Sentinel Sarah Lyons is the highest ranking Brotherhood of Steel officer at the Citadel, after Elder Owyn Lyons, her father, and the commander of the elite Lyons' Pride squad in Fallout 3.
After the death of Owyn, she replaced him as elder, and remained in that position until she was killed in action, paving the way for Arthur Maxson's rise, and his eventual appointment as elder in Fallout 4.[1]
She is also a legendary dweller in Fallout Shelter and an SSR Vault Dweller in Fallout Shelter Online.
Background[]
Born in 2251, at Lost Hills in New California, the three year old Sarah lost her mother in infancy,[Non-game 1] and accompanied her father on the transcontinental expedition to Washington, D.C. in 2254,[2] under the elders' council mandate to recover technology from eastern cities and bases.[3][Non-game 1] The expedition arrived in D.C. in 2255, following The Scourge, and Sarah began combat training under the supervision of Paladin Tristan, with who she formed a close professional bond.[Non-game 2]
Over the next twenty-two years, Sarah accumulated training, experience, and leadership skills. As she rose to become one of the finest fighters at the D.C. Bunker, her father (promoted to elder from star paladin, for the discovery of Liberty Prime) gradually switched the chapter's mission from recovery to super mutant containment.[4] He lied to the elder council about following the original mission, and eventually disobeyed direct orders, leading to Lost Hills breaking ties with him.[5] Sarah remained loyal to her father, with her accumulated skills and experiencing rivaling his during his time as a paladin.[Non-game 1] In recognition of her achievements, Owyn granted her the highest possible rank, sentinel, and allowed her to form the Lyons' Pride, an elite squad used to plug holes in the frontline and respond to the most dangerous of super mutant attacks.[6] Each member of the Pride is hand-picked by Sarah,[7][8] and openings only happen when she has to fill casualties. The starting point is the ability to reliably take down super mutants at 150 yards (about 130 meters).[9]
War with the Enclave[]
Sentinel Lyons at Chevy Chase.
By 2277, Sarah and her Pride was running constant operations in downtown D.C., keeping back the tide of super mutants.[10] The sheer brutality of the super mutants (Sarah personally witnessed a strike squad wipe out an overconfident Brotherhood five-man team)[11] and the attrition rate among local conscripts her father started recruiting to fill out the chapter left her with a negative impression of local wastelanders. She considered them undertrained and trigger-happy,[12] and essentially wasteland trash.[13]
A chance encounter with the Lone Wanderer in Chevy Chase and the subsequent reappearance of the Enclave have paradoxically resulted in inactivity. While, as sentinel, Sarah wanted to attack the Enclave at the Purifier immediately, before they could entrench their position and shore up defenses, Elder Lyons forbid the attack as too risky: The Citadel had barely enough men to defend itself and hold the perimeter, and the Purifier was useless to the Enclave without a Garden of Eden Creation Kit to kickstart the purification process.[14] The situation changed completely after the Lone Wanderer, captured in Vault 87, returned from Raven Rock with information that the Enclave acquired one and could activate the purifier as soon as they realized the code.[15]
Realizing the danger of the Enclave controlling the purifier, Sarah implored the elder to order an immediate attack. Owyn relented, and deployed the Pride alongside Liberty Prime, finally activated thanks to Rothchild and Doctor Li resolving its perennial power problems. Sarah and her squad spearheaded the attack on the Jefferson Memorial, using the giant robot as a distraction to penetrate the facility.[16] After dealing with Colonel Autumn in the main chamber of the purifier, Sarah and the Lone Wanderer were forced to quickly decide on who should activate the purifier, as the damage sustained in the battle caused a severe radiation buildup that could only be resolved by activating the purifier.[17] To do so, one of them had to enter the control room and input the code, while exposed to extreme levels of radiation.[18]
- The following section follows the canonical outcome of Fallout 3 (see this section for details on alternate outcomes.)
