We're freedom fighters helping robots. What about helping normal people of the Commonwealth starving to death and under constant threat of wildlife and raiders? Not our problem. Where do you guys even get the funding and supplies to be able to help robots without working or growing food etc.? Bethesda writing at it's finest.
@@MrCatFromOuterSpace it’s unrealistic and stupid priorities. Fighting for synths rights is about as realistic as seeing greenpeace protest in shady sands. It COULD happen, but it is so far outside the scope of what people would find important, that it takes you right out of it.
@@max7971 well. I agree with that. What I mean is the smallest issue with them. You know, sometimes you can create a "head canon" :-) to justify some sloppy story. Technically, in comparison to other stuff I can stretch it so railroad do care for oppressed synths more than anything else because reasons. They are just so defunct that this part feels minor in comparison.
@danielsurvivor1372 for all a player knows, the minutemen might be the schizophrenic hallucinations from a PTSD victim. You can play hundreds of hours and only find preston and that dead minutemen in front of the museum.
As the institute prepares to send its army of cold, emotionless killing machines into the underground of the Old North Church, ready to reduce the Railroad into their component atoms, a single, high pitched voice can be heard from within. "GET THAT JELLY MOLD OUT OF HERE !!!!"
@CaseyC-bg4bb because he and pete hines are todd's friends. bethesda is basically nepotism, the studio. they do it to make loads of money, and if they destroy some ips they poached off others in the meantime, too bad. todd's almost ready to retire anyway, it's not his problem.
Railroad being a major faction makes no sense. They hold little territory and have no plans outside of 'safe the toasters by blowing up their factory'. Gunners would've been a far better pick, but Bugthesda can't into good writing apparently.
Funnily enough, minor factions in New Vegas are more developed. For example, the Boomers have territory they want to develop for sustainability while also expanding their reach with a bomber, which has cultural significance beyond being a weapon. They also have motivation for fighting whoever the Courier tells them fight; ranging from maintaining independence to honoring an ally.
The Powder Gangers have more firepower, more and better territory with two highly defensive positions, better leadership, more of a clear goal, and take more action both before and during the plot of New Vegas than the Railroad in 4. The Railroad wouldn't survive a war with the fucking Powder Gangers.
I agree also when the institute gets destroyed the railroad will eventually disburse because there isn’t a need for them anymore. They should have been a minor faction but honestly all the factions in fallout 4 could have been written way better.
Even the Followers Of The Apocalypse, a peaceful group of helpers, teachers and healers, have more of a long term impact, with Caesar being a former Follower.
I have destroyed the Railroad, Brotherhood, Institute, the Raiders of Nuka World, the Commonwealth Raider gangs, Baedberton with his robot and his Gator claws, the Forged, the two Children of Atom in the Commonwealth, the Amphitheater cult, the Hubologists, and Oswald and his ghoul hordes. Now comes the campaign against the Mechanist robots, the Rust Devil gang, and the Far Harbor Campaign. I'm gonna destroy Arcadia, the Trappers, and the final stronghold of the Children of Atom.
@dr.science_0177 legitimately the only real reason to be with them at all. The amount of defense that shit gives is insane. Especially at max. Its almost comparable to power armour
Virgil's roasting of the Railroad is the best part of the railroad. Plus it is so fucking true. "grrr next they'll deal with freeing soda machines". Based Virgil?
he's kind of not wrong though, i mean even Deacon states this endeavor becomes a stupid argument, because he mentions should we save all robots from vending machines to toaster ovens lol. look i have played every story direction and they are all poorly written in their own way, but the railroad is the worst written above all the rest lol. i still scoff about that stupid statement Alen Benet suggests the synths have souls and his scientific reasoning is because they dream lol like WTF? so it seriously makes you think that the institute fell sorry for the guy and allowed him to become the leader in synth development, but he's so delusional of a man, hell the guy took for himself a freaking synth for a wife lol, no idea what happened to his last wife?, the man is all kinds of delusional, i think it's no wonder the synths appear human, it's because Mr. delusional here who's in charge of synth development is programing this flawed logic in these synths. but here is the funny thing about this, Shaun kind of needs the synths to act like real humans, because he needs them to be good infiltrators for the institute, like the whole Warwick situation where the institute replaced that family's dad, now we don't know if the institute killed the original or if he dies of something else or something and the institute just replaces him with one of their own, but even the synth in question feels sort of attached to this family even though they aren't his family, so it makes that synth a good infiltrator, however the flaw in the logic is the fact of what the original dad was like, which is what tipped off the other guys he worked alongside with in the settlement. which suggests that the dad died without the institute really having a full knowledge of the original man, his personal thoughts or his opinions his attitude towards them or things in general, like the kids mention their life before they moved to this shitt factory settlement location, they explain that they were poor and only ate once a day and their dad was always angry, but when they came to this new settlement suddenly their lives improved and their dads behavior changed and improved. so maybe that flawed logic isn't by accident in the synths, maybe it's programmed in by a very delusional man who's in charge with creating the synths, and Shaun is just too ignorant to notice Mr. Benet's delusional relationship with his synth wifu.
@@5226-p1e That's an interesting interpretation, the original Warwick was a dysfunctional drunk that could have died without anyone noticing. Unfortunately the institute terminal disprove this theory because it state that Warwick was interrogated to formulate synth Warwick personality. It also stated that the entire family would be killed once the agrarian experiment was concluded, so it's a safe assumption the original was merciless disposed off. I think the idea, excluding occasional horrible written contradictions, was for the third generation synths to be fabricated humans like the androids in Blade Runner. If their mind were the same as the normal robots the badly implemented moral dilemma wouldn't make any sense.
Everytime Cree posts these, he realizes he has more he wants to say and just casually drops an extra 30 mins of rant that wasn't originally there. Dude simply can't stop finding the bad, and I love it.
@@tentacledood5784what do you call the memory wipe? Imagine your entire memory was wiped tomorrow, would you be the samr? All the traumas happy things etc who made you into who you are, GONE would you still be you? Nope..... It may as well be murder.... And even one when doing curies quest she even says her friend is dead if you put curie in there...... So .. youre actually wrong they do euthanise the synths they "save"
@@tentacledood5784 How about when they nuke the Institute, where all Synths are made, thereby dooming them all. They don't just take the technology so Synths can make Synths, they destroy it all.
@@themanwithnoname1839 The way the game treat synth Curie is so strange. The synth was comatose because something went wrong when they tried to install the new memories and personality, and they couldn't fix by trying again, but she becomes fully functional after installing new memories and personality from a robot. Why did the original process failed? Why this process worked? Why did the robot Curie died? Why don't they consider the original reprogramming a death but the Curie reprogramming means the original synth is dead?
