Who would you side with IF...

[ToroMontana]

Who would you side with if Shaun was not your son - or - there was a way to save him from cancer and it didn't depend on faction choice?

 

Personally, I'd keep the Institute because creating a giant radioactive crater in the middle of Boston is probably the worst way to save the Commonwealth. (It's also closely linked to the water supply.) However, it would have to be my way or the highway so I wouldn't allow the Directorate to just continue what they've been doing.

 

In-game this wasn't done very well, but you can technically become the Director and then proceed to kill off everyone in the Institute without being "kicked out" effectively ending the synth program but leaving the building intact. At least I wasn't kicked out. There is the minor annoyance of essential NPCs, but that can be disabled even without a standard mod.

[MarkusTay]

Personally, every playthrough I was THE Railroad Heavy (sure, Glory 'pretends' to go on mission, but except for the one she follows behind you - and does almost nothing - we don't see her actually DOING or affecting anything), and you show them who's really in-charge at Bunker Hill (by having them join the MM, even though it was secretly a RR base). I was also The General of the Minutemen - meaning i commanded just about everyone who wasn't already in a faction, in the entire Commonwealth. I was also like the #2 or #3 guy at the BoS by the time all is said and done (if Danse is #2 - which Beth originally intended - then when he is ousted you take his place). And lastly, father states that he would like me to become the next director of the Institute after he is dead.

 

So you are in charge of two factions, and are practically in charge of the other two; really, all you have to do is get rid of Maxson (which is an ended Beth had intended but left out) and you can be fully in charge of the BoS... at least, the Boston division.

 

Ideally, you fire/change the mind of/execute all the 'bad' institute directors. The game actually gives you others that are mostly (morally) against what they are doing who you could appoint. Then you have the BoS be your army, the MM be your police force, the institute be your science R&D dept., and the Railroad be your 'secret intelligence' agency. The BoS should be completely onboard with this, since they aren't against technology - just the opposite. They're supposed to want to control it all for themselves. Thus, having the Institute get folded into them (at least, that's how you would explain it to them) would be the perfect solution. No-one has to die or get blown up, and you become the Commander-in-Chief of a new nation (and eventually God-Emperor of earth... 'cause our just cool like that).

 

In fact, you can sort-of achieve that ending... mostly. You just have to blow up the institute, but let everyone evacuate. But WHY blow up the Institute when father already said he was giving it to you on a silver platter? Whats the point of destroying all that marvelous tech? (and hot showers!)

It makes no sense, and I really feel Bethesda had so much more planned, but when they saw how convoluted their dialogue trees were getting they cut it all short (which is why we get railroaded down a very linear path - every single option would lead to tons of dialogue most folks would never even see or hear). For example, if anyone should immediately join the BoS when they show up, its The Compound - the two are made for each other. I feel like there was supposed to be more to all that, like why even bother connecting the storyline to Stockton when nothing ever became of it? (no matter which way you decide, you never see the 'daughter' again). I just feel like so much more was supposed to be done with all that, and they just snipped it off right there to save time and money. Hell, we could have gotten a whole 'war' between Covenant and Bunker Hill (because they are two sides of the same coin - both business 'fronts' for clandestine operations - that are diametrically opposed to one another).

 

Probably not the right thread for it, but I think the DLCs should not have left the Commonwealth (or created tons of gadgets most folks with never bother with). I think we should have seen some of those secondary storylines explored. We should have seen them expand inwardly, NOT outwardly. Place DC under Minutemen control, and maybe have Warwick become some sort of surface facility for the institute. I wanted to build a better Commonwealth by uniting the elements and making folk's lives better - not leave a big radioactive crater where the best tech in the country was stored. Even with the existing DLCs, You have the Mechanist girl - if you let her live - who is super-smart and tech-savvy. Her robots COULD HAVE actually helped the Commonwealth a LOT with a little program tweaking. Instead, you just shut her down and leave her there to hangout all by herself (actually, I give her a bunch of friends, but you know what I mean).

 

In other words, WHY AREN'T YOU USING ALL THESE PEOPLE? Have Piper run articles and keep folks informed. Have Nick work with the Railroad on intel. Have Danse do what Danse does best - march all over the place in power armor, in charge of other soldiers, killing all the ferals and muties? Have you any idea how valuable Dr.Amari's knowledge would be to the Institute? They'd be able to upload human brains into synths (they should be able to do that anyway - they did that with Nick). Imagine Amari and the Mechanist working with the robotics division. Imagine Nick and DiMa chillin' and drinkin' Pina Coladas on the docks at a warm, sunny Far Harbor. Etc, etc, etc...