The activation of the purifier by the Lone Wanderer or one of their radiation-immune followers (Fawkes, Charon, or Sergeant RL-3) unleashed an energy spike that knocked both Lyons and the Wanderer unconscious. They were recovered by a team under Paladin Tristan and returned to the Citadel for recovery. While the Lone Wanderer came to two weeks later, the comatose sentinel required a longer recovery period, and Tristan assumed temporary command of the Pride in the meantime.[19]
Sentinel Lyons regained consciousness and returned to service as the Brotherhood attacked Adams AFB, personally ensuring the safety of the Lone Wanderer as they called down an orbital strike on the mobile base crawler. She was granted the use of a captured VB-02 Vertibird, rendered operational by Scribe Vallincourt, and picked the Lone Wanderer up from the crawler itself shortly before the orbital strike.[20][21] She resumed her post as Lyons' Pride commander and was immediately thrown into the thick of the action, performing long range tech recovery for Scribe Rothchild (from D.C. to Virginia),[22] watching the borders of the Capital Wasteland for Enclave stragglers and reinforcements,[23] and continuing the cleansing of D.C. downtown of supermutants.[22] While Elder Lyons declared them to be the chapter's "next great obstacle," Sentinel Lyons wished for some downtime, rather than continuing her father's obsessive hunt. However, she could not disobey orders, so she put on a stiff upper lip and continued the campaign.[24]
Her father passed away shortly after the defeat of the Enclave. Sarah was the obvious successor and was named elder in her father's place, while also becoming the formal steward of Squire Arthur Maxson. She continued to lead the Brotherhood from the frontlines, which had disastrous consequences: Elder Sarah Lyons was killed in action shortly after her promotion, leaving the Brotherhood of Steel at the Citadel in disarray, as they appointed a succession of ineffective elders. However, her death also paved the way for Arthur Maxson's rise to the position.[1]
Personality[]
Sentinel Lyons with the Lyons' Pride.
Sentinel Lyons is a confident woman and a charismatic leader. The Lyons' Pride is utterly loyal to her, and each of the hand-picked members believes that Sarah Lyons embodies combat excellence. Getting picked by her means that they are the best of the best,[8] the most elite fighting force and tactical unit ever assembled within the Brotherhood,[25] perhaps continent-wide. Some even refer to members of the Pride as "Sarah's cubs."[26] Those who don't boast of their status are in the minority in Sarah's unit.[27] While the sentinel trains the Pride hard and demands excellence, especially from prospective recruits, she is also empathetic and will do her best to comfort her fellow warriors in need, including posthumous promotions to paladin.[28] Among the Pride, she is closest with Paladin Vargas, her sergeant, friend, and mentor.[Non-game 3]
Sarah is well aware of her abilities and position with in the Brotherhood. She treats it as a matter of fact, and while some brothers joke about a lack of humility, they are always happy to see Sarah and her Pride assist them in combat. Similarly, Sarah treats the fact that her commanding officer is also her father as a simple coincidence, and has no qualms about referring to him using that term.[29] The same goes for the fact that she's a woman. Sarah pays little attention to her gender, and either doesn't notice or ignores the glances some of her fellow brothers give her.[30] However, she seems to be aware of the latent sexism among the male members, and together with Knight Captain Dusk regularly ensures the "knuckle draggers" are reminded that all are equal in combat.[31]
When it comes to leadership, Sarah favors aggressive, bold attacks, even with sub-par information about the enemy. Occasionally, her aggressive mindset might result in a sincere desire to rush headlong into combat, especially against enemies who earned her ire, such as the Enclave after seizing Project Purity. The Outcasts are also on her list of preferred targets, but she is aware that her father is unwilling to decide their fate and authorize an assault on people whose main crime is disagreeing with him.[32]
Relationships[]
As the head of the Pride, she has close professional relationships with members of her squad, who are also some of her closest friends.[28] Sarah is typically admired by younger brethren at the Citadel, and some, like Initiate Pek, claim to have fallen in love with her. While the sentinel is amused, she has requested his reassignment to a different part of the metropolitan area.[Non-game 4] Older members, especially veterans from the West, tend to display more professionalism, and treat her as a peer. This is especially true of Paladin Tristan, her former mentor.[Non-game 2]
Squire Arthur Maxson, the future elder, is trained in combat by Sentinel Lyons, but with care. The one time she did take him out on a combat patrol, to show him the ropes, he wound up inadvertently shooting her while opening fire on a super mutant.[33] The squire is generally infatuated with Sarah, especially since she teaches him useful skills: Like how to kill a man by stabbing him in the kidneys.[34]
She has the most complicated relationship with her father. While nobody suggest nepotism or preferential treatment, as Sarah has demonstrated her valor and ability,[Non-game 1] being the daughter of her commanding officer makes it difficult to separate the two roles. The familial relationship affects Owyn's decisions on where to deploy the Pride,[32] especially in the war against the Enclave.[35] It doesn't help that Owyn is a bit of a neglectful father and routinely forgets about Sarah's birthday every year, and when he does, he takes it upon himself to remind Sarah of her feminity.[30]
Interactions with the player character[]
Interactions overview[]
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This character is essential. Essential characters cannot be killed. She becomes vulnerable if the Citadel is destroyed at the end of Who Dares Wins 
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This character is a temporary companion. | |
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This character starts quests. | |
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This character is involved in quests. | |
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This character drops an ear upon death (Contract Killer). | |
Companion[]
Lyons is available as a temporary companion at Chevy Chase during Following in His Footsteps and while attacking the Memorial during Take it Back!. Her stats are normally on par with a normal Brotherhood of Steel paladin. However, while fighting the Enclave on the way to the memorial, her health is increased to 505, giving her extremely high durability on par with Star Paladin Cross. The increase is largely a convenience, as Lyons is marked as essential unless the player chooses to destroy the Citadel.
