Commonwealth Minutemen

The Commonwealth Minutemen are a faction in the Commonwealth in 2287.

History
The Minutemen first stood out when they successfully defended Diamond City from a super mutant attack in 2180. The last leader of the Minutemen was General Becker. Upon his death, the Minutemen began having internal power struggles and could not agree on a new leader. Following the Quincy Massacre, all members of the Minutemen are either dead or have run off, with the sole exception of Preston Garvey. Some small mention of a battle/series of battles between The Minutemen and The Institute is mentioned by Piper, but no other mention of this event or chain of events as far as your character might know at first. The Institute has a lot of enemies. The Minutemen tangled with them once, ..."

Interactions with the player character
Soon after escaping the vault, the Sole Survivor comes across the Museum of Freedom under attack by raiders. They must fight their way upstairs, where they are introduced to Preston Garvey, who is leading a group against the raiders. The Sole Survivor later meets with Preston who then invites them to join the Minutemen and the Minutemen questline starts. Throughout this questline the Sole Survivor will be asked to lead the Minutemen and complete tasks to align more settlements with the Minutemen. Eventually this will lead to a quest in which the Minutemen take back their former headquarters, The Castle. With all the minutemen quests completed, new quests assigned by Preston Garvey will begin to cycle back through previously completed quests. This entails completing the same quests again.

The Minutemen are benign as factions go, and will stay friendly to the player character should they ally with any of the other factions, The Institute, Brotherhood of Steel, or The Railroad. However, the Sole Survivor can opt out of any of those factions and work specifically with the Minutemen for the main quest.

Upon completion of the main story with the Minutemen, soldiers from the army will patrol the wasteland. The Sole Survivor will occasionally obtain the quest "Defend the checkpoint." This quest consists of mainly helping a minutemen patrol defend a checkpoint against synths, raiders, ghouls, or the Brotherhood of Steel, if hostile to The Brotherhood.

Faction War
Depending on the action of the player character, the Sole Survivor may initiate a war against other factions. If choosing the Minutemen for the main quest, a war is triggered between the Minutemen and the Institute. This path will lead to Defend the Castle against the Synths. And later on, the completion of the main quest with The Nuclear Option.

If the player decides to attack the Brotherhood of Steel, the two factions will go to war. This action will lead to battles across the wasteland. The war will end with Preston Garvey giving the player character With Our Powers Combined, and immediately after Defend the Castle. Once the quest is over, the war is over. Although surviving Brotherhood members will be hostile.

Notable members

 * General Joe Becker
 * General McGann
 * Colonel Ezra Hollis
 * Lieutenant Foster
 * Minutemen
 * Brent Savoldi
 * Clint (formerly)
 * Emma
 * Josh
 * Mama Murphy
 * Preston Garvey
 * Ronnie Shaw
 * Sole Survivor (optional)
 * Sturges
 * Wire (formerly)

Related quests

 * When Freedom Calls
 * Sanctuary
 * The Sight
 * Taking Independence
 * Old Guns
 * Inside Job
 * Form Ranks
 * Defend the Castle
 * The Nuclear Option
 * With Our Powers Combined

Appearances
The Commonwealth Minutemen appear only in Fallout 4.

Behind the scenes

 * The faction is based on the 'Minutemen' who helped fight the British during the Revolutionary War.
 * The original Minutemen from the Revolutionary War were select groups picked from local militias that underwent additional training in order to ready themselves rapidly ("at a minute's notice") in order to protect their fellow citizens, hence the name.
 * It was also used to refer to soldiers who could load their muzzle-loading muskets in under 60 seconds during a firefight. A very difficult task as revolutionary rifles had the powder, primer, bullet, and ignition source reloaded separately for each shot.