A cool way the Railroad could've been handled is if there was a way to discover they're actually thr controlled opposition. Like their true mission is to ensure synths infiltrate society under the guise of giving them freedom but the institute still has to keep them in check by raiding them from time to time so they don't get too big.
Hmmm. I think I would make them the opposition to the Institute, even before the Institut made the Synths. Making the Railroad the only ones that actually try to stop the Institute before the Brotherhood arrives.
I'd write it so they are under soft controll of the institute. they act as a beacon for escaped synths that somehow avoided having their memories wiped. then they act friendly and convince them to wipe their memory 'for their own safety. they put on some performance skirmishes and everyone but the absolute leaders of the railroad are kept in the dark. the institute actively avoids going after the wiped synthetic to make it look like the memory wiping actually works. that way if the institute affiliated leaders die somehow, the people who step into the role after them will go on encouraging the synths they find to wipe their memory.
Fallout 4 is completely fixed if you go off of the assumption that every person, animal, monster and event are ALL Synths designed by the real Institute to test you, their first prototype Gen 4 Synth, in a controlled environment. Life never took in the Commonwealth, it's all staged. But that's why we should've written the game instead of Email Pagliacci.
@@kingofhearts3185 Nah the Alphabet Agencies creating every homegrown Terrorist threat, Entrapping one guy while the rest of the Crew are all agents... And then they claim they got him! As if that lone individual without the Funding or expertise of the Agents was ever going to do anything
still doesn't make sense. If it was like, Cabot house secretly funding the Railroad in exchange for tech it'd make sense, but one NPC with as much backstory as a sentence?
I hated the railroad. They make no sense, and they are a bunch of holier-than-thou smug idiots. You'd think the faction full of isolationist eggheads would be more insufferable, but the railroad somehow beats them. Apparently Bethesda didn't catch on that no one liked Victoria Watts in 3, so they made an entire faction of her. They are a terrible faction and shouldn't have been a major player.
Railroad could be wiped out by one god damned synth.. Just teleport a synth in scavver clothing with a backpack nuke, have him walk the freedom trail and then BOOM everything goes when he is greeted by the entire upper echelon of RR like Nate/Nora is.
I mean it's not like the game even implies that's a possibility by having a notable enemy type who carries a man portable nuke. That sort of thing would _never_ happen
Dude that's ridiculous, I'm sure if one Institute-aligned person with maybe a Courser following them showed up to the Railroad HQ with a couple mini nukes, I'm sure they wouldn't just allow themselves to get killed. I just don't see one guy wiping out their entire leadership core(Des, Glory, Drummer Boy, Deacon) with a single well-placed mini nuke. Couldn't happen.
The theory that "The Lone Wanderer" from Fallout 3 is Deacon, is just such an insulting outcome for the protagonist to be associated fighting along side such an incompetent faction. Even more than the theory about No-Bark being "The Chosen One".
This is like the French resistance having a meeting place below a church and paint Viva la Revolution with an arrow pointing towards them on the walls outside!
Additionally, they keep their password in French because it is a tough language for foreigners, they recruit anyone who finds them because it shows cleverness, and their goal is to raze Vichy France to the ground rather than preserve a home for the French.
@billybob7135 "I'm impressed, most people can't read these days" Desdemona honey there are signs everywhere that people are making, there's notes and journals everywhere, and there are magazines being actively published in the world. There are multiple schools in the game including one in the city that hates Synths. Not to mention your enemy is SCIENTISTS HIDING UNDER A COLLEGE
I kind of want to make a video essay about why Dima from Far Harbor is one of the most evil groomers and cult leaders in fiction because he does exactly what the Institute does and tells a young girl her parents aren't her real parents and that they will never love and accept her and that she will only be safe with him you know like a groomer and a cult leader
I love dima as a unaware cult leader , like it can be argued that he wants to be just but he also is a neradic control freak who can will make hard choices but can't live with the guilt for he makes himself forget. Arcadia feel like a second draft of the railroad with written flaw rather then unattended ones
The very first time I "found" the railroad and then that...password. I said to myself , "they(railroad) ALL DESERVE to die." Even tinker Tom? ESPECIALLY Tinker Tom he's SUPPOSED to be the smart one. And Pam couldn't...PREDICT that SOMEONE'S going to figure that out? Yes, yes, Emiiillllll YOU certainly...delivered on that one eh?
Tinker Tom is another aspect of the whacky zany nonsense that Bethesda thinks is the core of Fallout because of FO2's random nonsense which ruined the game.
@@BaconMinion Bethesda seems to think high energy borderline ADHD spastic grease monkey mechanic making quippy one-liners when his friend gets blown up by his invention = Fallout dark humor. It's insane.
P.A.M is an AI designed to run geopolitical models and predict the most prudent course of action. P.A.M is so smart that she predicted the existence of a Chinese Ghost Fleet using nothing but current available data, or rather it's scarcity. P.A.M is UNABLE to predict human behavior even after being given said human's psych profile , citing too many possible outcomes and shuts down. P.A.M is a plot device that contradicts itself.
"How does the Railroad eat, where does their water come from, where do they get their resources from?" Dude don't be disingenuous, there's two mole rats and an irradiated puddle a quarter mile away from their base.
I like the Deliverer, and Deacon is alright. But, the railroad is easily the worst faction in the game. Also, it feels like Deacon is too smart to be in the railroad.
the response to the password is funny. >uh, have you seen the average wastelander? they can't even read or write. yes, i have. the average wastelanders write letters all the time. i mean, even super mutants can read and write to some degree. but your problem is neither with the wastelanders or super mutants, but the institute, and last i checked reading and writing, as well as above average intellect are required to make advanced robots.
The Institute and The Railroad could have been interesting factions, if the writers were better. The Institute could have been an organization that wanted to control the Commonwealth, by replacing influential people with Synths. The Railroad could have been a resistance group that wanted to stop The Institute. Not because they view synths as people, but because they view The Institute as a threat. They would have still helped runaway synths, but only if they provided useful information or help against The Institute. Kinda like how The Resistance is using T-800s against Skynet.
Cool idea, but if the Institute wasn't incompetent rescuing synths would have a tremendous risk of infiltration. If the Railroad priority wasn't to rescue synths they wouldn't take such risk and would instead act like Covenant.
@@DanielChico09 In my version, The Institute would still struggle with rogue synths, but not because of incompetence. They would struggle because the human looking synths would be a relatively new thing, and they haven't perfected their program yet. As for The Railroad. In my version, Dr Amari wouldn't send you to their HQ. She would send you to a man, who would be a proxy between you and The Railroad. You would only see their HQ, after you completed a number of quests for them. They would work with the synths in a similar manner.
