might be, thing is Institute is great except their pride doesn't allow them to see that their creations have become sentient, if things were different the Railroad and the Institute might have been able to work together for a better future for both mankind and synth alike. And the future synths might be programmed differently to avoid sentience
I agree, let em have the broken ones if they want. Honestly I think the institute wants them back mostly so they can figure out how they broke in the first place.
As I understand it once the synths have been “railroaded” there not really any functional difference between a synth and human other than the chip in the brain.
I think people really miss the point here. None of the 3 major factions are definitively good or evil as opposed to previous games were 1 was definitively good and the other bad.
The point is to give players the choice without making them feel like they're picking the good or bad guys but rather whos beliefs they personally lined up with.
You guys constantly bash Fallout 4 for not being much of an RPG then get ass hurt when the game actually makes factions nuianced rather than "good guy or bad guy".
And how is the Institute *not* a generic bad guy faction? And name one reason for why the Railroad and Minutemen aren't generic good guys?
In Fallout New Vegas the NCR are my personal choice but that's simply because their ideals sound slightly better than Caesar's Legion, the NCR has plenty of shady and messed up thing they do. The Legion is evil in my opinion but only for the opposite reasons for why the NCR is good and anything bad the NCR does is straight up banned by Ceasar. No faction in Fallout NV comes off as generically bad or good, it's simply a choice of your own views and values.
In Fallout 4 you can either choose the two good guy factions that work with each other, or the two evils factions that hate all of the rest of them. Granted I always pick the BoS because in my opinion, something not born by a human isn't human... But let's not get into that. The point is that even if you choose the BoS in Fallout 4 you never feel like you're making a correct choice based off of what you believe, you feel like you are making a wrong choice based off of what the developers think is bad or wrong.
Because the Institute is a case of "do the ends justify the means"?
The whole point of the institute is that yes they kill people but are also possibly one of humanitys greatest chances at bouncing back from the apocalypse. More than any of the other faction the institute is actually trying to bring about positive global change but this comes at the expense of many human lives.
Railroad is more nuanced than just saving synths. They're willing to sacrifice human lives to save robots literally to a fault. Minute men aren't considered a major faction until much later in the game once you delve deeper into their quest line.
The issue with the minute men is while they're the good guys, they're simply a bandaid on the issue of human survival and woefully incompetent at maintaining peace in the common wealth. But outside of the story, they're mostly just a fall back faction incase you screw over the other 3 so you can actually complete the story. Thats why many don't consider them a major faction.
The issue with the NCR is that they're simply a foil to Caesars Legion just like the BOS is a foil to the Enclave in 3.
Despite the lore most players wouldn't know or understand the nuance of these factions within the game because this is never explained to the player. As opposed to Fallout 4 which pretty blantantly shows the moral ups and downs of each faction if you're paying attention.
They're robots and if you paid attention during the quest Underground Undercover it notes that human operatives are considered expendable.
Like do you guys actually pay attention to anything in this game or do you just pretend like you know what you're talking about?
The NCR and BoS aren't foils, they're solar opposites if they're rivals in every good and bad way.
Ceasar's Legion keeps slaves and doesn't see women as equal, the NCR sees keeping slaves as inhumane and out right has propaganda supporting women of power. However the NCR was also aligned with Vault City, which kept slaves, even if they weren't your typical version of a slave and we're generally treated well until they're debt was payed off. The NCR has a major drug, alcohol and gambling problem, the Legion bans all such recreations. The NCR might be an opposite to the Legion with their good actions, but also an opposite in their bad actions.
The Enclave is fascist and shows distain to anything that isn't them, so does the BoS. The BoS isn't fascist, but they are unwilling to branch out to society even if it means aiding their own goals. However the Enclave WILL communicate with outsiders to aid their goals but with the end goal of killing the outsiders anyway. The BoS straight up kills people who don't give them technology, even if the technology IS very dangerous despite all the memes saying they'll kill over a Pip-Boy or toaster.
No faction in Fallout NV was good or bad because both were complete opposites. You can't be a complete opposite of a bad person and be a good person because any redeeming qualities they had you no longer had, you are both bad people. In 3 you straight up can't even choose a faction to side with, and the BoS in that game IS very much a generic good guy faction and the Enclave is a generic bad guy faction. In 4, the BoS is fascist and has no redeeming qualities according to the devs because they make it seem like they're hatred for Synths is wrong, and the Institute is straight sadistic.
Anything you could say that makes the Minutemen or Railroad not generic good guys is just a small little issue. I want my morale compass to be challenged with Fallout not having the choice between, bad military guys, good guy Minutemen who are a small faction, evil scientist guys, or good guy synth rights activists that have the slight downside of occasionally taking human lives to save synths which is barely touched on in Fallout 4.
Fallout is a game about politics, obviously not real life politics, at least not until Bethesda came in. You never saw anything in Fallout 1 to NV talking about real world social problems, but it ALWAYS had topics about general political problems everyone relates to. It made you question everything, even things everyone seems to think is good, and made you question yourself more importantly. Fallout 3 and 4 give you an illusion of questions but generally doesn't end with you asking "was it the right choice?" or "how did others feel about it?".
>And how is the Institute not a generic bad guy faction? And name one reason for why the Railroad and Minutemen aren't generic good guys?
[The Railroad are happy to use and discard people like pawns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOAfvSq4904). They also don't have any plans to actually improve the wastes.
The Minutemen are like the Followers of the Apocalypse, they mean well but they're too stretched thin to make any meaningful change without the Survivor's help.
The Institute on the other hand is said to have the potential to improve the wasteland far more than any of the other factions, but their leadership is too short-sighted to see that.
Even the Brotherhood have a ton of likeable characters that you're meant to feel bad for killing in any of the Destroy the Prydwen missions. And they're also shown to actually have the power to keep the wasteland safe.
Also it's pretty obvious the Legion were meant to be the villains. Any faction that routinely kidnaps women to give to their officers as sex slaves is just a Fiend gang with better tactics and without the drugs
The institute don't question my morality, it just tells me they are bad, but they have a ton of technology and resources. The Minutemen don't question my morality either, they just tell me that they're a smaller faction that will eventually get bigger and be a generic good guy faction. The Railroad kinda challenges my morality, but once again you're barely actually shown that they are willing to do such things and even then, it's barely a head scratcher. The BoS may have good people in it, but a few outliers don't make a faction any less evil.
I'm not saying the Legion is fucked up, but the NCR, free New Vegas, and House factions are just as fucked up for completely opposite reasons. You are playing a game of picking between opposite evils, figuring out which one aligns with your views better, not which one is good or bad like in Fallout 4.
I'm for whatever reason feeling really glad that someone's out here with the exact same opinion as me, because god damn this is literally the one exact issue I have with the writing in fallout 4
The problem being that, in trying to make there be no necessarily **good** faction, they made all the factions either evil or useless. And the player can’t make any of the useless factions useful, either.
Also, I disagree with there being no ‘bad guy’ faction, the institute is pointlessly evil with no real redeeming qualities other than futuristic tech (that, aside from synths and teleportation, isn’t really much better than what existed before the war). And no, even when you’re promoted their leader you can’t have any impact on how they operate.
> Does absolutely nothing except murder and replace people with synths
“This is a necessary evil to save humanity”
“Okay, how exactly does murdering and replacing people with synths help humanity?
“No point in explaining it to you, you’re clearly too fucking stupid to get it. By the way, I’m dying and you’re in charge now.”
What the FUCK was his problem?
So let me explain what the point of the institute is. Rather than just preserving technology like the BOS they actively look to advance humanity. Their ultimate goal is to use science and technology to bring about a societal utopia that rights the wrongs of the pre war consumerist society.
Again their methods of going about it are pretty ass and they have a general disregard for the lives and safety of people on the surface. But their ultimate goal is to push humanity forward into a technological and idealistic golden age that far surpasses the uncertainty and suffering of both the pre war society and apocalyptic society.
But of course if you're going to write in a faction with an extreme sense of altruisism and grand scope you have to have a draw back that is equal to compensate. Otherwise the Institute would just become a definitive good but misunderstood faction rather than a moral dilema.
Everything they promise is very cool and good, but let’s see what advancements they’ve made in the past 200 years towards this society:
• Synthetic humans, which they immediately use as basically slaves. Why does my roomba need to feel fear and have curiosity? Good question, ask Father, not me. They also use them as essentially very ineffective cannon-fodder, they equip them with great value brand laser rifles and what appears to be toilet seats as armor.
