History Headscratchers / Fallout3Enclave

** I already gave his thoughts on the TalkingMonsterToDeath in prior entry but let me say it again: the reasoning used in both dialog paths is fitting and fairly smart, it is just written too glibly and requires too little understanding from the player. Convincing Eden that his work is futile because he cannot get it done without the help of subordinates like Autumn whom Eden can't control or convincing him that his programming/sanity is flawed are credible reasons for a sentient computer to give up what it's doing. As for how easy it is, Eden's character is pretty much written on the theme of how impossible it is to control human behavior.

* The Brotherhood of Steel, an organization dedicated to the preservation of technology, is happy with you for -blowing up- the Mobile Crawler, rather than, say, capturing it for the BOS. Even with the Capital Wasteland BOS being more interested in protecting the innocent, that massive base would surely be useful, and it wouldn't have been too hard to occupy it either, since the Lone Wanderer cleared the whole thing out on his own. Just another missed opportunity.
** Elder Lyons says flat-out that they "barely have the manpower to keep the Citadel fortified." The BoS simply cannot crew a fortress of that size, period. That leaves them with exactly two options: destroy it or clear it out and leave. And Option #2 is stupid with a capital S.

** That and because there is Autumn, who actually vetoed Eden's attempt to [[spoiler: wipe out all life in the Wasteland, albeit passively]] to the point of open revolt. Are they still assholes? Absolutely. But they aren't comically evil ones, and with enough head-twisting it isn't that hard to recognize that they ultimately are KnightsTemplars.

*** They still exist, it's just that the majority of them packed up and moved to Chicago after the Oil Rig fell. Arcade's dad's unit specifically stayed behind to watch over Navarro.

** Most women aren't as combat-suitable as most men. They aren't sexist, they're just realistic. There is no such thing as Affirmative Action in the Enclave.
*** Sieg-fucking-heil, you bigot.

For a computer, Eden doesn't seem to be all that bright. Someone apparently installed Windows Final Solution to his personality. Even if you agree to help him insert the FEV virus, he makes no attempt to help you. I mean, he '''does''' have a bunch of [=VTOLs=] sitting around. What, all of a sudden he can't have you hop on one in safety to take you to the Jefferson Memorial? Then again that would make too much sense and this game seems to pride itself on trying to stay away from that road.
* Of course it could be that the Vertibirds are piloted by humans which aren't loyal to him like all the troops or he could think that you would want to find some way to get to the control room without landing on a surely guarded helipad if he can control them. It's not likely that he's programmed with how to teach people to pilot [=VTOLs=] if it is human controlled.
* He borrowed all the other Presidents personalities... so the incompetence could be a TakeThat!
* By that point in the game, Colonel Autumn and the vast majority of the Enclave (really, just about the whole thing except for the robots) have rebelled against Eden. The soldiers and scientists all report to Autumn, who is essentially Eden's human arm; nobody in the Enclave knows that he is a computer except for Autumn himself. It's quite conceivable that by that point, Eden has nobody left to trust but you, assuming Autumn has told the rest of the Enclave about the true nature of their leader. Judging by what's included in his computer/audio journals/etc., Autumn also knows some of Eden's plans, including the FEV thing, and has Eden's self-destruct code just in case he has to get rid of him. Since we never see Eden again once we've run into Autumn at the end of the game, it's quite possible that he's been destroyed by Autumn in the interim (though this doesn't explain why Enclave Radio is still going, even if it isn't a live broadcast; chalk this one up to a simple oversight, probably).

*** I can confirm that signal disappears if Raven Rock is destroyed. I can also confirm the "The Enclave is back!" broadcast being added to the rotation after the purifier incident. It even includes a short interview with Colonel Autumn. There is one other time it changes. I don't know when it gets added, but there is a second broadcast added with Eden talking about how the Enclave is going to bring clean water to the Wasteland with "their" Project Purity.
* You forgot to mention that you're able to convince him to kill himself with all of two sentences of dialogue. Worst. Supercomputer.'''Ever.'''

* IIRC, the Fallout Bible states that the ZAX line of supercomputers were not designed to be fully sentient. Eden has more or less evolved to sentience by being on-line for over 200 years. So, as supercomputers go, he's not all that bright in Fallout terms.

* It's pretty safe to say that as soon as Autumn found out about how Eden not only let you out of the inescapable prison booth, but ''handed you back all your weapons and gear,'' the partnership between them was terminated. I'm surprised I didn't find a broken computer monitor personally.

