So what side did you choose if you already did? I didn't expect from myself to pick the Institute after all those bad things we were fed about them by the entire Boston, but I'm not regretting my choice. Embrace progress, feel the power of science and praise the true hope and future of a new mankind era in a beautiful scifi wrapper! I'm definitely going to play as an advanced synth from the Institute on my second playthrough (because there will be mods for it, no doubt). Can't wait for GECK to be released!


EDIT:

added a spoiler warning in your title just to warn people who haven't beaten the game yet.

FoVet20

I joined the brotherhood. I couldn't forgive the institute for everything it did. I understood that the institute would be better for the human life in the future but at this point in time and with these situations they are doing more harm than good. I see the brotherhood as a necessary way to keep order it hurt to kill the synths that were innocent but I understand all of them and the mutants must be destroyed. Once we get them out of the commonwealth every waste lander would not have to worry about advanced technology or strong creatures. The only thing left would be raiders and factions fighting for control. However with a power like the brotherhood and the rules and laws of their beliefs the wasteland can strive towards normalism again. All mutants and synths being destroyed only having to worry about each other once more maybe another battle in the future. I just never liked working for the future, I always wanted to fix the now its not fair to the others why let them suffer when something can be done. Even if it does get to the point of the brotherhood being the leader of the waste entirely there will always be an enemy to fight. The brotherhood will never die and neither will war. War, war never changes.

I joined the brotherhood, and I regret it. They are a much more neutral/evil karma group in this game, and put me off when I am told to complete tasks. They take and do whatever they want, which is not cool. However, having a badass suit of power armor at my disposal is handy, and paladin danse is a very effective companion.

I honestly wish I had waited and seen what the institute side looks like. For now, Ill stick to the brotherhood for this playthrough.

Mr_Lowrie wrote:

I joined the brotherhood. I couldn't forgive the institute for everything it did. ... I just never liked working for the future, I always wanted to fix the now its not fair to the others why let them suffer when something can be done.

Well said, and that pretty much sums up me ^ Did you join the brotherhood, or did you infiltrate the Institute and defect like I did, a double agent? With these games, they're just games. There isn't really a "future", there's only what minimal impact your actions have on the present game world. Thus I never buy the enemy's "we're doing this for you" bullshit. Realistically you take a wrong turn and you could be dead in the wasteland, so life-expectancy and seeing the Institute's fruits of labor in the future isn't really probable.
That being said, I guess my real reasoning was... Shaun might have been my son. But that means nothing when you haven't seen him for so long, didn't watch him grow up, shape himself into a person. I played his game of "save humanity" long enough to do all the BoS infiltration missions.
Second playthrough I'll definitely join them. I mean, I did eventually join the Legion in FNV, maybe just to get their achievements, but still.

Also the BoS have a goddamned blimp with vertibird bays, power armour, laser gatlings. Personal preference of 'kickass' over 'clean technology', sorry Institute

Oh, and with an alternate save I did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3O4qb5Tw8
Someone may or may not have been caught in the chem-induced rage slaughter crossfire.

@"Furente7" I love that you feel the same way, I need to slaughter the institute as you did.

One of the main reasons I've picked the institute is the backwardness of people not only in the commonwealth, but also in the capital wasteland and other places. It's been 2 centuries yet people do nothing to improve their life and to stop killing each other. With the protagonist in charge of the Institute, it's possible to make synths work for the sake of humans: to build, to improve and to grant everyone a pre-war level of comfort, leaving only the cruel human nature as an eternal source of violence. With some time, it's possible to build a totalitarian state which will certainly evolve into a democratic one within a century if the citizens stabilize in a new society. I've destroyed the BoS because they are radicals who mask their hunger for battles and weapons as a sacred mission, it always has been the same in the series. Their leader reminds me of a barbarian rather than a man who knows what's better for the humans. Hell, even his own men don't take him seriously. Nick was the synth who showed me that synths can be better humans than actual humans. Synths can become good workers with identity and persona who will be a good addition to humans (hello, Ghost In the Shell). Also, when people say that there's no future and you shouldn't roleplay, they are terribly wrong. People have free will to do what they want with their games, especially if this game considered being RPG. That's the point of RPG - to think about things which stay beyond the borders. I really enjoy the philosophy of fictional worlds, especially when we are granted to have a choice. I really like to apply fictional rules and scenarios to our own real world, to compare them and to think about the most reasonable results.  
But of course it's only my opinion. Nobody needs to agree or disagree with me. As these thoughts will vanish in time, just like the lives of people who sacrificed themselves in the war of redefined mankind.

