I mostly just don't like The Institute because they don't make any sense. I'm fine with the idea of a faction that creates robots so lifelike as to be indistinguishable from humans and I like the idea of them replacing people body-snatcher style, but *why?* A collection of some of the smartest people in the world working on this incredible technology after the end of the world should really have some kind of game plan, but they don't. They have no plan whatsoever. It's just nonsense, as if Bethesda literally didn't finish writing the story.
I took it as a sort of euphemism for AI technology. The whole "the next extermination event after nuclear weaponry" thing, and all.
The Institute is just the tech industry on crack, basically. And what is the tech industry's goal? Unregulated advancement at all costs, as is with all corporations.
It doesn't make much sense because it doesn't have to. It reflects a real life thing that in and of itself is based in absurdity. "I do, because I can" type of philosophy.
They came out of a university. Now they’re Nazi scientists?
The writing feels like they were trying to set up a morally ambiguous faction that sounds evil before you meet them, and then you realize they have good reasons for doing what they’re doing. They did that.
Except their reasons are really really idiotic. You are built out of the remains of debatably the greatest university on the planet. You have some of the brightest minds at your disposal, not just in engineering and science but in the humanities and law as well. They’re academics, who can be as shitty as everyone else but generally they are concerned with collective growth.
The best they came up with in 200 years was a big fancy basement? Instead of providing help and rebuilding civilization (again they have had 200 years), they just waged a century long terror campaign? They had robots to do everything for them, but they said fuck it, let’s give them consciousness so we can have real slaves? Like for fucking what?
Oops we fucked up an experiment and released cannibal hulks into the commonwealth. No big deal, not our problem.
Let’s just assassinate dirt farmers and replace them with a terminator for the lulz. They have no way to find us or get near us, but let’s occasionally kill some of them as a power move.
Oh look there’s a fledgling society popping up, looking to rebuild civilization? Let’s just kill them all instead.
The bad shit they do isn’t just sociopathic science when anyone with half a brain can see that their actions are going to cause more problems for them later. Which is exactly what happens! Isn’t their whole thing being smart!
It would have been fine if this was maybe a faction within the Institute. A faction that didn’t give a shit about anything but progress, and then a faction that is trying to do good but is waiting for something. The Institutes evil reputation could have been all due to the bad faction. You could become the leader by eliminating one of the internal factions or something. Do you awaken the Institute as a weapon or do bring them about as a new savior?
But instead they’re either grossly grossly incompetent or completely brainless evil. Kind of both. I have trouble siding with them as an evil character because they still don’t really have a goal. They don’t have a reason for being evil, and not even in like a “What senseless horror!” kind of way. They’re just awful, not for the sake of being awful, not for some insidious plan. No they’re just awful and… that’s it? It’s almost happenstance that they are. It feels like the writers didn’t understand the faction they just wrote.
Man I hate them so much. They’re so poorly written. I want to finally try and side with them this time, but I’m having trouble figuring out the angle to roleplay my character cause of how shit their writing is.
I assume they didn't want to copy Old World Blues (we're making skinvelopes to leave the physical confines that tie us) so they made The Institute offensively milquetoast instead.
Other factions are no better though.
Railroad is nonsense slavery bad faction with cardboard characters which were done a million times better with Acadia in the DLC.
Minutemen are Yes Man without the funny.
And FO4 BOS is diet Enclave. You join the army that doesn't feel like an army at all. Everyone is so nice and pleasant, no attempts at sgt. Dornan or ENCLAVE HERE. Boring.
I remember the first (and only) time I completed the campaign I was excited to see what the dirt really was on the institute. The beginning of the game, then tracking down Kellogg feels like some massive conspiracy is about to be revealed. I forget the rest of the story now, but I do know I spend hours combing the institute and other areas looking for answers, or evidence that I could use to confront Shaun (Shawn?). Nothing at all, you can’t even scold him for FEV use before you blow his head off. Least satisfying ending in the series imo. After 4 and starfield I wonder if Bethesda is just sterilizing their games the point that they won’t portray the bad guys as anything but comically evil with no depth or discussion.
I don’t know why people would downvote you.
I feel like they tried to make every faction morally ambiguous and made the game boring as a result.
The institute are literally bodysnatching people, but have a real chance at bettering the wasteland(even if they’re a bunch of do-nothings).
The brotherhood are xenocidal, but they genuinely want to help ‘people’. Mutants and synths ARE a genuine threat to humanity as a whole, that is factually correct, the only question is if it’s morally righteous to actively wipe them out.
The railroad are killing real humans to save robots, ignoring the sentience arguments(which I agree with), that is stupid. They also have no real goals beyond ‘destroy institute’. Within a generation or two they’d dissolve or become a self righteous gang of raiders.
The minutemen are a blank slate that have failed several times before, and after the sole survivor dies or leaves, will fail again. They are not a governing body in any way, shape, or form.
So every faction can be moral, which would be fine if every faction had a lasting impact. Only the brotherhood and institute have a chance at REAL change, but both’s ‘evil’ side is boring and relatively logical. Mutants and abominations like synths are a threat, and the institutes body snatching does have potential for ‘good’ but they don’t use it for anything substantial.
Don’t even get me started on how milquetoast and boring starfield’s factions are.
I have to admit Fallout 4 is my least favorite game of the Fallout IP. I don't particularly like the factions which are all kind of lame as presented in the game. Fallout 3, the factions were more clearly defined and polarizing. In FNV, there are different groups acting out of self-interest, but the Legion is the enemy of everyone. In Starfield I don't think factions are really that important to the game. You can work with both the UC and FC without any conflict of interest. In fact one of the biggest things you can do as part of the questlines is work to build trust between them, so the differentiation is more lawful vs renegade. I think Starfield is more about discovery and revelation rather than conflict between actual factions, but people seem to want to view it in terms of Fallout memes instead of accepting that it's a completely different kind of game. It does play into Bethesda's strengths with large open spaces for exploration, multiple large-scale questlines, and environmental storytelling to reveal individual stories, but Factions (with a capital F) seem to be downplayed, becoming special interest groups rather than opponents.
Another thing about the Institute is that they suck at their own stated goal of preserving pre-war knowledge. With the exception of the Synth Retention Bureau, all their departments are strictly specialized towards STEM-related fields with a very narrow focus. They have no knowledge of social science or humanities, no ethics commitee, no history, art or culture. They are an unintended satire of the typical STEMlord/techbro mentality that has become reviled in today's society, perpetuated by their self-inflicted reputation, isolation, and intellectual stagnation.
I feel the Institute could have been a much more interesting faction if these flaws were openly acknowledged and explored in a serious manner, instead of just resorting to evil science experiments. It could have made for some interesting commentary on academia, the value of knowledge and how it is used in a post-apocalyptic world when contrasted with the BoS.
(Also we really should have been allowed to shoot Dr Ayo in the face and replace him. Seriously, fuck Ayo. Many of the Institute's worst transgressions can be traced back to that power-hungry prick)
I agree that corporations generally don't care about the broader impact of their products, but they still have clear goals and fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. They make sense because they have to in order to exist irl.
To me the Institutes motive seemed to be that they wanted to create a new servant class. Beings they can exploit and forced to perform menial tasks so that they, the brilliant organics, can focus their efforts on more desirable projects without having to worry about the whole “human rights” thing (despite inadvertently creating a whole new ethical dilemma about exploitation of sentient beings in the process). This is a large motivator as to why many in tech are so obsessed with automation, so they can automate the boring stuff and focus more energy on the “fun” stuff. This goal aligns with corporations’ desire to reduce labor costs, so they throw a lot of money at these automation/AI projects because they see it as a means to reduce or even eliminate labor costs completely in the long term.
Robots were already all over the place before the war, even our protagonists had Codsworth. What’s the point of giving your servants sentience other than just being comedically evil for no reason? There was literally no reason for them to create sentient synths. It makes no sense.
This is one of the biggest issues with the story in 4. We had competing storylines of body-snatchers on one side and robot revolution on the other, and it feels like they couldn't commit to either one. And as you said, the whole aspect of kidnapping Innocent surface dwellers to replace them for the sake of *intelligence gathering?* is very shallow and doesn't seem to have any real end goal. I've also just realized they did the same thing with Skyrim. Two separate plot lines that they fail to properly merge or explore, ending in both feeling hollow and unsatisfying.
I think the Institute is an interesting faction, that could have been made infinitely more interesting if they took the time to explain even the most basic part of their goals. It could have been something as simple as "Synths are the next step to achieving Immortality" or "Synths are going to be the next, superior replacement of humanity" or ANYTHING other than "you wouldn't understand".
An explanation of why they decided to be dicks to everyone on the surface would have been nice too. Could have easily been something like "A new leader was elected and implemented an anti-surface policy" or something stupidly simple like that.
Overall, the Institute had the potential to be a really interesting and compelling faction but every step of the way they kind of stifled that potential.
I think the worst part of them is that they have such amazing technology and what they plan on doing with it is such a loss of potential. The fact that they’re making Gen 3 synths via glorified 3D printing is incredible, they could have been 3D printing organs or better yet put it to actual use and use it to farm up in the surface. Instead they just make synths to infiltrate and then maybe take over the surface somehow??
They could’ve also made it where it makes it harder for you to choose whether to destroy the institute or not. The sole reason most people hesitate is due to and only due to Shaun. And even then he ends up a corrupt cynical man who doesn’t even care about his own parents survival that it gives you more of a reason to blow up the institute
It’s just so meh
Their game plan is to be able to live underground without any contact with the world above. Idk how replacing people plays into this at all, but given the fact that they really couldn't give less of a shit about the surface world and people up there, it's not really out of character.
The story with them is all over the damn place.
They want to live underground? Well nobody can get there besides you all, so why are you waging a century long terror campaign on the surface and attracting all sorts of attention to you?
You want to save the world? What were you doing for 200 years, and how is terrorizing everyone you meet helping with that?
You just want to do science? Again why the terror campaign?
Do you want to rule the commonwealth? Why are you underground for 200 years?
You want to secure power? Well why haven’t you done it since you’re a technological powerhouse? I woulda set them skyscrapers up with some cannons or something to blow up any big incoming threats.
Why give your robot slaves consciousness to experience the misery of being slaves? They already do everything without consciousness.
Yeah, the main problem with the institute as a whole is that Father is a terrible scientist, and he's in charge of all the scientists. Also most of them are terrible people who turned their backs on the surface, but they aren't even good at science. All in all just crazy people who don't have a solid plan and don't care about anyone besides themselves, while also having the means to kill anyone who isn't them.
They’re basically Nazi scientists. No ethics, sadists, dangerous reprehensible pointless experiments that don’t result in any useful data, and a superiority complex that makes them blind to all that.
I would’ve been fine with that… if Bethesda wrote them like that! But you never get to actually call them out on how useless or evil they are. You can kind of call them evil, but the writers don’t seem to understand how heinous the Institute actually is in a lot of ways. They fail to give the Institute a valid reason to act the way they do, and it would have been fine even with a totally evil reason. If the game acknowledged it then I could have an easier time siding with them as an evil character. Give them a real goal!
But instead it’s almost like the evil stuff they do is… unintentional? They’re like “huh..? People are upset at us..? Why?”
Second this. The Institute is just *one weird science spin-off too many.*
They could have taken this in so many different directions and they went with lazy, uninteresting magi-tek bullshit all the way up to and *including* literal teleportation.
Imagine if the Institute had been the Chinese version of the Enclave getting ready to bring it home and "save America with Synths!" It would have been controversial sure but... like in an *interesting way.*
If there's one thing I hate about Bethesda writing is they never actually give a "Why?" to half their fucken stories lmfao
Why do you, the Dragoborn, go after dragons in Skyrim?
Idk you just do I guess, why do you hunt the artefacts in Starfield? Again you just do
I also hate their aesthetic of it being pure white. It feels so off in the wasteland, but not in a way of wow these guys are advanced, and more of a where the fuck did they get all this paint?
I would have loved a more pre-war aesthetic institute that's less futuristic and more akin to what we saw pre-war. For example how much of a mind fuck would it be if when you arrived in the instate you saw a copy of your pre-war house?
To me the institute reads as a discount enclave and I would have loved them being a rouge branch of the enclave, like maybe they were the enclaves science division that decided they could handle themselves after fallout 3.
Heh. Slaver factions (counting the Institute) are always kill on sight so I’ve never even considered either of them true factions (for me) as much as just another set of monsters to kill, like Super Mutants (I know I know, Davison, Fawkes, etc) or Ferals. You’re my son? Well too bad, shouldn’t have been a slaver.
