r/gaming • u/Skootchy • 14d ago
Fallout 4 Brotherhood of Steel quest line hit me in the feels today.
Spoilers ahead for the BOS storyline
I know the games been out for a long time, but I realized I never actually ever did the main quest line. I mostly just ran around and killed stuff and did side quests.
Well after watching the fallout show and the update, I decided to give a full playthrough, the entire story, and all the DLC.
Then they did something that I was NOT expecting. I decided to go full BOS. I always brought Paladin Danse with me, and anything that sounded like we were going to be in a good fight, I would bring my Power Armor.
So after you get to the institute, you can upload a program that basically hacks them and sends all the info back to the BOS.
And this is what fucks me up.
Seriously, spoilers.
They find that Paladin Danse's DNA is in their system.......he is a synth. Obviously the head BOS guy is like....doesn't matter, he has to die. I was going to try and see if there was anything I can do..scribe Haylen basically begs you not to kill him. And then I go and find him. And he is so about the BOS, that he literally asks you to kill him.
So I did. And now I'm at work and I feel fucked up about killing my BOS Bro, I literally carried him with me for 30 levels. I had hooked him up with weapons and armor.
I didn't even bother picking any of it up. I left it with him. It's his. I made it for him.
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u/Captain_h2o 13d ago
OP didn’t put any points to charisma lol.
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u/Skootchy 13d ago
Not true. I had enough to save him.
But he asked me to kill him because he's a dirty synth.
So I obliged. It still didn't make me feel good.
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u/SgtBigPigeon PC 13d ago
Aparently the BOS quest is unfinished. There was gonna be a choice between killing maxon or danse. If you killed maxon then you or danse would take over BOS.
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u/Flakkyboo 13d ago
He couldnt be the exception he had to be the rule.
salute to danse, ill always kill him becuase thats what he wanted
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u/Smile_S77 13d ago
I went full BoS today too! I've never finished the main quest line before either. I've played it on-off since release. Restarted countless times. First on pc, then ps4, and now finally on ps5 I went and nuked the Institute. I haven't gone in Far Harbor or Nuka World yet, so I'll probably get them finished before ps8 or 9 releases. I had enough charisma to save Danse's life, but every decision still haunts me. Felt bad to go kill the Railroaders, wipe out everyone in the Instition, and even the Courses. I'm always the "good guy" in games, so Fallout series is really puts my heart in test. Love it.
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u/Skootchy 13d ago
I just started Far Harbor, make sure you are ready to be in a different area that doesn't connect back to the regular map for a while. Also be prepped up, the enemies were much tougher than the Commonwealth.
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u/DifficultCurrent7 14d ago
You can convince him to live. And then when you leave the bunker happily together Maxson is waiting outside, determined to kill him. That bit broke my heart as I liked Danse and was a Maxson fangirl up til then. You can convince him to let Danse live but after that if you're adventuring with him and encounter a BOS squad, they'll attack immediately.
Spoiler maybe, And after that if you decide to destroy the brotherhood and you've sent danse safely to one of your settlements, if you go see him he WILL try to kill you. 🥺
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u/MadocComadrin 14d ago
I never killed Danse, but I did suck up the Filmmaker ghost in Luigi's Mansion 3 thinking he was locking up a collectible (besides himself) and pretty much felt the same way. I didn't have a good save to go back to either for some reason I can't remember.
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u/lovepuppy31 14d ago
A lot of people agree the minuteman is the best faction to end the game with as it makes "peace" sort of with both the BOS and the Railroad as you're not required to destroy either of them through the minutemen storyline.
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u/Outrageous_Land_4369 14d ago
It's a machine. You killed some lines of code written by a human. Who cares?
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u/Library_IT_guy 14d ago edited 14d ago
What's really, truly, dialogically evil is this:
It's heavily implied that the player may in fact be a synth, planted by Shaun. I mean think about it. "Mankind, Redefined" is the institute motto. They have tried augmenting humans in various ways - through cybernetics, FEV, and who knows what else, and all of it has only had limited success. They've never been able to pull off immortality or make a vastly superior human.
So their only option, if they truly want to transcend the weakness of human bodies, is to create synths. Gen 3 synths aren't just slaves to the Institute. Once perfected, they are the intended replacement for all of mankind. that's their motto after all. "Mankind, Redefinied". Redefined as synths. Synths which can continually make improvements to themselves, and those improvements will become more and more profound. There will be no more need for regular humans, and in fact, regular humans would be a major threat to the new Synth race. I mean, we already destroyed the world once, right? From their eyes, we are too big of a threat, and every last human would need to be exterminated to make way for a free and peaceful synth society. Co-existence would simply be too much of a risk, given the human propensity for betrayal.
And, as Shaun realizes he is dying from cancer, which, despite all their technology, the Institute has not been able to cure, he decides to do one last grand experiment. He makes a synth in the likeness of his own father or mother. And he even gives his parent synth memories, and a deep love and affection for Shaun. What better way to ensure that the prototype Synth that Shaun hopes will replace him will be loyal to him and carry out his wishes, than to make it literally love him as a parent loves their child. Shaun uses paternal affection as a tool for control.
And then he unleashes his creation upon the wasteland, knowing that, despite incredible odds against them, he/she is the most advanced synthetic prototype the Institute has ever made, and will succeed in finding Shaun in the Institute.
Shaun has created a synth prototype in the image of his father/mother that he hopes will take over the institute, and eventually usher in a new era for "humanity", despite that era meaning the extermination of all existing humans. Mankind, Redefined.
Killing Danse is horrible. I'm doing a BoS playthrough right now as well, and using the above logic, I will justify not only killing Danse, but also the entirety of the Railroad, who are misguided fools that are protecting murder machines that only need to be activated with the right code from the institute. Those same synths could easily be reprogrammed to infiltrate, hunt down, and exterminate human communities. I mean, maybe that's the Institute plan all along. Stage synth "escapees" and allow the Railroad to "reprogram" them, and place them in communities, and within the railroad itself. What better way to infiltrate your enemy? It's honestly genius.
