MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Okay, so, I'm at the part with the whole Shaun big reveal. and he's trying to get me to care. Now he wants to make me the new leader.

I have been sabotaging this quest line from the very beginning, immediately killing the Coursers before the quest even begins. Father doesn't even bat an eye. He did not hesitate to nominate me for promotion.

To be clear: I do not care about him, the institue, or synths. My character supports the brotherhood, but I am being strong armed into the game assuming my character gives a damn about Father.

This is beyond frustrating

Maybe you should at least get to know the Institute before damning them to Hell? Be more open minded >_<

You're missing the point. That's not what my CHARACTER thinks. He's fully behind the Brotherhood.

Well, the guy is kind of, sort of your son. Even if your character was pro-Brotherhood of Steel, there is likely some thought in him going, ‘Wow, that's my son. Damn it, I'm proud of him, but I also hate what he's doing to the Commonwealth.’

But I see your point. It's like the game is telling us how we should feel about Shaun, rather than letting us decide for ourselves.

Well, maybe because the whole point of the game is finding your lost son.

Like in fallout 3 you couldn't just blow your fathers brains out and blow project purity up.

You can choose not to believe him and destroy the institute.

You can just shoot Shaun in the head at any time.

And wipe out the Institute with bullets.

The Brotherhood, Railroad, and others want you to be the Mole, though.

But bullets works too.

Shaun is non-essential.

I was actually surprised to find that out. I wondered if he were essential and tested it out by beating my fists all over him (thus winning the BEST PARENT OF THE YEAR award while I was at it. ) and he keeled over. Result? The entire Institute wants me dead.

Oh, I can kill Shaun? So that basically brings the "main" quest line to a grinding hault? If so, I'm all for it, I'll just have to finish that bit on my second character.

For now everything else is on hold until Paladin Danse falls in love with me.

No, if you kill everyone in the Institute, the game ending triggers.

Funny that.

Makes sense, though. You basically knocked off the big bad guy of the entire game and left the rest sort of standing there awkwardly wondering when they got to make their big, grand stand against the Institute.

I call it the "Filicide Ending"

The problem with Bethesda isn't that they're not good game designers, they are, it's just that they often work the twists in the story into counterintuitive places or the gameplay.

There's no, "Kill Shaun" choice.

But you can do it and reveal that it WAS an option all along.

If you must know, you are at the point where you can declare war on the Institute. Also a spoiler but it's available at basically the next step and one that you evidently want to take

Actually that was the first thing I did. He danced the dance of fire with the Gatling laser once he stepped through those doors. I didn't know he was Shaun, and I knew he might start to say something reasonable, but sweet revenge

Though we now know he had nothing to do with it

Beth no doubt purposely made him non essential for just such an eventuality