A technologically advanced military organization familiar from all Fallout games. Their goal is to find and preserve pre-war technology and expand their influence in the post-nuclear world. The Brotherhood has a clear division of rank and duty: elders lead the group, scribes research technology, and knights and paladins fight. Brotherhood warriors are protected by power armor—mere mortals can only use such equipment after undergoing special training.
In the storyline of Fallout: New Vegas, the Brotherhood plays a secondary role. Past conflicts with the NCR have greatly weakened it. In the Mojave, their only settlement is the Hidden Valley bunker. If we perform a number of favors for the reclusive group, the elder will lift the blockade and the Brotherhood of Steel will once again "come out into the world."
It's time to pay a visit to the most secretive group in the game. The Brotherhood of Steel is going through hard times. An environment of the strictest secrecy, life in a bunker with no way to reach the surface, armored doors guarded by paladins in power armor (so that not a single courier gets through!) - their life is not sweet.
The heart of the Brotherhood in New Vegas is the Hidden Valley bunker, located east of the quarry. There are dozens of ways to get there, but none of them are easy. You can open the door to the bunker yourself (lockpicking 100), but if your skill is lacking, one of these methods will help you:
■ Find fallen Brotherhood paladins - they will have a holodisk with the password to the bunker in their inventory. Patrols can be found at Repconn Headquarters (third floor), in the lair of the centaur Moe near Black Mountain, and at the ruined village near Nellis Air Force Base.
■ During story quests (near the end of the game), you will be asked to obtain information about the Brotherhood. Approaching the bunker from the northern entrance, you will see a fleeing patrol. The door to the bunker will be open.
■ You can safely enter the bunker if you have Veronica as a companion.
■ After the ED-E robot plays two radio recordings, Knight Lorenzo will contact you and invite you to visit the Brotherhood of Steel's hideout. Upon entering the bunker, we'll be stripped and robbed of all our belongings—there's no turning back. All we can do is follow the instructions and help the recluses, at least until they begin to trust us.
In the Dark (Elder McNamara)
The quest consists of several stages, and at the end there is a plot fork:
1. First, a test of strength: we are given a fancy collar with explosives and sent to deal with an NCR ranger. You can kill the soldier, force him to leave (Speech 50), break his radio, or rig it with explosives (the ranger will blow himself up as soon as he uses it). If we tell the soldier about the Brotherhood, paladins will attack us and the quest will fail.
■ NOTE: if we travel with Veronica, the paladins will not take our equipment and the quest stage with the ranger will be skipped.
2. The next objective: find the missing patrols and obtain holodisks. After talking with McNamara, the head paladin, Hardin, will ask you to help him depose the elder. This is a crossroads, and our choice determines the next quests and the fate of the Brotherhood.
Let's consider both options.
■ We agree to help Hardin and visit Scribe Ibsen and Paladin Ramos several times to get their help in gaining access to restricted sections of the database. In the process, we help Ibsen cure the virus (unmarked quest, see below). When we have the information, we report to Hardin. All that remains is to collect the holodisks and bring them not to McNamara, but to the head paladin. The quest is completed ahead of schedule, we receive a lot of experience, reputation with the Brotherhood and the key to the secret apartment.
IMPORTANT: after Paladin Hardin becomes an elder, the conflict between the NCR and the Brotherhood in the story mission "For the Republic!" can no longer be resolved peacefully.
■ We ignore Hardin's request (you can do everything described above, but do not give the data to the paladin) and bring the holodisks to McNamara. The elder sends us to collect data from the scouts. They're marked on the map, nothing complicated. Just tell everyone the password and collect what we're looking for. Now McNamara will direct us to Lorenzo, who'll task us with finding parts for the air filtration system.
We head to Vault 22 to get the HEPA air filters. They're on the "Air Recirculation" level, but the direct passage is blocked. We take the detour, through the caves on the "Food Production" floor. Again, the door is blocked by a terminal; you can't open it without an access card. We run to the fourth floor, to the lower level of the "Common Areas," and grab the keycard from a shelf in one of the small rooms. We return to the third floor, open the door, and proceed through the caves to the "Air Recirculation" level. After that, all that's left is to get the necessary parts from the cabinet.
The Pulse Cleaner is no problem—it's in Vault 3, in a locker next to the Motorcyclist. The Pressure Differential Regulator is in Vault 11—drop down to the very bottom level; the part is waiting for you in the flooded compartment. As a reward for everything we receive experience and keys to the Brotherhood's apartment.
Mind Your Own Business (Elder Hardin)
The quest is given once Paladin Hardin has become an Elder. He offers to work as a "cleaner," but we won't be removing rust from power armor, but rather Van Grafs from the Silver Rush. It's a standard contract: show up, kill, and leave. At the end of the quest, Hardin accepts us into the Brotherhood of Steel and teaches us how to wear power armor.
Blind Eye (Elder McNamara)
We can get it if McNamara remains as Elder. The courier's mission is to install a transmitter on Black Mountain. If you haven't been there before, combine this task with the "Madness" quest (see below for details). Upon returning to the bunker, you'll gain experience, and McNamara will reward you with power armor and the ability to wear it.
In Hidden Valley, you can pick up a couple of unmarked quests:
1. Scribe Ibsen complains about a virus infecting a network of computer terminals. The objective of the mission is to identify the threat in three terminals within a short period of time. Virus segmentation (Science 70) simplifies the task - if we manage to find at least one infected terminal within the allotted time, the virus there will be segmented, leaving us with less work on our next attempt. Reward: access to the Brotherhood file archive.
2. Gunsmith Torres laments the loss of her laser pistol. Talk to the Brotherhood paladin near the shooting range; he'll point out Acolyte Stanton. He's hanging around in a classroom or one of the barracks. He'll immediately admit to losing his weapon in the scorpion ravine. All that's left to do is run there, kill the scorpions, and retrieve the pistol. It's lying in the center of the ravine, on a rock, next to a corpse. As a reward, you'll receive experience, Brotherhood fame, and a tri-beam laser rifle.
See also:
New Vegas: Light Armor (Factions)