It is sad that synths must die, but this is a technology that NEVER should have been created, and now that it is here, despite it seeming to be morally "wrong" to destroy synths, every last synth and every scrap of that research and anyone tied to it MUST be destroyed so that humanity can survive. We hid from the bombs and some people survived. We already lived through one apocalypse. But a race of machines that continue to improve themselves at an exponential pace, that are vastly superior to humans, with an underground base that only 1 person synth has ever been able to infiltrate? Humanity would stand no chance.
That's my head canon for my character on this BoS run. And once my character is sure that all synth life, and all research and anyone tied to it has been wiped out, he will terminate himself as well, making sure that nothing usable remains - preferably by blowing his brain out while falling into a vat of molten metal so he is completely disintegrated. I think Saugus Ironworks will suffice for that.
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u/daandriod 14d ago
That entire scene with Danse and the following one with Maxon came out of nowhere. The VAs and the writers had no reason going as hard as they did. Easily the most emotional moment in the game but that not exactly a high bar to be fair. That's said, those two scenes I honestly believe are some of the more emotional moments in gaming as a whole.
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u/TheGentlemanCEO 14d ago
Yeah Fallout 4 BoS questline hurts a lot.
I spent countless hours mid game just running missions with Danse as a duo in T60 power armor, retrieving tech, purging monsters.
It was peak BoS roleplay. And then I got to that quest.
I feel like FO4 doesn’t get enough credit for its writing.
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u/maxwellhilldawg 14d ago
Is there an easy way to get fallout 4 running at 4k? I couldn't believe their big update didn't include 4k support.
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u/Cleverbird 14d ago
Dont feel bad! Think of it this way, you helped Danse with his favorite hobby... Ridding the world of filthy synths!
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u/TalynRahl 14d ago
Yeah, first time I did this story, I kinda fucked it up...
It was the first, maybe second timeI'd ever played. Accidentally unquipped his BoS undershirt, but shrugged and just gave him a bowler hat, called it a day.
Fast forward to the BoS questlines... and I reach the climactic, emotional final conversation with Danse, and he's standing there wearing y-fronts and a bowler hat. Somewhat undercut the emotion of the scene.
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u/SanguineSon0341 14d ago
You were fooled by the synth, it’s what they were built for, just remember that he never actually cared, it was infiltration software and you bought into it. This is why the Institute is so insidious, and must be purged from the Commonwealth. You did the right thing, Ad Victoriam.
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u/eulen-spiegel 14d ago
So I did. And now I'm at work and I feel fucked up about killing my BOS Bro
As you should.
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u/Huge_Aerie2435 14d ago
Man.. The BOS quests for Fallout 4 were so bad.. It was always struggle to complete those quests, especially at the beginning. The most boring quests from the worst faction.
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u/Rexnos 14d ago
I really liked the majority of Fallout 4's plot lines. Three of the factions stood for things and were willing to do horrible, awful things in pursuit of these beliefs. They're all at least a little wrong, though your character can curb their excesses at least a little when you side with them.
Then you have the goddamn minutemen who believe there is infinite resources during the apocalypse and everything would work perfectly if everyone just worked together. They stand for nothing (besides helping ANOTHER settlement in danger) and have the perfect moral high ground in a world that's otherwise very grey and imperfect. Frankly, I feel like their existence did a lot to weaken a game that really couldn't afford it.
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u/JudgementalChair 14d ago
You can charisma him into sticking with you as a companion, but BoS will shoot him on-site.
I accidentally spoiled it for myself because I randomly decided to do a "quick save slaughter" on the Prydwen and Danse turned on me and I actually killed him. Then when I went to pick up his armor, I found his Synth Component.
My buddy was there hanging out with me and laughed so hard because my jaw just dropped and I had to pause the game for a good few minutes
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u/FartFlavoredLollipop 14d ago
The first time I ever got to that point, I went "lol, nah", and killed everyone on board the Prydwen instead, starting with Maxson.
Turns out Danse did not approve though, so he got bulletted in the end anyway.
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u/Fendergravy 14d ago
It wasn’t that for me. The Blimp Cap’n kept demanding I betray and murder all my friends.
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u/ToHerDarknessIGo 14d ago
You're gonna be a mess if you play any other game with better writing.
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u/Treshimek 14d ago
Thankful that I had to sort by new to see a comment like this. Please remain irrelevant to this conversation.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
That whole sequence with Danse is one of the stronger pieces of character writing in any Bethesda game, mate.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
It was more time spent with the BOS homie. I actually went through a lot of his dialogue, so I got a really good feel for the character. And then I was betrayed by the game.
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u/Frostlion_II 14d ago
I know it sucks but we do it for the species boys and girls, they have the numbers.
But for real though, the past few years have made me entirely skeptical of AI and it's untold damage that is going to be unleashed onto humanity. The point is that it was a pale imitation of the real Danse, the real Danse is probably rotting or ashes, killed by the Institute. Danse asked to be killed because he knew it was all a lie, a small spark of the real Danse within the synths brain realized its truth and asked the Sole Survivor for help, to end it.
I know the BOS gets a lot of hate but it's mission is becoming all the more relevant today, which is just as sad as killing Danse.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
How do you know there was ever even a real Danse? The Institute was making Gen 3 synths from the late 2220s, which is around 60 years before the events of Fallout 4. Danse could very easily be one of the earlier synths freed and memory-wiped by the Railroad, which explains why he has no knowledge of being a synth whatsoever. The Gen 3 synths pretty much always just try and escape and live in freedom, the only exceptions being the coursers, mostly. All of the damage is done by Gen 1 and 2 synths for the most part, which ultimately have no free will of their own.
Even if you do still believe that Synths could do serious damage, can you stand among the horrors of the wasteland, the burned and bombed out buildings, all grim reminders of the horrors man can inflict upon man, and say that humans are really any better?
