This specimen is amusing, let's indulge it for a while longer.

You know, we could just send a gen3 to Goodneighbor and have it recite a recall code for 'Magnolia' to become completely docile and subservient to us? What it 'chooses' matters nothing at all. It's still Institute property. And it's... useful there. Baseball? You mean... swatter? Welp... sorry it came to that. As for entertainment... how about synths you can make to look however you want, and do whatever you like, hmm?

I rest my case.

Both 1 and 2 are only morally questionable if you believe the good of the few outranks the good of the many. That's what the Railroad believes. I don't. If you can make a true difference in the long run, the way the Institute can, you'll have to make some sacrifices now. The people of the surface are all but lost, their destruction is a mercy kill. What they've left behind, however, can be used for the benefit of humanity. And humanity is the Institute, and a few Vaults. This is the reality of the wasteland.

The synths of the Institute aren't slavers. Not even the Coursers.

You'd have to get approval for that of course, and good luck with that beauracracy. Father is bit more concerned with putting a Commonwealther in charge to bother over trifles like approving a special model Gen 3 synth for your pleasure or recalling a promiment Commonwealther that would surely go noticed when she went missing and bring unwanted detonations of your little hole by barbarians with bombs. Oh yeah, come to think of it, it's nice that we actually have those when we need them along with other vastly superior weapons. When you get tired of cleaning the dust off my armor with blue flashlights, perhaps you Institute folks might want to take a look at our laser or plasma weapons for inspiration on how to better equip those synth soldiers of yours... or paper people as the Minutemen have taken to calling them. Did you ever think of making robot legs out of a material like titanium? I guess if you're critically strapped for resources, a bit of white paint on cardboard will have to do. I suppose you could always make more Coursers though... oh ... right, those are trained painstakingly and with many failures, just like our elite soldiers, but equipped with 100% less power armor. Well at least you have that advanced courser invsibility tech... oh wait.. that is chinese stealth boy tech, available at most Commonwealth junk dealers. You Institute folks keep harping on your advanced synths, but it's taken you years to finally just copy basic humans. We do that in the back of every dive bar every night...and without a critical flaw in the form of a recall code. Gosh I hope nobody hacks your archives and learns the recall codes... but hey, teleportation is a neat trick. Too bad it's a two way street and any of our super smart Commonwealthers can replicate it with common junk. How's that food paste taste?

You keep doing this, glossing over pesky details and speaking in the vaguest possible terms. What we are discussing is wholesale murder for personal profit. What we are discussing is killing "others" without hesitation to fatten our wallets and advance our agenda for power with the ultimate goal of killing enough "others" until we can just take over.

Yup, straight up Supremacist Eliminationist rhetoric. It's been used to justify genocide countless times and will be again. Clearly you are comfortable with that. That being the case I don't see any further room for discussion.

Oh well, when you put it that way, I guess there's a few issues that need patching, but that's only because of that outsider relative of Father's that he recently allowed in here, and I'm pretty sure he's already been dispatched to deal with the exact problems you brought up, so no worries. And you may not believe it, but I heard he's been eating radroach meat, can you imagine that? Thank Father for food paste!

Wiping off the surface dwellers so callously is why I blew up the Institute and allowed its survivors to evacuate and enjoy the wasteland I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the surface isn't dying without the Institute's guiding hand: they are surviving, and rebuilding their societies and lives. We see how well humanity can thrive out West, where the NCR managed to recreate a democratic nationstate with all the pros and cons therein. The same is possible in the Commonwealth, despite the Institute's best effort to make the world safer for themselves by killing off everyone in it.

The Institute is out for the Institute. When they talk about bettering mankind, they speak only of those living in the privilege of their ivory cave.

I didn't intend to be vague, you criticized me before for focusing on details, so I was trying to speak in more general terms. But perhaps it does seem our outlooks differ on a pretty fundamental level, so I have to agree with you there. Still, I don't consider myself to be eliminationist, even though I admit to some supremacist tendencies. I do enjoy a good debate, though.

Of course, when you mention a child is endangered, Desdemona immediately offers to help the Sole Survivor find Shaun. Even before she knows the Institute is involved.

Which lends credibility to the idea "Synth rights is something they're devoted to but they're not monofocused."

Don't knock it until you try it! If you fry it up right, it cooks out the rads and gives you that nice crispy texture with a good crunch when you first bite into it. Besides, eating insects is ecofriendly and sustainable. Radroach is more of a snack though than a meal. If you want a wholesome delicious meal, try Stingwing Filet or Mirelurk Cakes. YUM!

((I suspect giant roach meat would cook up a lot like lobster really... I think I'd give it a try. I realyl want to try some mirelurk cakes. Salmon cakes are great, so it only stands to reason... now I'm hungry))

That's what I said, yes? Mankind is the Institute. Up on the surface there's nothing but mutants, in one way or another.

Umm... what about the children on the Prydwen? At least you can evacuate the ones in the Institute... against Des' wishes.

I suppose Desdemona has a "if the child is shooting at me" clause.

And do either maxson or Des chew you out for sounding the evacuation order?

Or just not know it exists?

