Where do the Minutemen fit in the synth debate?

[montky]

@stebbinsd

what an interesting lore thread,

these kinds of asides and reflections are what make Nexus different than elsewhere,

and who knows what ideas can come from these kinds of discussion.

there's a lot of ground covered here from all kinds of perspectives.

 

this is why those things like

morality system/karma, disguises and faction clothes, weapon upkeep,

and Ron Perlman narrations cards not being in the game are

a noticeable absence - they gave more denouement to the ending,

and showed a little into some future or

the outcomes from other choices in the game.

 

//// lore rant

the minutemen are an interesting faction,

emerging in 2120s, coming to prominence in preventing

the Fall of Diamond City, when BoS and other factions didn't help as much.

(it may be that the Enclave and Atom Cats were involved around then too? who knows).

 

a long war of attrition from several other factions then ensues -

gunners, raiders, enclave?, goodneighbor, perhaps even the railroad,

their long term foe, the Gunners, betraying the last bitter clingers at Quincy,

forcing their retreat north and west.

(I'm surprised few bring up Sturges' being a synth also).

 

The minutemen have endured a long-term conflict with the Institute;

it is likely they were involved at the university point massacre, and at the broken mask incident. -

the minutemen and the railroad may even have been assisting each other, as Old Man Stockton knows more than that guy lets on...

 

they were in the process of tracking them down, when infighting and betrayals disbanded the minutemen.

several of the attackers against the minutemen, in the SRB terminal, are actually either institute controlled hitmen,

or rogue agents with a similar effect...

it seems a faction really wanted to end the minutemen.

 

what is puzzling, is... given the mostly-altruistic deeds the minutemen have done,

why did no-one in the commonwealth help them and prevent the minutemen's demise?

is it pragmatic "oh, those guys are going down" strategy, or is it histrionics and unreliable narrators on the part of the minutemen 'historians',

or, was there some other cause? ie, hostages or meat shield incident etc?

 

I'd agree that, it seems unrealistic that,

by mere virtue of being thawed,

the player character can become a general of the minutemen AND a sentinel/paladin of the BoS AND mayor of several settlements...

however,

the minutemen do reflect the 'union of temporary convenience' of paul revere and the original ones,

and it's nice to see that despite an apocalypse, there's a few secularists and folks helpin folks in the wasteland.

 

the minutemen were an irregular armed force/militia to begin with,

so they went borderline for a few years... they could have been like the NCR...

I think they end up being disbanded and absorbed into

the BoS.

The BoS would make peace with the 'good institute' when they begin to understand the full context,

they try to take the CIT ruins without a single shot fired...

as awesome as Libby Prime 2,0 is, I would remove that content from the game, though Dr Li may remain,

Libby and going in enclave style doesn't mesh with me -

for context, in FO3, I let the android go.

 

the bad institute might be aligned with the enclave, or it might just be the SRB going on a power trip.

the enclave would massacre everyone, that's not the BoS way.

 

the BoS, the good institute under Dr Li and Dr Virgil,

maybe goodneighbor,

Atom Cats (descended from a detachment of enclave and central-brotherhood), the railroad, and the minutemen,

they'd all form a detente or accord.

V111 would become a lot like Maxson in the NCR; a BoS super-bunker north-northwest of concord...

 

Diamond City and Boston Monument might try being independent factions for a while...

 

/// end lore tangents

that's my exegetical contribution to what is

an awesome thread...

FO4 has a lot of implied questions left after it,

and as much as others have faulted it's execution from time to time (guilty);

those fan-discussions that have emerged are AWESOME!

 

it would have been nice to see the Minutemen,

the implications of Dr Virgil, Nick Valentine and CVRIE explored more...

and a BoS that was more 'ultra-good' rather than

the Enclave-like BoS presented in FO4.

 

Dr Virgil's 'cure' - fawkes'd probably take it. he didn't want to be a super mutant.

but, Marcus is probably too far gone, and wouldn't take it anyway because he is how he is.

Hancock would resent the cure, maybe even ol' Harold would dislike it too...

would mama murphy take the cure?

can the player character become a super mutant? - (you can omit to tell Virgil you found his cure...)

 

Virgil wouldn't want to use his cure like President JHE at the DC Water Purifier envisaged that 'cure'...

[Ethreon]

Ugh.. let Enclave die already.

[Transient3292]

 

As far as I can tell, the problem here is that Beth gave us four main factions, when they should have given us six.Â

Â

The Institute, the BoS, and the Railroad are all focused on synths, AI, and technology.

