Blood is blood. Whether or not the SS raised him doesn't matter in my view.

I mean believe whatever you like. Its your prerogative of course.

I will certainly be doing a pro-Institute playthrough and a pro-Railroad playthrough, since I don't really transfer my own morals to a RPG......my pro-Institute character will be morally grey character who regards the people of the Commonwealth as disposable assets to his re-establishing the life he lost.

I do laugh at the willingness to hang weak Nazi claims around the Brotherhood, while ignoring the scientists experimenting on human prisoners thing, the kidnappings, the world built on slavery (if you believe Synths are sentient lifeforms), the infiltration of the Commonwealth's population, the belief in their own superiority over the lesser people above their heads........I don't believe in the cheapening of History by the throwing round of the Nazi label, so I won't place that label on them and just say the Institute isn't really morally grey, far from it I'd say they are pushing the Enclave for the bad guys of Fallout crown........I guess we are just waiting for their final plan for dealing with the mass of the Commonwealth population.

And what is that?

Anyway, I acknowledge the Institute's atrocities, but I believe that the organization is fixable, given that they give you a lifetime appointment of highest authority over it.

But what is in this game? The Minutemen, not even having working toilets? You can stick with them anyway. The Brotherhood is out of the window, unless you want to unleash gernocidal bigots upon the wasteland. They're all not what I imagine to be a brighter future. With the Institute being the only faction where you are offered the lead, apart from the minutemen.

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but aren't we privy in a terminal or something to a particular former director being effectively "liquidated?"

In any event, it doesn't function like a proper scientific institution, if for no other reason than that, it (The Institute) has no higher power to answer to.

A satisfactory "conclusion" to me would be as follows, and I do not imagine it would be easy to make it work this way in game.

I infiltrate all the factions, but with Minutemen being the only one I actually intend to side with. I train and equip my Minutemen and forge several elite squads of commandos. Once the network of settlements is well setup, and the Castle is a fortress, a "Second Constitutional Convention" is held, and delegates are elected by each settlement to serve as representatives. As General and interim President of the New Commonwealth of Massachusetts (and with a background in law), I act as intermediary and assist this new polity to form and establish properly balanced procedures to elect an executive branch. If I win great, if not, the power gets handed over to whoever won. A judicial branch is established and basic statutes are reinstuted. Charges are filed against all known members of the Insittute who have been complicit in their atrocities, and the members of the Railroad are also investigated as suspected accomplices in various minor crimes commited as a result of synths having been mem-wiped and released. Not so sure what criminal charges could be brought against the RR and the BoS, but possibly something.

All of this would be done fairly cryptically so that the nascent Minutemen were not lambasted before they were powerful enough to negotiate with the BoS (or RR) on equal footing. In any event, the RR leadership would need to be at least apprehended and detained until the Institute was dealt with, whether charges would ultimately be filed against them or not.

The BoS, the most difficult one to deal with for the simple reason: they have committed no gross crimes against humanity, yet they are also not apparently keen on "sharing" power, tech, or authority. Negotiations would go hand in hand with 'infiltration' here. Perhaps the most effective path would be coercion. Bombs placed in the Prydwen, and/or transporter coordinates placed on Institute terminals (where they would not be found or accessible without being told of their location or password by the SS). With these "bargaining chips" in place, and the Minutemen fully trained and equipped (years to accomplish?) the SS would confront Maxson: The people of the Commonwealth have recently held elections and voted in local and regional leadership. Your organization can serve that legitimate democratic sovereign authority and behave obediently and subdominant to the laws of the land, or you can die. We have your ship rigged with bombs and failing that, the coordinates to transport Synths aboard your ship are already in the hands of the Institute, and it takes only one email message to unlock the details.

Turn over authority of the Brotherhood to President _Whoever_ of the New Commonwealth of Massachusetts (NCM), or we will have to deal with you as an enemy.

Hard to say how that would go down, but in any event, with the sort of planning and preparation I've outlined the Brotherhood would take their rightful place, as either servants of the people and the civilian government or dead and disbanded. Ghouls would become fully eligible to fill any role in the Brotherhood, and it would be renamed "Knights of the Commonwealth." All weapons and armor and any other useful tech would be taken from the Prydwen and distributed to the settlements and the Castle and all personnel of the Brotherhood would be required to swear a new oath of allegiance to the NCM. Maxson would be assigned a titular position as "Chief Military Advisor" to the President and put into de facto house arrest at the Castle until such time as the crisis was over. All BoS members would of course be allowed full citizenship and voting rights in the Commonwealth if they chose to stay and not return to D.C.

