Brotherhood Overhaul (Conceptual Stage)

[Athanasa]

 

The Brotherhood of Steel. Transforming the entire Commonwealth, one life at a ti--

Edited December 31, 2015 by Athanasa

[Vaernus]

You may have a point. Though the Brotherhood is not above killing children since there are multiple children (most likely dozens going by lore) in the Institute. Maxson does not even blink when hundreds are killed in an instant. Though to be fair I do agree with you when it comes to the Railroad.

 

The trouble with the Institute is that you have no clue which ones are real and which ones are synth. The child Shaun project shows that. Granted he's "supposed" to be the only one, but who knows. There's plenty of secrecy going on, and it doesn't surprise me if projects are happening without Shaun's knowledge. What if the children are real but cyborg like Kellogg? Are they still equally a threat to the full synths? And at the same time, at least you as the player can use your moral compass to evacuate the area getting those children out (as well as choosing to bring synth Shaun with you), and you don't get chided by Maxson if you do. And as has been discussed, I can easily see the assault ending when all hostile forces are removed, keeping the children and scientists there to work under BoS guidance. It's borderline lazy writing to wipe the entire place out completely, and still need to blow up the fusion reactor when you can now simply move in and have an impenetrable base, ability to project your forces anywhere, super advanced technology, and if the synths are an affront to your views, just shut down the project like they did with FEV.

 

But there's a huge difference here. The total annihilation of the Institute in order to stop SkyNet (which is bound to happen if they kept up and the Courser found its easy enough to continue making their kind while killing off the weak scientists) which may result in some children being killed (and still being given the opportunity to evacuate many of them) is greatly different than "we're artillery striking the Prydwen because we want this area to stay free" and that to me is the problem. There's no attempt to save anyone. Would the Minutemen have any chance in hell of infiltrating the Prydwen and getting the children off? Hell no. But there's not even talk of that.

 

In the end, the Brotherhood stick completely to their ideals of safeguarding humanity by removing the Institute (with may involve some casualties but ultimately stops SkyNet wiping out the human race) and removing the Railroad (which Institute missions shows that, while the best of intentions, is going astray when the memory wiped synths are substantially stronger than humans and take on less than clandestine operations like at Liberalia while still just as able to get SkyNet going). All you get is instability with any other ending at best (when factoring in the ramifications over time when these factions begin interacting with others worldwide), and potentially the end of the human race over time with the Institute.

[Athanasa]

Aren't pretty much all synths doomed anyway if you take out the Institute and the Railroad? Regardless of whether or not you kill them. With no-one to perform maintenance (Institute tier maintenance) and no-one to create new ones, they'll die out eventually.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Athanasa

[zezia333]

 

 

The trouble with the Institute is that you have no clue which ones are real and which ones are synth. The child Shaun project shows that. Granted he's "supposed" to be the only one, but who knows. There's plenty of secrecy going on, and it doesn't surprise me if projects are happening without Shaun's knowledge. What if the children are real but cyborg like Kellogg? Are they still equally a threat to the full synths? And at the same time, at least you as the player can use your moral compass to evacuate the area getting those children out (as well as choosing to bring synth Shaun with you), and you don't get chided by Maxson if you do. And as has been discussed, I can easily see the assault ending when all hostile forces are removed, keeping the children and scientists there to work under BoS guidance. It's borderline lazy writing to wipe the entire place out completely, and still need to blow up the fusion reactor when you can now simply move in and have an impenetrable base, ability to project your forces anywhere, super advanced technology, and if the synths are an affront to your views, just shut down the project like they did with FEV.

But there's a huge difference here. The total annihilation of the Institute in order to stop SkyNet (which is bound to happen if they kept up and the Courser found its easy enough to continue making their kind while killing off the weak scientists) which may result in some children being killed (and still being given the opportunity to evacuate many of them) is greatly different than "we're artillery striking the Prydwen because we want this area to stay free" and that to me is the problem. There's no attempt to save anyone. Would the Minutemen have any chance in hell of infiltrating the Prydwen and getting the children off? Hell no. But there's not even talk of that.

