Why I hate the Railroad

[Cymindis]

So I joined the RR in a playthough only to find out that Desdemona is completely nuts. at one ponit I told her that some Synth lives aren't worth more than human lives, and what did she do? she kick me out of the Railroad. I tried many ways of this conversion, in the end you have to tell her that every synth life is worth more than any human life, and this is after Deacon tells her that you are the Commonwealth's biggest badass and they absolutely need your help. And Des being the genius she is never bothers trying to justify her position or allow you to retort. You never get to ask her why she thinks that saving a handful of Synths, most of whom are a waste of space, and my time, is worth risking the lives of hundreds of real humans and probably as many already freed Synths who try to fit in. oh and the fact that most of them are loyal to the Institute.

And then, on top of all of that I discover that the Railroad is COMPLETELY POINTLESSNESS. every time we "freed" a synth, its mind is wiped, meaning that everything which made the synth a "person" as she believes them to be is destroyed. So she just destroyed everything she was working for. All she is left with is slab of human meat if even that, with a computer brain. That was definitely worth all the lives that had to be risked in order to get the meat slab that far. and if that wasn't enough, the Railroad then loads new fake memories into the "freed" synth, the entire point of freeing the Synth was that its "mind" was sentient. If they aren't saving the mind then there is no point because without the mind it is just a slab of meat. they are not freeing this poor unfortunate souls, they are brainwashing them to be loyal to the railroad. It's a power grab.

So in the end the Railroad is a pack of fools lead by a crazy woman, so I did what I had to do and joined the brotherhood, and destroyed both the Railroad, and the Institute. AD VICTORIAM!

[Jeff Kaos]

Des IS a synth.

Maybe?

[Vinnie Mack]

Originally posted by Jeff Kaos:

Des IS a synth.

Maybe?

i am not sure. It would be an interesting twist. I know that a couple in the underground are. Deacon is i believe (if that is his name).

[Cymindis]

Can we just agree to overthrown Des and replace her with Deacon or Glory the two RR character i liked?

[Baragon-Kun]

Originally posted by Vinnie Mack:

Originally posted by TJ the HedgeScout:

Yes... ^^;
And really it's optional? Alright then. Didn't know...

i can't remember if it is optional. It was one hell of a fight, though. And he was a bad ass raider too. I used the syth raider as reasoning for my character to side against the railroad. I figured this would convince her that the railroad messing with synths was dangerous to the commonwealth.

Like the holotape in my link says, mind wipe is entirely optional:

"H2-22:
The doctor said I could say goodbye. I've decided... to have the operation. I know I'll lose all my memories. I don't want you to be sad. I... I have nightmares. And this world, the SRB, being hunted. I just can't handle it. Everyone says I'll be safer if I start a new life. I know I'll be happier. My only regret is I'll forget... Old Man Stockton. High Rise. And you. Looking back, there's only fear. Worse than fear. But I will miss my new... friends.
Doctor Amari: It's time, H2.
H2-22: I... uh... Thanks."

And just taking that one raider as a reason to think of all synths as bad is a pretty big stretch. Libertalia is full of raiders, and only one of them is a synth. Ive never found synth components on other raiders or gunners or triggermen either. All of these people are just plain old humans.
Using your reasoning, would that not make humans much more dangerous than synths?

Why judge all synths because of one rotten egg?

[Jo]

I also think the Railroad are a bunch of minor whack-jobs however I love Deacon. On my first playthrough I sided with BoS and destroyed them, I hadn't even used Deacon as a companion but felt sad and guilty at seeing his dead body as I felt I hadn't given him a chance. On second playthrough I have been doing a lot of their quests and maxed out affinity with Deacon however aside from getting Tinker Tom to analyse the chip courser, I doubt I'm going to continue supporting that faction much longer. Even Deacon has doubts about them, I just don't want to have to kill him again.

[Vinnie Mack]

^^my character, not me. Personally, as an individualist, to consider a person based on their group is offensive. As i often say in jest, i hate all groups. Groups usual have the goal of making you conform so that the group can use you to their liking. No. An individual is always more important than the group they happen to belong to, unless that group is rapist or mass murderer.