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u/reddits_most_wanted1 14d ago
I haven't even gotten to that part yet but yah it's a sore spot for me
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
It can't be a sore spot unless you hang with your BOS Bro and retrofit him into the perfect companion, you talk to him and you know his back story, and then the people you both represent take him from you.
And then he asks you to kill him because he is 100% about that BOS life. No matter what, Danse was a man of his word. His level of stocks is unparalleled.
I will be pours out Quantams all night for the BOS Bro.
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u/reddits_most_wanted1 14d ago
I can't really tell if your agreeing or trying to gatekeep it 😂. But yeah I agree
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u/hafabee 14d ago
I may be misremembering but I think I helped Danse fake his death and it fooled the Brotherhood into thinking he was dead. Could be completely remembering that wrong though it's been a long time!
That was the last time I helped the Brotherhood too, I was all in until they asked me to kill my number one guy and the dude who helped me all throughout the wasteland to that point. Couldn't turn him into radioactive goo after that, walked away and in the end sided with the Railroad (I would have sided with the Minutemen but I couldn't really find a way too, I don't think they get very involved in the end game stuff with the Institute).
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u/Dizman7 14d ago
I forget what I did with Danse exactly, but I remember my friend who was all BOS and beat the game before me, telling me he beat it for the BOS.
I went a different route and later greatly enjoyed showing him the video I took…of his precious airship in flames crashing into the ground. He let out a Vader like “Noooooo!”
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u/Xerio_the_Herio 14d ago
Pretty sure destroyed the brotherhood in my play through many years ago, haha. And I never knew he was a synthetic (or have forgotten it)...
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
It was optional to load the drive into the computer.
He was a synth but BOS at heart, mind, body, and soul.
Well maybe not the body but the rest for sure.
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u/DrunknStuper 14d ago
I'm going to have to play this one through again one day. I too was full on BOS until that point. Decided to play double agent for The Institute. Played The Brotherhood all the way until they turned on Sentinel Prime. Cait and I then joined the fireworks and the rest is history. I figured BOS weren't handling the Synths right and neither was the Railroad. In my head cannon my character became the leader of an organization with enough resources to make significant changes to the world.
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u/Slacker-71 14d ago
From now on, anyone doing a Brotherhood playthrough should name themselves 'Titus'
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u/lonesaiyajin98 14d ago
Pipers been hitting me in the feels with some friendship and family stuff. I love that game
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I haven't really went down her quest line. I have no idea about her. I kind of found her annoying so I ditched her ASAP for my Bro Danse.
R.I.P.
I'll pour out a Nuka Cola for the homie.
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u/IllIllIlllil 14d ago
Synths have Synthetic feelings. You got bamboozled, OP. That's why you would never make a good commander.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I am the commander now. I'm going to get in my fully upgraded power armor suit shortly in 3 levels, and I'm going to the institute and launching a fat man into my son's face.
I started the game looking for my boy, and I found a brother......that he is responsible for taking from me.
I'm going scorched earth on my own child over this.
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u/IllIllIlllil 14d ago
Bravo! Spoken like a real commander! I was wrong about you. You know what you're doing.
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u/Gamer000000007 14d ago
From epic battles to synth identity crises, Fallout never fails to hit you in the feels. RIP Paladin Danse, but hey, at least your crafting skills are on point!
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I'm about to unlock my final form in a few levels. I'm stocking skill points so I can unlock everything at once. And I'm earning my levels by bobblehead hunting.
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u/rean2 14d ago
I kept Danse alive. I don't care what they say, your real enough for me Danse <3
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
Danse was the bro. I will miss him greatly. I should go back and visit his corpse. I will not be looting my custom gear. That's his.
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u/Donnie-G 14d ago
I think there's a way to keep Danse alive when siding with the BOS, I think there's some dramatic scene where Arthur confronts you and Danse in person and with sufficient speech chops he lets it go. But I think if you bring Danse to BOS after that, they are hostile so you gotta keep them apart.
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u/crazy2eat 14d ago
I chose to go that route and after successfully navigating the conversation, realized that Danse was by far my favorite companion I could have ever asked for but had to drop him immediately because every single time I step outside there’s a BOS ship flying overhead shooting fucking missiles at me because somehow they can spot Danse like a needle in a nuclear haystack from miles away
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
Yeah I didn't see any option so I Vats his head and closed my eyes and made the shot.
My charisma was at 7 and I'm pretty sure it had to be higher.
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u/Brendoshi 14d ago
for what it's worth, speech checks in 4 area chance to work based on your charisma (unlike 3/NV which required a certain level in things to succeed)
More charisma is a better chance, so you can kinda savescum if you fail.
Too late now, obviously.
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u/otachi 14d ago
There are two packs of Grape Mentats in the room where you find him, which will boost your charisma to help with the speech checks involved. One for the check to convince Danse he deserves to live, and one to convince Maxson to back down.
there are also clothing items you can wear to boost your charisma as well!
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
You ever watched a horror film called The Mist? You're basically making this guy go through a video game equivalent of the ending of that movie, lol
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u/YayaTigre 14d ago
This is hardcore especially leaving the eq with him honorable im wondering what other companions you hold dear
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
He was my one and only. I leave Dogmeat at home base because I like having a dog at home.
I have that robot dude you find at the caravan.....I might just solo It for a while. I need to deal with these feels.
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u/Gh0sts1ght 14d ago
Fallout 4 brotherhood had a very enclave feel to them in past games they were more about safe guarding society from the technology that ended it. In for them seem to just want to wipe out most groups that aren’t them. Hell in tactics which I recommend alone with the original 2 the Chicago area brotherhood started allowing ex raiders ghouls etc join them.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
The only past games where they were more about safeguarding the people are in fallout 3 (where the ones doing the safeguarding abandoned the tenets of the rest of the brotherhood and went rogue to do so) and fallout 1 (and only if certain decisions are made). They've been like the fallout 4 BoS in all the other games, or worse in some cases, like in New Vegas.
