Before you read warning contains spoilers.

seriously I can not be the only one disapointed by the ending either you blow up the institute, BoS, or both. no middle ground.

There needs to be a way to get through the events with out causing a full scale war. (aka I like the goodies from both the BoS and institute and want them both on one playthrough)

personal suggestion, use dance.

IT is uncommon knowledge that there is cut lines from dance taking over the brotherhood. I suggest that bethesda re-add that quest line and have it be the "peaceful" rout.

basic idea

step one: convence dance to take over the brother hood (requires taking him as a companion after he is spared and running into a random event which is a few brother hood deserters who upon learning that dance is alive ask to join him.

step two: build a small force, using minute men, the group of brother hood deserters and a few people from the pridwin (the mechanic, armory master, and science people)

this step would be the hardest step as to get the minutemen in you have to do a large chunk of the minutemen quests and have 3 settlements with 60+ happiness and 10+ settlers.

step three: send a message to Maxson, this part has you and dance taking a vertibird to the pridwin and telling Maxson that dance wishes to take over the brother hood, intating a skism in the ship, Maxson accepts but instead of showing up alone like he is suppose to he arrives with two knights who he orders to kill dance, you and what ever follower is with you. (all three are in t60 power armor and have upgraded gattling lasers)

step four: kill Maxson, simple step just win the fight above.

step five: retake the pridwin from the remainder of Maxsons followers (basicly kill a small amount of BoS in t-60 armor, and 2 vertibirds)

step six: send a message to the institute asking for peace. (This is actually 3 or 4 steps, including finding a courser and passing a set of speech checks for them to deliver a holo tape, talking to the father and a political thing like in skyrims main quest.)

step seven: resive a hybrid end, in which events can go one of three ways.

1. peace but at a cost, the BoS will act as institute security over the commonwealth at the cost of the institute giving all research notes to the BoS and stopping there synth and FEV programs. (synths still seen as a problem and robots)

2. peace at a loss, both the BoS and institute will pull forces from the commonwealth, leaving it to the people above. (Results in almost all synth locations becoming bandit/gunner locations, with a few make shift settlements, minutemen police but are heavily out gunned)

3. Peace at a gain, both the institute and brotherhood are convened to help the commonwealth as to create a new safe place for all, be they synth, ghoul, or man, this ending requires convening the railroad to join the talks (can also convince them to bomb the talks). This ending has coursers and BoS knights working together to clear out hostile areas and improve living for settlements (all settlements gains +20 security and one settler, a BoS knight. As well as synth type 1 and 2's being something the player can buy for settlements to work crops)

ending 3 of this idea is the hardest to get, as you must have good relations with the BoS, minutmen, railroad, and have done some minor help for the institute (first two quests with out harming them)

This should be in the spoiler section or at least have spoiler tags on the heading.

No, there should NOT be a peaceful ending. That is not the Fallout way and never has been.

I also suspect the OP's search fu is lacking since this subject is being covered in another thread.

Uh, no. BoS and RR are totally ideologically opposed to the Institute regardless of if Maxson and Desdemona are in charge. Any peace ending would be cheap.


The theme of the entire Fallout series is War, war never changes.


War will always have consequences and casualties. I'm glad there is no neat and tidy ending.

Seriously, I'm not sure why everyone is obsessed with getting peaceful endings in the game who's tagline is "War. War never changes..."

I like it.

Say want you want about New Vegas, but its endings are miles ahead of Bethesda's Fallout games. I felt that I could make the Mojave Wasteland into a civilization that would eventually rival the NCR or grind it to dust so no human would ever come near it again. That feeling is missing in Fallout 3 and 4.

The other Fallout games could have peaceful endings depending on how you played the game. However, they had well defined enemies unlike Fallout 4. Fallout 1 had the Master and his army. Fallout 2 had the Enclave. Fallout 3 had the Enclave again. New Vegas had the Yes Man ending. However, Fallout 4 doesn't have the completely evil faction that needs to be stopped. Except for the Minutemen who will work with anyone, each of the factions have ideological differences that can't be easily resolved.

I'd have loved a peaceful ending. So disappointing they gave you control of certain things with little outcome.

You're right, but the BoS-Institute conflict is based on the BoS' misjudging the Institute's motives, and Maxon's blind hatred of synths.