It really bugs me how easy it is to convince President Eden to suicide himself and take the Enclave along with him. All it takes is a fairly high Intelligence score, or a single speech check of average difficulty. You don't even really present any sort of particularly convincing argument to him, either. You just basically tell him that he sucks and should die, and he just agrees with you. You'd think a 200-year old EvilGenius supercomputer would take a little more convincing persuasion to influence, especially given the incredibly self-assured, megalomaniacal nature of his constant radio broadcasts.
* ''Hell'', the speech check against ''Colonel Autumn'' is much harder than the one against Eden; you have to pass two consecutive speech checks to get him to stand down, and they're both of pretty high difficulty too.

* He's supposed to be an amalgamation of ''every'' past US president, so he shouldn't be all that smart, some of them naturally watered him down.

*** Maybe they were deemed "un-American" by the Enclave's idiosyncratic interpretation of the ideals of the United States? We're talking about people who model their officers' uniforms after the Nazis...

* I was very disappointed that Eden did not respond to the rather pitiful attempts to talk him to death with "You fool! I was constructed with paradox absorbing crumple zones!"
* While Eden has the personality of every president, he probably doesn't have the intelligence. And sure, he is a 200-year old evil genius, but you forget that he's a MECHANICAL 200-year old evil genius. Anyone with a computer will know that they wear out after a few years. Expecting a somewhat humanoid AI to be perfectly sane and intelligent after 200-years, even with maintenance (don't forget that the enclave can't exactly go down to PC world to get new parts) then you are thinking very unrealistically.

*** There again, you have an isolated mechanical mind long overdue for proper maintenance.
**** I just assumed Eden had been on the fritz for a while and his dragons had been picking up the slack. It explains why Eden was able to give an order to assure your character's safety while s/he went to his office, and then five seconds later Colonel Autumn gets on the intercom and says "Disregard that, please" and nobody bats an eye at disobeying a presidential order.
* I already gave his thoughts on the TalkingMonsterToDeath in prior entry but let me say it again: the reasoning used in both dialog paths is fitting and fairly smart, it is just written too glibly and requires too little understanding from the player. Convincing Eden that his work is futile because he cannot get it done without the help of subordinates like Autumn whom Eden can't control or convincing him that his programming/sanity is flawed are credible reasons for a sentient computer to give up what it's doing. As for how easy it is, Eden's character is pretty much written on the theme of how impossible it is to control human behavior.

*** But then this kind of collapses in a single sentence:

*** Um, look again. Telling him he wasn't elected does absolutely nothing towards making him blow up. He basically says that the USA is in a state of emergency and under martial law, therefore democracy is suspended. He's just plain lying when he says he's a "duly elected representative".
**** Look again. You are given three different speech options at that point, and they all end with the same exact LogicBomb about infallibility. He doesn't exactly have [[{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}} "paradox-absorbing crumple zones."]] The fact that he is president because [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem he says so]] is part of the whole logic bomb and why his argument falls apart so quickly. Of course, this pales to the other speech options that make even less sense, where the questions are very quickly skipped over:

**** Actually, this does make sense. Eden became what it is over time by modeling himself after the US presidents, the ideals of democracy, etc. It essentially self brainwashed itself to the point that the BS is now literally indistinguishable from reality in its mechanical mind, so AIIsACrapshoot works in the Lone Wanderer's favor here, because the logic in telling it to destroy itself because it's a despot is essentially reminding it what it believes itself to be: a democratically elected US president who also happens to be a logical, semi-sentient computer. The logic of its mechanical side merges with how seriously it's come to believe it's a president of the U.S., and hence it decides to fall on his sword because it is both a betrayal of everything it believes itself to personify (and Autumn never saw fit to disabuse it of its illusions, since they were essential to getting his hands on a HQ for the Enclave forces) and a logical fallacy to be a despot, so since it can't perform its role without being a hypocrite or running into an unassailable LogicBomb, self destruction would be the only logical choice. In effect, you caused it to have a (partial) HeelFaceTurn on the grounds of exposing the illogic of its hypocrisy. Note, Eden still wants the modified FEV to be distrubuted, but that just goes along with it's 1's and 0's programming about what's logical (the purification of the Capital Wasteland), not what's moral (since it's not human, this wouldn't factor into the equation).
***** The problem here is that Eden cannot be logical if it either knowingly lies or is deluded enough to believe it is the President. Canon sources point out that Eden's intended purpose was simply to monitor communications, not to continue the Enclave's work by either working towards genocide or by rallying the Enclave as its President. The next question becomes: If Eden can be [[HeelRealization convinced it's not actually the president]], why can he not be made to understand that he might be wrong about its other illogical decisions? Eden can only be made aware of -one- issue with its so-called Logic, but not others, such as [[DrivenToSuicide "Self-destruction" being the only "logical" choice]], as discussed below. And Eden certainly is never given an option to discuss its plan to annihilate the wasteland, which is also ingrained into the Enclave mindset as much as Eden being president. But for some reason, the destruction of the Wasteland is hard-wired into Eden's systems, as you cannot leave Raven Rock without the FEV, even if you use Autumn's override code.