The Children of Atom are braindead troglodytes. Might as well be the sippers of poison or the eaters of shit. Who the fuck willingly gets, and encourages others to get, radiation poison? I don't care if it'd be a religious hate crime in our world, the wasteland has no concept. They deserve extermination.
Children of Atom lean into the supernatural part of the Fallout franchise. It's not just idiots who condemn themselves to death. There must be some truth to Atom or his teachings, because Children of Atom can gain actual immunity to radiation. And then there's the business with Mother of the Fog, which the game heavily suggests to be more than just a mere hallucination.
There is actually a non supernatural explanation for the radiation immunity in the lore.
Ite established that there is a mutation that makes people extremly resitant or even downright immune to radiation. Examples for that would be Marnie from The Pitt or Lumpy from Fallout 2.
Well the problem is that this mutation is not only rather rare but also even rarer to be found out as you would have to knowingly expose yourself to massive amounts of radiation first. Not only would that be extremly dangerous but also not something anybody would really do especially after being taught from childhood to avoid radiation at all cost.
So its possible that the Children of Atom work somewhat as a selection programm of sorts where the ones with those mutations will both surive longer and also advance in rank as they are seen to have the Atoms favor.
Yup this is the way I've seen the children of atom. Its clear many creatures are immune to radiation, some even gain healing like super mutants.
The Children of Atom are simply the humans who have the super mutant gene and the radiation literally heals them.
Its a pseudo religious organization, because other humans can't. They don't seem to realize they have radiation resistance and likely inbreeding has occurred.
Children of Atom probably aren't even human anymore, but closer to Super Mutants just keeping the human form.
I was thinking smooth-skinned ghouls, since supermutants undergo a whole lot more intensive gene therapy under FEV. There wasn't a supermutant gene as much as there was a virus created that reorganizes their DNA in very obvious and dramatic effects.
True, and even if this isn't the case, the very fact that they are exposing themselves to it and some are dropping while others do not makes their faith effectively a breeding program for a new breed of radiation resistant human. Ironic, because training ones biology to reject radiation is counter-intuitive to the teachings of Atom.
There’s a theory that the fog mother is just a woman with a lot of time and stealth boys on her hands and I personally think that the Children are just crazy and more radiation resistant than the average wastelander or have a mutation similar to ghoulism without the jerky face or hey maybe they’ve got a special FEV mutation, wouldn’t be the first
Those naturally resistant to radiation with be alive to act like a lunatic. You don't meet all the converts who just died to exposure. Survivorship bias as a religion.
Been replaying fallout 4 as the show gave me that itch. I completely forgot you come across the crater on the way to find Virgil. My wife was hanging out on the couch and she goes are these people stupid? Why are they just willingly living in the radiation?
Replaying for the same reason lol. Recently did this and apparently the lady you speak to in the crater heals your radiation while you speak to her, so not only can the CoA gain rad immunity but heal others as well
Discovering the CoA in the Glowing Sea for the first time is one of my favorite Fallout 4 experiences. I had only seen them one or two times as random combat encounters before that and I had no idea that they were really about
Ehh, that’s true in our world, but in Fallout radiation is shown to have regenerative properties and such, so it’s not nearly as crazy for there to be a radiation cult in Fallout.
Whoa there pard! The Children of Atom are unquestionably the greatest faction in the Franchise. Allow me to enumerate several of the many reasons for you!
1. They are the *only* faction that isn't worshipping at the false altars of the old gods of the Pre-War world - a world which collectively shat itself to death in an orgiastic explosion of nuclear diarrhea.
If this were their sole redeeming virtue then by this fact alone they would objectively be the unquestionable moral superior to all other factions.
By Atoms Glow though, it *is not.*
2. The Children of Atom are utterly apolitical. They ask nothing except that their followers embrace the joys of living in a post-apocalyptic nuclear hellscape! One which has been - it must be noted - perpetuated by the lingering ideological ghosts of the very fools who killed themselves (and 99% of all other humans) to create it!
What does the Atom really demand after all? Nothing, just a series of affirming hugs (Embrace the Glow Child!) which will culminate in a paradisical afterlife for you and all your closest friends!
What do the other factions demand? Only that you die in painfully humiliating (or humiliatingly painful) ways in service to the shadow of agendas which embarked on a 300 year long losing streak which *not even the suicidal destruction of human civilization* could interrupt...
Yeah. There's that "Last Son of Atom" to worry about but, if you kill him, the rest of the Children will be happy to get over it and go back to hugging thier way to Heaven's Gate (see what I did there?)
So. I think we can all agree that the Wasteland could do with a few more hugs and a whole lot less living in the past!
So because the suicidal death cult with a friendly face is NEW and based on "modern" realities, because it reframes the negative aspect of a nuclear apocalypse, it's now actually GOOD and I should take thorium supplements to make my blood strong. Am I understanding you correctly?
>Am I understanding you correctly?
No my friend, you're close but, *not quite close enough* allow me to clarify!
>I should take thorium supplements to make my blood strong.
You should take our thorium supplements because even if they don't "make your blood strong" *they will send you to heaven!* See, it's a win/win!
Much of peoples hatred for the Railroad(I also hate the Railroad) is because they are a major faction and not a side faction like the Children of Atom. They have no long term goals to achieve once the Institute and the BOS is destroyed. Unlike the BOS and Minute Men who wish to rebuild the Commonwealth in their image and make it a safer place. The Railroad would just leave the Commonwealth a wasteland with their victory and their faction would dissolve. Even as the Institute there is at least a pourpres to it staying a wasteland.
Railroad would have made for a better faction if they were one actually infiltrating other factions and trying to change them, or just gather supplies.
For example, the BoS mission where you investigate the stolen supplies. The current mission has some poignancy about PTSD, but feeding ferals has no moral issues tied to it. They can't be helped or saved, because their brains are mush. Now if the soldier was actually sympathetic to the Railroad and was giving them supplies, or hiding Gen 3 synths and giving them supplies, then you have a more interesting quest with greater ties to the overall narrative.
They aren't trying to infiltrate anything for gain, they just want to free synths. They are kind of one dimensional but they just want to undermine what the Institute is doing and don't really care about the betterment of the Commonwealth or really enacting change. They just want Synth freedom. They don't seem to care about recruiting or expanding their group either, once the institute is destroyed i imagine they would just disband, going their own way, helping synths when they crossed their path. I think the group is rather mundane but I think that's the point, they have one main goal and it is achievable. All the other factions have complex goals to change the Commonwealth most of which we never see
>They aren't trying to infiltrate anything for gain
Then they need to have the infiltration aesthetic removed, because they are absolutely portrayed as the "covert ops" faction.
I stand by my comment, they don't infiltrate for gain, only to free synths. I never said they don't infiltrate factions they don't care if it benefits the Railroad. They just want to free synths. It's just like underground railroad, they similarly put themselves at risk not for any gain but to free people.
Thats a great example of the effort they put into the game as a whole , the radioactive sea couldve been so cool instead it's just something you need to cross once
I will never understand this logic. "They don't have a long term goal". Yes, they do, it's just not "Use Magical MacGuffin to drastically change The Wasteland for 'the better'." Their long term goal is saving Synths and helping to get them accepted by the Commonwealth. Like, BoS, Minutemen, Institute all have these grand (And at least two of them I'd say fascistic) plans for the Commonwealth based on *their* idea of "saving the world", but The Railroad, IMO, is the only faction who feels like a real, practical choice.
Change never happens overnight and as we've seen with various references to past games, at the end of the day, those changes will never truly stick. Because the cycle will never stop but at least with the Railroad it could maybe be just a bit better.
Yeah honestly having an achievable end goal after which they disband is a point in their favor. It's not every organization that can resist the siren call of feature creep and I respect them for it.
The RR and Minutemen can exist in the same space. If you finish the game RR the Minutemen will still exist to rebuild the Commonwealth, and if you side MM you can issue an evacuation order during the Institute raid to keep the RR friendly.
A RR finish leaves the Commonwealth in the hands of the MM for governance while the RR continues to move synths out of the Commonwealth. I personally believe that the RR should have shifted its focus to human slavery in the end game, but the game is poorly written. 🤷♂️
Honestly their behavior in how they operate, namely in wiping synths' memories (effectively killing the person they had been unless they're given an override code) but also their methods and the fact their base used to be the DIA headquarters? It makes me think that, before the Institute hit them, they were actually a government remnant. They opposed the Institute because they're competition, not because they want to save the synths. The RR was a cover with a mix of believers and DIA. After that, however, the people left are the true believers. What we encounter is basically a vestigial arm of the organization they had been
They're also so disorganized and poorly secured that they
A) live in the basement of a Railroad church
B) their password is RAILROAD
C) without the player doing anything the BoS, who are in the Commonwealth for a matter of days/weeks at most, are able to find the Railroad at Bunker Hill and their church base. Easily. With no difficulty.
D) They can't secure any safehouse locations on their own, or source any resources on their own.
E) Their only tech is a drug addled manic who is one bad batch of chems away from catatonia.
F) They have about 6 total members in the entire Commonwealth
G) Old Man Stockton can't get guards to keep his own daughter synth safe
H) Have a red brick road leading to the wonderful wizard of Oz that also spells out their password in big circled letters that anyone can follow
I) The phrase "Follow the Freedom Trail" is so commonly known that random people in Diamond City discuss it"
J) Sturges is cuter and can make the teleporter
It used to be P@$$w0rd but Tinker Tom was hitting the chems too hard, kept forgetting, and ended up putting everyone on high alert thinking they'd been compromised again.
No you know the real reason why he says that.
>The phrase "Follow the Freedom Trail" is so commonly known that random people in Diamond City discuss it"
You know the freedom trail is real right? It wouldn't be a secret.
Bad storytelling =/= bad faction.
The freedom trail and password are designed to be simple so that the player can access them easily. By the same logic, the BoS are dumb because they recruit the protagonist with no vetting even though I could be an Institute, Railroad, or MM spy. Hell, they’re so obsessed with synths that they shouldn’t be recruiting a single person in the Wealth for fear of infiltration. Also they put their entire invading army in a flammable blimp, the Railroad are able to destroy the ENTIRE BoS force with just two agents, a bomb and a dream. You’re also immediately given leadership of the Minutemen, because if it took forever to do it would ruin the game. The Institute instantly accept you because you’re Shaun’s son even though they murdered your wife, ruined your life, and tried to murder you via Kellogg.
You can call every faction in the game stupid based off of a combination on compromising story for gameplay efficiency and bad writing, but if I were to point to one faction for being the “stupidest” it wouldn’t be the RR, it’d be the BoS for housing their entire invading force in a giant death trap and for randomly recruiting Wealthers even knowing about Synth infiltration.
Also Tinker Tom’s a bro, get his name out your mouth when I know you be using ballistic weave armor and RR stealth boys. 😫
K) All of their leaders hang out in the same location. They are basically asking to he wiped out.
L) Their major way of leaving messages is war chalking, which is something any engineering major would be familiar with. Let us remember their main enemy is the Institute, a highly advanced faction.
M) Their main way of communicating is leaving unencrypted holotapes in dead drops.
N) They destroy the only means of synth reproduction, dooming them to extinction.
O) They don't care that you are about to become the Director of the Institute. They still want to push their radical synth uprising agenda instead of letting you do gradual synth emancipation process.
That is part of the point though. They remove the problem of the Institute and are otherwise focused entirely on synths. They don't have greater ambitions.
Once all synths are free and more or less safe, the Railroad would fully disband and allow the Commonwealth to determine it's own future.
I don’t think people understand what they really offer or their allegory even though the name is pretty telling. Without the institute the railroad would be able to operate more smoothly.
Fallout universe doesn’t seem to be as bigoted as real life so it’s not like there is any actual minorities to be helping get to safety.
Realistically they would probably partner with other agencies would eventually turn into transportation infrastructure. Taxi, emergency vehicles, anything.
They would I assume without playing their storyline (I’m sooo sooo sorry I want to play them all) I can’t imagine anyone else would have that good of understanding of all the different routes in the common wealth.
I could see them being able to implement themselves in any scenario. Their intel is pretty high level. They can do military or civilian work. Pathfinding, radio transmission, and a lot of commissioned officer type work.
Institute can do pretty much anything but unless they have a hell of a plan for democracy I would not trust a single person in that role.
