As the title suggests what do you think about the Railroad and their goal to free the synths?

Personally I think the Railroad is a sort of successful organization in terms of secrecy and coordination but from a goals point of view they are a complete failure. I say this because the organization is "divided" were some members want to save all synths from the Gen 1 to Gen 3's while others want to save only the newer models. Basically the Railroad is in a sense "blinded" in that they think they are humans while they know they are not. What I mean by this is that by saving a Gen 1 or 2 you are basically saving a glorified Protectron, and by saving a Gen 3 you a saving a machine. Something created by humans to serve humans. An artificial Intelligence that you can even see be made in person inside the Institute.

But for those of you who agree with the Railroad and think all synths should be saved I ask you if you want to save Gen 1's and 2's why do you not save Protectrons from their duties as they are basically the same thing with a different body.

But for those of you who choose to only save Gen 3's would you save President Eden a Intelligent ZAX AI if you could somehow transfer him into a robotic body? A ZAX AI that created President Eden based on historic data files? A ZAX AI who planned to infect the water supply and commit a genocide on the entire Capital Wasteland minus the Vaults? If you encountered this ZAX as and had the chance to do it would you? You wouldn't know what he planned to do and how he viewed the surface population. This is similar to how the railroad does memory wipes and then they can create their memory based on what they got. They can for example become raiders as seen in one of the quests if you follow the Institute. A synth has become the Raider Leader for Libertalia.

Though this is just my opinion on the Railroad and what I think about them saving synths.

If you find any errors please expose me so I can fix them to make my suggestion a much better and hopefully more understandable one. Thanks for Reading and I hope to see your opinions.

YES! I love the Railroad because imo they are the only (mostly) clear-headed and logical faction in Fallout 4. I love their secrecy, their questline, their armour and always use their companion, Deacon. They are basically trying to have the best of both worlds in a way, stop new synth life by destroying the Institute but at the same time they have care and compassion for the synths that have already been created.

Either way, the Railroad ending, like the Minutemen, is ALWAYS good. The synths are set free and the synth problem is no longer present since the Institute has been destroyed and even if the synths are not sentient, no more are being manufactured and therefore synths won't do the Institute's bidding no longer. There is no need to commit mass genocide or enslave them.

I only believe Gen 3 synths and the prototypes like Nick Valentine and DIMA should be saved though, as canonically the rest are just basically mindless robot zombies.

I think that the Railroad in its entirety is a joke. They may not see robots/synths as tools to benefit humanity like pre-war minds might, but the idea of liberating robots from people who use them for their designated purpose just seems dumb.

If I did like the Railroad then I would most likely go with saving synths that acted like or had the personality of a human. I would feel the satisfaction of saving someone/something if I helped the synth humans.

@Corvo That's a very unique way to look at it. Though as you stated they being the most clear-headed and logical faction in Fallout 4 is false as they want to help synths and not people. To them the inhabitants of the Commonwealth are seen mostly as a inconvenience due to their fear and hate of synths. Really by destroying the Institute you are committing Genocide. You are killing a large amount of men, women, and children to save an Artificial Intelligence. But also destroying one of the largest last known "deposits" or collections of pre-war information to again save an Artificial Intelligence. Also I cannot call the destruction of man made machines a genocide. Like destroying a I phone. An I phone contains Siri which is a AI. So by destroying these phones you are removing that AI from exsistance. Do you see that as a Genocide? I will leave the genocide at that though and let you decide on it. But just a little thing to add how do you make a computer a slave? How does a non living, robot become a slave?

@ICEBIRD112 Yeah I have to agree with you on that one. The Railroad and their goals are a complete joke with them only having somewhat success in their ability to mimic Fallout's DIA with them always being in the know, having all these safe houses, code names, etc.... Also like you said in your response is like exactly what i'm trying to say. To free a Artificial Intelligence or as the railroad says "Liberate" them from their one and only purpose is just not only misguided but ridiculous.

@MrEggs0925 Synths ARE people. Synths may be controlled by the programming of the Institute but that is not something we haven't seen in real life. Do Russian sleeper agents and Nazi brainwashing ring a bell to you? They may be man-made, but they are made from the same flesh that we all have. If they weren't sentient, why would despite all the efforts of the Institute, would they escape and seek civilisation among humans? An iPhone has no free will, so synths are nothing like an iPhone.