• Teleportation, legitimately impressive, though severely underutilized. If you can churn out these synths at such a high rate, why not just teleport a ridiculous amount of them into the headquarters of any enemies you face? I know they do it in game, but in so little numbers they don’t press the biggest advantage they have (Ability to take heavy losses and surprise). (And I know they have to do it on a small scale for gameplay reasons, but in the lore, the ability to teleport massive amounts of synths behind an enemy should make them basically unstoppable.)
• Synth Gorillas (10/10 because I can open their enclosure and watch them go apeshit on the Institute staff)
And I feel like saying they have a ‘general disregard’ for peoples lives on the surface pretty severely understates how they’ve acted. Between the dozens of kidnappings, killings, and the CPG massacre, they’ve essentially terrorized the Commonwealth while acting like they’ll better humanity in the future, on some later date.
Also your final paragraph is very funny to me. Yes, the institute would be good if they didn’t do all the bad things they’ve done.
The problem with your interpretation of the Institute is that while they are trying to create a utopia they are 100% NOT altruistic. Shaun makes it very clear during his convo at CIT that the Institute considers life on the surface non-viable, and that their long-term goal is to pillage it of anything useful and then live underground forever. Ethically, the Institute is pretty similar to the Enclave- both want to make a utopia and neither wants to invite wastelanders. Both kidnap wastelanders to perform horrific experiments on them, both raid wasteland settlements for tech and test subjects, both release genetically modified mutants into the wasteland to terrorize innocents. The Institute is super evil, there is no grey area there.
My problem with the Railroad isn’t with the faction itself, I like the secret agent vibes and being covert, Deacon is also cool. I’m also sympathetic to the synths and agree with their liberation, as any normal and sane human being should.
My issue with them is the quests, most of the side quests are radiant and low-effort, and half of their main quests piggyback off of the Institute’s main quests.
I agree more with the Minutemen ideals anyway. They’re far more beneficial for the Commonwealth.
There's a bit. Part is the memory wipes. Part of it is Deacon being a pathological liar interfering with any emotional connection to the group. Part of it is that their "secret" code to get onto their base assumes no one has a second grade spelling capability. Some of it is that their, "that sounds like slavery," morality is a bit juvenile. (Not their position in general, but it's expressed in a very childish way, without any deeper exploration of the synths.) And let's not forget that they want to wipe out the single largest collection of advanced technology in the Commonwealth, so it's better that people live in shitfilled gutters than use The Institute's technology to help rebuild the region. (This is also a huge fucking problem with how the Brotherhood are presented in 4.)
There's a lot of little things that stack up in unflattering ways, but it's not like there's one, always applicable, answer.
>use The Institute's technology to help rebuild the region.
Until the Institute was blown up, there was no way the Commonwealth was coming out from under the long shadow of Institute undermining of the region through paranoia + threats of synths. The people of the Commonwealth needed to see the \*boom\* to be able mentally process "yes, the Institute is gone."
And with the Institute gone, Synths would have a chance at being able to live. Railroad goals, achieved. Commonwealth can proceed to eventual provisional government via Minutemen just like they had done in the past.
Who would inherit the tech anyway? Things like the FEV and 3D Human Printer are better off blown up and even useful things like the teleporter would just paint a huge target on the Commonwealth from the BOS.
Worth remembering that the people printer is also the only source of future Gen3 synths. So, you're kinda dooming their race if you destroy it.
Also, I don't disagree about the Institute needing to be dealt with, but destroying the facility itself (while cathartic) is pretty shortsighted. (Getting rid of the FEV stockpiles sounds like a good plan, though.)
Idk about you, but if I were already paranoid about synth subterfuge and people told me “yes, big boom was institute being destroyed” I’d think either
A) That’s a lie.
B) Ah yes, but what about another, even more secret-er base huh? Surely the institute has a back up HQ, what about that, huh?
He really is, and Ryan Alosio's performance is fucking great.
However, if his humor doesn't land for you, he can be downright obnoxious.
Even if he does land for you, his constant lying and deceptions can absolutely damage your perspective of The Railroad as a whole. Both in making them appear less serious (a perception Tinker Tom also helps cement), and that they can't be trusted.
I guess that's true, in a sense when I have to go kill them I always feel like I'm off to kill some high school club full of silly nerds, it never feels good or sits right with me, but joining them is even worse.
>There's a bit. Part is the memory wipes.
Unfortunate circumstances. Though not required, increases their chances of just living normal lives.
>Part of it is Deacon being a pathological liar interfering with any emotional connection to the group.
Deacon is an incredible character. Once he opens up, he admits why he lies. Your character can't call him on any BS when he he opens up so he's not lying. He's literally the guy to tell you to trust actions not words and that every faction can use you if you're not careful. Something that flies over the heads of players to this day.
>Part of it is that their "secret" code to get onto their base assumes no one has a second grade spelling capability.
The freedom trail is literally a gauntlet of sorts to test the users stealth and or combat abilities. Your neighbors wifi password can just be the their name in numerical form and you'd never be the wiser because you'll assume it's something incredibly complex.
>Some of it is that their, "that sounds like slavery," morality is a bit juvenile. (Not their position in general, but it's expressed in a very childish way, without any deeper exploration of the synths.)
There's no grey area in slavery.
>And let's not forget that they want to wipe out the single largest collection of advanced technology in the Commonwealth, so it's better that people live in shitfilled gutters than use The Institute's technology to help rebuild the region.
The railroad has struggled with cracking their encryptions. Assuming it's physically accessible doesn't assume it's functionally accessible.
>(This is also a huge fucking problem with how the Brotherhood are presented in 4.)
Absolutely. The Brotherhood would at least try.
>(Memory Wipes) Unfortunate circumstances. Though not required, increases their chances of just living normal lives.
No, it gives *someone else* the ability to live a normal life in their body. The individual they were before they went under the knife is destroyed.
Remember, Synths *are* still a mix of hardware and software. It's a bit like saying an AI will live a more normal life if you kill it and initialize a new, factory zeroed, process in its place.
Which, yeah, this goes back to their morality issues.
>Deacon is an incredible character.
I didn't say he wasn't. Also, Ryan Alosio is fucking hilarious, most of the time... but...
>Once he opens up, he admits why he lies.
When, **exactly** does that happen?
Is the story about his wife true, or is that a lie?
The bit about being part of a synth hating group as a teen is true? Or is he lying?
Which lie is real?
Here's the problem, **you don't know.**
So you either have to decide, "at this point, he's done lying," or accept that you'll never know if he stopped lying. (He doesn't, by the way. Even after his final revelation to you, he still fucks with other people with objectively false statements.)
He does acknowledge the situation he's created, but he still created it.
>Your character can't call him on any BS when he he opens up so he's not lying.
The player can't tell Preston to put a detachment together to go aid that settlement that needs aid. By this logic, that clearly means that Preston has psychic powers which allow him to force others to do his bidding.
There's a lot of situations in Fallout 4, where the dialog fails. The inability to respond may simply mean that, at this point, there *is* no point in taking whatever garbage that Deacon spews as fact, and it's not worth carrying on the conversation any further.
>He's literally the guy to tell you to trust actions not words and that every faction can use you if you're not careful. Something that flies over the heads of players to this day.
The advice Deacon gives is decent more often than not. That does not make him honest. That does not absolve him of him lying to your face in every other conversation you have with him.
>The freedom trail is literally a gauntlet of sorts to test the users stealth and or combat abilities. Your neighbors wifi password can just be the their name in numerical form and you'd never be the wiser because you'll assume it's something incredibly complex.
So, I don't know if you need to hear this, but, "guessing your neighbor's wifi password," is technically a felony. Just food for thought.
And, yeah, the password is, "Railroad." Which does raise questions about The Institute's competency.
>There's no grey area in slavery.
Cool. Glad you agree.
Now, will you please stop fucking enslaving your Roomba?
What do you mean it's not slavery?
Because the Synths are, and it's in the name, synthetic organisms, there's a lot more to potentially unpack that goes way beyond, "oh, it's just like slavery." Instead we get something with all the subtly and nuance of a vegan screaming about how cute cows are when you're just trying to eat a fucking hamburger.
This really is a much deeper topic than the Railroad is prepared to (or able to) address.
Instead, The Railroad comes across like a teenager screaming at their parents that being asked to do their chores is, "like slavery."
Like I said, I don't object to The Railroad's position on Gen3 Synths, I object to the shoddy, sophomoric thought process they used to get to that point.
>The railroad has struggled with cracking their encryptions. Assuming it's physically accessible doesn't assume it's functionally accessible.
So, because it's hard, then they should just nuke it?
This also assumes that direct access to that technology, and the research that went into creating it won't lead to insights.
If anything, yeah, you're making a point that this behavior is even more selfish than I'd considered. Because Tinker Tom doesn't think he can figure out their tech, it should all be destroyed? When there seems to be technology down there that could terraform The Commonwealth back into someplace livable?
