Completely Railroaded at the End

[RS13]

SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE INSTITUTE AND RAILROAD ENDINGS!!

 

So if you follow the Railroad and Institute paths at the same time--which actually makes a lot of sense if you think liberating synths is a good idea, but want to give your son a chance to prove that the institute has humanity's best interest at heart--you eventually get promoted to director of the institute.

 

Awesome! Problem solved, right? Your first act as director is to free any synth that wants to go and you get to put all the other institute tech to good use. Except . . . that option never comes up. Ever. You can't even try.

 

I get it. They want you to make "hard decisions." But it's only a hard decision because the game took the easy solution off the table with no in-game justification for it.

 

And that's the thing: when I first got the promotion I was worried (from my character's perspective) that my attempted peace would fail: I thought someone would betray me and I'd be forced to choose sides. And story-wise that would have been a pretty cool move. I was worried (from a player's perspective) that I would just fail; I was worried that though I could sell ice to an eskimo, my super-charsimatic character wouldn't get a charisma check when he floated his plan for the institute's future. That would have sucked, but I could live with it. Instead, I didn't even get the option to do the one thing that any railroad-aligned character would do in that circumstance.

 

This completely ruined the ending for me. No matter what I did, I was doing it not because that's what my character would do in that situation, but because the game--and not the situations the game created--forced me to. It's just a crappy crappy ending to what was otherwise one of Bethesda's best stories.

Edited November 30, 2015 by RS13

[charwo]

I think there has to be a non-violent way to neutralize the Railroad. Even telling them to go underground for a few months and them not showing up anymore would be a better option. Of course, faking the Railroad's liquidation for Father would be even better.

I'm speaking in terms for mods.

[Shadowkire]

I find that most interactions with the Institute are missing options.

 

When Shaun is rambling on about how they are the best hope for mankind and hopes you didn't get the wrong impression about the faction you can't ask him to explain why the entire settlement of University Point was wiped out or why they abducted people for FEV tests.

[charwo]

He doesn't want to talk about ugly things like that. For reasons,,,,,

OK OK, he's an evil armoral git, as are they all but they can't see that giving who much they like having their heads up their asses giving auto rimjobs for Science!

[Warmaker01]

I find that most interactions with the Institute are missing options.

 

When Shaun is rambling on about how they are the best hope for mankind and hopes you didn't get the wrong impression about the faction you can't ask him to explain why the entire settlement of University Point was wiped out or why they abducted people for FEV tests.

It also does not help that settlements I have setup are infiltrated by Synths and are also attacked by Synths. From outside the walls by Gen 1's and 2's, and from within by Gen 3's.

 

Including all the horrible things that the Institute has done in the Commonwealth even before your character's emergence from Vault 111, the organization had a lot to answer for. When I got inside their base and peeled back the onion layers, to include Virgil's quest, I had seen enough. There was only one possible answer and the Institute needed to be wiped out for good. I can live with Preston's bitching about me killing EVERYONE there, even the little Synth that tried to pass himself off as my character's son (when he vehemently denied my character as his mother upon meeting her). The Commonwealth was better off with the Institute's destruction.

 

When I decided for the Brotherhood of Steel to go in and wipe them out, it was justice being served.

 

All that technology, all that know-how in the Institute, dedicated to making life a nightmare above ground. Of course there was only one possible outcome in my eyes for the Institute.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Warmaker01

[Boombro]

I went with the Railroad because they case the least problems to the CW, and they are the most convenient (small HQ with 1 loading screen. Not having to make settlements all the times. etc) And I liked the RR npcs and quests the most.

 

I also hardly view the Institute people the "rebuilding." kind of people. They are not cut out for that no matter how smart they are.

[Falconiano2]

I'm happy the game doesn't allow you to make contradictory choices like that.
Being director of the elite scientists of the MIT who create robots while believing that the robots you create are human beings just because you found a way to make robots *simulate* human behavior? It would just be a cheesy Mary Sue option, Fallout 4 makes a good point that you HAVE to pick hard choices and there is no "goody two-shoes hero who can do no wrong" choice typical of binary storytelling.

The fun part is that the whole plot of the game is a big Turing test on YOU.
A double Turing test even, because a software (synth) inside another software (Fallout 4) convinced you that they are human beings.

[HitokirinoOni]

>_> I'm just sad that having bullshit CHA doesn't allow me to bring everyone to a place to talk about their problems.

 

As the leader of the Minutemen, Its totally reasonable to give peace a chance.....

Also...... because I have Artillery in every f*#@ing possible settlement on the map.

 

And those homing beacons from the Yangtze.

 

Stupid General Clothes. Shitty defense, un-upgradable, No new dialogue.

 

Wonder what sort of things I'll get frustrated about when the DLCs comes out.

[Boombro]

 

Wonder what sort of things I'll get frustrated about when the DLCs comes out.

You know you can wait until someone points out what wrong with them, right?

[jet4571]

I took the Nuclear option because somehow I knew taking the directors chair would be continuing everything as-is rather than taking a morally high route and giving the synths the choice and working with the wasteland population to rebuild. Bethesda has never been good with moral choices and this one proves it. It makes the perfect setup, become the new director and make a choice to help rather than abduct and control. It also leaves out the repercussions of the choice, the institute agrees and the commonwealth benefits or they disagree and you have mutiny on your hands. Bethesda does a good job with morally ambiguous choices but sometimes I think that's their attempt at black and white moral choices.