The part about Institute being destroyed as genocide is not true as you can issue the evacuation with ALL endings even the Brotherhood ending.

If say you were part of another race, species even, and you had been branded "AI" or "Robot" and you knew you had free will to live, breathe, make decisions and love, would you feel terrible if someone used you to serve them? That is what the Institute does to their creations, and they know they are sentient. An Institute scientist is even a covert agent for the Railroad and Father knows that the synths are sentient. Why else would he give you synth Shaun? Synths are slaves to the Institute.

"Self Determination IS NOT a malfunction".

EDIT: Also, I think it goes without saying that factions have their main goals. Like the Minutemen have their goal of rescuing settlers to join their cause, the Railroad liberate synths. They help human slaves if they can but they have their main goal which they place first. Nothing evil there.

@Corvo Synthetics are not human. Sure you may be able to make someone extremely loyal to a cause or government or change their opinion and thoughts but you could never just sit down, turn on a computer, and make some code for a robot. Even today in the robotics/ AI world you see these mishaps occur with robots doing something that wasn't planned or expected. Gen 3 synths were also made to be like a human, mimic their behavior and fit in. Another note would be that a Artificial Intelligence or Intelligent agent is a device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. That is why it is doing what is doing as seen in certain quests and mini random events were synths are made to be very convincing and take the place of that person. In a random event you can see a synth and a man with the synth at gun point. They both look the same, talk the same, wear the same thing but one is fake. The synth acts just like the man trying to do whatever it has to do to be successful. Obviously when you try to make something that mimics a human with free will and thought things like this can and most likely will occur. To fix these side effects reboots they could be reset. Just like in a computer if something is not working you could always do a total reset to fix the problem and get rid of the error.

Appolgizes for that very childish and poorly thought comparison between Siri and Synths as I should of taken more time to see this out. Also again apologizes for the evacuation of the Institute thing I did not know about this. Further more thank you for bringing this to my attention to help me refer from making the same mistake in the future. Though a little thing to add would be how many have to die to liberate the synths and meet your goal? How many people are killed? How much data is lost? and how many synths that you are trying to save killed? Just to save whats left and displace the families, children and people of the Institute.

What would you brand it then? A human being? A person? no a Artificial Intelligence because again that is the proper way to brand it and identify it. Something man made and not neutrally occurring would be a species? Race? No something man made and naturally non occurring would be something artificial. It is called Intelligent because of its coding and how it is to react in a way that would benefit them and make that AI successful. Otherwise known as a Intelligent agent.

Also I am not claiming that the Railroad are evil bad people. What I am saying is that they have been misguided and are trying to fix something that in reality needs no fixing.

Thanks for the great, thoughtful response to furthermore support your opinion! I really enjoy having these conversations with people about an amazing game!

@Corvo Synths ARE not people. Synths are robots specially designed/programmed/made to look and act like humans on behalf of their creators, the Institute. Just because Synths have the ability to think and act freely does not give them the dignity that a human is deserving of. Those robots  are in fact still machines with a programmed personality. The Synths are not "slaves to the Institute", they are their creations doing their designated purpose of serving their creators. The analogy you use of being a different race or species and being branded AI while forced to serve your creators is not the situation the synths are in. Synths are branded AI and robot because that is what they are, manufactured robots with a designated purpose. "Self determination is not a malfunction." I can agree with you here, that Synths long to be free from the Institute, but Synths think and act like humans while not realizing that that is not what they are.

The factions with their different main goals seems hardly relevant with the discussion about the Railroad and their goals. Every faction has a main goal, but it is not necessary to include factions like the Minutemen who have polar opposite objectives to what the Railroad is trying to accomplish. The Railroad may have good intentions for their beliefs, but they do not recognize that human life is more important that a robot life. Having a clear mind that helping humans in need of help is better than helping runaway Synths, it can be seen that The Railroad and its goals does not make a whole lot of logical sense.

I believe that the Railroad has bright and nice beliefs, but are misguided and executed poorly. Instead of negotiating with a highly and sophisticated and intelligent faction, they decide to make some very smart and dangerous people very nervous. (This includes BOS and The Institute) Due to their ignorance, they only make tensions between warring factions rise, by sitting in the shadows no-where to be seen, they make their enemy more cautious which can cause a number of disasters such as; Killing innocent civilians, even more destruction of property, development and collecting of deadly chemical warfare agents such as: SM-5 cloud and the Beauveria Mordicana fungal virus, etc. One of the big problems with the Railroad is that after they free a Synth and wipe it's memory when they find out they're a Synth they will panic, everything that they thought they were and did was false, putting them in a state of panic and rage would could most likely cause physical violence . Their whole goal of freeing Synths is fruitless except for making themselves feel better about themselves in the end of the day, but all it ends doing is sparking a long and violent war.

