Brotherhood, Institute, Railroad or Minutemen?

[MrHambanana]

Which one do you usually side with just curious?

[DouglasGrave]

The Institute is my usual pick. They let me teleport everywhere and don't put a big hole in downtown Boston, while the Brotherhood are more fun to fight against. Storywise, they have the greatest capability to reshape the Commonwealth, lacking only the belief and the will to do so. Plus, they bathe, and they have both icecream and bacon that isn't made out of people.

I've played them all, but I tend not to side with the Railroad, since I play through most of their quests anyway to get ballistic weave, and they don't have a lot of big dramatic battles like the other factions (even the Minutemen get to Defend the Castle against a major assault).

[Khagan Váter]

Install the mod America Rising and play the Enclave, the only faction that can bring the true US and the old world back to the wasteland, kill all muties.

[Skoops]

I was going to stick with the MM but found all I was doing was saving colonies from raiders and oggling Mama Murphy. Gave BS a try, found them too military for me.Now I'm with the RR which I'm enjoying.

I really do need to complete this game as I've been playing for 5 months and need to get into Witcher 3.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by MrHambanana:

Which one do you usually side with just curious?

I'm BOS-curious.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Plus, they bathe, and they have both icecream and bacon that isn't made out of people.

"What Did The Institute Ever Do For Us?!?"

You forgot the toilet paper. Don't forget the toilet paper.

(And the casual cynical evil - but there's another teeny-weeny thread on that already.)

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

and bacon that isn't made out of people.

Plus they have people made out of bacon. And people made out of bacon, who are made out of people who were made into bacon. 😁

[Skorch]

All factions but the Minutemen are fanatics and not very reasonable, but I'll side with the Minutemen first, like everyone else probably does by helping them at Concord, and then side with the Brotherhood, to kick Institute butt.
I sided with the institute once, but hated myself for it. They've basically run underground and hidden, giving up on retaking the surface for men, and are trying to replace men and animals with synthetics, for god-knows-what reason. They've got some god complex, but they're just raiders in reality, pretty much like the super-rich in the real world.
The railroad disgust me. They are fanatics that care only for "freeing" the synths, and after they've done so, they take no responsibility for the actions of those synths that they've let loose, such as the raider chief at Libertalia. They think they're doing good, but even when that "good" gets people murdered and robbed, they refuse to see it. Everyone feels bad about the Synths, they seem very human, but the synth in charge of Arcadia, when left on his own, turned to murdering and replacing humans "for the greater good" just like his Institute masters had been doing. It looks like that idea, that murder is fine if you use it to control people for their own good, is inherent in their DNA...just like it was inherent in your son, whose DNA helped create them.
The Brotherhood is also fanatical, and cannot see that it would be impossible to control technology, as humans regain their position in the world. But they, at least, will fight the results of that technology getting out of hand, and try to destroy those that are harming people and settlements. When you get in trouble with mutants or raiders or synths, you know exactly who the Brotherhood will be fighting, and they won't harm you as long as you haven't become a threat in their eyes, such as joining the Institute or Railroad. They have the same enemies you do, in the beginning, and even though they're stuck up snobs, when you're being overwhelmed, it's good to see them show up. They really need to learn how to keep their vertibirds out of the range of small-arms fire, though (where do they get them all?).
Yes, the Brotherhood is authoritarian, and yes, they eventually ask you to help them levy taxes, but they do fight the bad guys, and they patrol the roads. The worst thing about them is they hate non-feral ghouls, which are really just humans with a disability (or super-powers, whatever).
Still, with a bunch of bad choices, Minutemen are the best, Brotherhood next, with the Railroad being, perhaps, a necessary evil, and the Institute a BAD choice (hated it when I joined them, ended up not even finishing the playthrough).

[The Inept European]

Totally agree with that. Well put.

[Jouni]

Institute + Minutemen

Railroad is a messed up organization which claims to save synths but in reality they just mindwipe almost all of them(mindwipe = death of person). They save the body and kill the person when the person is exactly what they should be saving. Everyone is telling the synths that it's better that they forget everything and the recently escaped synths are too inexperienced to say no.

Brotherhood of Steel in its current state is harmful for humanity's recovery. They confiscate all technological knowledge they can find, wipe hard-drives before they leave and then don't even use most of it for anything. They have also no problems with confiscating crucial stuff from others by force like the reactor from River City for their airship.

Institute has lots of problems but those are mostly caused by a few rotten leaders. Father especially. Most people in the Institute know almost nothing about what happens above the ground or in some restricted parts of the Institute since the few rotten leaders prefer to not tell others what they don't "need to know". The speech you can make in the end is clearly supposed to mean that you can change Institute by some amount in the future. As long as you can convince them to call off the plan to replace older models synths with gen 3s then you should do fine. If not then have fun when those synths realize that they don't need to keep pretending to be mindless robots anymore.

