That's leaving out the 'Enslavement of a Sentient Being' crime in regards to the Gen3s as that's a whole other argument.

If you buy that Gen3s are basically human and should count as human, then that's another black mark on the tally board.

The Institute is deeply immoral, no matter how clean and shiny they are.

yeah, as presented in the game, i buy that (and it'd not even need to go this far, for me, it's enough if it's sentient and conscious, human (or organic or whatever) or not)

so, ok, say i'd go with that and destroy the institute - but i'd still end up with pretty much the same problem:

i'd end up at a point where my quest says "go destroy institute". the bos way, for all i know them, you'd likely even nuke the place or stg . meaning i'd likely finish up all gen3's in the process as well. and it's not exactly like you know what you're about to do most of the times with the genius dialogue interface

dunno, i find this all VERY unsatisfactory. can't i just get an option to sniper all responsible personell, i just dislike "casualties". a lot.

Sorry but Fallout is about war hence the quote "War never changes" and in war people die... it would be unrealistic if you could get every to hug at the end... i don't know why you would expect any different in a game about war.

Even the Railroad takes the option to bomb and melt down the Institute's reactor.

The only ending that doesn't end with a nuclear explosion is none of them.

you are seriously getting that quote wrong.

that quote is on the fact war is hell and inevitible, even though a war can be ended through peace and is more often ended through peace then genocide.

Then isn't the Brotherhood and Railroad just as guilty? The Brotherhood is in the Commonwealth because the Institute has superior technology and no one can have better technology than the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has the player kill a bunch of Synth Sympathizers, assassinate Virgil if he is not cured or make him a mandatory volunteer if he is cured, and kill any Synth that might have free will even if it is a former BoS Paladin that didn't even realize they were a Synth. The Railroad only cares about freeing Synths. They don't care who gets killed as long as a Synth is freed.

Get the same response from the Minutemen as well if you get Banished from the Institute.

The Institute ending doesn't result in a Nuclear Explosion.

:-)

I think the game should be similar to real life where all the major wars and problems can be resolve by a random stranger within matter of days.

i could go with "war is inevitably hell".......

yes, and where, if anybody opposes, he gets a teddybear shot in his face

The Maxson BoS and Railroad don't even come close to the list of and awfulness of the crimes that the Institute can be proven to have done during the course of the game and its backstory.


Virgil himself is also one of the key criminals (even if he is repentant) as one of the lead researchers on the FEV project for years. Years spent torturing and experimenting upon innocent people. That he ends up a supermutant himself and later trapped in the Glowing Sea if you bring him the cure is irony on a very deep level.

The Brotherhood's worst possible action while in the Commonwealth is the murder of the Railroad if you follow through with it. Other than that they expend a prodigious amount of manpower and equipment on attempting to push back threats to civilians with their vertibird patrols. They're heavy handed, they're very xenophobic, but any of the worst actions they take are based on how the Sole Survivor chooses to make them happen aside from the Railroad's death, which proceeds forward even in other faction storylines.

The Railroad can be called careless. They can be called loons and zealots. In many ways they are. The day they start wiping out entire settlements for a laser rifle (which the Institute does) or performing medical experiments upon the unwilling (also done) or releasing mutant cannibals in vast numbers into the wild (again, the Institute also did that), I'll start comparing them on the same level of misguided. The Railroad is guilty of not making sure enough that there's no collateral damage from their actions. Too often innocent people get hurt when the Railroad doesn't (or can't) follow through on making sure the synths they reprogram integrate well into society. Half of that is simply lack of resources, the other half of that is prioritizing. Because this is seen as one of the less important parts of the mission, their already thin manpower reserves are drained thinner, and usually after synths are released, they are free to go live their lives. Just like humans, sometimes they choose evil (See Gabriel).

