Why destroy the Institute? Not the organization, the building.

[DanteRedfield]

[TheSpaceShuttleChallenger]

Because it's the world of Fallout, where nuclear explosions are pretty darn easy to come by. On the other hand, trying to wipe out all the people in the Institute without ruining the facilities is a lot more complicated. Even the big tough Brotherhood states that the Institute has the technology and manpower (via mass-produced coursers) to win in any direct combat scenario--in fact it appears that all factions *overestimate* how easily the Institute could squash them. So you have to catch them by surprise, and you have to wipe them out the first time, or else they'll just come out and destroy you before you get a second chance. But you know precious little about how the Institute's facilities work, you don't know what their failsafes are and how to get around them, and you don't know where their security might be looking, so what how many good options for sabatoge do you really have?

 

For the minutemen, the number 1 priority is getting rid of the threat presented by the Institute. Getting rid of threats is the entire point of that faction's existence. And you've got to remember these guys have no manpower, no technology, barely any organisation to speak of. They've got to take any opportunity they get. Besides, these are a simple people. They reach 80% happiness just from having food, water, and a bed with a roof over it. I don't think they're really all that concerned with the immediate possibility of rebuilding a technologically advanced society.

 

 

The Brotherhood does like hoarding technology, but they've been doing this for a long time, they know they can't have *everything.* Generally if there is technology that they can't control for themselves, their Plan B is to scuttle it so that nobody else can have it. So, keep in mind that the Brotherhood leadership is absolutely terrified of the Institute. They're convinced that they would never win an outright war against the Institute. War is really the only thing the Brotherhood is good at, so they have nothing to fall back on. So they cut their losses. The nuke the institute, destroy the enemy and simultaneously ensure that nobody (including themselves) can ever get their hands on that "abominable" synth technology.

 

As for the Railroad.. again, they're short on manpower, they're barely clinging on as an organisation. These guys have one (1) option for dealing with the Institute and every minute they hold off doing it is a minute that the Instute could sweep through and wipe them out. They do make an effort to help Synths escape before the detonation. Yes, they do destroy the Synths' only means of reproduction, but is that a problem? The Railroad's mission is to rescue people who are being held in bondage. That's all. They're not out to establish a new society of synthetic humans that will compete with and undoubtedly be in conflict with ordinary humans. And besides, they've already got more Synths than they know what to do with. Asking them to risk their very existence to protect the Synth Production lab is like asking an overflowing animal shelter to support puppy mills.

Besides, to take words from Desdmona's mouth, the Railroad believes that Synths are "So close to real people that the distinction is meaningless." So why would they care if the next generation has Synths or not? And where do we even get this assumption that synths can't have kids anyway? They've got real flesh and blood organs, cloned from real humans, that resemble humans so closely that even close examination from a medical practitioner can't find any difference. They can provide a Lover's Embrace perk at the very least. And if they're sterile, well--that's probably a common issue in a radioactive wasteland, but I'm sure there's plenty of orphans for those who wish to adopt.

 

 

 

ALSO, the Commonwealth is already a gold mine of highly-advanced, forgotten technology that just needs to be discovered and restored. Remember these people--and by 'these people' I mean literally everyone in all of these factions--live their entire lives, every second of everyday, surrounded by this huge towering skyscrapers full of computers and data archives, research technology and old-world manufacturing equipment that in may cases is either working or very close to working condition, and it's abundant enough that plenty of it could be torn apart, scrapped and rebuilt. And a lot of that stuff, like, say, cars or medical supplies or military equipment, has a lot more immediate practical value than, what... Gorilla clones? Air recycling? Synthetic replacements for kidnapped family members?

And at the same time, think how many times, just in a single day, these people must walk by a piece of technology that's broken, can't be fixed, nobody knows what it used to do, it's just gone. That's also a daily occurrence. Certain aspects of technology being completely lost to nuclear explosions is nothing new to these folks. And the backlog of things that are lost and still waiting to be uncovered is pretty darn long. So you might be overestimating how much they actually care if the Institute's technology in particular. Most people in the commonwealth are basically just focused on survival and can't even be arsed to work on restoring the technology that's already freely available everywhere around them, even when it might result in an immediate improvement of their quality of life... so asking them to care about the Institute's gratuitous cloning projects is maybe a little much.

So TL:DR; All of the mentioned factions have limited resources and are very vulnerable to retaliation from the Institute if they try an ambition plan and fail. So they made sacrifices to ensure that the Institute was destroyed without any opportunity to fight back. Also you're probably overestimating how much these factions actually care about preserving Institute technology.

Edited July 9, 2018 by TheSpaceShuttleChallenger

[ToroMontana]

To the question of why did they preserve Kellogg but not anyone else, remember that required some very advanced cyber implants.

 

Who's to say there aren't many risks involved in doing this? Just because it was done to one person doesn't mean the project was a success. There could have been multiple failures making this not worth it.