Forums » Fallout

Ad Victoriam!

    • 278 posts
    February 28, 2018 6:54 PM EST

    I've only played demos of Fallout 4 - I've finished both Fallout 3 and New Vegas - and I've been building a character and possibly story idea in my head for the past almost four months now. The biggest choice the player will make in Fallout 4 is simple. What faction will you choose? I've analysed - lightly - the four factions and tried to decide the best hope for the Commonwealth and successfully rebuilding humanity to a quality we - of the pre-war era - know. 

     

    The Institute - have incredibly technology, and it can't be ignored, but they don't use it to further humanity. They use it to further their own goals. Courser stealth-boys are used solely for assassination and esponiage. Relays are used to get in and out of the institute. They could be used to transport crops and other goods that would otherwise take a large amount of time to move. Nah, fuck that. Let's kill some Brotherhood guys. That's a good use of tech. Yes, Gen 3 Synths are an amazing technological development but they're used for cleaning and doing laundry! Come on! Even so, they're only using precious resources. More synths is worse for the Commonwealth with food and water already scarce, and now it has to be shared with toasters? No. The word 'Redefined' does not mean help, it means redo. It means to raze something and make it better, although is better really true? If they replace everyone with Synths, is humanity already dead? 

    The Institute are not the answer. 

     

    The Railroad - are hands down the worst faction in the game. Their soal goal is to waste resources on robots and they're essentially thieves. The Railroad is based entirely on perspective. The Brotherhood and the Institute see them as thieves - Synths are robots, nothing more - and they're effectively stealing and murdering and kidnapping toasters. Beside the Railroad's ideas, we've got another thing to think about. What happens if they win? They have no endgame, simply to help and free the Synths. This is pointless in the end. 

    The Railroad are not the answer.

     

    The Minutemen - are in my opinion one of the best factions. Their ideal is spot on in that they serve the Commonwealth, not the other way around. They don't ask for anything, as the General you can't force people to do things - it's a title, not a role or position. The Minutemen are a faction that is unique - they serve other's causes, instead of their own. Killing raiders and saving a farm doesn't benefit a Minuteman. The Minuteman are there because they love the world and want to bring it back to it's former glory, but they don't want to rule or lead it. However, unless you dedicate your time to the Minutemen, they're the weakest faction at what they do. Brotherhood are fucking beasts at killing their enemies, Institute are insane mad scientists - but really good at it - and the Railroad are I'm sure very good at worshipping their toaster friends. However, the Minutemen are the best faction in a perfect world. They're moral and kind without being demanding. This is not a perfect world, sadly, and even though my story - If I write it - will focus on the Minutemen, I don't think they are the most perfect hope for the world as it is now. 

    The Minutemen are not the answer.

     

    The Brotherhood of Steel - are what the Commonwealth needs. Boston needs law and harsh punishment for raiders and thieves. In a world where food is scarce and resources are more valuable than gold, giving it to Robots and the Hulk is completely unnecessary and also simply foolish. The Brotherhood are the most powerful of all the forces, being armed in power armor and possessing a fucking zeppelin - though that is their downfall - and while they are very self servient and are a fanatical zealous organisation, I have two views on them. Maxson is charismatic as anything and that jacket is the coolest thing I've ever seen, but he is wrong morally. They are weak because they weaken their recruitment process. Ghoul? Fuck off. Synth? Fuck off. Super Mutant? Fuck off. But the Commonwealth needs to know where not to cross the line, and the Brotherhood is that. They maintain a military presence and make sure that the law is obeyed or hell will be wrought from the skies. Yes, the Pyrdwen is also a weakness but Vertibirds and their air strength is a large bonus of the Brotherhood. They're the best hope, but not the best faction morally. I don't agree with their views but I agree with their endgame and it is the best hope for rebuilding the Commonwealth.

    Ad Victoriam!

    • 284 posts
    February 28, 2018 7:45 PM EST

    I like the way you think Wulf! :) The BoS are the only good faction. Combined with the Minuteman.

    • 700 posts
    February 28, 2018 7:58 PM EST

    The Institute started with enough good intentions, but have long veered off into a self-serving mission to play god. Once Father decided to violently disband the Commonwealth Provisional Government, the Institute lost its way. The synths were originally meant to act as peace-keepers for the surface, but after Broken Mask and various other incidents, that was rendered impossible. At this point, they're nothing more than glorified slavers. It's a shame that all of their technology needed to be destroyed. Biomedical was working on a number of projects meant to "ensure the health and well-being of everyone in the Institute." But not those above ground. Father's greatest weakness was growing up sheltered in the Institute. He is a poor leader for the Institute. Misguided, ill-informed, and delusional. 

    I'm not sure what to make of the Railroad yet, as I'm not sure what to make of synths. They shouldn't exist, yet they do. They're not human, yet they posses what we might call "humanity," or a "soul" -- that exact combination of physical properties that gives birth to consciousness, which not even humans understand. From what I understand, the fundamental argument of the Brotherhood towards synths is summed up nicely by Danse:

    Synths can't be trusted. Machines were never meant to make their own decisions, they need to be controlled.

