Interview Deiley on His Deathclaws

[Saint_Proverbius]

During my childhood, I've spent countless hours exploring those derelicts, climbing dangerous heights, finding old Soviet artefacts.
That's why I think post-apoc was and is generally popular in East Europe. It was all around us, everyone could relate. And now we are romanticizing it.

I remember being a teenager, exploring some of the woods around one of the places we'd farm near the river with my cousins and brother. We found an old factory in the woods, completely overgrown. The windows were all gone, the floors and ceilings were gone, and the doors were all gone. It was mostly a brick and steel two story husk in the middle of a bunch of trees, probably fifty yards from the bank of the river. It was pretty crazy seeing something like that, thinking about how it's been all but forgotten.

 

[Rincewind]

Most of Russians (and I think a lot of other post-Soviet peoples) growing up in 90s-00s have regularily seen destroyed or abandoned buildings, either Soviet ones or incomplete new ones where a development company went bankrupt or stole investment funds leaving an empty husk of an office or a mall behind.

Well, there are still plenty of them in Hungary. But then, the country was under Soviet occupation until 1991, which was the year when the Soviet troops left the country.

I took these pics in an abandoned steelworks in the middle of the city around 2008 or so. It was all fun and games, but at some point the realisation hit me there are no other humans around us in a circa 2km radius, so if the sandpeople make an appearance, we're fucked...

Still, it was good fun; these abandoned dilapidated buildings have a certain charm and atmosphere to them.

moar!

 

[Jacov]

During my childhood, I've spent countless hours exploring those derelicts, climbing dangerous heights, finding old Soviet artefacts.
That's why I think post-apoc was and is generally popular in East Europe. It was all around us, everyone could relate. And now we are romanticizing it.

I remember being a teenager, exploring some of the woods around one of the places we'd farm near the river with my cousins and brother. We found an old factory in the woods, completely overgrown. The windows were all gone, the floors and ceilings were gone, and the doors were all gone. It was mostly a brick and steel two story husk in the middle of a bunch of trees, probably fifty yards from the bank of the river. It was pretty crazy seeing something like that, thinking about how it's been all but forgotten.

That sounds like a really cool find!
Sight of a human creation (be that a building or something else) partially absorbed back into nature is a thing that almost always triggers something inside me, deep thoughts. I'm no artist, but I can easily picture that buidling you describe in my head, with smallest details.

 

[Jacov]

I took these pics in an abandoned steelworks in the middle of the city around 2008 or so. It was all fun and games, but at some point the realisation hit me there are no other humans around us in a circa 2km radius, so if the sandpeople make an appearance, we're fucked...

Surprised there were still cabel lines outside (all of the metal inside was cut and sold — classic picture for places like this).

I really dig the sloped roofs on the third photo. Mind sharing the location of that place?

 

[Rincewind]

I took these pics in an abandoned steelworks in the middle of the city around 2008 or so. It was all fun and games, but at some point the realisation hit me there are no other humans around us in a circa 2km radius, so if the sandpeople make an appearance, we're fucked...

Surprised there were still cabel lines outside (all of the metal inside was cut and sold — classic picture for places like this).

I really dig the sloped roofs on the third photo. Mind sharing the location of that place?

Sure thing:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/euHj6hKszfrCrxN56

It's really like a small mini-city inside.

Current website
https://weissmanfred.hu/en/

Some historical information:

Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfréd_Weiss_Steel_and_Metal_Works

The Weiss Manfréd Acél- és Fémművek ("Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works"), or colloquially Csepel Művek ("Csepel Works") was one of the largest machine factories in Hungary, located on Csepel island in the southern part of Budapest, founded in 1892. It was the second largest industrial enterprise in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and the biggest industrial enterprise in the Hungarian half of the Empire. It played an integral role in the heavy industry and military production of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Founded by Baron Manfréd Weiss of Csepel, an industrialist of Jewish origin, by the time of World War I the company was one of largest defense contractors in Austria-Hungary,[1] producing all types of equipment, from airplanes and munitions to automotive engines, bicycles Csepel bicycle and cars. Badly damaged by Allied air raids and eventually pillaged during World War II, the company continued in existence until 1950, when it was nationalised and renamed to Rákosi Mátyás Vas- és Fémművek ("Mátyás Rákosi Iron and Metal Works NV", where "NV" means Nemzeti Vállalat, "National Company").

