Agreed on being totally offtopic.

yes genocide is an option with the BoS but is it right? Also yes they will slowly dwindle with the railroad but at least they will have their freedom, as a great man once said "give me liberty or give me death"

To free a few hundreds synths who are slowly dying off by killing hundreds more people and creating another crater alongside with chaos throughout the Commonwealth is really a worthy cause.

In this case both...

1. You were told to give an evacuation order, so casualties would be minimal.

2. An organization that kidnaps, murders, and enslaves deserves to be turned into a crater.

Two centuries of technology is incredibly valuable, but I would sooner destroy it than leave it in the hands of people that treat the thousands born into the wasteland lab rats.

Advanced systems deals with energy research, specialized projects, and breaking new scientific ground. Weapons development is only one subset of their research:

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/The_Institute_terminals#Research_Proposals

Of the projects listed, only one is a proposal for weapons development.

Robotics purpose isn't just to create military synths. Synths are also used for as personal assistants and laborers.

Synth Retention is effectively the CIA of The Institute. Maintaining watchers and intelligence anolysis along with retaining synths.

OT: Yes, the railroad's destruction of the Synths "reproduction" process is intended to be morally questionable. They free the Synths, but at the same time, doom them for the rest of forever.

Yeah I was exagerating to get my point across.

1. You still kill a bunch of people in both the Institute and BoS. You're creating a disorder state where no one watching the Commonwealth from feral ghouls and supermutants, the BoS will be back to start a war and wipe out the RR. The synths are slowly going to extinction at the same time.

2. Meh, people kill and kidnap each other all the time in the Commonwealth, although they have NEVER enslave anyone, they have synths for that.

Their goal is paradoxical and end up creating more chaos and disorder in the end. What you propose could have easily achieved with BoS or especially the Minutemen, which ends up creating order by more people joining, people working together to protect the Commonwealth.

1. I don't agree with your assessment that the RR ending somehow leads to greater chaos. The BOS was never around to create order, they were there to start a war and horde tech. The Institute has been sowing fear in Commonwealth civilians for decades, the evidence is everywhere. Both factions *create* chaos. The RR works well enough with the MM, so the ending is arguably *more* peaceful, as the Commonwealth is policed without the influence of outsiders with an ulterior motive.

2 a. The Institute enslaves synths, you said it yourself. Unless you don't believe synths are sentient and worthy of freedom, which is another discussion of course.

2 b. You really think it's OK for the Institute to kidnap and murder because other people do it? Do you put them on the same level as raiders?

1. Regardless of how BoS started, if they get destroyed by the RR, you can be damn sure they will be back in greater numbers to completely crush the RR, the Institute has already perceived this, but they hide underground and they can demonstrate their power to show not to mess with them, the RR can't, they were on the verge of dying by the time you found them. Basically the RR is destroyed regardless, except for the MM ending, the Synth would go extinct, the chaos would still exist even if the BoS is destroyed, the Minutemen doesn't have a big recruitment like with MM ending without the reputation of destroying the Institute. The RR ending is unnecessary because RR could do basically they could do in the Minutemen ending (or not do since all the synths are free anyway) with the Minutemen members greatly increase patrolling the area. No reason to choose to RR ending at all when the Minutemen is a far superior with no chaos being created. The BoS won't wage a war against the RR, the RR still exists to not help synths, and the Minutemen exists in greater number to patrol the region.

2a. That's subjective, that's why I said that, especially synth 1 and 2.

2b. Sure, I don't use my morality in real life and apply it to the Fallout setting. I was even thinking about lobotomize Cabot, so the Institute could experiment on him and see how his blood leads to immortality. I'm ok with killing and kidnapping as well as they have a reason behind it. Both points on 2 are depending on how you choose to play your character anyway.

The Institute is most obviously the evil faction in FO4. The RR and BoS are more goody goody with strong doses of zealotry mixed in, which isn't a good thing.

Yes, while the Institute might have had incredibly advanced technology and had effectively created synthetic humans so human the only reason they weren't human was because they were manufactured, the RR's decision to wipe out the Institute, which produces Synths, the very "people" they were trying to save, does not make them inherently evil. At least, not anymore than the Brotherhood was in doling out the same action, however the RR also wanted the facility to be evacuated - they simply wanted synth production to end, not to take the lives of the scientists, where as the Brotherhood shot at everything and everyone. Now, the flaw in stating that the synths are "doomed to extinction" is in thinking is that the synths see themselves as a race that needs to go on, not individual souls seeking to live out their lives among the rest of the peoples of the world. They're projecting their own instincts and desires into an artificial being that can be programmed like a robot. A very human-like robot. At the very core level, we're still different. It's arguable if self-aware synths even have perverted thoughts, which is the base line instinctual desire to procreate and continue the species.

