You can do most of the quests for everyone, though.

Just in the end, you can't sit on the fence because everyone wants to burn it down.

yeah i've figured, ideally i'd like to refuse taking down any of the factions though. my charisma is 10, why can't i make anyone listen to me

One thing I liked about the BOS is that they don't ask you to destroy the Railroad.

*pause*

Because they're doing that themselves.

They just didn't want to put you in that position.

....

Wow, I did not expect to be played by a Bethesda game.

In a word? Skynet.

BoS watched bootleg copies of Terminator that survived the war hidden in a box of Cram. They know what happens when the synths achieve their twisted goal.

I think they're projecting.

Because they're a bunch of genocidal bigots, they think everyone else is too.

If you are a sci-fi fan then you should of learnt long ago sentience is sentience regardless of the wrapper it comes in. They are people.

Albeit, Codsworth is a free-thinking being who likes to serve.

but how do you know they feel and don't just calculate? even cleverbot will tell you he's offended if you throw some bad words at him

We actually have an answer with Currie as she explains she feels emotions for the first time when she receives a Synth body.

Nick explains he has the memories and feelings of a human being whose mind he was copied from.

Despite this, their programming doesn't prevent robots like Codsworth and pre-Synth Currie from having opinions or motivations.

Does the fact their intelligence is different from humans means robot feelings are irrelevant?

Ya that's sort of my impression too. If he's really the big good he pretends to be then why does he sound so shady ? Imo if you say you're good but don't explain why you are that means you're secretly an [censored]. Plus it bothers me whether I side with him or not, because if I'm against I'd like it to be because he shared his views and I disagreed. And if I take his side I'd like it to be because he shared his secret evil with me and decided to go along with it, not because he's emotionally manipulating a good PC into doing his dirty work. Plus the [censored] acts you're the bastard if you don't follow him.

Also side-note, when I sided with the BoS, the Elder asked me to wipe out the Railroad and I did it myself, not sure how you avoided that quest.

Is it just me, or does some parts of the community really have a problem understanding that the most technologically and scientifically advanced factions in the Fallout universe aren't necessarily the good guys?

It's really strange to me, because one of the most important themes in Fallout is that scientific and technological advancement unrestrained by morality and caution is devestating. Every major world-shaping event points to this fact:

-Before the war, humanity consumes the natural resources of the planet, which leads to rising hostility between nations and ultimately the apocalypse

-The Forced Evolutionary Virus is a blight upon mankind that causes untold suffering and devestation, and Vault-Tec's many unethical experiments produce horrifying results

-The Enclave has perhaps the best technological and scientific resources in the entire Wasteland, but they squander them by trying to enact a genocide upon humanity instead of saving it. They cling to the same failed governmental policies that brought the world to where it is today, and they fear the benign genetic mutations that their forefathers' abuse of FEV and nuclear technology have caused.

-The scientists of of Big MT. unwittingly unleashed the Cazadors upon the Mojave Wasteland, and several of their experiments had harmful unintended consequences

-The Institute kidnaps citizens of the Commonwealth in order to use them as lab rats in their FEV experiments. They create also entire race of synthetic humanoids and enslave them/use them to terrorize and control the surface dwllers. By all appearances, the Institute uses neither of these technologies for to benefit mankind; they're simply experimenting for the sake of experimentation and to protect their own insular lifestyle.

yeah, that is what they tell us - because they were programmed to react like that. a machine cannot feel. they are made out of dead objects.

unless, as i said earlier, the more advanced synths are made of biological substances, but i can't find an answer to that.

They have biological bodies and synthetic brains.

Which just confounds the issue more.

Because they feel everything their biological body does but its interpreted by their robot brains.

Is Kellog a human being?

He's basically a human brain in a Synth body.

I don't see how that's relevant. Human beings (and all organics) have their own biological/genetic programming. Sentience/self-awareness is the determining factor in whether or not something is alive.

So is organic life, interestingly. It's when you combine those base compounds in a certain way that life is created. Why are synths different in this regard? Because theyre man-made? Because they're made from a different composition of elements than traditional organic life?

Mind you, I don't see why the Institute doesn't use regular robots versus Synths.

Robots and old synths are VIs, newer synths are AI, is what it boils down to imo.

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" -a wise space truck

Is a human without arms or legs a human? What about someone who's paralysed from the neck down? Thoughts and feelings are stored in your brain.

Organic life isn't made out of dead objects - cells and bacterias make up almost every part of our bodies. Sure, they die as soon as you remove them from where they belong, but you can't deny that they're living organisms. Can steel and electrical wires feel? Computer chips? Programmed hardware? I don't think so. They act as a facade for something we can't distinguish from ourselves.

Whether people want to assign emotions and feelings to dead objects is a different issue - we already add sentimental value to things that don't even look remotely human.

The Institute is pretty enigmatic, really. The Institute scientists themselves vaguely allude to the future of mankind, but I don't see how having robots that precisely imitate humans benefits humanity in any practical way.

It mostly seems to be a way for the Institute to coverly manipulate the surface world without exposing their scientists to the hazards of radiation/FEV.

Organic life is absolutely made out of dead non-living components. Every cell and organic compound can be broken down into its base components, none of which are alive on their own. Based on your argument, the term "organic life" is redundant.

such as? i'll consider myself dead long before i consider mechanical human frames as living beings

Why is the institute considered evil? Because people need a villain (even in-game). Bethesda games always had a big bad, so people automatically throw the word evil on anything.

I agree.

Mind you, I think Codsworth and Currie are pushing the limits of VI to begin with and I wonder if they had a Bicentennial Man kind of thing going on there too.

Growing beyond their original programming.

Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen?

Well, the issue with the Synths is pretty much WHY there's moral ambiguity and if it was abundantly clear, then the Institute would be less interesting. If they were just like Vault City and using human slaves to support their technological paradise, every player would acknowledge they're [censored]s. However, by making it robots then there's a serious question with some players believing Synths are real people and others thinking they're just very good imitations.

There's no right answer because the only answer which matters is what you decide for yourself.

For me, Synths are people.

But I understand why the Institute doesn't realize this/is in denial about it.

Also, regular robots are NOT people but some can develop into them.

Robotic Evolution if I may use a term. Most robots are chimps and Currie/Codsworth are Homo Erectus/Cavemen while Synths are Homo Sapien Roboto.

aren't those more like 'food' for the living organisms? everything needs a resource to function