Roger Maxson Captain Roger Maxson ( service number 072389 ) was an officer in the United States Army who became the founder of the Brotherhood of Steel and its first high elder after the Great War . Biography . Roger Maxson was originally the second in command of the security team stationed in the West Tek research facility since January 3 , 2076 . The team and research personnel were later relocated to the Mariposa Military Base on January 7 , 2077 , where further FEV research was conducted . On October 10 Maxson and his men learned about the human experiments going on in the base , morale suffered a hefty blow . The original leader of the security team , Colonel Robert Spindel , suffered a nervous breakdown and locked himself in his office and Maxson assumed his command . Captain Maxson then took control of the entire base and began interrogating the scientists . After interrogating chief scientist Robert Anderson and learning what was really happening on the base , Maxson executed him . Two days later , Spindel committed suicide and Maxson ordered all the scientists to be interrogated and finally executed . Confused and detached , Maxson declared himself and his men in full desertion from the army via radio . No answer came as the political situation was at its climax and the Great War was at hand . The personnel families stationed outside the base were ordered to move inside the base on October 20 and two days later the bombs fell . Maxson and his men survived the war unharmed , safely sealed inside the Military base unaware that the world had ended around them . After making sure the radiation levels outside were safe , Maxson ordered everyone to leave the accursed military base and travel to the Lost Hills government bunker . After burying the scientists , Maxson ' s soldiers and their families began the Exodus to Lost Hills . Raider attacks inflicted a heavy toll of casualties , including Maxson ' s wife , but his teenage son survived . Maxson and his men later formed the Brotherhood of Steel and the Lost Hills facility served as their main base . Maxson became the first high elder of the Brotherhood of Steel , forming the orders of knights , scribes , and paladins . In 2097 his grandson , John Maxson was born . Roger Maxson eventually died of cancer in 2135 and his son , already an accomplished soldier took up the role of the high elder , which stayed with the Maxson family until John ' s death . After his death , the Brotherhood regarded Roger Maxson as an almost holy figure . Two places are known to be named after either him or his descendants - Maxson , one of the states of the New California Republic , and Maxson bunker , a Brotherhood of Steel outpost somewhere to the east of California . The only known current living descendant of Roger Maxson is the young Arthur Maxson , who spent his childhood inside the Citadel in the Capital Wasteland , under the care of Owyn Lyons and the East Coast detachment of the Brotherhood of Steel . In the year 2287 , he is the elder in charge of the East Coast detachment aboard the Prydwen in the Commonwealth . Appearances . Roger Maxson does not appear personally in any of the " Fallout " games but is mentioned in holodisks and in Brotherhood of Steel dialogues .