Aerial view. As you can see, not all buildings are abandoned, some parts are still very much functioning, but some parts are completely desolate. We went there on a Sunday afternoon, so there no people, and that building had that "anything can happen here" vibe

 

[BING XI LAO]

Oh. Good thing I have UnderRail then.
My issue with UnderRail as a Fallout successor is that it is a lot more combat heavy; Fallout gives you a lot more options to talk out of combat or resolve conflict in alternate ways, whereas in UnderRail such options are pretty limited.
Still a great game though. I picked up Heavy Duty not too long ago and will do another UnderRail run after I get some other entries in my backlog cleared.

In Underrail you have lots of non-combat options - bear traps, mines, caltrops, and gas grenades.

 

[blessedCoffee]

Greatness aside, Fallout 2 was full of stupid things, and the talking Deathclaws were one of them.

Super Mutant Melchior in the military base, the optional "boss fight" in the second game. A fun fight, but still super stupid.

Fire geckos lacking any explanation for their existence, it's like some developer was into D&D and decided to include "dragons" in the sequel, at least in my opinion this is one of the critters that belong somewhere else, not Fallout 2. If they could only be found in the special encounter where the MC is ambushed by a trillion of wild Geckos, okay, as those encounters shouldn't be taken seriously by the player base.

The Brotherhood of Steel having interest in Vertibirds, but ignoring the Hubologists Shuttle. Yeah, there's some flaws in their spaceplane, a number of things the scientists didn't take into account, resulting in bad endings for their faction, that you can find on the web. Even so, you'd think they'd at least want to steal components from the spaceplane, or something.

Ghost in The Den, one of the quest givers in the town. You can kill a person that is already dead: You can explode her with Plasma grenades, since she's not immune to plasma.

Talking spore plant, in Broken Hills.

Fallout 2 is still my favorite one, despite these things.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Fire geckos lacking any explanation for their existence

I hated those things. I'd be willing to bet they killed quite a few players the first time they played the game. They're a fairly crazy encounter that early on considering you don't have much in the way of any protection versus a fire attack until much later on and almost no hit points.

The Brotherhood of Steel having interest in Vertibirds, but ignoring the Hubologists Shuttle.

The Hubologists having a shuttle so similar to NASA's space shuttle of the era the game was made in was kind of dumb just by itself. The Brotherhood of Steel has tons of reasons to have wiped out the Shi, too. Their functional Zax computer would have been something they probably would have liked. Their ability to make high tech weapons would have given the Brotherhood quite a good incentive to go after them. Then there's the whole fuel thing.

You can explain away that the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 2 was heavily declined which is why they would rather have the plans for a Vertibird as opposed to taking down the Shi in order to get their goodies. That's something you'd have to do in order to get all that stuff in San Francisco. The big problem with this is that Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout TV show contradict the whole "declining" Brotherhood of Steel thing. Fallout 76 kind of screws this as well, since the Brotherhood of Steel was capable of mounting a force of significant size to cross the entire country 25 years after the end of the Great War AND had functional communications with the East Coast prior to traversing the continent. Everything other than Fallout 2 and New Vegas suggests that the Brotherhood of Steel is fairly massive.

 

[SharkClub]

Greatness aside, Fallout 2 was full of stupid things, and the talking Deathclaws were one of them.

Super Mutant Melchior in the military base, the optional "boss fight" in the second game. A fun fight, but still super stupid.

Fire geckos lacking any explanation for their existence, it's like some developer was into D&D and decided to include "dragons" in the sequel, at least in my opinion this is one of the critters that belong somewhere else, not Fallout 2. If they could only be found in the special encounter where the MC is ambushed by a trillion of wild Geckos, okay, as those encounters shouldn't be taken seriously by the player base.

The Brotherhood of Steel having interest in Vertibirds, but ignoring the Hubologists Shuttle. Yeah, there's some flaws in their spaceplane, a number of things the scientists didn't take into account, resulting in bad endings for their faction, that you can find on the web. Even so, you'd think they'd at least want to steal components from the spaceplane, or something.

Ghost in The Den, one of the quest givers in the town. You can kill a person that is already dead: You can explode her with Plasma grenades, since she's not immune to plasma.

Talking spore plant, in Broken Hills.

Fallout 2 is still my favorite one, despite these things.

The fire geckos I never really thought (or cared) about, can be handwaved by the magic of FEV+radiation or whatever, maybe another genetic experiment like the xenomorph wanamingos.

The ghost in the Den was definitely a problem but if you were desperate for an explanation without just removing it from canon you can make a stretch that there is some psychic psyker shit going on there, maybe the girl was a psyker before she died and it has some profoundly retarded supernatural effects because of it. I didn't know you can kill her ghost with plasma, that seems like it's just an oversight.