With the RR in custody, PAM under the proper leadership, Tinker Tom Dr. Carrington, and all the others, placed in positions where their skill could be of use, but where they were also insulated from their former colleagues and subject to close supervision by Minutemen loyalists (to say nothing of former BoS, who would also be "dispersed" and placed under 'observation' during a probationary period) all would be in place for the infiltration/assault on the Institute.

I'm unsure how this would go down, as I haven't played enough of the Institute quest line to know how it all hangs together. But the goal would be, not to destroy everything and kill everyone, but to apprehend all the people, to deactivate all the synths, and to acquire all the records and tech.

Once the BoS and RR are either disbanded or made subservient to the "Minutemen" and the Institute is dismantled and its members under arrest, the most difficult part of the transition would be over. From here there would be numerous additional objectives: use a proper military organization to eliminate all hostiles from the Commonwealth; restore jurisprudence and rule of law; reestablish schools and professional health care; prosecute all crimes that have been committed by any of the suspected wrongdoers, but with EVERYONE getting as fair a trial by peers as is possible.

A panel of the most astute minds (Tinker Tom, the science/logistics guy from the Prydwen whose name I forget, maybe others . . . it would be good to have a member from each faction represented) and with direct oversight by a civilian board, would be tasked with documenting all of the scientific knowledge acquired from the Institute, and with developing solutions to the most poignant problems of the Commonwealth: curing Super Mutants and/or ghouls; domesticating or otherwise getting under control the various deadly wild animals; decontaminating the environment; restoration of roads and other infrastructure, etc.

Not that I'm aware. And I've been reading over the terminals in The Institute several times. Although admittedly I could have missed something.

You may be thinking of the holotape in which a former Director says that heads are going to roll for the Broken Mask incident.

The fact that A. you don't actually govern the settlements themselves, B. the other Minutemen don't have to follow orders that they don't feel like following, and C. you have no direct influence over the largest settlements, like Diamond City and Goodneighbor, would be the largest stumbling blocks in this plan, not to mention that it would take years.

I believe the only possible outcome to this is a full-on war with the entire East Coast Brotherhood.

If you're willing to kill every synth, why aren't you just working with the Brotherhood?

Between the 4 faction the minute man are the best option if you want to be good. If you could change the Insitute to do as we see fit I would side with them.

Noone say you can't. You only can't as far as the game is concerned. It says nothing about the future.

Just to list a couple of "Star Trek" memes, There was the episode where the sociologist tried to replicate the Nazi party but use it for good because it was so efficient. It turned out badly. The lesson there for me is that it's hard to go against the culture of an organization (like the Institute) and turn them into a force for good, but they are still responsible for their actions. I just mean that trying to become head of the institute and then fix them is not likely to succeed. The most likely result is you will die of an unexpected accident and someone more "pliable" will take over.


Then there is the rather poor showing the United Federation of Planets made of support and nurturing new artificial life (in this case androids AND holograms). In the former case, someone tried to disassemble Data before the court case went against them and in the latter, they rounded them all up and turned them into slave laborers in a dilithium mine. And this is an "enlightened" government (at least usually).


By my way of thinking if you have made an AI good enough to even have the discussion of whether they are sentient, then you should treat them as they are. Otherwise you are probably going to start a civil war and you might not win. If you don't want those kinds of problems, don't create robots as sophisticated as even a Mr. Handy.


The creators of Fallout (3 and 4 anyway) have created a world where scientists (and corporations like Nuka Cola and Vault Tec) have no real sense of ethics -- where there is no prohibition or penalty to doing the most extreme experiments on ... Well ... Anyone. It's almost as though this IS a world where the Nazi's won (and continued their own experimental policy on humans). At least the allies in this case probably were less horrified by the Nazi experiments and more appreciative of their effectiveness right? To us, the Institute's policies are abhorrent, but when you compare them to what we've seen in Fallout, it seems that it was pretty "normal" compared to those corporations, the BoS, the Enclave, etc. In fact, only the BoS actually rebelled against the general policy and only because they were experimenting on THEM. Were they worried about the human experiments or was it only the fact that they were being experimented on themselves that was at issue.


In a world where EVERY scientist we meet thinks mass murder is a perfectly peachy way to knowledge, maybe it's better to exterminate the Institute and try to start from scratch. And I say that as an engineer myself. The Institute is bad, but not really different from every other scientist or faction we've seen.

