Rating Fallout's Factions - (Spoilers inside!)

[SmugFrog]

Nice write up Guppy. It makes me want to go finish New Vegas, which I never did get around to do (computer crash, lost saves, mods destroying my save, etc). I didn't even know that Caesar is actually in the game until recently when I saw a picture of him.

As far as the factions in Fallout 4 yeah, I think it could've definitely been done better - however, I think this is the best that Bethesda has done for factions and storylines in any of their open world games so far. I haven't finished the game yet, but so far my only gripe about the Institute is not having the conversation options to the equivalent of "Hey, what you're doing is really fucked up" or "Did you guys not watch Terminator?" type answers. It seems like there should be a choice to try and talk some sense into their leader, especially given your relation, but no - I think Bethesda just didn't want to travel down that rabbit hole of more branching plot lines.

I disagree with you about the Legion. As someone else noted above, Fallout is about having comically evil bad guys, and the Legion is just that. I don't think it's a wholly unrealistic group though, if you were to factor in complete anarchy and fear and one man amassing an army by defeating other tribes and absorbing them into his own. It's not far off from an existing real world expanding organization that drowns, burns, executes people that don't agree with them or their doctrine. The question then becomes how well prepared are the various settlements to hold them off and keep them from expanding? Everyone is making their own rush to establish their own government. I viewed what happened in Vegas as only a small part of the Legion, imaging that they probably have conquered most of the central U.S. by just enslaving and taking whatever they want.

Someone else pointed out that they don't act as the Romans did, which... invalidates them as a group? I guess was the point? None of the factions really upheld all of the traditions for the inspiration for their groups. They took what they wanted from Roman culture but twisted it to their own use.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

The Institute sucks as they are greedy and hoard their Snyth Gorillas. Be cool to have a Synth Gorilla companion and release it to go King Kong on your enemies. Played as BoS so as to punish them.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

The institute had potential, I feel like a better voice actor for father and a more detailed dialog system to have a big long talk with him like you could with caesar, would have gone a long way. There was so much emotional potential wasted.

 

[Raddra]

I found the Railroad pretty cringeworthy.

Do you come across likeable Synths? Yes. But they're still robots that just happen to act sympathetic using a scanned programming framework that just acts human.

For every human-like synth there's a dead person who it is masquerading as that was brutally tortured, brainwiped and copied. And that is supremely creepy.

The fact they don't move to help robobrains when they were (/are?) *actually* people but just look different goes to show how misplaced their instincts are. They're siding with these machines purely off appearance when 'machines' that were humans before happen to be around.

And you also come across several robots with truly evolved AI that is just as worthy of help (such as Codsworth and Curie) but do they get that sort of help? No. They don't look human (but putting Curie in a humanlike body suddenly elevates her to 'help that' status).

And they're spilling the blood of real humans to do it. Based off this instinctive 'save people' instinct when actual people around them are being killed in worse fashions. Yet I don't see any sympathy from them there. Its an utterly strange situation, I only did work for them to work against the psychopath institute when I play.

 

[IceForce]

The Minutemen really should have been the "Yes Man" of this game, they feel too far removed from the conflicts involving the institute.

They kinda are, insofar as it's impossible to fail the Minutemen questline, effectively making them the default 'fall back' faction in case you screw up all the others. (The same as if you killed House, killed Caesar, and pissed off the NCR in FONV, you could still complete the game by taking the Yes Man path.)

In FO4 you can fail the BoS questline by attacking Maxson, you can get kicked out of the Institute and fail their questline by attacking Father (which, somewhat comically, also fails the Railroad questline too, because part of the Railroad questline involves you working with Father for a bit while the Railroad organizes things off-screen). But as far as I can tell, you can't ever piss off the Minutemen to the point where you can no longer do quests for them.

Alright, well, to sate my curiosity, I went back to an earlier save and played through the Minutemen questline to the end, just to see what differences (if any) there are.

Spoiler: Ending spoilers, obviously

You still end up destroying the Institute, but the ultimate outcome differs slightly from the other factions' questlines in a number of ways:

1] Only the Institute ends up dead.
The other factions' questlines all involve wiping out more than just the Institute; they also involve wiping out each other as well. To illustrate this:

Institute ending: Institute survives, BoS wiped out, Railroad wiped out.
BoS ending: BoS survives, Institute wiped out, Railroad wiped out.
Railroad ending: Railroad survives, Institute wiped out, BoS wiped out.

Minutemen ending: Institute wiped out, BoS survives, Railroad survives.

Put simply and in other words, The Minutemen ending is the only ending where 3 out of the 4 main factions survive. This also means that as long as you remain in good standing with the Railroad and BoS (even though you didn't finish their questlines), you can still use their services. Everyone's happy!

2] The way you infiltrate the Institute for the final mission is unique to the Minutemen. You dive underwater and enter a sewer outlet, then you follow the winding sewer tunnels (filled with Mirelurks and Ferals) until you finally pop out of the pipe just to the side of the Institute's relay room. (And to think, Virgil was so adamant that teleportation was the "only way in or out".)

3] Preston Garvey is rather particular that they're not there to commit "mass murder", you're just there to destroy the Institute facility (and guards, obviously), nothing more. In fact, he requests that you initiate the evacuation procedures on Father's terminal, so the Institute civilians can get to safety. (You can also trigger the evacuation procedures on the Railroad or BoS version of this final mission, but it's not required of you, and the mission-givers don't give a shit since they actually ARE there to kill everyone.)