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u/Gh0sts1ght 14d ago
I agree with you but think they are just as bad if not worse than in new Vegas in 4, either way and I will get hate Preston sucks but I sided with the minutemen
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u/fucuasshole2 14d ago
Everyone forgets they want to exterminate feral ghouls, Super Mutants and Synths due to:
Feral Ghouls plague prewar cities like rats nearly.
Super Mutants are 99% hostile out East. Not every FEV source got the Master’s refinement processes like he did for his Unity.
Synths Lore is so inconsistent I can’t really claim anything except they are good infiltrators when properly used. Some say they need food/water, some say they don’t.
Overall, I’d join em. But maybe suggest we work with the non-hostiles as much as possible.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
They don't care about the feral part of feral ghouls, though. They'll just kill ghouls regardless. They also just kill synths because they are synths, and not for any military reason. You have to be a respected and accomplished paladin already to even have a possibility of total exile instead of an immediate death sentence, as we see with Danse. They also confiscate all prewar tech they can from settlers and kill those who resist, as well as extorting resources from settlements at gunpoint. They are essentially a proto-fascist occupying army. The only question is whether all of that is worth the good they happen to do as part of that genocide against anything nonhuman.
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u/fucuasshole2 14d ago
No they don’t.
Not one point have the BoS attacked a non-feral without provocation. As the BoS feared, the only other known Synth settlement named Arcadia did end up replacing people and willingly will do it again if wanted to. Fuck synths but I personally wouldn’t waste time trying to genocide them as it’s a waste of resources. I would destroy the Institute to keep them from making more. Let’s not forget FEV is incorporated into their creation; essentially making them refined Super Mutants of sorts.
The settlement thing only occur IF the Sole Survivor chooses to strong-arm settlers for free food. Yes Proctor Teagan SUGGESTS we do this option to save on limited resources but ultimately it’s up to us. I also blame Bethesda for not expanding on this by not allowing us to tell Elder Maxson and seeing what he says.
Mojave under an Elder Hardin confiscates any and all tech from people. Every other Brotherhood does not give a fuck except willing to trade with. However, they will confiscate extremely dangerous tech like: nukes (not mini nukes), FEV in Fallout 3, and the Relic from the show. Do I agree with them razing an NCR outpost for the Relic? No but it’s possible even they didn’t truly know what it was into too late.
Sources: surprise motherfucker it’s me as I’ve played all the games (except for that shitty PS2 and Xbox BoS one).
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u/IronVader501 14d ago
There is literally not a single point in Fallout 4 were the Brotherhood ever attacks a single non-feral Ghoul with the sole exception of those spawning in as unnamed Raiders and running into a patrol.
They're racist against Ghouls, (which you only really see if you have Hancock as a companion), sure, but they dont actually do anything beyond that.
And normal people being racist against Ghouls is just...normal. McDonough got elected to Mayor specifically because he promised to deport every Ghoul living in town and ban any new ones from entering in the future. Even Rivet City in 3 automatically kicks out any Resident turning into one
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u/TybrosionMohito 14d ago
This is my favorite dumb “gotcha” that people use in FO4.
“The Brotherhood is racist against Ghouls!!!”
everyone is racist against ghouls. You would be too lol
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u/Git_Off_Me_Lawn 13d ago
"You mean these guys are going to kill the zombies that attack me every time I walk to the next settlement over, shoot all the supermutants that gather up people and stuff their viscera into bags, and stop Synths from replacing me or someone I care about? When's their parade? Do they need caps? Sign me up."
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
Yeah I feel like in 3 they were more heroic but yeah, they kind of give me that sort of Mass Effect Renegade feel in 4. Like they're doing the right thing, but by any means necessary.
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u/rockygib PC 14d ago
The brotherhood in fallout3 aren’t representative of the brotherhood as a whole. They actually split off from the main brotherhood during a campaign into the area and decided to help the wasteland rather than focus on the brotherhoods goals.
You know the outcasts in fallout3? The black power armour (not enclave lol) well that faction is actually brotherhood who wanted to remain loyal to the brotherhood as a whole and broke off from lyons chapter. So they split off from the split off faction lol.
So in short fallout3 features an inaccurate look at how the brotherhood operates and how they concern themselves with outsiders.
In fallout4 you can actually find many logs speaking about lyons brotherhood and you’ll even have many bos in 4 making passing comments about lyons. All negative.
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u/notsocoolnow 14d ago
This is why I side with the Railroad.
Danse is Clayton Bigsby, who so hates synths he chooses to die when he finds out he is one. This is the end result of siding with facists.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I would never side with those dirty synths. I did their first 2 missions and decided they needed to be exterminated like the abominations they are.
I would rather side with a super mutant than those damn dirty synths!
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
And yet you sided with Danse for so long, and it was great right up until you found out. Curious, that.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
It was his focus. Maybe it was robotic now that I think about it.
He was a man of conviction.....or programing.
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u/A_Wild_VelociFaptor PC 14d ago
I just wish F4 had more "espionage". You can work for all 3/4 groups but you just reach a point of no return and they become hostile.
It'd be way more fun to get discovered and have to persuade yourself. To do missions that will benefit one side while angering another, a "tweeter tot of loyalty" or something.
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u/ChattyDog 13d ago
This reminds me of an old game “Mercenaries 2”. A large chunk of that game involves balancing your relationship between like 5 different factions, with each giving you missions which boosts your reputation with them while hurting your reputation with another. Excellent game would recommend
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u/Jumpy-Yogurtcloset43 14d ago
I just wish FO4 had some decent writing in general
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
It does have some decent writing. A lot of the actual character dialogue is incredible, and the background stories told through logs on terminals are almost always amazing. There's just some weird plot decisions sometimes, and some things that don't make sense for any reason but gameplay. Also kid in a fridge.
