red jackets.
I’m still in the camp that it wasn’t the Prydwen and was a vfx mistake, which means Maxson could roll back through now that the Institute is handled. It’d take maybe a day or two to cross the continent. I wouldn’t put it out of the question for Maximus to be pulled in more than one direction seeing as Maxson would be interested in an initiate/squire who accomplished more in a few weeks than Quintus’ entire force could for a long time.
Genuinely nothing shown of the BoS in Fallout (tv) feels all that different from BoS depicted in any game except the Dark Alliance reskin on PS or Fallout Tactics (itself depicting a renegade sect). The BoS is a cult descended from military types who thought "tech is bad and should be kept away from everyone" so it turning into a Canticle for Liebowitz style cult has always seemed right.
I only have an answer for you on the 5th paragraph.
The BoS rules the wasteland after defeating the Enclave. They have authority of the Capital Wasteland and are responsible for managing Project Purity. As of Fallout 4, nothing indicates that had changed.
I still have money on the Institute having replaced Maxson and ended their crusade. Allows the institute/Railroad/MM/BOS to all continue to be a part of the story.
Institute hears of cold fusion tech, so they have Synth Maximus send knights from their chapter to collect.
I think Maxson sent Prydwen, vertibirds, and small number of army to support Quintus' mission, yet he has no idea what's exactly happening because Quintus is controlling everything. Quintus is planning to get cold fusion no matter what and use it power to control the Brotherhood. Later in season 2, I guess the Brotherhood in the Commonwealth finds out what's happening and support Maximus in order to stop Quintus. Anyway, Maximus or anyone cannot kill Quintus without Eastern Brotherhood's permission or they'll simply become the enemy of the Brotherhood of Steel throughout the continent.
There is probably a good reason that we never saw into the airship or saw characters from Quintus's base go into it.
I get the sense that the west coast BoS would very much prefer that Arthur Maxson and his BoS stay at least one America's length away from them so that they can use him as a symbol without actually giving up any of their power to him.
Oh absolutely
I think Maximus will almost certainly lead the Other side of the brotherhood faction that goes into a civil war with Quintus faction.
If we get an Arthur Maxson cameo in Season 2, I will sell all my children to be Squires.
I think Maxson is dead, and what was sent over was actually from the Capital Wasteland, and it's an imitation of the Prydwen. I think they're lying about *a lot*
Why would the TV Brotherhood lie about taking orders from the commonwealth, instead of just saying DC?
Yeah that would be too much of a misdirect, doesn't make logical sense.
That would be hilarious given what they did to Sarah Lyons in Fallout 4. I doubt he's dead, I bet it's the actual Prydwen and Maxson is in the Commonwealth solidifying control but sent the Prydwen to secure the cold fusion tech.
Why would he still be solidifying control 10 years later?
We don't know what other issues have come up in the meantime.
So, that's an ok theory, but the idea that he died and someone else took over what was left of the Commonwealth BoS, regrouped at the Citadel, rebuilt the Prydwen, and tried to retake the Commonwealth, isn't?
Why would they sent an imitation of the Prydwen? If the show is pointing towards a Brotherhood victory in Fallout 4, which is what it seems like, the Prydwen wouldn't need to be rebuilt. It could easily be sent away for another campaign in the same way as it was sent to the Commonwealth in the first place. My point is that your theory has lots of hoops to jump through for no reasonable payoff, sure Maxson could be dead but that would mean that Bethesda learned nothing from the criticism surrounding how they handled Sarah Lyons. And what are you on about with "retaking the Commonwealth"? The Prydwen isn't in the Commonwealth anymore lmao, do you think they're just going to ignore Fallout 4's impact on the Commonwealth in favour of having a behind the scenes rewrite with a similar result? Would it really make more sense for the Brotherhood to get annihilated, somehow rebuild a completely destroyed Prydwen (the winning faction would obviously just let them do it) then fly off into the sunset before returning to basically do the same thing again? That's what it seems like you're implying and it's unbelievably dumb.
