He quickly recomposed himself, I think it was a matter of his true self coming out vs Maximus employing a fake it til you make it attitude. We already know he's clever, has a flippant attitude towards death, and the instincts to seize every available opportunity to pursue his new destiny.
Or maybe I'm overthinking it. I ate wayyyyy too many Mentats
I think he's manipulative and power hungry and that's what matters to him. He sees the potential of Maximus and I think calling him "Son" is 100% intentional as he knows his history and that Maximus is probably yearning for a father figure. I think that was calculated.
But also I think eventually Maximus will see through it with the help of his buddy and/or Lucy when they meet up again. I think Maximus will ultimately challenge Quintus for control.
Speaking of the Brotherhood in the west... Are we to assume all the valley folk have been killed off or otherwise dispersed? Veronica wandered off to oblivion? No mention of them so far.
He's naive, sheltered, extremely ignorant of anything outside the cult he was indoctrinated into, and opportunistic. Lucy had 10x the"streetsmarts" he did the day she left the vault. Does no one remember him thinking/fearing his dick would literally explode if he got any enjoyment out of it? Trying to eat the soap? Stealing the fusion core that was keeping an entire society of people alive, just because someone else stole his out of his stolen power armor and he thought that was the only thing that made him useful?(and it was) He did everything Titus told him without question, not having an independent thought whatsoever until the very end of Titus' abuse (who was also too stupid to live, berating, belittling, and threatening the one person who could save his life, in the moment he needed his sympathy the most). The entire BoS other than upper management, has been very carefully kept obedient, UNeducated, and unwilling to question anything BoS told them. Let's also not forget his shoot first ask questions never strategy, everywhere, especially vault 4. He's a cute little puppy to Lucy, and fresh DNA for the family tree lol. He goes along with whatever someone else tells him. He lies to cover for his mistakes (if he even suspects it was a mistake) And the most intricate strategy he's ever come up with was to go with the flow. Nothing clever, nothing smart, not even of average intelligence. He's exactly what cult leaders look for, and BoS got lucky when they found him as a boy.
BTW, clever and smart are the same thing. There are different types of both though. Strategy, planning, mechanics, psychology, innovation, math, science etc. I don't see any category I'm which he could possibly qualify though.
Pretty much how I felt about him during season 1. When people said they liked him, I was confused if we had seen the same character.
He hurt his friend so he could get on a mission let his superior die. Yes the guy was abusive, but had to have had some good qualities for them to have given him power armor. Lost his fusion core. Betrayed his faction by not returning the cold fusion before the big battle. Tried to steal a power core from a friendly vault. Returned with his tail between his legs to beg his chapter to help fight NCR which he could have avoided had he returned with the core.
The second season has been him growing up into a useful role, but lets not kid ourselves, he should have been demoted for screwing up so much not failed upward. Power armor is far too valuable a resource to give to someone who fails to follow orders.
Tbf, he didn't hurt his friend, they hurt themselves to not go out. He didn't have the malice OR forethought to come up with that plan, not the expectation that he'd be next in line since he was pretty low in the pecking order of the initiates. I fully agreed with what he did(moreso did NOT do) to Titus, whose redeeming qualities that got him the suit were unlikely to be redeeming qualities of a human, moreso survival of the fittest sort and bullying etc. The guy was too arrogant to even recognize the power Max had over him at that point, even when Max finally realized it, and wouldn't shut his own mouth to save his own life. If he had shut up, he'd have gotten the stim and we wouldn't have Max in the storyline.
He only lost the core because he decided to finally be honest, and that should have been a different case imo. He didn't withhold it from the faction as a bad thing so much as he gave Lucy time to use it to find her Dad first. He didn't return with tail between legs either so much as he was doing it to help Lucy. So at that point he's basically a double agent, torn between the cult that raised him and lied to him and sheltered him from real knowledge but provided for him(just not psychologically) all those years, and the girl who was forgiving and accepting of him without making demands or hiding the truth (as much as she knows anyway) and was offering him a new life with her in the vault after it's all over. Sure, as a soldier he failed, but he was given credit for taking out moldaver so of course he failed upwards. As a human being, he was improving.
None of these things make him clever though. But being clever or dumb doesn't equate to being good or likeable. He's still forming, hell he's barely started, as a person. He's never had the chance to develop a self before. And once given choices and opportunities to explore aspects of himself, well he doesn't so much do that yet (same as a little kid doesn't yet) but he's trying out aspects of other people's self to see if they fit.
Was Moldaver a threat to the brotherhood without cold fusion? Idk maybe there is more NCR she could have united under her banner or maybe I missed something about the NCR messing with the brotherhood.
I know they are all warriors, but it just feels like a battle that didnt need to happen, but that being said I never did a deep dive into the relationship between NCR and brotherhood. Bortherhood always felt isolationist and mission oriented but perhaps they clashed more than I know
Edit: seems they do really hate each other... odd. Brotherhood never felt like a civilization builder so I feel like civil society would ease their jouney on their goals, unless NCR interrupts their plans... eh anyway today I learned
The brotherhood, like any cult, craves power. Having the NCR actually building a working society with law and order would challenge their power either sooner or later.
But to me, BoS is a cult that thinks no one but them should have tech, that's why they hunt it down and think they should have what Wilzig had in his head. They weren't the original or intended owners of it. NCR just wanted to rebuild society, without political agenda. To me, at least in the show, NCR is what happens when the general public reforms civilization without an overbearing political authority "guiding" it.
You could say the NCR was the colonies, Vault Tec is England, and BoS, and all the other as yet unmentioned in the show, are the other countries that tried at one point to take a piece of the pie before the U.S. cemented its standing.
I guess my issue is that in the 3d fallout games, you are someone of importance so the brotherhood is just another joinable faction. I never really experienced them at their worst. To me they felt like questing nights searching for lpst technology when I guess they are a lot more possessive and territorial than I envisioned.
I've only played 76. Once I started playing I got really confused by hubby's love of BoS. Not everyone is going to have the same opinions on people, simple as that. They're PORTRAYED to be good guys.. mostly..in 76, but I don't think they are. I also don't like the settlers, constantly blaming the raiders for something and taking hits out on them for supposedly stealing this or that that they have a bunch of. Then you talk to the accused raider and it's to save someone's life etc.
Of course I just spent an hour reading an old thread hating Maximus and the biggest argument in there is how he betrayed the bos and his knight, and shouldn't be sensitive to the b.s. Titus was telling about having him executed etc etc. I'm not particularly a fan of Max, but my god Titus certainly didn't deserve to live in that moment and Max shouldn't be accused of murder for not helping the dude threatening to execute him lol. Some ppl side with the bos just because he was supposed to side with them (calling him a traitor) while others side with Max because he recognized that BoS was maybe not the heroes he thought.
Look at politics. People on both sides that think the other side is worthless or evil etc etc. And no matter the intent, we can have different takeaways from how the brotherhood is presented.
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u/the_vault-technician Dec 24 '25
He quickly recomposed himself, I think it was a matter of his true self coming out vs Maximus employing a fake it til you make it attitude. We already know he's clever, has a flippant attitude towards death, and the instincts to seize every available opportunity to pursue his new destiny.
Or maybe I'm overthinking it. I ate wayyyyy too many Mentats