[fauxpas]

Just a minor nitpick about ghouls, per Beth's "evolving" cannon, it's now lore that every last ghoul is a ticking timebomb that will, perhaps with no warning, go feral and attempt to eat thier neighbors' brains. So the BoS' stance on them isn't really that unreasonable.

[Jouni]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Just a minor nitpick about ghouls, per Beth's "evolving" cannon, it's now lore that every last ghoul is a ticking timebomb that will, perhaps with no warning, go feral and attempt to eat thier neighbors' brains. So the BoS' stance on them isn't really that unreasonable.

Going feral doesn't seem to happen suddenly. In Nuka World the ghouls that went feral lost their mind over time.

[Spall]

Maxson is the most compelling, and the brotherhood are the most forward thinking of all of the factions. The Minutemen are useless and the Institute randomly decided to kidnap your son and seem to be massive antagonists to everyone in the commonwealth. The railroad just perpetuate the cycle of the institute.

The Brotherhood actively want to see the old world return and they take their steps to achieving it, even if there are some grey areas of the morality. Maxson seems to have incredible zeal and stands by the brotherhood's actions. Yes he does disregard the good Synthetics and Ghouls, but he wants the best for everyone.

In all honesty I'd like to get all the factions together, but the Institute has to be the worst of all of them, and the Brotherhood the best.

[red255]

Sigh.

So we have 4 factions mentioned.

Institute is listed as a boogey man of the commonwealth. went there and was disappointed that they do in fact kidnap commonwealth people replace them with synths, experiment on their prisoners and turn them into super mutants for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles. moustache twirling evil.

Kill.

we have the railroad, who are the institute. they are just toasters lacking the capability to think for themselves. institute knows exactly where they are and what they are doing at all times but does not stop them because they serve the institute. they are not programmed to realize how the switchboard got detected. but its because the institute knows them for what they are. and they are serving its purposes.

Now we could get into a sticky wicket of if thats the case and the railroad manages to destroy the institute how does that work. and I'd have to playthru their questline to see exactly what goes on.

never been tempted to liberate toasters

Pass.

we have the minutemen, which are sort of a failsafe non-entity. just farmers of the region you can build up and eventually win with. they don't have alot of story except shoot the raiders and other villians of the wasteland.

Its not exactly picking a side, its making your own side. which is a cop out.

and Finally we have the brotherhood of steel. when you got evil scientists kidnapping civilians and preforming sick experiments on them, you don't send in toasters, you don't send in the militia, you send in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ army. the BoS is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ army, and mad scientists preforming mad experiments on civilians is basically their wet dream of a villian to face off against.

they were literally made to fight the institute. and spending 15 minutes inside the institute should be enough to determine they are evil and need to be permanently stopped.

[Bones'n'Marrow]

I side with Robert House. A man with the foresight to intercept a series of nukes before they strike his city in a light show that could be seen in Mexico, and all this without his defenses even complete? A man with a plan for actual societal development not based in a philosophical dead end, but rather by re-starting economies and high tech sectors, all with the goal of expanding humanity int...

Oh, wait, he's not in 4? Bother, that's right.

Well then. For all its technology, the institute lacks the capacity to reignite civilization. It spends the bulk of its efforts fabricating a near-human life form, and then, depending on your viewpoint, either enslaving said life form, or failing utterly at controlling it. If the former is true, then they are marching backwards on a societal level. If the latter is true, then they completely justify the Brotherhood's position in wiping them out, before there's a master/super mutant army equivalent.

The Railroad is a one-issue power. A small group of talented individuals who's entire existence depends on the status of Synths. So, what happens when the Institute is gone? What happens when the synths are free? Safe? Do they continue to justify their actions with an ever-expanding definition of what "safe" is for synths? They don't have any real interest in restoring civilization, just making sure their particular interests are protected.

The Brotherhood has a stance based on historical precedent- nuclear apocalypse, F.E.V., super mutant armies, ruins riddled with ghouls and other horrors. All of these are deep threats to any emerging society. The issue is, the Brotherhood is heavily, tightly structured, and just as vulnerable to corruption as any other faction. It's a "who watches the watchers" situation. It is... overall good for humanity they exist, but they shouldn't be lording over society.

This leaves the minutemen, who are rebuilding abandoned, nearly wiped out settlements, establishing trade, and weaving together the fabric of humanity into more than a bunch of raiders and thieves ripping one another to pieces while the institute keeps everyone in the dust. The Minutemen, decentralized, and powered by the cooperation and will of its component settlements. Certainly, being made of humanity, it is as subject to corrupt individuals as anything else, but it is inherently more resistant to it on a large scale, as it is made of so many parts held together by belief and confidence, rather than fear and power.

I will go with the last then.

[Michel deFarmer]

Chose BOS in my long gone original playthrough, now I'm doing the Minutemen ending, but with both the BOS and Railroad still alive (aka the "secret 5th ending").