Honestly, the way the story is set, it's very easy to 'stumble' upon the BoS first, and once you've seen what they're packing, why would you try to get some guerilla group to help you get your son back if you could have a military with a warship help you instead?

My SS joined the Railroad because he was deeply uncomfortable with the fact the Brotherhood was talking about wiping out Synths and the big rousing speechs sounded a lot like the Enclave before the war.

But he figured the organization probably had its ear to the ground unlike the BoS who had no familiarity with the Commonwealth whatsoever.

You need no 'familiarity' when you've got airstrikes...

But it's funny how I'm actually playing the devil's advocate here, since I strongly believe in synth rights, and think the BoS are decidedly fascist. But at the same time, I see the appeal of the BoS's approach, and honestly think they'd come out victorious in any confrontation not influenced by the SS.

Your SS couldn't know about the Enclave since they were a secret organization.

I view the Brotherhood as a path which would work well for the Commonwealth's humans.

But it would be a path of suffering for many.

Also, a sad horrific waste of lives in the Institute.

They're mentioned in a newspaper.

But I'm mostly using Enclave to refer to "Pre-War United States fascist government."

It's less of a mouthful this way.

Yeah, prewar America was pretty [censored] up. You read the other stories in the Bugle and all the [censored] from the previous games. Beneath all the polish the US was a horrible place ran by immoral maniacs.

The survivors will probably try to rebuild their tech. And while you integrate Synths into your society, they will regain control over these Synths and strike back against you. And unless, they malfunction, the Synths will continue to serve their creators.

But what if your SS was a fascists too?

Just look at that sentence.

the fundamental mistake in all this... is that synths don't "want to be free". They are built to serve a purpose, and carry that purpose out happily. And have done for decades.

The problem came when a member of the Institute, who had an experimental synth mother, decided Synths were people too, so hacked the factory and inserted "you are a slave, you want to escape and be free" instructions into some of them. Some Commonwealth citizens, when presented with an almost human synth saying what it's been programmed to say, formed the Railroad to try to help them. It's false though, synths don't need help, they need a factory recall If you give them a new face and memory wipe, they don't have their original purpose anymore, so go off and be raiders and worse. By trying to help, the Railroad are creating the monster they think they are fighting. I feel only pity for the Railroad, and hope they rest in a better place now, aware of their folly

This also created the problem with the Brotherhood of Steel. Instead of doing what they were designed to do, infiltrate and gently help society rebuild, you have rogue synths going around babbling to the BOS (of all people) about the institute and its technology. Red rag to a bull.

So yes, the entire mess in the Commonwealth is down to a lone hacker with a synth-love complex lmao

---sources: the terminals inside my lovely Institute office.

Genocide? How in hell can I commit genocide on a machine? it's not life.

Like telling me if I unplug my toaster oven I'm going to jail.

The Brotherhood's views on non-human/synthetic humans are honestly the least concerning things about them to me.

Excepting of course, that the Synths are flesh and blood organisms. Not toasters.

Rather than robots, they're basically a sub-species of humanity.

Ok, then I'll compare them to my house plants.

Shh. Quiet house plant, real humans are talking.

People argue that Synths have feelings because they feel sympathetic to them will playing, but if you as a player can feel sympathetic to an NPC, that has clearly no feelings, doesn't that proof that your character could also be mislead?

I'd go so far as to say the issue whether the synths are truly sentient is the least pressing one. The real problem is that whether they are or aren't, they are easily reprogrammable. That makes them a permanent hazard.

It is essentially funny that we're discussing whether or not Synths are, essentially, video game characters.

Video game characters are, by definition, computer constructs of human beings designed to look and act like people while possessing no soul.

Isn't THAT a mindscrew?

The institute synths are ticking tyke bombs, a simple word or phrase and they can go hostile on you, chances are the institute could send out a frequency and BAM all synths everywhere become horrible monsters willing to gut you in the night.

The BOS is right to want to eliminate them, and ghouls have the same issue but its much less profound they can degrade under the right stress and pressure. Only individual ghouls with strong will power remain sane for long periods of time.

Super Mutants also degenerate with time as we can see in Nightkin, with the majority being dumb evul.

The only gripe with the BOS is that they send everything from little children to a highly vulnerable airship to a foreign land to take out an organization of pre-war learning.

I'm iffy about the BOS, Minutemen, and Institute. The BOS message is legit, but they sacrifice freedom and endless potential, the Institute is cold and willing to wipe out entire settlements and cities for practically dam reason, but they can reverse engineer or engineer miracle cures for the FEV and pre-war conventional/engineered diseases. Relay tech is also incredible, sooner or later hardlight tech might come into play. As director you can changes a whole lot as Maxson changed the BOS.

But as with Elder Lyons once you go, or get assassinated they'll return to their genocidal maniac roots. And possible lead the new world into the ground. As they did to the United New Commonwealth Settlements and countless others.

The Minutemen are vulnerable and too weak to be a long lasting game changer, but they stand of independace and freedom for today. And its always nice to directly impact lives. However, a single synth infiltrator and the house of cards comes tumbling down. Like the Quincy massacre.

The Best Hope is the Institute, the most reliable hope is the BOS who after 200 years have always kept the wasteland safe if at the cost of stagnation.

Calculator

Master

Enclave

The BOS has been through it all, IMO the NCR beating them shouldn't be canon in the original Fallout 3 the NCR get whooped by the BOS after all.

For the NCR supporters out there look no further than The Divide, Vault 22, and the massacre of intellectuals of the Enclave, BOS, and Followers of The Apocalypse, rather than incorperation the NCR take them out. Even Ceasar's Legion came from the NCR. Had the BOS won their war against the NCR there would be no Divide, no change of spreading of Vault 22's spores, and No Legion. The BOS are also smart enough to place a plug on Elijah who can end all life in the mojave. They have the right ideals to an extent, but simply needed to recruit outsiders sooner rather its too little too late for them now.

The NCR can field possibly tens of thousands of soldiers, the NCR cannot. Power Armour isn't going to save you from shock and awe.


The Enclave at Navarro were just soldiers and a rump of the main-force that had left for the East Coast.


These really aren't things in favour of the Brotherhood, if the Master had won there wouldn't be a Caesar's Legion either.

I love the BoS but the whole idea they're some sort of invincible Justice league is really really silly.

Not just numbers beat the BoS.

The fact NCR can and does have weapons which are not QUITE as good as the BoS are still pretty damn good.

Especially if they insist on riding in a blimp. Like seriously, just find one surface to air missile (of-which I'm sure many are loitering the American wasteland) and they're done.

The Prydwen is hardly the BoS though, is it? I mean, for gameplay reasons destroying it in Fallout 4 'defeats' the faction, but similarly annexing the Hoover Dam 'won' the area for the Legion and such. That didn't remove BoS or NCR presence from the land.

Idk what the canon will be for FO4, but aren't we kind of reaching a state where the NCR controls most of the West Coast, and the BoS most of the East?

Is it an actual blimp blimp?

I had the weird idea it just looks like one and is a flying magnetic battleship of sorts.

Like you can go into the interior of the balloon and its full of more layers of Brotherhood operations.

The women with no legs describes it as being full of flammable gases, which are presumably in those big tanks at the top of the ship. So I assume so yeah.