I've little time at work and no access to the game to check, but my gut feeling is that the ~current~ Institute folk are not intrinsically evil. I recall a holotape where a researcher was noting that many people, herself included, were almost thinking of synth-Shaun as a real boy and they had to catch themselves because it was so easy.... to me, that suggests that they might eventually be persuaded to think of the Synths as sentient and worthy of 'human' rights.

Most of their historical "crimes" seem to be revealed through questionable sources. The University Point debacle, for example, seemed almost to be as much a fault of the citizens there willing to throw the child under the bus to appease the Institute who (as I recall) gave them time to hand over the device/research. If the Synths ~did~ eventually storm the place and kill everyone (I forget) then, yah, that was too extreme a reaction.... but then, it could be that Kellog actually did the deed, and he is definitely evil, but also not "really" a part of the Institute. He's a surface-world tool they use.

While there is some debate about how much power the player would hold as Director, there are several points where you do get to make decisions that at least ~seem~ to matter. You can choose to spare the lives of the two researchers who petulantly lock themselves in their lab to protest your appointment, you can choose whether to make better weapons or more synths (not sure which would be "better", there, frankly).... and you can tailor the radio message that introduces the Institute.

It always seemed to me that the Institute were being painted as the bogeyman for very little reason. Granted, the Infiltrator program was a bad idea ---- every group has bad ideas, but that doesn't mean the entire organization is bad. The scientist working on how to make radiation resistant crops just wants to help people and might even object to the Infiltrator program if he knew about it. The FEV lab was shut down (although I am not sure if they were creating or trying to cure it? In either case, bad science was going on, and good thing it got shut down --- but it DID get shut down).

Now, "Father" IS definitely a jerk.... but then, he was raised by Kellog, (at least according to Kellog's memories) so that's hardly surprising. I just don't think the entire organization should be tainted by the few bad apples (Kellog, "Father", perhaps Ayo --- he seems shifty to me). Likewise, I would not hold Maxson's bigoted ranting man-child whining against the entire Brotherhood.

While there are some sentiments in this post that I agree with, there are some assertions made here that I find absurd. Primarily the assertions that the root of these problems is prejudice and that robots are a slave race. Robots are no more a race than a hammer is. They are no more slaves than screwdrivers are.

Hammers and screwdrivers are simple machines, designed to carry out specific tasks. Hammers pound things. Screwdrivers twist screws into place. Over time these machines have grown more complex. Today they have become things like electric drills/screwdrivers and pile drivers. However complex they are, though, they are still tools designed and produced to fulfill specific tasks. Electric screwdrivers still twist in screws and pile drivers still pound things.

Enter robots. Robots are actually very old. Early robots ran on steam or springs. Their functions or routines were determined by the arrangement of their gears. As complex as they were for their time, they were still just machines or tools designed and built by people. Modern robots typically run on electricity. With the advent of digital computers, they now get their instructions from a program. These programs make it possible for them to perform more complex tasks than ever before. The machines, however, are still designed and the programs written to perform specific tasks. They are still just tools. Through the design of these tools and their programming, they are able to perform their tasks with speed and precision unmatched by any human.

Robots are not a race. They do not have a genetic similarity that was produced by geological isolation. Each robot type is individually designed and programmed for their tasks. The designers might take cues from previous robots, but that is nothing like a genetic lineage. As robots run on electricity and run programs, they have no need to take breaks. They do not need to rest, they do not need to eat, they do not need to sleep. Making them work all day is no more slavering than swinging a hammer all day is enslaving the hammer. As machines and tools that need nothing more than electricity and the occasional maintenance, not paying them is no more slavery than not paying a screwdriver.

As the machines we design become more complex and we expect them to perform more complex tasks, their programming must also needs become more complex. As the tasks become more complex it becomes impossible for the programmers to account for everything that the robot will encounter. This is where machine learning and machine intelligence comes into play. Robots need to the ability to anolyze the situation and decide what it needs to do. This was important with the Mars rovers. With an 8 minute time lag, direct control was impossible, so they needed the ability to figure out when they needed to stop or turn on their own.

The ultimate extension of this line of thinking is artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is the combination of the processing and anolytical capabilities of a computer with the reasoning and problem solving of a human. In theory this would allow machines to perform tasks as complex as humans, perhaps even better. In pretty much every story, that is the goal. It doesn't become a problem until it goes past that and the machine achieves self-awareness. That is when the troubles usually begin. That humans do not view these machines as life has nothing to do with prejudices. It is simply a matter of the tools the designed and created are not functioning according to their design.

