I have never seen a slippery slope argument that held up under scrutiny. So it's your belief that people should be able to freely buy nuclear weapons on the open market because if the government doesn't allow that it's just a matter of time before carving knives are outlawed?

He explicitly stated that all the burnt books currently found in the Commonwealth were due to military dictatorship book burning.

Not, you know, the nuclear war. Or 200 years of age and decay. Or being used as fuel by scavengers.


It's not that it's a bad anology, it's that it's nonsensical. It's being pointed out in the hopes of less ridiculous statements being made in the future.

It seems our hopes may be dashed.

I live in a society where the sale of carving knives to juveniles is outlawed. Small steps infringing on freedoms 'for the greater good' eventually lead to social restrictions and make it easier for government to impose greater restrictions.

You don't have to buy them. They're all over the Commonwealth. You would think that a group wanting to remove dangerous technology would maybe want to collect them instead of allowing others to have access to them. Just a thought. Maybe you should tell your BOS friends.

Just curious, which faction did you side with?

Why you always lying


Goodneighbor is fine.


The slog is fine.


Hell, there's a checkpoint right next to the slog!

Come on you know 'people' is code for Gen-3 Synths (the Chosen ones).

People die by the thousands in the game, human, ghoul, Super Mutants but no one cares, deactivate some toasters and suddenly its a tragedy.......oh the Synthetic Humanity! (Level 3 only please, no lesser models allowed).

I love how equality can still be a completely foreign concept.

When your willing to sacrifice humans to save another 'race' that's not equality......that's a preference and as we know Gen-3 are already treated as being more important the Gen-1&2 who everybody agrees aren't considered people. I have no problem with placing a mass produced machine that can I assume be recreated with the same programmed personality below human beings.

Equality claims them the same rights as humanity in the wasteland.....so the freedom to be shot, stabbed and eaten then. Again there are no rights in the Wasteland except what you and the group you belong to can carve out yourselves and aside from the Minutemen sending their 'general' your only hope is the Brotherhood dropping in to persecute the hostiles trying to kill you.

I have sided with all but the Institute because I was hoping they could help me get my son back, but so far all they want is for me to help further their cause. I have not been able to get to the Glowing Sea because they all keep giving things to do. So really I don't like any of them. Everything I've known and loved are gone so I am an Anarchist.

There are several issues here and the first that should be mentioned is the poorly constructed plot line and staging. It is not really the fault of Fallout 4 but appears to be a problem with all games to some extent and that any film that presented inconsistencies like the mysterious appearance of barrels of nuclear material everywhere, the fact that after 200 years no one has done what the lone wanderer is doing - building settlements, villages and towns to protect the public to ensure safety, survival of the human species as well as food and water security, would make that film an instant box-office failure. It's a bit like us being traumatized by the Napoleonic wars which ended in 1815 and we have settlers turning up as if the bombs had been dropped two weeks ago. When you add to this the immersion breaking building system where I don't even know where I am supposed to suspend my disbelief - am I dragging rusty sheets of iron, broken drawers and gore-soaked bedding and couches back from garbage heaps and the "building" is merely a game cost mechanic? Or am I actually chopping down trees, melting down steel, and making other raw materials to create this 200 year old garbage? As for painting Power Armor, that's "Walking on water" stuff. How am I able to paint Power Armor to achieve the 200 years of fading and scratches?

When you add poorly fleshed out factions onto this, threads like this BOS discussion become rather amusing. Does the world require a force of maniacs believing in the Brotherhood flying around in their helicopters saying "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" while listening to "ride of the Valkyries"? Probably not. Could the Brotherhood ever have a hope in hell of winning anything? Unless they take ground, not a hope. Taking ground is about building settlements and societies that support their actions, provide food, water, conscripts, manufacturing, etc. Without that they can win battles but they can't win wars. Realistically, (and that seems to be missing from this game) they would have made every effort to align themselves with the Minutemen, supporting them, inviting them to their Christmas parties, and including their leaders in their planning since their entire campaign of battling Super Mutants, Ferals, Synths, and and Raiders depends entirely upon a civilian militia and constabulary spreading and maintaining a normal society behind a front line. The only way to fight raiders is to ensure that there are much better alternatives to living in toxic ruins in filth and fighting over 200 year old sweet rolls.

But the most disappointing aspect are the missing dialogue opportunities. According to BOS, it's all the scientists fault like they weren't contracted to the military making whatever the military demanded of them... BOS are collecting technology so that humanity can't hurt themselves and can continue to live for another 200 years in filth and squalor. Really? The things I wanted to say about that and about the BOS fanaticism concerning war as the only solution for a war-torn planet just weren't there.

Then there was the Railroad. A faction that had a worthy goal but had no foundation. A being who wants freedom and rejects slavery whether born or made is sentient enough to have rights. This was just another obvious thing I never got the opportunity to voice. Just as the minutemen were created from history so to the Railroad had similar roots but unlike the Minutemen, the Railroad had no social foundation or at least it was not fleshed out. And into this crazy mix we have Nick Valentine, a synth who is loved in Diamond City... Why?