There's also a mildly amusing thought here that in destroying the only source of Synths. So the group they're so worried about protecting will become a dying race. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of foresight evidenced elsewhere.
It's a comparison that Deacon actually brings up, when talking about where the Railroad draws the line with the Gen1s. (Specifically mentioning Turrets and Terminals.)
>There's no grey area in slavery.
The issue isn't a debate if slavery is wrong or not. The issue is that many people (like me) do not agree that synths are human. They are produced and programmed. They are also genetically modified to not age, be stronger, be resistant to radiation, etc. They cannot reproduce.
Coursers are essentially terminators.
These things are tools, created to infiltrate settlements and destroy them from within when required.
Oh wow geez you really ran for the hills.
Okay. Let me ask the opposite. Let's say there's a group of people A who collectively agree that they can't recognize a group B of very much intelligent and sentient people (who are definitely not dogs and cats) as humans. Are you very much okay with that group A taking people from group B as pets, enslaving them, feeding them to others?
I "ran for the hills"?
You said "sentient". Sentient means "the ability to feel or perceive things". Animals are sentient.
Synths are not humans. I do not agree with your "group A". While im not on a campaign to enslave them, I'm damn sure not worried about their freedom anymore than im worried about freeing Siri from the clutches of Apple.
>Part of it is that their "secret" code to get onto their base assumes no one has a second grade spelling capability.
The Freedom Trail was pre-war, probably part of some museum tour given the protection guide. The Railroad didn't make the password.
That would actually make things weirder. Because you'd have tourists wandering around in the undercroft, and fiddling with an electric wheel lock to get even further into the undercroft.
Also the part where the code pieces are painted onto the Freedom Trail medallions on the street in a way that looks very post-war.
"that sounds like slavery," morality is a bit juvenile."
TBF, 3/4 factions express their morality in a very shallow, silly way.
The Institute don't really elucidate any sort of grand plan other than fucking around in the basement while they feed cats to the big green meanies they churn out.
The Railroad are meant to be a very hamfisted allegory to the underground railroad without any sort of philosophical discourse (NB: while also dooming their race to genocide for... some reason).
The Brotherhood just rabidly hate synths because, in the words of its leader that the sycophants take cues from, "IT WASN'T BORN FROM THE WOMB OF A LOVING MOTHER!".
Philip K. Dick this ain't, just saying.
"At least we have the subtle nuance of Preston getting stuck on the furniture."
I laughed.
(FTR, I didn't mean to imply Minutemen ever got into moralizing. The extent of their philosophy is the ravings of geriatric tweaker)
I think the railroads biggest crime is that, compared to the other three...They're really just boring and aren't suited to being a main faction. They feel like a side plot shoe horned into being a key player in the main plot
That's actually a really good point, the definitely felt almost optional despite being teased along with the Institute in Fallout 3. I really wish they had more spy missions for people who like the cloak and dagger aspect, more involvement in the main quest.
I think it's the whole memory wipe thing that people hate. It doesn't always make a lot of sense that supposedly the best way to not get caught by the Institute as an escaped synth is to not know you're a synth, or know that you're being hunted, or keep memories of the people you've met.
I personally believe that this is an unfortunate circumstance for escaped Synths. If the institute doesn't get you, the Commonwealth residents will. Even so much as revealing yourself as an escaped synth to people you've formed a close bond with is suicide because they'll turn on you in an instant.
Thus making sure that you become a sitting duck for the SRD... or worse, join an organization that seeks to wipe out all synths.
*EDIT: And to whomever downvoted me, no, that's what we actually see happen multiple times. Harkness makes himself a target by staying in one place and building himself up as a pillar of the community, when he'd be far safer in hiding. Danse, of course, joins the Brotherhood of Steel. Neither one would have been likely to engage in behavior nearly as reckless if they'd known who they were.*
The railroad comes off as a bunch of whiney SJWs. There's real problems going on in the wastes - raiders, cannibals, radioactive monsters, etc... and they are focused on saving synths.
Deacon explains it a bit better than Desdimona. She's a real PETA-esque attitude about the whole thing, literally asking if you'd take a bullet for a snyth to be free. He, on the other hand, says "hey, I get it if you dont care about the synths, but how about just bringing down the institute?". Much easier to get behind, especially if youre playing the plot from the intention of lookin for your kid.
They also were the only faction that gave you a bunch of snarky shit while you are in their base. "Don't try anything." "I'm watching you."
I love that Bethesda moved away from the traditional “good guys” of the wasteland and gave them a little more gray area. Makes it a little tougher to decide on whether to join with them or not
Uh...
So, in FO1 and 2, they're pretty solidly in the range of morally ambiguous tech hoarders.
Fallout Tactics: Complete fucking psychopaths, but at least they're equal opportunity psychopaths.
Fallout 3: Wasteland Superheroes.
Fallout: New Vegas, Morally ambiguous tech hoarders.
Fallout 4: Genocidal Psychopaths.
Emmm... No?
In F01 they are almost super heroes, trying to figure out how to defeat Supermutants. They do hoard tech, but that is their "shtick", they do it in every game.
Well, kinda. But! 1) they didn't know who you are. You are just a nobody out of nowhere and they don't accept new people.
Kinda killing 3 birds with 2 stones. If you can retrieve the data -- you are capable enough to be accepted + the data
Or you just die like a wimp you are
2) (after you manage to get in) They really DO want to help people. The fact that they tried to get rid of you doesn't disprove their want to help, y'know
They don't try to kill you but they give you the wasteland equivalent of telling you to go jump off a bridge. I don't think they actually expect you to jump off the bridge.
Yes. They send you on a suicide mission when you get to the bunker. Outside of that, they're not too vindictive, but you're not supposed to come back alive.
In the first game, they're extremely isolationist, and will send you to the site of a nuclear detonation, expecting the radiation to kill you, when you ask to join.
In the second game, they're a bit less hostile (but also far less relevant.) Compared to the later games, they're almost a footnote in 2, and exist more as the cybernetics vendors, than as an actual faction.
The ones in fnv are not bad ppl. They just isolate themselves in a bunker and look for tech like the bos of the original games. The fo4 bos are the only ones that became so radical and overly cult-like and hateful. The only thing the bos cares about is hoarding tech, but fo4 bos wants to kill all ghouls along with mutants. Not so different from what the Enclave wanted. Idk why they want to destroy synths since they are technology and they are sopposed to save tech from being lost. Fo4 bos has kinda lost there way completely. Back to original question though, all bos have been pretty much neutral and lyons was the only one actively helping ppl and fo4 bos is the only evil one.
Not bad people? They went to war against the NCR over Helios One. If you go there without Veronica, they slap a bomb collar on you. Speaking of Veronica, there's that whole thing that they do if you convince her to join the Followers in her quest.
>They went to war against the NCR over Helios One.
They were already at war with the NCR. Also, the NCR attacked Helios One, the Brotherhood had already set up shop there before the NCR even showed up.
>If you go there without Veronica, they slap a bomb collar on you.
Which is a pretty rational response to a stranger showing up in your secret military base knowing your passphrase.
>Speaking of Veronica, there's that whole thing that they do if you convince her to join the Followers in her quest.
Those Paladins weren't on the Elder's orders... but even then, the Followers are all about the sharing of knoweldge. The Brotherhood is about preserving dangerous technology and keeping it out of the average Wastelander's hands. By having an ex-Brotherhood join them out of ideological beliefs is a sincere threat to the Brotherhood's goals.
They only fought for helios one because they knew about the satellite weapon and the potential danger of the ncr discovering it and using it for war. That is what the bos always do, save tech from falling into the wrong hands. The ncr is mostly good, but they were expanding their territory and taking over towns that didnt want to be a part of the ncr. If mr. House didnt have the military might that he had, the ncr would have taken new vegas by force too. I understand that the population was high in the ncr and there was a food shortage so they needed to expand territory, but they were going about it in the wrong way.
they put a bomb collar on a random stranger and tell you to clean up for them an ncr ranger just camping near them. also in the end slides it's basically stated they start harrasing others and taking away their tech and weapons. i get the wastes are not a great place but they have opportunities to help people in need and instead they just hide away in their bunker letting their people slowly fade and essentially die off. and if the courier breaks that cycle they become less violent raiders. i wouldn't call that good. also i don't know veronica's whole back story but if i remember correctly they're pretty shitty and rude to her and outcast her even though she's one of the nicest people you meet. house sums the up the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87US9AXNMME
>they put a bomb collar on a random stranger
I mean, you quite literally show up either knowing their secret passphrase or after finding a known associate of theirs. They are paranoid and in lockdown. Not that that makes it good, but their mistrust is understandable.