Â

Simultaneously, balancing this out, there are three factions focused on humanity. They are the Minutemen, the Raiders, and the Gunners. For some reason, Beth decided to only turn one of these three into a 'main' faction. As a result, the themes of the story feel unbalanced. To my mind, the Minutemen are never really part of the obvious Main Quest debate that involves the Institute, BoS, and Railroad (in this debate, they're just a bit player). Instead, they are part of an entirely different debate that involves the Raiders and Gunners. These two factions are the Minutemen's true antagonists, NOT the Institute or the BoS.Â

Â

This is how I interpret them:

Â

At the beginning of the game, you enter what appears to be a dying world, both in terms of the planet and the destruction of humanity. The Main Quest guides you through this decay in search of hope, which is represented by your missing infant son. Ultimately, however, this is a red herring. The Shaun that you are looking for is long gone: all that remains is a terminally ill old man. In other words, your hope of finding your son is already lost. But in making this discovery, you also realize that the world isn't dying and nor is humanity. Both have been pushed to the very brink, but they still abide. And as your hope of finding your son is shattered, simultaneously you gain a new hope for humanity (there's even a line to this effect when Piper interviews you for the newspaper article).

Â

Regarding the Raiders, Gunners and Minutemen, each of them represents a different view of humanity:Â

Â

The Raiders have already given up and want to see the world burn. They represent chaos and hopelessness. This is the easy route, which makes them cowards.Â

Â

The Gunners are the most poorly implemented faction in the game (pure sloppiness on Beth's part). However, if we consider how they are actually DESCRIBED, they are essentially parasites. Like the Raiders, they believe humanity is doomed. But unlike the Raiders, they intend to make a buck along the way. They're the equivalent to the cynical doctor who can't cure you of cancer, but instead decides to make a fortune by putting you on chemo; he'll shake every last penny out of you - and then you'll still die.Â

Â

Of the three, the Minutemen are the only ones who haven't lost hope and still believe in humanity. At the start of the game, they're all but finished. In-fighting has left them weak and corrupt. Next, the Gunners almost wipe them out at Quincy, while the Raiders come close to finishing the job in Concord. Preston is the last of the Minutemen. He is the last hope but is near-suicidal (or so he claims later on). When we first meet him, he is cornered by Raiders (i.e. the hopeless). In  others words, Hope is literally seconds away from being snuffed out. And then the Sole Survivor arrives. The Sole Survivor is searching for one kind of hope (a lost child), only to stumble upon another kind of hope (the future of humanity) - though this only comes later on. By leading the Minutemen back from the brink, the Sole Survivor makes this hope a reality by ensuring that humanity does indeed have a future.

Â

As a result, thematically, the Raiders represent chaos, the Gunners represent nihilism, and the Minutemen represent hope, order, and life. Â

Â

That's my take, and being a pretentious arse, I'm almost certainly reading way too much into it. :D In which case, probably better to go with what Ethreon said three pages ago: "Rebuilding the bloody commonwealth. They don't care if you're a brooding alien as long as you are willing to help with that." :wink:

no, I think of it this way too. personally it's easy for me to role play in this game, I recently just had my first kid, so it's easy to put myself in the place of the sole survivor. Either way, as I'm going through the gane, I do get good accomplishment by building the minutemen,which I stumble onto as I'm looking for the killer of my wife, which is what I would do if I were the sole survivor. needless to say I'm in the camp of thinking that Bethesda did a decent job with this game, of course there could he changes in gameplay, mostly more choices and skill checks. I think they did a great job with far harbor's storyline, it's a nice sidestory next to the main quest, especially for people like me that choose your side with the synths. I do wish they would have added more of a chance to bring the railroad into that equation, kind of like how the BOS or institute actually raid far harbor if you tell them about acadia. getting a safehouse and smuggling synthetic escapees into far harbor would have been a nice option for radiant quests.

[stebbinsd]

 

As far as I can tell, the problem here is that Beth gave us four main factions, when they should have given us six.

The Institute, the BoS, and the Railroad are all focused on synths, AI, and technology.

Simultaneously, balancing this out, there are three factions focused on humanity. They are the Minutemen, the Raiders, and the Gunners. For some reason, Beth decided to only turn one of these three into a 'main' faction. As a result, the themes of the story feel unbalanced. To my mind, the Minutemen are never really part of the obvious Main Quest debate that involves the Institute, BoS, and Railroad (in this debate, they're just a bit player). Instead, they are part of an entirely different debate that involves the Raiders and Gunners. These two factions are the Minutemen's true antagonists, NOT the Institute or the BoS.