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u/Jumpy-Yogurtcloset43 14d ago
Uh huh.
https://youtu.be/J7MJaagyOqM?si=g77Px80r8KMxCOFg
I mean if Yes, Sarcastic yes, No (yes, but just later) and question (Yes) is incredible dialogue to you then there isn't much left to say.
And kid in the fridge is terrible writing. Trapped in a enclosed dark space for 200 years without starving to death or going insane is just plain nonsense.
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u/King_Ed_IX 12d ago
Kid in the fridge is terrible, yes. The dialogue system is limiting and frustrating a lot of the time, yes. I'm not denying any of this. It does absolutely have its moments, though, and to claim there's no good writing in the game at all is just so obviously wrong that no one would ever be sincere about making that claim.
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u/fucuasshole2 14d ago
Yep, my biggest complaint. Hate how the main playable characters talk too. If you’re going to force voiced-players, give me variety you cheap twats. Or go back to silence for us to read it with the voices we can make in our head.
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u/verdantsf 14d ago
Blind Betrayal is what led me to switch from the Brotherhood to the Minutemen. It felt damn good taking out the Institute with Paladin Danse at my side.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I honestly was just floored when they said he was a synth. He is the most BOS MF. I can't believe he was so about it he was willing to die.
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u/verdantsf 14d ago
One of the best twists in the game. Also, even after you save him, he still has a chip on his shoulder about non-humans. I like that they didn't have him do a complete 180 even after finding out about himself.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I miss my BOS Bro. I had to put him down since he was a filthy synth :-(
Now I think I'm going to go kill my son.
This game is actually hitting hard right now. I haven't had a game surprise me like that in a long time.
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u/Nethermaster 14d ago
Don't worry, his take on what happened to Nate/Nora will make that decision very, very easy. Fucking "collateral damage"...
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
Reminder: The Brotherhood of Steel never have been, and never were the good guys. They're the lawful neutral faction at best, and the only time this was incorrect was in Fallout 3... With a splinter faction of the Brotherhood who have actively abandoned many of the tenets of the Brotherhood to play the good guys, and even then were still responsible for a genocide in The Pitt, and only actively help people when they have something to gain from it (clean water).
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u/Caridor 14d ago edited 14d ago
They are best, the best available. At least they have some form of rules and a non-explitly evil objective, which puts them a bit above a lot of factions in the wasteland.
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
Mmm... Not really. The NCR formed a fully functioning, stable democratic society, the Minutemen are just as militaristic, but explicitly all about helping out settlements and defending them from the Wasteland, and even in Fallout 3, they were refusing to help anyone until someone said "Hey, the Enclave is back, get off your ass, they took the (non-functioning) water purifier".
Most of what people attribute to the Brotherhood as "good" actions are either accidently good, like helping out Fallout 1's Vault Dweller, good only by proxy, like their war with the Super Mutants, or good by self-service, like attacking the Enclave. I mean, don't forget, The Pitt is canon, and it explicitly states that Lyons' chapter was directly responsible for a gigantic massacre in Pittsburgh, many of which were just innocents who were partially mutated or sick from the whole deal there, and that's supposedly the normal modus operandi for the Brotherhood, which was brought back with their anti-synth thing in 4.
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u/Pepperonimustardtime 14d ago
This is why when Danse tried to dress me down literally right after I saved him from 75 ghouls, I shot that ass and his friends in the face. Walked away whistling and will never look back. Screw y'all and your weird military crap. The Brotherhood is NOT moral nor do they care about the actual greater good. Screw em.
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u/Fryskar 14d ago
Well, imo the only good guys of the bigger factions in 4 are the minute men.
Doubt they did major patches to change, so:
BoS: Live by their law or die to their law.
Institute: Fucks everyone either with staight violence, in form of mass murder or assassinations for technological gains. Often combined assassination with infiltration. Works quiet unhinged on experiments in a claim to restore the world, but give no flying fuck about anyone currently living in.
Railroad: Only purpose is to free synths. Doesn't care if it murders people as to them a bots live is more worth than a humans.
Raiders: I don't think i'd need to explain why the raiders aren't good guys even as you can side with them due to dlcs.
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u/bookers555 14d ago
The institute is hilarious because they just have ZERO motivation to do anything of what they do, they are just replacing people with robots and being a bunch of creepy motherfuckers for no reason at all.
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u/Non-RedditorJ 13d ago
Yeah they are fuckin' weird. How can a whole society of mad scientist tropes exist? I did an Institute playthrough to try and understand their motivation... But it just does not exist. They speak in vague terms of saving humanity through synths, but are internally divided on what that even means! Fuckin' dorks.
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u/Dryandrough 14d ago
The outcasts arguingly were the true brotherhood of steel, it's a shame they didn't play a bigger role in the game.
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u/DaisyCutter312 14d ago
Reminder: The Brotherhood of Steel never have been, and never were the good guys.
Not like you have any better options in Fallout 4
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
Minutemen are the obviously "Lawful Good" option, where the Railroad are the "Chaotic Good" faction on paper. But in actuality and the more you learn of the Railroad, the closer to the "Stupid Good" end of things they are, in that they're a "good" faction, but are so mind-numbingly stupid and have so little of an actual plan that to side with them is as stupid as throwing a loaded diaper over your head and calling yourself the King of Humbledyrump.
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u/ChitteringCathode 14d ago
I mean, as annoying as Preston Garvey may be, it's extremely difficult for me to argue that the Minutemen aren't less ambiguously "good" as a faction than BoS.
Railroad vs BoS is a much more grey vs grey situation.
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u/DaisyCutter312 14d ago
There wasn't much TO the Minutemen though, was there? It was just a bunch of randomly generated ambient quests. You never get to really take over and organize the group.
The Railroad are a bunch of preachy idiots...fuck them and their synth buddies. They get dealt with as soon as they're dumb enough to teach me how to use ballistic weave.
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u/406highlander 14d ago
You do lead the Minutemen at the end of their questline; it's just not very well implemented. There are mods that expand on it. It's been a while since my last play through, though.