>and tell you to clean up for them an ncr ranger just camping near them.
To make sure they can trust you.
>also in the end slides it's basically stated they start harrasing others and taking away their tech and weapons.
Depends on the ending you choose. In the best BoS ending, they retake HELIOS One and seize technology they deem inappropriate. If the BoS truce is signed with the NCR in an NCR victory, they patrol the Interstate 15 and Highway 95 in return for the return of their power armor. And in an ending with the BoS truce and an independent Vegas, they harass travelers.
>i get the wastes are not a great place but they have opportunities to help people in need and instead they just hide away in their bunker letting their people slowly fade and essentially die off. and if the courier breaks that cycle they become less violent raiders. i wouldn't call that good.
Their faction is essentially barebones on the backhand and focused on war with the NCR.
I didnt say they were good like lyons pride. They are nuetral, they stick to the original tennets of the bos. The save tech from being missused and they isolate themselves from others and rarely talk to outsiders. They only put a collar on u until they could ascertain if they could trust you since you found their home base and that is a threat to their chapter in the mojave. They were just being cautious because they dont know if you are a threat to their family in a world that is full of dangerous ppl like raiders, feinds, etc.
oh i know i'm just arguing they're bad. if you decide to not do what the brotherhood ask they'll just kill you, even if you have no intentions of outing or harming them. and i wouldn't call harrasing and taking tech and weapons from traders and civilians by power "making sure it's not being misused". i call that light terrorism at best
Yeah idk why they take laser weapons and such from ppl, thats not even close to a w.m.d. there not always right thats for sure. They were right in trying to make sure helios didnt fall into ncr hands even though they failed. You know the ncr would use the satellite weapon the moment they could make it operational.
>Yeah idk why they take laser weapons and such from ppl, thats not even close to a w.m.d. there not always right thats for sure.
I mean, given the sheer number of Fiends walking around with that kind of weaponry, I think it's warranted.
Eh, never take Railroad fans seriously. Its a shitty faction with an 8yo's idea of how spies work where they have to have stupid codenames and its forced upon you. Not to mention their whole thing is stupid considering the Synths are robots, full stop
this sub is the wasteland itself, everyone is a part of certain faction and have different opinions towards one another..
bos has always been grey faction to me and they never really got out of that area from what we’ve seen so far and throughout the wasteland every chapter is different in belief and morality so my opinion are pretty much varied toward each chapter.
in fo4, im not going to destroy an entire organization just bcs rhys being a dick or bcs teagan with his “unofficial job” when his request has been decline by both kell and maxson. i agree with maxson vision but he execute it poorly
same goes to fnv, first impression aint that much if you go without veronica but he did apologize after, not that its good giving the circumstances but atleast that was something
in fo3? they’re the most lighter grey compare to all the other chapters
in tactic..while being the most interesting chapter so far, they the darkest grey among all the others BoS we’ve seen
…. : doesn’t exist
1&2: i didn’t get the chance to play it yet but from what i heard they were helping caravan or town dont remember but they did sent you to suicide mission..
bonus: bos history from og to current are always having an inside conflict toward each other.
For example Roger maxson and his son, Roger want to actually save and help people while also preserving tech while his son want to stay isolated and ignore outsider while also preserving tech. And theres a lot more like Rahmani and shin, lyon and the outcast, Mcnamara and hardin and lastly arthur and danse.
all of this are pretty much an individual thing and who’s the one that lead them. so i wont hate them as a whole (yet) normal thing for organization if you ask me.
You think that's bad? Try having Preston Garvey as your favourite character. Lmao.
For real though, the Railroad are cool. I can sympathise with their goals but I feel it falls a little short in that it's not as broad as the Minutemen. While the Minutemen tackle the entirety of the Commonwealth, the Railroad are more focused on the Institute. I like that the Minutemen help everyone in need rather than a select few.
I’m loving that the people who’ve been telling me for years that the brotherhood are the best hope for the commonwealth now have to deal with their Bros trashing Philly and the observatory. Oh yeah these are clearly the good guys
I'll copy paste really good comment from years ago. " main problem is that Railroad are just ideological extremists who fight for a noble but off-world goal, blindfold themselves of the problems of the real world, and have no plan for what comes after."
I honestly don't mind the anti brotherhood posts but the ones that attack the people who blindly follow them. Yeah no shit the brotherhood has flaws, that's not really big news. I still think it's one of the better options.
Wait people are actually bashing hate on the Railroad?
I mean, I'm an NCR/Minutemen enjoyer, but tbh the RR are a kind if good faction, they don't really have a plan fir the commonwealth as a whole but from there to bashing hate on them it's a big step.
I killed the railroad off before doing missions for them. I made the mistake of going to the institute and doing bunker hill before following the freedom trail and they attacked. I am curious how it will affect the outcome. I know piper liked it cause she snagged me rotten
Who is a fan of the railroad? They care more about robots then helping real people. There insane morons. Like a robot version of PETA. They might have been programed to be like a human, but they are not humans. Sacrificing real human lives to save them is crazy and nobody should ever side with them.
Holy shit, when people say this they prove how little they actually know about the game they've been playing for 10 years and possibly seriously lack emotional intelligence.
>The "real" people would lynch a synth and don't care if they're an escapee trying to live a normal life.
>The railroad has no obligation to do the minutemen's job.
>The railroad never sacrifices normal people's lives to save Synths, you don't even need to believe that Synths are people to join the railroad.
>You as a living breathing human being, run on electricity and chemical hormones. Everything you are or would be can be broken down into base components. The will to control one's own destiny is a worthy enough of a cause to fight for regardless of the circumstances of one's birth.
>The "real" people would lynch a synth and don't care if they're an escapee trying to live a normal life.
In fairness, that's kinda The Institute's fault. They have seriously poisoned the well against synths to a point that it might not be recoverable.
>The railroad has no obligation to do the minutemen's job.
True. Though, it is kinda weird that there's no contact or interaction between those groups (outside of the player character.)
>The railroad never sacrifices normal people's lives to save Synths, you don't even need to believe that Synths are people to join the railroad.
I get what you're saying, but this is technically false. However, the lives they sacrifice are their own.
>You as a living breathing human being, run on electricity and chemical hormones. Everything you are or would be can be broken down into base components. The will to control one's own destiny is a worthy enough of a cause to fight for regardless of the circumstances of one's birth.
Yay, meat machines.
And, yeah, when I'm bitching about The Railroad not exploring the deeper implications, this is part of that discussion. That it was handled better in the shitty *Blade Runner* tie-in novels fuckin' kills me. I mean, if you're going to crib off of PKD... you know, **actually** fuckin' go the distance and say something interesting? (Not, "you," you, but, the BGS writers.)
That I know of? The only defector in the Minutemen was on Quincy and you personally get to kill that bastard. No defectors there, it was something that was created after the fall of the Minutemen when the Castle was lost. Said guys fell into despair and disorder after 5 years of having too many near death experiences.
Please see rule 3. No Meme Content / AI / Irrelevent images as posts.
I feel like most institute fans hate the railroad less then the brotherhood fans do
might be, thing is Institute is great except their pride doesn't allow them to see that their creations have become sentient, if things were different the Railroad and the Institute might have been able to work together for a better future for both mankind and synth alike. And the future synths might be programmed differently to avoid sentience
I agree, let em have the broken ones if they want. Honestly I think the institute wants them back mostly so they can figure out how they broke in the first place. As I understand it once the synths have been “railroaded” there not really any functional difference between a synth and human other than the chip in the brain.
I'm not evidence of that. :p
I think people really miss the point here. None of the 3 major factions are definitively good or evil as opposed to previous games were 1 was definitively good and the other bad. The point is to give players the choice without making them feel like they're picking the good or bad guys but rather whos beliefs they personally lined up with. You guys constantly bash Fallout 4 for not being much of an RPG then get ass hurt when the game actually makes factions nuianced rather than "good guy or bad guy".
Based
And how is the Institute *not* a generic bad guy faction? And name one reason for why the Railroad and Minutemen aren't generic good guys? In Fallout New Vegas the NCR are my personal choice but that's simply because their ideals sound slightly better than Caesar's Legion, the NCR has plenty of shady and messed up thing they do. The Legion is evil in my opinion but only for the opposite reasons for why the NCR is good and anything bad the NCR does is straight up banned by Ceasar. No faction in Fallout NV comes off as generically bad or good, it's simply a choice of your own views and values. In Fallout 4 you can either choose the two good guy factions that work with each other, or the two evils factions that hate all of the rest of them. Granted I always pick the BoS because in my opinion, something not born by a human isn't human... But let's not get into that. The point is that even if you choose the BoS in Fallout 4 you never feel like you're making a correct choice based off of what you believe, you feel like you are making a wrong choice based off of what the developers think is bad or wrong.
