Why the Institute isn't evil... *SPOILERS*

[mazakala]

Of course the Institute isn't "evil", none of the main factions are. The Institute simply believes that the surface world is mostly beyond saving, they want what they believe is best for mankind. They do questionable things to further their goals for sure, but so does every other faction (except maybe the Minutemen).

The biggest difference is that if you side with the Institute, you'll be put in charge. You can change where the Institute is going, even if there aren't many options for it in game, you can't do the same for BOS or the Railroad. Imagine all the things you can do with Institute technology, was it worth killing off the Railroad and one chapter of the BOS? Probably was. That's war for you, never changes and all that.

Edited January 5, 2016 by mazakala

[mazakala]

I find the endless arguments about whether of not the Institute is evil to be very typical human psychology. The Institute is designated as the Big Bad at the beginning of the game whereas the BOS are shown as fighting them and so must be good. Almost without noticing it you make the decision that the Institute is evil, and once you have that opinion it blinds you from whatever the BOS or Railroad does wrong. We tend to stick with the opinions we have...

[Moraelin]

Actually, you'll find that I've already said several times that none of the three warring factions are good. Believe it or not, I have no problem believing that two guys fighting each other are both assholes.

 

Trivial example: Stalin vs Hitler. Doesn't mean Stalin was good.

[Deleted2948850User]

@Moraelin: *Facepalm* Didn't know there was an option for an evacuation order, this changes things =0 So yea, you're right, those who wish to redeem themselves certainly can.

 

 

@mazakala: Who said the Brotherhood was good? I believe I said something about all factions being at least somewhat misguided, this included the Brotherhood. With that kind of black 'n white thinking you might as well state that the Super Mutants 'n Ferals are good.

[Moraelin]

Did I mention yet how my favourite ending is the lesser known one-faction ending, where I gank everyone except the Minutemen? Well, ok, but did I mention it more than a couple dozen times? :tongue:

[mazakala]

@Moraelin: *Facepalm* Didn't know there was an option for an evacuation order, this changes things =0 So yea, you're right, those who wish to redeem themselves certainly can.

 

 

@mazakala: Who said the Brotherhood was good? I believe I said something about all factions being at least somewhat misguided, this included the Brotherhood. With that kind of black 'n white thinking you might as well state that the Super Mutants 'n Ferals are good.

@Darkco: My point was that people tend to expect stories to have a good and a bad side, not all stories do, but it's a trope we've learned to expect. Thus, the Institute are the bad guys because they stole your kid, ergo the factions that are against them *must* be good. I've seen countless threads where the BOS is being defended and the Institute is being bashed all across the Internet. I never thought the story was all that amazing, I had the ending figured out as soon as I learned how the story begins. Still, Bethesda must have done something right because people can't seem to distance themselves from the story enough to think rationally.

[Moraelin]

I'm still not sure who you're talking to, since none of us here think that the BOS is good.

 

Nevertheless, I don't need some knee jerk reaction to assume that the institute is evil when they:

- kidnaps and murders people, but also

- is into slavery

- murderized every single delegate when the Commonwealth tried to form a provisional government, plunging it back into chaos

- and have been actively destabilizing the Commonwealth ever since

- killed family members of the Railroad as retaliation

- beta-tested an early Gen 3 (and presumably a prototype courser, by the results) by sending him fully armed into a major settlement, causing the Broken Mask massacre

- experimented on people with FEV, and killed them afterwards (and no, they didn't develop a cure. Virgil's serum only counteracts the one FEV strain HE created.)

- exterminated whole communities just for something they wanted from them (e.g., all the rest of Vault 111),

- or even for something the Institute wanted and THOUGHT they had, but the poor barstards didn't actually have (e.g., University Point),

- are still letting their Gen 1 and 2 exterminate whole communities for nothing more than the scrap,

- sent a hitman to murderize a top Institute scientist for trying to run away from the Institute. Mind you, he didn't sell any secrets, nor join any enemies. Just for running away.

- freed you and led you to chase their top hitman just to see how long you'd survive in an unfamiliar hostile world

- proclaim you an enemy on account that, literally, "whoever isn't with us is against us", and start actively sending synths to kill you or murder your settlers, if you don't agree to join IMMEDIATELY

Etc.

 

Frankly, stealing my kid was just the icing on the turd that is the institute. If I were just out of the vault for any other reason, even to find a water chip like in FO1, or some tribesman trying to find a GECK like in FO2, and ran into any organization whose list of sins includes all the above... guess what? I'd think they're evil. Frankly, I thought the Enclave was evil in FO2 when they had done FAR less crimes than the Institute here.