What!? You can play as a Synth??? I'd love that. I currently have two characters going because I found myself cheating the first time around and felt guilty 30+ hours in. I joined the Minutemen and now on my new character I joined the BOS because I felt like they were the better choice, especially after a certain cutscene.

How many factions are available? I wouldn't even mind a Raider faction, but Synth would beat all.

Is there a way to choose without any faction hating me? I want to be able to do their quests after choosing which faction i'll be staying with. All of them have things I like and I don't want any of them hating me.

By the way, once you finish the game, can you still keep playing or is it like New Vegas where you have to load a previous save before the last battle? And if you don't, should I just make a save, finish the game and once that's done, reload that save and keep on playing like nothing happened?

Thanks in advance.

Theres a certain point that all factions like you equally and you will have a definite choice that makes the others hate you. @mpaz96

Brotherhood or Institute all the way, they have all the cool tech, also because I never seem to like the settlers in the first place and minutemen are just warlords/gangs waiting to happen like how they originally broke up.

Pickpox111 wrote:

What!? You can play as a Synth??? I'd love that. I currently have two characters going because I found myself cheating the first time around and felt guilty 30+ hours in. I joined the Minutemen and now on my new character I joined the BOS because I felt like they were the better choice, especially after a certain cutscene.

How many factions are available? I wouldn't even mind a Raider faction, but Synth would beat all.

mpaz96 wrote:

Is there a way to choose without any faction hating me? I want to be able to do their quests after choosing which faction i'll be staying with. All of them have things I like and I don't want any of them hating me.

By the way, once you finish the game, can you still keep playing or is it like New Vegas where you have to load a previous save before the last battle? And if you don't, should I just make a save, finish the game and once that's done, reload that save and keep on playing like nothing happened?

Thanks in advance.

You don't get to play as a Synth, you just join the institute that makes synths; the Institute (surprising!)

From what I can gather so far, having played both the BoS side and the Institute's side is that all other factions don't actually matter in the main story, aside from the Railroad, which *spoiler*

Spoiler:

As for what's "right" and what's "wrong"; the main quest itself is a moral dilemma. Do you choose the faction that wants to stop technology from destroying us again, or do you choose the faction that wants to stop us destroying ourselves? There really is only the difference of opinion and preference, there is no "right" or "wrong", only what you yourself classify it as.

My personal opinion is joining the Brotherhood. After playing all Fallout games it never occurred to me that the Brotherhood wasn't just hording technology, it was keeping it away from people that might use it wrongly. Protecting us from ourselves, you might say. Since we brought on the Great War 200 years ago, and since then have gotten anything but more peaceful, I agree with this. The Institute and their Synths produce a very typical scifi scenario; a government, faction, company or whatever, decides they want to take humanity into their own hands, and that the only way to save us is to enforce peace. Peace means no wars, no hate, no stealing e.c.t. So they create Peacekeepers, in this case; the Synths. Because of the radiation above ground, they had to manufacture humanoid robots to combat the radiation and allow them to remain unexposed. The problem with every "Peacekeeper" scenario ever is that it ends in an oppressed population and a corrupt, power-hungry ruling governmental power. What makes the synths any different? Simulated emotions don't stop them from being un-phased about blowing the brains out of some poor human being who stole bread to survive.

You keep playing, and actually have additional, smaller quests to complete, for both sides. Though I haven't found the BoS quests yet, though I haven't been actively looking for them.

Railroad ending sucks. nough said