 

In the end, the Brotherhood stick completely to their ideals of safeguarding humanity by removing the Institute (with may involve some casualties but ultimately stops SkyNet wiping out the human race) and removing the Railroad (which Institute missions shows that, while the best of intentions, is going astray when the memory wiped synths are substantially stronger than humans and take on less than clandestine operations like at Liberalia while still just as able to get SkyNet going). All you get is instability with any other ending at best (when factoring in the ramifications over time when these factions begin interacting with others worldwide), and potentially the end of the human race over time with the Institute.

 

 

I guess you are right.

[Guest deleted2588518]

The railroad are basically gorilla resistance fighters. They are willing to kill any number of real people if it means freeing a single synth. That makes them extremists. Like all factions in FO4, they refuse any attempt at either negotiations or a peaceful resolution and default to genocide. Genocide is the ONLY option. No talking, no negotiating, no regrouping, just kill everyone else.

 

The Minutement start out as a crippled faction with only two remaining members until the PC saves them from extinction. Then quickly turn into the same sort of brute force extremists where genocide is the only option.

 

Genocide isn't anything really new for the Brotherhood. Its sort of expected that they would choose that as an option first before attempting to negotiate or make deals. Considering their history with the Enclave and NCR. Couple that with their reduced numbers and mindset for tactical thinking... They are the only ones with any real reasoning to go that route. Even tho the idea to set off a nuclear reactor in the middle of a major city seems absolutely ludicrous. No one can claim to have the best interest of the Commonwealth in mind and then set off that kind of destruction. Especially after that whole speech about using WMDs as the cause of the current state of humanity.

 

There has to be a way to remove the synth threat and disable the institute without setting off an "Atomic Bomb" in the middle of downtown Boston. Skynet or no. I shot the Synth child in the head. There is no future for such a child in the Commonwealth. It sounds bad, but you've got to understand that the synth would never be accepted by normal people. You can't hide the fact that it can't age and the kind of hysteria of children being replaced with synths would be catastrophic. Even if you openly declare the Institute as destroyed. If people find out about the child synth, there is no way you can then tell people its ok. They would openly go into panic even worse than they did when adults were replaced. It would be a nightmare and you would have a witch hunt for children who then couldn't protect themselves.

 

It was the only logical solution.

Edited January 1, 2016 by TotalMeltdown

[Athanasa]

I think the point I'm getting out of this is as follows:

 

I always god the feeling from the Brotherhood that sometimes harsh decisions would have to be made, but it was for the good of the whole. And that they acknowledged this. The needs of the many and all that. It's a heavy weight to bear, but they will bear it.

 

The Minutemen, on the other hand, doesn't have that feel. I sort of imagine they want to save every village. And there doesn't seem to be any indication that they would be willing to do unscrupulous things to reach their goal.

 

So... in other words, I expected collateral damage, even in the form of children, with the Brotherhood. And I accepted that. Frankly, if one child dies but you save 10 lives, that's okay in a post apocalyptic world. And it's not like the members of the institute are just like everyone else on the surface. (Unless fertility rates are terrible, in which case adjust accordingly.)

 

I don't expect it from the Minutemen. I suspect the vast majority of Brotherhood members are there because they want to make a difference and make the world better, even if they know it's not going to be pretty. If the Minutemen had been around, how many of those Brotherhood recruits would have joined the Minutemen? And vice versa?

 

 

 

I'm not making sense here, so I'll try to summarise it.

 

The casualties in the Institute are people that do not even want to be directly involved in the future of the Commonwealth. They're barely even living in the same world. You can't meet an Institute scientist at the bar and have a chat with them, realising how similar they are to you. Chances are your average science doesn't give a toss about the surface - they want their pet project to be done. And I'd be fine to leave them to it, if their project wasn't murdering people.