On a related note, it bugs me that once you've convinced Eden he's wrong the only option he sees is to blow up Raven Rock. No option to somehow, you know, use the Enclave's highly advanced technology and organisation for the good of the Wasteland or anything. Eden seems to be well-meaning, even if he is rather amoral, so once you've convinced him he's wrong then it would surely be a better idea to convince him to do a HeelFaceTurn- the Enclave is shown to be far more competent than the Brotherhood of Steel or anyone else in the game, and they have far better technology than anyone so with their resources you'd have a much better chance of actually rebuilding the Wasteland. The Enclave seem to be the only major group who are both capable and interested in doing more than squatting in the ruins of the pre-war world so it's annoying that they have to die unless you want to take a MIRV to the MoralEventHorizon.
* I haven't played 3, but going by Fallout 2 the vast majority of enclave are purity obsessed Nazi stand-ins. Convincing the computer of its error won't deprogram the rest of them.

*** No, Autumn held the values of the Enclave, too. He just didn't want to kill everything in the world outside the Enclave, when instead he could just kill the mutants and raiders, and keep the normal people as citizens or slaves or something. Can't rebuild America if there's no people.
*** I was really hoping for an 'Autumn Wins' ending in which he takes over the purifier and uses his newfound power set up a new government that eradicates the Super Mutants and creates a stable if a bit radical society as opposed to [=BoS=] and the Wastelanders who have been sitting on their lazy asses for over 200 years.
**** Did you miss the part where Autumn was going to commit genocide on everyone who pretty much wasn't born in a Vault? Including ghouls? And as Uncle Leo and Fawkes demonstrate, not every single Super Mutant is chaotic evil, either.
**** Also, remember that even though Autumn didn't want to massacre all Wastelanders, he ''did'' want to destroy all other organizations such as the Brotherhood of Steel, so that the Enclave could rule the Wasteland with an iron fist. Just because Autumn wasn't completely genocidal doesn't mean that his plans are the best for the Wasteland.

*** Because he is completely ineffectual - as a sentient program tied to his box in Raven Rock he needs people to carry out his plans but due to his immobility he is unable to keep a short leash on them which is why Col. Autumn was able to betray him so easily. In short, if Eden can't do it in Raven Rock with couple of robots and security cameras, he is utterly ''useless'' in anything short robbing Enclave of their base.
*** I assume the question was why couldn't the Lone Wanderer convince Eden to help the Brotherhood instead of the Enclave. And to that question, I say it simply Bethesda keeping the Enclave AlwaysChaoticEvil. It's simply not in keeping with the rest of the setting for a bad guy to become a good guy. To wit, even if you don't blow up Raven Rock and leave on amicable terms, in Broken Steel, [[spoiler: Liberty Prime destroys Raven Rock anyway.]]

Where are all the female Enclave officers? Considering how limited population they are working with, they can't afford to be sexist; leaving 50% of their population out of their military effort would be ludicrous. Even if every woman in Enclave is expected to give birth to several new citizens, that can't be all that is required of them, and considering that the great majority of the Enclave's actions are military operations of some sort, it just isn't possible that women could be left out without serious problems in availability of personnel; there can't be more than a few hundred Enclave in the entire Capital Wasteland.
* Most women aren't as combat-suitable as most men. They aren't sexist, they're just realistic. There is no such thing as Affirmative Action in the Enclave.
* I "met" some female Enclave troopers and officers. The former look the same, thanks to the armor, ''and'' being reduced to green goo by a plasma rifle doesn't help.

* From what I've seen, the Enclave Officers are 50/50 Male/Female. The soldiers all seem to be male, though.