So unless we're assuming the freed/escaped synths seek to keep their "species" going in the world long after their own bodies have since expired, what the Railroad or Brotherhood of Steel did in ending the production of synths isn't the death of a species, just the end of misguided attempts at "improving" humanity. These surviving third generation synths will live as (sterile) humans and (maybe) eventually die as (sterile) humans. End of story.

If you romance Danse, he said a lot of suggestive comments, and you can sleep with him and Curie, so I don't think "perverted thoughts" were ever ambiguous. Deacon had a synth wife as well.

Well okay then, the Institute wanted their synths to be capable (and willing!) of doing the nasty. As for Curie... well, someone else programmed her to be a mix of his old flame in university and a few other personalities.

However, that still doesn't suggest they recognize their own as a "species" that must go on, like we do Humanity. The line is muddled even further regarding synths perspective of themselves since they were intended to seamlessly blend in with Human society to begin with (even baby making, without making babies.)

Danse is programmed by the RR, not the Institute, both Curie and Edna are the same kinds of robots, and both can experience love. Edna gets married to the teacher as a robot and Curie can have a relationship with the SS as a synth. Curie also did say she experimented a lot of different emotions like never before, so there's a difference between a robot and how a synth feels, maybe even in term of biology. Both can also engage in homosixual relationship, real life homosixual relationship also doesn't lead to procreation with each other. They may be in a relationship based on attraction and love, not for procreation purposes, but that doesn't mean they don't like for their species to continue. Deacon and his wife wanted to kids, so there is a desire to procreate. Danse has several lines referring to the synth as his own species, Glory has some lines about her species. Curie doesn't, but that's because she wasn't a synth originally.

Deacon is a human male so I don't know why you would mention him as an example of anything about synths. He tells you he's a synth just to mess with you and to see if you would use the recall code on him.


Danse is most likely an institute plant and not a RR brainwipe. He knew he was a synth the entire time but bought into the BoS and started to care about them. He was basically a double-double-agent. If he was an escaped synth, he would probably be in the SRB terminal.


Synths don't seem to desire to create more synths, it just doesn't seem to be a concern to them. They seem to just want to be able to make their own decisions and be treated like a regular human.

Eh, that's entirely dependent on a synth though. What's to say a synth wouldn't want to create more in order to take over? One Synth became a brutal raider warlord, what's stopping another synth from doing whatever they want to do including making an army of less-independent synths? The whole reason I dislike the idea of aiding the Institute or the Railroad is that yea, we're looking at a potential terminator-esque situation here.

I mentioned him because his wife is a synth, and they tried for kids. No, Danse is not an Institute plant, but he was a RR brainwashed synth if you read the Terminal. He never knows he was a synth, he was never a double agent, he straight out tells you that when you confronted him and willing to die to preserve the idea unless you could convince him with a hard speech check.

East Coast BoS functions more as a Ordenstaat much like the Tuetonic Knights did in medieval-renaissance Europe. So getting tech that improves quality of life would be beneficial for them as a country which they are referred to one in a Knight's eulogy and hinted at in various sources and documents. All that bio-tech like the advanced food creation or efficient power would be useful to increase their power as a country.

Deacon's wife wants a baby believing she is a human woman. Not the same as trying to make another synth... Which don't come out as babies and don't necessarily share the same genes. I'm pretty sure synths could want to own pets too, doesn't mean they feel the need to make a synth dog just because.


Which terminal mentions Danse's rogue synth status? I didn't see that, the synth mentioned at Boston airport on the SRB terminal had a different ID.

The discussion we had earlier was about instinct. She has the instinct to want to have kids. It doesn't matter if she knows or not, but she has the instinct and desire to procreate. Knowing she's a synth doesn't mean she stops having that.

Not sure which terminal, it's been a while, but the RR talked about releasing a bunch of synth to the Rivet City where he's from, not naming him specifically. Other than that, the Institute has all the information and the synths know about their purpose. If you side against the BoS, he would side alongside them and die, if he's exiled, he would ignored you instead. The Institute has never released any Institute they can't control, they all know their purpose, unless you can show me examples of an third gen spy synth who doesn't know they're from the institute, if any synth who doesn't know their purpose would have been erased, not sure where you get that he's a spy from.