 

However, by attacking the BoS, the MM are attacking people like themselves. People born and bred in the dusty unforgiving Wasteland. If the terminal entries are representative of the whole, many of the soldiers aboard the Prydwen are civilians from the Capital Wasteland with families at home. They could plausibly meet one another while off duty in a bar, chat, agree and become friends - talk about how they want to make a difference in the world. They joined the Brotherhood to make a difference, to protect the remains of America. Sure, you can see them as dicks, but at least they're not kidnapping-and-murdering dicks.

 

It's like the Minutemen has forgotten that the soldiers of the Brotherhood are human, living in the same world as them.

 

 

 

There has to be a way to remove the synth threat and disable the institute without setting off an "Atomic Bomb" in the middle of downtown Boston. Skynet or no.

 

But it wouldn't be Fallout if you couldn't nuke a city!

Edited January 1, 2016 by Athanasa

[Guest deleted2588518]

I chalk the Minutemen going psychotic at the end as poor, lazy writing on Bethesda's part. It really goes against everything they stand for to just "all-the-sudden" decide "Lets just kill everyone! That will solve our problems!"

 

Hey, everyone loves to nuke things. I'm just saying that you can't sit there and lecture me for a solid five minutes about how humanity needs protecting from itself and that the wasteland is a direct result of that hubris, but then turn around an nuke a city without any shred of irony.

 

Obviously leave in the option to blow the reactor, but there needs to be an alternative. The freedom to be a complete A-Hole and drop a nuke on Boston shouldn't be deprived to anyone. LOL

But seriously, there needs to be an alternative way to deal with the synths and disable the institute without nuking the place.

Edited January 1, 2016 by TotalMeltdown

[Athanasa]

Obviously leave in the option to blow the reactor, but there needs to be an alternative. The freedom to be a complete A-Hole and drop a nuke on Boston shouldn't be deprived to anyone. LOL

But seriously, there needs to be an alternative way to deal with the synths and disable the institute without nuking the place.

Massive non-nuclear EMP blast?

 

Or, to be a complete asshole, break their air and water circulation systems. And sabotage their reactor.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Athanasa

[Guest deleted2588518]

Massive non-nuclear EMP blast?

 

 

Doesn't even need to be something like that. Unless we are talking about action visual satisfaction. Synths are effected by specific frequencies right? And all of them have recall codes. Not to mention there are failsafes inside the institute's retention department.

 

We've got access to multiple radio transmitters. A high-freq microburst transmission with the recall codes would shut down any synth within range. All with zero collateral damage. No need for explosives or an EMP blast. Just the thoughtful application of technology.

 

Hell, you could just go super low tech and have someone on the loudspeaker in the Prydwen just start calling out recall codes. Synths would start dropping like flies.

 

Lets say you've got a quest near the end where you're raiding the Institute. While you're neutralizing the power structure (people in charge) you have scribes actively doing research on anything inside the Institute. The Brotherhood's main goal is to prevent the creation and abuse of Synths. That doesn't mean they would destroy the rest of the technology and research that the Institute has spent years working on. I'm willing to bet Quinlan would absolutely object to destroying the institutes technology or the main structure. Seeming as the Brotherhood themselves need a new permanent base of operations on the east coast. The Institute is something they wouldn't destroy. Sure, the people there can be removed, but the structure and equipment and all that technology? It would be like finding the Holy Grail to them. There is no way they would blow it up.

Edited January 1, 2016 by TotalMeltdown

[Athanasa]

Unrelated, just cleared Hyde Park. The Tin Can said, "This place would make a nice listening post. Huh. I'll have to make a note of that."

 

 

Doesn't even need to be something like that. Unless we are talking about action visual satisfaction. Synths are effected by specific frequencies right? And all of them have recall codes. Not to mention there are failsafes inside the institute's retention department.

I haven't seen what happens when you nuke Boston, but could you... recycle the events and scripting for the nuke, but say it was an EMP? It might be easier, as a quick and dirty fix. Even though an EMP would look nothing like that, I assume.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Athanasa