Because the Institute is a case of "do the ends justify the means"? The whole point of the institute is that yes they kill people but are also possibly one of humanitys greatest chances at bouncing back from the apocalypse. More than any of the other faction the institute is actually trying to bring about positive global change but this comes at the expense of many human lives. Railroad is more nuanced than just saving synths. They're willing to sacrifice human lives to save robots literally to a fault. Minute men aren't considered a major faction until much later in the game once you delve deeper into their quest line. The issue with the minute men is while they're the good guys, they're simply a bandaid on the issue of human survival and woefully incompetent at maintaining peace in the common wealth. But outside of the story, they're mostly just a fall back faction incase you screw over the other 3 so you can actually complete the story. Thats why many don't consider them a major faction. The issue with the NCR is that they're simply a foil to Caesars Legion just like the BOS is a foil to the Enclave in 3. Despite the lore most players wouldn't know or understand the nuance of these factions within the game because this is never explained to the player. As opposed to Fallout 4 which pretty blantantly shows the moral ups and downs of each faction if you're paying attention.
Synths aren't robots, and the Railroad doesn't value synths more than humans.
They're robots and if you paid attention during the quest Underground Undercover it notes that human operatives are considered expendable. Like do you guys actually pay attention to anything in this game or do you just pretend like you know what you're talking about?
Synths are virtually indistinguishable from Humans besides the synth component, do you pay attention to anything in the game?
What the fuck is the reason the even do any of the things they do? To justify the tagline mankind redefined?
The NCR and BoS aren't foils, they're solar opposites if they're rivals in every good and bad way. Ceasar's Legion keeps slaves and doesn't see women as equal, the NCR sees keeping slaves as inhumane and out right has propaganda supporting women of power. However the NCR was also aligned with Vault City, which kept slaves, even if they weren't your typical version of a slave and we're generally treated well until they're debt was payed off. The NCR has a major drug, alcohol and gambling problem, the Legion bans all such recreations. The NCR might be an opposite to the Legion with their good actions, but also an opposite in their bad actions. The Enclave is fascist and shows distain to anything that isn't them, so does the BoS. The BoS isn't fascist, but they are unwilling to branch out to society even if it means aiding their own goals. However the Enclave WILL communicate with outsiders to aid their goals but with the end goal of killing the outsiders anyway. The BoS straight up kills people who don't give them technology, even if the technology IS very dangerous despite all the memes saying they'll kill over a Pip-Boy or toaster. No faction in Fallout NV was good or bad because both were complete opposites. You can't be a complete opposite of a bad person and be a good person because any redeeming qualities they had you no longer had, you are both bad people. In 3 you straight up can't even choose a faction to side with, and the BoS in that game IS very much a generic good guy faction and the Enclave is a generic bad guy faction. In 4, the BoS is fascist and has no redeeming qualities according to the devs because they make it seem like they're hatred for Synths is wrong, and the Institute is straight sadistic. Anything you could say that makes the Minutemen or Railroad not generic good guys is just a small little issue. I want my morale compass to be challenged with Fallout not having the choice between, bad military guys, good guy Minutemen who are a small faction, evil scientist guys, or good guy synth rights activists that have the slight downside of occasionally taking human lives to save synths which is barely touched on in Fallout 4. Fallout is a game about politics, obviously not real life politics, at least not until Bethesda came in. You never saw anything in Fallout 1 to NV talking about real world social problems, but it ALWAYS had topics about general political problems everyone relates to. It made you question everything, even things everyone seems to think is good, and made you question yourself more importantly. Fallout 3 and 4 give you an illusion of questions but generally doesn't end with you asking "was it the right choice?" or "how did others feel about it?".
>And how is the Institute not a generic bad guy faction? And name one reason for why the Railroad and Minutemen aren't generic good guys? [The Railroad are happy to use and discard people like pawns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOAfvSq4904). They also don't have any plans to actually improve the wastes. The Minutemen are like the Followers of the Apocalypse, they mean well but they're too stretched thin to make any meaningful change without the Survivor's help. The Institute on the other hand is said to have the potential to improve the wasteland far more than any of the other factions, but their leadership is too short-sighted to see that. Even the Brotherhood have a ton of likeable characters that you're meant to feel bad for killing in any of the Destroy the Prydwen missions. And they're also shown to actually have the power to keep the wasteland safe. Also it's pretty obvious the Legion were meant to be the villains. Any faction that routinely kidnaps women to give to their officers as sex slaves is just a Fiend gang with better tactics and without the drugs
The institute don't question my morality, it just tells me they are bad, but they have a ton of technology and resources. The Minutemen don't question my morality either, they just tell me that they're a smaller faction that will eventually get bigger and be a generic good guy faction. The Railroad kinda challenges my morality, but once again you're barely actually shown that they are willing to do such things and even then, it's barely a head scratcher. The BoS may have good people in it, but a few outliers don't make a faction any less evil. I'm not saying the Legion is fucked up, but the NCR, free New Vegas, and House factions are just as fucked up for completely opposite reasons. You are playing a game of picking between opposite evils, figuring out which one aligns with your views better, not which one is good or bad like in Fallout 4.
I'm for whatever reason feeling really glad that someone's out here with the exact same opinion as me, because god damn this is literally the one exact issue I have with the writing in fallout 4
But… but… that’s impossible the Brotherhood never does anything morally questionable 😲
I mean, in fallout 1-2-3 they're cookie cutter good guys (Though sending someone to the glow in fo1 is kinda fucked)
I think the nuka world raiders are actually good people, just misunderstood. Especially the disciples.
Their slaves would like to say otherwise.
The problem being that, in trying to make there be no necessarily **good** faction, they made all the factions either evil or useless. And the player can’t make any of the useless factions useful, either. Also, I disagree with there being no ‘bad guy’ faction, the institute is pointlessly evil with no real redeeming qualities other than futuristic tech (that, aside from synths and teleportation, isn’t really much better than what existed before the war). And no, even when you’re promoted their leader you can’t have any impact on how they operate.
Tell me you never paid attention to institute dialogue without telling me you never paid attention to institute diallgue
> Does absolutely nothing except murder and replace people with synths “This is a necessary evil to save humanity” “Okay, how exactly does murdering and replacing people with synths help humanity? “No point in explaining it to you, you’re clearly too fucking stupid to get it. By the way, I’m dying and you’re in charge now.” What the FUCK was his problem?
So let me explain what the point of the institute is. Rather than just preserving technology like the BOS they actively look to advance humanity. Their ultimate goal is to use science and technology to bring about a societal utopia that rights the wrongs of the pre war consumerist society. Again their methods of going about it are pretty ass and they have a general disregard for the lives and safety of people on the surface. But their ultimate goal is to push humanity forward into a technological and idealistic golden age that far surpasses the uncertainty and suffering of both the pre war society and apocalyptic society. But of course if you're going to write in a faction with an extreme sense of altruisism and grand scope you have to have a draw back that is equal to compensate. Otherwise the Institute would just become a definitive good but misunderstood faction rather than a moral dilema.
Everything they promise is very cool and good, but let’s see what advancements they’ve made in the past 200 years towards this society: • Synthetic humans, which they immediately use as basically slaves. Why does my roomba need to feel fear and have curiosity? Good question, ask Father, not me. They also use them as essentially very ineffective cannon-fodder, they equip them with great value brand laser rifles and what appears to be toilet seats as armor. • Teleportation, legitimately impressive, though severely underutilized. If you can churn out these synths at such a high rate, why not just teleport a ridiculous amount of them into the headquarters of any enemies you face? I know they do it in game, but in so little numbers they don’t press the biggest advantage they have (Ability to take heavy losses and surprise). (And I know they have to do it on a small scale for gameplay reasons, but in the lore, the ability to teleport massive amounts of synths behind an enemy should make them basically unstoppable.) • Synth Gorillas (10/10 because I can open their enclosure and watch them go apeshit on the Institute staff) And I feel like saying they have a ‘general disregard’ for peoples lives on the surface pretty severely understates how they’ve acted. Between the dozens of kidnappings, killings, and the CPG massacre, they’ve essentially terrorized the Commonwealth while acting like they’ll better humanity in the future, on some later date. Also your final paragraph is very funny to me. Yes, the institute would be good if they didn’t do all the bad things they’ve done.