@@madarpauser2133 That's an improvement. If I was from the Institute trying to deal with an opposing secret organization I would make synth agents programmed to believe they had escaped to be rescued by the Railroad. Some of those agents would be simple for information gathering, with implanted trackers or programmed to relay information to one of our surface agents. Others would be printed with less internal organs to fit explosives inside their bodies. The Memory Den would likely be one of the first places to be destroyed as they attempt to reprogram a synth with a mininuke. Losing the complex facility and the specialist operating it would be a blow to the Railroad, but metal detection would become an efficient countermeasure, so I would instead fill future infiltrators with less powerful but more hard to detect plastic explosives and biological contaminants. At the end it doesn't matter how efficient a better version of the Railroad is, their synth rescuing efforts is a weakness a more competent Institute would frequently exploit. That's why a more competent Covenant would be a better adversary for the Institute.
@@DanielChico09 As i mentioned in my first comment. My version of The Railroad wouldn't rescue synths, because they view them as people. They would only help synths that can provide information or help against The Institute. They wouldn't help every single synth they stumbled upon. Not to mention that the synths they do help, would be scanned and watched carefully. Also. Since the human looking synths would still have issues with their programming, it would be risky to send them against The Railroad. Resource management would also be an issue. The human looking synths aren't easy to make, so The Institute would only use the more primitive models to carry out attacks.
@@madarpauser2133 Limited resources is a good explanation, but that also limit how many synths the Railroad can rescue before their activities become intolerable for the Institute. If the Institute is making, let's say, one human looking synth per month to replace someone important the Railroad cannot rescue one human looking synth per month, maybe not even one per year. Since the production is on the Institute side any limitation they are subjected to would be even greater for the rescues efforts for those factions' activities to be balanced.
I am glad you bought it up. Wiping memories is tantamount to killing the individual. That alone is why I consider the Railroad either incompetent or malicious. Either way, makes a play through with them hard.
@CaseyC-bg4bb human beings are just self-replicating entropy accelerators with a prime directive to create copies of themselves. The same as all other living things. There's nothing fundamentally different between a human and a gen 3 synth, aside from the ability of the institute to Winter Soldier trigger phrase them into deactivating or whatever using that one brain chip. Without the institute, they're literally just regular people who happen to be better suited to survive the wasteland due to their resistance to radiation.
Honestly, this can all be traced down to the most common denominator, a lack of a game design document that the writers can refer to so they do not contradict eachother. And Emil Pagliuero being in charge of the writing team. And thus, his most important job is keeping the game design document up to date. Which he felt he was too important to be doing so he never does. This is what causes the eerie sensation none of the writers communicated with eachother, because they basicly were not.
Wtf really!? That's even more annoying! Knowing it's the method rather than the writers themselves, I think the game has a really cool art style, cool looking graphics and setting, the factions COULD be awesome but instead a couple of morons cause it to have so much crap in it that it's boring to play, I've only finished it once despite trying to playing it 5 times! The shooting and environment bring me back, hell the companions and side quests are even really good and a more fleshed out settlement system could have been amazing, imagine if you could visibly change the area by essentially running the outskirt area and gradually make a NCR like nation!? The wasted opportunity is what I hate, it could have absolutely been the best game in the series if they would just COLLABORATE with obsidian, it's how close but far we are from this outcome that angers us all so much I think?
Another stupid thing about the Railroad is how easy it is to fail their quest. Literally if you leave the Institute AT ALL without first grabbing the thing they want, they'll treat you like you sided with the institute even if you go back and do it before talking to them. They just ASSUME you betrayed them even if you made no such decision.
@@preyes164 exactly what it says. No matter what you do, if you leave the institute without getting the data or whatever the railroad wants you to get, even if you go back and do it BEFORE talking to the railroad, they treat you like you betrayed them and you can’t continue their quest. I was pretty clear with that.
@sixmillionisimpossible nothing like an obligatory sexist "whamen" and coffee emoji for the easy likes by alt right incels huh? Well a man wrote the factions history and the poor character writing in this game 😅 thats kind of akward. If all the previous leaders were men would you say their gender is proof why 50% of the popluation suck? The sexist comment is just fucking redundant and stupid. god please go touch some grass.
First time I played the game, I went to the institute without doing Tradecraft, because I was more interested in continuing the story than doing more faction stuff. I went back later, and Des wouldn't let me join. You can become enemies by forgetting to set off the evacuation alert when raiding the Institute with the Minutemen. It's the most finnicky faction in the game.
This is why I love the Calculator and the Robot Army from Fallout Tactics. A cold, methodical menace to all organic life. No human, ghoul, or supermutant was safe from it. The Robot Army had various models to scout, infiltrate, and destroy a target. It had walking tanks called Behemoths and command & control pacification robots. It had infantry and flail tanks. The robots certainly were tougher than supermutants. As the Unity remnants leadership, including a former Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, informed the player of the mechanical menace coming out of Colorado. Synths do not compare to this old world technology. Coursers would have difficulty dealing with the C27 humanoid robot. Also, the robot army C27s were equipped with advanced laser, plasma, and guass weapons. Including the guass gatling gun. The Institute, with its synthetic humans and lackluster laser weapons, would be shreaded within a day by the Calculator's army. In both the figurative and literal sense.
The Railroad exists as a blunt reminder that Bethesda's creative leads have zero fucking clue in understanding plights more inteicate than "we can't put stuff in dirt 'cause raisers".
That’s always been a Bethesda problem if anything the follows of apocalypse are far better railroad then the ones in 4 but the biggest problem I have with fallout 4 is your choices and decisions don’t matter because there’s really no fallout with them unlike NV where they do matter but there’s also no good factions in 4
It would make more sense if they were doing some shit to stop people from being kidnapped in the game or where fully synth led. Otherwise, them being a "major faction" was a complete mistake, but we all know they did that because NV had 4.
No, you see you didn't meet anyone actually, because they only told you their code names! Ha, brilliant... Why even use code names? Non of you ever leaves the basement?!?
I encountered a bug where Glory was still alive after she was supposed to die, and people kept saying they missed her while she was right there without any dialogue.
I've hit the same bug but it's different for me -- I can have all her normal conversations with her, she says hello when I walk past, all that stuff. IMO the rest of the RR is just gaslighting her by telling her she's dead.
@@duncanmcokiner4242 I'd say there's a 50% chance of that and a 50% chance of it just being badly coded from the start. It's Bethesda, so your guess is as good as mine. Their attitude does seem to be "the makers of the Unofficial Patch will fix it."
@@duncanmcokiner4242 I'm in the fanbase. :) I love their games in spite of all the warts and imperfections. I'm appalled at the number of hours I've sunk into Skyrim and the Fallout franchise. I don't have Starfield because A) I don't have a machine capable of running it, and B) I only buy their games once the Creation Kit has been released and modders have had a go at it. Eventually I'll play it though, and I will curse Bethesda's laziness and sloppiness even as I rack up the hours. Nothing's perfect in this world. 😁
I like it how in second quest the game gives you "Go through the main entrance (optional)" and when you go to the main entrance, Deacon says "Welp, that didn't work out, it's locked, my bad, looks like you HAVE TO go through the only option bethesda made".