Melchior was dumb, the magician angle was just stupid, but again could probably be explained at a desperate stretch to have something to do with a psyker being exposed to FEV.

Talking spore plant is hardly any more egregious than the talking deathclaws or mole rats, that's all part of the same package to me. I mean yeah the spore plant obviously doesn't have a mammal or lizard's vocal chords to be able to form words but maybe the dialogue is just how the chosen one interprets what he's saying. Of course if you have problems with the talking deathclaws and mole rats then yeah, this is part of that issue.

The Brotherhood not being interested in the Quetzel is definitely very retarded, they should want that shuttle to hoard it and keep it away from people. I'm guessing they're so cucked by the time of Fallout 2 (there's literally 1 BoS guy in the entire game, they obviously do not have a presence in the area) that they can't really do anything about it, or maybe they know the Hubologists are incompetent and will blow themselves up trying to use it and the problem will solve itself, but the fact that the sole BoS guy there never even makes a mention to it or the Hubologists shows how disjointed San Francisco as an area is.

Of course, your mileage may vary with any of these "explanations", I don't want to make it seem like you can just say "FEV" or "psykers" to explain everything wrong with Fallout 2, that's what makes those things turn into the force from Star Wars. I still think most of the things you listed are retarded. Fallout 1 obviously never had this problem despite both of those things existing in it to make use of. I would also never give Fallout 3 the same amount of charitable generosity towards explaining its faults. You can probably just blame Urquhart instead.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The Brotherhood not being interested in the Quetzal is definitely very retarded, they should want that shuttle to hoard it and keep it away from people. I'm guessing they're so cucked by the time of Fallout 2 (there's literally 1 BoS guy in the entire game, they obviously do not have a presence in the area) that they can't really do anything about it, or maybe they know the Hubologists are incompetent and will blow themselves up trying to use it and the problem will solve itself, but the fact that the sole BoS guy there never even makes a mention to it or the Hubologists shows how disjointed San Francisco as an area is.

I somewhat wonder if the Brotherhood of Steel has less of a presence in Fallout 2 because the Brotherhood would be highly interested in a lot of the things going on in that game. If the Brotherhood were as powerful as they were in the first game, you'd have to wonder why they didn't wipe out the energy weapon gangsters and take their stuff. They'd have wiped out San Francisco and taken everything. They probably would be keeping tabs on Mariposa, which would have made it tricky for The Enclave to do what they were doing. They probably would have done something about Navarro when The Enclave started setting up shop there. That crashed vertibird would have probably been salvaged. Given the reaction to the Supermutants, I would think they would have wiped out the talking Deathclaws. There's a whole lot of crazy things that the Brotherhood would probably be all over - unless they couldn't be all over it.

It's just kind of odd that every game(and the TV show) after Fallout 2, except maybe New Vegas which is kind of a question mark in some regards, the Brotherhood has a fairly massive presence. It's almost like you can't really mesh Fallout 2's Brotherhood with anything that came after it.

 

[SharkClub]

The BoS weren't really some all-powerful force in Fallout 1 either. It's cut content (restored in certain unofficial capacities) but the super mutant invasions that were meant to be on a timer in Fallout 1 do eventually wipe out the Lost Hills bunker. To me it was always quite clear in Fallout 1 that they are a small but highly equipped group of people, and very insular. They can only afford to send a small squad with you to clear the front door of the military base despite the fact that the super mutants threaten their whole existence and the place was basically on their front doorstep. Fallout 2 showed them to be in decline and Tactics which takes place between the two games seemed to indicate a large chunk of them went east and had to abandon the old isolationist ways in order to survive as a faction. I definitely do not think even the Fallout 1 Brotherhood had the resources to be able to storm San Francisco and kill all of the Shi and Hubologists. In Fallout 2 they (he? it's literally one guy and he gets murdered by Frank) act a lot more covertly than anything, like spies. It'd make sense if the BoS tasked you with deliberately sabotaging the Quetzel to make sure it explodes or something like that, and something similar for the Shi's Emperor. If they can't take it for themselves they can at least find ways to prevent other people from having it.

It was only with the flanderization of the BoS with Fallout Brotherhood of Steel and then Fallout 3 and 4 that they became some impossibly massive nation of people, because they're marketable. The lore is also total cringe in Fallout 76, where they have enough people that they can afford to send a formidable group of them all the way from California to West Virginia right after the war just so they could appear in the game, because they're marketable. Steel be with you.

