Which ending is the best for the commonwealth?

[Grant]

Now time benefits, future benefits and just your personal opinion

[Rez Elwin]

I assume BoS, while they don't directly help anybody they will kill any hostiles that get in their way. If you finish with them they start protecting diamond city and patrolling the commonwealth. The Sole Survivor is also named Sentinel, and as such could do a lot of good by taking command of strike teams and hitting hostile locations to make areas safer.

[casualsailor]

There really isn't a "best" ending for the Commonwealth because no matter what you do the Minutemen are still present spreading their collectivist oppression.

[Yhwach]

Every opinion given about the best ending for the Commonwealth is simply just opinion, each one has their own benefits, their draw backs, and not a single one would be better over the other one if not only for one or two attributes.

The Brotherhood of Steel would keep hostiles out of certain areas, but they'd also still be hitting up settlements for supplies, If the Minutemen were built up they'd eventually have conflict over that, and they only really care about themselves (Argue it or not), Lyons was one of the only people to extend a hand out for other people whilst also trying to follow the brotherhood's guidelines.
Besides protection and brute force they offer absolutely nothing else.

The Railroad will just fade into obscurity sooner or later, they don't care what happens to The Commonwealth as long as the synths get out safely, willing to throw their own lives away and the lives of anyone who go against their ideals, ala Airship Down.
Besides menial trade and barely any help for anyone else, they're probably considered the least likely choice to help The Commonwealth.

The Minutemen are probably considered by the majority to be the best option, but they're underpowered besides artillery and how the player character builds them up, are only a militia and don't have the best capable force and instead just have volunteers from settlements and other commonwealth settlers, and the chances of the Quincy massacre happening are still there.

The Institute, albeit, the mostly controversial, has the most potential to help The Commonwealth.
Instead of just brute force, they're constantly advancing their own science department to grow food in harsh conditions, creating new sources of power, and "attempting" to help the commonwealth, with their drawback being replacing figures of power for intel and their lesser care of humanity.

It's up to you.
Form your own opinion on who is the best instead of following the other sheep.

[DouglasGrave]

I agree with Rick on the summary of the different factions, but I'd have to lean towards the Minutemen and Institute overall. The Brotherhood and Railroad don't really have an agenda that can directly accomodate helping the Commonwealth rebuild itself in the long run (being focused on control of technology and giving aid to synths, respectively); they're not part of the population and their focus will eventually shift elsewhere.

The Minutemen have the ideals most suited to helping, but their basic design as an organization is unsound and relies on the day-to-day attitude of everyone involved, without lasting cohesion. To really benefit the Commonwealth, they'd need to evolve into a more formalized group, becoming the protective military arm of a local government (which doesn't currently exist).

The Institute is more complete as an organization, but their ideals aren't as directly suited. Their focus on science could go hand-in-hand with the prosperity of the surface, but it's a fusion that they'd have to make happen, instead of being an inherent ideal as with the Minutemen. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to it is that a successful Institute doesn't need the surface in anything remotely like its current state; they mainly need raw materials from the outside world, and they can already get those by picking over the bones of the past.

It's not outright impossible for any of them to produce a workable outcome, but it would involve more substantial changes for some factions than for others.

[Kalsu]

You roleplay the ending anyway you like with what you got as "canon" info :P

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

I agree with Rick on the summary of the different factions, but I'd have to lean towards the Minutemen and Institute overall. The Brotherhood and Railroad don't really have an agenda that can directly accomodate helping the Commonwealth rebuild itself in the long run (being focused on control of technology and giving aid to synths, respectively); they're not part of the population and their focus will eventually shift elsewhere.

The Minutemen have the ideals most suited to helping, but their basic design as an organization is unsound and relies on the day-to-day attitude of everyone involved, without lasting cohesion. To really benefit the Commonwealth, they'd need to evolve into a more formalized group, becoming the protective military arm of a local government (which doesn't currently exist).

The Institute is more complete as an organization, but their ideals aren't as directly suited. Their focus on science could go hand-in-hand with the prosperity of the surface, but it's a fusion that they'd have to make happen, instead of being an inherent ideal as with the Minutemen. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to it is that a successful Institute doesn't need the surface in anything remotely like its current state; they mainly need raw materials from the outside world, and they can already get those by picking over the bones of the past.

It's not outright impossible for any of them to produce a workable outcome, but it would involve more substantial changes for some factions than for others.

The Minutemen are the worst. They are sociallist/collectivists. Just look at how they operate. You roll into a co-op farming community to "help" them and then immediately take their land away, rob them of every thing that isn't nailed down including all of the food they've grown, assign them to toil in the fields 16 hrs per day to keep producing food for you and forcibly relocate them to a ghoul infested crag on the coast on a whim.

The Minutemen are monsterous. The are the epidome of evil.

[Kalsu]

I love the minuteman!

[Robert Edward Lee]

minuteman are useless. i stopped doin stuff for them after i unlocked castle armory


BoS, thats the way to go.
Ad Victoriam, brothers!, For elder Maxon!