The one good thing about the Railroad is gaining access to the Ballistic Weave Mod. After that, then scorched earth option. Well maybe 2 good things because the Deliverer but literally both of those can be gotten before going in more than like 3 or 4 quests.
not to mention the game can't decide what synths are. Are they perfect androids, indistinguishable from humans? Or are they robots with a human skin on the outside? Are they independent and sentient, or programmed machines? The game can't seem to make up its mind, so it's no surprise this entire quest doesn't make sense
I've seen some people defend this on the basis that it let's you come to your own conclusions about synths, but I don't think that works. Multiple perspectives is one thing, but you can't just have multiple contradictory sets of facts, all of which are seemingly true. That's just incoherent.
I personally interpreted it as them being fully human except their brain, hence the synth component. And that would explain the remote control. But yea the writing is very dumb tbh
It would be like fallout New Vegas only to have a secret faction within free side trying to liberate House's security bots... While ignoring the Legion getting ready to murder everyone or the NCR focused on expanding their territory. House would only let them exist only because he thinks they are too stupid to be a threat when compared to the actual threats to his rule.
Wait a second, if the (Underground) Railroad is helping synths, are they a stand-in for Blacks, or something? Is their leader supposed to be a Harriet Tubman stand-in? None of this just works.
No they are a stand in for imposter replacements. I have discovered over 700 public figures (and counting) who you know, who were replaced with imposters and never seen again, stretching back over 100 years. You might say it's far-fetched but the real Joe Biden was replaced with an imposter in 2018 and Vladimir Putin was replaced with an imposter in 2010. This railroad quest in Fallout 4 is coming from the same mind that has you meeting your doppelgänger at the end of the main quest in Starfield. That game is one big imposter replacement simulator.
It's sad. Imagine having your very own fanbase, hundreds of thousands of people analyzing and coming up with better plot/conflict, only for you to not listen or consider a single one. The only acknowledgment was the mod menu...they restricted trophies...jackasses.
I always found it interesting a character model matching Desdemona can be found behind sanctuary in that shack guarded by a raider and a dog. While I also don’t like the faction it felt like a thrown away section that she might be a synth and trying to free her own kind. Which might’ve been an interesting sub plot when I inevitably raid the base with the Bos. To be fair she might have a synth component and I’m misremembering I usually clear the place and move on and it’s been awhile since I’ve gone near the end of the game.
I just LOVE how Memory Interrupted involves doctor Amari, who they claim you wouldn't know... even if you're far enough into the main quest to have met her. And did Curie's personal quest in which she gets put into a synth body. Glory seems to recognize you if you joined the Railroad before doing Emergent Behavior (Curie's quest). When you go to her, doctor Amari recognizes you if you've done the main quest. So why couldn't they add a bloody check to see if you're far enough into the main quest? Of course, it goes so much deeper than that, but I guess I shouldn't even expect that much from one of the most poorly written and incompetent so called factions in Fallout history.
Thank you for making such well-thought content. When the real world seems ridiculous and full of clowns, it's refreshing to dissociate with "pointless" rants. Keep at it, I sincerely hope you can make youtube your primary source of income.
I hated the railroad when they started screaming about how bunker hill was theirs. Robots can’t own anything and when they start saying they do they have to be destroyed
Imagine you're the actual Underground Railroad and you declare a random town is yours because you've been illegally using their open market to smuggle escaped slaves without anyone knowing. Like nah, I'm pretty sure everyone in Bunker Hill would hate the Railroad, especially the two or three traders who are Institute spies.
@@3rd.Eye.Saw.Destruction Stockton is like "do you have a Geiger counter? We need to move HL-22 soon" meanwhile Trashcan Carla, Cricket and Doc Weathers are two feet away.
There was a moment when a switch flipped inside me and I just couldn't stand the Railroad anymore. Third playthrough I think. It just dawned on me that practically *NOTHING* they do makes sense. From memory wiping synths, to having their HQ being easily found by the likes of someone that's been in the wasteland for just a few days, to having no backup plans, to letting someone they believe works for the institute go, to blowing up the institute and effectively doom those they've sworn to protect to extinction, to the fact that if they were consistent they would've tried to blow up the Prydwen after a Minuteman ending for the same reasons they do in their own. They are the worst kept secret in the commonwealth. The only thing protecting these incompetent twats from annihilation by the Institute is the horrible writing.
The problem is that the writers behind the railroad are entirely uncritical. Deacon almost points out a valid arguement on robot rights as a whole when he brings up that technically the Railroad should be defending the rights of every protectron and autoturret they come across.... Before the counterarguement to that is several Railroad characters saying "Synths are people too" over and over again New Vegas is a great example here, while a lot of people agree the NCR are the better option, there are some genuine systemic flaws that system has that the writers explore. Obviously, faction writing has always been kinda weak for Bethesda, but then you have to wonder, why put such emphasis in their games on that feature? Are they stupid?
I feel a great example of seeing how flawed the NCR was is actually working with them. You could see the disfunction at several points where characters clearly don't trust their own chain of command but they're still optimistic about the NCR as a whole even with its systemic flaws. You weren't being told it was perfect and that made it believable.
That trick is also used on companions. I remember one clip that showcased if Cass decided she was done being your companion, you could say to her: "Oh, sorry, well you'll probably go back to your paren.... Oops, sorry!" Like, that choice to gut punch your own writing lends a lot of credence to the work. Even if it's never seen, the fact its there makes it all so much more fleshed out
Something to add onto this video- if you actually side with the Railroad, it’s all about a Synth revolution, and invading to help. But then you just blow it up anyway???? Which makes ZERO sense. Wouldn’t the logical thing to be to get rid of the Institute leadership and then take it over themselves so the Synths are free? What’s the point of a revolution if the place where it happens gets evaporated? All of this because Bethesda was too fucking lazy to make a unique faction specific ending and instead made EVERY SINGLE ONE EXCEPT THE INSTITUTE about destroying the Institute.
I somehow hate the railroad more than the institute even though I consider the railroad quests more tolerable than the pointlessness of the institute quests. So stupid...
Ah fallout 4 the only fallout game where i ended up hating everyone and killing them all in a rage ended up with the minutemen ending TLDR all faction leaders failed my speech check and initiated combat
@CaseyC-bg4bb no, it is actually possible to get rid of all the factions (minus the minutemen) if you know what you're doing. Even far harbour and nukaworld can be turned into lifeless wastelands if that's what you wish for. Getting rid of the minutemen isn't possible tho, you can disqualify yourself from the general position however if you do the nuke world dlc before saving them, then again saving them in the museum of freedom is optional.