This is how I interpret them:

At the beginning of the game, you enter what appears to be a dying world, both in terms of the planet and the destruction of humanity. The Main Quest guides you through this decay in search of hope, which is represented by your missing infant son. Ultimately, however, this is a red herring. The Shaun that you are looking for is long gone: all that remains is a terminally ill old man. In other words, your hope of finding your son is already lost. But in making this discovery, you also realize that the world isn't dying and nor is humanity. Both have been pushed to the very brink, but they still abide. And as your hope of finding your son is shattered, simultaneously you gain a new hope for humanity (there's even a line to this effect when Piper interviews you for the newspaper article).

Regarding the Raiders, Gunners and Minutemen, each of them represents a different view of humanity:

The Raiders have already given up and want to see the world burn. They represent chaos and hopelessness. This is the easy route, which makes them cowards.

The Gunners are the most poorly implemented faction in the game (pure sloppiness on Beth's part). However, if we consider how they are actually DESCRIBED, they are essentially parasites. Like the Raiders, they believe humanity is doomed. But unlike the Raiders, they intend to make a buck along the way. They're the equivalent to the cynical doctor who can't cure you of cancer, but instead decides to make a fortune by putting you on chemo; he'll shake every last penny out of you - and then you'll still die.

Of the three, the Minutemen are the only ones who haven't lost hope and still believe in humanity. At the start of the game, they're all but finished. In-fighting has left them weak and corrupt. Next, the Gunners almost wipe them out at Quincy, while the Raiders come close to finishing the job in Concord. Preston is the last of the Minutemen. He is the last hope but is near-suicidal (or so he claims later on). When we first meet him, he is cornered by Raiders (i.e. the hopeless). In others words, Hope is literally seconds away from being snuffed out. And then the Sole Survivor arrives. The Sole Survivor is searching for one kind of hope (a lost child), only to stumble upon another kind of hope (the future of humanity) - though this only comes later on. By leading the Minutemen back from the brink, the Sole Survivor makes this hope a reality by ensuring that humanity does indeed have a future.

As a result, thematically, the Raiders represent chaos, the Gunners represent nihilism, and the Minutemen represent hope, order, and life.

That's my take, and being a pretentious arse, I'm almost certainly reading way too much into it. :D In which case, probably better to go with what Ethreon said three pages ago: "Rebuilding the bloody commonwealth. They don't care if you're a brooding alien as long as you are willing to help with that." :wink:

 

I must confess ... I had previously given up on this thread because I expected everyone who replied to it to just be "Dood, itz juz uh gaim! Juz shuddap n hav phun!"

 

But you're the sole survivor, here to save me from the raiders of this thread while I holed myself up in the attic! Bravo, good friend! Slow clap for you!

 

As for the Raiders & Gunners not being playable/major factions ... take solace in the fact that Bethesda corrected this error with the Nuka World DLC.

Edited January 6, 2017 by stebbinsd

[Fatalmasterpiece]

Look, you like the Minutemen. I get it! I like them too! They're the real "good guys" of the Commonwealth. They're selfless, they're altruistic, and they're ready at a minute's notice (hence the name) to go out and protect people. I absolutely get that you love the Minutemen!

 

But that doesn't make the Minutemen have a purpose in the story. Just because you like a character and/or faction doesn't make them necessary to the plot.

Case in point: Most DBZ fans love the Ginyu Force. However, as you can see from 2:23 - 9:14 of this video demonstrates ...

 

 

... that alone does not make you crucial to the plot!

So do you eat your hamburgers with no bun and no ketchup? I mean, after all, there's no real point to a bun or flavoring like ketchup when the protein and nutrition are all in the meat patty.

Simply, they add to the experience but are not "necessary". The Minutemen add flavor to the commonwealth, giving the player character an escape and distraction from To Syth or Not To Synth!?

They are the human element outside of the post modern struggle.

[Ethreon]

I like how everyone disagreeing with you is reduced to a caricature. Congrats.

[stebbinsd]

I like how everyone disagreeing with you is reduced to a caricature. Congrats.

Not everyone. As I just said, crawe1x's input was incredibly insightful.

[DoctorKaizeld]

I like how everyone disagreeing with you is reduced to a caricature. Congrats.

agreed

[TheSpaceShuttleChallenger]

When you write about social issues, doing justice to the subject at hand takes precedence over tidy story format. The fact of the matter is that, in the real world, there are always going to be people who don't want to get involved. They think it's not their business, they've got problems of their own, etc, so they let whatever happens happen. They're a huge part of any social movement--I imagine they'd play an even bigger role in a post-apocalyptic world where most people are fully occupied just trying to stay alive.

