This is absolutely true. Especially after the end game the BoS are putting everything they have and their lives on the line in a very focused effort to clean the commonwealth of all the horrors lurking around.

Minutemen are good (though also unreliable and incompetent in long run), but the other three are different shades of gray.

- Railroad are egoistical jackasses who care little to nothing about suffering of non-Synths (heck, even less than random scientists in the Institute) and even their treatment of Synths is borderline evil: erasing a persons memories and replacing them with someone else's is NOT a good thing. Yeah, the Synths say it is their choice, but even an amateur in diplomacy can easily persuade a vulnerable and terrified person to go with it

- BoS seem bigoted, but they fight whatever threatens or may threaten the Wastelands... and if former Fallouts taught us anything , it is that those threats are way too numerous. They are also the only faction that actively purges evil like Raiders, Supermutants and Ferals and are not afraid to give their lives for it. Even their racism is very limited: they DO know the difference between Feral and non-feral ghouls and their fear of Synths is justified when you take into consideration that they don't if they are machines under direct control of the Institute or not. by destroying them, you make the entirety of East Coast less safe place to live in

- Institute has rough methods, but most of what they do is in self-defense and protection rather than thirst for power. When they tried to co-exist with the wastelanders, they were betrayed, and this is what made them develop the fear and hate for the wastelanders. Additionally, most of their people are good and decent persons, with only select few being downright rotten (three of them including the big boss, and the big bad boss dies after the end of MQ). And while blowing them up will get rid of bad guys, it also gets rid of countless innocent Synths and humans

This situation can't be properly colored in black&white. No matter what choice you make, the game will show you a hopeful future AND make you feel like a villain. It doesn't color any option as right or wrong, just a different choice leading to a different "good future".

Additionally, in world of Fallout the priority is in surviving and protecting, not being nice. Being nice and soft usually gets you killed.

I did an essay on this if anyone is interested.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-moral-ambiguity-of-fallout-4.html

Suffice to say, the Railroad is composed of extremists who actually engage in terrorism against those they consider evil.

The Institute is also note as bad as it appears.

The Brotherhood...ehhh.

Interesting thread, the insights are actually helpful.

I'm at a crossroads in my game.

I've been helping the Minutemen because it's been a key factor for me to explore. They don't seem to have any enemies, or at least none they've spoke of. They're apprehensive over the Institute, but don't really know anything about them. They've not spoken about the Railroad or BoS.

I've helped Danse recover a part from a factory, but when he asked me to join BoS, I declined. He said if I change my mind, to come back to the police station. I may do this, just to get their side.

I'm not happy Bethesda forced me to join the Railroad just to get a chip read, but I helped them do one quest and, although I like Deacon, this group is definitely one I will not join. They're nut jobs, and knowing what they do to synths really made me feel guilty when I realized what I had done. I plan on wiping this group from the planet. Jerks.

Spoke with Father and listened to his ideals, but so far, he has yet to clarify how he intends to enact them. Right now, his only concern is retrieving synths that have escaped and were reprogrammed. Far from "evil", but if there's an alterior motive, Father hasn't divulged this yet. I went with one Courser to retrieve a Raider in a damn-awesome junk build, but that's all I've done for the Institute. Clean place, but too sterile for my taste.

I'm not sure when this game puts me at the "point of no return" (please don't tell me), but it's looking like Minutemen or BoS (if the meeting goes well, that is).

I get the feeling that, unless I side with the Institute, the three remaining factions will attack it just because that's the only way to close out the story.

Which means I'll have to kill Father.

Yeah, don't need to talk to Mama Murphy to see this predictable outcome.

I find it hard to call people who want to rescue people from slavery at considerable risk to their own lives "nuts."

The Railroad hates the Institutes for slavery, murdered friends, murdered family members, and murdered innocents.

They're zealots but they've had their back against the wall for a long time.

They want to rescue people who don't want to be rescued and wipe people's memories, which pretty much is the end of that personality until it's unearthed.

Except for all the people who want to be rescued.

You did an excellent job of portraying what you saw in the game. Very well written, and insightful.

Your take on the Minutemen, Institute, and Railroad were exactly on par with my own, though I've yet to actually see anyone claim an "enemy" stance except for the Railroad, who passionately hate the Institute.

Interesting, indeed. It'll be interesting to see where this all leads.

Reread my sentence.

They want to rescue people who don't want to be rescued.

Now stop and think about that. I'm not including the people who want to be rescued when I type that.

The term "slavery" applies to the synths in fallout 4 as much as it applies to your fridge and computer......with the additional pleasantry that synths unlike your pc and fridge were made to spy and kill......you horrible, horrible human being you.

Here's the thing.

When I went into the Institute, I read a list of known synths. One of them was a Raider I killed.

Reading that, I felt guilty. I took out someone who I didn't know was reprogrammed and set off as though their life meant nothing because while the Railroad reprogrammed the synth, they didn't bother to add code not to kill other people?