 

And even on the topic of defending the BOS, maybe it's YOU who need to start thinking rationally, if you can't see how someone could see it more appealing to side with them than with anyone with that list of deeds to their name. I can even see how someone might even agree with their philosophy of controlling technology, or with the whole knights lording over the peasants thing. Not my thing, but millions thought it made sense in the middle ages for a start. Agreeing with kidnapping people to experiment on, or with murderizing whole settlements just to scrap their huts, though, that's harder to agree with, isn't it?

 

You don't need any emotional attachment or such bull to think that basically having a paternal-autocrat military junta -- which really, is what the BOS is -- in power beats handing over the Commonwealth to a gang of mass murderers.

 

Or TL;DR version: sometimes if you don't understand why other people take a choice, the problem isn't with their logic. Sometimes it's just you.

[TakaraPRG]

Oh, and the "oh no, the people in Diamond City were just fearing ghouls" argument is plain old silly, given that the mayor of Diamond City is taking orders from Ayo, the acting director of Synth Reclamation. Read his terminal. So, yeah, if Diamond City's policies were totally against Institute interests, the institute can just tell the mayor to change that.

Follow the thinking here....He was ordered to remove all Ghouls from Diamond city because they lived long enough to know people. They would know more about Diamond city's history then the Mayor who was a synth replacement of the original. They removed Ghouls simply to make it easier for them to control the normal people. It is also known they are considered to be unpure humans which the institute needs...they can't duplicate ghouls.

 

In my Travels I've come across two exact people fighting eachother....one of them was a synth sent to kill and replace the original. The only difference between the pair was the weapons they used...and if you killed them both one of them had synth components the other didn't.

 

In their own terminals they admit to using synth replacements to control the happenings in the commonwealth. They replace people to help push their own political agenda above to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

 

Don't worry though, the Railroad are just as big of jerks. They think they are doing something special but honestly more then half the time they are being completely irresponsible. Half the people they release end up being just as evil, the head of the Fordged is a synth freed by the railroad is just one example.

 

The story of University point is pretty much the deal closer for me. The institute heard that someone there found something prewar about increasing energy output. Instead of investigating and finding out the girl that claimed this had only found something that mentioned it...she didn't actually find it. They simply send a courser there to tell the town they want the recovered tech or they will kill them all. When the people tell them that they don't actually have it...they simply murder them all.

 

Are they evil? Eh....jury is still out. Are they are good? HELL NO...they definitely aren't good guys. There are more than enough bad s*** that they do, randomly flailing at an attempt at doing something great. But all their success has been on the corpses of innocent people they walked on to get there. Hell they were randomly abducting people and experimenting on them with FEV even though their own lead scientist on the project admitted they weren't learning anything from the experiments. He was so upset by it he attempted to flee knowing he would likely die in the end.

 

EDIT

 

Yes I agree the BoS are not good guys. I don't think they are a deeper shade of gray then the institute. The BoS have no issue stepping on people weaker than them simply because they don't believe the same thing as them. Their ideals are...a little more inline with what is actually happening around them. I've never been a fan of the BoS other than their uniforms either. But they generally do what ever they can to keep any technology that could improve people's lives/chances of survival out of the hands of the people that need it. They rather file it away in a computer and never use it for the fear someone may use it to hurt someone someday. In my own opinion...there is as much blood on their hands as the institute because of their gross negligence of the suffering around them.

[Moraelin]

Hmm, well, I'm sure someone will tell me I think too black and white, or don't know realpolitik, or the other justifications for evil, but I don't see what's there for the jury to settle. Murdering a whole town even if they had what the Institute wanted and just didn't want to give it over, would alone qualify as evil in my book.

 

I mean, the "give me X or I shoot" is robbery, plain and simple. There's no difference there whether it's your money, or your crops, or some found piece of tech. In a more confrontational situation than that, the Raiders shot just one person, and nobody would say "eh, it's a grey area. Shooting someone for their crops is not good, but it's kinda fuzzy if it's evil evil." I fail to see how massacring a whole town isn't worse.

 

But really, think, I dunno, a bank robbery nowadays where they decide to just shoot some people for not having enough money in the bank. Do you think any jury would go, "eh, they did want the money, so we can excuse them for shooting if they didn't get it"? No, that would be a multiple fellony murder right there, and qualify for the death penalty in the states that have it.

[SirTwist]

Here's an ending I would like. You kill a few of the top Institute people, including your own "son." You send Maxson off to somewhere else, and bother someone else for a while. Nuke the ghouls, most super mutants, etc. along the way, and put Preston Garvey somewhere so that you don't have to do endless go here, these people stub their little toes, and you have to kiss it to make them better, and incorporate the railroad back into the Institute, along with the tech from the BoS, to make a better Commonwealth. Oh, and ganking all raiders, gunners, monsters, and even the coursers.