Hot take but I think Railroad is like the only faction that thematically fits to be stupid. Even the game sort of calls them out on their aimlessness with Deacon saying "What next? We gonna save toasters next?" It's just, it needs slightly more tweaks and this faction could've worked, as sort of parody of activists but in nuclear world
The only reason you would have all of the head honchos in one base is if they are all ultra paranoid about each other. As they would demand to keep eyes on each other.
The railroad would make a lot more sense if it was made up of escaped synths. Like replace desdemona with another gen 2+ like Nick and Dima. That would relegate them to a secondary faction similar to the brotherhood in NV but at least answers questions like “why don’t they need resources like food and clean water?” Or “how can they see this as the top priority?”
The Railroad are a laughable Bunch that should have been a Chain of Side Quests. It feels like a Self-Insert that they suddenly manage to take out everyone.
The quest where you have to find the “hidden” railroad is the most hilarious quest Bethesda has ever released, I cannot believe the password is actually railroad
At least God Howard left us a way to wipe out railroad as soon as you meet them. Usually I take a last rank of nuclear physicist and right before dialog with Desdemona I drop a fusion core. Only if I could do the same with the minutemen 😈
Exactly! That's why in Babylon 5 (and other science fiction) death of personality (so a full mind wipe!) is used as an alternative to the death penalty (that way the body - because frankly you will be dead, your body will just get a new guy forming inside - can still do good for society and you are dead!)...so yeah, mind wipes are IMHO akin to killing someone!
Would have been better if Railroad protected ghouls super mutants, synths and slaves and had been a minor faction that could become consumed by the minutemen if you go that route
The funniest part is just that Railroad Armor and their Gaussrifles outmatch the Coursers Uniform and Laserrifle BY FAR. They act like the only response to them is running away, but they can easily outgun them. When you hunt the chip, they take out a whole Gunnerbase offscreen as some sort of setpiece, as if a Courser could take on 5 gunners.
@CaseyC-bg4bbI think institute weapons were supposed to be recharger laser guns, with lower damage but no need for energy cells. They got an ammo requirement later in development but kept their shitty damage.
they help synths escape but erase their memories so synths are as terrified to find out they are synths just like everyone else that alone makes railroad completely retarded and a waste of a faction if they were there like a joke plot they would be more tolerable
Hope your critique/reaction on Fallout TV show episode 2 and onward is gonna come out sooner than latter, shills are in full force defending that show 24/7 and we need some critique of it
Look I personally like the show, HOWEVER, I really want to see this guys take on it! Because he is a very good critic especially if Fallout! Both sides of the discourse on it have gone really far, not everyone though, one side acts like it killed Jesus or is bad because it has a diverse cast the other acts like it's the best piece of Fallout media ever made! I like this channel and community because it's not full of fanaticism but it's turning into "if you like or dislike this you are X" split in a fandom, it's quite upsetting considering Fallout has a major theme of humans working together despite the apocalypse! 🤣 The irony burns...
@@zakbrown9256 Well good thing to see you try to be open minded, kinda like that german guy who talked with Synthetic Man about the tv show. Honestly diversity isn't really an issue of this show, I mean Cree very slightly hinted at mc being maybe Mary Sue but nothing major, same goes to me, I don't think the show is woke per say, even the bad decisions like destroying NCR and destroying Mr House character can be explained by poor writing but even without wokeness, I just don't see the appeal of the show man, I'd rather have a show/game that literally changes every single lore detail but is actually interesting to watch/ interesting rpg to play then... Whatever F3,76,TV show is. So hope we see ya on Cree stream and maybe you can manage to have a lil talk with Cree crew and discuss the show. What's the appeal is what I'm saying. Characters look and feel bland so far at best and story is basically as generic and safe as possible, on par with F3,4 story.
@@zakbrown9256 I could care less about the Diversity bs , and more about how this " show" wrecks the Black Isle games and lore. 3 Vaults that didnt exist in Fallout 1 and 2? A new serum that keeps ghouls from going Feral that didnt exist in the first game. There's nothing to defend. The Amazon show isnt canon to Fallouts 1 and 2. and yes, it does retcon New Vegas. The first battle of Hoover dam was 2277 and NPCs in FNV still talk about going back home to the Hub and Shady Sands. The Show is literally another Witcher fiasco in the works.
It's telling that the RR HQ is in a crypt filled with the dead remains of humans. It echoes the idea that synths are no human, and a dead end. I feel like the RR and synth storyline is basically to show how easily humans (players) will anthropomorphize and empathize with things, and spend scares resources on something we've attached out own emotions to. The RR is like saving a pet cat instead of putting those resources toward a starving human. Does the prioritization make sense? Synths don't get sick. They don't starve. They don't die from radiation poisoning. They also don't procreate-- they are not the future of Humankind. But Millennials have been gaslit about children, family, and our future for so long that many of us cannot prioritize timelines longer than our own immediate emotions.
Sure, synths are capable of independent thought and action, but deep down it's nothing but sophisticated mimicry of a human mind. 1s and 0s. As you said, they'll never procreate or even grow old. One day, their internal clock will just stop ticking, they'll shut down, and be as they always were. A "dead end" is an understatement.
I never liked the idea that synths never get sick or need to eat/drink/sleep. It makes no sense when you combine it with mind erasing synths to no longer know they’re synths (or synths needing to infiltrate a place and pretend to be human). And it’s so wildly inconsistent in the game. Just imagine somebody having the conversation “Hey, Bill, how come I never see you eat, drink, or sleep?” Even if they can choose to do those things, that just makes synths like Warwick in particular a terrible infiltrator because multiple people point out how he never sleeps. Not to mention the mind erased synths themselves. Can you imagine somebody like Danse going all those years without ever feeling hungry, thirsty, or tired and just never questioning why?
@@Death2all546 I'm with you. Though, when you consider synths are literal weapons meant to subvert and eventually annihilate sacred Humanity, their behaviors become understandable. They are compelled to do many things, like eat and sleep, that they may easier deceive. A mind-wiped synth still has these imperatives, and are likely still compelled to subvert, even "subconsciously". "Mankind Redefined", by a bunch of anti-social nerds' offspring, worshipping at the altar of scientism. Most optimistically, the Institute and their refuse is a critique of modern transhumanism. Tho, considering most fo4 fans probably feel the Institute is the best faction for "progress", it's less a criticism and more a warning.
On the Subject of Synths can't Procreate and THEM being the Future of Humankind, according to the Institute, how is Humanity going to even Survive if there are no Humans alive to Procreate? Synths will eventually be Killed by SOMETHING, and if there are no Humans, then that's it, it's Done, the End. The Institute is Retarded for even thinking that Synths are the Future and the Best Chance of Human Evolution, when the Synths can't even Reproduce.... WTF are they even Thinking?
i dropped f4 after playing and trying to get some mods working after 100 hours, came across this and yeah, is there anything that isn't badly written in f4???