@Aidan_r_m Never really thought about it this way. Making the enemy more cautious and paranoid which leads to property damage, Unnecessary Casualties and the collection and possible deployment of deadly weapons like toxic gases. Very nice way to look at it and I have to agree with you on this. I also have been saying something like this where wiping a synths mind can lead to problems in the long run though what I said was a little different then what you said, still non the less valid. I think there are a couple of examples of this in game though I do not remember them or have never seen them.

I think they are a well thought out three dimensional faction with both positive and negative connotations. Much like real life factions.

On synths though regarding the raider identities and negative actions is well, they like us have the same capacity of horrid acts, as much as acts of kindness. All synths (at least those that are not mind wiped) have unique personalities whether they be programmed or not. It can also be argued that we are not so different as we are technically "programmed" by societal factors and role models in our lives. This is a point hinted at in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode  
"A Sunny Day in the Void" were Wac is conversing with his commanding officer who explains how his orders work to the droid. The droid cuts in, in response to him dictating that droids and organics were different. "That's programming."

Also it seems very plausible that the institute could re-program a normal human being's inner workings for example Kellogg. Although the cybernetic project was scrapped mostly due to it's strides towards synth technology. I however would't doubt it if they attempted to create a failsafe incase Kellogg went rogue.

 Technically speaking our brains are just wet computers with electrical pulses and such. So the line between human and synth can get hazy in that perception. The line is very clouded in grey areas as every topic like this, "Are organics and AI's so different?" As to your usual robots like Mr. Handys. They have been known to develop personalities, Curie and Codsworth for example. If something is able to question it's existence it has reached sapience it has reached freewill. Or so it is a given in many a sci-fi series.

 Nevertheless I find these kind of conversations interesting I have had this same one many times, yet still find it fascinating. It seems like people are mostly divided on this particular topic. as different series present AI intelligence with different light Blade Runner, iRobot, and so on all have different approaches to it. The difference in Mass Effect and Fallout however you are given the choice to decide what you believe for yourself, and it differs what choices you make.

@MrEggs0925 You are right, Gen 3 synths are made to blend in to communities for the Institute, but they are definitely not robots or AI. They are artificial, but are also sentient. The Institute want to replace people with synths to spy on rival factions and destroy their enemies while synths want to replace humans because they have been oppressed for so long inside the Institute. This is a smart move by the Institute. The synth plays along and "becomes" the human it is trying to emulate because it knows by it's short time out in the Commonwealth that there is a strong racism towards their kind, so their only hope would be to carry on the act hoping somebody would think they are human. It is a selfish act, but desperate times call for desperate measures and the synth does what a human would do if they had been oppressed for so long. Also, the synth knows that if it fails it's task for the Institute, it will be reset which is basically death itself. You are wiping their memories, life, emotions away. Total annihilation.

I would brand it a human being with thoughts, feelings, emotions. Sentience is the ability to feel, experience subjectively. They are self-aware and have complex emotions as the "Blind Betrayal" quest shows. Danse, a synth shows emotional despair and he feels as if he has betrayed his brothers. He even asks you to kill him despite knowing after his death he will be regarded as nothing more than an Institute tool, despite helping the Brotherhood. Danse also shows emotion when you reach high affinity with him, as he tells you how he felt sorrow for the death of his best friend, Cutler and his squad leader Paladin Krieg. Also, notice a link? Both Danse and Glory sacrifice themselves for HUMANS. Sturges and Nick Valentine help you recover your son. Without Nick, you wouldn't even have been able to locate Shaun and the Institute. They do more good for humans than bad.

So if you doubt a person's sentience, it gives you the right to enslave them or kill them outright? I don't think so. Why is it so hard for you to see that there might come a time where man develops sentient life like itself? But because of man's folly, it will repeat the same mistakes.

