I know that's their mission. That's why I don't like them. I don't like pretty much any organization that makes something this specific and this irrelevant their goal and is willing to kill people to accomplish it. It's at best a spectacular waste of talent and resources and at worst an active hurdle to people trying to get bigger, more important stuff done.


Also, considering the Minutemen are capable of taking out the Institute I don't even *have* to ally with them. The organization that has the straightest priorities in the game - the Minutement can handle it just fine.

Yeah one person's terrorist or radical extremist is another person's freedom fighter.

The only humans they've killed are raiders bandits holed up in their network. Not morally ambiguous Great Khan-esque bands or tribes that rely on raiding as a survival technique, but criminal gangs who take violence and theft as entertainment. If cleansing a few tunnels of raiders makes your goals too bloodstained to accept, then just about everyone in the Commonwealth is a tunnel-visioned murderer, from settlers to cavaneers.

Personally, I would have loved if the Railroad sent you to shake down/send a message to/kill people displaying anti-Synth sentiment, or had you attack innocent farmhands who simply harass their agents to avoid Institute repercussion. As it stands, Railroad is an objectively good side that does no harm to the greater Commonwealth and merely has a narrow mission. Add some misguided acts of terror and our little underground liberation movement might make us actually question earning our ballistic weave.

The railroad are trying to free the slaves at a point when the Institute is omnipotent, which mirrors the historical railroad. The BoS are a bunch of zealots trying to free the world from the subhumans and other abominations while hoarding all the technology.

I have no intellectual problem with either the RR or the BoS, and have managed a playthrough with both. The minutemen are entirely innocuous and loveable. I make a point of talking to Shaun and shooting him in the face when I need to go to his office during a playthrough. I will need to try and curb that tendency and lest the bugger die naturally at least once and complete a institute playthrough.

The thing is the revolutionary war is a matter of perspective, some see this as a great victory by America, some of us Brit's view this as a fortunate resolution to a thorny issue. I reference Gregg Proops on America is England's fault... Also, Al Murray proves that Britain has defeated every country in the world at war! Google those two and you'll have a good laugh. I know the pub landlord character is an oaf, but Al Murray is also a historian of some reasonable note...

 
I don't just mean "violence" as them killing raiders. I mean they prioritize their mission over any and all collateral damage their mission might cause. This might be acceptable *if* their mission was relevant to most of the people it affects, but it isn't.

Apart from Bunker Hill being attacked by Brotherhood/Institute aggression and their loved ones being targeted by the Institute (which, honestly, is more a strike against the Institute than the Railroad), what collateral damage are we talking about? All the damage I've seen in-game ends up on Railroad and Railroad assets, without harming Commonwealth citizens.

My dislike for the Railroad started when they began to wage war on the BoS and the Institute. For being a railroad of freedom for "slaves" Synths, it seemed against everything they stood for to start blowing stuff up.

It all started at Bunker Hill. I was playing down the middle of both sides, Institute and RR. I was actually on a quest from the institute to retrieve synths at Bunker Hill so I warned the Railroad. I undermined the Institute's mission and aided the Railroad before convincing "father" it was just a mission gone wrong and that someone leaked the info. What I don't get is the BoS also showed up.

I don't understand what the BoS had against the RR but after that mission they attacked the RR hideout. How they knew where it was when even the Institute did not... is beyond me. But next thing you know I'm blowing up an air ship killing plenty of innocent people including children... all to safe some robot slaves? And then it was the Institute's turn to be destroyed. So... I killed off the RR. I mean who would have been next on the RR list? The minute men?

The RR went from making sense to making none at all.

That was more for self-preservation than Synth protection. If you followed the Brotherhood path more, you'd be informed that the Brotherhood identified the Railroad as targets, since they're smuggling synths into and out of the Commonwealth. Remember, at this point the only thing they know about Synths is that they're Institute-created tools that have been used to infiltrate and kill throughout the Commonwealth.

When you're a secretive organization that keeps out of the Brotherhood's way, and all of the sudden you have Paladins kicking down both doors to end you, you sortuv realize two things: it doesn't matter how much you tried to avoid them, you've become their target; they know where you live.

Don't get me wrong, having to go to war with the Brotherhood was the sole lamentable part of going Railroad for me, but it makes sense from a self-preservation standpoint.

They're kinda like PETA if you think about it lol.

I don't hate them but I also think that they probably are the worst faction for the commonwealth as a whole, as they tend to only care about synths.

I don't hate them per se, I just don't see where their movement is going. They seem to entirely be set up around knee-jerk reaction tactics. I see them like I see a lot of the people who join PETA. I mean sure it's great that you don't want to see animals abused, but instead of trying to spread knowledge and such in an attempt to convince people to change their ways, you yell murderer at some random person you've never met and then throw paint on their expensive coat.

hah, just saw someone else thought of them as PETA too.

Disregard to how disruptive or directly destructive reprogramming synths and turning them loose in the wild can be (see Raider guy synth as an example).