The only good writing that I can remember is talking with Arlen Glass about his backstory and that’s it, that’s the only good writing that I can remember.
k, so with the whole door password thing, and the opponent being the institute, my question is, if the institute even suspects a location is a railroad facility, couldn't they just teleport in? it's not like there are any limitations stated for whether the relay only functions if you have been to a place before. one could imagine with a little bit of math you could offset coordinates from a known point, like an outside wall and then simply jump right into the base. with the ability to send virtually limitless disposable "troops", even a gen 1 synth could be used as a test to determine if the coordinates are good; then within a few seconds just dump a few coursers in after it and carry on as if the door was wide open.
With regards to what you said about Nick there is also the chance that he doesn’t know for certain and is simply make that conclusion from what he know as we only learn about memory wipes from the railroad and it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge outside of them
It wouldn't of been hard to flesh out Desdemona and her leadership team as being ex-Institute to give them some further reasoning and motivation. Hell, Desdemona say's "Sam" when she dies - was Sam a Synth she was in love with? Who cares! Go shoot things and collect rubbish, we don't have time for emotional attachment in these parts. Have you got a legendary weapon yet? pew pew pew
16:11 actually, synths don't have such kind of failsafe at all. İt is just Nick's assumption, later, when we reach Far Harbor, we can learn that Nick wasn't discarded, but escaped with Dima together. But his mind was wiped too many times, he was experimented on too often, so he forgot everything and didn't even recognize Dima. Escaping synths don't really forget about the İnstitute. Because everyone at Acadia remembers their lives in the İnstitute
After watching your 4 part series, I get the feeling, that playing Fallout 4 is probably something you really dislike. That is understandable, not everyone will like playing this game. But you spent a awfully long time breaking apart the factions and problems of gameplay in Fallout, and I thank you for that effort. Although your analysis is overwhelmingly negative, there is useful information for players to learn about.
11:10 Considering that its the Railroad and how dumb the Railroad is, I think the Brotherhood is trying to prevent the Railroad from corrupting the gene pool even further with advance idiocy.
Would have made a bit more sense if the whole Railroad was made of escaped synths or maybe got a few humans, but its something that should be made obvious. Wouldn't make the faction good, but it'd be a step forward at least.
I feel the same about the Railroad and didn't need this video. I came to ask these questions and looked it the lore on this faction. This group is the one I played the least because I kept asking question and getting angry at this group.
This was another botched oppurtunity. What should have been a series of night raids, ambushes, clandestine escort missions, spying, disinformation, and basically full on guerilla warfare....turned into a bunch of drug addicts and art students larping in a basement. Kind of like the real Antifa. I will admit, though, I did chuckle a bit during the attack on the Prydwen. The bad flying and haphazard methodology was a nice touch. But every single factions arc could have been so much more if they took it all the way.
16:00 I'm pretty sure Nick is just wrong about every synth losing memories. Dima and Chase have institute memories and other synths seem to as well. Was probably just Nick who lost his memories.
16:08 so my opinion on this is that for Nick, because he's an older model synth, it's his assumption that it's a programmed out of them to know the location of the institute, but i feel like it's more about the limited memory of nick's generation synth, as Dima suggests in the far harbor DLC this version that they exist as have a limited memory and for Dima, he just had to create holo tape program copies of his memories and some personal modifications to keep his memories and extend them. it could also be that Nick was mem wiped many times and took damage while him and Dima escaped, but because of his brain damage he rejected Dima and fought against him not knowing what he was at the time thinking that Dima was the crazy robot helping him out and wanting nothing to do with him. maybe they receive a memory wipe via Mr. Benet when he allows them to escape, but maybe sometimes he allows them to escape with their memories intact on some occasions, perhaps it has to do with situations within the institute, he says he often allows them to escape via through hacking, but i feel like there is more to his method and might involve mem wipes after he releases them but perhaps in H2-22's case Mr. Benet didn't have the time and just allowed the synth to escape.
Man this dude's on fire not only did he react to that trash fire fallout show but then he also managed to keep up with the fallout 4 analysis by uploading a video about the faction I hate the most
The only way I can come up with for how Synths keep escaping the Institute is that they use the same pipes the player uses to enter the Institute when going down the Minutemen path. It's hard to believe that the Institute would not know about this major security oversight, but we do know they're incompetent. Without this method, it would be truly impossible for a Synth to escape since the use of the teleporter is so tightly regulated.
as dumb as it sounds; the institute should just make a chalk scanner to identify railroad agents; almost no one else uses chalk for anything. if they are carrying; get em. Liam knowing you nuked megaton might be handwaved by GNR; i can't remember if 3dog comments on it, but even then idk how he knows the rando is YOU.
How exactly does he know, though? For all you know, 3Dog could've been lied to if someone other than the LW nuked Megaton and then pinned it on them. Oh yeah, and you can gain the karma back and James'll even say he doesn't believe you bombed Megaton
Three Dog is another good example of inconsistency tbh. He knows everything that happened at Megaton, at Canterbury Commons, and even exactly who you gave Bryan Wilks to, but he doesn't know how you finished Blood Ties, and doesn't even know about the Oasis quest resolution despite cluing you in on its existence. Good VO though.
What fucking rustles my jimmies (among so much stuff) when i watch these in depth videos, is how much bethesda doesnt figure out just whats the hell synths actually are. They hint more of a robot and then more of a full on lab grown human back and forth
But the realest problem with the railroad is that they _aren't_ saving any synths. Every single synth they save is sent to Dr. Amari, where they suffer ego death and a new, shallow, false persona is placed on top of the empty shell. We can see what happens to a memory wiped synth in Curie's companion questline. They're braindead. Empty. That person is _gone._
Synths are able to choose if they want to have their mind wiped. They aren't forced to do it. Though perhaps it is suggested as an option and encouraged too heavily to the desperate people trying to escape their old miserable life. But I always got the impression that many suffered from trauma due to their experiences as slaves to the institute and actively wanted to forget their trauma. I think there was a holotape of a synth before their wipe that mentioned how they just wanted to forget about their life in the institute. Much like how Dima chose to forget the painful memories he had about the terrible choices he made. But sometimes, as dima shows, it is important to remember that pain. But perhaps for some people with ptsd, forgetting is for the best.
@Xahnel then I guess a lot of them picked the mind wipe option. What is your point? Also, glory I believe was not mind wiped. So you do meet ones that weren't.
@@masterofthecontinuum glory didn't leave the railroad, though. Those are the only options an escaped synth has in the commonwealth. So they either work for the railroad forever, or suffer ego death. And that's bad writing.