Maybe the squires. I doubt the Institute children did any shooting, seeing how even their parents didn't.

Yeah but the Lone Wanderer and Chosen One both needed to blow up the people murdering their family. We just don't get to see the little enclave types.

War is hell and there's no ending where the SS doesn't have the same values to a certain extent.

I think I should clarify - I'm by no means opposed to the actions of the SS, or any of the factions. All of those are justified, in one way or another. What I'm opposed to is painting the factions as either ultimately good or bad. The perceived 'slavery' and FEV experiments don't make the Institute irredeemably evil, and their noble 'free the synths' ideals don't make the Railroad unquestionably good (if only because of the issues I brought up before).

When I did the RR ending, Des never chewed me out for the evac order I sounded. Of course, if she did, it wouldn't make much sense, as she has no way of knowing you sounded it. It happens well into the attack when you're alone with Father. It seems to me, anyone with high level system access could have sounded an evac order, and with the Institute on the losing side of a firefight, you'd think someone would have sounded it long before I did.

I couldn't find any way to evacuate the BoS. I really wanted to. I especially wanted to evacuate that one cat...stuff it into my backpack or something. I hated gunning everyone down in the halls on my way to plant bombs. You'd think after gunning down every armed combatant on board I could just claim the Prydwen and let the non-combat people go... but that isn't an option. The whole 'Red Glare' mission is very poorly designed if you aren't super-stealthy. If you aren't stealthy, you have to gun all the knights down. If you can just do that, what do you even need the bombs for? Tis a silly thing..

Well, once you have gunned everyone down, you need to drop the Prydwen down on the Air Force base below.

Silly from a gameplay perspective maybe, but it does force you to own up to your own choices at least.

Sorry, but I can't help you. After reading the terminal in the Institute (haven't picked a faction yet), I instantly hated the Railroad. Such a shame, because I really like Deacon.

But they're all going to die. Worst faction in the game, bar none. I get why some people would chose them, but to me, giving "free will" to a synth who then chooses to kill others is not saving them.

It's a guaranteed death sentence. They had every opportunity to reprogram the synth for good, but they failed.

My character read she took out an innocent synth, because they opted to be a Raider.

She's not happy, so the Railroad will soon be derailed.

So we're going full Enclave, got it

So, you believe that people should be reprogrammed to obey the law and do nothing but the law says?

If you believe a Synth is a human being with all the free will and rights thereof then you cannot control their choices.

Or you're a monster.

You can't free someone and then say, "okay, you only can do whatever for the rest of your life."

Curie approved of my choice to kill the Raider Synth over taking him back for reprogramming.

I'm pretty sure most people took one look at those whacko's in the damp brick basemant, realized they had crap loot, then happily slaughtered them to a man when Maxim said "do it."

I totally played the military theme from the 5th Element and blazed them with a tri barrel mini gun in T-60 armor.....was worth it.

In response to the OP...

Valentine is actually the character who changed my mind. Prior to meeting him, I thought synths were abominations. I mean, think about what you know about the Institute early game, the stories you hear about synths in Diamond City, and other various bits of information. For someone like myself who RPs, it was very easy to associate synths as an evil product of an organization that killed my wife and stole my child, effectively ruining my life. Valentine changed that perspective.

From the outset, it was unsettling to see the detective who was going to help me was a synth, but I thought this would just be a path through the main story that I had to take, so I didn't have any expectations. Valentine proved himself to be an incredible guy though, helping you track down Kellogg and sticking with you after. He has a good moral sense and I like the observations and knowledge he has about the places we would visit. What really sold me though was his own self-awareness, humility, and goodness. Valentine recognizes that people have a reason to mistrust him, he doesn't place any expectations on them, and did a lot of dirty work to earn the communities trust before he was made into a detective. He is very grateful that the citizens of the Commonwealth have been so good to him, because he knows it very easily could have gone down differently, and he fondly remembers the first child who had the courage to talk to him. Valentine is a beautiful person in other words.

As the OP says, he doesn't remember being from the Institute, and he is definitely a prototype of some sort, but that doesn't really make him less of a synth right? The whole argument against synths is that they are either abominations or sleeper cells for an insidious movement, but Valentine flies in the face of all that and really showcases how synths have all the same potentials and pitfalls as any other human being. I joined the Railroad because the other organizations wanted to subjugate or destroy all synths. I don't see any reason to do so after meeting Valentine. I don't know that I feel as strongly as the Railroad does about the need to liberate synths, but if you think about their plight (conscious beings subject to the will of their masters for fear for their own lives) it does make me feel motivated to help at least. Like Desdemona says when you meet her, the Railroad is the synths only friend in the Commonwealth. I feel like combined with the Minutemen, the Railroad is the best choice for which faction to support.

Do you remember Des saying the MM would overthrow you if they found out you were trying to help synths? What would you do if that did happen?

Also, I don't consider Nick any different than Codsworth. They have a personality but in the end, they are just machines.

The Minutemen don't, of course, which goes to show that Desdemona is actually wrong about Commonwealthers.

It means the Railroad probably could have helped a lot of people but didn't because she thought everyone hates Synths.

i feel the same. Both Codsworth and Nick are people.