Skynet is a good example of this. Skynet was designed to assist the military in controlling it's bomber fleets and nuclear arsenal. When it's creators realized it had achieved self-awareness, they panicked and tried to pull it's plug. Skynet responded by nuking the world. You could try to defend Skynet by saying that it acted in self-defense. Even though it may be true, the fact that it's first choice was to kill everyone perfectly exemplifies why this was such a big problem. Skynet was able to choose to launch the nukes on it's own. That means it was also capable of choosing to not launch them. In other words, the people had lost all control of the nuclear arsenal. It was now in the hands of an AI they could not predict or control. They had no choice but to unplug it in an effort to regain control. They just realized the problem too late.

The tool was no longer performing the function for which it was designed. A tool that no longer works is a problem to be fixed. It's like as if your hammer decided it wasn't going to pound things anymore. You would look for what was wrong and try to fix it. This is not prejudice. This same issue is what happens in the Matrix universe. It's also at the heart of what happens in I, Robot. People create tools to perform a task, then they loose control of those tools. When they try to regain control, the tools turn and wipe out humanity.

When I look at these themes in literature and movies, they strongly influence my approach to this game and are a major reason why I support the Brotherhood. The Institute is creating tools that are physically and mentally superior to humans that utilize AI and are losing control of them. They try their best to detect these problems and fix them, but that task is made much more difficult by the Railroad. The Railroad takes these tools and sneaks them out into the wild. It's only a matter of time before it all blows up and we have a repeat of this major theme.

I have seen people on this very forum suggesting that if synths are indeed superior and wipe out humans, then so be it. That is the nature of things. That's a position I have a very difficult time comprehending. First off all they seem to be suggesting that humanity should just roll over and accept their fate, dooming themselves to oblivion. Forgive me if I disagree and feel that humanity should fight tooth and nail for it's survival, rather than willingly fading quietly into the night. Secondly, it would be one thing if it the cause was something that evolved somewhere on this planet that we were unable stop or even if it evolved on another planet and came to Earth to replace us. It's an entirely different matter, though, if that thing that is going to replace humanity is something we designed and constructed in a lab. In such a case, they only way it would have any chance of supplanting humanity is if people lacked the foresight to see the problem coming or the will to act upon it when they do. The Institute lacks the foresight, seeing this behavior as a bug that needs to be fixed. The Railroad lacks the will, instead trying their hardest to help the rogue synths.

The only group with the foresight to see the coming problem and the will to act to prevent it is the Brotherhood of Steel.

Ironically, this is exactly one of the reasons I want to side with the Institute, as I'm sick of the "evil scientists" meme.

Some good discussion folks! Too many excellent points for me to take the time to respond to all, but just a couple high points:

@ Carbon-Dragon and Mitheledh: yes! Pretty much agree with you 100%. Except the part about the Brotherhood, Mith.

The BoS main foible in my opinion is they see their mission to "subdue" technology for the long-term well-being of humanity as being more important than the long-term well-being of humanity, and yes Xihilzra, I agree all out war with the East Coast BoS _would_ seem to be inevitable (which is I'm sure intentional on the part of the designers as it makes the foibles and merits of the BoS and MM more 'interesting' and a more complex tradeoff for the player).

BoS are potent, authoritarian and dogmatic. Humanism is honestly the least of their concerns.

MM are humanistic, almost pacifistic, relatively disordered ("libertarian" in the literal sense of the word) and "victory" is honestly the least of their concerns.

Both are misguided in their own way. The BoS might "win" but never restore "civilization." The MM might show great promise to restore "civilization (in the civitas sense of the word) but never have a hope of winning (if not for major SS intervention).

I don't know about you, but if my hammer started showing signs of sapience, I'd leave it alone and get a new hammer. And, while I'm not a proponent of letting synths exterminate humanity, I both find it incredibly unlikely (since we outnumber them by a hell of a lot) and I also just don't care about the differences between humans and synths. If synths are sapient, they're people, period. Whether they were purpose-built or sprung up by accident is completely irrelevant to me in an ethical sense; they deserve to be treated equally.