@ICEBIRD112 You know who else deem their servants as less-human than themselves? Slave owners. They tell themselves that their creation or slave is not human or less so than themselves to ignore the guilt and give themselves sleep at night. Throughout history the men in charge have always dehumanized the enemy so that their soldiers can have an easier time killing them. As humans, we have empathy for one another and so do synths. Do robots have empathy? Does AI have empathy? What about a T-800?

You say "synths think and act like humans while not realizing that that is not what they are." So they think and act like humans but are still denied human rights? Am I not seeing something here?Aren't you a creation of your parents and your ancestors? Does that mean you are their slave?

The arrogance of man has been what has prevented us from progressing faster. Because one man thought he was better and "more human" than another we saw events like the Holocaust. We must trust one's sentience until proven otherwise as only the immoral think that one is guilty until proven innocent.

I think the railroad have a lot of resources and potential and they're sort of wasting it when they could be trying to make a better wasteland, but they're a massive metaphor/ comparison to slavery, personally I don't tango with them I normally go BoS cos thats my kind of aesthetic. They have an alright cause but I think they could be spending their time doing something better.

@Corvo Slave owners and robot owners are not in the same basket at all. One owner owns a sentient human being who has dignity and the right to freedom, they cannot see past their arrogance to realize what they own is equal to them. The other owner owns something that was MAN-MADE, a creation, a robot with an intended purpose to serve a person or group of people. How can a scientist who manufactured a robot with an intended purpose to serve him sleep with guilt? It does not make any sense because that does not happen. It is true that men in power have dehumanized the enemy so as to kill them off easier, but how can one dehumanize a robot that is not equal to a human?

Do robots, AI, or a terminator have empathy for one another? In Fallout, I can assume that they do, but they should not. Humans venture into uncharted waters when they tamper with giving robots feelings and free will. [Side note, a terminator does not have empathy with fellow robots or humans, they have one goal to kill their designated target(s). Terminators were developed by humans who gave AI the ability of free will, they tampered with power that should have been left alone and all of humanity suffered because of it.] Synths may think and act to what they want, but they will always remain the soulless chunks of metal.

You may have shown me an error in my argument here. Synths think and act like humans and are still denied human rights? Yes, Synths should be denied rights as they are still man made robots, but they should be shown what they are, a robot. I think your seeing something different/distorted, Humans are not a creation of their parents, they are individuals with their own uniqueness with free will and dignity. Humans am not a "creation" manufactured in some lab with a designated purpose. No child is a slave to their parents, there is a mutual love between parents and children in a family that bonds one another, slavery in a family would be like abusive parents making their kid work for long periods of time and treating them wrong.

It's less arrogance of man and rather conflicting interests and desire for control that has caused disputes and slowing down of progressing to new heights. Humans are "more human" than manufactured robots. Do not compare the situation regarding Synths and the Railroad to the Holocaust, to be brief, the Fallout circumstance has a group of people trying to help robots escape their makers while the real life circumstance has a more disastrous event involving one group of humans subduing another while both were equal in dignity. One's own sentience is not what should be trusted because own judgement is not always the best course of action. I am not to familiar with this phrase, "the immoral think that one is guilty until proven innocent". I do not think that corrupt people think lowly of everyone, but themselves until evidence of others good nature comes up.

Back to discussion, Synths are not human and should never have been given free will as such things can be very dangerous. Robots that have feelings, free will, and the ability to think in the end are not equal to humans as they are man made creations, Humans have dignity its inherent in law and in moral code.

@ICEBIRD112 Once again you can't see the possibility of a synth being sentient. Humans can be named as inhuman if the culture they live in says so. What if man creates himself? What about clones that have emotions? They are creations of man but by that logic they have to serve him despite having his emotions, having his personality, his experiences, his love for his friends, his family. Their lives must be terrible. Could you say that that clone does not deserve the same rights as you because it was made in a laboratory rather than being born in childbirth? Would you not feel guilty for subjecting a living being let alone a sentient life to be oppressed and killed?

I can agree with you on the uncharted waters part, as I do believe that the Institute are quite foolish for creating life they do not know well.

Again, how can you know they are simply robots without seeing how they view the world, how they experience memories they will look back at, their relationships with their wives, husbands, children, parents and most of all how they FEEL. How can you say that synths can not feel angry, sad or annoyed that you questioned their sentience or feeling angry at the Institute for creating them to live in a world that hates them for no good reason? You cannot choose how, where or who you are born as, but it seems like synths are born into a world of hatred for them.