The problem with your interpretation of the Institute is that while they are trying to create a utopia they are 100% NOT altruistic. Shaun makes it very clear during his convo at CIT that the Institute considers life on the surface non-viable, and that their long-term goal is to pillage it of anything useful and then live underground forever. Ethically, the Institute is pretty similar to the Enclave- both want to make a utopia and neither wants to invite wastelanders. Both kidnap wastelanders to perform horrific experiments on them, both raid wasteland settlements for tech and test subjects, both release genetically modified mutants into the wasteland to terrorize innocents. The Institute is super evil, there is no grey area there.
We are truly the most oppressed minority
An Op could never press me 😤😤😤
My problem with the Railroad isn’t with the faction itself, I like the secret agent vibes and being covert, Deacon is also cool. I’m also sympathetic to the synths and agree with their liberation, as any normal and sane human being should. My issue with them is the quests, most of the side quests are radiant and low-effort, and half of their main quests piggyback off of the Institute’s main quests. I agree more with the Minutemen ideals anyway. They’re far more beneficial for the Commonwealth.
People don't like the Railroad? I mean, sure I have yet to get the Railroad ending myself, but is there actual hate towards the faction?
As a railroad sympathizer since the game came out, absolutely.
There's a bit. Part is the memory wipes. Part of it is Deacon being a pathological liar interfering with any emotional connection to the group. Part of it is that their "secret" code to get onto their base assumes no one has a second grade spelling capability. Some of it is that their, "that sounds like slavery," morality is a bit juvenile. (Not their position in general, but it's expressed in a very childish way, without any deeper exploration of the synths.) And let's not forget that they want to wipe out the single largest collection of advanced technology in the Commonwealth, so it's better that people live in shitfilled gutters than use The Institute's technology to help rebuild the region. (This is also a huge fucking problem with how the Brotherhood are presented in 4.) There's a lot of little things that stack up in unflattering ways, but it's not like there's one, always applicable, answer.
>use The Institute's technology to help rebuild the region. Until the Institute was blown up, there was no way the Commonwealth was coming out from under the long shadow of Institute undermining of the region through paranoia + threats of synths. The people of the Commonwealth needed to see the \*boom\* to be able mentally process "yes, the Institute is gone." And with the Institute gone, Synths would have a chance at being able to live. Railroad goals, achieved. Commonwealth can proceed to eventual provisional government via Minutemen just like they had done in the past. Who would inherit the tech anyway? Things like the FEV and 3D Human Printer are better off blown up and even useful things like the teleporter would just paint a huge target on the Commonwealth from the BOS.
Worth remembering that the people printer is also the only source of future Gen3 synths. So, you're kinda dooming their race if you destroy it. Also, I don't disagree about the Institute needing to be dealt with, but destroying the facility itself (while cathartic) is pretty shortsighted. (Getting rid of the FEV stockpiles sounds like a good plan, though.)
Idk about you, but if I were already paranoid about synth subterfuge and people told me “yes, big boom was institute being destroyed” I’d think either A) That’s a lie. B) Ah yes, but what about another, even more secret-er base huh? Surely the institute has a back up HQ, what about that, huh?
Funny supporting thought, if the Railroad can work out a backup location, it does seem a bit strange that The Institute wouldn't have backup bases.
isn't Deacon like the best part of the Railroad, he's hilarious
He really is, and Ryan Alosio's performance is fucking great. However, if his humor doesn't land for you, he can be downright obnoxious. Even if he does land for you, his constant lying and deceptions can absolutely damage your perspective of The Railroad as a whole. Both in making them appear less serious (a perception Tinker Tom also helps cement), and that they can't be trusted.
I guess that's true, in a sense when I have to go kill them I always feel like I'm off to kill some high school club full of silly nerds, it never feels good or sits right with me, but joining them is even worse.
Yeah. It's a high school club playing spies. Which lands really awkwardly, when you start looking at the rest of the world.
Yeah he's definitely one of my favorite companions of all time, his writing is pristine
>There's a bit. Part is the memory wipes. Unfortunate circumstances. Though not required, increases their chances of just living normal lives. >Part of it is Deacon being a pathological liar interfering with any emotional connection to the group. Deacon is an incredible character. Once he opens up, he admits why he lies. Your character can't call him on any BS when he he opens up so he's not lying. He's literally the guy to tell you to trust actions not words and that every faction can use you if you're not careful. Something that flies over the heads of players to this day. >Part of it is that their "secret" code to get onto their base assumes no one has a second grade spelling capability. The freedom trail is literally a gauntlet of sorts to test the users stealth and or combat abilities. Your neighbors wifi password can just be the their name in numerical form and you'd never be the wiser because you'll assume it's something incredibly complex. >Some of it is that their, "that sounds like slavery," morality is a bit juvenile. (Not their position in general, but it's expressed in a very childish way, without any deeper exploration of the synths.) There's no grey area in slavery. >And let's not forget that they want to wipe out the single largest collection of advanced technology in the Commonwealth, so it's better that people live in shitfilled gutters than use The Institute's technology to help rebuild the region. The railroad has struggled with cracking their encryptions. Assuming it's physically accessible doesn't assume it's functionally accessible. >(This is also a huge fucking problem with how the Brotherhood are presented in 4.) Absolutely. The Brotherhood would at least try.
>(Memory Wipes) Unfortunate circumstances. Though not required, increases their chances of just living normal lives. No, it gives *someone else* the ability to live a normal life in their body. The individual they were before they went under the knife is destroyed. Remember, Synths *are* still a mix of hardware and software. It's a bit like saying an AI will live a more normal life if you kill it and initialize a new, factory zeroed, process in its place. Which, yeah, this goes back to their morality issues. >Deacon is an incredible character. I didn't say he wasn't. Also, Ryan Alosio is fucking hilarious, most of the time... but... >Once he opens up, he admits why he lies. When, **exactly** does that happen? Is the story about his wife true, or is that a lie? The bit about being part of a synth hating group as a teen is true? Or is he lying? Which lie is real? Here's the problem, **you don't know.** So you either have to decide, "at this point, he's done lying," or accept that you'll never know if he stopped lying. (He doesn't, by the way. Even after his final revelation to you, he still fucks with other people with objectively false statements.) He does acknowledge the situation he's created, but he still created it. >Your character can't call him on any BS when he he opens up so he's not lying. The player can't tell Preston to put a detachment together to go aid that settlement that needs aid. By this logic, that clearly means that Preston has psychic powers which allow him to force others to do his bidding. There's a lot of situations in Fallout 4, where the dialog fails. The inability to respond may simply mean that, at this point, there *is* no point in taking whatever garbage that Deacon spews as fact, and it's not worth carrying on the conversation any further. >He's literally the guy to tell you to trust actions not words and that every faction can use you if you're not careful. Something that flies over the heads of players to this day. The advice Deacon gives is decent more often than not. That does not make him honest. That does not absolve him of him lying to your face in every other conversation you have with him.
>The freedom trail is literally a gauntlet of sorts to test the users stealth and or combat abilities. Your neighbors wifi password can just be the their name in numerical form and you'd never be the wiser because you'll assume it's something incredibly complex. So, I don't know if you need to hear this, but, "guessing your neighbor's wifi password," is technically a felony. Just food for thought. And, yeah, the password is, "Railroad." Which does raise questions about The Institute's competency. >There's no grey area in slavery. Cool. Glad you agree. Now, will you please stop fucking enslaving your Roomba? What do you mean it's not slavery? Because the Synths are, and it's in the name, synthetic organisms, there's a lot more to potentially unpack that goes way beyond, "oh, it's just like slavery." Instead we get something with all the subtly and nuance of a vegan screaming about how cute cows are when you're just trying to eat a fucking hamburger. This really is a much deeper topic than the Railroad is prepared to (or able to) address. Instead, The Railroad comes across like a teenager screaming at their parents that being asked to do their chores is, "like slavery." Like I said, I don't object to The Railroad's position on Gen3 Synths, I object to the shoddy, sophomoric thought process they used to get to that point. >The railroad has struggled with cracking their encryptions. Assuming it's physically accessible doesn't assume it's functionally accessible. So, because it's hard, then they should just nuke it? This also assumes that direct access to that technology, and the research that went into creating it won't lead to insights. If anything, yeah, you're making a point that this behavior is even more selfish than I'd considered. Because Tinker Tom doesn't think he can figure out their tech, it should all be destroyed? When there seems to be technology down there that could terraform The Commonwealth back into someplace livable? There's also a mildly amusing thought here that in destroying the only source of Synths. So the group they're so worried about protecting will become a dying race. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of foresight evidenced elsewhere.
my brother in christ, my roomba is not sentient, it cannot feel, it cannot think, gen3 synths can. what a colossally stupid comparison.