The Railroad would've made sense if they were about keeping people from being replaced, and also a part of the Minutemen. Didn't need to be a separate faction
The Railroad fall out of favor with me the moment Deacon made his "little people" comment at the Castle. Sure he's just one lying guy, but this one guy is our one deepest look into the Railroad. I grinded his affinity and then never contacted them again. That was my first ever run.
We're freedom fighters helping robots. What about helping normal people of the Commonwealth starving to death and under constant threat of wildlife and raiders? Not our problem. Where do you guys even get the funding and supplies to be able to help robots without working or growing food etc.? Bethesda writing at it's finest.
Nope all bigots.
Well. That is actually fine, I think. They have their priorities. The question is how, why and final goal.
@@MrCatFromOuterSpace it’s unrealistic and stupid priorities. Fighting for synths rights is about as realistic as seeing greenpeace protest in shady sands. It COULD happen, but it is so far outside the scope of what people would find important, that it takes you right out of it.
@@max7971 well. I agree with that. What I mean is the smallest issue with them. You know, sometimes you can create a "head canon" :-) to justify some sloppy story. Technically, in comparison to other stuff I can stretch it so railroad do care for oppressed synths more than anything else because reasons. They are just so defunct that this part feels minor in comparison.
But then West Coast bad for having a functional state that gives food and security to it's citizens
Ah yes the Railroad the faction that has more named Dead characters than live ones.
What about minuteman?
@@danielsurvivor1372 Like the general?
@@danielsurvivor1372 I think there are more mentioned characters in the minute men you'll never find, but the Railroad has more named corpses
@danielsurvivor1372 for all a player knows, the minutemen might be the schizophrenic hallucinations from a PTSD victim. You can play hundreds of hours and only find preston and that dead minutemen in front of the museum.
As the institute prepares to send its army of cold, emotionless killing machines into the underground of the Old North Church, ready to reduce the Railroad into their component atoms, a single, high pitched voice can be heard from within.
"GET THAT JELLY MOLD OUT OF HERE !!!!"
You dont understand
Its art
@BurghezulDjentilom
This got a genuine chuckle out of me. Nice.
@@einfachignorieren6156 bad art. Lets engage with good art. No more bethesda
@@fenixchief7 do you know where tod howard and Emil Pagliarulo live? if yes give me the info and a gun
@CaseyC-bg4bb because he and pete hines are todd's friends. bethesda is basically nepotism, the studio. they do it to make loads of money, and if they destroy some ips they poached off others in the meantime, too bad. todd's almost ready to retire anyway, it's not his problem.
Railroad being a major faction makes no sense. They hold little territory and have no plans outside of 'safe the toasters by blowing up their factory'.
Gunners would've been a far better pick, but Bugthesda can't into good writing apparently.
Funnily enough, minor factions in New Vegas are more developed. For example, the Boomers have territory they want to develop for sustainability while also expanding their reach with a bomber, which has cultural significance beyond being a weapon. They also have motivation for fighting whoever the Courier tells them fight; ranging from maintaining independence to honoring an ally.
The Powder Gangers have more firepower, more and better territory with two highly defensive positions, better leadership, more of a clear goal, and take more action both before and during the plot of New Vegas than the Railroad in 4. The Railroad wouldn't survive a war with the fucking Powder Gangers.
I agree also when the institute gets destroyed the railroad will eventually disburse because there isn’t a need for them anymore. They should have been a minor faction but honestly all the factions in fallout 4 could have been written way better.
Even the Followers Of The Apocalypse, a peaceful group of helpers, teachers and healers, have more of a long term impact, with Caesar being a former Follower.
The Railroad? Oh, they aren't a problem any more. I took care of it.
I have destroyed the Railroad, Brotherhood, Institute, the Raiders of Nuka World, the Commonwealth Raider gangs, Baedberton with his robot and his Gator claws, the Forged, the two Children of Atom in the Commonwealth, the Amphitheater cult, the Hubologists, and Oswald and his ghoul hordes. Now comes the campaign against the Mechanist robots, the Rust Devil gang, and the Far Harbor Campaign. I'm gonna destroy Arcadia, the Trappers, and the final stronghold of the Children of Atom.
Even the syths leadership in far harbour thinks they are idiots
After I get the ballistic weave mod
@dr.science_0177 legitimately the only real reason to be with them at all. The amount of defense that shit gives is insane. Especially at max. Its almost comparable to power armour
@@lastswordfighter yea but first another settlement needs your help. I’ll mark it on your map
Virgil's roasting of the Railroad is the best part of the railroad. Plus it is so fucking true. "grrr next they'll deal with freeing soda machines". Based Virgil?
Virgil is the only character I actually like in Fallout 4.
he's kind of not wrong though, i mean even Deacon states this endeavor becomes a stupid argument, because he mentions should we save all robots from vending machines to toaster ovens lol.
look i have played every story direction and they are all poorly written in their own way, but the railroad is the worst written above all the rest lol.
i still scoff about that stupid statement Alen Benet suggests the synths have souls and his scientific reasoning is because they dream lol like WTF?
so it seriously makes you think that the institute fell sorry for the guy and allowed him to become the leader in synth development, but he's so delusional of a man, hell the guy took for himself a freaking synth for a wife lol, no idea what happened to his last wife?, the man is all kinds of delusional, i think it's no wonder the synths appear human, it's because Mr. delusional here who's in charge of synth development is programing this flawed logic in these synths.
but here is the funny thing about this, Shaun kind of needs the synths to act like real humans, because he needs them to be good infiltrators for the institute, like the whole Warwick situation where the institute replaced that family's dad, now we don't know if the institute killed the original or if he dies of something else or something and the institute just replaces him with one of their own, but even the synth in question feels sort of attached to this family even though they aren't his family, so it makes that synth a good infiltrator, however the flaw in the logic is the fact of what the original dad was like, which is what tipped off the other guys he worked alongside with in the settlement.
which suggests that the dad died without the institute really having a full knowledge of the original man, his personal thoughts or his opinions his attitude towards them or things in general, like the kids mention their life before they moved to this shitt factory settlement location, they explain that they were poor and only ate once a day and their dad was always angry, but when they came to this new settlement suddenly their lives improved and their dads behavior changed and improved.
so maybe that flawed logic isn't by accident in the synths, maybe it's programmed in by a very delusional man who's in charge with creating the synths, and Shaun is just too ignorant to notice Mr. Benet's delusional relationship with his synth wifu.
In more than one case. He's also aware the F.E.V. program was a colossal waste of time.
That's not true at all. The Railroad never tries to liberate anything other than synths.
@@5226-p1e That's an interesting interpretation, the original Warwick was a dysfunctional drunk that could have died without anyone noticing.
Unfortunately the institute terminal disprove this theory because it state that Warwick was interrogated to formulate synth Warwick personality. It also stated that the entire family would be killed once the agrarian experiment was concluded, so it's a safe assumption the original was merciless disposed off.