That's nuts.

They're going to die. My character will make sure this faction is wiped off the earth for that.

On the point about Synths not wanting to be rescued and as said in Charlemagne's blog, the killing of hordes of innocents within the Institute... from what I recall from the main story taking the Railroad route, you communicate with a synth and a person who serve as something like leaders of a free-the-synths splinter cell within the Institute itself. I might be wrong but I remember that your options are to either just free the synths that acknowledged they want to be freed by communicating with those two, or attempt to free all of them, or as many as possible... essentially the equivalent of opening every cell in a prison and shouting "on you go". I also remember that there was an option to activate an emergency evacuation message throughout the Institute in order to let as many innocents out as possible before blowing the place up. I can't remember if the Railroad specifically prompt you to use that, or if it's just an option for the player to come across, but if the former is true it'd certainly help the case that they aren't so fanatical as to throw human life in the gutter in favour of Synths, as many point out.

From what I can remember, the Railroad at least gave the Institute - Synths and scientists alike - the option to leave at the end. Albeit they're still inevitably murdering a lot of innocents who can't escape in time. So yeah... Railroad are more morally ambiguous than I initially believed, but I think they still have some merit.

One could also make the claim, that your (or my) brain has no other way of working than the way it works, when it receives this information.

Except, if you think Synths are people then brainwashing them is sick, evil, and wrong.

Which is actually a point against the Railroad I admit.

Also, the Raiders at Libertalia are former Minutemen.

Any person who would try to make humanity the dominant species over Curie and Nick Valentine has wires loose.

Look what humanity accomplished.

*gazes at rubble*

Time for the age...the age of the DEATHCLAW.

The biggest strike against the Railroad is they make a plan to evacuate EVERY Synth in the Institute but actually shoot at civilians trying to escape and scientists.

Likewise, only Preston Garvey prompts you to evacuate the Institute.

Both the Railroad and BoS want you to:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JnAPdB57jUg/UYFy3V5Uw_I/AAAAAAAALmw/fCvYo8Oe5H0/s1600/jaime-lannister.gif

I see. Didn't realize they were that level of misguided until now...

Your blog was spot-on, by the way. Thanks for making it even harder to decide my moral alignment in this game.

Thanks!

The thing is, I don't blame the Railroad for this. As far as they're concerned, the Institute is a bunch of Nazis who murdered their families, friends, and have hunted them like animals. Blowing up the Institute is no worse than blowing up the Death Star.

Which is an interesting commentary on video game morality. They're acting like this is Fallout 3 and the Institute is Raven's Rock.

But Raven's Rock had kids in it too.

You just never saw them.

Everyone in the game thinks they're the good guy. Which is kind of cool as they speak with deep sincerity about it.

For me? The best side is Sole Survivor side.

Disobey orders and save the Institute's scientists.

Valentine is programmed to replicate a long-dead detective's work and gets a meaningful result and he was scrapped before having spy and kill protocols written.....which makes him a one off. Curie on the other hand was never an Institute Synth and appears to have been programmed as ethical and helpful. Optionally she takes over a brain-dead synth body that seems to have had all its Institute programming erased.....they are useful and robots like them would be a great help to mankind. But pointing at them as examples of why we should accept synths is similar to pointing that a robot can be useful so we should all welcome skynet terminators into our homes.

Man, don't do it to Star Wars too.

Your anologies make perfect sense, however. I love the range of factions New Vegas and 4 have given us.

My take on each faction, make of it what you will...

Railroad

BoS

Institute

Minuteman

Are you seriously biting into his killing children argument? The institute is a monstrous organization.....letting them go on will result in thousands of lives lost for every member of that wretched organization and those kids, just like Shaun, will only grow to be some seriously demented people that cause a lot of death and suffering.

The Institute route has the Directorate leaders underneath you mount a coup actually and Shaun points out. "This was a really stupid idea of them."

It turns out Institute scientists are a bunch of doddering old academics and pretty easily overpowered.

No one knows what it's like to kill or rule which is why Shaun picks you as much as because you're a parent. He hates Kellog but you're ruthless and strong enough to do so.
With the Coursers and Synths programmed to obey the Director, it's kind of like you're a wolf among sheep.



I think if you think any group in Fallout 4 is purely evil, you've kind of missed the point of the game and its storytelling.

Even so, the Institute is all kinds of [censored] up.

Or did you think I didn't notice that?

University Point and the FEV things mean Shaun has probably got a express ticket to hell.

Well, actually, he made a lot of sound points about how the Institute isn't inherently monstrous but rather suffers from monstrous leadership. I can absolutely sympathise with the innocents, in particular the children, of the Institute, just like I sympathise with a ghoul or a super mutant; victims of circumstance.

Sure they do......oh noes, we can't kill a few thousand "innocents" as they go about the business of murdering innocents by the billions. I seriously realize how comical and [censored] these arguments are.