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

The Minutemen are the worst. They are sociallist/collectivists. Just look at how they operate. You roll into a co-op farming community to "help" them and then immediately take their land away, rob them of every thing that isn't nailed down including all of the food they've grown, assign them to toil in the fields 16 hrs per day to keep producing food for you and forcibly relocate them to a ghoul infested crag on the coast on a whim.

The Minutemen are monsterous. The are the epidome of evil.

That would ring more true if we were talking about people who weren't almost completely incapable of doing anything for themselves. For all that the Minutemen take control, the people do better out of it, and if their needs are too badly neglected, they'll break away.

[Kalsu]

Originally posted by The Necromancer:

minuteman are useless. i stopped doin stuff for them after i unlocked castle armory


BoS, thats the way to go.
Ad Victoriam, brothers!, For elder Maxon!

Bah! BoS got that old mentality. Won't hold. Bring true freedom! Bring chaos!
BRING THE RAIDERS! BURN!

[Traveler]

The institute is the only faction that doesn't make one feel slimy to play, that's why it's so hard to find a reason to replay it.

[Mringasa]

The Institute is the worst of the factions. Their plan is to simply shut themselves away from the world until they are "ready" to fix it. Isolationism will cause the remaining factions to fight over the Commonwealth and watch it burn because they can't play with other kids in the sandbox. The Institute is evil, in the sense that their evil stems from a lack of doing anything. They scavenge across the Commonwealth, killing anyone who gets in their way, and have absolutely no morality to them at all other than "What's bad for the Institute must be eliminated".

The Railroad has high ideals, Deacon even admits that he wishes Desdemona would put more resources towards helping humans, but they don't have any goals other than freeing the synths and once the Institute is dealt with, they'll have no real compass to guide them. At best, they will have a supporting role for whatever faction comes out on top.

The BoS is my personal favorite, but I wish they were more like the BoS under Lyons. Towards the end of FO3, you could see him realizing how bad the DC Wastes were, and that he needed to help people more than he was. Maxson is a dictatorial asshat, but he follows the ideals of the West Coast BoS much more closely than Lyons did. By destroying ghouls, mutants, synths etc etc, he'll help the Commonwealth more than the other factions, but I doubt the end result will be worth it. Tyrannical rule, "taxing the peasants", and all the other stuff that goes along with a military organization seizing control.

I despise Preston, such a ♥♥♥♥♥, but the Minutemen have the best chance at "fixing" the Commonwealth after it's all said and done. They are looked up to by the people who make the Commonwealth work (farmers, tinkers, merchants, etc) and they have a goal other than kill kill kill. By setting up settlements, and protecting them, they provide a solid base for self-rule by the settlements and eventually formation of some sort of government. There's always a chance that some of them will go bad, but that's the case with any group of people in any form of government.

[Yhwach]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

The Minutemen are the worst. They are sociallist/collectivists. Just look at how they operate. You roll into a co-op farming community to "help" them and then immediately take their land away, rob them of every thing that isn't nailed down including all of the food they've grown, assign them to toil in the fields 16 hrs per day to keep producing food for you and forcibly relocate them to a ghoul infested crag on the coast on a whim.

The Minutemen are monsterous. The are the epidome of evil.

The Minutemen are one of the better factions, not sure if you're joking or actually serious, and If that's the case you may want to recheck that view on them.
The Minutemen are simply just a collaborative role that the citizens and settlers of The Commonwealth undertake to keep their own state and homes safe from raiders, super mutants, or anyone that would threaten their way of life whilst putting themselves under everyone else and their goal to protect and maintain order.

Lore aside, they needed some excuse for settlements to do something, and the player character more or less helps them and gives them more food and water so you're not forcing them out of anything, you're just advancing their own place and convincing them that The Minutemen aren't what they used to be in Quincy as it left a bad taste in their mouths.


As for what "you" have done to them, that's just it, each player does it differently and if you're the one to steal everything they have and leave nothing then so be it.

The only monsterous person is the general, that being you, or anyone else that plays it if that's really how it goes down.

[Jusaboi]

BoS
They care about the humans of the wasteland and have resources to fight.
They eliminate threats and those which do not help human population.
Even though they dislike ghouls, those would be left alive. They did not shoot Hancock on sight.
Synths are machines, and machines can be reprogrammed. Not to mention synths already kill and kidnap real people.
There are many things that make them the best option for me..
PS. I have a thing for militaristic, well organised factions
PPS. And I've always liked flying things, Prydwen and vertibirds ughhh
PPPS. Liberty Prime is cool

[Robert Edward Lee]

Originally posted by I need a good name:

BoS
They care about the humans of the wasteland and have resources to fight.
They eliminate threats and those which do not help human population.
Even though they dislike ghouls, those would be left alive. They did not shoot Hancock on sight.
Synths are machines, and machines can be reprogrammed. Not to mention synths already kill and kidnap real people.
There are many things that make them the best option for me..
PS. I have a thing for militaristic, well organised factions
PPS. And I've always liked flying things, Prydwen and vertibirds ughhh
PPPS. Liberty Prime is cool

Maxon got nice coat
they remind me of nazis