* Enclave Soldiers may all be male, but almost all, if not all Enclave Scientists are female. Now, you are an organization promoting pure-bred unmutated humanity, where do you want your baby factories (If you'll excuse my humorous terminology) wandering around the irradiated wastes being shot at by wide varety of enemies, where even in powered armor a Ripper or shotgun blast that punches through in the wrong spot will ruin that particular ability, or safely holed up in your underground base where they spend most of their time working in heavily protected (against environmental hazards, anyway) suits? One assumes Enclave Officers are partially female because they need authority figures. All the officers I've seen are near Deathclaw cages, the kind of thing that probably needs supervision. Why they give officers some cloth to protect them from the hazards of the wastes is not something I'm going to debate with them (Especially since I always blow Raven Rock to hell, and stand outside until the explosions stop.). And hell, for all we know, female officers can only get promoted to that position after popping one out for humanity. (Which brings up the possibility that you kill babies when you blow up Raven Rock. Let's hope that they all get safely evacuated before the poop hits the fan)
* Enclave aren't sexist I'm sure they model themselves out of pre war America. In fallout 2 it shows that people even get jobs and such. The ratio's seem to favor more men as troops and 50/50 in every other enclave profession.

How come that the Enclave choose ''that'' moment (while you're repairing the purifier, after cleaning the complex, after finding your father, after having gone through hell and back in the wastelands) to go public? Pure coincidence (not impossible, just lame)? They somehow spy on you (would make sense, but there is never any reference to the existence of secret service in the Enclave)? They were keeping an eye on the purifier complex all along (Hey, that dude is about to repair and activate the damn thing, move in men!)? Even more ridiculous is the fact that the Enclave is for all purpose absent from the DC area (except for the eyebot and broadcasts) until ''that one goddamned moment.'' The second you see a vertibird near the purifier, Enclave outposts, and troops, and robots, and vertibirds magically appear all over the place.
* I recall meeting one of Dr. Li's assistants in Raven Rock during the escape, claiming that she had defected to the Enclave. I didn't really listen to her side before jamming a frag mine into her back pocket (I hate [[LesCollaborateurs defectors]]). It's possible she switched sides earlier on and was informing the Enclave that James was getting close?

* Enclave Eyebots, maybe? You do encounter them all around the wasteland, although they're so widely spaced that it's hard to believe that they were able to keep effective tabs on you or anybody else. That seems the only logical explanation, though.
* A better possibility is that they already knew about Project Purity, so were explicitly keeping tabs on that location, which is why they attack immediately after people start working there again. (Then the real problem becomes, wouldn't it be easier simply to wait until the system is working and then swoop in?)

* I figured it was a call back to Fallout 2. In Fallout 2, when repairing a computer in Gecko's power plant, you can [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXwlDWPBnzU accidentally 'prank call' the Enclave]]. The thing that happens right before the Enclave show up at the Purifier? That's right, you turn on the Mainframe, which possibly signals to the Enclave that the facility was active (or at least someone turned on an old pre-war computer).

*** It does not help that one of the options in that conversation itself is the ability to talk the [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Enclave_communications_officer Officer]] into sending a Vertibird assault team. They simply don't show up because this is one of the unfinished events in the game that is cleaned up in the Restoration mod.
* On a side note, why do the Enclave even bother to expose their troops to the wastelands' hardness when they could keep them safe in Raven Rock until the final battle? Do they have so many troops and so much gear that they can afford to waste them in the wastes?

*** Because that is when it was dramatically correct for them to appear.

* Plot convenience. The player is far enough in the plot that the Enclave are supposed to be the main antagonists, so that is when they show up.
* Actually this troper encountered an Enclave trooper on the way back from the Super-Duper mart to Megaton, and was promptly chased back to Megaton being shot at and getting killed a few times. This was before even deactivating the Megaton bomb.

*** Plus you need a reference point that other targets can be a 'distance and heading' from. No GPS system anymore, after all. And a reference point outside of their HEAVILY fortified and manned battle machine could be taken down as easily as the rest of their outposts.
**** No GPS, but they have orbital missile launching satellites? A global positioning system uses satellites to pinpoint positions, and there's several satellite relay towers still active and working, which the KillSat uses as well.
* Why hasn't the Enclave bombed the Citadel you ask? How about because Citadel is the frikking Pentagon? As in one of the most important structures of US military? Something like that Enclave might want intact if they were to rebuild America.
* Here's what really bugs me about this. Who better than the Enclave to know what is hidden under the Pentagon? There's no real excuse for the Enclave not knowing about or wanting Liberty Prime. They know the Brotherhood is there at the Pentagon, but no one in the Enclave thinks that they might mobilize a pre-War weapon like that? If they had wanted to take the Pentagon, they probably could have sooner, rather than putting their chips in on the fricking water purifier and taking on the most direct threat in the Capital Wasteland. To the Enclave, the Brotherhood are deserters and traitors, they wouldn't have the slightest bit of hesitation to kill them. So, why don't the Enclave attack the Pentagon or destroy it to prevent the Enclave's enemies from getting their hands on what is "US Government Property"?

