I don't see how what you are saying isn't exactly the same as what I'm saying slightly rephrased.

Yeah, but they don't want people who won't go all the way. Given how they're tortured and murdered, they don't want fair weather friends.

I wasn't arguing.


I just said the sentience issue isn't a good one to argue on.

Wait, who was tortured..?

Anyway, they may just want to know if you'll go all the way, but their ideology is very dogmatic, when in reality even they don't follow it to the letter - even if we only apply it to Gen3-s let's not forget that Coursers are also synths. And I seriously doubt Desdemona would risk her life for a Courser. So holding my caution against me seems rather hypocritical of her. Also, apparently the Railroad employs people who don't care all that much about synths, but hate the Institute.

I'm a man looking for my son. I could be a valuable asset, seeing how I have a serious grudge against the Institute, but obviously if the choice is between saving my son or saving a synth's life, I won't hesitate to choose the former.

That's always been a thing with the RR is that, it's flawed because even it isn't sure what synths deserve freedom.

they didn't give the RR enough flaws though -- especially apparent ones -- compared to the institute and brotherhood. they pretty much received the treatment the empire did in skyrim, where they have flaws but they're all hidden deep in the game and you only really find them if you play RR and explore the entirety of the institute with maxed lock picking and hacking skills.

which is another reason that I hate them and kill them in every single game I play.

Exactly. If Nick Valentine and Baby!Shaun were attacked by a Deathclaw, and I could only save one of them, I'm sure Nick would understand if I saved Shaun over him. Curie would understand.

Hell, any sane rational human being would understand putting the life of an infant above what's basically a machine with organic parts. I wager to bet If Desdamona saw a Synth child and a human child both drowning, she'd save the Synth child and leave the human child to die.

But overall I just hate Desdemona's "You're either with Synth freedom or you hate all Synths and want them to be enslaved!" mentality. Well excuse me for being cautious because the only Synths I've seen up to this point are the ones trying to kill me.

They're only trying to kill you because they can sense your prejudice. Obviously. You monster.

Disagree with the Empire's flaws all being hidden deep. The game opens with them being cast as villains, and one of their biggest screw ups (White-Gold Concordant) is a major talking point throughout Skyrim.

If you wanna make a thread about it in the proper forum, I'll post what I mean. I just wanted to compare and contrast but I'm not gonna digivolve this thread into a Skyrim topic.

Good idea. Or you could just send me a PM. Not trying to derail the topic, but in the nature of comparing and contrasting, I think the way the Institute is portrayed is closer to the Empire. At least in the opening (your wording makes it seem like your opinions come from a later point). Killing your spouse, being the group that's allowed people to go missing, being somewhat alien to the common folk but still meddling in their affairs, etc. Both seem to have more Villain Flags being raised by the games' narratives than the Railroad or Stormcloaks. Again, at least in the earlier stages of the games.

Then again, my opinion of those parallels might have something to do with the fact that I ultimately sided with those groups over the ones I felt the game's narrative was pushing me towards.

But to actually answer the question, I dislike the Railroad because their leader has such a "You're either with us or against us mentality" while the group actually doesn't have a coherent ideology, they don't seem to have long term plans or goals, and seem to be rather callous/indifferent about how many people get hurt by way of their actions.

Plus, since Fallout 3, their attitude has rubbed me the wrong way. That is not how you ask for a favor, Victoria.

I found some terminals in the Institute that indicate that after they have been "rescued" from the Institutes clutches, some of the devices which the RR regard as "humans" then become raiders who exact a toll in killing innocent civilians. That was pretty much the clincher to me that they are misguided. Still I'll play along with them as long as I can.

They are "organic" robots technically, not machines, so think android. In that sense, I think a pertinent question is, does the origin of a life impact its significance? For instance, if we figured out how to grow a human being, does that make him less human because he was not a natural birth (this isn't really that far fetched of a question frighteningly enough). Not trying to be obtuse, just giving food for thought. My rationale is that the Institute inadvertently opened Pandora's box and they refused to acknowledge it. I think when they went with the gen 3's and started basically making synthetic humans with some cybernetics, they crossed the line from making robots to making persons. I think all the debate between people is actually over fear of what this might mean. Will synths subsume us and become the dominant species or are they sentient psychopaths just waiting for the right moment to strike? I think the conclusion to Valentine's questline really answered that for me, especially with what he said concerning who he was as a person, and all the struggles he had with that.