Furthermore, Sarah Lyons is coded as a non-player character companion, and therefore uses up ammunition for her weapons, unlike most non-player characters. She has more than 100 microfusion cells in her inventory, giving her a substantial amount of ammunition before she switches to her melee weapon.
Quests[]
- Following in His Footsteps: The Lone Wanderer encounters Sarah while traveling to the GNR building plaza. The player will find her squad not far from the Tenleytown/Friendship station exit to Chevy Chase North. When the player approaches her, Sarah will warn them about the ruins, but allow them to follow the Pride. After fighting through the Early Dawn Elementary, the squad engages a super mutant behemoth in the ruins, which manages to kill Initiate Reddin before the Pride eliminates it with the Wanderer's assistance. Lyons will enter GNR to talk to the defenders, and the player can talk to her to get some light on the situation in Downtown D.C.
- If the Lone Wanderer already acquired the Power Armor Training perk and wears a power armor during the fight, Sarah will comment "By the way, because you helped us I'm going to let you wear that Power Armor. But don't you ever forget where it came from."
- The Waters of Life: Sentinel Lyons receives the Lone Wanderer at the Citadel, as they reach safety together with the rest of the surviving Project Purity team. Sarah will attempt to convince her father to order an immediate attack on the purifier, bu Elder Lyons will deny permission, believing such a rushed attack on the freshly resurgent Enclave to be foolish.
- The American Dream: After escaping Raven Rock, Sarah will be found at the Citadel, trying to convince Elder Lyons once again to attack the purifier. The revelation that the Enclave has acquired the G.E.C.K. will cause the Elder to change his mind and authorize an attack on the Memorial, spearheaded by the Pride and Liberty Prime.
- Sarah will offer the Lone Wanderer a choice of Lyons' Pride power armor at the conclusion of the dialogue.
- Take it Back!: The Lone Wanderer and Sentinel Lyons battle their way across the Potomac and into the control room in the Jefferson Memorial rotunda, confronting Colonel Autumn and his personal guard. The player can choose to kill Autumn or talk him down, which prompts alternative responses from Lyons (in particular, she's bemused by the fact that letting him go means he'll walk right into the Brotherhood forces outside). Then, the player has to make a decision on who should activate the Purifier (or wait for the Purifier to explode, resulting in a non-standard ending).
- If the player tells Sarah Lyons to activate the purifier, she will accept the duty and enter the code herself. She is killed by the resulting radiation blast, while the player is knocked out. The choice will persist in Broken Steel, with Paladin Tristan assuming permanent command over the Pride.
- If the player has the Lone Wanderer activate the purifier, the resulting energy spike will kill them, as Sentinel Lyons watches in despair. Without Broken Steel, this permanently ends the game
With Broken Steel installed, the Wanderer is instead knocked out together with Lyons, regardless of whether they activate the Purifier themselves or ask their radiation-immune followers (Fawkes, Sergeant RL-3 or Charon) to do it. They will come to two weeks later. Sentinel Lyons will be alive, but in a coma.
- Who Dares Wins: If she survived Take it Back!, Sentinel Lyons will reappear at the end of the quest, retrieving the Lone Wanderer using a Vertibird and returning them to the Citadel, after watching the orbital strike obliterate the mobile base crawler.
- The player can choose to nuke the Citadel with the Bradley-Hercules while at the crawler. If that's the case, then the Brotherhood will become permanently hostile and Sentinel Lyons will attack them immediately after arrival, calling the Wanderer a traitor. Her essential status is also removed at the same time, allowing the player to kill her.
Other interactions[]
- She wears the standard Lyons' Pride power armor, which can be acquired by planting an armor with higher Damage Resistance on her, as with other Pride members or killing her after nuking the Citadel.
Inventory[]
- Fallout 3
| Apparel | Weapon | Other items |
|---|---|---|
| Lyons' Pride power armor | Laser rifle |
- Fallout Shelter
Fallout Shelter Online[]
Sarah is an SSR (Super, Super Rare) character in Fallout Shelter Online, belonging to the Brotherhood of Steel faction.
