I just started a new playthrough in Fallout 3, and it's been a long time since I've last played. But I remember the first quest I completed in Fallout 3 being Blood Ties, one I found very intriguing when investigating and enjoyed its happy happy joy joy conclusion of everyone working together. Back then, I never really thought too much about the fact the Family are a bunch of man-eating cannibals, I was too busy trying to find the best solution for everyone.

However, on this playthrough, I play a character who doesn't care about the goody two-shoes solution, but the most logical solution, which can lead to some ruthless behavior. Playing through this quest with this character, I wasn't looking to be a diplomat, but saving Ian from a punk gang who turned out to be cannibals. And with that, the solution of wiping them out was becoming fairly obvious. However, I decided to at least confront the ring leader for more context of the incident before proceeding to vaporizing them all into steaming piles of ash.

And when arguing with Vance did I realize how utterly stupid the entire idea of the Family was through his insane logic, how poorly he tried to justice themselves through their petty code of "honor" to supposedly "control" themselves, and even going so far as to victimize themselves as "oppressed" and "tyrannized" by society. Despite the fact they all kill for the same purpose a cannibal kills, only difference being they murder people to just svck their blood.

There really isn't much to discuss at this point, and there is no morally justified argument to be made otherwise. One could argue cannibalism is a last result at survival, but the Family doesn't indulge in cannibalism out of survival, they CRAVE human blood. The solution is obvious, kill them all and save Ian. So you do it and save Ian who is angered by Vance's death because Ian ends up being a cannibal too, but through Lucy's letter or the Lone Wanderer being a silver-tongued therapist, Ian receives a revelation that he should just all of a sudden stop being a cannibal and go home for whatever reason. Not necessarily well written for an issue that has been ever on going in Ian's life, but whatever.

The issue I have with this however is just how poorly this solution to the quest is handled, as if its treated as the morally wrong one, despite how morally and logically one sided it should be. Obviously the supposed best solution is the one that benefits everyone, but why benefit a bunch of terrorizing man-eating murderers? Why do we receive either no karma or negative karma (depending on your approach) for riding the wasteland of the Family, yet all of the good karma is to be made with the Arefu/Family alliance solution?

A lot if it just doesn't make sense. One reason I have a dislike for the implementation of karma in these sort of situations. The game likes to label what is good and what is bad, when there are many ways to look at it. Although there really isn't an other way to look at it with the Family, as there is no moral justification for them. So why in the world are we labelled as the bad guy for killing them?

Anyone else have any insight into this? I can't believe I only just realized how deluded the Family really is as a faction. I think I much prefer the kill them all solution because crazies like Vance need to be put down, even more so how annoying he is when attempting to argue his reasoning with the Lone Wanderer.