Not initiating trade is different from sending people out, and I read that Rahmani was ordered to leave by the Brotherhood elders, even having to be coaxed by Maxson to continue the mission, so there is a subtext of discontent there.
Also, the Brotherhood is kind of stupid. Maxson decided to turn a US military unit into quasi-religious knight order. At least raider groups can excuse their weirdness from being drug-filled lunatics. What the fuck convinced Maxson to transform soldiers into a LARP fantasy?
House is a rich technocratic asshole who can’t even fuck is robot waifus and surrounds himself with the consumerist culture of his youth.
He is a wealthy version of Moviebob.
I can tell you why. The original makers of Fallout wanted to combine standard RPG tropes with the "boo-hoo, the government and the corporations are corrupt!" mindset. That's why Vault-Tec were the kind of corporate assholes who make the Trade Federation from Star Wars look like saints in comparison, and they even doubled-down on it with Fallout 2's Enclave being a remnant of the US government that wants all mutated creatures dead, when what they should have just done is dominate the mainland with their superior firepower and help re-organize post-apocalyptic society to become a more stable environment, like what House did with the New Vegas Families that used to be tribes.
That's why they had Maxson and his idiots form a knightly order after being disgusted with the US government, instead of just maintaining some semblance of American government power, because RPGs were full of knights and orcs back in the day. They just wanted an excuse to put that in a modern, post-apocalyptic environment, so the Brotherhood of Steel and the FEV Super Mutants allowed them to create modern knights and orcs. The Brotherhood became the new knights, who used advanced weapons and tactics from an earlier, more prosperous age, and the Super Mutants became the new Orcs, green-skinned cannon fodder controlled by a greater power, in this case, the Master, Richard Grey, who uses his psychic powers to commune with the Super Mutants. Even the idea that the Super Mutants will replace humans as the creatures most suited to rule the new age mirrors Lord of the Rings' statement on it:
"The Age of Men is over. The Time of the Orc has come."
That sounds very familiar.
"The Super Mutant is the next advancement in human evolution. To save the world, we will convert all the worthy individuals. Simple, efficient, glorious."
When it comes to House, I couldn't disagree more. House is more akin to an old Byzantine Emperor having to deal with Saracens and Germanic barbarians after most of his civilization went up in smoke. Like the Byzantines, he hides behinds high walls and uses trickery, politicking, and old-world tech as his advantage against the larger, more primitive factions like the NCR and the Legion. That, and he doesn't really give a shit about fucking anymore since his body is more withered than Darth Sidious'. He just wants to bring as much order and prosperity to his little slice of heaven before he inevitably kicks the bucket and bequeathes everything to the Courier or something.
The problem with Mr. House's route is that you do pretty much everything for him, which is naturally going to make every player think "hmm, why am I not doing the route where I do everything and I'm in charge of New Vegas instead?"
That's just Fallout in general, though. Why was Vault Tec literally so mustache twirling evil that they made like 3 control vaults and every other vault a bunch of goofy experiments? The United States was pulp as fuck in the alternate history, and you have to accept that as the origin of the setting. Still, Fallout 76 in one of its few good moments gave a very good reason why Maxson made a new culture and rank structure for the Brotherhood of Steel, including the very practical desire not to allow remaining US holdouts to be able to assert authority over his soldiers. I don't mind there being other Brotherhood chapters due to radio communication, but sending an expedition across the US that soon after the Great War is lunacy. The expedition force in Tactics was perfectly fine and about when you'd expect the Brotherhood would find it prudent to go further east.
Again, that ties in with me comparing House to a Byzantine Emperor. Some Byzantine Emperors were formerly Byzantine generals who used to take orders from the Emperor until they realized they can give the orders themselves. But House is far smarter, considering that even if you go with Yes Man, you end up using the same plan House did, by defeating the Legion with the Securitron Army then strong-arming the NCR into a truce after saving their president from the assassin's bullet.
As I said, they wanted to combine a standard RPG game of knights and orcs with "boo-hoo, corporations and government types are evil!" That's why Vault-Tec was just that idiotic, even though preserving 99% of your people makes more sense, and you can always do social experiments AFTER society has been rebuilt. Their version of the US in Fallout is every socialist's worst nightmare (many nerds back then, even the guys who made 40K, are bleeding-heart liberals who wanted to subvert the conservative order born of the 1950s) down to the point where Commie-bashing is a standard way of life. Ironically enough, Fallout 3 and New Vegas embraced this idea, with New Vegas revolving around REVIVING the old-world glory of America in the Mojave with either the NCR or New Vegas, or outright making it a fascist dictatorship under Caesar's Legion. There's no socialist faction there, and the smartest man alive is an unapologetic capitalist. And in Fallout 3, they even embraced the anti-Communist spirit of that version of America, with Liberty Prime spouting anti-Communist propaganda and being your ally in the final battle, and even giving you a DLC mission in Operation Anchorage where you LITERALLY fight Communist forces in American soil. Kind of like how the original 40K writers hated the Imperium and everything it stood for (nationalism, religion, militaristic loyalty to the state) whereas most 40K Imperium fans and many modern 40K writers love that shit.
Fantastic and the Think Tank
Please. As if the Fiends exist for anything but target practice. And the Think Tank can't accomplish jack shit without it blowing up on their faces.