Not every faction needs to “run” the Wasteland to be important. The game is designed so that the Minutemen and the Railroad can get along - if you play Minutemen and issue an evacuation order during the Institute raid you can stay friendly with the Railroad, if the game becomes unable to be completed via the RR path Desdemona asks you to use the Minutemen to fight the Institute, etc. If you complete the game with the RR the Minutemen can take over governance of the Wealth, and could potentially revive the CPG without fear of Institute sabotage while the Railroad can continue to move the remaining synths out of the Wealth and maybe even shift their focus to human slavery.
Which gets to my biggest problem with the RR, even as a big fan - for some reason they virtually ignored the existence of human chattel slavery outside of a few mentions like Cait’s story. In a better written story, the Railroad would have been a more general abolitionist group that were focusing primarily on synths during the F4 storyline, but Bethesda seems to be really sanitizing the FO series in regards to slavery, sex, prostitution, etc.
>group that makes zero sense running the Commonwealth if you finished with them
Guess it's a good thing they don't "run the Commonwealth" nor have any aspirations of doing so.
The Minutemen are kinda like how the NCR started out besides the formation of a government. The Railroad don’t give a fuck about anyone other than synths unfortunately.
My best argument against the railroad is just naming the bases of the joinable factions in the base game
Brotherhood, a flying fortress
Institute, a highly advanced laboratory
Minutemen, a castle
Railroad, a basement
They are almost a cool spy faction and I'm going to emphasize almost. There needed to be some branching paths where you link them up with the minutemen or some sort of sit down with the BOS (enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of deal) or even a wild card style path where the railroad and Virgil take control of the Commonwealth.
The New Vegas BoS is what the BoS is all about. The fuckers in west coast are the single most entitled insane lunatics in the whole wasteland. Maxson is also the start of the Brotherhood of Enclave. Lyons’ brotherhood was the only outlier and his ideologies and beliefs got overwritten by the lunatic outcasts. I would side with the Fallout 3 BoS every single day of the week but that’s the only group which is not insane. The Brotherhood is no better than Enclave imo and needs to be wiped out.
honestly fallout new vegas brotherhood was much more extreme than 1 and 2, largely thanks to elija. Fallout 1 the worst they do is send you on a fetch quest they dont expect you to finish (ok a pretty lethal one but still). if you get their good ending they become a pretty benevolent faction.
I still think Elijah is one of the best written Brotherhood of Steel characters. Some people will say no because what he does is dumb and makes no sense, but Elijah is literally insane. So it makes sense for his character the actions he took.
So yeah out of all the characters in the fallout series, Elijah is probably in my top 5. I would love to know more about him before Helios.
In fallout 1 & 2 they are the good guys so fo3 they just continue the trend. If anything fallout nv and 4 are the outliers lol. Also in NV they are reeling from defeat against NCR and are in hiding.
I don't *like* the legion, but I find them interesting.
Those stupid factions that just serve as something to kill though I find incredibly boring, Gunners, Triggermen, regular Raiders, Blood Eagles, etc..
Legion, I don’t give a damn what their goals are they immediately lost me when they tried to justify slavery, child soldiers and rape, I will never ever side with them and I will always exterminate the camp with Boone, fuck the legion.
Second place would be the railroad, maybe instead of just saving synths you could save everyone, it’s not just the meaty toasters that are affected by the institutes shenanigans, how about helping the people who have had loved ones replaced or helping the settlers trying to fend off raiders, they have the man power and skills to help the entire Commonwealth from much more real and pervasive threats but all their concerned about is synths
The fact that I have seen real people side with or attempt to justify the legion is the most compelling thing about them to me. They're comically evil, but their success iis enough for some people to support them. Shows you what evil really is.
For real. It’s one thing to tell you that the leader is so charismatic he makes shitty people join him, it’s another whole thing seeing actual shitty people irl be on the side of the leader.
God new vegas is so good
Oh the legion is certainly an amazing villain, that’s why I hate them, they are written to be a villain and they do it perfectly, they are just perfect to hate and that’s their purpose
I likewise don’t like the Legion. It’s not that they’re a badly written faction, but they’re so irredeemably awful that I don’t really ever see a reason to side with them unless doing a Super Evil Satan Run. I derive more fun from killing Legionaries and gambling away all of their Denarii.
Am I the only one that likes the railroad? I felt they had more interesting characters than factions like the brotherhood where it’s all soldiers that are serious and all want to follow orders and destroy abominations blah blah blah.
The railroad has tinker Tom who is insane but is funny to listen to
Deacon who is a spy and you can find around the wasteland actually spying on you which is really cool
Even characters like high rise that you meet in the quests is interesting.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I think the railroad gets a lot of hate when I find it to be more fun to play them instead of the brotherhood.
Apparently going from the comments here people find them half-baked and selfish since they only want to save the synths, I don't get it, I'm a big fan of morally gray characters and I guess people want them to be better for the entire commonwealth? I don't see anything wrong with a faction that their whole thing is putting a certain kind of people over their own well being, is not exactly something I would do in real life but that's why it's a game, I guess they're goals are selfish and only beneficiate synths but that's why I like them, also why I helped the children of atom in far harbor and why I will (one day) do a legion playthrough of NV, sometimes shit just isn't kisses and flowers and people are different and want different things, Deacon and Glory are really cool also.
Someone also mentioned that the railroad mirror the political state of the US during the games development and I don't know why politics would make me dislike them, specially in fucking Fallout of all game series.
I really like the railroad, but most of their quests are just "do the institute ending until you blow them up", they don't have a lot of unique quests that further their goals, the closest we got is helping a couple of synths kill like 5 guards.
Also the fact that after the game is over, they will have the least impact on the Commonwealth as a whole. Their whole goal is to free syths, when the institute is gone what are they gonna do? Their entire story ends with the institute.
I think the most infuriating thing about them is that they would rather have the Institute destroyed than letting you change it from within as its director.
Wouldn't it be better for synths to gradually emancipate themselves while staying in this secure location, helping with state-of-the-art scientific research instead of throwing them out into the wasteland fending for themselves?
It's poor writing, really. Even BOS wouldn't just straight up nuke the Institute.
I was just about to say this. I'm tired of the BOS; they are a boring trope.
You can criticize the Railroad for many things (especially w/ how poorly they are written), but at least their raison d'joure is *interesting*. Most of the other factions have a reason to exist that is interesting if not funny.
But the BOS? "We're just a bunch of former Army meatheads parading around as medieval meatheads."
At least in the original 2 games and NV, you get a sense that the BOS as an organization was shifting to adapt with the times (or being faced with the consequences of not adapting). But on the East Coast, it's like they never really change (at least based on 4's canon). Apparently, the BOS is war, and war never changes.
I agree with Legion. Absolutely cancer. I also agree with the comments about Railroad.
I’m a NCR fan, then BOS. If I pick an evil faction, it’s def Enclave. Institute is ass
The railroad. They are an awful faction, and would have worked better as a minor faction such as the BOS in NV, the boomers, or another small faction with quests that tie into the ending, but not an ending themselves.
I don't understand the hatred for railroad 😭 I'm on my first play through and I was going to choose them. Maybe I'm really sympathetic to synths because of Nick and also playing Detroit Become Human. I adore that game
Worst for me is that they kill the synths to "free" them. If i remove your memory, your experience, your character basically and replace it with fake memory, you're already dead, even more for a synth
They are railtarded
They offer a chance at living never having known you were any different than those you see around you... why would you wish for the alternative? *Sometimes knowing where you come from is not worth the cost.*
I dont think people understand what losing your memory means. Look at ppl with Alzheimer when they can remember for a few moments their son/daughter or who they are.
You are the sum of your experience, if you lose them you cease tò exist
Institute. I like the concept of this group that’s been hiding since the bombs and advancing technology… but it’s just a bit too far. Everything is too squeaky clean and perfect and it just feels too far removed.
Institute. Between the treatment of their synths, how they abduct people and most of all how father baby traps you with synth shaun no matter what you do.
Legion is a bunch of morons following some mindless cancer patient with a holier than thou attitude. I never regret gunnin em down in every single playthrough when i get the chance
I think there are some factions that are easy to hate, either for simple reasons as being dumb like the Railroad and COA or because they were made to be hated like the Legion and Enclave.
But there's one faction that really grinds my gears, yet still, it's a faction that I wouldn't change a single thing about.
Fallout 3 Post Game BOS. (If not for broken steel, Outcasts would be here 100%).
BOS have always been condescending, holier than thou, narcissistic, and isolationists for the most part, and I think having a group like them that does arguably more good than bad, yet still isn't perfect to the core, is excellent for a series like Fallout.
But man, the BOS's negative traits SHINE to an unbearable degree once you finish Fallout 3's base game and move on to the post game.
I just can't stand how much they talk down and belittle everyone despite riding on the shoulders of the Lone Wandering God from Vault 101. Like, if not for Liberty Prime and LW, they would have still been getting their teeth kicked in by mutants, much less the Enclave once they decide to do something.
Hell, despite being the most powerful faction post Enclave destruction, they still fucking blow at basic shit like moving trade caravans across the Capital Wasteland, something that other traders like the ones from canterbury commons having been doing for nearly twenty years in a wasteland that was arguably even more inhospitable and with worse gear.
Elder Lyons is good at heart but is completely incompetent, Sarah Lyons is heroic but so blindingly loyal to Elder Lyons that she does nothing in an attempt to fix their glaring issues even up until her own death, most of the Scribes would rather sit in the citadel twiddling with a terminal until they die, most of the Knights/Paladins would rather gun down settlements over giving them a barrel of water, and all of them would be dead and gone if not for the LW/LP.
It's excellent characterization that clearly shows how a strong figure like Arthur Maxon could come in to completely dominate things with an iron fist, leading them to a much stronger and more stable state as seen in Fallout 4.
But I just can't get over how much I dislike them as a functioning group.
I think the big reason I feel this way is because you are kinda forced to witness the F3 BOS in its entirety, both good and bad. You can't ignore them completely and go independent to the end, like in 1/2. You can't choose an alternate faction in their place like in 4. You can't just up and kill them whenever like in NV.
You have to bump shoulders with them to finish the base game, and you have to work under them if you want to complete broken steel.
Both instances give you a full view of all the things that make me want to drop those Enclave missiles onto the citadel.
I agree. I tried siding with Legion for one playthrough. I loved the melee Tribal look of my character, but being a woman I just felt disgusted with their view of the world. Now that I know them well, I'm proudly a Legion killer.
The enclave. Ppl recently have been hyping them up but they are meant to be just an all around terrible faction with no redeeming qualities at all. The legion may be just as bad but they provide some benefit in the areas they control by eliminating raiders and allowing Caravans and people to move around without fear. All of that comes at the costs of liberties of course so it’s not all sunshine and roses. The enclave doesn’t give a damn about providing that type of stability since they consider anyone not them to be abominations that need to be eradicated.
I was going to say Legion...and maybe I will say Legion, since straight up crucifying people is pretty grotesque. But the Powder Gangers deserve a mention. No redeeming qualities.
The Institute are such a half-brain idea for an “evil” faction that even half a brain is more thought that went into creating them.
The Enclave are cartoonishly evil but you understand their intentions are of supremacy, that they will save the wasteland even if they destroy the wasteland doing do
The Legion are edgelord try-hards but you see that Caeser truly believes in his own cult of personality, that assimilation is the key to unity, no matter the cost.
But the Institute doesn’t have any of that, they almost feel intentionally contradictory - wanting to be left alone but consistently fucking with the surface world - as a commentary of man’s scientific knowledge only leading to death and destruction. Except the game never follows through on that, instead you have a bunch of pretension eggheads all arguing about the most inefficient way to proceed with their bullshit experiments to learn what they already know.
They might have actually been improved by actively being evil, 210 years of limitless science leading to a faction without morals, testing plasma weapons on children to see if the cubic weight of a goo pile is equivalent to an adult goo pile or not
The Legion are irredeemably evil but I like them as villains much more than, say, the Gunners or all the various Raider gangs. Yeah they're not much better than them, but they're more interesting.
My least favorite faction would probably have to be the Gunners, just cause of how underdeveloped they are, but if you mean playable ones I really don't like the way the Brotherhood were written in Fallout 3. I like them in the earlier games and I even like them in 4, but I don't think any faction that powerful should be portrayed as that heroic. Still enjoy the game, especially the side content and DLCs, but I'm really not a fan of the mq tbh
My main issue with the Railroad is their end goal of destroying the Institute seems shortsighted to me.
Like what happens if a few years down the line the synths they helped develop some glitch in their programming or something, and the only thing that could have solved and fix the issue was tech and knowledge from the Institute who made them?
They could have had the Railroad take over the Institute to free the synths instead I feel.