    The synths present largely the same risk that ghouls do -- can they be trusted? Broken Mask suggests that, no, they can't. Just as a ghoul may go feral, a synth may short circuit and become hostile. So...I feel the RR has a noble cause, but their lack of a long-term plan and refusal to address the machine problem makes them a fractured and unsustainable group. 

    The Brotherhood have the same attitude as the Stormcloaks -- you're either with us or against us. However, in the context of Fallout, and considering their aims, that attitude works much better for the Brotherhood. They keep dangerous technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it. Some people would accuse the Brotherhood of hypocrisy for hoarding and using the same technology that they say others are unfit to use, but the Brotherhood under Maxson is a strict, militarized heirarchy that instills discipline and principle into its ranks. 

    The Brotherhood rose in opposition to the Enclave, which is the group made up of the remnants of the pre-war U.S. government. What I have yet to see from the Brotherhood is an attempt to reestablish government. They certainly have the firepower to step in as the peace-keepers of the Commonwealth, in the same way that the Institute failed to do. What I'm not clear on is where the Brotherhood draws the line on what kind of technology non-Brotherhood is allowed to have, and whether there are pieces of technology they believe no one should have. They destroy the Institute, and with it, all the good it could have done. 

    The biggest flaw with the Brotherhood's philosophy is that they blame technology for corrupting man, ignoring that man corrupts itself. So for the next kalpa of the wasteland -- for the next era of peace -- the Brotherhood have a decent shot at establishing it. But as with everything else, it won't last. 

  • Mr.
    • 763 posts
    February 28, 2018 8:07 PM EST

    as the General you can't force people to do things

     He does have the power to command the Minutemen military forces, doesn't he? The Minutemen are a very interesting faction, although I feel like (and this is true to what, 90% of Fallout 4's lore and story, sadly) they were somehow underdeveloped. But anyway, the reason why I find them interesting is because they remind me a lot, in concept and operation, of two other factions from Fallout: they are essentially the old Desert Rangers from the West before their incorporation into the NCR, yet they differ from them in a way that approximates them to the NCR itself, with their interest in expanding "their reach". Although the building settlements component of that last part might simply be a game mechanic put in place for the main character, Preston does actually ask you to bring settlements to the Minutemen's "cause". Basically, "the more the better".

     And that brings me to one of the two points proposed by you on this thread that spiked my interest, the Minutemen's weakness. I feel like the Minutemen's weakness is apparent as you said, and the reasons for it have been laid on the paragraph above and should be reinforced with the memory of the Desert Rangers themselves. When faced with a more organized and numerous faction (Caesar's Legion), the Rangers were almost obliterated (and conceptually, they were), even though they had some kind of technological edge - given the Legion's preference for melee weapons. The Legion could only be held back when confronted with another major, organized faction, the NCR.

     So that leaves us with the fact that a faction, much more well established than the Minutemen and only exercising one of its tasks wasn't capable of sustaining itself when confronted with an organized threat that didn't even employ technology as well as it could have if it wanted to. That should say a lot about the Minutemen's odds should the Brotherhood (or the Institute) decide to go against them.

    Killing raiders and saving a farm doesn't benefit a Minuteman. The Minuteman are there because they love the world and want to bring it back to it's former glory, but they don't want to rule or lead it.

     I disagree, they want to bring more settlements to their cause, after all, and killing the raiders creates a better environment to develop society - their need for it, their "love for the world" as you put it, isn't born out of altruism, but out of personal interest, be it in the name of their family or themselves - and this last one can be born out of a personal philosophy or whatever you want to tell yourself, you're still doing it, at the end of the day, the thing that makes you feel better or more comfortable about yourself. Granted, this is more of a personal view - I don't believe in altruism, or rather, I highly doubt that it is possible to humans.

     As for bringing it back to its former glory, I don't think that's what the Minutemen want at all. They never witnessed that glory. I feel like they only want peace and land to develop a functional society, the past be damned. I think Father mentions or alludes to that, and is one of the arguments he uses when trying to convince you to follow his ways.

    Now to the other point, I don't think that the Brotherhood are completely off on their morality. They come from the Capital Wasteland, a place where all the mutant dangers of the Wasteland were amplified given its status prior to the war and where prior to being the powerhouse that they are now were in a constant struggle against the Super Mutants teeming out of Vault 87. As for their hatred for the Synths, and this is at the core of the Brotherhood of Steel, - and the thing that I think Fallout 4 did the most right, bringing the Brotherhood back to its original philosophy - is completely justified. They know what technology can do to mankind, with the Western and the original Brotherhood of Steel having witnessed the fall of civilization firsthand, and a Synth is that much more alarming than a nuclear bomb because you can't tell what their motifs are or even where they are.

     Sure, from our perspective, from the outside of that world, they might be moraly reprehensible to some, especially in their treatment of Ghouls, but if we were in their position? With the knowledge that they have? Hell, fuck that. I ain't taking chances.

     


    This post was edited by Mr. at February 28, 2018 8:14 PM EST