Willing to kill children and civilians in order to free constructs who's sapience is deeply controversial and not something even generally supported by the rest of the populace (see destruction of the Prydwen and Institute)

Disregard for how punitive the Institute may turn towards the Commonwealth collectively if they keep mucking with them (a Commonwealth that until the BOS arrives or the Minutemen reorganize has 0 capacity to resist)

Disregard for their own informant inside the Institute


And this is without even getting into the fact that they objectively don't know if synths collectively pose some threat to humanity. This is a subject they aren't even willing to entertain thinking about because "liberty and 'human' rights!"

The Institute, objectively, needs to be destroyed. They treat surface-dwellers like radroaches and willingly destroy them for the sake of humanity - redefined to mean only the Institute. Desdemona actually goes out of her way to announce that they will rescue every Institute personnel that they can, before I could even bring up the idea of evacuating them. They aren't heartless brutes sacrificing human lives for synths, otherwise they would not be actively rescuing the enemy While destroying their base. Punitive Institute activity? They're already destroying lives.

Destruction of the Prydwen, see above, is a direct result of the Brotherhood making targets of the Railroad sending Paladins to raid their hideout after the Railroad conducted 0 anti-Brotherhood activities. When a giant military force knows where you live and made an attempt to preemptively destroy you, and you've run out of hiding spots already, you do something about it. Regretful that the Brotherhood's child soldiers went down too, but child soldiers are just part of the wasteland.

As far as rescued synths going Raider: so what? Only example we have is one synth going bandit, after his stint with the Minutemen ended due to minutemen dissolution. Sounds like a great deal if you ask me, synths being subjected to the same environmental pressures as humans, and making the same decisions. Human or toaster, that's a very human thing to do, and damning synths taking that action would be to damn humanity for doing the same. But that'd just be silly.

Though if Railroad was anything like PETA, they'd be destroying the synths after liberating them to make sure they never have to suffer

Again, my issue isn't with collateral damage by itself. Accepting no collateral damage means you have to be a complete pacifist and never fight for anything ever and even then you can argue there is collateral damage caused by inactivity and ignoring abuses of power. My issue is that they have unilaterally decided their fringe goal is worth the collateral damage. It's an even more ridiculous thing to focus on before the Minutemen or the BOS arrive. There is nothing morally reprehensible in their goal in and of itself, but their timing and focus is to me the equivalent of trying to fix chips in the paint while the house is on fire - and being so focused on the paint, they actively get in the way of people trying to put out the fire.

If the Institute were in the business of making explosives, then the Railroad would be in the business of hiding them all over the Commonwealth so no one knows where they are.

Yup, the Brits pretty much had no interest in winning in the revolutionary war or the war of 1812, the US was just so incompetent the second time the Brits won anyway.

Ballistic weave is OP as [censored].

To op: Because all I'd need to do to get a promotion from Desdemona is unplug my toaster and leave it outside or in their words "set it free".


Then there's the fact that they can go all Skynet on the Commonwealth. Luckily, true AIs like Shaun, Valentine, Curie, and Codsworth are exceptions. The hardware the RR are dealing with like Magnolia, Sturges, and Gabriel are only following their programming.

That's more historical myth than reality. The colonists ended up fielding a regular army, largely trained by European generals, because the militias weren't all that effective. Remember, it's called the "Continental Army" for a reason. We also had a large French expeditionary force as well as a French fleet backing us up at Yorktown. We also had a lot of French money financing the whole operation.

It makes more sense if you look at it as part of a much larger war between the British and French.

This argument really svcks as it plays into the narrative the Railroad is needed. It's the argument of slavers throughout history.


I prefer simply going with the Railroad is extremist in its methods.

From "The Morality of Fallout 4's factions"

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-moral-ambiguity-of-fallout-4.html

Because it's crammed down your throat that "they're the only morally good option" besides the MM.

I hate contrived, railroaded plot. So I kill them on every single playthrough every single time they've decoded the courser chip.

While they certainly see themselves as morally good, I do not. I see them as blind, misguided and part of the problem.

They really are the SJW faction aren't they? It's a shame that the Vintage Bond faction was wasted on something so stupid and 'feelsy' as the Rail Road. If they played up the freedom fighter (emphasis on fighter) angle and had more of their followers showing discontent or apprehension about reprogramming and setting free dangerous machines I wouldn't shrug them off so much.

I don't like the Railroad because they don't seem to have a game plan after the institute is toppled. They're a small, inflexible organization that operates in the shadows, and operate on a shared hubris that they're the solution.

Also,they have no qualms with gunning down/blowing up advlts and kids (BoS) in order to ensure safety for synths, even though the ultimate destruction of the Institute means there are no more synths to smuggle.

They exist only to spite the Institute,

Personally, I like their solution to people who think Synths are machines is "You know, screw these guys." or face-shooting.


The Railroad doesn't care about the Commonwealth in general because they hate their friends.


When they see violence coming against Synths, they just murder the guy.


And that works for me.


No kindness or understanding. Just decisive action.