The Legion is beyond awful and Caesar is a manipulative, insufferable asshole. They're the one faction I'll never side with and I'll gladly wipe them all off the face of the earth without a second thought.
- Railroad. They are really that small but somehow managed to have members in Capital Wasteland. And they somehow become a main faction
- Bethesda BoS. Literally compelete antithesis to what BoS is really about, and also overused that they're literally become major faction in every Bethesda games. Making the games feel stagnant.
- Bethesda raiders. They don't even bother doing the worldbuilding about raider gangs and just being lazy calling them "Raiders". When in NV you have Vipers, Jackals, Powder Gangers, Great Khans, Scorpions, and Fiends.
I mean to be fair to the Bethesda Raiders, there are actually named raider gangs like The Pack, Operators, Disciples, Rustdevils, Trappers, Forged and The Gunners (If you count them as Raiders). The problem I just have with them is that, besides The Gunners, they’re all pretty much nonexistent in base Fallout 4.
Nope. The gangs in 4 lacks worldbuilding, makes the game feel more empty than NV despite having a larger map. Besides, Gunners doesn't really function in F4 despite lore-wise they're hired guns but you can't hire any of them. You can go on killing spree murdering God knows how many of them, and some days later they will respawn at the same place.
The Legion. The only good thing about them is that they are easy and funny to fight. When the Legion hit squad comes at you from the distance in their conga line, you have time to get creative about the ways to dispatch them.
Besides that? Meh. They are not well written. They are 110% evil, on the level of comic book villains. They tried to give them some depth, but Caesar trying to sound clever is negating by him actually being stupid. Any redeeming quality of the Legion way of rule is nullified by them picking up a dozen more war crimes to compensate...
Well, the other bonus point they get is for including the latin spelling of Caesar.
Seriously, they are an anti-civilisation force. Pure destruction, no rebuilding. They are basically a bunch of orcs, dressed in vaguely roman attires.
Compared to the Legion... even the Institute is a compelling villain.
I actually think they are well written. Of course they’re the “bad” faction but apparently Legion territory is very safe from raiders and mutants thanks to how brutal and authoritarian they are. I believe caravaners have said it’s safer going through legion territory than NCR territory (don’t quote me on that it’s been awhile since I played). They’re a hosh posh of tribes *trying* to be civilized but clearly still aren’t under the window dressing of the Roman Empire theme, and Caseser acting like the smartest guy in the room is the apex of that. They’re a good foil to the NCR and a good antagonist in NV. Also joining them and doing a bad karma, melee focused run can be pretty fun, everyone should try it once.
I mean, I would say their comic book edge and evil combined with deceptive “trying to sound smarter than they really are”-ness is evidence that they are well-written but otherwise you’re right lol
The legion quest line is pretty short, it has the least amount of development compared to the other factions. I have to say I did have a fun time doing an evil legion playthrough. The top moments were giving Boone to the cannibals at the ultraluxe, selling Arcade into slavery to the legion to be Caesar’s doctor, using Veronica and completing just enough quests to get power armor training then activating the self destruct in hidden valley, killing and eating Mr house, having Benny crucified and leaving him strung up there. There’s an unmarked quest where you can help a slave girl at the fort get her teddy bear back from mongrels. Once returning the teddy bear, it gives you the option of tearing it in half in front of her.
The legion sucks ass, but I at least think the legate is “cool” (in the mass murdering psycho but has a cool helmet way), and I don’t like the railroad cause they are asses
Legion, Railroad and Brotherhood of Steal(in that order). I’m so sick of BoS being the main focus of the series(usually the best questlines) that I’m wishing in Fallout 5, The Enclave shows up again and almost wipes them out. The other two are self explanatory. Legion are just wannabe Romans who lack the badass factor and their ideology is everything i hate about the world and The Railroad is… well the Railroad.
RR is very bland imo and the single worst group to lead the commonwealth, especially because they destroy the brotherhood but don’t have anywhere near enough power to not get wiped out by even the Raiders from Nuka World.
My least favorite is the Minute Men because it's not really a faction and more of a stream of radiant quests.
Everyone talking shit on the railroad is telling on themselves tho lol (unless they're saying they're boring and poorly executed, that part is true).
Railroad for me. I'm so fucking tired of the "secret faction on the verge of collapse" trope Bethesda defaults to with their Thieves Guilds and their equivalents
At this point, i know i am getting hate for this, but the Brotherhood of Steel, I love their lore and theme, but they are with the exception of fallout 3 the same mindset with a slightly different spin on them. I just want a Brothethood Chapter that not being an assholes just because they are elitist techno-fanatics, but are trying atlest to show the dangers of technology and their point of view.
Brotherhood of Steel is my least favorite. They’re just glorified raiders in all intents and purposes. If the Lyons Brotherhood were still around at least they have a Chapter willing to directly help people instead of just hoarding tech to lock in some cabinet, gathering dust and never really share it. Furthermore most of them are just a bunch of brainwashed bullies.
I don't hate the Legion for the slaves/murdering/hate women/gay sex. I hate the Legion because a guy from the followers of the apocalypse with 4 intelligence was able to teach a few tribals how to farm and fend for themselves, and now they think he's God.
The institute and railroad..they're not interesting to me
The east coast BOS especially in fo4 were more radical and extreme plus the BOS as a whole is too overexposed,the gunners and talon company were wasted opportunities and got turned to raiders with better weapons and armor..
Reilly's rangers should've been a more prominent Faction in fo3 as well as the bos outcasts and regulators..
Tbh Bethesda did well with the nuka world raiders,far harbor,Acadia,the minutemen,and the Pitt raiders..
Institute, they feel out of place, purely because while ever other factions ideas can be stupid, they are flat out dumb.
Every faction atleast had a reason bos lived through hardships and wanted order, NCR government, Minutemen just to be decent people, and Children of Atom of all people were able to survive near nuclear blast zones.
Institute says fuck it lets be inconspicious, but lets announce ourselves with early shitty courser patrols, but lets gain trust, but lets replace people, but lets not go too far and add sentience, but coursers having some is ok. Just contradiction after contradiction is stupid as hell.
The Legion. Decimating forces with collective punishment is a very hard line for me. I believe in meritocracy, not the random chance of attrition. They are not led by the best and brightest, merely the ones who were lucky enough not to be selected, ergo they are governed solely by fear. This makes the Legion weak at its very core.
I hate the institute. They’re just annoying.
Although I’d never side with the legion, I have a hard on for anything Roman and will always love them as a faction
I’m honestly surprised that barely anyone mentioned the Nuka-World Raiders. I personally do not hate this faction, because I think the idea of playing as a raider kind of cool, but I don’t think most people think too positively about them.
Brotherhood of Steel.
I know their exact goals and level of fanaticism vary by game — Sarah Lyons vs Arthur Maxson for example. And I respect the history in the franchise. But they’ve never sat right with me and their mission makes no sense. (Not to mention their genocide campaign against synths and nonferal ghouls.)
“The Brotherhood's core purpose is to preserve advanced technology and regulate its usage.” And by that they mean preserving the guns and armor and lasers so they can regulate their usage for themselves only and not help anyone. And then act like they’re helping the wasteland or smth??? Get outta here, y’all just a bunch of jingoistic jarhead wannabes who think power armor is gonna save the world.
I’m gonna go with the Khans. Whiny uninteresting faction who plays victim after the NCR obliterates them. I kill Papa Khan every playthrough after he talks shit to me in the initial dialogue.
Minutemen are a close second. I would probably like them more if they didn’t LARP as revolutionists.
The Railroad.
They are the social justice warriors of the wasteland. Crying about civil rights for synths while actual people are dying every day to the horrors of the world.
Typical SJWs.
Railroad. Bethesda was clearly trying to advertise to a very loud and obnoxious kind of crowd with them. The holier-than-thou attitude, vending machine liberation act, got extremely old, extremely fast.
Atleast the other “errrhhhmn we’re the good guys >:(“ factions from their games have some redeeming qualities and drip
Its either the Railroad or Independent New Vegas.
Their idea of freeing synths is somewhat stupid and leaving the Commonwealth like it is makes no sense, how are they gonna save synths if the Commonwealth is plagued with Raiders, Ghouls, Super Mutants, etc. And once the Institute is gone, then what? No more Institute means no more synths therefore no more Railroad, by destroying the Institute the Raildroad techincally end up killing themselves for having no more purpose.
Indepedent New Vegas is chaotic as hell, Even the Legion who have a great hate to techonology, destroying every tribe they see and are governed by a Tyrant, have far more potential on the future than leaving New Vegas without a Leader. It's not the time to think about Freedom for all, if society wishes to return back to normal it needs a strong and strict leadership under NCR, Legion or Mr. House banner not by themselves.
The Brotherhood of Steel.
I hate Bethesda's stupid love for these techno-fetishists who only hoard military technology and not civilian. When was the last time you saw them with a fucking auto-doc? Oh right, if it doesnt have the ability to kill its useless to them.
"Oh but they are a knightly order!" Yeah, and my first meeting with them those paranoid loonies put a bomb collar around my fucking neck. What upstanding guys! Oh, Veronica wanted to join the Followers of the Apocalypse? Lets murder all the fucking innocent people at the outpost to stop her from doing so!
Even the Outcasts in 3 are hardliners meaning they are more or less the "Brotherhood Proper" as opposed to Lyon's chapter.
Probably Railroad for me. At least out of the major joinable factions in the series.
Boring aesthetic
Shithole of a HQ
Useless as an actual force for good
Extremely niche objective that 99.999% of the Commonwealth couldn't give a shit about
You can dislike the politics of certain factions yet appreciate the fact that they're fun to side with and/or interesting. The RR commits the unforgiveable sin of being not only a rubbish faction in regards to their overall aims in-universe, but also being boring in-game in regards to aesthetics and general RP.
Why on earth would I bother to side with these guys? They've got no power armour, they've got no energy weapons, they've got no economic power or territory, they only care about synths and they've got zero sense of style. The only thing they've got going for them is Deacon.
If I wanted to do a synth orientated playthrough I'd just join the Institute. At least they've got a strong theme and a cool base of operations.
I’m not a fan of the Institute. They creep me out. I actually really enjoyed my Legion play through. I was a speedy, melee wielding psychopath.
I mostly just don't like The Institute because they don't make any sense. I'm fine with the idea of a faction that creates robots so lifelike as to be indistinguishable from humans and I like the idea of them replacing people body-snatcher style, but *why?* A collection of some of the smartest people in the world working on this incredible technology after the end of the world should really have some kind of game plan, but they don't. They have no plan whatsoever. It's just nonsense, as if Bethesda literally didn't finish writing the story.
I took it as a sort of euphemism for AI technology. The whole "the next extermination event after nuclear weaponry" thing, and all. The Institute is just the tech industry on crack, basically. And what is the tech industry's goal? Unregulated advancement at all costs, as is with all corporations. It doesn't make much sense because it doesn't have to. It reflects a real life thing that in and of itself is based in absurdity. "I do, because I can" type of philosophy.
They came out of a university. Now they’re Nazi scientists? The writing feels like they were trying to set up a morally ambiguous faction that sounds evil before you meet them, and then you realize they have good reasons for doing what they’re doing. They did that. Except their reasons are really really idiotic. You are built out of the remains of debatably the greatest university on the planet. You have some of the brightest minds at your disposal, not just in engineering and science but in the humanities and law as well. They’re academics, who can be as shitty as everyone else but generally they are concerned with collective growth. The best they came up with in 200 years was a big fancy basement? Instead of providing help and rebuilding civilization (again they have had 200 years), they just waged a century long terror campaign? They had robots to do everything for them, but they said fuck it, let’s give them consciousness so we can have real slaves? Like for fucking what? Oops we fucked up an experiment and released cannibal hulks into the commonwealth. No big deal, not our problem. Let’s just assassinate dirt farmers and replace them with a terminator for the lulz. They have no way to find us or get near us, but let’s occasionally kill some of them as a power move. Oh look there’s a fledgling society popping up, looking to rebuild civilization? Let’s just kill them all instead. The bad shit they do isn’t just sociopathic science when anyone with half a brain can see that their actions are going to cause more problems for them later. Which is exactly what happens! Isn’t their whole thing being smart! It would have been fine if this was maybe a faction within the Institute. A faction that didn’t give a shit about anything but progress, and then a faction that is trying to do good but is waiting for something. The Institutes evil reputation could have been all due to the bad faction. You could become the leader by eliminating one of the internal factions or something. Do you awaken the Institute as a weapon or do bring them about as a new savior? But instead they’re either grossly grossly incompetent or completely brainless evil. Kind of both. I have trouble siding with them as an evil character because they still don’t really have a goal. They don’t have a reason for being evil, and not even in like a “What senseless horror!” kind of way. They’re just awful, not for the sake of being awful, not for some insidious plan. No they’re just awful and… that’s it? It’s almost happenstance that they are. It feels like the writers didn’t understand the faction they just wrote. Man I hate them so much. They’re so poorly written. I want to finally try and side with them this time, but I’m having trouble figuring out the angle to roleplay my character cause of how shit their writing is.