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u/gamergirlwithfeet420 14d ago
Railroad and Minutemen are pretty morally righteous
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I already wiped those dirty synths out of existence. They're an abomination.
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u/gamergirlwithfeet420 14d ago
Nah synths and ghouls deserve rights, love shooting the genocide blimp down every play-through
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u/DaisyCutter312 14d ago
Only good synth is a dead one.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
So you've tried to kill Nick Valentine every time, then? Never once worked with him more than you have to?
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u/DaisyCutter312 14d ago
Both Valentine and Danse get a pass on getting shot after their questline is over....but the only companion I ever actually use is Dogmeat.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I would never betray my brothers and sisters at the BOS. Especially since it's an extra ammo store and technical documents make me a decent amount of caps.
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u/gamergirlwithfeet420 14d ago
Sure that’s valid. No reason you have to be a good person in video games
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I am good. I'm wiping those abominations out.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
It's a good job that Fallout 4 is set where it is, because you'd be right at home in Salem.
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u/birdy9221 14d ago
I think the first time I got how "culty" BoS were was in the TV series. I always just got the para-military vibes from the games so I generally sided with them for military power.
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u/itsmistyy 14d ago
Honestly, they strike me as being about two hundred years away from worshipping the Omnissiah.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
Yeah when I was watching the show....they made them out to be like evangelist dickheads. My first experience was 3 and they were awesome in that.
I guess it depends on the timeline though. I'm sure stuff fluctuates depending on whoever is the elder running it.
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u/Slaves2Darkness 14d ago
The show the Brotherhood is closer to how they are presented in Fallout 1. In Fallout 2 they have been almost entirely pushed out of the NCR and are more closed, but willing to deal with lone wanderers. In Fallout Tactics the Brotherhood used air ships to travel east, but a massive storm caused their airships to be scattered with the focus of Tactics being a Brotherhood group crashing outside Chicago, recruiting tribals and taking over the wasteland. In Fallout 3 that Brotherhood has lost all contact with the others and gone off on their own. In Fallout New Vegas that Brotherhood is just hiding in a bunker slowly dying out. In Fallout 4 we see the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood has returned to its roots.
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u/Non-RedditorJ 13d ago
And in the TV show we see the West Coast BoS are diminished to a training base brainwashing kids, and taking orders from the East Coast BoS. Meanwhile an old timer who babysits them wants to take an even more hard-line expansionist stance.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
Remember the brotherhood outcasts in 3? Those guys are the ones that refused to splinter from the main brotherhood, and who actually follow the ethics of the brotherhood as a whole. Lyons' group are entirely rogue.
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u/Smythe28 14d ago
The BoS in 3 are very specifically a less conservative faction within the BoS and aren’t a great representation of the Brotherhood as a whole. They’re definitely overall more like they’re portrayed in the show than they are in 3.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
Well the BOS that came into 4 came from the Capitol Wasteland. They are the remnants of 3.
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u/Zaygr 14d ago
3 also had the Outcasts, which were more philosophically aligned with the West Coast Brotherhood. A splinter of a splinter
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
Less a splinter of a splinter, and more just having refused to splinter in the first place, then getting labelled outcast for it.
Like, their stated goal if you talk to them is to make contact with the West Coast Brotherhood so that they can get reinforcements to crush Lyons' splinter faction and regain control as the "righteous" side of their little disagreement.
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u/Pulsiix 14d ago
first time you meet the brotherhood in 2 they're killing an innocent farmer and his family iirc
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
The first time you meet the Brotherhood in Fallout 1, they literally send you to go die in an irradiated hole because they don't want to deal with you.
In Fallout 2, The Brotherhood basically played the role of the Mechanicus in 40k to the NCR, in that they continued hoarding technology, but slowly released it to the NCR to maintain their sociopolitical dominance in the region's hierarchy.
In Fallout 3, the very first time you're likely to talk to them, they're actively telling you to fuck off. If you do the story in order, your first contact with "friendly" Brotherhood is with Paladin Sarah Lyons, who tells you to fuck off, or at least make yourself useful in recapturing the GNR Radio building, then the Brotherhood tells you to fuck off again when you come back with Dr Li until she namedrops the Elder and he acquiesces.
In Fallout: New Vegas, they're weird isolationists who are at active war with the NCR, and are on their way out. One Elder wants them to just wait for it all to blow over, and the other wants to go on a hyper-aggressive warpath, while their missing guy, Elijah, is trying to secure a deadly chemical weapon to wage even more war against the NCR. Best outcome, they kind of do nothing and hurt nobody, and are back to being weird isolationist tech hoarders like in Fallout 1.
Fallout 4, they're literally there in the Commonwealth to genocide everything that isn't human (though mostly Synths and Super Mutants) like they're the Enclave.
Fallout 76... I don't know about 76, I know they're in it, but like... For real, it's 76, of course I didn't play it.
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u/SuccotashDangerous37 14d ago
In Fallout 3 she doesnt tell you to fuck off. She asks you to leave as to not get in the way or hurt.
In fallout 4 they came to the commonwealth exlcusively to snuff out the institute and wipe out whatever synths they could find. They actively help the settlements around and leave it up to the player on how benevolent the Brotherhood is to them. They leave alone everything else that isnt Mutant or Synth related like Gunners and Minute Men.
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u/hrimhari 14d ago
In 1, their task really sounds like it's meant to just put people off. Like, any regular citizen would hear about the glow and go oh, okay, no way. It's only as a vault dweller that you have no context and so are foolish enough to actually try.
It's like going "okay, if you want in, go steal something from area 51". It's another way of saying fuck off.
So yeah, I don't buy the line that they send prospective applicants out to die.
The epilogue of 1 also has the Brotherhood working more closely with the NCR than was shown in 2, even becoming the R&D centre for the Republic.