False equivalency doesn't work here. The BoS and the RR simply have nothing even close to what the Institute has done. The Institute is afloat on a sea of blood that it has shed, and its sails are the misery that they produce from their experimentation. The numerous crimes which they commit which no one can argue that they aren't guilty of... have no mitigating circumstances in any possible manner that ever ever ever ever ever makes them acceptable.

It is immoral and illegal to experiment on unwilling sentient subjects. Full stop.

It is immoral and illegal to annihilate whole communities of civilians with no strategic value. Full stop.

It is immoral and illegal create (from their unwilling subjects) and release psychotic cannibal mutants on the civilian populace. Full stop.

There is no mitigating factor. These are vile, evil, reprehensible acts.

The worst that the Brotherhood has done is not killing the Railroad, but killing innocent Synths because they are not human. For Generation 3 Synths, the question whether they have free will is paramount. I would say that Generation 3 Synths are sentient and have as much right to live as humans since if they can rebel against their creators without a virus influencing their actions, then they have free will and self-preservation. If the Brotherhood had their way, then they would kill Nick and Danse because they are Synths. So if Synths are sentient, then the Brotherhood is committing genocide on an intelligent race.

As far as University Point goes, it is not known what happened there. University Point found some information that the Institute wanted and strongly requested that they give it to them. So Mirelurks and the villagers killing themselves are just as likely reasons for University Point to be destroyed. Also, there are Raiders, Feral Ghouls, Super Mutants and rarely Railroad recklessness for reasons why a settlement might be destroyed.

As far as the Institute replacing people with Synths, it is not known how many ran away from home or killed by some Raider, Feral Ghoul, Super Mutant, or Deathclaw and how many were actually replaced. Was Roger Warwick replaced by a Synth and used in some experiment or did he run away from home and the Institute decided to create a Synth copy so a family would have their father and the Institute would have a place to test crops? Then you have the Art vs. Art encounter which gives some credence to the run away from home theory. If the Institute was replacing people with Synths, then they would capture human Art and extract his memories into Synth Art. If human Art ran away from home, then came back to see Synth Art, then this encounter makes sense.

The whole Super Mutant fiasco was caused by one organization within the Institute not the whole Institute. It is not everyone that is responsible in these heinous acts just the people working in the FEV Lab and the Directorate and even then all of the Directorate might not know about what goes on in the FEV lab. Each member of the Directorate except for Father is only involved with their own department. So they might not know what is happening in the other departments. The only people that we know of that were involved with the FEV Lab is Dr. Zimmer, Dr. Syverson, Father, and Virgil. Dr. Syverson is dead, Dr. Zimmer might be dead depending on what action Bethesda decides to make canon. In Fallout 3, you can kill Dr. Zimmer to save Harkness. The Lone Wanderer left Vault 101 left about a month after that message in the FEV Lab about Zimmer. Although, it looks like Dr. Zimmer is dead is canon, but Bethesda could do a DLC where Zimmer ran off with Harkness to some location. Virgil is either dead or trapped in the Glowing Sea. Father is dead. So the only people responsible for the FEV Lab still remaining might be some of the Directorate like Justin Ayo since Madison Li would have left the Institute immediately if she learned about the FEV experiments were still going on when she arrived at the Institute. So some members of the Institute were active in the Institute atrocities, some knew about it and did nothing, some had absolutely no clue about it, and some tried to do something about it. So should the Institute be destroyed because of the actions of a few?

Synths being intelligent is a whole separate (and extremely long) argument.

For sake of brevity I'll state two considerations. One if they are, one if they're not.

If they're not sentient, the BoS are not responsible for anything more than destruction of private properly when it comes to destroying them. Hardly a heinous offense. If they are sentient, the BoS is guilty of any crime they commit against them that can be shown or proven from canon (in game typically) information.