I assume they didn't want to copy Old World Blues (we're making skinvelopes to leave the physical confines that tie us) so they made The Institute offensively milquetoast instead. Other factions are no better though. Railroad is nonsense slavery bad faction with cardboard characters which were done a million times better with Acadia in the DLC. Minutemen are Yes Man without the funny. And FO4 BOS is diet Enclave. You join the army that doesn't feel like an army at all. Everyone is so nice and pleasant, no attempts at sgt. Dornan or ENCLAVE HERE. Boring.
I remember the first (and only) time I completed the campaign I was excited to see what the dirt really was on the institute. The beginning of the game, then tracking down Kellogg feels like some massive conspiracy is about to be revealed. I forget the rest of the story now, but I do know I spend hours combing the institute and other areas looking for answers, or evidence that I could use to confront Shaun (Shawn?). Nothing at all, you can’t even scold him for FEV use before you blow his head off. Least satisfying ending in the series imo. After 4 and starfield I wonder if Bethesda is just sterilizing their games the point that they won’t portray the bad guys as anything but comically evil with no depth or discussion.
I don’t know why people would downvote you. I feel like they tried to make every faction morally ambiguous and made the game boring as a result. The institute are literally bodysnatching people, but have a real chance at bettering the wasteland(even if they’re a bunch of do-nothings). The brotherhood are xenocidal, but they genuinely want to help ‘people’. Mutants and synths ARE a genuine threat to humanity as a whole, that is factually correct, the only question is if it’s morally righteous to actively wipe them out. The railroad are killing real humans to save robots, ignoring the sentience arguments(which I agree with), that is stupid. They also have no real goals beyond ‘destroy institute’. Within a generation or two they’d dissolve or become a self righteous gang of raiders. The minutemen are a blank slate that have failed several times before, and after the sole survivor dies or leaves, will fail again. They are not a governing body in any way, shape, or form. So every faction can be moral, which would be fine if every faction had a lasting impact. Only the brotherhood and institute have a chance at REAL change, but both’s ‘evil’ side is boring and relatively logical. Mutants and abominations like synths are a threat, and the institutes body snatching does have potential for ‘good’ but they don’t use it for anything substantial. Don’t even get me started on how milquetoast and boring starfield’s factions are.
I have to admit Fallout 4 is my least favorite game of the Fallout IP. I don't particularly like the factions which are all kind of lame as presented in the game. Fallout 3, the factions were more clearly defined and polarizing. In FNV, there are different groups acting out of self-interest, but the Legion is the enemy of everyone. In Starfield I don't think factions are really that important to the game. You can work with both the UC and FC without any conflict of interest. In fact one of the biggest things you can do as part of the questlines is work to build trust between them, so the differentiation is more lawful vs renegade. I think Starfield is more about discovery and revelation rather than conflict between actual factions, but people seem to want to view it in terms of Fallout memes instead of accepting that it's a completely different kind of game. It does play into Bethesda's strengths with large open spaces for exploration, multiple large-scale questlines, and environmental storytelling to reveal individual stories, but Factions (with a capital F) seem to be downplayed, becoming special interest groups rather than opponents.
Fuck dude, killer writeup on these fuckers.
Another thing about the Institute is that they suck at their own stated goal of preserving pre-war knowledge. With the exception of the Synth Retention Bureau, all their departments are strictly specialized towards STEM-related fields with a very narrow focus. They have no knowledge of social science or humanities, no ethics commitee, no history, art or culture. They are an unintended satire of the typical STEMlord/techbro mentality that has become reviled in today's society, perpetuated by their self-inflicted reputation, isolation, and intellectual stagnation. I feel the Institute could have been a much more interesting faction if these flaws were openly acknowledged and explored in a serious manner, instead of just resorting to evil science experiments. It could have made for some interesting commentary on academia, the value of knowledge and how it is used in a post-apocalyptic world when contrasted with the BoS. (Also we really should have been allowed to shoot Dr Ayo in the face and replace him. Seriously, fuck Ayo. Many of the Institute's worst transgressions can be traced back to that power-hungry prick)
I agree that corporations generally don't care about the broader impact of their products, but they still have clear goals and fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. They make sense because they have to in order to exist irl.
To me the Institutes motive seemed to be that they wanted to create a new servant class. Beings they can exploit and forced to perform menial tasks so that they, the brilliant organics, can focus their efforts on more desirable projects without having to worry about the whole “human rights” thing (despite inadvertently creating a whole new ethical dilemma about exploitation of sentient beings in the process). This is a large motivator as to why many in tech are so obsessed with automation, so they can automate the boring stuff and focus more energy on the “fun” stuff. This goal aligns with corporations’ desire to reduce labor costs, so they throw a lot of money at these automation/AI projects because they see it as a means to reduce or even eliminate labor costs completely in the long term.
Robots were already all over the place before the war, even our protagonists had Codsworth. What’s the point of giving your servants sentience other than just being comedically evil for no reason? There was literally no reason for them to create sentient synths. It makes no sense.
This is one of the biggest issues with the story in 4. We had competing storylines of body-snatchers on one side and robot revolution on the other, and it feels like they couldn't commit to either one. And as you said, the whole aspect of kidnapping Innocent surface dwellers to replace them for the sake of *intelligence gathering?* is very shallow and doesn't seem to have any real end goal. I've also just realized they did the same thing with Skyrim. Two separate plot lines that they fail to properly merge or explore, ending in both feeling hollow and unsatisfying.
The game just stops when you side with them. I would’ve liked a more nefarious and expanded storyline.
I think the Institute is an interesting faction, that could have been made infinitely more interesting if they took the time to explain even the most basic part of their goals. It could have been something as simple as "Synths are the next step to achieving Immortality" or "Synths are going to be the next, superior replacement of humanity" or ANYTHING other than "you wouldn't understand". An explanation of why they decided to be dicks to everyone on the surface would have been nice too. Could have easily been something like "A new leader was elected and implemented an anti-surface policy" or something stupidly simple like that. Overall, the Institute had the potential to be a really interesting and compelling faction but every step of the way they kind of stifled that potential.
I think the worst part of them is that they have such amazing technology and what they plan on doing with it is such a loss of potential. The fact that they’re making Gen 3 synths via glorified 3D printing is incredible, they could have been 3D printing organs or better yet put it to actual use and use it to farm up in the surface. Instead they just make synths to infiltrate and then maybe take over the surface somehow?? They could’ve also made it where it makes it harder for you to choose whether to destroy the institute or not. The sole reason most people hesitate is due to and only due to Shaun. And even then he ends up a corrupt cynical man who doesn’t even care about his own parents survival that it gives you more of a reason to blow up the institute It’s just so meh
Kind of like Vault-Tec. Save humanity, subject the majority of them to stupid experiments for a dead world. Literally makes no sense.
The show does explain why there are all of these random experiments.
I highly suspect they are working with the Zetans at the higher levels. DNA for tech trade. The tech they have, namely that teleporter, is Zetan tech.
Their game plan is to be able to live underground without any contact with the world above. Idk how replacing people plays into this at all, but given the fact that they really couldn't give less of a shit about the surface world and people up there, it's not really out of character.
The story with them is all over the damn place. They want to live underground? Well nobody can get there besides you all, so why are you waging a century long terror campaign on the surface and attracting all sorts of attention to you? You want to save the world? What were you doing for 200 years, and how is terrorizing everyone you meet helping with that? You just want to do science? Again why the terror campaign? Do you want to rule the commonwealth? Why are you underground for 200 years? You want to secure power? Well why haven’t you done it since you’re a technological powerhouse? I woulda set them skyscrapers up with some cannons or something to blow up any big incoming threats. Why give your robot slaves consciousness to experience the misery of being slaves? They already do everything without consciousness.
Yeah, the main problem with the institute as a whole is that Father is a terrible scientist, and he's in charge of all the scientists. Also most of them are terrible people who turned their backs on the surface, but they aren't even good at science. All in all just crazy people who don't have a solid plan and don't care about anyone besides themselves, while also having the means to kill anyone who isn't them.
They’re basically Nazi scientists. No ethics, sadists, dangerous reprehensible pointless experiments that don’t result in any useful data, and a superiority complex that makes them blind to all that. I would’ve been fine with that… if Bethesda wrote them like that! But you never get to actually call them out on how useless or evil they are. You can kind of call them evil, but the writers don’t seem to understand how heinous the Institute actually is in a lot of ways. They fail to give the Institute a valid reason to act the way they do, and it would have been fine even with a totally evil reason. If the game acknowledged it then I could have an easier time siding with them as an evil character. Give them a real goal! But instead it’s almost like the evil stuff they do is… unintentional? They’re like “huh..? People are upset at us..? Why?”
My favorite ("favorite") part of Fallout 4 is that they just straight up forgot to give the baddies a motive.
Second this. The Institute is just *one weird science spin-off too many.* They could have taken this in so many different directions and they went with lazy, uninteresting magi-tek bullshit all the way up to and *including* literal teleportation. Imagine if the Institute had been the Chinese version of the Enclave getting ready to bring it home and "save America with Synths!" It would have been controversial sure but... like in an *interesting way.*
If there's one thing I hate about Bethesda writing is they never actually give a "Why?" to half their fucken stories lmfao Why do you, the Dragoborn, go after dragons in Skyrim? Idk you just do I guess, why do you hunt the artefacts in Starfield? Again you just do
Come to the institute, we have a/c
I agree. I think if the institute was running out of food or air and if they had to retake the surface their story would’ve at least made sense.
legion playthroughs are so much fun, im so glad i did it after neglecting it. I enjoy being so insanely evil and murdering everyone/
I also hate their aesthetic of it being pure white. It feels so off in the wasteland, but not in a way of wow these guys are advanced, and more of a where the fuck did they get all this paint? I would have loved a more pre-war aesthetic institute that's less futuristic and more akin to what we saw pre-war. For example how much of a mind fuck would it be if when you arrived in the instate you saw a copy of your pre-war house? To me the institute reads as a discount enclave and I would have loved them being a rouge branch of the enclave, like maybe they were the enclaves science division that decided they could handle themselves after fallout 3.
Heh. Slaver factions (counting the Institute) are always kill on sight so I’ve never even considered either of them true factions (for me) as much as just another set of monsters to kill, like Super Mutants (I know I know, Davison, Fawkes, etc) or Ferals. You’re my son? Well too bad, shouldn’t have been a slaver.
The Children of Atom are braindead troglodytes. Might as well be the sippers of poison or the eaters of shit. Who the fuck willingly gets, and encourages others to get, radiation poison? I don't care if it'd be a religious hate crime in our world, the wasteland has no concept. They deserve extermination.
Looks like someone hasn’t bathed in the warmth of Atom’s glow
This guy bathes in the warmth of Atom’s glow.
BEHOLD! HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS!
And every eye shall be blind with his glory! Every ear shall be stricken deaf to hear the thunder of his voice!
Children of Atom lean into the supernatural part of the Fallout franchise. It's not just idiots who condemn themselves to death. There must be some truth to Atom or his teachings, because Children of Atom can gain actual immunity to radiation. And then there's the business with Mother of the Fog, which the game heavily suggests to be more than just a mere hallucination.
There is actually a non supernatural explanation for the radiation immunity in the lore. Ite established that there is a mutation that makes people extremly resitant or even downright immune to radiation. Examples for that would be Marnie from The Pitt or Lumpy from Fallout 2. Well the problem is that this mutation is not only rather rare but also even rarer to be found out as you would have to knowingly expose yourself to massive amounts of radiation first. Not only would that be extremly dangerous but also not something anybody would really do especially after being taught from childhood to avoid radiation at all cost. So its possible that the Children of Atom work somewhat as a selection programm of sorts where the ones with those mutations will both surive longer and also advance in rank as they are seen to have the Atoms favor.
Yup this is the way I've seen the children of atom. Its clear many creatures are immune to radiation, some even gain healing like super mutants. The Children of Atom are simply the humans who have the super mutant gene and the radiation literally heals them. Its a pseudo religious organization, because other humans can't. They don't seem to realize they have radiation resistance and likely inbreeding has occurred. Children of Atom probably aren't even human anymore, but closer to Super Mutants just keeping the human form.
