Well we don't know exactly how it broke down, but needless to say The Institute must have felt terribly betrayed. Someone, somewhere must have done something stupid like try and usurp power and kill everyone else and make himself King o' Town and The Institute got caught in the crossfire.

So then they just said "[censored] it" and decided to dig-in and protect their own.

Perhaps yes. But The Institute did create them after all. Spent hours and hours tweaking their programming, dealing with buggy constructs, and working out kinks.

We just get to see the fruits of their endeavors. Like Danse, Curie etc. We don't get to see, for instance, a version of Danse who can say nothing but "I like Fancy Lad Cakes" in a very, very monotone voice or do some sort of awkward creepy robotic walk because they hadn't figured out the speech or motor functions fully yet.

For an Institute scientist, its hard to look at Synths as much more than just things they spent ALOT of time and effort building. But even Father cracks a little bit, as he does with Synth Shaun. And of course there is Dr. Binet who's a full-on "Synths are people too!" radical.

For some of the scientists, its probably anologous to an artist's painting getting up and walking away because it wants to be free instead of hang up on your wall like you intended. If you spent all that time and effort making the painting you'd probably be less inclined to grant it freedom.

Well even Codsworth and the like have the ability to "feel pain" (to use that term a bit loosely). Because they all have damage avoidance protocols. Just like ED-E in New Vegas. Whom that one Doctor (Whitley or whatever) argued was "being hurt" when they didn't disable damage avoidance during testing.

Ultimately it makes sense. You need Synths to protect themselves and not accidentally walk into a fire because they forgot fire burns.

Its kind of cruel that humans feel pain as well. But its necessary for our survival.

Well either way she sticks with the SS as a lover, so she must not feel too betrayed. Or maybe she's just lovestruck.

Either way, I guess the interpretation comes down to do you intend to follow through with what you said, or not? Prove Piper to be naive or actually commit?

Its up to the player. Ultimately.

I thought Piper's article was rather optimistic.

Sadly in my Institute play through all I remember getting, was chewed out by Piper and Nick.

In regards to the CPG, it ultimately comes down to whose interpretation of events you find more believable. Like all things, the truth is relative and memories are imperfect things.

Do you believe the stories that the CPG was assassinated by the Institute, or do you believe the Institute that it was an unfortunate event where they defended themselves and then withdrew.

I think Deacon says it best:

"But I had a point here. A lesson, if you will. There're other organizations out there. And, in time, I'm sure they're going to spoon-feed you their own patented form of bull(censored). Ignore the verbage and look at what they're doing. What they're asking you to do. What sort of world they'd have you build and how they're going to pay for it."

Pathological liar he may be, but the man knows people.

Not necessarily, as shown in the quest "Synth Retention" .

Institute basicly doesn't want to lose control over them also because of this.

Imagine in bunker there were 4 more of, if we hadn't resetted them, well, prolly that would've been dangerous for the people.

Because ehm, if you reprogram something, expecially something that is naturally good at fighting and such, removing their operative limits, well, that can become an issue, expecially if left totally unleashed to do his own things at his own will.

I mean, yeah, with Harkness it works, Harkness and Danse being the good example, but Gabriel been a bad example of what could happen if RR methods would go wild.

I had totally overlooked that piper's article, sincerely appreciated it, tho, she seems to trust the sole survivor capacity in making the institute less of a unknown monster.

Well one side has hard historical evidence (The Institute's records and holotapes from that time period, which they'd have no reason to fabricate and which we are also given no reason to actually suggest they are fabricated) and the other has rumors from people who weren't even there.

Logically speaking, one story is far more believable than the other.

Its not so much a game of "he said she said" as "He said, and he has the documentation to back it up, and she just heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend."

Me and Lt. Andronicus being the louders institute defenders around the forum

But yup, CPG / UP / Virgil needs an heavy indepth look as soon as possible, clearly refering to the next DLC's incoming and whatnot.

I mean, institute is flashy and so, but it really deserves to have at least some clearence around, after all, its the first time we're introduced to them and if they're going to be kept and developed within' the lore, well, its for good to know something more about it.

To be honest, I never found them (and I specifically had a second playthrough to experience the Institute quest line).

I don't doubt you, though, and I'll go poke the Wiki for them.

Maybe I should get the mod that makes holotapes glow so I don't miss them in the future. I already have the one that reskins all the consumables like Rad-X with high quality textures and glowing fluids.

They were first introduced in Fallout 3 in the Rivet City area quest called "The Replicated Man", where you meet your first Gen3 synths as a player, plus the currently (as of FO4) absent Dr. Zimmer, the head of the SRB. You're also introduced to your first Railroad member, who is watching over the escaped Synth.

I think the thing that sticks in the craw of a lot of people are the kidnap/replacements (which directly imply murder as well), the forced experimentation in the FEV lab, and the mass murder of everyone in Vault 111 and University Point. These stand out as crimes against humanity of the highest order, and it's not uncommon to want to seek justice for them.