[Malthus]

Originally posted by KinskiKl4us:

Originally posted by XBoom:

Dude, did you play the game and did not skip the text?

The point of the RR is wanting to free them since they think they are human and on the same level, why would even thing she would let you in if you were not the same mindset that is the RR itself?

Why would they want to go through the whole freeing thing if they they are sub-human?

"And then, on top of all of that I discover that the Railroad is COMPLETELY POINTLESSNESS. every time we "freed" a synth, its mind is wiped, meaning that everything which made the synth a "person" as she believes them to be is destroyed."

Hold your horses.

First, they can pick if they want. And it not mind wipe, but a memory wipe.

Please don't tell me that you think humans are humans just beucase memories.

He probably also thinks that a human that loses his memory because of an accident is also a slab of meat like he accuses the mind wiped synths to be, and not a person anymore.

Sorry to tell you, but your memories define you as a person. Based on your memories (which includes knowledge not only personality) you decide how to act and react to the world around you. Loose them and you are not the same person anymore. I do not say, that someone who looses his memories is a slab of meat. But I say that the person who lost his memories died in the process and is replaced by a new one. And I wouldn´t call it exactly "good" to kill one person to build up a new one with fake memories.

[Vinnie Mack]

totally, Malthus. Our memories do define a lot of who we are. The persistence of memory is what keeps our personality constant. This whole thing could be considered a type of assisted suicide.

[TJ the HedgeScout]

But thinking about the synth raider, how did he end up as a raider anyways? Did the RR give him a bad set of memories? Did he choose to become a raider? Did raiders kidnap him and brainwash him?

[Vinnie Mack]

i don't know. Which is best. We can make up our own story for how the synth became a raider, and such a powerful one at that.

[presto668]

All the factions except maybe the Minutemen are terrible.

[SpawnCap]

Desdemona is no more crazy than Father or leader of the Brotherhood. They are all nuts.

[rexpiscator]

I felt the Railroad was just misguided, fools almost; we've reached 'terms' at this point. They don't bug me and I don't go near them. I thought they might be kinda nicer, but I finished the Libertalia quest...but I did kill that Synth later, though. Never liked him.

[Shrinex]

I thought there was a story about the synth raider that he and his men use to be part of the min men after a few bad deals with traders they strated to attack the traders becuase they were hungery.

[Shahadem]

Cymindis I could not agree with you more. The Railroad are a bunch of dum dum heads. Synths are not humans. They are soulless machines running computer code written by a human which makes calls to stolen human memories in order to simulate a response that will fool a human. Any synth can be completely duplicated, replaced, in whole and in part. The synths don't have to work for their memories, they don't grow up and earn the memories, they are simply given some memories stolen from real people and then the computer program makes them say they are human even though they aren't.

And what exactly is the Railroad trying to save? The Synth's body? That's pointless. A synth is just a computer inside a lump of cloned Shaun flesh. You even see the synth body being assembled as a lump of flesh. If that lump of flesh was taken from the Institute the moment it was finished being assembled, no one would have any doubts that it was just a useless lump of flesh. The memories of the Synth? Those memories are stolen from a real human, they aren't native to the Synth. Those same memories could be placed inside 20 synth bodies and all 20 synths would think they are the person who the memories belong to and you would not be able to know that the synths were all different if you met them individually and had not been told how the synths were created. And the Railroad wipes the memories of the synths so there is nothing left but a lump of meat anyways. What is the point of saving a mindless lump of meat? That's totally worth all the lives and resources expended to save it.

Well I mean these are all NPCs so none of them are real anyways. Which is actually a very relevant point. You treat synths the same as humans because neither synth nor human actually exists and they are therefore wholey indistinguishable due to their being nothing more than a voice recording slapped onto a computer model in order to create an emotional response from the player. It is much easier to say that Synths are real when playing a computer game where neither synths nor humans are real than it would be in real life where you are facing actual scarcity and have to choose whether the synth or human gets to eat during a year when your crops failed.