‘Fallout 76’ and How It Contradicts What We Know of the Brotherhood of Steel

We’ve been learning a lot about Fallout 76 in the past month and even more once we got our own hands on the game after talking to Bethesda during a recent event. Though overall we were impressed with what we saw, there is one glaring plot hole – one that was expertly pointed out by a Reddit user and now we can’t stop obsessing over it.

Since Fallout 76 is a prequel spin-off, we know we are going to be learning a lot about all of the different aspects of the Fallout franchise that we’ve come to know and love through the years, but it seems that there may be some inconsistencies regarding the Brotherhood of Steel. We get a brief mention of them in a letter found within the online game, which can be seen below, but Reddit user ‘Baffodil’ had more to say on the matter:

In his post he notes that previously, all of the lore has stated that the Brotherhood of Steel was centered mostly – almost exclusively – in California. The original poster added, “with ranking leaders having to make petitions just to go on expeditions to facilities even within California, earliest known activity was only in California around 2134. The Brotherhood of Steel being in WEST VIRGINIA in the year 2102 should be downright implausible if not impossible – The implied canon is that they were still hibernating in their bunker in Lost Hills until 2150 after they went on an Exodus from Mariposa directly south to their new base in 2077.”

Since the Brotherhood of Steel was created before Bethesda took the reigns of the franchise, it seems that the studio decided to rewrite a bit of the Wasteland’s history.

With sporadic equipment found in West Virginia, Bethesda has it now that the Brotherhood of Steel WAS in West Virginia, which can also be seen below with some of the recent findings:

Bethesda VP Pete Hines has already said not to bug him because he’s “not a lore guy,” but as the OP notes – just a simple look at the Brotherhood’s Wiki page should show that making it all the way to West Virginia so shortly after the war makes no canonical sense.

He did add however, “And just to clarify, there are thousands of miles of desert, land, mountains, rockies, and rivers between California and West Virginia – It’s highly unlikely a few vertibirds would have the fuel required to make the distance and back even within the time frame of 25 years. Even then the Brotherhood shouldn’t have vertibirds at this point either, as they acquired them from the Enclave after the events of Fallout 2 in the 2200’s, and even if they did have them at this point, they would require fuel they didn’t have, as the vertibirds required frequent refueling and needed a station just to maintain them.”

What do you think about the Brotherhood of Steel plot hole? Are we looking too much into it or is Bethesda using this prequel as a fresh start? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below!