If you look outside the factions and at the general populace, you see that most of the people in the commonwealth don't know a whole lot about synths to begin with, and tend to have bigger problems weighing on their mind. Even in Diamond City, while the Broken Mask incident created a general distrust of synths, Nick Valentine is still tolerated (even appreciated) because he's useful, and at the end of the day, most of your Average Joes on the street care more about finding their missing daughter than they care about some nebulous debate on the nature of humanity. I think it's only appropriate that the Minutemen, as the Commonwealth's faction for the common man, echoes that.



From a literary standpoint, the 'argument' that the Minutemen Faction is making is that synths are not Chekhov's Gun. Instead, synths are a Red Herring that have led the other factions (and potentially, the player) away from what really matters: Overcoming destruction and building a future. Taking this post-apocalyptic shithole and turning it into something worth living in. Certainly, the theme of rebuilding is a major aspect of the game. For one, it's a motherf*#@ing post-apocalyptic RPG. That's something we tend to take for granted simply because it's the genre. But I'm here to argue that that the main conflict in this game is not having your son taken from you and it's not having to deal with belligerent factions.

The main conflict is the that you were sitting at home minding your own business and your entire civilization was reduced to rubble. Everything you had was taken away from you, and you were spat out, two hundred years later, into a world of radiation and decay. Setting aside the fact that pretty much the biggest deal that can possibly be dealt to anyone, it's also the only element of the game that is truly present in everywhere you go, and in everything you do. Everything else about the main quest is just the writers giving you something more concrete to navigate the theme by. Shawn's a specific something that you lost and are now trying to regain. The factions introduced later provide specific avenues for creating a new life (and a new world to live in) in the manner you see fit. But as you'll notice, the main quest isn't entirely about finding Shawn and it isn't entirely about advancing factions; it transitions from one to the other as Nate's story develops from "chasing after the past" into "chasing after the future." Coming to terms with the loss of his world and shifting focus to building a new life and a new world with a faction that shares his vision of the future.

So here's how the synth conflict serves as a red herring to the main conflict. Every single faction is built around a clearly defined vision of the future:

The Brotherhood wants a world where mankind understands technology and wields it in a responsible and ethical manner. They seek out new technology, they study it, they try to understand it, they put it to the best possible use. It's in the bloody manifesto. But for some damn reason, when it comes to synths, they Brotherhood becomes belligerent and irresponsible; all they can think to do is destroy that which they can't understand or easily control. They won't give synths even a moment's consideration, even if the synth in question is a very good soldier, and has perfectly demonstrated a commitment to the Brotherhood and the betterment of mankind.

The Institute wants to let the humans on the surface die off; and in its place, use science and technology create a society that takes humanity to new heights. As their motto goes: To redefine mankind. But Synths blur their motives; when the Institute is faced with a creature that truly does redefine humanity, the Institute is afraid. The facts are in front of them; Gen IIIs are indistinguishable from real people. They have thoughts and dreams. They choose to risk their lives to obtain freedom. Suddenly the Institute doesn't even want to discuss the possibilities of science, let alone embrace them.

Then there's the Railroad. The future where every person's a person, and every person gets to live and be free. Except that the Railroad is only out to help one type of person, and they will kill every man, woman and child that stands in their way. I'm talking mass murder here, and the reason is thus: To the Railroad, the ideals represented by a handful of escaped synths have become more important than actual people--synth, human or otherwise.

The Minutemen want a future where a person can build a life for themselves and live peacefully. That's exactly what they stick to, synths or no synths.

Which is probably why the Minutemen are represented as being the Commonwealth's only true "good guys." Every other faction allows synths and the philosophy of personhood to overshadow their goals and turn them into assholes... and in true karmic justice, that preoccupation with synths leads to their demise in almost every ending of the game: We see three groups of people who used to be all about creating the best possible world for humanity... now ripping each other to shreds over synths. But because the Minutemen stay focused on the main goal (of creating a better world to live in) and didn't get involved in all this bickering about whether or not synths are people, they have the honor of being the only faction that survives every variant of the main quest.

[crawe1x]

hey put "(spoilers)" just after "This is how I interpret them:" so as to avoid issues.

 

 

you literally explained a major problem with the Minutemen and it isnt the one you think it is. the Sole Survivor should never have become General at the beginning of the game. what should have happened was you can persuade Preston to do it and be the right hand man/woman who helps him become a great leader.