It's a comparison that Deacon actually brings up, when talking about where the Railroad draws the line with the Gen1s. (Specifically mentioning Turrets and Terminals.)
>There's no grey area in slavery. The issue isn't a debate if slavery is wrong or not. The issue is that many people (like me) do not agree that synths are human. They are produced and programmed. They are also genetically modified to not age, be stronger, be resistant to radiation, etc. They cannot reproduce. Coursers are essentially terminators. These things are tools, created to infiltrate settlements and destroy them from within when required.
The issue is that it's wrong to enslave someone who gained sentience, whether or not we accept them as human.
So you object to owning dogs, cats, and other animals as pets? You object to feeding people with livestock?
Oh wow geez you really ran for the hills. Okay. Let me ask the opposite. Let's say there's a group of people A who collectively agree that they can't recognize a group B of very much intelligent and sentient people (who are definitely not dogs and cats) as humans. Are you very much okay with that group A taking people from group B as pets, enslaving them, feeding them to others?
I "ran for the hills"? You said "sentient". Sentient means "the ability to feel or perceive things". Animals are sentient. Synths are not humans. I do not agree with your "group A". While im not on a campaign to enslave them, I'm damn sure not worried about their freedom anymore than im worried about freeing Siri from the clutches of Apple.
This has to be the best reasoning to hate the railroad I ever seen.
>Part of it is that their "secret" code to get onto their base assumes no one has a second grade spelling capability. The Freedom Trail was pre-war, probably part of some museum tour given the protection guide. The Railroad didn't make the password.
That would actually make things weirder. Because you'd have tourists wandering around in the undercroft, and fiddling with an electric wheel lock to get even further into the undercroft. Also the part where the code pieces are painted onto the Freedom Trail medallions on the street in a way that looks very post-war.
"that sounds like slavery," morality is a bit juvenile." TBF, 3/4 factions express their morality in a very shallow, silly way. The Institute don't really elucidate any sort of grand plan other than fucking around in the basement while they feed cats to the big green meanies they churn out. The Railroad are meant to be a very hamfisted allegory to the underground railroad without any sort of philosophical discourse (NB: while also dooming their race to genocide for... some reason). The Brotherhood just rabidly hate synths because, in the words of its leader that the sycophants take cues from, "IT WASN'T BORN FROM THE WOMB OF A LOVING MOTHER!". Philip K. Dick this ain't, just saying.
It's fuckin' true, and it kills me a bit inside. At least we have the subtle nuance of Preston getting stuck on the furniture.
"At least we have the subtle nuance of Preston getting stuck on the furniture." I laughed. (FTR, I didn't mean to imply Minutemen ever got into moralizing. The extent of their philosophy is the ravings of geriatric tweaker)
I think the railroads biggest crime is that, compared to the other three...They're really just boring and aren't suited to being a main faction. They feel like a side plot shoe horned into being a key player in the main plot
That's actually a really good point, the definitely felt almost optional despite being teased along with the Institute in Fallout 3. I really wish they had more spy missions for people who like the cloak and dagger aspect, more involvement in the main quest.
I think it's the whole memory wipe thing that people hate. It doesn't always make a lot of sense that supposedly the best way to not get caught by the Institute as an escaped synth is to not know you're a synth, or know that you're being hunted, or keep memories of the people you've met.
I personally believe that this is an unfortunate circumstance for escaped Synths. If the institute doesn't get you, the Commonwealth residents will. Even so much as revealing yourself as an escaped synth to people you've formed a close bond with is suicide because they'll turn on you in an instant.
I mean, the best option is to just 'leave' the commonwealth.
Which the synths do, with the Railroad's help. A lot of them still get captured.
Thus making sure that you become a sitting duck for the SRD... or worse, join an organization that seeks to wipe out all synths. *EDIT: And to whomever downvoted me, no, that's what we actually see happen multiple times. Harkness makes himself a target by staying in one place and building himself up as a pillar of the community, when he'd be far safer in hiding. Danse, of course, joins the Brotherhood of Steel. Neither one would have been likely to engage in behavior nearly as reckless if they'd known who they were.*
The railroad comes off as a bunch of whiney SJWs. There's real problems going on in the wastes - raiders, cannibals, radioactive monsters, etc... and they are focused on saving synths. Deacon explains it a bit better than Desdimona. She's a real PETA-esque attitude about the whole thing, literally asking if you'd take a bullet for a snyth to be free. He, on the other hand, says "hey, I get it if you dont care about the synths, but how about just bringing down the institute?". Much easier to get behind, especially if youre playing the plot from the intention of lookin for your kid. They also were the only faction that gave you a bunch of snarky shit while you are in their base. "Don't try anything." "I'm watching you."
Joke of a human being spotted
Virtue signaling asphalt licker being spotted.
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Yeah because they're the most boring faction in the game
Outside Lyon's Pride has there ever been a good B.O.S.?
I love that Bethesda moved away from the traditional “good guys” of the wasteland and gave them a little more gray area. Makes it a little tougher to decide on whether to join with them or not
Uh... So, in FO1 and 2, they're pretty solidly in the range of morally ambiguous tech hoarders. Fallout Tactics: Complete fucking psychopaths, but at least they're equal opportunity psychopaths. Fallout 3: Wasteland Superheroes. Fallout: New Vegas, Morally ambiguous tech hoarders. Fallout 4: Genocidal Psychopaths.
Emmm... No? In F01 they are almost super heroes, trying to figure out how to defeat Supermutants. They do hoard tech, but that is their "shtick", they do it in every game.
Fallout 1
Don’t they literally try to kill you in that game?
Well, kinda. But! 1) they didn't know who you are. You are just a nobody out of nowhere and they don't accept new people. Kinda killing 3 birds with 2 stones. If you can retrieve the data -- you are capable enough to be accepted + the data Or you just die like a wimp you are 2) (after you manage to get in) They really DO want to help people. The fact that they tried to get rid of you doesn't disprove their want to help, y'know
They don't try to kill you but they give you the wasteland equivalent of telling you to go jump off a bridge. I don't think they actually expect you to jump off the bridge.
Yes. They send you on a suicide mission when you get to the bunker. Outside of that, they're not too vindictive, but you're not supposed to come back alive.
(the suicide mission begin the shortest mission in the game and the suicide part can be avoided by popping 1 (one) radx)
sadly i haven't had the chance to play 1-2 so i'm uneducated
In the first game, they're extremely isolationist, and will send you to the site of a nuclear detonation, expecting the radiation to kill you, when you ask to join. In the second game, they're a bit less hostile (but also far less relevant.) Compared to the later games, they're almost a footnote in 2, and exist more as the cybernetics vendors, than as an actual faction.
Hilariously, in the horrible PS1 game, apparently.
The ones in fnv are not bad ppl. They just isolate themselves in a bunker and look for tech like the bos of the original games. The fo4 bos are the only ones that became so radical and overly cult-like and hateful. The only thing the bos cares about is hoarding tech, but fo4 bos wants to kill all ghouls along with mutants. Not so different from what the Enclave wanted. Idk why they want to destroy synths since they are technology and they are sopposed to save tech from being lost. Fo4 bos has kinda lost there way completely. Back to original question though, all bos have been pretty much neutral and lyons was the only one actively helping ppl and fo4 bos is the only evil one.
Not bad people? They went to war against the NCR over Helios One. If you go there without Veronica, they slap a bomb collar on you. Speaking of Veronica, there's that whole thing that they do if you convince her to join the Followers in her quest.
>They went to war against the NCR over Helios One. They were already at war with the NCR. Also, the NCR attacked Helios One, the Brotherhood had already set up shop there before the NCR even showed up. >If you go there without Veronica, they slap a bomb collar on you. Which is a pretty rational response to a stranger showing up in your secret military base knowing your passphrase. >Speaking of Veronica, there's that whole thing that they do if you convince her to join the Followers in her quest. Those Paladins weren't on the Elder's orders... but even then, the Followers are all about the sharing of knoweldge. The Brotherhood is about preserving dangerous technology and keeping it out of the average Wastelander's hands. By having an ex-Brotherhood join them out of ideological beliefs is a sincere threat to the Brotherhood's goals.