If SS took over the Institute, and Danse took over the BoS, a peaceful diplomatic solution would be well within reach.

And yes, this thread totally belongs in the "spoilers" section.

this all night long

The only peaceful solution as far as the Brotherhood is concerned is to have complete control over what research the Institute does. So that means that the Director and the Division Leaders of the Institute would be replaced by Paladins, Scribes, and/or Proctors.

Not really it is also posible to for the BoS to just force the institute to allow scribes to help, like when some company mergers happen and the companies have the hire ups of both sides lead the workers as a joint force.

Yeah I needed to point a spoiler tag in the title not just the tags.... eh, still a topic also grace period on spoilers ended last month.

Also, as stated in all other fallouts but NV we had a defined enemy, in 4 we do not, in NV we had a "peaceful" way to end things for the people in fallout 4 no mater what you are instigating a war.

not saying an ending like this would end in peace, it is highly likely some institute scientists will desert and take over buildings in the commonwealth as well as some BoS soldiers breaking off like in fallout 3.

the other Fallout game didnt have "peaceful endings". Plus NV ending when u choose to end everything "peacefully" have 0 sense like i been saying, BoS have 0 reasons to work with NCR no meter what, same go for Khans, is more the Legion ending make more sense on NV bc at least the Legion lie and end slaving any faction that u "allies" with the Legion.

NV can be good, but the faction working together is the worst part of the game, the preset a full lore why the faction are like that, and then come "courier" and change everything be diplomatic???? really that is just plain bad.

You do realize that deplomats are tasked with doing things like the currior did also think that peaceful end of NV where you unite everyone in the area was the canon ending anyway so yeah.

Well goodness, that was spoileriffic. Moved to the SPOILERS forum.

hey I tagged it with spoiler, so yeah. Also sorry for wrong section but it is a general problem I have with the end. There is almost always a way to end a conflict with minimal blood loss on both sides.

One of the themes of fallout is that there was a huge loss of life do to hte bombs and events caused by them. War never changes so it is allways hell on earth, best to try to bring some peace to that or we all burn.

Ah yes, the famous Yes Man ending (Independent New Vega). Nobody dies in it. Nobody is upset about anything. Caesar and General Oliver settled their difference with a gentlemanly hand of poker and then went to the Lucky 38 for a friendly beer with Mr. House. Funny, you and I have very different memories of the Second Battle for Hoover Dam. Even though I allowed Caesar, Lanius and Oliver to survive that, both Lanius and Oliver treated me to a very good General MacArthur impression with their "I shall return" speeches. That wasn't and ending, that was an intermission.

Fallout? You had two choices. Destroy the Cathedral and kill the master or talk him into killing himself (either way, you are responsible for his death), or you could join the Master, get dipped and then lay waste to the Core Region (didn't happen in game but was shown in the ending slides). Real peaceful.

Fallout 2? There was only one real ending. The Chosen One causes the Oil Platform to nuke itself. You could just not do the main quest and spend your time staring at your navel which in theory would spare the Enclave all that death and destruction at the Oil Rig, but that would cause your village to die. Both endings are on the head of the Chosen One.

Now if you believe that letting your village die through your inaction is a peaceful resolution, then I have good news for you. There is a similar peaceful resolution in Fallout 4. All you have to do, is when the sirens go off in the beginning of the game. as you are running down the street you will come to a soldier next to an armored vehicle pointing in the direction of the vault. Just ignore him and run past. You will get your "peaceful" ending to the game.

btw, on the no clearly defined evil/good factions... People on these forums sniveled and moaned about black and white choices only being available and demanded morally gray choices. Looks like BGS listened to the players on this one.

some one is missing the point, the idea is to have an ending which doesn't destroy the factions as neither is evil just have different views.