* It was made very clear the Enclave wanted the Pentagon back in their hands according to the broadcasts. Whether they wanted something there or just wanted it for symbolic purposes is unclear. They might have indeed wanted Liberty Prime. They had no reason to believe the Brotherhood could get him up and running when the guys who built him never could. Especially since in their mind the Brotherhood is technologically inferior to them (the Brotherhood mostly relies on salvaged pre-war tech, while the Enclave produces their own new model stuff). And by the time Liberty was suddenly launched at the Purifier it was too late to order a strike on him then. But the next time he was deployed they were ready for him. As to why they never used the orbital strike before Liberty Prime started deploying, well they probably felt it was an unnecessary use of their resources when again, Enclave's soldiers had brand new superior equipment.

* A possible explanation for why the Enclave isn't using their orbital nukes would be that the nukes are just getting in orbit. If you notice the quest, you see that there are 5 different targets (Megaton, Rivet City and Project Purity are the other three). If you try to go for one of the other three targets, you get a message that you can't target them because the orbit isn't right. Let's make the assumption that unless the orbital nuke is in the right place, it can't target anything, and that everyone were busy defending the base. This means that nobody were there to target the Citadel, or possibly, that the Citadel coordinates were already punched in, but the LW arrives at the right time to change it - and boom goes the Enclave base.
* The orbital missile station's supply of missiles is limited: it can't be resupplied due to the modern era's lack of spaceflight. The resources to field such an operation would probably have been seen as 'wasteful' right up until Liberty Prime practically wiped the Enclave from the region. Those few nukes are the Enclave's last line of defense, not something to be used when a new threat appears. Liberty Prime IMO should not have been as tough as he is with literally MILLIONS upon millions of HP, fielding a rapid fire weapon that does like 9K-5K damage per hit. When they mentioned power issues I can see why. Robot Behemoths from the Midwest while tough only had like 5K heath and did 600 damage a hit albeit there were hundreds of em.

The Brotherhood of Steel, an organization dedicated to the preservation of technology, is happy with you for -blowing up- the Mobile Crawler, rather than, say, capturing it for the BOS. Even with the Capital Wasteland BOS being more interested in protecting the innocent, that massive base would surely be useful, and it wouldn't have been too hard to occupy it either, since the Lone Wanderer cleared the whole thing out on his own. Just another missed opportunity.
* Elder Lyons says flat-out that they "barely have the manpower to keep the Citadel fortified." The BoS simply cannot crew a fortress of that size, period. That leaves them with exactly two options: destroy it or clear it out and leave. And Option #2 is stupid with a capital S.

* I think this is one of those cases of their "resources being stretched thin," if you will. Granted, the Mobile Crawler is good tech, but they prolly don't have the manpower to ''operate'' the damn thing and protect it, as well as protect the Citadel. Further, a full-out attack by [=BoS=] would probably give the Enclave incentive to orbital strike the Citadel, which, even if the squad or division manages to the secure the Crawler, would result in a very Pyrrhic victory, leaving them vulnerable to ultimate annihilation.

* I agree that it's unusual that one of the Scribes didn't at least beg you to please, ''please'' download the Crawler's schematics for future duplication. Would have made a reasonable 'optional goal' to add to the last mission.

Throughout the course of the game, several wastelanders suggest that the Enclave broadcasts are nothing more than old pre-war broadcasts on a loop. I never understood why that was presented as being a sane thing to say. Whimsical claims of growing up in rural Kentucky aside, the fact that Eden makes specific reference to Super Mutants, ghouls, and BOTH sects of the Brotherhood of Steel rather than, say, encouraging survivors not to get in the National Guard's way or make sure to punch any Chinese spies they see makes it difficult to suspend disbelief.
* Pretty much the only way it can make sense is that they don't own radios and only have heard bits of the broadcast.

**** The wrecked bus' radio in the intro movie still uses a vacuum tube. I found that hugely impressive for 200 years after the apocalypse

*** I didn't even know that it mentioned super mutants. I took one listen and decided. "You know, I prefer Three Dog"
* Speaking of Enclave Radio, why does it play "Dixie"? Isn't that kind of ''un''-American?