But the most disappointing aspect of the game for me was the Institute. How I would have loved to have asked the acting head of Synth Retention how he had managed to solve the mystery of life - the most important issue of mankind. After all, if he knew that Synths weren't truly sentient then he must fully understand what sentient life is. For a scientific mind, the man was a moron but I never got the chance to explain this to him. But my frustrations turned to anger and I had to walk away from my PC after my initial conversations with "Father". This was a pivotal point in the story line and my dialogue options were all weak. How about, "You are asking me to side with you but you are kidnapping and murdering people up there!" While this line of dialogue does begin, Father responds with "We tried helping them but they attacked our robots" or something like that and there that line of dialogue ends. I wanted to say, "So what! You say they are machines, build more!!!" Build mechanized farms to feed people and they'll come around." I wanted to ask, "What were they playing at? How is secretly replacing the human population with replicas good for the human population? Why are you creating synth children who can never grow up because that is just plain stupid? Why are you hunting down escaped synths when their successful assimilation into human communities without fear of being discovered and reclaimed by you would lead to them being honest and open with the communities they join and aid you with public acceptance? How can you even ask me to side with you when you can't even tell me what these great breakthroughs that will change everything actually are? Are they merely more actions to kill people? Because that is your track record. And, of course, because of the twist there was a lot more I wished to say and never could. Perhaps there were more opportunities to later on. Perhaps many of these options came up but because Bethesda made further investigation and dialogue impossible without making me "kill on sight," or at the very least, lose all possibility of further advancement in the Railroad, the Minutemen and BOS, I couldn't go talk to Father after completing "Institutionalized". In fact, I was forced to start shooting scientists just to get banished and that disgusted me.

So, when you ask if BOS are racists I have to respond with, "No, they are cardboard cut-outs".

I proved that the question is pointless in the first place.


Hostile. Non-hostile. These don't matter to the BoS with regards to robots with free will. Maxson is stating that the technology itself is off the table due to its very nature and its potential damage.


Go, listen to what Maxson tells you in his speech. He clearly states that robots with free will are an unacceptable development and this is what they need to destroy. Maxson wouldn't be happy with someone having an army of robots but making robots with free will in the shape of a person basically turned it into a holy crusade.

Nick proves you wrong

Who am I willing to sacrifice again?

No you avoided the question and tried to put this nonsense in its place.

Hostile means everybody attacks you and you don't have any choice about peaceful contact so the fact that no wasteland has knowingly meet a Gen-3 Synth as anything other than a hostile presence is the reason they are hated and pretty everybody is glad to see them gone.

I've listened to Maxson and he is right free thinking machines are a threat, not least because the Brotherhood knows people are being murdered, kidnapped and replaced by those robots. We learn that the situation is more complicated, but expecting a group that doesn't have your experiences to conform to your will is more than a little foolish. Is Maxson bombastic about dealing with the threat of course he is, but that threat is already established before he makes the speech.

Hmmm.....

All the BOS members killed, the Railroad if you sided with the Institute, the Settlers who have Synth killers pretending to be family members etc.

No mention of the people of the Institute killed if you side with the Railroad? Now who's being selective?

In any case, my plan is to use console shenanigans to avoid the need to destroy the Railroad, because it should be logically possible to avoid a fight there. Sadly, the Brotherhood is not so kind, as they declare war on you and the Minutemen if you play Mass Fusion; by that point, defeating them is just the least bad option.

The point of his argument is that the point of your argument is "we must save lives and hold hands" until it comes to the faction you don't like or find expendable. He's saying you're a hypocrite, not that he agrees with your argument.

You're really underestimating how much the Railroad and Institute hate each other. they've been at each other's necks since before the BoS even sent it's first patrol into the Commonwealth. Hell, BoS would make more sense to make peace with then the railroad by simply stopping the Gen-3 program and showing Gen-1 and Gen-2 as nothing but robots akin to Mr. Handys. Also Institute does the same thing if you play Mass Fusion for the Brotherhood of Steel.

The Railroad and the Institute have a lot of bad blood between them that at this point it's not even just about slavery, the Institute has been slaughtering their members for decades, the Institute destroyed several of their safehouses and the Railroad had to change headquarters and do a lot of recruiting more then 3 times.

None of that matters. Maxson doesn't care if they're hostile or not. The existence of robots with free will is the instigator of the war.


His interactions with Danse after Danse is revealed to be a synth confirm that it it's their very nature that offends Maxson.


So what I'm telling you is that trying to argue that they only know hostile synths (which is true) Is meaningless to the BoS because no amount of getting to know synths will change their stance.


Just like showing the Railroad that one synth turns into a raider or BoS paladin will convince the Railroad that it's not worth saving other synths.

If there was an option to actually beat the game by making peace between everyone, hell yes I would take it.

No, it's much simpler than that: all you need to do is tell Desdemona that the Institute's Director is your son, and then be removed from the Railroad as a security risk while they relocate. If you're unable to find them, you'll be unable to kill them. This dialogue option wasn't in the game, but there's no logical reason for that, so I have no problem with console trickery.

So all the Railroad members the Institute has been killing for over 80 years isn't a problem? All the times the Institute has destroyed their homes, their families, their safehouses, their headquarters. People don't just forget that, the Institute has constantly driven the railroad further into a corner. Hell, there isn't even a reason to make peace, the Institute and BoS never even perceive the Railroad as anything more then a nuisance that should be swatted out before they try to cause problems which is accurate since at the start of the game the railroad is on death's doorstep making it the perfect time to strike to remove them once and for all.

Slightly ot, but after the end of the Institute questline X6 gave me a pep talk and mentioned how the Railroad and BoS were 'beaten but not eradicated'. Now, BoS I can see, as Vertibirds keep dive-bombing me during my leisurely surface strolls, but are there actually any Railroad remnant attacks that happen after the end game? Does the Railroad still exist in any shape or form? Just curious.

You do occasionally get Railroad agents attacking Synth checkpoints. But their HQ remains a graveyard.

Desdemona probably would have either shot or taken the SS captive. If she knows that The Institute Director is the SS's son, that's a powerful leverage chip to use against The Institute.

I just wipe them out and be done with it.

One has to wonder what they're even trying to accomplish at that point...