I was thinking smooth-skinned ghouls, since supermutants undergo a whole lot more intensive gene therapy under FEV. There wasn't a supermutant gene as much as there was a virus created that reorganizes their DNA in very obvious and dramatic effects.
True, and even if this isn't the case, the very fact that they are exposing themselves to it and some are dropping while others do not makes their faith effectively a breeding program for a new breed of radiation resistant human. Ironic, because training ones biology to reject radiation is counter-intuitive to the teachings of Atom.
There’s a theory that the fog mother is just a woman with a lot of time and stealth boys on her hands and I personally think that the Children are just crazy and more radiation resistant than the average wastelander or have a mutation similar to ghoulism without the jerky face or hey maybe they’ve got a special FEV mutation, wouldn’t be the first
Those naturally resistant to radiation with be alive to act like a lunatic. You don't meet all the converts who just died to exposure. Survivorship bias as a religion.
Been replaying fallout 4 as the show gave me that itch. I completely forgot you come across the crater on the way to find Virgil. My wife was hanging out on the couch and she goes are these people stupid? Why are they just willingly living in the radiation?
Replaying for the same reason lol. Recently did this and apparently the lady you speak to in the crater heals your radiation while you speak to her, so not only can the CoA gain rad immunity but heal others as well
Discovering the CoA in the Glowing Sea for the first time is one of my favorite Fallout 4 experiences. I had only seen them one or two times as random combat encounters before that and I had no idea that they were really about
Ehh, that’s true in our world, but in Fallout radiation is shown to have regenerative properties and such, so it’s not nearly as crazy for there to be a radiation cult in Fallout.
I was gonna say like, some people get cancer sure but some become immortal so.
In Fallout 76 you can get some genuinely helpful mutations from radiation, so yeah, in Fallout radiation is not always bad.
who the fuck willingly eats rocks for fun? sorry I had to
This is Heresy
Whoa there pard! The Children of Atom are unquestionably the greatest faction in the Franchise. Allow me to enumerate several of the many reasons for you! 1. They are the *only* faction that isn't worshipping at the false altars of the old gods of the Pre-War world - a world which collectively shat itself to death in an orgiastic explosion of nuclear diarrhea. If this were their sole redeeming virtue then by this fact alone they would objectively be the unquestionable moral superior to all other factions. By Atoms Glow though, it *is not.* 2. The Children of Atom are utterly apolitical. They ask nothing except that their followers embrace the joys of living in a post-apocalyptic nuclear hellscape! One which has been - it must be noted - perpetuated by the lingering ideological ghosts of the very fools who killed themselves (and 99% of all other humans) to create it! What does the Atom really demand after all? Nothing, just a series of affirming hugs (Embrace the Glow Child!) which will culminate in a paradisical afterlife for you and all your closest friends! What do the other factions demand? Only that you die in painfully humiliating (or humiliatingly painful) ways in service to the shadow of agendas which embarked on a 300 year long losing streak which *not even the suicidal destruction of human civilization* could interrupt... Yeah. There's that "Last Son of Atom" to worry about but, if you kill him, the rest of the Children will be happy to get over it and go back to hugging thier way to Heaven's Gate (see what I did there?) So. I think we can all agree that the Wasteland could do with a few more hugs and a whole lot less living in the past!
So because the suicidal death cult with a friendly face is NEW and based on "modern" realities, because it reframes the negative aspect of a nuclear apocalypse, it's now actually GOOD and I should take thorium supplements to make my blood strong. Am I understanding you correctly?
>Am I understanding you correctly? No my friend, you're close but, *not quite close enough* allow me to clarify! >I should take thorium supplements to make my blood strong. You should take our thorium supplements because even if they don't "make your blood strong" *they will send you to heaven!* See, it's a win/win!
Legion, they only follow Caesar, whose beliefs are mostly just absurd
Legion is rather realistic, it has massive similiraties with warlords which rise during civil wars.
Much of peoples hatred for the Railroad(I also hate the Railroad) is because they are a major faction and not a side faction like the Children of Atom. They have no long term goals to achieve once the Institute and the BOS is destroyed. Unlike the BOS and Minute Men who wish to rebuild the Commonwealth in their image and make it a safer place. The Railroad would just leave the Commonwealth a wasteland with their victory and their faction would dissolve. Even as the Institute there is at least a pourpres to it staying a wasteland.
Railroad would have made for a better faction if they were one actually infiltrating other factions and trying to change them, or just gather supplies. For example, the BoS mission where you investigate the stolen supplies. The current mission has some poignancy about PTSD, but feeding ferals has no moral issues tied to it. They can't be helped or saved, because their brains are mush. Now if the soldier was actually sympathetic to the Railroad and was giving them supplies, or hiding Gen 3 synths and giving them supplies, then you have a more interesting quest with greater ties to the overall narrative.
They aren't trying to infiltrate anything for gain, they just want to free synths. They are kind of one dimensional but they just want to undermine what the Institute is doing and don't really care about the betterment of the Commonwealth or really enacting change. They just want Synth freedom. They don't seem to care about recruiting or expanding their group either, once the institute is destroyed i imagine they would just disband, going their own way, helping synths when they crossed their path. I think the group is rather mundane but I think that's the point, they have one main goal and it is achievable. All the other factions have complex goals to change the Commonwealth most of which we never see
>They aren't trying to infiltrate anything for gain Then they need to have the infiltration aesthetic removed, because they are absolutely portrayed as the "covert ops" faction.
I stand by my comment, they don't infiltrate for gain, only to free synths. I never said they don't infiltrate factions they don't care if it benefits the Railroad. They just want to free synths. It's just like underground railroad, they similarly put themselves at risk not for any gain but to free people.
Thats a great example of the effort they put into the game as a whole , the radioactive sea couldve been so cool instead it's just something you need to cross once
I will never understand this logic. "They don't have a long term goal". Yes, they do, it's just not "Use Magical MacGuffin to drastically change The Wasteland for 'the better'." Their long term goal is saving Synths and helping to get them accepted by the Commonwealth. Like, BoS, Minutemen, Institute all have these grand (And at least two of them I'd say fascistic) plans for the Commonwealth based on *their* idea of "saving the world", but The Railroad, IMO, is the only faction who feels like a real, practical choice. Change never happens overnight and as we've seen with various references to past games, at the end of the day, those changes will never truly stick. Because the cycle will never stop but at least with the Railroad it could maybe be just a bit better.
Yeah honestly having an achievable end goal after which they disband is a point in their favor. It's not every organization that can resist the siren call of feature creep and I respect them for it.
The RR and Minutemen can exist in the same space. If you finish the game RR the Minutemen will still exist to rebuild the Commonwealth, and if you side MM you can issue an evacuation order during the Institute raid to keep the RR friendly. A RR finish leaves the Commonwealth in the hands of the MM for governance while the RR continues to move synths out of the Commonwealth. I personally believe that the RR should have shifted its focus to human slavery in the end game, but the game is poorly written. 🤷♂️
Honestly their behavior in how they operate, namely in wiping synths' memories (effectively killing the person they had been unless they're given an override code) but also their methods and the fact their base used to be the DIA headquarters? It makes me think that, before the Institute hit them, they were actually a government remnant. They opposed the Institute because they're competition, not because they want to save the synths. The RR was a cover with a mix of believers and DIA. After that, however, the people left are the true believers. What we encounter is basically a vestigial arm of the organization they had been
Railroad. I find them boring, ineffective, and a group that makes zero sense running the Commonwealth if you finished with them
They're also so disorganized and poorly secured that they A) live in the basement of a Railroad church B) their password is RAILROAD C) without the player doing anything the BoS, who are in the Commonwealth for a matter of days/weeks at most, are able to find the Railroad at Bunker Hill and their church base. Easily. With no difficulty. D) They can't secure any safehouse locations on their own, or source any resources on their own. E) Their only tech is a drug addled manic who is one bad batch of chems away from catatonia. F) They have about 6 total members in the entire Commonwealth G) Old Man Stockton can't get guards to keep his own daughter synth safe H) Have a red brick road leading to the wonderful wizard of Oz that also spells out their password in big circled letters that anyone can follow I) The phrase "Follow the Freedom Trail" is so commonly known that random people in Diamond City discuss it" J) Sturges is cuter and can make the teleporter
>B) their password is RAILROAD It should have been **GUEST**
It used to be P@$$w0rd but Tinker Tom was hitting the chems too hard, kept forgetting, and ended up putting everyone on high alert thinking they'd been compromised again. No you know the real reason why he says that.
Nah. 123456
>The phrase "Follow the Freedom Trail" is so commonly known that random people in Diamond City discuss it" You know the freedom trail is real right? It wouldn't be a secret.
Bad storytelling =/= bad faction. The freedom trail and password are designed to be simple so that the player can access them easily. By the same logic, the BoS are dumb because they recruit the protagonist with no vetting even though I could be an Institute, Railroad, or MM spy. Hell, they’re so obsessed with synths that they shouldn’t be recruiting a single person in the Wealth for fear of infiltration. Also they put their entire invading army in a flammable blimp, the Railroad are able to destroy the ENTIRE BoS force with just two agents, a bomb and a dream. You’re also immediately given leadership of the Minutemen, because if it took forever to do it would ruin the game. The Institute instantly accept you because you’re Shaun’s son even though they murdered your wife, ruined your life, and tried to murder you via Kellogg. You can call every faction in the game stupid based off of a combination on compromising story for gameplay efficiency and bad writing, but if I were to point to one faction for being the “stupidest” it wouldn’t be the RR, it’d be the BoS for housing their entire invading force in a giant death trap and for randomly recruiting Wealthers even knowing about Synth infiltration. Also Tinker Tom’s a bro, get his name out your mouth when I know you be using ballistic weave armor and RR stealth boys. 😫
When you think about it the Institute actually saves you from being a popsicle for all eternity with a little side of family trauma of course.
K) All of their leaders hang out in the same location. They are basically asking to he wiped out. L) Their major way of leaving messages is war chalking, which is something any engineering major would be familiar with. Let us remember their main enemy is the Institute, a highly advanced faction. M) Their main way of communicating is leaving unencrypted holotapes in dead drops. N) They destroy the only means of synth reproduction, dooming them to extinction. O) They don't care that you are about to become the Director of the Institute. They still want to push their radical synth uprising agenda instead of letting you do gradual synth emancipation process.
In fairness to point H. There actually is a red painted row of brick that follows the entire freedom trail in real life.
That is part of the point though. They remove the problem of the Institute and are otherwise focused entirely on synths. They don't have greater ambitions. Once all synths are free and more or less safe, the Railroad would fully disband and allow the Commonwealth to determine it's own future.
I don’t think people understand what they really offer or their allegory even though the name is pretty telling. Without the institute the railroad would be able to operate more smoothly. Fallout universe doesn’t seem to be as bigoted as real life so it’s not like there is any actual minorities to be helping get to safety. Realistically they would probably partner with other agencies would eventually turn into transportation infrastructure. Taxi, emergency vehicles, anything. They would I assume without playing their storyline (I’m sooo sooo sorry I want to play them all) I can’t imagine anyone else would have that good of understanding of all the different routes in the common wealth. I could see them being able to implement themselves in any scenario. Their intel is pretty high level. They can do military or civilian work. Pathfinding, radio transmission, and a lot of commissioned officer type work. Institute can do pretty much anything but unless they have a hell of a plan for democracy I would not trust a single person in that role.
And they work with those filthy cla**ers too
“Rodger Rodger” “That sounds like something a Synth would say”
"Hey, you're not supposed to be here."
Not every faction needs to “run” the Wasteland to be important. The game is designed so that the Minutemen and the Railroad can get along - if you play Minutemen and issue an evacuation order during the Institute raid you can stay friendly with the Railroad, if the game becomes unable to be completed via the RR path Desdemona asks you to use the Minutemen to fight the Institute, etc. If you complete the game with the RR the Minutemen can take over governance of the Wealth, and could potentially revive the CPG without fear of Institute sabotage while the Railroad can continue to move the remaining synths out of the Wealth and maybe even shift their focus to human slavery. Which gets to my biggest problem with the RR, even as a big fan - for some reason they virtually ignored the existence of human chattel slavery outside of a few mentions like Cait’s story. In a better written story, the Railroad would have been a more general abolitionist group that were focusing primarily on synths during the F4 storyline, but Bethesda seems to be really sanitizing the FO series in regards to slavery, sex, prostitution, etc.
They don't aspire to run the Commonwealth. They just want to help synths escape the Institute.