 

[9ted6]

Greatness aside, Fallout 2 was full of stupid things, and the talking Deathclaws were one of them.

Super Mutant Melchior in the military base, the optional "boss fight" in the second game. A fun fight, but still super stupid.

Fire geckos lacking any explanation for their existence, it's like some developer was into D&D and decided to include "dragons" in the sequel, at least in my opinion this is one of the critters that belong somewhere else, not Fallout 2. If they could only be found in the special encounter where the MC is ambushed by a trillion of wild Geckos, okay, as those encounters shouldn't be taken seriously by the player base.

The Brotherhood of Steel having interest in Vertibirds, but ignoring the Hubologists Shuttle. Yeah, there's some flaws in their spaceplane, a number of things the scientists didn't take into account, resulting in bad endings for their faction, that you can find on the web. Even so, you'd think they'd at least want to steal components from the spaceplane, or something.

Ghost in The Den, one of the quest givers in the town. You can kill a person that is already dead: You can explode her with Plasma grenades, since she's not immune to plasma.

Talking spore plant, in Broken Hills.

Fallout 2 is still my favorite one, despite these things.

The entire main plot and antagonists being a painfully drawn out SNL political skit.

 

[JDR13]

Not sure how you guys can mention all those things without saying anything about the 1920's style gangsters with tommy guns.

 

[9ted6]

Not sure how you guys mention all those things but not the 1920's style gangsters with tommy guns.

Fallout 4 overshadows it probably.

Skinny Malone and his gang subplot coupled with the whole Hire a 1920's robot PI to help find your son who's been missing for 50 years plot is where 4 goes from bad to worse than the dumbest parts of 2 and 3. And that's early game, it only declines from there.

 

[JDR13]

Skinny Malone and his gang subplot coupled with the whole Hire a 1920's robot PI to help find your son who's been missing for 50 years plot is where 4 goes from bad to worse than the dumbest parts of 2 and 3. And that's early game, it only declines from there.

Idk... I think FO3 is equally dumb, if not more so, with Little Lamplight and the wannabe vampire gang.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Tbf, the vampires are just cannibals trying to resist eating flesh. Their leader pretty much said as such. The whole vampirism thing was just part of his indoctrination scheme.
Little Lamplight is pretty bad though. I don't know how those brats can live next to super mutants or how there are even children there to begin with if they are all forced to leave when they become teenagers, but I doubt Emil put much thought into it other than "lol foul mouthed children in a cave".

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The BoS weren't really some all-powerful force in Fallout 1 either. It's cut content (restored in certain unofficial capacities) but the super mutant invasions that were meant to be on a timer in Fallout 1 do eventually wipe out the Lost Hills bunker. To me it was always quite clear in Fallout 1 that they are a small but highly equipped group of people, and very insular. They can only afford to send a small squad with you to clear the front door of the military base despite the fact that the super mutants threaten their whole existence and the place was basically on their front doorstep. Fallout 2 showed them to be in decline and Tactics which takes place between the two games seemed to indicate a large chunk of them went east and had to abandon the old isolationist ways in order to survive as a faction. I definitely do not think even the Fallout 1 Brotherhood had the resources to be able to storm San Francisco and kill all of the Shi and Hubologists. In Fallout 2 they (he? it's literally one guy and he gets murdered by Frank) act a lot more covertly than anything, like spies. It'd make sense if the BoS tasked you with deliberately sabotaging the Quetzel to make sure it explodes or something like that, and something similar for the Shi's Emperor. If they can't take it for themselves they can at least find ways to prevent other people from having it.

Oh, I agree that they were a small force in Fallout 1, but they were a small force with Power Armor and lots of firepower. There's around two dozen paladins with Power Armor that you can see in Lost Hills, and most of the rest have upgraded Combat Armor which would be a huge advantage against most of the towns that would oppose them if they got surly. There's also an unknown number patrolling around. As mentioned though, they don't recruit very often at all, with the player being a noteworthy exception. So, they really can't go to all out war even with their tech advantage just because they have no way of refreshing lost or injured Paladins and Knights.

Supermutants are clearly the only big threat for them in Fallout. Supermutants also have big guns and energy weapons and honestly don't really need Power Armor. They also have fresh soldiers being created. Supermutants bum rushing Lost Hills and wiping it out is something no one really questions, simply because they don't have to win the first battle. They can lose the first battle and just attack again at a later date. The Brotherhood probably would have to win their first battle with Mariposa decisively because they wouldn't be able to survive the counter offensive. That's one reason why I never understood the "We're only sending one squad with you" thing when you talk them in to helping you with Mariposa. That's a battle that they'd better win. I kind of suspected that you get to see one squad, but they probably had a couple other squads hanging back out of sight just in case.