 

i almost feel like father let you out of that Vault just to increase the death toll a hundredfold. :sad:

[AeonsLegend]

I seriously wouldn't join any of them. The whole faction system bled over from Skyrim and it's just weird. I just can't stand that the game forces this on you.

 

Minutemen: I completely understand why they were wiped at Quincy. They're a bunch of dumbasses with pipe pistols.

Railroad: dumbest covert op ever. EVER. They have signs that people can see that indicate A SECRET BASE. They got random people talking about how TO FIND THEM. The first thing Desdemona says when she meets you is "I'm the leader of the railroad". The entrance of the Railroad base is behind a locked door with the password "Railroad". That's just what I can think off from the top of my head. It's so stupid, I just want to wipe them out each and every time.

Brotherhood: Fascists. Hitler got nothing on these fools. "We come in peace". Yea with miniguns and missile launchers.

Institute: The fact that they abuse people like they are less than nothing is worrysome. Other than that this might be the best place to be.

 

In all honesty I'd start my own group and wipe out the rest of them.

 

Edit: also, the Railroad thinks it's a good idea to have a synth be wiped of their memory so they can live a normal life. Essentially brain-killing them, resetting them to nothing more than a "clean" synth and then giving them new memories. How is that more humane than what the Institute does? The Railroad treats them the same way as humans when releasing them, but to do so they wipe everything from them that made them the original person the Institute created. The person that wanted to escape the institute no longer exists. There's something wrong with these people. They're clearly insane. At least the institute isn't hypocritical. They percieve synths for what they are: Synths.

Edited December 12, 2018 by AeonsLegend

[MarkusTay]

The last part of your commentary is precisely what the synths over in Acadia (Far Harbor) say - getting brain-wiped is the same as death.

 

I disagree with your 'best choice', though. For me, the Institute are the only faction that is nearly 'beyond rehabilitation'. They are the extreme opposite of the Railroad, and no better - they believe destroying the body but saving the mind is okay (because thats what their 'Mankind Evolved' project is really about... why they created Nick). Neither the RR or the Inst. are pro-humanity, because both believe in lessening something's humanity is a way of saving it... and its not.

 

The institute randomly kills people, and sometimes replaces them, but in many cases they simply wipe-out large groups of people for no real good reason (Vault 111, University Point, Fairline Hill Estates, etc.). Whereas the Brotherhood might intimidate a settlement into 'sharing' their goods (just like raiders), they won't wipe them all out to take that stuff... that's just stupid. Even raiders aren't that dumb (which is why the Nuka-World raiders make no sense to me - who are they RAIDING? Why would they want to build their own settlements?) Hell, even Kellogg isn't quite that bad - sure, he'll kill in a heartbeat, but only if you get in his way. The Institute, on the other hand, behave way too much like psychopathic, mass-murderers. Plus, I do believe what they do is slavery (not to mention that their FEV super-mutants are made from children... or did everyone else miss that important point?)

 

But as I said above, just destroying all their wonderful tech would be such a waste.

 

As for creating your own faction.. isn't that precisely what the Minutemen is? You ARE creating that faction. Hell, if you discount Preston Garvey (and you SHOULD - he's a 180lb bag of suckage), you ARE the Minutemen. Sure, you see others, but they don't really DO anything. Even when you summon them all they do is die. That being said - and because this IS a modding site - I have an idea of how to fix the Minutemen the right way. I have three different mods that supposedly fix them, and I love them, but its not based on anything you do in the game. What if the game-engine randomly chose copies of your own settlers? Sure, maybe they would look different, but all their gear would be stuff YOU put on one of your settlers. Thus, if you take care of your settlers, they can take care of you. But if you just ignore them and leave them as they arrive, you'll get a bunch of unarmed wimps with pipe-pistols whenever you use the flare gun. That would not only be my 'dream come true' mod (immersive and your decisions WOULD MATTER), but it should satisfy what you want to do in your game.

 

Cheers

[AeonsLegend]

The last part of your commentary is precisely what the synths over in Acadia (Far Harbor) say - getting brain-wiped is the same as death.

 

I disagree with your 'best choice', though. For me, the Institute are the only faction that is nearly 'beyond rehabilitation'. They are the extreme opposite of the Railroad, and no better - they believe destroying the body but saving the mind is okay (because thats what their 'Mankind Evolved' project is really about... why they created Nick). Neither the RR or the Inst. are pro-humanity, because both believe in lessening something's humanity is a way of saving it... and its not.