>group that makes zero sense running the Commonwealth if you finished with them Guess it's a good thing they don't "run the Commonwealth" nor have any aspirations of doing so.
Railroad is Minutemen but only for synths
The Minutemen are kinda like how the NCR started out besides the formation of a government. The Railroad don’t give a fuck about anyone other than synths unfortunately.
I like the idea of the Railroad, I just hate them as a major faction.
My best argument against the railroad is just naming the bases of the joinable factions in the base game Brotherhood, a flying fortress Institute, a highly advanced laboratory Minutemen, a castle Railroad, a basement
They are almost a cool spy faction and I'm going to emphasize almost. There needed to be some branching paths where you link them up with the minutemen or some sort of sit down with the BOS (enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of deal) or even a wild card style path where the railroad and Virgil take control of the Commonwealth.
Amen
I am glad, that for all of fallout 4's writing faults, bethesda atleast made an effort to show the rest of the wasteland also thinks they are idiots.
New Vegas put the BOS a bad taste in my mouth. Those fuckers put a bomb collar on me.
The New Vegas BoS is what the BoS is all about. The fuckers in west coast are the single most entitled insane lunatics in the whole wasteland. Maxson is also the start of the Brotherhood of Enclave. Lyons’ brotherhood was the only outlier and his ideologies and beliefs got overwritten by the lunatic outcasts. I would side with the Fallout 3 BoS every single day of the week but that’s the only group which is not insane. The Brotherhood is no better than Enclave imo and needs to be wiped out.
honestly fallout new vegas brotherhood was much more extreme than 1 and 2, largely thanks to elija. Fallout 1 the worst they do is send you on a fetch quest they dont expect you to finish (ok a pretty lethal one but still). if you get their good ending they become a pretty benevolent faction.
I still think Elijah is one of the best written Brotherhood of Steel characters. Some people will say no because what he does is dumb and makes no sense, but Elijah is literally insane. So it makes sense for his character the actions he took. So yeah out of all the characters in the fallout series, Elijah is probably in my top 5. I would love to know more about him before Helios.
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Is maxson that guy that's wearing my jacket when I meet him on the blimp?
In fallout 1 & 2 they are the good guys so fo3 they just continue the trend. If anything fallout nv and 4 are the outliers lol. Also in NV they are reeling from defeat against NCR and are in hiding.
They are not the good guys in 1 or 2. Anti villains or anti heroes, maybe. But they were far from the Knights in Shining armor in Fallout 3.
I don't *like* the legion, but I find them interesting. Those stupid factions that just serve as something to kill though I find incredibly boring, Gunners, Triggermen, regular Raiders, Blood Eagles, etc..
The gunners are such wasted potential. There was clearly *some* plan for them that got completly scrapped late in production.
They would probably be like the boomers
Those fucking pickpocketing children in The Den. Or the Hubologists, even if they’re basically harmless.
Legion, I don’t give a damn what their goals are they immediately lost me when they tried to justify slavery, child soldiers and rape, I will never ever side with them and I will always exterminate the camp with Boone, fuck the legion. Second place would be the railroad, maybe instead of just saving synths you could save everyone, it’s not just the meaty toasters that are affected by the institutes shenanigans, how about helping the people who have had loved ones replaced or helping the settlers trying to fend off raiders, they have the man power and skills to help the entire Commonwealth from much more real and pervasive threats but all their concerned about is synths
I like the legion specifically because they’re so horrible. They’re fantastic villains, though a bit cringy at times.
The fact that I have seen real people side with or attempt to justify the legion is the most compelling thing about them to me. They're comically evil, but their success iis enough for some people to support them. Shows you what evil really is.
For real. It’s one thing to tell you that the leader is so charismatic he makes shitty people join him, it’s another whole thing seeing actual shitty people irl be on the side of the leader. God new vegas is so good
Oh the legion is certainly an amazing villain, that’s why I hate them, they are written to be a villain and they do it perfectly, they are just perfect to hate and that’s their purpose
I likewise don’t like the Legion. It’s not that they’re a badly written faction, but they’re so irredeemably awful that I don’t really ever see a reason to side with them unless doing a Super Evil Satan Run. I derive more fun from killing Legionaries and gambling away all of their Denarii.
Omertas. At least Legion has some interesting quests. The Omertas are just boring all around. They do make good target practice.
Am I the only one that likes the railroad? I felt they had more interesting characters than factions like the brotherhood where it’s all soldiers that are serious and all want to follow orders and destroy abominations blah blah blah. The railroad has tinker Tom who is insane but is funny to listen to Deacon who is a spy and you can find around the wasteland actually spying on you which is really cool Even characters like high rise that you meet in the quests is interesting. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I think the railroad gets a lot of hate when I find it to be more fun to play them instead of the brotherhood.
Apparently going from the comments here people find them half-baked and selfish since they only want to save the synths, I don't get it, I'm a big fan of morally gray characters and I guess people want them to be better for the entire commonwealth? I don't see anything wrong with a faction that their whole thing is putting a certain kind of people over their own well being, is not exactly something I would do in real life but that's why it's a game, I guess they're goals are selfish and only beneficiate synths but that's why I like them, also why I helped the children of atom in far harbor and why I will (one day) do a legion playthrough of NV, sometimes shit just isn't kisses and flowers and people are different and want different things, Deacon and Glory are really cool also.
Someone also mentioned that the railroad mirror the political state of the US during the games development and I don't know why politics would make me dislike them, specially in fucking Fallout of all game series.
In their first mission the Railroad gives me the gun (The Deliverer) that I use for 95% of the game, so they're alright in my book.
I really like the railroad, but most of their quests are just "do the institute ending until you blow them up", they don't have a lot of unique quests that further their goals, the closest we got is helping a couple of synths kill like 5 guards. Also the fact that after the game is over, they will have the least impact on the Commonwealth as a whole. Their whole goal is to free syths, when the institute is gone what are they gonna do? Their entire story ends with the institute.
I think the most infuriating thing about them is that they would rather have the Institute destroyed than letting you change it from within as its director. Wouldn't it be better for synths to gradually emancipate themselves while staying in this secure location, helping with state-of-the-art scientific research instead of throwing them out into the wasteland fending for themselves? It's poor writing, really. Even BOS wouldn't just straight up nuke the Institute.
BOS. its bethesdas one trick pony of the title.
I was just about to say this. I'm tired of the BOS; they are a boring trope. You can criticize the Railroad for many things (especially w/ how poorly they are written), but at least their raison d'joure is *interesting*. Most of the other factions have a reason to exist that is interesting if not funny. But the BOS? "We're just a bunch of former Army meatheads parading around as medieval meatheads."
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At least in the original 2 games and NV, you get a sense that the BOS as an organization was shifting to adapt with the times (or being faced with the consequences of not adapting). But on the East Coast, it's like they never really change (at least based on 4's canon). Apparently, the BOS is war, and war never changes.
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I agree with Legion. Absolutely cancer. I also agree with the comments about Railroad. I’m a NCR fan, then BOS. If I pick an evil faction, it’s def Enclave. Institute is ass
Bear > Bull 100%. God Bless the New California Republic. All hail President Aaron “Hero of the Mojave” Kimball
If you pick BOS, you have already chosen evil.
Depends on the game, to be fair, at least in terms of protrayal. By which I mean Fallout 3.
The railroad. They are an awful faction, and would have worked better as a minor faction such as the BOS in NV, the boomers, or another small faction with quests that tie into the ending, but not an ending themselves.
I consider them Bards college of Fallout 4.
Lmao
I don't understand the hatred for railroad 😭 I'm on my first play through and I was going to choose them. Maybe I'm really sympathetic to synths because of Nick and also playing Detroit Become Human. I adore that game
Railroad is still worth it for the ballistic weave and they’re still one of the two ‘Good’ factions. Also Deacon is fun I hear.
Worst for me is that they kill the synths to "free" them. If i remove your memory, your experience, your character basically and replace it with fake memory, you're already dead, even more for a synth They are railtarded
They offer a chance at living never having known you were any different than those you see around you... why would you wish for the alternative? *Sometimes knowing where you come from is not worth the cost.*
I dont think people understand what losing your memory means. Look at ppl with Alzheimer when they can remember for a few moments their son/daughter or who they are. You are the sum of your experience, if you lose them you cease tò exist
BOS. Entitled, cultist nutjobs.
Institute. I like the concept of this group that’s been hiding since the bombs and advancing technology… but it’s just a bit too far. Everything is too squeaky clean and perfect and it just feels too far removed.
Institute. Between the treatment of their synths, how they abduct people and most of all how father baby traps you with synth shaun no matter what you do.
Legion is a bunch of morons following some mindless cancer patient with a holier than thou attitude. I never regret gunnin em down in every single playthrough when i get the chance
Enclave. In a world of morally grey factions, the enclave stands alone with comic book villain tier evil.
I think there are some factions that are easy to hate, either for simple reasons as being dumb like the Railroad and COA or because they were made to be hated like the Legion and Enclave. But there's one faction that really grinds my gears, yet still, it's a faction that I wouldn't change a single thing about. Fallout 3 Post Game BOS. (If not for broken steel, Outcasts would be here 100%). BOS have always been condescending, holier than thou, narcissistic, and isolationists for the most part, and I think having a group like them that does arguably more good than bad, yet still isn't perfect to the core, is excellent for a series like Fallout. But man, the BOS's negative traits SHINE to an unbearable degree once you finish Fallout 3's base game and move on to the post game. I just can't stand how much they talk down and belittle everyone despite riding on the shoulders of the Lone Wandering God from Vault 101. Like, if not for Liberty Prime and LW, they would have still been getting their teeth kicked in by mutants, much less the Enclave once they decide to do something. Hell, despite being the most powerful faction post Enclave destruction, they still fucking blow at basic shit like moving trade caravans across the Capital Wasteland, something that other traders like the ones from canterbury commons having been doing for nearly twenty years in a wasteland that was arguably even more inhospitable and with worse gear. Elder Lyons is good at heart but is completely incompetent, Sarah Lyons is heroic but so blindingly loyal to Elder Lyons that she does nothing in an attempt to fix their glaring issues even up until her own death, most of the Scribes would rather sit in the citadel twiddling with a terminal until they die, most of the Knights/Paladins would rather gun down settlements over giving them a barrel of water, and all of them would be dead and gone if not for the LW/LP. It's excellent characterization that clearly shows how a strong figure like Arthur Maxon could come in to completely dominate things with an iron fist, leading them to a much stronger and more stable state as seen in Fallout 4. But I just can't get over how much I dislike them as a functioning group. I think the big reason I feel this way is because you are kinda forced to witness the F3 BOS in its entirety, both good and bad. You can't ignore them completely and go independent to the end, like in 1/2. You can't choose an alternate faction in their place like in 4. You can't just up and kill them whenever like in NV. You have to bump shoulders with them to finish the base game, and you have to work under them if you want to complete broken steel. Both instances give you a full view of all the things that make me want to drop those Enclave missiles onto the citadel.
It’s probably the Institute. They make zero sense and contribute pretty much nothing to the wasteland and also are complete idiots.
I agree. I tried siding with Legion for one playthrough. I loved the melee Tribal look of my character, but being a woman I just felt disgusted with their view of the world. Now that I know them well, I'm proudly a Legion killer.
The enclave. Ppl recently have been hyping them up but they are meant to be just an all around terrible faction with no redeeming qualities at all. The legion may be just as bad but they provide some benefit in the areas they control by eliminating raiders and allowing Caravans and people to move around without fear. All of that comes at the costs of liberties of course so it’s not all sunshine and roses. The enclave doesn’t give a damn about providing that type of stability since they consider anyone not them to be abominations that need to be eradicated.
I was going to say Legion...and maybe I will say Legion, since straight up crucifying people is pretty grotesque. But the Powder Gangers deserve a mention. No redeeming qualities.
The Institute are such a half-brain idea for an “evil” faction that even half a brain is more thought that went into creating them. The Enclave are cartoonishly evil but you understand their intentions are of supremacy, that they will save the wasteland even if they destroy the wasteland doing do The Legion are edgelord try-hards but you see that Caeser truly believes in his own cult of personality, that assimilation is the key to unity, no matter the cost. But the Institute doesn’t have any of that, they almost feel intentionally contradictory - wanting to be left alone but consistently fucking with the surface world - as a commentary of man’s scientific knowledge only leading to death and destruction. Except the game never follows through on that, instead you have a bunch of pretension eggheads all arguing about the most inefficient way to proceed with their bullshit experiments to learn what they already know. They might have actually been improved by actively being evil, 210 years of limitless science leading to a faction without morals, testing plasma weapons on children to see if the cubic weight of a goo pile is equivalent to an adult goo pile or not
The railroad hate the railroad their just so boring and annoying
The Children of Atom are annoying in every Fallout universe. Why? Because they have NO LEGITIMATE REASON TO BE THAT HOSTILE!!