It was only with the flanderization of the BoS with Fallout Brotherhood of Steel and then Fallout 3 and 4 that they became some impossibly massive nation of people, because they're marketable. The lore is also total cringe in Fallout 76, where they have enough people that they can afford to send a formidable group of them all the way from California to West Virginia right after the war just so they could appear in the game, because they're marketable. Steel be with you.

It's not only that, but Bethesda can't help themselves but adding 'memberberries in their games, like making Fallout 4's Kellogg tied to the Shi in Fallout 2. The Fallout Wiki is fairly well wrecked when you go to look things up to refresh your memory on things.

You see two minibunkers in Fallout 2, and I don't think Matt built those by himself. It's kind of weird that the Brotherhood "good ending" is the canon one, Rhombus lives, the Brotherhood slowly introduces technology to the newly developing NCR, the Mutant Army is routed and no longer attacks settlements, and so on. Yet you only see Matt in Fallout 2. Meanwhile, Bethesda apparently can't figure out if Fallout Tactics is canon or not, they're fairly massive in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 despite being completely different in terms of their overall look on things, they're in West Virginia possibly, and there's a group in the Mojave and fought with the NCR over Helios One.

The NCR apparently has a decent relationship with the Brotherhood, at least most of the time. There's a bunker in Shady Sands. There's what's said about the Brotherhood in the ending to Fallout. The NCR has a state of Maxson in it, probably named for the Founder of the Brotherhood. It's kind of odd that they'd have those two bunkers in Fallout 2 if not for the purposes of recruiting. Maybe they serve as embassies, but there's that whole State of Maxson thing. If they have a state, I would think they'd just do the traditional senator and representative thing as their way of dealing with the NCR as opposed to an ambassadorship.

Tbf, the vampires are just cannibals trying to resist eating flesh. Their leader pretty much said as such. The whole vampirism thing was just part of his indoctrination scheme.

I think the problem is that Bethesda can't seem to keep their fantasy tropes out of Fallout. They turned Supermutants in to ogres, and there's the whole feral ghouls in the subways thing. The vampire gang is right up there with that.

 

[Bulo]

I don't mind that Bethesda's orcs are effectively Tolkien orcs: corrupted mortals, evil by nature (in comparison to The Master's Army, who were merely brutal idiots). I do mind that they've done it three fucking times now, and have never attempted to play with the idea. The mutants in 4 should have been a group of begrudging survivors from the Capital Wasteland led by Fawkes under the banner of the Brotherhood of Steel. The game would have still been shit, but at least I could have my nigga Fawkes as a companion again

 

[Harthwain]

Tbf, the vampires are just cannibals trying to resist eating flesh. Their leader pretty much said as such. The whole vampirism thing was just part of his indoctrination scheme.

I think the problem is that Bethesda can't seem to keep their fantasy tropes out of Fallout. They turned Supermutants in to ogres, and there's the whole feral ghouls in the subways thing. The vampire gang is right up there with that.

There is a much simpler explanation: Bethesda is creatively bankrupt and prefers doing things the safe way by sticking with what is popular or what they think "just works", even if it an overused meme at this point.

Fallout 2 showed them to be in decline and Tactics which takes place between the two games seemed to indicate a large chunk of them went east and had to abandon the old isolationist ways in order to survive as a faction.

Honestly, I really enjoyed Tactics. It was set in a familiar Fallout setting with the Brotherhood of Steel being the main focus, and the premise of expading their influence by assisting nearby regions and getting fresh recruits hold together well in isolation. But I was never a big lore fan, which may be why my impression of Tactics is different than most as I was willing to turn a blind eye to the inconsistencies.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Honestly, I really enjoyed Tactics. It was set in a familiar Fallout setting with the Brotherhood of Steel being the main focus, and the premise of expading their influence by assisting nearby regions and getting fresh recruits hold together well in isolation. But I was never a big lore fan, which may be why my impression of Tactics is different than most as I was willing to turn a blind eye to the inconsistencies.

I think the biggest issue with canonizing Fallout Tactics is that basically the Brotherhood of Steel, at least the midwest chapter, pretty much owns the midwest at this point. Honestly, as much retconing and foolish stuff that Bethesda has done with the Brotherhood of Steel between Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and the TV show, I still doubt that they'd be a match for the Midwest Brotherhood of Steel.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

Bethesda is creatively bankrupt and prefers doing things the safe way by sticking with what is popular or what they think "just works"

Capitalism 101, Pinko.