Gotcha covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfO2p2qNEkA

Edit: Also I forgot, there's an slide-transition which also supports the Institute's side (somewhat). I can't find it at the moment, but it mentions that The Institute did work above-ground at one point with the people of The Commonwealth before going underground completely. Its not a direct reference, but this might have been referring to the CPG.

Ugh Andro, I hate it when you argue your points so well! Stop being so reasonable! LOL Everything you said makes perfect sense.

I guess, in the end I actually have to THANK the Institute for creating Danse <3! OMG, that thought just crossed my mind! Man, well, at least I can evacuate the people and don't have to blow them up like the BoS bunker in the Mojave during my first NV play through. I hated doing that!

I will definitely do an Institute play-through as well.

Yup, Deacon has his weak points, but he also has some truths and wisdom in him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esEcwAWi6dk

Also we have hot showers and clean linens.

In both my first two playthroughs (BoS, then Institute) , he dies before the end of the MQ. I am adamant in him living to the end of this one. I find him hilarious and rather fun to talk to. He's coming close to replacing Nick as my #2 most beloved Companion (Piper still best waifu).

Oh, oh, oh... Andro, are you saying that the Institute is the Dark Side!?? hahahahahaha (now I do love the shiny showers and clean linens and CLEAN DRINKING GLASSES!)

I've liked Danse the first time I met him. It was just something about his amazing character. He has honor and integrity! And I'm so glad I chose him as my first romance character! The other day, I stood sort of close to him and he says "I like it when you are so close to me!" It was out of the blue and totally unexpected! LOL Oh Danse Darling! Oh wait, you mean Deacon? LOL

Oops, sorry, what were we talking about again?

Hah. My first playthrough Danse was my Pala-Bro. We bro-fisted and stomped around the glowing sea together in our power armor. I talked Maxson down from killing him and always chose Danse to go out to the Glowing Sea from that point on (I had taken Hancock a couple times), as we could murder ghouls and Deathclaws without having to dodge Vertibirds. He also helped me turn Gunner's Plaza into Gunner's Tomb.

No. Without the Institute the Brotherhood sets up check points for caravans and travelers. They aren't just fighting RR insurgents and CIT remnants. They're keeping the roads safe from radscorpions, yao guai, deathclaws, ect. They're making it so that farmers don't have worry about dying, but instead getting their children educated. In short they're allowing civilization to rebuild itself. The MM don't have the infrastructure to make it happen and the RR certainly lacks the will.

My point still stands. The BoS is the most cost effective ending.

In a sense all these factions are similar in that they all have a very narrow-minded view of the factions they oppose. BoS are straight up fanatics, I don't know if Maxson not leading them would make any difference but I doubt it. Railroad are kind of fanatics too, their goals are good but in their obsessive focus on their aims they can lose all sense of perspective. Institute are not fanatics as such but because of living in their own bubble for so long they have a very distorted and dismissive view of the world outside, that's I think one of the reasons why they make decisions to kill people so easily. Still, they should be the easiest to talk some sense into.

I think it may be possible to get some of those factions to negotiate, but I can accept that it may be impossible to achieve a peaceful solution, maybe they are all too set in their hatred for one another. What I don't like is that you have no option even to try to get them to negotiate. In the BoS-RR-Institute triangle, each faction tells you to murder the other two factions because they hate them, your only choice is which of them to agree with. The game sets up an interesting potential conflict for the player in that they may have to betray and murder people they've become friendly with, and possibly to kill their own son they've been looking for all this time, or at least destroy his life's work, and then ignores this conflict completely. It feels gamey and jarring.

To be fair the story and the way the factions were set up is miles ahead of FO3 story, which wasn't very good, there is a lot more depth to FO4 factions. Bethesda is moving in the right direction. This setup though really called for a much wider set of choices available to the player.

As things stand the most consistent way to play imo is to pick one faction per playthrough to do quests for and completely ignore all the other factions.

if you cured virgil kells is cool with just letting him [censored] off and die in the irradiated cavern.

I know that. Being a man of my word has bled over to my characters and the first thing I do when I leave the CIT is give Virgil the cure.

It's nonsensical because I'm one of his best soldiers and he wants me to go to the devil's armpit to just to teach Bruce Banner a lesson instead of focusing on the Institute which is the more pressing threat.

Yes, agree completely. Unfortunately I think the faction system in FO4 was based on guilds in Skyrim rather than on factions in New Vegas. It's the same system where you join, do a few quests for them and then become the leader of that faction. This kind of worked in Skyrim because the guilds didn't really interact with one another (even though it was still a bit ridiculous), but in FO4 where you can hold high positions in two factions that are sworn enemies of one another it just makes no sense at all.

