By the billions?

You are just silly.

What do you even think the Institute is about, exactly?

You really believe that? They were in the business of making killing machines and screwing with FEV long before Shaun and unless stopped they will continue to do just that for as long as they exist. Most of them appear aloof and detached because they have no tangible understanding of sympathy or anything outside those walls.....they are borderline psychopaths.

Firstly, your anger is delicious.

Secondly, it's hypocritical and well, misguided, to think [1]a child or any decent human being, when referred to as innocent, needs quotation marks around the word, as if they're inherently being raised as little hitlers cuz institute raised them, and [2] if you think murdering thousands of innocents is a leap greater than murdering billions because you've put numerical value on life.

They blew a fully populated planet with all its inhabitants and were going to do lots more of that. A planet more advanced than Earth is today.

You're speaking for a majority you don't represent when you say "they" were screwing with FEV and "most of them" appear to be borderline psychopathic. It's just not supported by what we see in-game, or logically for that matter. The atrocities come from the higher ups. The many who aren't even slightly affiliated with said atrocities are by and large not who the PC interacts with in the game.

I think it goes like this, timeline wise:

The Institute is founded
Institute helps the Commonwealth with its tech and advances [Good Director(s)]
The Institute tries to find the First Provisional Government [Good Director(s)]
The Provisional Government turns to murderous infighting and blames the Institute [Good Director(s)]
The Institute goes underground [Good Director(s)]
Evil Director takes over
Kellog is hired [Evil Director]
The Institute starts creating Super Mutants which they release on the surface [Evil Director]
They kidnap Shaun to make Synths and kill all of Vault 111
Evil Director raises Shaun to be his heir. [Evil Director]
3rd Generation Synths are made and enslaved despite being just cyborged humans [Evil Director]
Father takes over from Evil Director
FEV experiments are continued [Shaun]
University Point Massacre [Shaun]

And you believe that's the last time anyone will attempt anything?

Next time they'll be more subtle

Okay...

What?

Where did you get that? Or are you talking about the Empire from Star Wars.

At the end of the day arguments about not pulling the trigger on monsters because of fake pseudo arguments about how that makes you a monster are meaningless and only conceived by the monsters themselves when cornered. Perfectly reminds me of the ending of Equilibrium where the showdown was with another "Father" figure. His argument about "I'm human and I feel and I have dreams, can you really take my life" was empty.....his dreams were to enslave others and to kill. At the end of the day is recognizing that by not stopping the monster you are directly responsible for all it goes on to do afterwards.

Death Star, Episode IV, Alderaan.

Not to mention does anyone think the reforms everyone who sided with the Institute thinks are going to happen will last once the SS dies? The Minutemen fell apart once their leader died, the BOS became harsher when Lyons died, etc. How long do you think your reforms will last when even the Institute's kids are being taught that the surface is full of monsters that deserve to be exterminated?

This is also assuming the SS doesn't get killed during one of their random excursions into the Wasteland.

An organization like that does not stay the way it is across many generations with innocents around.....those people were raised in those walls....secrets don't last. And even after Father is gone and Virgil is out of the picture every single thing you say as after joining the firmly establishes that it is business as usual.

Exactly. The game perfectly establishes when you join the Institute that absolutely nothing has changed and that it is business as usual. Also it's abundantly clear nobody in that place has any regard for the lives of people on the surface....which enables the atrocities they perform.

Yeah, except stopping hunting down Escaped Synths.

That gets stopped.



But I suppose no one cares about that.

As I said....spy and assassination units. Even if they are alive....and that is a very questionable and big IF as they are created to appear and play human, they are at the absolute best the equivalent of extremely dangerous and mentally ill people who can snap and switch personalities and do horrific stuff and then not remember it.

Anywho, the Institute choice is the most uncertain as you don't know if you can redeem the Institute or not. You could be wrong and the game shows you how someone supremely capable and charismatic can fail miserably (Elder Lyons). Which makes it a good ambiguous choice like Mister House.

Also, to solidify your position you have to get a lot of blood on your hands.

And if you've been playing the Spy or Completitionist Route--betray a lot of friends.

War...nah, we've heard it enough.

Yea they are alllll love and sunshine. First they call their leader "father" if that isn't a tip off right off the bat nothing is. We find out that not only do they keep using Kellogg after they find out what kind of social-path he is but they extend his life and give him more power so he can continue to spread grief across the Commonwealth. Then when asked when the common man will get to benefit in any of this great tec that they are developing by the sacrifice of human lives, the answer "hopefully someday." The last but certainly NOT least when asked if he understood how his mother was killed in cold blood the answer was poor old mum "collateral damage."

So I pull my gun and off the ^&*&^*@ right there. I took great pleasure watching that mushroom cloud, an end to a complete abomination of science, and domination of all mankind by a bunch of mad scientist.

I think the Institute is basically Vault City from Fallout 2.

They have a First Citizen, Draconian Laws, Slavery, contempt for Wastelanders, and some decent people among them.

The experiments by Father are the equivalent of Lynette wanting to wipe out the Ghouls.

Vault City talks a good game about rebuilding the Wasteland but are really about themselves.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/439516/Fallout%204/morality.jpg

This is becoming my new favorite post

....

No.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/439516/Fallout%204/1449067740233.jpg

So how is a reset code any different from death or amnesia? If someone hit me with a bat every 5 years so I keep on "resetting" to some initial setting, then do I have free will? The reset code is an absolute. It doesn't change which personality a Synth had, what actions they have done, or the impact that they have on other people's lives. The reset code is the death of the personality of the synth. Its existence doesn't mean free will doesn't exist, it just hinders the development of free will. It is possible for free will to develop even with the presence of a reset code. Especially, if they are trapped in a vault for 200 years with no one to trigger the reset code. If there is something preventing free will, then it exists within the personality of the synth not some reset code.

The idea is that synths are always vulnerable to outside will imposing on their own. Always. Every day. Every moment that they're active. They are always a potential weapon.

You can make a strong argument that they're people. But trying to dismiss the fear that these possible people could turn and shoot you after years of being your BFF, is at best hopeful and at worst ignorant.

I follow the mindset that once you're a raider, you are no longer human and deserve death. Just because of what raiders do and how crazy/broken most of them are. I don't care who they were before, they're foul creatures now.