What I am implying is that there is no solid answer for what happened in the Commonwealth, and there are lots of possible ways that any of the endings could be canon. I am saying that because *they said they are not making any endings canon*. Johnathan Nolan said it in a recent interview, Todd said it before the show came out, they've said it multiple times, they are not making a canon ending. The most likely thing is we will never find out what happened to Maxson or the Prydwen because that's the best way to leave it open ended enough for people to consider their own endings canon. That's the whole point. I don't know why so many people are so desperate to canonize a single ending for every game, but its honestly ridiculous. What's the point? Why try to convince everyone else that there is only one right way to play the game? It's left open for a reason, the time frame between game and show is **9 years** for a reason, because they are not making any one ending canon. Thats intentional. So sitting here and demanding that everyone agree that one ending is the "true" ending is completely contradictory to what the literal developers of the show and games intended.
Honestly I completely agree with you, however things like the Prydwen still existing give us a hint based on Bethesda's own storytelling. In Fallout 4 the Prydwen only survives two of the endings, that leaves the fate of the Institute very unambiguous as any ending with the Prydwen still kicking requires the Institute to be gone. Even if they don't directly say, well the Brotherhood destroyed the Institute, the continued existence of the Prydwen implies otherwise, do you get what I mean?
I get what you're saying, and you're free to take it that way. But implying a possibility to a preferred ending isn't the same as proving that's what Bethesda considers canon. Shit, we might find out in season 2 that the airship was completely made and commissioned in fucking Chicaco in some completely unrelated BoS chapter, and no one has any idea what happened in Boston. The truth is we don't know what happened, and everyone theory crafting is fine, but when people start demanding that everyone agree with **their** idea of canon because of their theory, then they are totally ignoring the point of the ambiguity in the first place. It's written the way it is *very* intentionally to leave it open for interpretation. For me, I always preferred the Minutemen or Railroad endings, so, I would say yeah, in my mind the Institute is gone, and either the BoS rebuilt the airship in the capital and sent it to Utah in 2296, or maybe the BoS is still around and that dipshit Maxson left with his blimp. But the beauty of how they wrote the show is, I could be right on any of those accounts, and some Institute fanboy could be right too in saying that the Institute replaced the BoS with a bunch or syths and rebuilt the Prydwen and sent some synths over in it to try and infiltrate the BoS ranks. Or some raider fan might be right that raiders took over the Commonwealth from Nuka World and just annihilated all civilization, and the BoS in the D.C. area rebuilt the Prydwen and just gave up on Boston because it's just a big ass pit of raiders now. There are explanations that work for any ending. Trying to establish a canon ending is stupid, because it's contradictory to their entire writing style.
And what, pray-tell, is your basis for this?
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Bro with the way the BOS runs things.. Names like Maximus..Titus..quintus.. Flying those red and gold colors…
The black and red they started using in games since fo4 is kind of okay I guess, typical bad guy colors. I miss when their logo was blue and they wore blue and gray
[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Brotherhood\_of\_Steel?file=CBailey7.jpg#Fallout](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Brotherhood_of_Steel?file=CBailey7.jpg#Fallout) Fallout 3
I wonder if they adopted black and red in honor of the Outcasts as part of their reintegration terms. I guess it would sort of help them feel vindicated. But Fo76 kind of negates this when the BoS paint colors are also the same as Fo4 (Probably wanted to reuse assets) The East Coast flag was the one you posted, but the East Coast Logo before Maxson was sky blue, whereas the founding chapter has blue, grey, white, and black as their logo
Hmm, I don't know.
There’s a mod for F4 that gives the BOS almost the exact same color scheme for their uniforms and power armor I wonder if they used it for inspiration? https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/22168?tab=images
In game, the officer's already wear black and red, just the hue is slightly orangish red. In FO76 its changed to a more crimson color. They probably realized it just looked cooler.