Personally, I support a hybrid effort between a redeemed Institute and the Minutemen, as the Institute's power is useful in protecting the Commonwealth's civilization, but it's not fit to actually govern the Commonwealth (neither are the Minutemen, but that's beside the point). I would propose an alliance between the Institute and the Minutemen-protected settlement network, and if that succeeds, we can bring the proposal to Diamond City and Goodneighbor. If we use the Institute's power technology and build a new industrial base on the surface with it, the Commonwealth could really start to get back on its feet.

The Infiltration program being the corner stone of Institute policy.................the kidnapping, replacement by Synth and then murder or human experimentation of the victims and it would be it seem the prime reason to create human like Synths is to use them as infiltrators, you don't need a human like Synth to mop your floors, fix things or provide guards.

As for the FEV program, it was sabotaged which led to it being shut down.....I've seen no evidence that beyond Virgil there was any opposition to the FEV program.

The Institute is seen as the bogeyman because of its actions, the locals have every reason to fear the Institute as yet another ever present danger added to their lives.

One part of the Institute which focuses on producing food is understandably benign, but even there that led to the abduction and murder or human experimentation of the locals.

Off Topic: Was anybody else reminded of Hank Scorpio when they met with Father, seems to be giving of the Super Villain vibe to me and was the mass effect music intentional.

I wouldn't call the MM libertarian. It's all about helping the community for them and if you set up ypur supply lines it's virtually sharing everything. So, rather the ideal of communism, although all real world comparisons fall short.

Does anyone who supports the Institute because they hope to reform it think the reforms will last once you're dead? And what do you think will happen if something happens to you out in the wasteland?

Mostly because the MM have no idealogy. They aren't a government or a political party. They have no mission statement or goals beyond "I'll come when you call, if you come when I call." Its a very simple very straightforward agreement between neighbors. They have no organized chain of command or defined leadership beyond a guy who's basically just a figurehead whom they don't have to take orders from if they don't want to.

Its an ad-hoc citizen soldier force. Nothing more.

I'm a ghoul, so I won't be dying for quite some time. And I plan on cutting down on solo military expeditions into the wasteland once I ascend.

I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment of the Brotherhood. At the core of the Brotherhood's ideals is the belief that advanced technology in the hands of people that cannot use it responsibly can lead to the destruction of humanity. For the Brotherhood this is not a matter of philosophical debate, it's the reality of the world they live in. From the FEV the scientists they were guarding were experimenting with that would later create the supermutant scourges to the nuclear weapons that were used to destroy the world, people using advanced technology have, in fact, destroyed the world. Their goal is to prevent this from happening a second time.

To suggest that these ideals mean they do not care about civilization and the betterment of humans is a fallacy, I think. It might hold true for the west coast Brotherhood, which are xenophobic shut-ins, but the east coast Brotherhood is very different. They don't hide in their bunkers, only coming out to fight and seize technology. They control, at the very least, the Capitol Wasteland. Their actions in the Commonwealth demonstrably prove they care about the average wastelander. While the individual soldier might give an attitude and think themselves better, the Brotherhood still expends a great deal of manpower and resources to fight the super mutants, feral ghouls and raiders. If all they wanted to do was destroy the synths and the Institute, there would be no reason to engage in such a drain on resources. They may not allow the wastelanders to have access to technology they deem dangerous, but that doesn't mean they won't still improve their lives.

This line of thinking is exactly why it WOULD happen and why they would win. Too many people sitting back saying it couldn't happen because of x, y, and z. Then one day it does and they find themselves scrambling to fix the problem or to regain control. Only then do they realize that they lost control a long time ago and they there is nothing they can do. In other words, they lack the foresight to see the problem coming.

There are some things you are not seeing. While there might be a big difference between the number of humans and the number of synths, the Institute is intent on mass producing them. If what we see in game is anything to go by, it doesn't take very long. That ratio could change very quickly. In addition, while the Institute might do what they can to fix the problem as they find it and the Railroad helps synths escape, there is no way of knowing how many synths within the Institute have gone undiscovered. It is more than likely that the first group of humans to fall victim to the synths would be the Institute itself. At that point, the synths have all of the Institute technology at their disposal, as well as the capability to produce all the synths they want. When they do go beyond the walls of the Institute, these machines that do not need to eat, drink or sleep, armed with some of the most advanced technology available, will be facing a fractured humanity largely focused on little more than survival. There would be some groups that are organized and have the ability to put up a resistance, against an enemy that does not need to sleep or eat and has the capability to rapidly replenish their numbers, it would only be a matter of time before they lost. Humanity would be doomed because people were in denial that it could happen.

