The Brotherhood of Steel

The Brotherhood is a military order with a strictly enforced hierarchy and chain of command. At the foundation of the hierarchy lies the Chain That Binds doctrine. It mandates obedience to one's superiors and forbids circumventing ranks when giving orders. Superiors may only give orders to their direct subordinates, but not their subordinate's subordinates. Although intended to ensure the cohesion of command, the doctrine has been generally interpreted as a simple mandate of obedience within the order, with the order flow requirements ignored, abandoned, or altered in practice. However, it does provide a technicality that can be invoked to relieve members of their rank - up to and including elders.
Roger Maxson's goals in inventing a new tradition and mythology for the Brotherhood were two-fold. First, they would ensure that members of the Brotherhood would be stripped of their ties to the pre-War military and government, ensuring that any surviving general or politician would not be able to invoke their oaths and use them to unleash nuclear devastation on the world again (as was the case with Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Eckhart in Appalachia). Second, it would give the survivors an idea to believe in, something they could dedicate themselves to, and finding meaning in their lives after the nuclear war. The inspiration came from the fall of the western Roman Empire when knights and scribes kept the fire of civilization going after the empire imploded.

Summary:

The Brotherhood of Steel (commonly abbreviated to BoS) is a post-War techno-religious military order with chapters operating across the territory of the former United States. Founded by rogue U.S. Army Captain Roger Maxson shortly after the Great War, the Brotherhood's core purpose is to preserve advanced technology and regulate its usage. Though small and relatively isolationist, the Brotherhood has proved to be one of the most important organizations in the history of the wasteland, though their exact levels of power and influence have varied over time and by chapter.

Type

Military Order