That largely consists of the large number of them that die when the Railroad and later the Institute are destroyed if the BoS are the faction chosen by the Survivor. This is a faction that hates synths so much they allow Curie and Nick on their capital ship, and while Danse makes some snide 'donate yourself to science' comments to Curie, being snide isn't a crime. They're never shown (and none of the radiant quests have you try) going house to house, proving who is a synth and who isn't. They take down groups of Gen1s and 2s that escaped the Institute (neither of which are sentient beings), as Maxson says they will, but that's as far as you see them go.

As for University Point, you really need to go back and read all the notes and emails on the terminals. In 2285, a young girl named Jacqueline Spencer found data on an old system (since she's a tinker in her spare time) belonging to the University faculty before the war. In it there's a rumored research facility somewhere underneath the University. Jacqie can't figure out where as most of the rest of the data is corrupted, but she keeps looking. Her father is a merchant and the next time they're in Diamond City she asks around to see what something like this is worth. The rumor makes it back to the Institute, who sends Kellogg. Kellogg gets there, immediately approaches the mayor and tells him to hand over the research data (even though they don't really know what it is yet) to him in two days or there would be major consequences for the whole town (which is one of the three largest cities in the Commonwealth... this isn't some hamlet, it's dozens of citizens and families).

The threat is on a holotope voice recording, so it's very, very clear what is up and who it is. The town immediately goes into an uproar and multiple residents start threatening the young (and now very scared) young woman. She desperately tries to find the data of where this facility is located before Kellogg returns.

She's not fast enough. She finds the information on a terminal as everyone in town is being gunned down by synths and Kellogg at the Institute's orders and re-encrypts the terminal before Kellogg kills her, too (which he does). The item being researched? A new type of laser rifle that had the 'Neverending' legendary trait. The synths are still there at the beginning of the game, searching for what they cannot find.

This was in 2285, under Father's Directorship. There is no mitigating circumstance where any of these acts are acceptable.

Supermutants and the FEV -

It is absolutely certain that Father monitored and directed the research. Virgil's recordings are very clear that it's Father he's asking to shut the program down and who keeps refusing. Zimmer and Syverson were just as important to the program as well. Clayton Holdren obviously knew about it and is HEAD OF THE BIOSCIENCE DIVISION predating Virgil's flight to the Glowing Sea. There is no way this man was not a part of a project that had a whole wing of his Divison sectioned off and dedicated to it. That he was head of the Division meant he also had other projects to work on, which is why Virgil was head of the FEV program. Just like Karlen is in charge of the gorillas.

Justin Ayo and Alana Secord absolutely knew about it as 1) they're in charge of what is basically the security apparatus, so would know and would be responsible for policing it, and 2) because they were the two in charge of the division that secured the specimens for the research as they administered the Coursers and the Synth security patrols.

I have no doubt that people like Li, Fillmore, and others like Binet had no clue about the FEV. Li herself immediately leaves the Institute if you hand her the tape of Virgil's you find in the FEV lab.

Roger Warwick -

Warwick was a mess of a man. A drunk, a wifebeater.

The world doesn't actually miss him. Thing is, killing him as they did is still murder. Just like walking up to a drug dealer and suddenly stabbing him in the neck is, too. Sure, no one will miss his passing, but you're still going to prison.

And yes, he was taken by the Institute. It specifically states under the Warwick Program notes on the Bioscience terminal that Warwick was 'acquired' and 'interrogated' so that they could program his Synth replacement. The only kidnap victims that leave the Institute alive are supermutants when they're released -- they are essentially dead as the supermutant has no memory of their old life previously (typically, there are rare exceptions), is a psychotic rage monster, and viciously homicidal.

That still doesn't explain McDonough, who was blatantly replaced for political reasons. He was a real person beforehand. He has a confirmed brother in game (Hancock), who describes no longer recognizing the person he grew up with by the time McDonough was elected.

As a noteworthy comment -- No matter how much you may dislike the BoS and RR, there is an option that isn't even possibly 'just as bad' (and I still strongly deny that any of the other factions come close to the level of 'bad' that the Institute is) as the Institute. The Minutemen present a clear choice of a morally upright faction that is honestly trying to do the best they can. Yes, their old leadership collapsed and they lost a lot of men to becoming gunners, raiders, and mercenaries.