*** But they ''see'' themselves as American, which is what matters in this case. Of course, as said above, ''Dixie'' ''is'' an American tune. Also... "Nazis"? Literally, or figuratively? Technically there's no United States left, unless you ask the Enclave, so no-one's got a US birth certificate or anything, but...
*** Presumably figuratively, but here's the thing: the Enclave is pretty darn American ''as defined by the America that was just before the bombs fell'' - the Enclave is an exaggeration of what already ''was'' a fairly fascistoid, xenophobic organisation, namely the US government (democratic governments generally don't have military officials decide to mass-arrest protestors so they can 'serve their country' by being experimented on).

*** Except that Autumn [[spoiler:disapproving of all out genocide]] is the ''only'' thing separating him from Eden. He is still just as much of a racist fascist as the rest of the Enclave. And he doesn't want to simply activate the purifier, he wants to ''control'' it, as he who controls the water supply controls the Wasteland, and nothing Autumn says or does indicate he would be a good ruler, whereas ''everything'' he does indicates he would be an oppressive, iron fisted, despotic tyrant.

*** If you're talking about the Brotherhood branch we see in ''3'', they're ''way'' less bigoted than just about every other faction, including the Outcasts and definitely counting the Enclave. Also, the human portion of the Enclave is equally genocidal: Note that field teams have orders to round up Wastelanders for genescanning and to "take care" of the irradiated, which is pretty much everyone not in a Vault. Presumably the 'unfit' would be used in experiments, as can be seen with dissected Wastelanders and in the Enclave labs; the orders (found in field-team terminals) add that they should 'incinerate' the extras, and Soldiers in those groups carry Flamers. They also seem to consider all ghouls as ferals and shoot accordingly.

**** Look again. You are given three different speech options at that point, and they all end with the same exact LogicBomb about infallibility. He doesn't exactly have [[{{Futurama}} "paradox-absorbing crumple zones."]] The fact that he is president because [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem he says so]] is part of the whole logic bomb and why his argument falls apart so quickly. Of course, this pales to the other speech options that make even less sense, where the questions are very quickly skipped over:

* I talked Eden to death ''by accident''.

For a computer, Eden doesn't seem to be all that bright. Someone apparently installed Windows Final Solution to his personality. Even if you agree to help him insert the FEV virus, he makes no attempt to help you. I mean, he DOES have a bunch of [=VTOLs=] sitting around. What, all of the sudden he can't have you hop on one in safety to take you to the Jefferson Memorial? Then again that would make too much sense and this game seems to pride itself on trying to stay away from that road.

** The reasoning in both ways in which you convince Eden to shut himself down is pretty sound, it just isn't carried out very well because the player is given whopping two lines to deliver them. The first way, in which you convince him that he doesn't have the ability to keep even his own army from falling apart let alone his master plan to restore U.S. government to power rests on him -- as a logical machine -- not wanting to invest effort and resources into a losing cause. The second, in which you convince him that his justification for his rule (his superb ability for rational thinking) is irrational -- if a computer programmed to be infallible develops attributes it was not designed to have (such as true intelligence) it no longer follows its original programming and thus its infallibility is not unquestionable. And if said computer uses circular logic to prove you wrong, you can use its argument as proof that it is indeed conducting an illogical error. Upon finding out, Eden panics and in desperation reformats his system to erase his mistakes, which allows the player to input self-destruction commands into him in his blank state.

* It's pretty safe to say that as soon as Autumn found out about how Eden not only let you out of the stasis chamber but gave you back ALL OF YOUR WEAPONS in the MIDDLE OF THE BASE any mutualism among them was terminated. I'm surprised I didn't find a broken computer monitor personally.

*** Maybe they were deemed "un-American" by Enclave's idiosyncratic interpretation of the ideals of the United States? We're talking about people who model their officers' uniforms after the Nazis...

** You have to remember that the Fallout universe diverged from ours around the 1950's, where the 50's continued for another 150 years. So Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt are watered down by 150 years of Joe [=McCarthys=].

* I was very disappointed that Eden did not respond to his rather pitiful attempts to talk him to death with "You fool! I was constructed with paradox absorbing crumple zones!"

* I already gave his thoughts on the TalkingMonsterToDeath in prior entry but let me say it again: the reasoning used in both dialog paths is fitting and fairly smart, it is just written too short and requires too little understanding from the player. Convincing Eden that his work is futile because he cannot get it done without the help of subordinates like Autumn whom Eden can't control or convincing him that his programming/sanity is flawed are credible reasons for a sentient computer to give up what its doing. As for how easy it is, Eden's character is pretty much written on the theme of how impossible it is to control human behavior.