As for Desdemona being a "you're either with us or against us" I think people mis-characterize her a lot. For instance, I don't think she would save a synth child over a human child. Obviously, how would one be able to tell the difference to begin with? Moreover, she gives you the hard line question before you join as a way to see how you look at synths. If you don't consider them to be equally worthy of life as you, that would necessarily put you at odds with what they are trying to do. The Railroad is convinced that the synths are people. The fact that the Institute is still their enemy is all the confirmation I need to know that they are still level headed though. They aren't trying to create a new breed of humanity, they are just trying to make the right choices in the circumstances in which they find themselves. The Institute has synths by the balls and the Railroad knows this, that's why its an all in type of operation. If you think about what they are doing once they have the synths liberated, they aren't pandering them or giving them preferential treatment: they are getting them out of the Commonwealth as fast as possible. Once that's accomplished they are free to make whatever choice they will; like any other person. The Railroad is just committed to giving them that chance, and I can't think of anything that Desdemona says that makes me think she is more sympathetic to synths than people. She just knows that to achieve the RR's goal, she has to be committed and I find her dedication to be of a less extreme variety than either Father's or Maxson's.

I tried to convince myself that the Brotherhood was the organization I wanted to be in, but after playing through their opening quests again, I can honestly say I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable with them. Seeing people like Haylen makes me have hope for them, but those people are the ones serving on the ground. The leaders of the organization are pretty much on the same level as Father in their "ends justify the means" way of operating. The Institute earned my hatred through all the things they have done, to my friends and my family, but I could have made peace with the Brotherhood, but that option is never really put on the table to debate. So, I'm Railroad all the way, given the way events work out in the main story.

I think they cause even more suffering for synths too by 'freeing' them.

They wipe their memories so they don't know they're synths, so if they ever do find out they are a synth it's enough to make anyone go crazy.

And if that happens enough, paranoia could make humans think they might be synths too!

They're practically unleashing potential time-bombs into the commonwealth.

That's talking about Gabriel from Libertalia. Go read his journal there and you tell me if you still feel the same way. I am also surprised that people take synths becoming raiders as some argument against the Railroad. They are as susceptible to evil as any human being. Gabriel's case is illuminating however and it serves to show me how the Institute is trying to twist information to make it suit their story. I'm surprised no one else brings that up.

Ah okay! Pretty amazing how much investigating you have to do to get to the bottom of these stories

I'm still leaning toward "Synths are machines, not humans." I've seen them being "born." No human was ever "born" as an advlt and had no need for a childhood or parental rearing.

If its identity is a function of "programming" it is a machine. If its identity is a function of socialization by members of the same species, it is an animal. If crucial part of its socialization involves language and culture then, and only then, is it a human.

While the Synth chose to be a raider, the synth was in that position originally because the Railroad freed him AND decided against trying to make sure he stayed on the up and up.

The argument is that the Railroad doesn't give a damn what happens to any freed Synths so long as it doesn't involve recapture by the Institute. Every synth they free could go on to burn the world, and the Railroad wouldn't give a damn about it.

That's the issue. They won't fix any mistakes they make in terms of releasing a Synth. And they'll precisely use the argument of "not our fault if it decides to be evil" to deflect any blame for it.

I could accept them not caring about the synths' personal choices in their new lives after the Railroad reprogramming, because of their whole 'synths are people' philosophy, since people are allowed to make choices on their own. However, I see two fundamental issues with their modus operandi:

1) A wiped synth is a blank slate. Whatever memories and personality they end up having uploaded is entirely up to the Railroad. Clearly they don't pay enough (or any) attention to what personality they actually upload, and that's inexcusable negligence with potentially catastrophic results, like 'Gabriel'.

