An interesting video exploring some of the Brotherhood stuff we've been occasionally talking about. He points out that the Brotherhood was founded by a cadre of disillusioned junior officers seeking survival and purpose in the aftermath of dual tragedies (the discovery of Mariposa's true purpose and then the War). Since an organization's founding will always permanently engrave itself on said organization the Brotherhood has struggled to be more than a close nit unit.
One of the problems the BOS has is that it was always meant to be temporary. Maxson intended it to preserve technological knowledge, hand it over to post-War survivors and then dissolve. Needless to say, this didn't happen.
They're remarkably capable of accomplishing next-day objectives but are incapable of long-term planning or turning victory into material gains.
Which funnily enough seems to gel with canon implying the collapse of the Midwestern Brotherhood and EBOS loss of control over its territory in the CW. The Brotherhood fundamentally can't think strategically.
Their entire greater scope justification of safeguarding technology was a cope to begin with and now that it has outlived its purpose it's an active albatross around the neck of an organization that needs to either evolve into a coherent nation-state or let itself devolve into a smaller NGO. Something I think few in the Brotherhood hierarchy are ready to talk about.
In canon, on the west coast the BOS seems to have been pre-empted in forming a nation-state dooming them to Option B. And is forming a BOS nation-state even possible? The core idea of the BOS is of a tight-knit ruling technological elite, knights in power armour. That can give you a state, but I doubt that it can give you a nation (could that be why Brotherhood rule is always so fragile?).
The Enclave is the inverse. As a cadre of incredibly high-ranking government, academic, and industrial figures they're masters of the long term with little idea of how to practically materialize their designs, hence the pre-Autumn fixation on large, one-note solutions. The Enclave can't imagine a world where their word isn't already law and thus struggle when the little people have the audacity to say no.
He also talks about another problem that the Enclave has; the schizophrenic division between the military wanting to become a new ruling elite over the wasteland, and the political class being all lolgenocide, something which we see played out over and over again through FO76, FO2 (largely through hints in FNV) and FO3. That gets resolved here; the military win out over the decimated Enclave politicians and become the seeds of a new political class which isn't genocidal, greatly strengthening the Enclave. They can couple wasteland manpower to their high tech, enabling them to raise armies and expand their industry to the point they actually build (or rebuild?) a nation-state.
Most high-tech groups in Fallout are small and insular. E-US, even in AM, isn't. They could, even then, do things like deploy whole thousand-strong regiments of power-armoured soldiers to a spot hundreds of miles away. And they have a narrative that resonates with most people on the East Coast -
we're Old America come again, the old glory days returned. Even to this day, nations see themselves as the heir of Rome. Pre-War America is the Rome of the Fallout universe. The idea that most wastelanders would be turned off by pre-War authoritarianism to the idea of restoring the USA doesn't make sense IMO, especially when the people claiming to be restoring those mythical good times are deliberately sweeping the worst of pre-War society under the rug. All these things couple to make them a real powerhouse, especially in the early period when they basically have a free hand to do what they want on the east coast. But they haven't built a utopia, definitely - ch. 31, which is almost completely home front stuff, will delve a bit deeper into the flaws of their society.
So by now, EATB times, they've returned essentially to what they were pre-War; the American Establishment (which I think is honestly the most sensible take as to what the "pre-War Enclave's" relationship to the US government was).
I wouldn't agree with Feral's take on Autumn though, where he seems to present a false dichotomy. He seems blind to the idea that Autumn might be ruthless and brutal
because he believes in his stated goals, in his ideology of rebuilding America. You don't have to be a saint to not be nothing more than a powerhungry cynic. Personally I interpret him as similar to figures like Chiang Kai-shek, dictators who ruthlessly dealt with their (perceived) enemies but improved the countries they ruled, weren't genocidal or sadistically insane, and to an extent paved the way for democratisation.
The Autumnite Enclave has compensated for many of its predecessor's weaknesses by letting "middle manager" types like Autumn or Washington run the show for a bit, but the core weaknesses of a top heavy Superstate persist and will likely start to show cracks when more comprehensively aware minds like Autumn or Washinton die off and leave the American Deep State to run on autopilot.
Yeah, I wouldn't say the desire for big dramatic (and bloodthirsty) solutions has gone away completely. They'll face that temptation in future for sure.
The war between the Brotherhood and the Enclave is akin to two children fighting over an inheritance that burned up long ago, but at this point, the Brotherhood is still living in high school while the Enclave has moved on.
I'd say the BOS has abandoned the inheritance. We see fleeting glimpses of references to pre-War America in say, the FO3 Brotherhood's flag, but few hints of anything substantial. When they talk about the Old World it's almost always in negative terms.
California and to a lesser extent Texas are the younger siblings that never had a shot at the inheritance and so are more interested in their own aims.
The NCR did have a shot; if the Enclave had lost ITTL, they could have waited for EBOS and MWBOS to collapse, live that nuka-western dream, Manifest Destiny in reverse. Whatever managed to coagulate on the East Coast sans Autumn's victory would have been less organised, wouldn't have had a technological edge, wouldn't have had hundreds of years in experience in statecraft and spycraft and propaganda, wouldn't have been innately hostile to the NCR. But IDK myself whether (my version of) the NCR would have made that choice. As I noted in the informational post talking about politics, the NCR's name started as a compromise - New American Republic or California Provisonal Government? They still don't know what they want to be.
And as with all family squabbles, everyone would be better off if they all agreed to talk things out and let everyone mind their own houses.
And of course, the problem is that Ameriball thinks the whole neighbourhood is his (and has legal deeds to back it up, which he is
so smug about), NCRball is paranoid Ameriball is going to steal his house and torture him to death and wants to take out the bastard first, Ameriball has largely calmed down from the stage where he was murderously insane but still has stress-induced moments where you see a glimpse of Enclaveball (you
don't want to see Enclaveball), BOSball has signed up with NCRball to take on Ameriball together but feels the constant need to watch his back around him ... it's a screwed up neighbourhood for sure.