Maybe you could work for multiple factions for a while, but after a certain point you'd need to make a choice. I think this game really needed a faction reputation system like in NV. Maybe if you had too high reputation with BoS, for example, RR would refuse to work with you.

Also, the fact that you can take Deacon do do missions for BoS, which wants to wipe out the faction he's a leader of, is ridiculous. I had Piper, who is supposed to be scared witless of the Institute do quests for them with me and not even disapprove, but your example is a lot worse.

Well, he does express interesting in knowing how to cure supermutancy. He doesn't really follow through on that statement, though.

I think that... well, it's technically not an option in the game, but I think the most satisfying realistic ending possibility for me would be to admit to the Railroad that the Director of the Institute is my son, causing them to freak out and relocate their headquarters far away from me, which would in turn prevent the Institute from being able to kill them in End of the Line. Therefore, I could fight only the Brotherhood and stop worrying about the Railroad, especially once I'd phased out gen 3 synth slavery.

Asmodai has partial credit for this idea.

This is very true. I took the time to truly build ALL of the settlements in the game. Almost all of the settlers have army/military fatigues, army helmets, and some variant of combat armor. They're all equipped with good modded guns that I've picked up on my journeys. I didn't build the defense to huge amounts at all of them, but they all have at least 80-100 for defense. My main settlements (Sanctuary, Abernathy Farm, Starlight Drive-In, The Castle, Spectacle Island, and a few others) all have defense somewhere in the 300-700 range. I went totally overboard with The Castle because I know that the Defend the Castle quest was coming up. When the Institute and the Brotherhood attacked me there, my extensive defense network just tore them apart. Rockets and lasers were just all over the place.

After the amount of work that I put into it, I don't think there's really any question that the Minutemen was the most well armed and well defended of the four factions. I got a lot of enjoyment out of building these extensive defense networks. But in many respects...it just feels unrewarding because the Minutemen themselves are so utterly bland. It'd be nice to see the generic Minutemen/settlers at least have some degree of evolving dialog. A few of them make comments after you destroy the Institute or the Brotherhood or something big like that, but for the most part they just have a few lines that they repeat over and over again. After rebuilding the Minutemen, thoroughly fortifying ALL 29 of these Minutemen settlements, and so on...I still get comments like "Hey, are you with the Minutemen?" "Did the Minutemen send you?" Umm...yeah. I was just here like a few days ago rescuing your kidnapped friend. You don't remember that?

I still get comments like "I don't like the looks of you. I hope you're not here for me" or "You better keep quiet about this place. We don't want the wrong people finding out." And then there's Marcy and Jun. Those are two of the most insufferable and unlikable characters ever. They're just absolutely horrible. They have very distinct personalities that were entertaining at first. But hearing Marcy say "what makes you think we're friends?" after saving Sanctuary from the attackers for the umpteenth time is just annoying. I get that Marcy is intended to be a mostly unlikable person, but she needs to have some redeeming qualities. She needs to at least be interesting...instead I'd probably just "eliminate" her if I had the option.

All that being said, I do really like the Minutemen faction conceptually and in general. I just don't like the individual characters within it. The settlement building is one of the best parts of the game in my opinion. I've probably spent over half of my 350 or so hours on Fallout 4 doing nothing but building settlements.

Best ending, IMO, would be the Brotherhood storming the Institute and locking every scientist down. Every single synth is hunted and destroyed. The synthwomb is set to the torch so that no more robots can be made. Scientists who wish to survive can enlist under Proctor Quinlan; except for those who worked on synths or FEV - they're executed for their crimes. A notable exception to this is Virgil who, if you cure him, is recruited to learn to cure FEV on a wider scale.

The FEV lab is carefully dismantled and later destroyed. All technology - especially the foodstuffs - is cataloged and studied for reproduction.

Once all of the technology is safely withdrawn from the Institute, it's turned into a new Citadel in the Commonwealth to allow the Prydwen to be sent back to DC should it be needed while leaving a strong Brotherhood presence behind to continue protecting the people of the Commonwealth.

This really bugs me. I did the BOS ending for my first play through, and by the time I actually got to the reactor and was ready to blow it up, I'd basically killed every moving thing in the entire Institute already. Why are we destroying this place? Just take it over. If they don't like some of the technology, they can get rid of it. Dig a tunnel to replace the teleporter if you don't like it...but damn, I can't see a good reason to actually DESTROY the whole facility.

Clearly not cut out for BoS leadership. F-
The correct answer was blow it up as the last of his line, first of his name, slayer of deathclaws, Arthur Maxson decrees.

For questioning his judgement, your deeds shall struck from the Codex and none shall utter your name.

I like this and would do it exactly the same minus bringing in Virgil to research a cure. His was obtained through extensive human experimentation. If he can't produce a working version without that, I'd have to chalk the super mutants up as a lost cause (as they always have been) and continue to work towards cleansing the Commonwealth of them.