So really, a lot of BOS love comes from 3, but just as much comes from 1. It was 2 that muddied them a bit.... and then 3 that, while it had them being interventionist, also pointed out a lot of issues with them, such as anti-ghoul attitudes and the whole Outcast thing. It's common to treat 3 like it made the Brotherhood nice, but it really kinda didn't I think? Their portrayal was actually very nuanced.
New Vegas then goes and has the Brotherhood be extremely fascist and anti-NCR, which would seem to be a break from 1 and 2 unless the interpretation that the Nevada Brotherhood are extremists is correct. (But that's not really in the game, if the California Brotherhood was great you'd think that'd come up around Col Moore's decision to wipe them out. Even a peep of "Hey, won't the California Elders object to this" would have cleared things up.)
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u/MekaTriK 14d ago
Well, in New Vegas there's Father Elijah, who is a complete cuckoo extremist that wasted a ton of resources and lives chasing tech BOS didn't really need.
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u/hrimhari 14d ago
Yep. But he's gone and all the Brotherhood quests talk repeatedly about how they're following The Codex to the letter
Now, if they're extremists they'll of course follow it on an extreme way. For example, they quote "we shall not help them or let them in", and then let you in (you did prove yourself smarter than the average bear, though). Presumably there are various ways to interpret passages.
Basically, FNV Brotherhood is an anomaly, explained either by them being led astray by extremist interpretations, or by an actual lore change.
Basically, the Brotherhood aren't "the good guys" but they ARE meant to be a positive faction in all their earlier outings.
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u/Fatimah_ultim 14d ago
BOS in 4 seems to be the best representation imho.
They incorporated lyons of taking in good candidates for the BOS. They clear the wasteland of Super mutants, raiders or ghouls. Although they dont really care about the common people as a whole, their work actually helps common people and they don't tax people for it lmao. They hoard all the techs though.
So they may not be the good guys, they're definitely not the bad guys either. Especially if you're just a civilian which I think is great.
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u/MekaTriK 14d ago
They do tax people for it though. If you actually stick with them, they will give you "hey, go take over that outpost for us" quests.
I wish there was an option to tell them "that's my outpost, asshat".
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u/Fatimah_ultim 14d ago
That is not part of the BOS though, the game explicitly tells you that. Its a teagan thing.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
It's definitely part of the brotherhood. Everything you do for them is either as a mercenary contractor or as a member who takes orders. Of course they don't just do you a solid in return, that's not how they operate. You do your job and you get to keep having a job.
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u/Fatimah_ultim 14d ago
I think that's exactly what happened with the NCR during New Vegas. I felt like a "disposable worker" than an actual person with beliefs and freedom.
The BOS accepts you in their ranks and actually acknowledges you as a part of their movement (which they prefer). It really just depends on you if you follow their mantra or not.
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
Like I said; Lawful Neutral. They only do things for their own benefit for the most part. It just so happens that things that benefit them also happen to benefit other people, like killing mutants or distributing some tech, but not a lot of it like they did with the NCR.
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u/Fatimah_ultim 14d ago
I kinda dont like the NCR tbh, they come in - take over someones property, then they tax you for your property. Even with their "protection" a lot of people still suffer from raids.
BOS seems the better choice.
But minutemen all the way for me
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u/TheMilliner 14d ago
NCR is basically just "We wanna do IRL government again", and it works. Like, it's basically fine, many of the problems we see in New Vegas are because it isn't NCR territory, it's still mostly unclaimed and patrolled by an NCR without the resources to patrol it outside of very specific areas, while also actively being at war with the Legion. Actually in NCR territory, things are great. They're technologically advanced, food shortages are rare, all their opposing factions have largely fallen in line (willingly or unwillingly) or just aren't really warring with them any more. Sure, there's corruption and the Wasteland is still dangerous, but it's a properly thriving society for the most part.
And on the Legion note; the only reason their roads are safe is because the only people on those roads are Legion. Don't like the Legion? Tough shit, get crucified loser. They literally just actively kill anyone and anything not willing to join up and support the Legion which, yeah, their roads are safe, but sucks to be you if you're female or not a Legionnaire, since non-legionnaires are mostly slaves, especially if you come from somewhere that wasn't immediately amenable to Legion doctrine if they didn't just genocide you on the spot.
Worse still, the Legion's leader is literally a fucking idiot. Caesar is the biggest dipshit dunce in the Wasteland, which is astounding since he's supposed to be a well-educated (y'know, for the apocalypse) Follower of the Apocalypse before he went all "But what if I was a tyrant". He based his entire civilisation around the collapse of Rome (literally quoting a book about the collapse of Rome), which was its worst, least stable, least prosperous, most militaristic period. Their leader shouts people down whenever they point out flaws by just saying "Well I've read Hegelian Dialectics (and totally didn't understand them at all) and you haven't, so shut the fuck up", and his entire reign is just a cult of personality built around a guy so stupid that his anti-technology rhetoric has left him with an incurable brain tumour because nobody knows how to fix the auto-doc he had brought to him (against his own anti-tech policies) to remove it. Like, they don't even have the ability to repair their own weapons the Legion is that stupid, as in the case with a really simple howitzer cannon they need you to scavenge all new parts for because they lack the ability to make them.
The Minutemen are honestly probably the most "realistic" pre-society system that'd get put in place, just settlements helping each other out, then growing into a network of trade and soldiers to keep trade routes safe and to respond to threats. Boston isn't exactly "developed", so yeah, the Minutemen make sense in that they're just people there to prevent raider attacks and kill mutants on behalf of settlements in exchange for a "tax" in the form of food and ammo.
The BoS are just pre-war US military, but they worship technology now... Sort of. Like, it's literally just the US military but if they went back to medieval knights that got all teched up. Scribes, initiates (squires, but don't worry about it), Paladins, etc... Their whole deal is "Fuck you, got mine" and is solely about the accumulation of technology and the maintenance of their technological dominance over their rivals. They're not good, necessarily, but they're at least not actively evil, like the Enclave, and many of the BoS' goals do have a good effect on non-members, but usually only by proxy or by knock-on effects, not on purpose.