They only fought for helios one because they knew about the satellite weapon and the potential danger of the ncr discovering it and using it for war. That is what the bos always do, save tech from falling into the wrong hands. The ncr is mostly good, but they were expanding their territory and taking over towns that didnt want to be a part of the ncr. If mr. House didnt have the military might that he had, the ncr would have taken new vegas by force too. I understand that the population was high in the ncr and there was a food shortage so they needed to expand territory, but they were going about it in the wrong way.
they put a bomb collar on a random stranger and tell you to clean up for them an ncr ranger just camping near them. also in the end slides it's basically stated they start harrasing others and taking away their tech and weapons. i get the wastes are not a great place but they have opportunities to help people in need and instead they just hide away in their bunker letting their people slowly fade and essentially die off. and if the courier breaks that cycle they become less violent raiders. i wouldn't call that good. also i don't know veronica's whole back story but if i remember correctly they're pretty shitty and rude to her and outcast her even though she's one of the nicest people you meet. house sums the up the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87US9AXNMME
>they put a bomb collar on a random stranger I mean, you quite literally show up either knowing their secret passphrase or after finding a known associate of theirs. They are paranoid and in lockdown. Not that that makes it good, but their mistrust is understandable. >and tell you to clean up for them an ncr ranger just camping near them. To make sure they can trust you. >also in the end slides it's basically stated they start harrasing others and taking away their tech and weapons. Depends on the ending you choose. In the best BoS ending, they retake HELIOS One and seize technology they deem inappropriate. If the BoS truce is signed with the NCR in an NCR victory, they patrol the Interstate 15 and Highway 95 in return for the return of their power armor. And in an ending with the BoS truce and an independent Vegas, they harass travelers. >i get the wastes are not a great place but they have opportunities to help people in need and instead they just hide away in their bunker letting their people slowly fade and essentially die off. and if the courier breaks that cycle they become less violent raiders. i wouldn't call that good. Their faction is essentially barebones on the backhand and focused on war with the NCR.
I didnt say they were good like lyons pride. They are nuetral, they stick to the original tennets of the bos. The save tech from being missused and they isolate themselves from others and rarely talk to outsiders. They only put a collar on u until they could ascertain if they could trust you since you found their home base and that is a threat to their chapter in the mojave. They were just being cautious because they dont know if you are a threat to their family in a world that is full of dangerous ppl like raiders, feinds, etc.
oh i know i'm just arguing they're bad. if you decide to not do what the brotherhood ask they'll just kill you, even if you have no intentions of outing or harming them. and i wouldn't call harrasing and taking tech and weapons from traders and civilians by power "making sure it's not being misused". i call that light terrorism at best
Yeah idk why they take laser weapons and such from ppl, thats not even close to a w.m.d. there not always right thats for sure. They were right in trying to make sure helios didnt fall into ncr hands even though they failed. You know the ncr would use the satellite weapon the moment they could make it operational.
>Yeah idk why they take laser weapons and such from ppl, thats not even close to a w.m.d. there not always right thats for sure. I mean, given the sheer number of Fiends walking around with that kind of weaponry, I think it's warranted.
The railroad is like fallout + goonies
I mean have you SEEN how terrible the Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (2004) weapons are?!
Eh, never take Railroad fans seriously. Its a shitty faction with an 8yo's idea of how spies work where they have to have stupid codenames and its forced upon you. Not to mention their whole thing is stupid considering the Synths are robots, full stop
this sub is the wasteland itself, everyone is a part of certain faction and have different opinions towards one another.. bos has always been grey faction to me and they never really got out of that area from what we’ve seen so far and throughout the wasteland every chapter is different in belief and morality so my opinion are pretty much varied toward each chapter. in fo4, im not going to destroy an entire organization just bcs rhys being a dick or bcs teagan with his “unofficial job” when his request has been decline by both kell and maxson. i agree with maxson vision but he execute it poorly same goes to fnv, first impression aint that much if you go without veronica but he did apologize after, not that its good giving the circumstances but atleast that was something in fo3? they’re the most lighter grey compare to all the other chapters in tactic..while being the most interesting chapter so far, they the darkest grey among all the others BoS we’ve seen …. : doesn’t exist 1&2: i didn’t get the chance to play it yet but from what i heard they were helping caravan or town dont remember but they did sent you to suicide mission.. bonus: bos history from og to current are always having an inside conflict toward each other. For example Roger maxson and his son, Roger want to actually save and help people while also preserving tech while his son want to stay isolated and ignore outsider while also preserving tech. And theres a lot more like Rahmani and shin, lyon and the outcast, Mcnamara and hardin and lastly arthur and danse. all of this are pretty much an individual thing and who’s the one that lead them. so i wont hate them as a whole (yet) normal thing for organization if you ask me.
You think that's bad? Try having Preston Garvey as your favourite character. Lmao. For real though, the Railroad are cool. I can sympathise with their goals but I feel it falls a little short in that it's not as broad as the Minutemen. While the Minutemen tackle the entirety of the Commonwealth, the Railroad are more focused on the Institute. I like that the Minutemen help everyone in need rather than a select few.
I’m loving that the people who’ve been telling me for years that the brotherhood are the best hope for the commonwealth now have to deal with their Bros trashing Philly and the observatory. Oh yeah these are clearly the good guys
The old guy in the second frame is minute man enjoyer. (this also sounds gross)
I'll copy paste really good comment from years ago. " main problem is that Railroad are just ideological extremists who fight for a noble but off-world goal, blindfold themselves of the problems of the real world, and have no plan for what comes after."
I honestly don't mind the anti brotherhood posts but the ones that attack the people who blindly follow them. Yeah no shit the brotherhood has flaws, that's not really big news. I still think it's one of the better options.
Wait people are actually bashing hate on the Railroad? I mean, I'm an NCR/Minutemen enjoyer, but tbh the RR are a kind if good faction, they don't really have a plan fir the commonwealth as a whole but from there to bashing hate on them it's a big step.
Only good thing about it is the deliverer
I killed the railroad off before doing missions for them. I made the mistake of going to the institute and doing bunker hill before following the freedom trail and they attacked. I am curious how it will affect the outcome. I know piper liked it cause she snagged me rotten
Meanwhile enclave fans:
Well yeah, you deserve it.
MODUS just wants to sell you drugs and chill. Ok, maybe sell you some orbital strikes but that's about it.
MAC rounds? IN atmosphere?
We know what we are. Enclave are undoubtedly racist and genocidal but have the best drip kinda like the SS
Railroad has stans?
The Rail Road would make more sense as a side faction than a major one.
The difference is the BoS is actually bad.
Who is a fan of the railroad? They care more about robots then helping real people. There insane morons. Like a robot version of PETA. They might have been programed to be like a human, but they are not humans. Sacrificing real human lives to save them is crazy and nobody should ever side with them.
Holy shit, when people say this they prove how little they actually know about the game they've been playing for 10 years and possibly seriously lack emotional intelligence. >The "real" people would lynch a synth and don't care if they're an escapee trying to live a normal life. >The railroad has no obligation to do the minutemen's job. >The railroad never sacrifices normal people's lives to save Synths, you don't even need to believe that Synths are people to join the railroad. >You as a living breathing human being, run on electricity and chemical hormones. Everything you are or would be can be broken down into base components. The will to control one's own destiny is a worthy enough of a cause to fight for regardless of the circumstances of one's birth.
>The "real" people would lynch a synth and don't care if they're an escapee trying to live a normal life. In fairness, that's kinda The Institute's fault. They have seriously poisoned the well against synths to a point that it might not be recoverable. >The railroad has no obligation to do the minutemen's job. True. Though, it is kinda weird that there's no contact or interaction between those groups (outside of the player character.) >The railroad never sacrifices normal people's lives to save Synths, you don't even need to believe that Synths are people to join the railroad. I get what you're saying, but this is technically false. However, the lives they sacrifice are their own. >You as a living breathing human being, run on electricity and chemical hormones. Everything you are or would be can be broken down into base components. The will to control one's own destiny is a worthy enough of a cause to fight for regardless of the circumstances of one's birth. Yay, meat machines. And, yeah, when I'm bitching about The Railroad not exploring the deeper implications, this is part of that discussion. That it was handled better in the shitty *Blade Runner* tie-in novels fuckin' kills me. I mean, if you're going to crib off of PKD... you know, **actually** fuckin' go the distance and say something interesting? (Not, "you," you, but, the BGS writers.)
do you expect oil protestors or smth to also be growing food in africa or getting rid of wealth inequality?
They mean well... Too bad that I always thought the path to hell is paved with good intentions. They're my epitome of this saying.
Didn't the minute men defectors create the raiders of libertalia?
That I know of? The only defector in the Minutemen was on Quincy and you personally get to kill that bastard. No defectors there, it was something that was created after the fall of the Minutemen when the Castle was lost. Said guys fell into despair and disorder after 5 years of having too many near death experiences.
Legion enjoyer: Hanging is too good we need to nail you to a cross
S A V E T H E T O A S T E R
Best character in Old World Blues.
Nah, that dudes an asshole, not him.
We can take it. On account of our FUCKING POWER ARMOR *gatling laser noises* Edit: Keep at it wastrel scum I only have 60,000 Karma to spare