Abilities[]
- Experimental MIRV: Deals 100+% of Sarah's base damage to all enemies, and temporarily reduces their physical and energy resistance. Attacks an entire group, with a short cooldown.
Perks[]
- Armor Piercing Attack:
- Physical Defense:
- Strong:
Traits[]
- Human:
- Physical Attack:
- Mid-Range:
Skins[]
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Notes[]
If the player is wearing power armor upon first meeting her, she, unlike most Brotherhood members, will not be fooled into thinking that they are one of them. This is best demonstrated when she says, upon killing the behemoth at GNR Plaza, that she is willing to let the player keep the power armor provided that they “never forget where it came from.” This is meant to imply that she is not easily fooled.
Notable quotes[]
- "We've still got the damn Frankensteins crawling all over D.C. and Rothchild's got us picking up every blinking gizmo from here to Virginia."
- "Keep firing! They bleed just like anything else!"
- "It's not your fault, Vargas. Reddin was good enough for the Pride, and she proved it here today. When we get back to the Citadel, I'll talk to the scribes. Let it be chronicled that Paladin Reddin passed her test."
- "We do our best to hold back the Super Mutants in this area. But when civilians stumble into our sights, that gets a bit difficult. Doesn't it? "
- "You dare assault a Brother of Steel?"
Appearances[]
Sarah Lyons appears in Fallout 3 and the Fallout 3 add-on Broken Steel as well as a legendary dweller in Fallout Shelter, an SSR dweller in Fallout Shelter Online, and in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. She is also mentioned in Fallout 4.
Behind the scenes[]
- The Official Game Guide states that she traveled east at the age of seven, which would place the expedition in 2258, not 2254, and is contradicted by the game.[Non-game 1]
- She, Amata, and Owyn Lyons, are the only characters in the game to have "Very Good" Karma.
- In Fallout Shelter she is equipped with T-51 power armor, even though she and all other Capital Wasteland chapter Brotherhood of Steel members wear T-45.
Bugs[]
- After destroying the Enclave at the end of Broken Steel, the first thing she will say to the Lone Wanderer afterward is, "When I first saw you long ago in that alley Chevy Chase, I thought you were just some trashy Wastelander. I'm glad to see I was wrong.", even if the player never completed the Galaxy News Radio quest (eg. by skipping it and heading to Vault 112 directly).[verified]
- At the end of the game Sarah Lyons can glitch into either saying that "the control room still isn't clear" or repeat the phrase "Steel be with you!" [verified]
- After The Waters of Life, before speaking to Rothchild to start the quest Finding the Garden of Eden, Lyons will appear on the road leading from Arlington Library to the Flooded Metro, walking along the road to a point past the Nuka-Cola plant. [verified]
Gallery[]
Fallout 3[]
Fallout Shelter series[]
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare[]
Magic: The Gathering[]
References[]
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Non-game
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.96:
"Sentinel Sarah Lyons:
Sarah, 26, was born in the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel headquarters. At the age of seven, she accompanied her father on his journey east to the Capital Wasteland (her mother having died several years earlier). Sarah Lyons is Brotherhood through and through, as dedicated and decorated as her father when he was younger. She commands a group of soldiers assigned to patrol the Washington, D.C., Mall area and operates out of the G.N.R. studio outpost." - ↑ 2.0 2.1 Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.89:
"Paladin Tristan:
Tristan is in charge of all the day-to-day operations of the Citadel and training new members. He follows Elder Lyons's ideals on the new direction the East Coast faction of the Brotherhood of Steel is taking very closely. He is serious and doesn't take any crap, but he’s also very wise. Like a few others, he was a part of the original expedition that discovered the Pentagon ruins with Elder Lyons. He has a close (professional) relationship with Sarah Lyons whom he trained since she was quite young. Tristan is usually found wandering the main control room area of the Citadel (the old bay for Liberty Prime)." - ↑ Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.90
"Paladin Vargas:
The sergeant of Lyon's Pride, Vargas is 30, and a no-nonsense, professional type. He is Sarah's right hand man; she relies on him for his experience and advice, and he supports her and mentors her. There is a very close but mostly unspoken friendship between them. He is no relation to Nathaniel Vargas of Megaton." - ↑ Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.77:
"Initiate Pek:
Pek is young (16), gung-ho, and inexperienced. He's totally in love with Sarah Lyons (who finds him secretly amusing but is professionally annoyed with his behavior, and has requested that he patrol a different part of the Metro Area). He is always the one charging into danger first, celebrating victory prematurely, and possibly getting blown away by foes he never saw coming."
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