Preston Garvey

Preston Garvey is a senior officer of the Commonwealth Minutemen, a volunteer defense militia operating in the Commonwealth in 2287. He is also available as a companion of the Sole Survivor.

Early life
Preston Garvey originally enrolled with the Minutemen under Colonel Hollis at the age of seventeen. An avid believer in the espoused justice of the Minutemen cause, Preston joined the Minutemen under the direct command of Hollis himself. Things began to change for the worse when settlements under the protection of the Minutemen grew complacent. Freed from the greater concerns of the erstwhile dangers of the Commonwealth, settlements increasingly neglected their obligations to the collective in favor of petty self-interests.

Quincy Massacre
In 2287, Sturges, an inhabitant of the influential trading hub at Quincy - requested the aid of the Minutemen after having heard one of Mama Murphy’s visions, which foresaw the town being surrounded and massacred. Although the majority saw Murphy as a burned-out chem addict, Sturges went behind his fellow citizens to invoke the protection of the Minutemen. Preston joined Hollis on a mission to rescue Quincy, where they found the Gunners besieging the town.

The Minutemen dispersed the Gunner lines and were welcomed by the citizens of Quincy while the Gunners temporarily retreated. An ex-Minutemen officer named Clint had revealed himself to Colonel Hollis as the leader of the invading force. Hollis felt extreme anger at this betrayal. The citizens expressed confusion and frustration. Clint sought to establish terms of surrender for Quincy and its defenders; these terms were summarily rejected by Hollis.

While the subsequent events are not explicitly recorded in text, the outcome for the Minutemen is broadly established by dialogue with Preston and various other wastelanders: the Minutemen requested support, which did not arrive; the Gunners overwhelmed the defenders and murdered nearly all of the civilians; Col. Hollis, the linchpin of the long-dwindling Minutemen cause, died fighting. The event is known as the Quincy Massacre and it catalyzed the disintegration of the remaining settlements under Minutemen protection.

Post-Quincy
Consequently, Preston gathered the few remaining Quincy civilians and loyal members of the Minutemen and fled. Several of the refugees lost their lives at the hands of the Gunners before the group shook their pursuit at Jamaica Plain. The refugees next moved to Lexington. Regrettably, as Preston testifies, Lexington was filled with feral ghouls; the hardships of the town gradually whittled the group's numbers down to just over ten. Eventually the group moved to Concord where they took shelter in the Museum of Freedom, only to find themselves under the constant predation of raiders, who unbeknownst to the group are under orders from their leader, Jared, to acquire Mama Murphy

By the time the Sole Survivor arrives to help Preston, he is leading the last pocket of people under the protection of the Minutemen. His group numbers only five - a mere fraction of the original twenty who escaped Quincy under his guidance.

Quests

 * When Freedom Calls: Preston asks of the Sole Survivor to equip properly and clear out Concord so he and his people can move away to a safer place.
 * The First Step: Preston asks the Sole Survivor to help out a settlement. If this quest is completed, Preston will become available as a companion.
 * Taking Independence: Preston asks the Sole Survivor to help take back The Castle (Fort Independence) previously occupied by the Minutemen.
 * The Molecular Level: If the Survivor chooses to build the Relay Interceptor with the Minutemen, Garvey will tell them to ask Sturges for help, since he's the best engineer he's ever met.
 * Defend the Castle: If played as part of the Minutemen quest line, Garvey will assist in defending the Castle from the Institute attackers.
 * The Nuclear Option: Garvey, along with Sturges and a few other members of the Minutemen, will assist the Survivor during their attack on the Institute. Garvey will also be present when the Survivor sets off the nuclear blast from atop the Mass Fusion building.
 * Radiant Minutemen quests: Garvey will assign the Sole Survivor up to three radiant quests every time he is spoken to, provided none of the quests mentioned above are currently active.
 * After appointing the Sole Survivor as the new general of the Minutemen, he assigns quests that slowly extend the influence of the organization by capturing new territory and defending the settlements already loyal to the cause.

Effects of player's actions

 * When reaching the highest affinity with Preston, he grants the United We Stand perk, which increases damage dealt by 20% as well as increasing damage resistance by 20 points when facing 3 or more enemies at once.
 * If the player character attacks a member of the Minutemen, Preston will instantly and permanently disassociate from the Sole Survivor as a companion.
 * Preston can be romanced.
 * When the Sole Survivor becomes the overboss of Nuka-World, Preston Garvey becomes angry at the player character asking them to repent their actions and to leave the Nuka-World raiders. If the Sole Survivor ignores the request, the Minutemen will turn hostile; if the player character accepts, he will simply no longer be an available companion. They can't stay hostile forever, since they are the unbreakable way of beating the game story.
 * Preston Garvey will remain friendly if he isn't present during Taken for a Ride. However, establishing a raider outpost and planting the flag for a raider gang will immediately drop his affinity to the lowest level, even if he isn't present.
 * However, should the Sole Survivor become the overboss of Nuka-World prior to becoming the general of the Minutemen, Preston will not drop his affinity to the point he will be unattainable as a companion since he wasn't recruited yet. Instead, the next time Preston is spoken to, he will be upset at the Sole Survivor for supporting the Nuka-World raiders. He will ask them to repent their actions and eliminate the gang, saying that "the last thing the Commonwealth needs is another gang of Raiders." Regardless of accepting or ignoring his request to leave the raiders, Preston will simply tell the Sole Survivor that in order to work with the Minutemen more, they must eliminate the Nuka-World raiders first, thus blocking further access into the Minutemen questline.
 * Accepting Garvey's request to eliminate the Nuka-World raiders will start the quest Open Season, where the Sole Survivor has to execute the Nuka-World raider gang leaders and fight a massive horde of other raiders to free Nuka-Town's traders from slavery. This is the same quest the Sole Survivor gets when they meet Mackenzie Bridgeman.
 * Even though Preston Garvey orders the player character to eliminate the raiders, they don't have to be eliminated. The player character must become an enemy of the Nuka-World raiders, and doing so returns Preston's dialogue back to normal.
 * If the game is completed without evacuating the Institute, the next time when the Sole Survivor speaks to Garvey he will scold them for not evacuating Institute survivors before blowing up the Institute.

Appearances
Preston Garvey appears in Fallout 4 and Fallout Shelter.

Behind the Scenes
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 * Preston Garvey may be an allusion to early 20th Century British-Jamaican philosopher and political figure Marcus Garvey. Marcus Garvey was a populist community organizer who advocated for unification of African-American peoples under the collective banner of their African heritage in much the same way Preston Garvey is a populist community organizer who advocates for the unification of the Commonwealth under the collective banner of American heritage. They are also both known for wearing distinctive hats.
 * In Bethesda's E3 conference, during the gameplay trailer of Fallout 76, the player character faces a hostile player, whose in-game name is "PGarvey", which is a nod to Preston Garvey.