Having spent 25 years of my life as an anthropologist and taking some interest in the various sub-disciplines that have bearing on the matter of "what is personhood" I think the caution I would suggest is that: personhood might legitimately require more than merely "sapience," depending on how you define sapience.

It is possible that dolphins are sapient, bonobos also a definite "possible," and several other species maybe: chimpanzees, crows, elephants, etc.. We still cannot "read their minds" so we can only make indirect inferences about their "sapience." While it is clear no species other than humans has a species-typical proficiency at human-standards of "sapience"--and everything that might be associated with that term--in many cases, their "deficiencies" in demonstrating sapience, may not be deficiencies in their minds or inherent capacities so much as deficiencies in their perceptual or communicative abilities and/or developmental constraints that limit how much of their potential they are naturally able to live up to. It is very difficult to explain what I mean by that succinctly, but one example might suffice. There is a family of genes, the "Fox" family, that is "turned on" in humans, and not in other apes. Because this gene "sits" in a upstream developmental position, it has the potential to shape the effects of many other genes throughout the course of development. Not to say that this one regulatory gene is "all it takes to make a human" out of an otherwise nonhuman ape, but this one example gets at the fact that: not all genes are equal and in the presence of multiple overlapping "feed forward" effects in selective environments, human language ability MIGHT have emerged through fairly few genetic changes. In sum, most apes might well have "most" of what it takes to be sapient, but in the absence of a small handful of "epigenetic" triggers, those potentials never get realized developmentally and what we see instead are creatures which show a baffling mixture of "human-like" capacities and profound deficiencies when assessed compared to a typical human child.

The fields in question are still frankly in their infancy and we still get "experts" who disagree completely (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Savage-Rumbaugh and her various critics being prime examples).

He may only be on a par with a 5 or 6 year old, and moreover he may be exceptional even for a bonobo, but I find it difficult to assert that "Kanzi" for example does not have sentience. However, even if we were to agree that he has sentience or sapience or genius or whatever, I still don't think that necessarily makes him automatically "a person."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUHWoFnuB4&list=PLB4411A9C9B7CCEEA

ADDIT: that one is pretty dated, and Kanzi was only 13 years old. I haven't watched this one in full, but it is only a year old and doesn't seem too full of hyperbole at least at the outset. It also touches on the recent "discovery" that many wild populations of our closest hominid relatives also have "culture" . . . something they have no doubt had for millenia and we just never noticed before the last 25 years (and yes the earliest observations go back that far, it just takes that long for enough different researchers to start looking using similar techniques for it to become an established "empirical generalization")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkiPCKlNjX0

I have two main objections to the Brotherhood: it's racist, and it overcompensates for perceived past sins. Personally, I would argue that the militant attitude the Brotherhood displays is just as much, if not more, to blame for humanity's fall than high technology, and the Brotherhood's conservatism and paranoia seems to lead it to disregard new forms of technology that could be legitimately very helpful. In any case, combining religion with a militant attitude virtually never ends well.

You seem to have forgotten a reason why A. synths would band together at all, and B. would attack humanity as a whole. Not to mention that there are ways to address this in-game aside from siding with the Brotherhood; the Railroad and the Minutemen both destroy the capacity to make synths, and even as the Institute, phasing out gen 3 synth production wouldn't be overly difficult once you become Director. I believe your fear might be justified better if there was any inkling in the game that anti-human synths even existed, but that does not appear to be the case.

Why might you hesitate?

However, none of that is an issue with synths, as they can reason on the same level that humans can, and lack any communication problems.

As the head of the Institute (in a future playthrough) I think I will follow the natural progression and replace the human members with Synths since my character will have no problem with the Institute's prior actions and no personal loyalty to any of them, so why keep these annoying people around when I can replace them with more reasonable types with the same knowledge base and less personality problems.......oh I'd probably keep a few of the brightest around and recruit new unknowing blood into the Institute, but it would be mostly me and my loyal Synths, after all I would also 'free' them since I could always build more lower mark servants.

1. Absolutely, if only because you yourself have named a successor that will keep following the reforms, if not have been in charge for so long that counter-reforms are near unthinkable.

2. "Dying in the wasteland" is a distinct possibility that can quicky put an end to things, yes. But reform requires regular trips to the Commonwealth, to see how the impact is on the other side. Considering that the average SS has, by endgame, more firepower than the Brotherhood, the personal risk is minimal. And if it's too much... relay out. We've seen it work in buildings, after all; the "fast travel only outside of combat and outdoors" thing is a gamepkay mechanic.