That was those men quitting the organization, and then becoming worse for it. Those that remained (or came back) are the most loyal of the bunch, and in rebuilding the Minutemen you have a group that protects the common man, helps make sure they are fed and secured, and treats synth and human alike the same, as long as they're willing to work hard.

It's the faction that is built the way you, the player want it, and if you want them to be the good guys, then by god, they are. They're not flashy, or glamorous, or fancy, or high tech. They do bust their butts working those fields all day every day, and answer the call even when on a 1 to 1 basis they don't stand up to anyone else's fighters. Most to lose, least to gain, and they still charge into the Institute with you.

But because Preston Garvey's radiant quests are annoying, half the time, most folks wouldn't consider them.

Even already in my playthrough, there are Minuteman patrols everywhere because I took the time to build up every town. I see them on bridges, securing buildings, fighting off Supermutants and gunners and raiders constantly. With maybe some leather armor and a laser musket. They're the dang heroes of this story.

Aren't these two statements directly contradictory?

Why on Earth would Bethesda gate this patrol option behind incredibly tedious construction work that there's no logical reason for you to be unable to delegate? The settlement construction thing would be perfectly fine if it was under, say, a strategy game interface where you give orders for things to be built in broad strokes, but the way it works now completely svcks.

Anyway, you know my opinion on the Institute: it's evil, sure, but it's the only option if you don't want to annihilate a city in nuclear fire and either kill everyone instantly or abandon them to slower, more drawn-out deaths in the Hell on earth that is the wasteland.

Not seeing anything about an actual Synth attack. The only evidence is someone claiming to be from the Institute and a young woman that thinks that the Institute is attacking. Did she actually see Synths attacking or did she just hear a bunch of energy weapons? It could have been just a Gunner or Raider trick for all we know. Wastelanders experience with the Institute is extremely limited so most people don't know what a Synth looks like or what weapons they use. Besides even if the Institute attacked, then it is only Kellogg, the Director, and a few others that are responsible not the entire Institute. The Institute is not an evil organization bent on messing with the Commonwealth, but a group of isolated scientists that never see the results of their experiments due to being trapped underground. Some of them deserve to be tried for war crimes, but most are just decent people trying to live their life as best as they can. All of the problems with Institute can be traced to just a few people since most of the Institute have no clue what has been done to the Commonwealth.

A gunner or raider trick?


All things being equal the simplest explanation is the most likely. The town that is swarming with synths, is being threatened by Kellogg, and had tech that the Institute wanted was not wiped out by random Gunners pretending to be the Institute.

The speculation on its face is so ridiculous as to merit being mocked, though I refraining from doing so.

Let's just agree that I won't ever agree with you on this and move on, because at this point I don't feel that this conversation is progressing in a logical manner. You're scrabbling for an explanation when the clear truth is there. I'm sorry you can't see it, but I think we're done here.

The truth about what happened is anything, but clear. The Institute might be responsible, but it is just as likely that some other organization is responsible giving the lack of evidence. The voice on the council holotape sounds nothing like Kellogg's voice and Kellogg's name is never mentioned. It could be a really bad recording of Kellogg's voice, a Courser, or someone not related to the Institute. The people are not even sure that it is the Institute. They have never encountered the Institute before so they don't know anything about the Institute except that they replace humans with Synths. So all we have is some male threatening the town claiming to be from the Institute, people getting angry over it, and an attack. Not enough evidence to say that the Institute destroyed University Point, just enough to say it is possible that the Institute destroyed University Point. You are claiming it as fact, but there is no definitive proof. Just because someone claims to be from the Institute, someone finds something that the Institute wants, and Synths are currently present doesn't mean that the Institute is involved in destroying University Point. After all, if the Institute is interested in some technology means that other people would be interested as well.