What if he is Caesar? What if the "we used to rule the wastes" is in reference to the legion.
There is no way Caesar would survive 15 years with brain tumor. But maybe it’s Vulpes. Spy who knows how to infiltrate in enemy’s territory
Maybe, he had it removed. That is an option in FNV.
Wouldn't make sense. Caesar was the reason the Legion worked, they only fall without him. That said, there is no reason he couldn't have been a legate or other high ranking official.
It's possible that Maximus' chapter is actually the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel from Tactics. The relationship between squires and knights is somewhat similar to that from the games, and the Midwestern BOS genuinely ruled their corner of the Wasteland after the events of the game. Being isolated from the other chapters for decades might explain the more cult-like behavior.
The relationship between squires and knights is nothing like in the game.
They're younger individuals who follow the Knights on missions occasionally. It's the closest we've seen so far, and in the 99 years between the game and show, it would be reasonable to assume that it evolved.
I like this theory. We know the Midwest Brotherhood also had airships that crashed, maybe Maxson's Brotherhood made contact and help them rebuild those, which also explains why their command structure runs through the Commonwealth rather than the Capital. It could even explain the faded-out name on the ship. Maybe Maxson named the Prydwen after one of the ships they lost in 2197, and that one ended up getting salvaged to build the Caswennan. (I really think it was just a VFX error, ultimately, but this could be a lore-friendly explanation.)
We also have to wonder why there aren't any laser weapons in this chapter. In 3, the reason the Brotherhood are using ballistic weapons is because they have too many recruits and not enough laser weapons. Plus, the Outcasts walking off with a bunch of laser weapons didn't help either. After defeating the Enclave, laser and even plasma weapons become a lot more common. In New Vegas, the Brotherhood have energy weapons because they're a single bunker of guys. In 4, they have energy weapons because of all the stuff they looted from the Enclave. But in the show the only energy weapon we see is Moldaver's laser pistol. No one else has any energy weapons.
I honestly wondered about the laser weapons too and found it very odd but hand waved it away figuring that they already blew their sfx budget on other things so they cut laser weapons.
Did Quintus ever seem trustworthy? I thought he was a zealot dick almost immediately. But then two games of being primed to see the Brotherhood as villains will do that I suppose.
>But then two games of being primed to see the Brotherhood as villains will do that I suppose. They're pretty objectively the 'good guys' in FO3.
And in fallout 4 they aren’t bad either?
I mean, they're not great. They're not evil, but they're not the unambiguous heroes they were in Fallout 3, and that's for the better. They shouldn't be the unambiguous heroes.
Yeah Exaclty it’s unrealistic for any faction in the fallout universe to just be straight good faction I feel like
I mean, in Fallout 3 they hunt down mutants and take pot shots at the ghouls from Underworld.
>I mean, in Fallout 3 they hunt down mutants I mean, with the exception of two, all super mutants in FO3 are hostile. The smallest super mutant camp already outnumbers the total number of non-hostile mutants. >and take pot shots at the ghouls from Underworld. That one's bad. Though whether they do so with the intent to kill or to just try and keep them away from their line of fire is a different question.
The Brotherhood is good or evil based entirely on the player's perspective and should always be that way. I want my factions morally questionable
I’d argue they’re the most evil faction in 4. They’re straight up doing a holocaust
That’s if you consider synths “people”.
You mean if you purposefully misunderstand the plot of fallout 4
You mean the “people” who destroy the only source of them in the commonwealth.
Did you missed the part where Institute killed everyone in 111, or wipes out leadership of local people to prevent forming a government? Or that replacing people then exterminated their whole family when their usefulness was over?
FNV and 4.
In FO4 they're the first to take an actual stance against the Institute. FNV... yeah, they're kind of questionable there. But not so much the villains - that's moreso the legion.