On a related note, it bugs me that once you've convinced Eden he's wrong the only option is to blow up Raven Rock. No option to somehow, you know, use the Enclave's highly advanced technology and organisation for the good of the Wasteland or anything. Eden seems to be well-meaning, even if he is rather amoral, so once you've convinced him he's wrong then it would surely be a better idea to convince him to do a HeelFaceTurn- the Enclave is shown to be far more competent than the Brotherhood of Steel or anyone else in the game, and they have far better technology than anyone so with their resources you'd have a much better chance of actually rebuilding the Wasteland. The Enclave seem to be the only major group who are both capable and interested in doing more than squatting in the ruins of the pre-war world so it's annoying that they have to die unless you want to take a MIRV to the MoralEventHorizon.

** Yes, but in Fallout 3 we obviously see that Eden is the only villain in the spirit of 'true Enclave' while the rest of Enclave doesn't give a shit about him and follow Autumn who's a whole lot less radical and generally has a lot more in common with the Vault Dweller and the Brotherhood. Maybe it's just my AlternateCharacterInterpretation ,but F3's Enclave sans Eden were just [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well Intentioned Extremists]] whom I found hard not to side with, given the game's crapsack world.
*** No, Autumn held the values of the enclave, too. He just didn't want to kill everything in the world outside the enclave, when instead he could just kill the mutants and raiders, and keep the normal people as citizens or slaves or something. Can't rebuild America if there's no people.

**** Did you miss the part where Autumn was going to commit genocide on everyone who pretty much wasn't born in a vault? Including ghouls? And as Uncle Leo and Fawkes shows, not every single Super Mutant is chaotic evil, either.

*** I assume the question was why couldn't the Lone Wanderer convince Eden to help the Brotherhood instead of the Enclave. And to that question, I say it simply Bethesda keeping the Enclave unrelatable AlwaysChaoticEvil. It's simply not in keeping with the rest of the setting for a bad guy to become a good guy. To wit, even if you don't blow up Raven Rock and leave on amicable terms, in Broken Steel, [[spoiler: Liberty Prime destroys Raven Rock anyway.]]

Unless I missed something, how come that the Enclave choose that moment (while you're repairing the purifier, after cleaning the complex, after finding your father, after having gone through hell and back in the wastelands) to show up ? Pure coincidence (not impossible, just lame)? They somehow spy on you (would make sense, but there is never any reference to the existence of secret service in the Enclave)? They were keeping an eye on the purifier complex all along(Hey, that dude is about to repair and activate the damn thing, move on men!)? Even more ridiculous is the fact that the Enclave is for all purpose absent from the DC area(except for the eyebot and broadcasts) until THAT ONE GODDAMNED MOMENT. The second you see a vertibird near the purifier, Enclave outposts, and troops, and robots, and vertibirds magically appear all over the place.

* On a side note, why the enclave even bother to expose their troops to the wastelands' hardness when they could keep them safe in Raven Rock until the final battle? Do they have so much troops and power armor and plasma weapons that they can afford to waste them in the wastes?

** I'm pretty sure the launch terminal hinted, if not explicitly stated that targeting the Mobile base was a defense measure. It was pretty much a self-destruct mechanism to keep the base from falling into enemy hand. Ironic really, considering how the whole affair ends.
*** Plus you need a reference point to base the positions of thing off of. No GPS system anymore, after all. And a reference point outside of their HEAVILY fortified and manned battle machine could be taken down as easily as the rest of their outposts.

* Why Enclave hasn't bombed Citadel you ask? How about because Citadel is the frikking Pentagon? As in one of the most important structures of US military? Something like that Enclave might want intact if they were to rebuild America.
* Here's what really bugs me about this. Who better to know what is hidden under the Pentagon other than the Enclave? There's no real excuse for the Enclave not knowing or wanting Liberty Prime. They know the Brotherhood is there at the Pentagon, but noone in the Enclave thinks that they might mobilize a pre-War weapon like that? If they had wanted to take the Pentagon, they probably could have sooner, rather than putting their chips in on the fricking water purifier and taking on their most direct threat in the Capital Wasteland. To the Enclave, the Brotherhood are deserters and traitors, they wouldn't have the slightest bit of hesitation to kill them. So, why don't the Enclave attack the Pentagon or destroy it to prevent the Enclave's enemies from getting their hands on what is "US Government Property"?