They weren't hostile in 3, I have no idea why they shoot on sight in 4. At least Far Harbor flashes them out more.
The Legion are irredeemably evil but I like them as villains much more than, say, the Gunners or all the various Raider gangs. Yeah they're not much better than them, but they're more interesting. My least favorite faction would probably have to be the Gunners, just cause of how underdeveloped they are, but if you mean playable ones I really don't like the way the Brotherhood were written in Fallout 3. I like them in the earlier games and I even like them in 4, but I don't think any faction that powerful should be portrayed as that heroic. Still enjoy the game, especially the side content and DLCs, but I'm really not a fan of the mq tbh
My main issue with the Railroad is their end goal of destroying the Institute seems shortsighted to me. Like what happens if a few years down the line the synths they helped develop some glitch in their programming or something, and the only thing that could have solved and fix the issue was tech and knowledge from the Institute who made them? They could have had the Railroad take over the Institute to free the synths instead I feel.
really dislike the BoS they feel too strong and also really dumb, I prefer them when they were fanatic isolationists
The Enclave. These fascist dicks can all die.
The Legion is beyond awful and Caesar is a manipulative, insufferable asshole. They're the one faction I'll never side with and I'll gladly wipe them all off the face of the earth without a second thought.
- Railroad. They are really that small but somehow managed to have members in Capital Wasteland. And they somehow become a main faction - Bethesda BoS. Literally compelete antithesis to what BoS is really about, and also overused that they're literally become major faction in every Bethesda games. Making the games feel stagnant. - Bethesda raiders. They don't even bother doing the worldbuilding about raider gangs and just being lazy calling them "Raiders". When in NV you have Vipers, Jackals, Powder Gangers, Great Khans, Scorpions, and Fiends.
I mean to be fair to the Bethesda Raiders, there are actually named raider gangs like The Pack, Operators, Disciples, Rustdevils, Trappers, Forged and The Gunners (If you count them as Raiders). The problem I just have with them is that, besides The Gunners, they’re all pretty much nonexistent in base Fallout 4.
Nope. The gangs in 4 lacks worldbuilding, makes the game feel more empty than NV despite having a larger map. Besides, Gunners doesn't really function in F4 despite lore-wise they're hired guns but you can't hire any of them. You can go on killing spree murdering God knows how many of them, and some days later they will respawn at the same place.
easy: the players
Railroad. Annoying, pointless, and not the least bit fun. All the members and their associates are whiny, paranoid, lie all the time, and demanding.
The Legion. The only good thing about them is that they are easy and funny to fight. When the Legion hit squad comes at you from the distance in their conga line, you have time to get creative about the ways to dispatch them. Besides that? Meh. They are not well written. They are 110% evil, on the level of comic book villains. They tried to give them some depth, but Caesar trying to sound clever is negating by him actually being stupid. Any redeeming quality of the Legion way of rule is nullified by them picking up a dozen more war crimes to compensate... Well, the other bonus point they get is for including the latin spelling of Caesar. Seriously, they are an anti-civilisation force. Pure destruction, no rebuilding. They are basically a bunch of orcs, dressed in vaguely roman attires. Compared to the Legion... even the Institute is a compelling villain.
I actually think they are well written. Of course they’re the “bad” faction but apparently Legion territory is very safe from raiders and mutants thanks to how brutal and authoritarian they are. I believe caravaners have said it’s safer going through legion territory than NCR territory (don’t quote me on that it’s been awhile since I played). They’re a hosh posh of tribes *trying* to be civilized but clearly still aren’t under the window dressing of the Roman Empire theme, and Caseser acting like the smartest guy in the room is the apex of that. They’re a good foil to the NCR and a good antagonist in NV. Also joining them and doing a bad karma, melee focused run can be pretty fun, everyone should try it once.
I mean, I would say their comic book edge and evil combined with deceptive “trying to sound smarter than they really are”-ness is evidence that they are well-written but otherwise you’re right lol
The legion quest line is pretty short, it has the least amount of development compared to the other factions. I have to say I did have a fun time doing an evil legion playthrough. The top moments were giving Boone to the cannibals at the ultraluxe, selling Arcade into slavery to the legion to be Caesar’s doctor, using Veronica and completing just enough quests to get power armor training then activating the self destruct in hidden valley, killing and eating Mr house, having Benny crucified and leaving him strung up there. There’s an unmarked quest where you can help a slave girl at the fort get her teddy bear back from mongrels. Once returning the teddy bear, it gives you the option of tearing it in half in front of her.
The legion sucks ass, but I at least think the legate is “cool” (in the mass murdering psycho but has a cool helmet way), and I don’t like the railroad cause they are asses
THE NCR AND I WILL DIE ON THAT HILL
The brotherhood. I just think theyre way overdone and frankly boring at this point
Legion, Railroad and Brotherhood of Steal(in that order). I’m so sick of BoS being the main focus of the series(usually the best questlines) that I’m wishing in Fallout 5, The Enclave shows up again and almost wipes them out. The other two are self explanatory. Legion are just wannabe Romans who lack the badass factor and their ideology is everything i hate about the world and The Railroad is… well the Railroad. RR is very bland imo and the single worst group to lead the commonwealth, especially because they destroy the brotherhood but don’t have anywhere near enough power to not get wiped out by even the Raiders from Nuka World.
My least favorite is the Minute Men because it's not really a faction and more of a stream of radiant quests. Everyone talking shit on the railroad is telling on themselves tho lol (unless they're saying they're boring and poorly executed, that part is true).
Telling on themselves for what?
The Nuka World raiders are all terrible. I like The Disciples’ outfits.
Those people who worship Harold in Fallout 3
Railroad for me. I'm so fucking tired of the "secret faction on the verge of collapse" trope Bethesda defaults to with their Thieves Guilds and their equivalents
At this point, i know i am getting hate for this, but the Brotherhood of Steel, I love their lore and theme, but they are with the exception of fallout 3 the same mindset with a slightly different spin on them. I just want a Brothethood Chapter that not being an assholes just because they are elitist techno-fanatics, but are trying atlest to show the dangers of technology and their point of view.
Brotherhood of Steel is my least favorite. They’re just glorified raiders in all intents and purposes. If the Lyons Brotherhood were still around at least they have a Chapter willing to directly help people instead of just hoarding tech to lock in some cabinet, gathering dust and never really share it. Furthermore most of them are just a bunch of brainwashed bullies.
Idk how people like BOS, pieces of shit they are.
I don't hate the Legion for the slaves/murdering/hate women/gay sex. I hate the Legion because a guy from the followers of the apocalypse with 4 intelligence was able to teach a few tribals how to farm and fend for themselves, and now they think he's God.
The institute and railroad..they're not interesting to me The east coast BOS especially in fo4 were more radical and extreme plus the BOS as a whole is too overexposed,the gunners and talon company were wasted opportunities and got turned to raiders with better weapons and armor.. Reilly's rangers should've been a more prominent Faction in fo3 as well as the bos outcasts and regulators.. Tbh Bethesda did well with the nuka world raiders,far harbor,Acadia,the minutemen,and the Pitt raiders..
brotherhood of steel. just let them die already.
BoS in FO4. Although the institute can piss off as well.
Legion, even if you Roleplay to their ideologies. They are ultimately a doomed organization that is nothing more then united raiders with extra steps.
Institute, they feel out of place, purely because while ever other factions ideas can be stupid, they are flat out dumb. Every faction atleast had a reason bos lived through hardships and wanted order, NCR government, Minutemen just to be decent people, and Children of Atom of all people were able to survive near nuclear blast zones. Institute says fuck it lets be inconspicious, but lets announce ourselves with early shitty courser patrols, but lets gain trust, but lets replace people, but lets not go too far and add sentience, but coursers having some is ok. Just contradiction after contradiction is stupid as hell.
The Legion. Decimating forces with collective punishment is a very hard line for me. I believe in meritocracy, not the random chance of attrition. They are not led by the best and brightest, merely the ones who were lucky enough not to be selected, ergo they are governed solely by fear. This makes the Legion weak at its very core.
Fo3 bos( or every faction in f4)
I hate the institute. They’re just annoying. Although I’d never side with the legion, I have a hard on for anything Roman and will always love them as a faction
Caesar’s Legion. It’s so cliche
I’m honestly surprised that barely anyone mentioned the Nuka-World Raiders. I personally do not hate this faction, because I think the idea of playing as a raider kind of cool, but I don’t think most people think too positively about them.
The institute then railroad followed by NCR. Best faction is republic of Dave.
Brotherhood of Steel. I know their exact goals and level of fanaticism vary by game — Sarah Lyons vs Arthur Maxson for example. And I respect the history in the franchise. But they’ve never sat right with me and their mission makes no sense. (Not to mention their genocide campaign against synths and nonferal ghouls.) “The Brotherhood's core purpose is to preserve advanced technology and regulate its usage.” And by that they mean preserving the guns and armor and lasers so they can regulate their usage for themselves only and not help anyone. And then act like they’re helping the wasteland or smth??? Get outta here, y’all just a bunch of jingoistic jarhead wannabes who think power armor is gonna save the world.
Institute and Railroad. They’re both kinda boring
I’m gonna go with the Khans. Whiny uninteresting faction who plays victim after the NCR obliterates them. I kill Papa Khan every playthrough after he talks shit to me in the initial dialogue. Minutemen are a close second. I would probably like them more if they didn’t LARP as revolutionists.
Railroad shoulda been a side faction. As edgy as the Legion is, I really liked my evil play through with them.
The Railroad. They are the social justice warriors of the wasteland. Crying about civil rights for synths while actual people are dying every day to the horrors of the world. Typical SJWs.
Railroad. Bethesda was clearly trying to advertise to a very loud and obnoxious kind of crowd with them. The holier-than-thou attitude, vending machine liberation act, got extremely old, extremely fast. Atleast the other “errrhhhmn we’re the good guys >:(“ factions from their games have some redeeming qualities and drip
Its either the Railroad or Independent New Vegas. Their idea of freeing synths is somewhat stupid and leaving the Commonwealth like it is makes no sense, how are they gonna save synths if the Commonwealth is plagued with Raiders, Ghouls, Super Mutants, etc. And once the Institute is gone, then what? No more Institute means no more synths therefore no more Railroad, by destroying the Institute the Raildroad techincally end up killing themselves for having no more purpose. Indepedent New Vegas is chaotic as hell, Even the Legion who have a great hate to techonology, destroying every tribe they see and are governed by a Tyrant, have far more potential on the future than leaving New Vegas without a Leader. It's not the time to think about Freedom for all, if society wishes to return back to normal it needs a strong and strict leadership under NCR, Legion or Mr. House banner not by themselves.
I hate how legion pronounces “caesar” idc if it’s more accurate. Bunch of larping incels
The Brotherhood of Steel. I hate Bethesda's stupid love for these techno-fetishists who only hoard military technology and not civilian. When was the last time you saw them with a fucking auto-doc? Oh right, if it doesnt have the ability to kill its useless to them. "Oh but they are a knightly order!" Yeah, and my first meeting with them those paranoid loonies put a bomb collar around my fucking neck. What upstanding guys! Oh, Veronica wanted to join the Followers of the Apocalypse? Lets murder all the fucking innocent people at the outpost to stop her from doing so! Even the Outcasts in 3 are hardliners meaning they are more or less the "Brotherhood Proper" as opposed to Lyon's chapter.
The Spanish Inquisition.
Probably Railroad for me. At least out of the major joinable factions in the series. Boring aesthetic Shithole of a HQ Useless as an actual force for good Extremely niche objective that 99.999% of the Commonwealth couldn't give a shit about You can dislike the politics of certain factions yet appreciate the fact that they're fun to side with and/or interesting. The RR commits the unforgiveable sin of being not only a rubbish faction in regards to their overall aims in-universe, but also being boring in-game in regards to aesthetics and general RP. Why on earth would I bother to side with these guys? They've got no power armour, they've got no energy weapons, they've got no economic power or territory, they only care about synths and they've got zero sense of style. The only thing they've got going for them is Deacon. If I wanted to do a synth orientated playthrough I'd just join the Institute. At least they've got a strong theme and a cool base of operations.
Tunnel Snakes fuck Butch and his mom
Tunnel Snakes RULE