Also, how would giving synths free will be dangerous? A murderer will not stop murdering if you take away it's freedom to murder, a thief will not stop stealing if you take away their freedom to steal just like a synth will not stop having emotions if you take away it's freedom to have emotions. It goes to show it's inside their instinctual nature to HAVE EMOTIONS. After the Institute has been destroyed the programming is gone so these synths can trust themselves not to do the Institute's bidding.

Anyway, the RR ending yields the less risk out of most of them ironically as the BoS committing genocide and then regretting it years later would harm the Commonwealth's view of them and the Institute oppressing the synths until they rise up against them and take over would definitely harm the Institute. The Railroad ending frees the synths but after that the synths have no programming left from the Institute, nobody fears replacements and the Institute anymore so there would be less discrimination against synths.

@Corvo You continue to call this machine a living being when in reality it is not. Sure it may feel all these things we feel but in the end it was programmed to "feel" these. All of these emotions are there because of it being an Intelligent agent which is a device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. Do you know why it is a Intelligent Agent, because a human programmed it. You fail to realize that this is a Artificial Intelligence. Artificial because it is man made and non naturally occurring and only intelligent because it was programmed to be by a human. Glory did not die for humans. She died for a cause she believed in which was the Railroad and the only reason she did that was because they were helping synths. If that organization was not helping synths she most likely would of never done that. Danse is only doing what it is doing because of what they have done for it. As you said in your response Synths are trying to fit in with people so they are not opposed and now that you have gone all this way to tracking him down just to talk shows that you really cared about him. Instead of trying to get you killed it decided to sacrifice itself for the person who had done so much for him. Touching is it not? But its a shame as you stated it was "a smart move by the Institute" suggesting that the Institute did this on purpose. The only way to get a Robot to do this would be to program it. How do you program a living being with binary coding? That is only possible by creating it. But by creating it that thing is artificial and to make it intelligent and capable of operations you need to program it. But programming it requires a person to do that making that artificial and man made. That is how it is not a person and that is how it is Artificial Intelligence. Now going on to Nick Valentine he is a prototype as we can all agree. He had real thoughts from a long dead Boston Police Officer. Obviously as you can see Gen 3 synths are facing the problem of thinking they are alive so how hard would it be for a Prototype who had escaped during  testing to experience feeling like this? I would say the same for Sturges as I said for Danse as you saved it and its friends from death and even gave them a place to live. Of course after what you did for it and its group Sturges will of course gladly help you. If it was to say No that would be seen as very rude and very ungrateful. The time may come when man develops sentient life but synths are not that. Life by definition is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. Synths may have somewhat organic bodies but are controlled by a chip, Synths can not grow by means of evolution where they evolve and change biologically to adapt to environments, and lastly can not reproduce human off spring. Failing one or more of those points mentioned in the definition means that they do not have or contain life.

Out of all the factions in FO4 I thought they were the coolest concept, but on the contrary they were also the dumbest. Seriously the password to their ultra secret underground hideout was the name of their faction.

Plus risking your life to save machines is stupid. Plus this so called "slavery" of the synths is garbage. The most I've ever seen a synth with freewill be forced to do is sweep the floors.

@Jewbacca I think you may be right about the synths and their work. I actually haven't seen them do more then sweep floors and assist the doctors in the easiest tasks.

The Railroad sucks.

They plain suck, they're useless.

By far the worst spies I have ever seen, you paint a big red line directly to the front door of your final base and HQ, you have the password be the name of the organization. They're the most obvious, dimwitted, failed attempt at spies I've ever seen.

I'd side with a crippled colony of beatles over the railroad honestly. Useless.

Not to mention the fact that they only really care about synths, which means humanity is kinda left to fend for itself.

i don't think that just because they act human they should be treated like one
i mean we already have chat bots that can ass the turing test but are they sentient? no, they are just designed to seem like a real person.

I have played through their faction quests once, NEVER AGAIN.

When I was first introduced to The Railroad around my first or second playthrough, I thought they were okay. Their goal were kinda generic. Ya know, we're a group of freedom fighters, insurgents, hoping to free androids from their "evil" captives and all that.

But who cared about freeing synths around their first time playing the game? I mean, there are more important things that was going around in the game, than saving synths.

Their quest line was boring, the point of the factions is questionable, but the characters were interesting (shame though).