* It was made very clear the Enclave wanted the Pentagon back in their hands according to the Broadcasts. Whether they wanted something there or just wanted it for symbolic purposes is unclear. They might have indeed wanted Liberty Prime. They had no reason to believe the Brotherhood could get him up and running when the guys who built him never could. Especially since in their mind the Brotherhood is technologically inferior to them (Brotherhood relies on salvaged pre war tech, Enclave produces their own new model stuff). And by the time Liberty was suddenly launched at the Purifier it was too late to order a strike on him then. But the next time he was deployed they were ready for him. As to why they never used the orbital strike before Liberty Prime started deploying, well they probably felt it was an unecessery use of their resources when again, Enclave's soldier's had brand new superior equipment.

* Nukes are limited and can't be resupplied due to lack of space worthy tech. The resources to field such an operation would probably have been seen by the Enclave's leaders as not worth it until Liberty Prime practically wiped the enclave from the region. The Nukes are the Enclave's last line of defense not something to be used when a new threat appears. Liberty Prime IMO should not have been as tough as he is with literally MILLIONS upon millions of HP, fielding a rapid fire weapon that does like 9K-5K damage per hit. when they mentioned power issues I can see why. Robot Behemoths from the Midwest while tough only had like 5K heath and did 600 damage a hit albeit there were hundreds of em.

[[folder:Destruction of Enclave Mobie Base]]

** they destroyed the crawler so the enclave can't kill sat BOS locations. No one but you knows that the Sat only has one good throw of the die left in it. The BOS's best weapon was just demolished by the darn thing so they send you to take it out and in fact if you really want to you can leave the Crawler unharmed and simply get up and leave.

[[folder:Colonel Autumn's fake death]]
Same scene. Colonel Autumn survives by injecting himself with a syringe of Plot Device. Never mind the fact that the radiation in the room is bad enough to kill even Enclave soldiers in power armor in a matter of seconds. Never mind that is the actual Colonel Autumn (unless he just happens to have a twin who dresses and sounds just like him and when you toggle collision levels and get close enough to him his character is called "Colonel Autumn"). Never mind he clearly makes a dying sound and his body goes into a spasm, and then lies there on the floor of the rad-filled chamber until you leave with Li and her team. Nope, Autumn survives. He survives from an allotted amount of time to extreme radiation exposure "just because."
* He got that ability from taking the Sound Like Foghorn Leghorn perk.
* Even worse, again with Colonel Autumn, is that he is actually AGAINST wanting you to put in the FEV virus, which is why he rebels against Eden. When confronting him in the anti-climactic ending, he never truly reveals his purposes, nor are there any dialogues to say that you agree with his views. Nope, he's got to die. You know, just because. So he drops a unique pistol and unique armor--stuff you won't get to wear anyways, considering you're going to die (or, at least, not continue on anyways).
** Actually, you can talk Colonel Autumn into just leaving by saying he's beaten, according to the Guide. You really can [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath discourage him enough]] to make him go away.
*** It takes pretty high speech skill, but I can confirm it's possible. He'll walk away if you are persuasive enough, and Lyons will wonder how you managed it.
**** That's easy to explain - you're TheChosenOne, and she isn't.
*** I assume you get different responses based on your Karma at the time, since I didn't get a 'How did you do that?' response, but rather 'You're letting him go? I'm surprised the Wasteland hasn't beaten that out of you yet. Hope it doesn't come back to bite you.'
[[/folder]]

** At least some people are probably being influenced by ''New Vegas'', where the Enclave Remnants are portrayed in an almost wholly sympathetic light; one of them admits that the leadership went too far, but adds that most of the Enclave were good people. (Which may well be true, but doesn't make what the Enclave as a whole did any less heinous.) Plus it has [[EstrogenBrigadeBait Arcade]], whose former Enclave citizenship seems to have elicited plenty of sympathy for a group that essentially no longer exists in ''F:NV'' (and thus looks much better by comparison).

* Nukes are limited and can't be resupplied due to lack of space worthy tech. The resources to field such an operation would probably have been seen by the Enclave's leaders as worth it until Liberty Prime practically wiped the enclave from the region. The Nukes are the Enclave's last line of defense not something to be used when a new threat appears. Liberty Prime IMO should not have been as tough as he is with literally MILLIONS upon millions of HP, fielding a rapid fire weapon that does like 9K-5K damage per hit. when they mentioned power issues I can see why. Robot Behemoths from the Midwest while tough only had like 5K heath and did 600 damage a hit albeit there were hundreds of em.

[[/folder]]