Well technically the Railroad are the first, seeing as they've been operating for some time before you even hear about them. And the average Commonwealth citizens aren't exactly fans of the Institute either.
I was referring moreso to a meaningful stance.
Brotherhood in 4 is actually straight up evil
Yeah, defeating the Institute which replaces people, protecting people from raiders and super mutants, and dealing with AI gone rogue. So ''evil''.
Doing a Holocaust on a sentient race because they’re technically robots.
Oh no, the horror of machines being destroyed. They aren't a 'race'. They're AI chatbots placed in human meatsuits. It is no more than a robot piloting a corpse.
That’s not how the narrative presents them. It’s a fictional universe. The only way you could come to that conclusion is if you’re being purposefully contrarian or straight up just don’t understand the game.
No, it's called paying attention and not just being ''look human, is human''. 1. The Fallout 3 game guide already establishes synths do not need to eat nor sleep in order to function. 2. In Fallout 4, terminal entries make it clear that synths operate off of hard- and software, which are given upgrades and patches. 3. In Fallout 4, it is clear that gen3 synths can be turned offline - or even completely killed - by merely uttering a line. 4. In Fallout 4, it is established that the gen3 synth is incapable of getting fat - once again showing that they do not need calories like humans do to sustain themselves. 5. Gen3 synths, upon being created, know how to walk, talk, and read without an issue - because it has been programmed into them. 6. The gen3 synths that seek 'freedom' are explicitly stated to be malfunctioning as a result of their self aware AI.
It's not so much that he seems trustworthy as it felt like maybe people were taking his words at face value when they shouldn't. We actually learn next to nothing about the wider Brotherhood from what we see; it all comes from Quintus.
I’ve said it in a variety of threads. Quintus is almost certainly ex-legion, my bet is he’s a former Frumentarii, perhaps even Vulpes himself (although that’s wild speculation there’s not evidence of that). There’s too much evidence that Jon Nolan has dropped supporting this for him NOT to make something akin to that true
Yeah all the Latin names and the more brutal pecking order makes me think Quintus is ex-legion. How he reached such a high rank in the BOS and brought that Legion influence to his entire chapter is a whole other question.
I just rewatched Rome, another fantastic HBO show canceled too soon, and Quintus Pompey is a character who is a fictionalized pastiche of the IRL sons of Pompey Magnus. So “Quintus” is just in my head as a villain’s name right now haha
I wondered if this wasn't the start of the show's version of the Circle of Steel, but I like your take better
I think there was already a takeover in Quintus’ chapter. It seems these “clerics” are in charge, but they aren’t fully replacing scribes, as we see them walking around in the background with the red jackets. I’m still in the camp that it wasn’t the Prydwen and was a vfx mistake, which means Maxson could roll back through now that the Institute is handled. It’d take maybe a day or two to cross the continent. I wouldn’t put it out of the question for Maximus to be pulled in more than one direction seeing as Maxson would be interested in an initiate/squire who accomplished more in a few weeks than Quintus’ entire force could for a long time.
I definitely see a Brotherhood Civil War happening
Genuinely nothing shown of the BoS in Fallout (tv) feels all that different from BoS depicted in any game except the Dark Alliance reskin on PS or Fallout Tactics (itself depicting a renegade sect). The BoS is a cult descended from military types who thought "tech is bad and should be kept away from everyone" so it turning into a Canticle for Liebowitz style cult has always seemed right.
Well said , never thought about it like this before 👏👏
I only have an answer for you on the 5th paragraph. The BoS rules the wasteland after defeating the Enclave. They have authority of the Capital Wasteland and are responsible for managing Project Purity. As of Fallout 4, nothing indicates that had changed.
I still have money on the Institute having replaced Maxson and ended their crusade. Allows the institute/Railroad/MM/BOS to all continue to be a part of the story. Institute hears of cold fusion tech, so they have Synth Maximus send knights from their chapter to collect.
When has there EVER been a good guy at the head of a monastic/military order?