I was impressed with the richly developed sociopolitical topics Bethesda at least attempted in Skyrim's Civil War questline, but based off only the initial reaction on the forums, Bethesda seems to have stumbled ass backwards into a truly outstanding civil rights discussion with the synthetics. Most AAA developers seem to avoid political/philosophical issues like the plague, or at least water them down so much that any controversy is sterilized. Without playing the game it's impossible to tell if Bethesda truly develops and explores the theme with subtlety and finesse, but they've already prompted many serious questions and discussions on the idea of synthetic intelligence on this forum, and for that, they deserve some recognition.

It isn't impossible to imagine that synthetic rights could be a revolutionary civil rights struggle in the coming centuries, and the responses here have given some insight into how that might look. At first I thought that the allusion to the Underground Railroad was a little questionable, but now I think it might actually be too on the nose, given the fascinating parallels between the discussions on this board and the real life struggle African-Americans' engaged in for their own rights. Hands down the most interesting development has been the development of the slur 'toaster'. I don't know if this is a pop-culture reference that I've missed or the legitimate birth of a new epithet, but the way the group rejecting synthetic rights has embraced it is really interesting.

I'm interested to hear how you all feel about Bethesda's handling of the issue, at least as far as we can tell so far.

To compare fictional robots to the struggles of real life African American people is pretty insulting if you ask me.

Seriously bungled it, that or the "Railroad" consists of a bunch of Synths trying to pull a scam in order to get more synths into world..

Either way they had Human slaves but the first member of the Underground railroads attitude about it was leaning too much towards "[censored] those Humans we only care about Synths"

These fantasy/sci-fi parallels to actual ethnic and minority struggles and controversies always fall flat on their faces for me. The X-men, for example, are in some incarnations meant to represent homosixual rights or something to that effect, but last I checked homosixuals don't have mutant powers that can burn cities and kill thousands, nor do they have a terrorist leader who's hellbent on extermination of anyone that isn't one of them. The parallels are ridiculous.

Same thing with the civil rights movement. Androids pose an actual threat to society, from the looks Fallout 4. They're robotic murder machines controlled by a shadowy organization with questionable morals. Hardly like real African American slavery or civil rights.

Hopefully it's possible to at least ignore the Railroad in the mian quest. I might change my mind depending on how things are depicted in the game.

I wouldn't consider an allegory of real historical events insulting, particularly if the synths are portrayed respectfully and sympathetically. Bethesda would also be far from the first to construct their story with the same parallels.

I'd say that Bethesda thinking that a synth 'civil rights' MQ was a good idea is just another example that they simply can't come up with any good ideas. I think the whole thing from beginning to end is going to be a facepalm as far as common sense goes.

Oh Please! Not this garbage again.

The only synth character Bethesda presented in Fallout 3 certainly didn't strike me as a "threat to society". In fact, as a sort of "tough but fair sheriff" trope, he seemed like the exact opposite. I do imagine the Railroad itself will be relegated to a minor faction with an optional quest line to not make the more socially conservative players uncomfortable.

Just felt the need to point out that X-men had nothing to do with homosixuals until the X2 movie when Gandalf threatened to walk of they didn't add it. It was originally suppose to support the civil rights movement. But still yeah it fell way flat.

Bryan Singer actually developed the idea for the homosixuality allegory, not Sir Ian McKellen.

Ok, what faction is the number one enemy of the Railroad? Brotherhood, Minutemen, Institute, Super Mutants, or Raiders??

Most likely the Institute, but I would imagine they would probably clash with raiders trafficking in slaves/synths.

Really? I'd always heard it was the other way around. Either way the point still stands it was something added in recent years and wasn't the original point of the x-men.

Back on topic. I find anything that relies on real world struggles and issues to tell a story is usually in poor taste and badly implemented.

Thank you! I just can't see why any poster would compare Synths to civil rights movement. I stick to my position that Synths are still built and programmed and that this is a gamer forum not a political forum.

We know far too little to condemn or praise the railroad. We have a small snippet of the story, and far too little context.

I'm not sure why you're thanking me?...

People who compare the synths to the civil rights movement usually believe two things:

1) Intelligence that developed coincidentally and randomly on Earth is not meaningfully different to intelligence that was synthetically derived.

2) Intelligence that is comparable to that of a Homo sapiens (whether contemporary, extraterrestrial or synthetic) should not be enslaved.

I believe that video games can explore complex themes with the same legitimacy as any other art form, and that gamer's opinions on social matters are not inherently without value.

Ok then I un-thank you! If you want to open this thread up to political discussion then be prepard to hear views that are not from RevLeft!!!

Hope you don't feel like I don't want to hear your view, that's precisely why I did start this topic. I'm not sure what RevLeft is.

Also, I don't necessarily see it as a political debate, more of a scientific/philosophical one.

I'll help the synthetics out as long as they don't try to over throw humans (like robots do in 99% of these kind of stories) but I'm not going to put them above humans (or ghouls or super mutants for that matter) because when all it said and done they are still just machines.

What I'm saying is that if you make this thread into an all out Political discussion, you gotta make it open to all sides of the Political spectrum from Far-Left to Far-Right.

Call me Deckard....

I still maintain that this isn't a political discussion at all. This is a scientific issue: Is synthetic intelligence superficially or meaningfully different from contemporary, human intelligence? My understanding of biology and the historical evolution of Homo sapiens leads me to the belief that it is not. I understand that you have a different idea. That's fine, and I encourage you to share it, but please don't taint this with "Right vs. Left" politics, unless you believe that contemporary politics somehow affect personhood for a hypothetical lifeform in some way.

Well Ok thanks for clarifying. As far as Synths are concerned they are still robots, artificial intelligence. Yes they are very advanced in their programming but they are still artificial intelligence or artificial persons but still not human in any way shape or form as they are still a product of their programming be it advanced or not like any protectron.

I agree...But don't tell Dr.Chandra that 馃槈

So genetic Homo sapiens are the only beings entitled to rights? Perhaps enslaving an intelligent extraterrestrial species would be morally acceptable then. You also seem to assume a uniquely human experience of self-awareness. I would encourage you to read some of the scientific literature related to self-awareness. You might be a little surprised by the lack of evidence that humans experience some sort of emergent agency, what you might refer to as "self-awareness". This is obviously a contentious issue (the human brain developed in a way to reject this very idea), but the lack of human agency has important ramifications for morality that you might not have considered.