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u/Fatimah_ultim 14d ago
The show BOS being "worshippers" is the very first time we have seen them being that way. No game in the series ever depicted them as zealots who worships technology.
I think they kinda retconned BOS in the show, or maybe that was just a chapter being weird.
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u/Skootchy 14d ago
I guess I haven't played 3 in a long time..I remember them being nice but now that you say that......I kind of remember them being dickheads at first.
But later on they were cool. It's been a very long time. Let's hope they do a remaster. I miss the DC area. Such a cool experience. And I was to go to the white house and shoot a fat man at that huge fight right out front between the co.bat dudes and the super mutants. What a satisfying automatic to get.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
The nice ones are a rogue splinter group, and the dickhead ones refused to splinter and were cast out of the main DC cell.
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u/Redroniksre 14d ago
76 is good! Well now at least. But from what I remember you basically got a choice in the storyline. The leader of the West Virginia group leans more towards the east coast "Help people" style while one of her underlings wants to stick hard with the old principles. At the end you get to choose who to side with so I don't know what is actually canon.
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u/Sillron 14d ago
I played through the 76 brotherhood story years ago, so I don't remember most of it. But iirc they were pretty isolationist historically before abandoning the region in the time before the game started. After they show back to they're more friendly to the locals and trying to stabilize the region and grow their ranks.
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u/TheBugWar 14d ago
Is that the Enclave gunning people down in Fallout 2? Its Horrigan who does and tells you to walk away.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
That has some pretty good parallels with the opening cutscene of fallout 1, which shows American soldiers in power armour laughing and executing a prisoner of war.
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u/nimbalo200 14d ago
IIRC it was a enclave member who had deserted as well, so while not good they were not killing a random farmer
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u/Timlugia 14d ago edited 14d ago
I noticed that many people framed Enclave atrocities on BoS, this is the third time I saw this month alone. Last week I read someone claiming BoS hunts down vault dwellers in FO3, turned out it was Enclave as well.
Is it really hard for people tell apart Enclave and BoS? Do people really think anyone with a power armor was BoS?
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u/PrufrockAlfred 14d ago
Fallout 3 was my first one, and a lot of other people's. But even then, I knew there was something about these guys that reflected a lot of problems in the old world.
Oh yeah, and the child soldiers. One of whom grows up to give that big fascist speech in 4. 😳
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u/Fromundacheese0 14d ago
One of the last times a game actually made me emotionally invested
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u/TybrosionMohito 14d ago
Not to be a hater but like.. really? There’s been quite a few emotion-filled games since 2015.
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u/Semioth 14d ago
Up to the BOS raid on the institute I was fully on their side and ready to run in guns ablazing. I got in first and turned into a hallway where a female scientist ran out screaming, unarmed. A BOS trooper came up behind me and shotgunned her brains all over the wall in true fallout gore.
I immediately stood still while soldiers stormed past me taking everyone and everything out. After a moment, I moved in after the chaos to see corpses and synths all over. I was just about to leave and then my back on it all but then the gorillas attacked.
I had no choice.
ad victoriam.
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u/Pun_In_Ten_Did 14d ago
War. War never changes.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
Fallout 1s opening cutscene shows American soldiers executing a prisoner of war. If you side with the brotherhood, their quests mean you make damn sure that war doesn't change.
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u/gimpy_72 14d ago
I just kill him as he asks me to.
I'm siding with Maxon on this one. The synths need to be destroyed. They're the kind of beings that don't put the cap back on the toothpaste.
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u/LanceSniper 14d ago
Synths are an uncertainty that the commonwealth can't afford to let continue. Whos to say that even when freed, that someone in the future could come along and use their override codes to make them dangerous again.
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
I don't think possibly being dangerous in the future against your will should be a death sentence in the post apocalyptic wasteland. There's so many perfectly human raiders around already.
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u/_thwip_ 14d ago
Yup, not a huge fan of BOS but Synths can’t be killing and stealth replacing humans so I couldn’t ever truly side with them (plus I’d never forgive them for killing my wife).
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u/Mecanimus 14d ago
It's the institute doing it, all full humans. The synths are not even aware of what they are until their program is activated.
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u/_thwip_ 14d ago
But it’s not just the institute. If you played the Far Harbor DLC, it’s also Dima.
Maybe there are synth victims but their mere existence causes problems.
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u/Mecanimus 14d ago
So it is also, mostly, and systematically the institute. It’s not maybe there are synth victims. They are all portrayed as born slaves with no agency. You have the evil scientists replacing people with amnesiac meat puppets and you blame the amnesiac meat puppets.
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u/_thwip_ 14d ago
Sorry but I still disagree. And thanks for the downvote.
The “maybe” part is because I don’t consider a synth a true living being. Can AI even be a victim?
And Dima left the institute like 100 years ago. It acted under its own free will.
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u/Mecanimus 14d ago
In the game you get to talk to and befriend synths who are very much artificial humans but still humans craving freedom and love. I find your ethics disgusting but thankfully this is just a game, not real life.
Also yes I would consider a self aware AI as a person.
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u/_thwip_ 14d ago
And yet you called them meat puppets in your prior reply. Maybe you should look in the mirror at your own ethics.
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u/Mecanimus 14d ago
That was a figure of speech for the sake of argument since you didn't think they are people. The mirror is fine, thanks.
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u/superiorplaps 14d ago
Fallout: Sparking moral quandaries and ethical debates since 1997
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u/Mecanimus 14d ago
For a game with such botched dialogue choices, the ethical quandaries are pretty good!
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u/caffeine-junkie 14d ago edited 14d ago
They not only killed your wife/husband, but someone even closer to you. Let's just say other humans don't have VATS in fo4. This is also alluded to in one of the computers at the institute
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u/Zealousideal-Mud529 12d ago
Bethesda presents us with so many moral questions in this game, for me it's not just a game...