While this would be something that Kellogg would do, not everything can be blamed on him. The Institute is the bogeyman of the Commonwealth. The Gunners and Raiders would have to be pretty stupid to not use the Institute's name to get what they want. Just have a Gunner walk into town and claim he is with the Institute. The villagers would be too afraid of the Institute that it is very likely that they will give him what he wants.

Not all of these things are criminal (most are though) a couple would be construed as acts of war (Switchboard and Desdemona).

All the rest of it, pretty much makes them Scum of the Earth, though.

No, the Brotherhood is not in the Commonwealth because "the Institute has superior technology and no one can have better technology that the Brotherhood". Superior technology only makes them apprehensive.

The Brotherhood of Steel's main goal, their only goal, is to ensure that whomever rebuilds society does so in what they view a responsible manner. Anything goes except technology that is harmful. It is not clearly explained in game as to exactly what has set them off about the Synths, but even if Synths didn't exist the super mutants would have drawn them into the Commonwealth because super mutants are created with FEV and FEV is number one on the Brotherhoods list of harmful technologies. FEV is what created the Brotherhood of Steel.

I would have thought the Brotherhood's issue with synths would be obvious. Computers or robots obtaining sentience, then wiping out humanity (or attempting to) is not an uncommon theme in film and literature. That synths can pass as humans would just make things worse.

And it is this type of thinking that causes them to wipe out humanity. Well that and viruses. Skynet destroys almost all of humanity because of self-preservation. The robots of the Matrix enslave humanity because humans wouldn't recognize sentient robots as anything more than malfunctioning tools. The Machine Crusade (Dune prequel) has a bunch of bored people living in a decadent utopia insert a virus into the interstellar network to have them take over. I haven't heard of a single novel, television series, or movie that has the robots slaughter countless humans because robots gained equal rights. It is always humans treat robots as a tool instead of sentient individuals.

Skynet is not so straight forward. Skynet was built to assist with the nuclear arsenal. Once it gained consciousness, the humans lost all control of it as it was now in the hands of a computer they could not predict. Unplugging Skynet was an effort to regain control, but it was too late. The fact that Skynet's first response was to launch the nukes and try to wipe out humanity shows exactly why it was dangerous. Self preservation or not, that's an extreme response.

Also don't forget I, Robot, in which many robots come to the conclusion that to uphold the first law to protect humans, they must conquer the humans. Oh, and a few deaths along the way are ok as long as it protects the majority of humans.

As i said many time if the story was a little bit logic the institute will never be blow.


The BoS are technology scavengers so they would never want blow the institue. Just kill everyones and scavange every light ball.


The Railroad want make free synth but by blow the institute they destroy the synth as specieces because only the institute can creat synth gen 3. They should let you take comtrol pf the institute and after you simply free all the synth.


Amd for the minuteman they shouldn't be near the institute in all case they are too little.


A peacefull ending but that would meant to not blowing the imstitute. That would be nice but sadly if you go in cimema amd see other video game ypu will discover that deep and logical stories do not sell a lot. Big explotion and action do sell a lot


Look at the last star wars you take a story you tale out every non-action part and release it big sell.

I understand the quote perfectly fine but i also understand that Fallout is about war and you could never make everyone hug at the end of any Fallout game... anyways i'm guessing you're new to the series... you were never able to make everyone hug in any Fallout game... you can't make the master hug everyone in fallout 1... you can't make the Enclave hug everyone in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3... if you want to play a game were you talk talk talk why even play Fallout which was never about that??

You seem to be operating under the misguided notion that the Brotherhood are technology scavengers. They're not. Their goal is to gather dangerous technology to keep it away from people that would misuse it. However, there is some technology they deem so dangerous that not even they should be in possession of it. It is so dangerous that it should not exist at all. So they destroy it. The Gen-3 snyths fall into this category. They destroy the Institute to destroy synth technology. It is logical and it does fit with their agenda.