...

All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised. I expected the Minutemen ending to be as dull as dishwater and have no redeeming advantages whatsoever. I'm glad to see I was proven wrong.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I don't know. To me the Minutemen only seem bland by virtue of...

1) ...being led by the player character as of 30 minutes into the game, who is by necessity a blank slate (well, mostly).
2) ...only having one other NPC that represents it, Preston, who is admittedly your bland, archetypal Lawful Good character.
3) ...representing a rather simplistic ideal compared to the other factions - everybody watches each other's backs, no ifs, ands, or buts. I think it works well because because ideally, it is a simple answer that actually works. Or rather, it should work, but everybody is too busy pursuing their own agenda, or concerning themselves more with control than anything else.

That being said, they're my favorite faction for the rather silly reason that they're not assholes. And because, well, you're their leader.

 

[vallorn]

Nothing about them made sense. The real Roman Empire brought stability, technology and a chance at a better life to the conquered territories. These guys don't even do that. Their arrogance was unfounded, their firepower was laughable and only Legate Lanaius was a credible threat.

Fallout 4 points towards an NCR victory at the battle of Hoover Dam, which, let's be frank, makes the most sense given they're an actual nation and have actual stability.

I think I missed that part, where did you find it? Also, yay for Bethesda acknowledging that Fallout games other than their own exist!

 

[Zontar]

Nothing about them made sense. The real Roman Empire brought stability, technology and a chance at a better life to the conquered territories. These guys don't even do that. Their arrogance was unfounded, their firepower was laughable and only Legate Lanaius was a credible threat.

Fallout 4 points towards an NCR victory at the battle of Hoover Dam, which, let's be frank, makes the most sense given they're an actual nation and have actual stability.

I think I missed that part, where did you find it? Also, yay for Bethesda acknowledging that Fallout games other than their own exist!

NPCs make mention of the Battle of Hoover Dam being an NCR victory, with the story of the battle having spread all the way to Boston. Given the game takes place 7 years after New Vegas, and the fact that the NCR are the "good" faction of New Vegas points towards it being in reference to the second battle instead of the first. This is only reinforced by the fact that New Vegas showed that it only took 3 years for printed copies of the Wasteland Survival Guide to go from D.C. all the way to New Vegas, so it's not as though word of mouth for the second battle shouldn't have reached Boston in more then twice that time.

Given Bethesda is acknowledging New Vegas, it also means whatever non-numbered entry from another studio between the last of the DLC for 4 and the release of 5 will probably also be canon. Of course, what I REALLY want for Christmas would be Fallout Lore's "The Storyteller" and its Kingdom of Ludd to both be canonized.

 

[vallorn]

Nothing about them made sense. The real Roman Empire brought stability, technology and a chance at a better life to the conquered territories. These guys don't even do that. Their arrogance was unfounded, their firepower was laughable and only Legate Lanaius was a credible threat.

Fallout 4 points towards an NCR victory at the battle of Hoover Dam, which, let's be frank, makes the most sense given they're an actual nation and have actual stability.

I think I missed that part, where did you find it? Also, yay for Bethesda acknowledging that Fallout games other than their own exist!

NPCs make mention of the Battle of Hoover Dam being an NCR victory, with the story of the battle having spread all the way to Boston. Given the game takes place 7 years after New Vegas, and the fact that the NCR are the "good" faction of New Vegas points towards it being in reference to the second battle instead of the first. This is only reinforced by the fact that New Vegas showed that it only took 3 years for printed copies of the Wasteland Survival Guide to go from D.C. all the way to New Vegas, so it's not as though word of mouth for the second battle shouldn't have reached Boston in more then twice that time.

Given Bethesda is acknowledging New Vegas, it also means whatever non-numbered entry from another studio between the last of the DLC for 4 and the release of 5 will probably also be canon. Of course, what I REALLY want for Christmas would be Fallout Lore's "The Storyteller" and its Kingdom of Ludd to both be canonized.

Ok... Yeah... I actually really like the whole concept behind the Luddites that they showed, a society who abhor anything not made by a person's own hands because they believe that kind of thing is what brought about The Great War. It would make for a good faction with Fallout 4's gun modding/crafting system in mind and, so as not to spoil anything, their leader is fantastic. A game with them as a faction would probably put most of Fallout 4's factions to shame simply because The Luddites actually seem to have something of a ruthless streak when it comes to destroying technology they deem 'unclean' without being cartoonishly evil. Also they all seem to speak with Australian accents so that's good too.

 

[Zontar]

It would make for a good faction with Fallout 4's gun modding/crafting system in mind and, so as not to spoil anything, their leader is fantastic.

Exactly. King Ludd was only shown for like 5 minutes but he seemed like a more fleshed out character then Caesar or the Institute where and with a logical reasoning behind what he does. I mean sure pretty much everyone who isn't one of them disagrees, but you can understand the reasoning they have. As either the neutral or the evil faction, they'd be a great addition to any future Fallout game.

Plus, given the history behind the foundation of the Kingdom, it would give a direct connection to Fallout 1 on top of everything, and I can't say I don't like that.