 

 

Yep, point taken. The irony is that I've never actually completed the Main Quest, despite putting 1360+ hours into this game. :confused: The furthest I've ever gotten is when you first enter the Institute and meet Father. So everything I know about what happens after comes from seeking out spoilers on the internet. :D

 

I agree with you about the Sole Survivor not becoming the General of the Minutemen, especially early in the story. I specifically have to role-play around this - after rescuing Preston, I always leave him at Sanctuary and then continue with the Main Quest up to around the Glowing Sea chapter. I then do the Automatron questline, clear out Quincy (which also makes sense if you use the Ellen companion mod), and establish a few settlements that I have stumbled upon. This way, when Preston makes me General, it has a bit more meaning. Otherwise, he's basically just promoting some random stranger who did him a good deed.

 

I would prefer it if Beth would stop making it so that you become the boss of everyone in their games. In the case of the Minutemen, you're right - it would make much more sense if you helped Preston to fulfill his own potential. In other words, whenever he sends you off to do a job, you are acting as the champion of the Minutemen, not the general. I mean, King Arthur didn't go fighting monsters. He sent his knights - Lancelot, Gawain, etc. to do that kind of stuff. Same goes for the other factions...

 

Of course, Skyrim was even worse - in that game you become the Dragonborn, the leader of the Companions, the Thieves Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, the Mages, the Dawnguard, thane of half a dozen towns, etc. It stretches all logic to ridiculous proportions.

 

@stebbinsd

what an interesting lore thread,

these kinds of asides and reflections are what make Nexus different than elsewhere,

and who knows what ideas can come from these kinds of discussion.

 

 

Some very interesting points here. By the way, I didn't know that about Sturges - it just shows how much is going on beneath the surface of this game. Also, I totally forgot about the Atom Cats. From what I've seen of them, they're an even more under imagined faction than the Gunners. I guess we can add them to the ever-lengthening list of missed opportunities.

 

 

no, I think of it this way too. personally it's easy for me to role play in this game, I recently just had my first kid, so it's easy to put myself in the place of the sole survivor. Either way, as I'm going through the gane, I do get good accomplishment by building the minutemen,which I stumble onto as I'm looking for the killer of my wife, which is what I would do if I were the sole survivor. needless to say I'm in the camp of thinking that Bethesda did a decent job with this game, of course there could he changes in gameplay, mostly more choices and skill checks. I think they did a great job with far harbor's storyline, it's a nice sidestory next to the main quest, especially for people like me that choose your side with the synths. I do wish they would have added more of a chance to bring the railroad into that equation, kind of like how the BOS or institute actually raid far harbor if you tell them about acadia. getting a safehouse and smuggling synthetic escapees into far harbor would have been a nice option for radiant quests.

 

 

Yeah, I know that a lot of people don't care for the Main Quest, but as a father with three sons, I've always related to it. I guess the moral of the story is that if you want to truly enjoy FO4, go have a kid, preferably a son. :tongue:

 

Haven't yet played Far Harbor, but I keep hearing good things. For that reason, I'm saving it until last.

 

 

I must confess ... I had previously given up on this thread because I expected everyone who replied to it to just be "Dood, itz juz uh gaim! Juz shuddap n hav phun!"

But you're the sole survivor, here to save me from the raiders of this thread while I holed myself up in the attic! Bravo, good friend! Slow clap for you!

 

As for the Raiders & Gunners not being playable/major factions ... take solace in the fact that Bethesda corrected this error with the Nuka World DLC.

 

 

You've raised a fascinating subject - I love threads like this, because I always learn something new. But you need to tread carefully. I think Ethreon has a very sharp needle, which he loves to poke into balloons of hot air. I know, because he's popped a good few of my balloons over multiple threads. :D

 

Nate's story develops from "chasing after the past" into "chasing after the future."

 

 

In my opinion, this is a very nice way of putting it.

 

I think what this thread shows is that there are so many ways to interpret the game. Skyrim is a more competent game, but FO4 has so much more depth (again, only my opinion). Had Beth gone a little bit further and explored some of these points rather than just touching upon them - and had they fixed some of the more annoying game mechanic failings - then FO4 would be one of the greatest games ever made. As it is, it's an extremely good game with some truly irritating flaws. Still, I bought AC Syndicate at the same time that I bought FO4... I've started Syndicate half a dozen times, only to give up a few hours in so that I can return to FO4. That's testament to how good FO4 is - and to the work of the very talented modders on this site.