One of hte underlying themes of fallout is what happens when war is fought for dumb reasons, guess what not having an ending that at least minimizes the deaths is sort of counter productive to the themes in the game.

i'd have liked a peaceful ending too, seems it's just another game i'll never finish past the point where you'll inevitably start a war (after skyrim, and there's NO tes-tagline about war)

about the tagline and "all fallout games ending with war" as some have claimed, where's the war in, like, setting up a water purification plant?

to that, i don't know how people get the idea there's a predefined meaning to the "war. war never changes" line. your associations with that are NOT identical with what, if, this line might mean or not.

voice from the off: "war. war never changes."

lone wanderer: "yeah, you're right. it's just boring. let's make peace for a change."

got my meaning?

and i also don't get claims there's be no story compatible peaceful ending to all this. you guys really got such a lack of fantasy?

convince shaunie-boy to treat synths as people (HIS OWN DNA!!!) instead of slave-machines, conflict with railroad obsolete, make peace.

(or do it yourself, he makes you the bloody LEADER of the whole institute bunch in some of the storylines after all!!)

convince brotherhoodies institute is now nice, that they'd profit tech wise and to confine their exterminate-'em-all biz to muties & likes, make peace.

then build thriving settlements, protected by vertibirds and gen1-guards and live a peaceful commonwealth life with that, war never changes, so we did stg else this time out of straight boredom and hey!, no lore conflict in sight...

would also be a good chance to introduce my long wished for wasteland hippie faction - i mean come on, WHAT would be more logical in a world destroyed by war than a faction of people that TOTALLY HAD IT with that kind of bs? they could also have some type of ressource the others need to give them arguments in negotiations etc...

peaceful endings rock, and it's a "do what you want, be what you want" game, not a "war" game, get that

It's because of that [fornicating] slogan. If war never changes and is always brutal and terrible and all that, then why in Hell's name can we not avert it or stop it?! And in 3 and New Vegas, at least, there was an obviously evil enemy faction that you could defeat solely via attacking military targets, but this is not the case in 4.

yeah no mater which side you attack in fallout 4, you always feel like you are killing insistent people in the process. I so far have done the institute and BoS lines and both of them left me with a bad taste in my mouth after words even if the commonwealth ended up better off. And that isn't counting the railroad side which from what I have read takes the bomb everyone approach to wining.

Obviously we have different meanings for peaceful endings. There are just some factions that can't be reasoned with. Their continued existence will cause more and more misery. The peaceful endings as far as I am concerned deals with everyone else. Finding a peaceful solution where everyone becomes allies would take a miracle in real life and impossible in most games. A peaceful ending doesn't mean finding a way for everyone to get along, but to minimize future casualties and misery. Are the friendly people that your character interacted with leading peaceful and prosperous lives or are they struggling each day to survive?

The Minutemen is the closest to being a clearly defined good faction for any of the Fallout games. Since all they are concerned with is protecting the Commonwealth. The Institute, Railroad, and Brotherhood are all morally grey factions with their own agenda. Although, the Institute is a darker grey than the other factions with their whole lets experiment on the Commonwealth.....FOR SCIENCE.

I am curious. Do you even know how the Brotherhood of Steel got its start? What motivated the people to form it? Also, do you know what Virgil was doing before he left the Institute? The answer to all three of those quests is three simple letters. You are never going to get the Brotherhood to make peace with the Institute. Synths are only part of why the Brotherhood dislikes the Instutute. Free all the synths. Hell, go back in time and prevent synths from ever coming into existence. The Brotherhood will still do its level best to nuke the Institute and every scientist in it, their children, their dogs, their cats, everything.

FEV experimentation on unwilling human subjects is what caused a US Army security detachment to go bat [censored] crazy, mutiny, question and then kill all the scientists involved. The timing while unplanned was perfect. Nothing was done to them because the Great War started and ended the world as we know it. They soon formed formed the Brotherhood of Steel. FEV is what made the West Coast Brotherhood go bat [censored] crazy, temporarily ally itself with the NCR and help finish off the Enclave on the West Coast. FEV is what cause the Brotherhood of Steel to go bat [censored] crazy and attack the Enclave on the East Coast. FEV is what Dr. Virgil was playing around with in the Bio Science section of the Institute using unwilling human test subjects (does this sound familiar?) The Institute was creating super mutants with it. Why, who knows for reasons. Even without the synths the East Coast Brotherhood is going to go bat [censored] crazy because of that, and it won't matter how "nice" the Institute has become. The Brotherhood is NOT interested in sharing this knowledge, they are interested in erasing the knowledge and anyone that holds it.