 

[lukaszek]

how there are even children there to begin with if they are all forced to leave when they become teenagers

its peter pan theme

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

how there are even children there to begin with if they are all forced to leave when they become teenagers

its peter pan theme

It's stupid themed, that's what it is.

 

[Zeriel]

The BoS weren't really some all-powerful force in Fallout 1 either. It's cut content (restored in certain unofficial capacities) but the super mutant invasions that were meant to be on a timer in Fallout 1 do eventually wipe out the Lost Hills bunker. To me it was always quite clear in Fallout 1 that they are a small but highly equipped group of people, and very insular. They can only afford to send a small squad with you to clear the front door of the military base despite the fact that the super mutants threaten their whole existence and the place was basically on their front doorstep. Fallout 2 showed them to be in decline and Tactics which takes place between the two games seemed to indicate a large chunk of them went east and had to abandon the old isolationist ways in order to survive as a faction. I definitely do not think even the Fallout 1 Brotherhood had the resources to be able to storm San Francisco and kill all of the Shi and Hubologists. In Fallout 2 they (he? it's literally one guy and he gets murdered by Frank) act a lot more covertly than anything, like spies. It'd make sense if the BoS tasked you with deliberately sabotaging the Quetzel to make sure it explodes or something like that, and something similar for the Shi's Emperor. If they can't take it for themselves they can at least find ways to prevent other people from having it.

It was only with the flanderization of the BoS with Fallout Brotherhood of Steel and then Fallout 3 and 4 that they became some impossibly massive nation of people, because they're marketable. The lore is also total cringe in Fallout 76, where they have enough people that they can afford to send a formidable group of them all the way from California to West Virginia right after the war just so they could appear in the game, because they're marketable. Steel be with you.

Yeah, the original lore of them is "a few soldiers took some gear and ran off before the bombs fell", it does not really support the idea of a whole civilization or faction of infinite resources. If anything, their power and technology would be devolving over time as the few pieces of pristine tech they have stops working. That's an example of how Fallout 1 is written really well compared to its sequels; even 2, I'd argue. The later devs to pick up the franchise just never showed the requisite restraint to write compellingly in a semi-believable fashion.

If Enclave was canon, I'd say they'd far outstrip BoS. It's like comparing Mount Cheyenne entire parallel civilization underground base to a few soldier desertees.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, the original lore of them is "a few soldiers took some gear and ran off before the bombs fell", it does not really support the idea of a whole civilization or faction of infinite resources. If anything, their power and technology would be devolving over time as the few pieces of pristine tech they have stops working. That's an example of how Fallout 1 is written really well compared to its sequels; even 2, I'd argue. The later devs to pick up the franchise just never showed the requisite restraint to write compellingly in a semi-believable fashion.

That's probably one of the smarter choices that was made during Fallout's development. It's nearly impossible to pin down how many members the Brotherhood initially had since they put out a few radio calls before they headed to Lost Hills, and the logs mention that stragglers were showing up for a while after the initial exodus. So, you don't know how many people followed Maxson, and on top of that, you don't know how many came afterwards or for how long afterwards or even from where.

The waters get muddy after that with Bethesda shoehorning in the Brotherhood of Steel to West Virginia several decades before Fallout takes place. Up until Fallout 76, you can just assume that the Brotherhood was gaining members between the Great War and when Fallout takes place because of those logs in the first game. The only time they lost members that we know about until that introduction would be the group they sent to The Glow.

As for that technology declining over time, maybe? I still have a refrigerator from the 1960s that still works. It's been running fine, with zero maintenance other than defrosting it every few months, for 8 decades now. We currently think of things breaking down in ten to twenty years, but that wasn't always the case. We're conditioned to expect things to break these day, but that wasn't always the case.

If Enclave was canon, I'd say they'd far outstrip BoS. It's like comparing Mount Cheyenne entire parallel civilization underground base to a few soldier desertees.

Unfortunately, they retconned a lot of the stuff that The Enclave did. The Enclave in Fallout 2 not only had technology, but they were making NEW technology. They made the Vertibirds and the Advanced Power Armor. Bethesda retconned those things as being developed before the nukes were dropped which kind of nerfs The Enclave as the threat they were in Fallout 2. But yeah, The Enclave would have been more than a match for the Brotherhood just because they had several things that the Brotherhood didn't have.