The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less.

Why they didn't ally once Eden was out of the picture is just bugging me. They both shoot mutants, raiders, and ghouls, and want nothing more than making the country strong and ordered again. Hell, the Brotherhood of Steel is not so different from the Enclave. Who knows, if things had been different (and the story less screwed up) we could have got something like Autumn and Lyons bringing order and peace to the wasteland together. Too bad we don't get a 'Autumn win' ending, because I have the feeling that he was pragmatic enough to understand that full-blown genocide wasn't the solution.

Autumn probably want to use it as a basis for making the Enclave more powerful than ever, probably bringing order to the wastelands in the progress, using something along the lines of 'join the enclave and get fresh water'. James want to help the wastelands (though the water problem is arguably minor, loads of men and women seems to live old and tumorless). Eden want the purifier to retry Richardson's evil plan from Fallout 2. The problem with the purifier is that three different factions want it for different goals.

IJBM that there wasn't an alternative to this, and that his sacrifice had to be seen as the act of a saint, when it was really Stupidity Is the Only Option. If not for James' scripted death, I believe that you could have killed Autumn (who isn't much of a boss anyway - he could have a bigger bad do the rest of the bad guy thing later) and the two Enclave soldiers, escaped with Dad during that Escape Sequence, drop him off at the Citadel, and it wouldn't have altered the story at all (In Broken Steel, he could have taken the place of that one busy bureaucrat at Project Purity or been found wandering around the Purifier).

Despite all this, he still thinks you don't have a chance against the Enclave and takes it upon himself to try and take out three of them - with no regard for you. The last bit is somewhat circumstantial - if you haven't cleared out the Jefferson Memorial before he brings everyone to start working on Project Purity again, he tasks you - his only child - to go in and clear out the super mutants by yourself, because he's no good in a fight. Then he hops into Tranquility Lane without leaving himself a back-up plan, with no evidence that he can get out of his Pod - we know how that fares for him. It starts with him trusting the Vault 101 Overseer and thinking that you will be safe if he leaves you behind - which starts that Escape Sequence where Vault Security is trying to kill you.

It's not that his instincts are good, it's that he tries to shoulder burdens by himself, never thinks of consequences, and has repeatedly been a horrific judge of others' character or situations.

His instincts are good, too later on, you're put in a similar situation, and if you do provide the code, Autumn's gratitude takes the form of several 10mm rounds.

The Enclave is pretty well known to be the sort of folk who'd cut out an eye to spite their face. That's not the sort of action you expect from someone who likes what you doing, but just wants the credit.

He had just seen them blow a woman's face off.

Your dad was Genre Savvy, he knows that in any After the End story, the U.S.

And James was working with the Brotherhood the last time, before his wife died and kicked off this whole series of events.

Quite possibly - this is a couple of decades after the last attempt in Fallout 2, and the Brotherhood of Steel apparently knew about the Enclave and its plans in California, probably due to the Vault Dweller passing the data along.

Why was James willing to sacrifice his life and, potentially, all of Project Purity just to keep it out of The Enclave's hands? OK, so Eden's plan was to use it to spread FEV, but did James know that? And if he did, then surely the Brotherhood would as well, in which case why didn't they Brotherhood keep the Project going without James? OK, this is a little modified from my original post.

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