You are not going to get the Railroad to play nice with the Institute until the Institute quits enslaving synths. You are not going to get the Institute to play nice with the Railroad until the RR stops stealing their property and returns what they have stolen. You can't get the Institute to give up their workforce without replacing it with another. The only readily available workforce are the surface residents of the Commonwealth. The Institute has already poisoned any chance to hire them at a fair wage which means the Institute would have to kidnap and enslave their new workforce, which would put the Railroad back into play again.

You are not going to get the Railroad to play nice with the Brotherhood, until the Brotherhood stops killing what they view as abominations. You are not going to get the Brotherhood to play nice with the Railroad until they stop hiding the synths and start hunting them.

You cannot have a peaceful resolution with these three factions as they are written. You would have to change the very nature of each and water them down so much that they would be thoroughly uninteresting.

Well, I can answer this one. Just because War never changes doesn't mean that mankind can't. A peaceful solution that brings everyone together could fly in the face of everything that's happened. I dont know how in depth your info on Fallout 4 is. But basically the Institute ended up the boogie-men and bad guys due to a bit of bad luck and poor decision making. If a few things would have gone right with the early meetings setting up a government in the commonwealth. our protagonist may have never ended up dethawed, Shaun wouldn't have been taken and while eventually the Brotherhood airship would have arrived in the Commonwealth, they may have met a very different place.

So why not have a very hard to reach ending where we find, document, and prove to the people in the commonwealth that the Institute made a mistake, that what happened at the conference wasn't intended. We would then make peace between the Railroad and the Institute by getting the scientists to realize that at least some Gen 2, and most Gen 3 Synth's have reached true AI level. So they deserve freedom to at least choose how they want to live life. Hell, being scientists it couldn't be that hard of a sell. Once you get that biggest obstacle out of the way the next step would be to make peace between the Minutemen and the Institute/Railroad. The Minutemen's purpose is basically to create a stable and safe Commonwealth where people can rebuild society and live their lives in safety. How hard of a sell could that be to get them to get advanced tools/weapons/knowledge from the Institute? After that the toughest sell would be the Brotherhood themselves. At this point a unified front, the Minutemen backed, Railroad/Institute faction could confront the BOS and say. This is OUR area and OUR society. If you want to be here, you will play by our rules. The BOS would not win that fight. And that would be the time that you would get rid of Maxson and put Danse in charge of the BOS. Being a Synth himself, it would lead that faction away from the other factions of the BOS and create Commonwealth that is probably more stable then most other parts of the United States at the time.

That would be a incredibly tough ending that would be awesome to achieve.

Look, all of the major factions have "good" intentions. All of the factions want "what is best" for the people of the Commonwealth. None of them are in it for "The Evulz". The friction is that there is no agreement as to "what is best". Hell, two of the factions don't even have it as a primary goal. While the Brotherhood and the Railroad are not actively pursuing "what is best" they don't really wish any harm, it is just they have a different set of priorities.

The Institute's version of "what is best" is fairly well planned out but unfortunately Mankind Redefined has little room in it for the surface dwellers as individuals. The people living up top are pretty much viewed as expendable. No real malice is involved, they are just not worth considering is all.

As I said, the Railroad isn't pursuing "what is best" for the Commonwealth. They are simply trying to end slavery. It could be argued that ending slavery in the Commonwealth would be best, but again what is best is not their primary goal, freeing slaves is.

Likewise the Brotherhood is not pursuing a plan for "what is best" for the Commonwealth. Their goal is much more lofty. They are trying to prevent the species from repeating the mistakes of the past.

The Minutemen on the surface seems to be the least objectionable faction. They are basically the only major faction that is concerned about what is referred to as the 'common man'. Their goal is to "drive the scum from the Commonwealth", which includes feral ghouls, raiders and super mutants. They haven't really though much beyond that and that is their fatal flaw. They don't offer any long term stability. Structurally they are set up to offer security, but not leadership. They also have a significant organizational problem. Currently, their membership is comprised of settlers whose primary loyalties are to their home settlements. Their leadership is basically a cult of personality. If some raider gets lucky and busts a cap on their General they will dissolve just like the last time it happened. What the Minutemen need to be of a long term benefit to the Commonwealth, is something they cannot provide themselves. The need a government. If the settlements don't get off their collective dead asses and make another stab at the CPG, it will all eventually fall apart.