 

The institute randomly kills people, and sometimes replaces them, but in many cases they simply wipe-out large groups of people for no real good reason (Vault 111, University Point, Fairline Hill Estates, etc.). Whereas the Brotherhood might intimidate a settlement into 'sharing' their goods (just like raiders), they won't wipe them all out to take that stuff... that's just stupid. Even raiders aren't that dumb (which is why the Nuka-World raiders make no sense to me - who are they RAIDING? Why would they want to build their own settlements?) Hell, even Kellogg isn't quite that bad - sure, he'll kill in a heartbeat, but only if you get in his way. The Institute, on the other hand, behave way too much like psychopathic, mass-murderers. Plus, I do believe what they do is slavery (not to mention that their FEV super-mutants are made from children... or did everyone else miss that important point?)

 

But as I said above, just destroying all their wonderful tech would be such a waste.

 

As for creating your own faction.. isn't that precisely what the Minutemen is? You ARE creating that faction. Hell, if you discount Preston Garvey (and you SHOULD - he's a 180lb bag of suckage), you ARE the Minutemen. Sure, you see others, but they don't really DO anything. Even when you summon them all they do is die. That being said - and because this IS a modding site - I have an idea of how to fix the Minutemen the right way. I have three different mods that supposedly fix them, and I love them, but its not based on anything you do in the game. What if the game-engine randomly chose copies of your own settlers? Sure, maybe they would look different, but all their gear would be stuff YOU put on one of your settlers. Thus, if you take care of your settlers, they can take care of you. But if you just ignore them and leave them as they arrive, you'll get a bunch of unarmed wimps with pipe-pistols whenever you use the flare gun. That would not only be my 'dream come true' mod (immersive and your decisions WOULD MATTER), but it should satisfy what you want to do in your game.

 

Cheers

I know they replaced people, but there's no proof I can tell that those people are dead. The only half proof we have is Art. I didn't have any option for a meaningful conversation in the Institute on people replacement and how it works. The people working in the institute don't strike me as people who randomly kill in the name of science. So either none of them actually know what's going on, or it isn't true. So if we take the worst part of that, then only a few people in the institute are rotten. Taking those out would "fix" the institute easily.

 

And the minutemen have a history. They also have a way of working. Joining settlements and acting as one. That's not what I want, that's what Preston wants. I'd just set up my own gang in a single place and opperate from there. Probably much like the Gunners, but without the raider attitude. With my own goals. Not goals to save people who are stupid enough to live on a farm surrounded by raiders and supermutants or hurt a specific group because some idiot thought it up for me.

 

Fun fact. There's a Deathclaw in spitting distance of Somerville Place. Just go on the hill next to the house to the south and it is RIGHT THERE. There's an idiot with kids iving there. Any road you take towards any place that is safe crosses high level super mutants or raiders. These people are insane and they have to form the Minutemen? No thanks. I rather take my chances with people who aren't complete lunatics.

[MarkusTay]

Yeah, that dad needs a GF/wife with some common sense. I even gave those poor kids a sandbox to play in (strangely, they don't use it - I've only seen one of my followers 'play' in it). I also always give them a dog. I feel bad for digital people.... maybe I need friends. LOL

 

For whatever reason, that is one of the fastest-growing settlements once you take it. It might just be a phenomena of getting it later than most others (when your charisma and rep are already on the rise). And you talk about that Deathclaw? He's still a decent distance away (the boy even mentions him... then again, all the kids mention him LOL). How about that Sentrybot right up the hill? if you build a two-story structure right on the edge of that settlement you can literally hit that bunker with laser and missile turrets. And just beyond that is a Vault full of Gunners... with TWO assaultrons (I used to be scared to death of those things - most of 'em have stealth!) And if you cross that swamp (it isn't nearly as wide as it looks) you have the Gunner's main base right there.

 

Thats why I like Somerville Place. Illogical? YES! Fun? Yes!

 

I personally think the Finch's are worse, with the Forge as neighbors. And sometimes the gunners up on the overpass start firing at the wild Brahmin and all the settlers get pulled into a massive battle (thats always fun - seeing the Finch-farm settlers all rush into that scrapyard). But is that really a bad thing? Those places make the game fun. The triangle of Sanctuary-RedRocket-Abernathy is boring as hell... yet somehow you keep getting called a back there to help them. Old Man Abernathy needs to keep his daughter and friends locked up at night... i ain't saving them no mo! :tongue: