Institute

Railroad

Brotherhood

Minutemen

Who wins it all? You don't play any role in it, so one question, who do you think would win

The Minutemen wouldn't even be back if it wasn't for you so thats out.

The Railroad is too underground to stand a chance without you.

The Institute might be able to produce a lot of synths but I doubt it would be enough.

Brotherhood would win quite easily I imagine. They truly have everything they need to achieve their goals without the SS, and considering they have a bunch of power armor it pushes things even more into their favor.

Well without me the minuteman are killed to a man in Concord. So they're out. Railroad is already on the brink of destruction. They might have a few cells left but no real power. So in the end it just depends if the brotherhood can find the way into the institute without me. If so, there military will win. But if not the institute will keep striking from the shadows and win

Minutemen "win" so long as settlements get built and thrive under their protection. Considering Preston was going to eat charged laser musket before you showed up, Quincy pretty much spelt the end of the Minutemen.

Brotherhoof v. Institute is more one-sided. Without player involvement, it's hard to see the reclusive Institute actually surviving an assault from a highly-armed and -armoured military force. Shaun soon dies of cancer no matter what you do, and without his heir apparent the Institute falls into chaotic interregnum until any individual leader rises above the others. That lack of discipline, coupled with barely respecting/understanding surface dwellers means that they are ill-prepared to defend themselves. The Brotherhood can take all the time they need to occupy the Commonwealth, aid the citizens, and get dug in till they crack the Institute's shell.

Railroad, as much as I love them, likely wouldn't survive without the player. The Brotherhood identified their base of operations independently, and the Institute managed to locate the synths in Bunker Hill on their own, too. It's not likely that they'd last long without us.

The Brotherhood is a small scout team holed up in a police station. There's no way they could beat the Institute without your help/knowledge. The only faction at full strength, without your help, is the Institute.

Danse is on an Institute list, so it would only be a matter of time before the Institute sends a courser to find him and then clear out the rest of the BoS. If you didn't exist, the Brotherhood would never send the Prydwen to the Commonwealth and the Institute would be free to do whatever they were doing before you came out of the vault.

Why wouldn't it be a slaughter if the BoS didn't have the Prydwen or Liberty Prime, and didn't know the location of the Institute?

I'd say the Institute wins, but it's a long, drag out fight. A fight that ends with the citizens of the Commonwealth as the real losers as while the Brotherhood grows more and more frustrated with their inability to locate the Institute (because without killing Kellogg, they never find the way in, and even if they eventually kill him, they likely don't plumb his memories for the info). As casualties mount from fighting a foe with essentially unlimited resources and no way to assault them, they clamp down harder and harder on the Commonwealth, doing anything they can to squeeze information and intel out of everyone, searching desperately for a synth that knows the way in.

Eventually, while suffering insurrection and revolt, the Institute takes advantage of the distraction to launch a full assault on the Prydwen, igniting its engines after Coursers disable the magnetic field that inadvertently prevents teleportation. The Prydwen crashes and Maxson and Kells are killed. The remaining Paladins gather the troops and begin the long march back to the Pitt or Capital, harried by Synths the entire way.

It likely takes several months, if not years, for this to happen though. I imagine all sorts of tragedies and atrocities are dotted in between, as well as blatant wastes of resources (using the Fort Strong nukes to flatten the empty CIT buildings, having knights executing innocent synthetic runaways -- or even humans, more and more people going missing due to the Institute, and being replaced, massacres in Goodneighbor as they refuse to submit to either side, etc).

In the end, an even more amoral than current Institute would rule from the shadows, and be utterly reviled and feared.

The Minutemen would never get reformer. They'd die with Preston in Conchord.

The Brotherhood would more or less do everything exactly as they do with your help, with perhaps slightly more casualties. They'd eventually locate the Railroad (something they do without your help) and eliminate it (something they don't need you for). They'd find the parts they need for Liberty Prime (something you only play a small part in, and they admit that they could do without you) and assault the Institute. It would be an easy Brotherhood victory.

The Brotherhood arrive in full force completely independently of the PC's intervention.

That scout team's primary mission, by the time you find them, is to contact the Brotherhood in the Capital Wasteland. Without your help, Danse would... face a bunch of Gen 1 synths on his own. Maybe with his surviving two teammates, though they'd likely man the fort. Pretty sure Danse could locate that part without player assistance.