2) The Institute entry on 'Gabriel' states that the scientists suspect the synth turned to crime due to brain damage sustained during the mind wipe procedure. Who's to say this isn't true? Maybe the Railroad just botched their job, and once again, didn't care. Again, that shows they're irresponsible and destructive.

To be fair, it's entirely possible that 1# was similar to the other Minutemen. "You are programmed to use violence in the defense of others." Except, Gabriel decided the "others" were his fellow Minutemen.

There's a lot of missing moments from the game but, honestly, does the Railroad EVEN KNOW HE'S ALIVE?


If he is a former Minutemen, it's quite possible they assume he died at Quincy.

Like killing the Atom Cats for the BOS or informing them about the Railroad's HQ or a peace-treaty with Maxson from the Institute, it's sad that's not an option.

If he was a former Minuteman, for which there is absolutely no evidence that I am aware of, then he was most likely part of Wire's group. Wire's group never went to Quincy (that I can remember), only Col Hollis' group. So assuming that Gabriel died at Quincy would have been a really bad assumption to make. It seems much more likely that the RR gives them a new face and new memories, then lets them loose in the wild. After that, they don't track them or pay any attention to them. Of course, that actually makes perfect sense from the perspective of the RR. If they're keeping track of freed synths, then an agent getting compromised could allow the Institute to recapture a lot of synths.

Also, a peace treaty between the Institute and the BOS is incredibly unrealistic given the situation that's been set up. I'm very GLAD it's not an option. I'm very glad that they don't let you sweet talk a couple of people and make all the problems go away.

The option for making an option and it getting rejected would make the story richer, though, and you would feel like you had more power as Director.

It doesn't have to be about just sweet talking. You don't sweet talk Lanius or Oliver. You convince them that carrying out their planned military actions would end in disaster. There's no reason the Maxson couldn't be convinced of this as well.

Couple ideas:

1) For every quest for you complete for one of the factions, their image of you goes up (think rep from New Vegas), with a high enough reputation, you can ask your leader for permission to try a non-violent solution for the problem. Even with the highest reputation, they may refuse. If they do accept, you go to that faction's location to present the treaty. Depending on your reputation with them, they might shoot you on sight, let you talk but refuse and shoot you, let you talk but refuse and let you go, agree to the terms provided you wipe out your common enemy (Brotherhood for Institute and Railroad, Institute for Brotherhood and Railroad, and Railroad for Institute and Brotherhood), which you can refuse, or agree. Repeat the process for the other side if you want. If all sides agree, you get them to come together for a peace resolution, wherein you can either resolve things peacefully, screw things up and have to go to war anyway, or kill some/all people there. Alternatively, you can forgo the peace treaty and attack the enemy base while it's leadership is absent, making things easier. This would allow people to either be the ultimate peacekeeper, a guile hero who uses low cunning and deceit to beat your enemies, or a psycho that kills everybody.

2) For the Institute vs Brotherhood in particular, you go through the normal ending up to a point, but instead of

As Charlemagne19 pointed out, just having the illusion that you might be able to talk you way out of things would improve the game greatly. I've said before that some speech checks shouldn't work even if you pass them e.g.: You convince them that they're wrong or that you have a point, but it's not enough to get them to stop their course of action.

Like I said, your suggestion is unrealistic given the situation and is nothing more than wishful thinking. I am glad it is not in the game. People often like to throw around the saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That is not always the case and it is especially not the case here. Here, the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy. There is no way that the Brotherhood would sign a treaty with either group. They are there to destroy the synths that the Institute is making, deeming them more dangerous than even the pre-war nuclear weapons. The Railroad is a part of the problem, giving them an avenue of escape, so they, too must be destroyed. There is no way that the Institute would agree to a treaty with the dangerous fanatics stealing their property and subverting their work. There is also no way that they'd make a treaty with the group that's trying to destroy them or their work. The Railroad certainly won't sign a treaty with the very people that enslave the synths they're trying to free (and want to destroy). No would they sign a treaty with the group trying to wipe out their precious synths.

I'm glad it's not an option because it would feel forced and unrealistic.

You're not making an argument. The option isn't to make Peace. The option is to TRY to make Peace.

People would whine about how their choices don't matter tho... I might even be among them.