Brotherhood would own goal themselves falling out of the sky in their vertibirds. Institute wins.

Institute. Smart and evil and can replace anybody, even the enemy with their own allies. Plus, of course, nobody can find them.

BoS is too military. The call "Military Intelligence" an oxymoron for a reason. Plus, of course, their piloting skills would probably get them all killed in short order.

Railroad - to hippy dippy, although, well armed.

Minutemen - or, should I say "Minuteman"

But he doesn't locate the transmitter by himself, he needs your help. With the three of the BoS members fending off feral ghouls until the player arrives, I doubt Danse would find the time to look for it. It's only until you come to their rescue where they find the time for extracurriculars.

Why not?

I did all of jack-[censored] during the assault on Logans. Institute Coursers and gobs of synths swarming everywhere like a zerg rush took care of the Brotherhood without a problem. The Institute had an excellent plan and could have easily handled them without me, I was just there for extra back-up.

OT: Institute hands down. Can't find them, instant teleporation to drop in surprise attacks anywhere, and the Brotherhood has a giant blimp which can be taken down with artillery.

If you ignore Danse completely and still complete Reunion, the Prydwen will still show up.

But what if you didn't exist and didn't complete Reunions?

I'm assuming that the Prywden would still show up. It was just a coincidence that you happened to see it.

That's an Institute that had your help over several missions, one that had you correct multiple [censored]-up missions to set up their success. Would Mass Fusion have gone as smoothly if you weren't there to protect their soft and inexperienced scientist, for instance? Without you, they have a leader dying in secret, factions that believe strong rulers will take over following chaos, a gross ignorance of the surface world and their capabilities, and still rely on Kellog for their wetwork and ill-suited scientists for more delicate surface operations.

I'd give it a 50/50 shot between the Brotherhood and Institute *if* the Brotherhood ever actually managed to find the Institute's real location. Otherwise, the Institute would just happily hang out underground immune from attack.

If you didn't exist, would Shaun be born?

If you didn't exist, would Gen 3 Synths be a thing?

The Institute and I won't hear otherwise. The BoS are a bunch of lugheads that would all die before they ever got to the institute if you weren't there to warn them about how lousy their pilots are.

Besides. The Institute is not as helpless as y'all are making it out to be. Kellogg can't be their only good hire.

I did absolutely nothing a Courser or two couldn't handle.

Besides, what kind of logic is that? Do the other factions not receive the SS's help over several missions too? I seem to recall a few missions the bumbling Brotherhood had me complete for them as well.

Yes. Easily. Again, nothing I did there couldn't have been done by say, X6-88.

Besides, its not like retrieval of the agitator is paramount to The Institute's survival. It just ensures they'll never need to work about power ever again. Hardly a "win or die" situation there.

Who can be replaced. Lets not pretend the SS is the only possible candidate to the Director's chair.

The Institute never underestimated The Brotherhood. Father took them very seriously from the moment they arrived.

I don't think the Institute is helpless at all, but I also don't think you can judge the effectiveness of BOS vertibirds by terrible pilot AI. This is like attempting to judge each companion's intelligence based on the terrible companion pathfinder AI.

isn't virgil the only one with the knowledge of making the teleporter? and the BoS want him dead so that'd backfire and then they'd have no way of locating the institute (unless there's something i'm forgetting?)

but yah i'd say the institute have the upper hand, they know where the BoS are (and even have one of their synths on the inside for whatever it's worth), while the BoS are virtually clueless about the institute's motives and whereabouts

Without your help, the BoS wouldn't have access to Dr. Madison Li to get Liberty Prime up-and-running, or the location of the Institute. Even if they had the Prydwen, it wouldn't be enough to clear out the Institute.

Let's not overstate the smoothness of that replacement. While there were many factors in play to some elements of the Institute revolting at your debut, they made it pretty clear that, if you hadn't pacified that issue, they would have taken it to open infighting for leadership. They made it sound practically expected.

I find it disappointing how little the game actually touches on Danse being there. How did he get there? Is he a Railroad reprogram? Is he a direct Institute plant? How long has he been there? Was there a real Paladin Danse he replaced at some point?