I think the idea, excluding occasional horrible written contradictions, was for the third generation synths to be fabricated humans like the androids in Blade Runner. If their mind were the same as the normal robots the badly implemented moral dilemma wouldn't make any sense.
Everytime Cree posts these, he realizes he has more he wants to say and just casually drops an extra 30 mins of rant that wasn't originally there. Dude simply can't stop finding the bad, and I love it.
I'm still waiting for TV show rant 😭
Railroad is like a post apocalyptic PETA
Minus the euthanasia of the very things they claim to be trying to save.
@@tentacledood5784 argument - the memory wipe is a for of .. canadian health care
@@tentacledood5784what do you call the memory wipe? Imagine your entire memory was wiped tomorrow, would you be the samr? All the traumas happy things etc who made you into who you are, GONE would you still be you? Nope..... It may as well be murder.... And even one when doing curies quest she even says her friend is dead if you put curie in there...... So .. youre actually wrong they do euthanise the synths they "save"
@@tentacledood5784 How about when they nuke the Institute, where all Synths are made, thereby dooming them all. They don't just take the technology so Synths can make Synths, they destroy it all.
@@themanwithnoname1839 The way the game treat synth Curie is so strange. The synth was comatose because something went wrong when they tried to install the new memories and personality, and they couldn't fix by trying again, but she becomes fully functional after installing new memories and personality from a robot. Why did the original process failed? Why this process worked? Why did the robot Curie died? Why don't they consider the original reprogramming a death but the Curie reprogramming means the original synth is dead?
Their existence , they are the problem
Damn i wanted to write this too😂
The only correct answer.
Their name is a disgrace to the real life historical Railroad which freed ACTUAL slaves and not walking computer terminals.
A cool way the Railroad could've been handled is if there was a way to discover they're actually thr controlled opposition. Like their true mission is to ensure synths infiltrate society under the guise of giving them freedom but the institute still has to keep them in check by raiding them from time to time so they don't get too big.
Basically the matrix then? I like it.
Hmmm. I think I would make them the opposition to the Institute, even before the Institut made the Synths. Making the Railroad the only ones that actually try to stop the Institute before the Brotherhood arrives.
I'd write it so they are under soft controll of the institute. they act as a beacon for escaped synths that somehow avoided having their memories wiped. then they act friendly and convince them to wipe their memory 'for their own safety. they put on some performance skirmishes and everyone but the absolute leaders of the railroad are kept in the dark.
the institute actively avoids going after the wiped synthetic to make it look like the memory wiping actually works. that way if the institute affiliated leaders die somehow, the people who step into the role after them will go on encouraging the synths they find to wipe their memory.
Fallout 4 is completely fixed if you go off of the assumption that every person, animal, monster and event are ALL Synths designed by the real Institute to test you, their first prototype Gen 4 Synth, in a controlled environment. Life never took in the Commonwealth, it's all staged. But that's why we should've written the game instead of Email Pagliacci.
@@kingofhearts3185 Nah the Alphabet Agencies creating every homegrown Terrorist threat, Entrapping one guy while the rest of the Crew are all agents... And then they claim they got him! As if that lone individual without the Funding or expertise of the Agents was ever going to do anything
. . . Is Walter being "the money" behind Constellation A direct response to "where the fuck are the Railroad getting all their money and resources?"
old world explorer/ gentlemen's club , so of course there is a rich guy
Yes.
still doesn't make sense.
If it was like, Cabot house secretly funding the Railroad in exchange for tech it'd make sense, but one NPC with as much backstory as a sentence?
I hated the railroad. They make no sense, and they are a bunch of holier-than-thou smug idiots. You'd think the faction full of isolationist eggheads would be more insufferable, but the railroad somehow beats them. Apparently Bethesda didn't catch on that no one liked Victoria Watts in 3, so they made an entire faction of her.
They are a terrible faction and shouldn't have been a major player.
Railroad could be wiped out by one god damned synth..
Just teleport a synth in scavver clothing with a backpack nuke, have him walk the freedom trail and then BOOM everything goes when he is greeted by the entire upper echelon of RR like Nate/Nora is.
They are not the brightest minds meeting a stranger in one place like that.
I mean it's not like the game even implies that's a possibility by having a notable enemy type who carries a man portable nuke. That sort of thing would _never_ happen
@@MediumRareOpinions ikr ? I mean the extensive testing RR put any newcomers through should prevent it... oh wait..
It's even worst when you consider the possibility of fabricate synths with explosives inside their bodies.
Dude that's ridiculous, I'm sure if one Institute-aligned person with maybe a Courser following them showed up to the Railroad HQ with a couple mini nukes, I'm sure they wouldn't just allow themselves to get killed. I just don't see one guy wiping out their entire leadership core(Des, Glory, Drummer Boy, Deacon) with a single well-placed mini nuke. Couldn't happen.
The theory that "The Lone Wanderer" from Fallout 3 is Deacon, is just such an insulting outcome for the protagonist to be associated fighting along side such an incompetent faction.
Even more than the theory about No-Bark being "The Chosen One".
This is like the French resistance having a meeting place below a church and paint Viva la Revolution with an arrow pointing towards them on the walls outside!
Additionally, they keep their password in French because it is a tough language for foreigners, they recruit anyone who finds them because it shows cleverness, and their goal is to raze Vichy France to the ground rather than preserve a home for the French.
This is like if you were a slave owner and you woke up to find your slave missing and a big red line drawn from your house to their hideout
@billybob7135 "I'm impressed, most people can't read these days"
Desdemona honey there are signs everywhere that people are making, there's notes and journals everywhere, and there are magazines being actively published in the world. There are multiple schools in the game including one in the city that hates Synths. Not to mention your enemy is SCIENTISTS HIDING UNDER A COLLEGE
Their password is France
Also they hide under the Notre Damme, like literally inside it's basement
I kind of want to make a video essay about why Dima from Far Harbor is one of the most evil groomers and cult leaders in fiction because he does exactly what the Institute does and tells a young girl her parents aren't her real parents and that they will never love and accept her and that she will only be safe with him you know like a groomer and a cult leader
I love dima as a unaware cult leader , like it can be argued that he wants to be just but he also is a neradic control freak who can will make hard choices but can't live with the guilt for he makes himself forget. Arcadia feel like a second draft of the railroad with written flaw rather then unattended ones
Yeah, but in this specific case, the game doesn't pretend that he's the good guy.
The very first time I "found" the railroad and then that...password. I said to myself , "they(railroad) ALL DESERVE to die." Even tinker Tom? ESPECIALLY Tinker Tom he's SUPPOSED to be the smart one. And Pam couldn't...PREDICT that SOMEONE'S going to figure that out? Yes, yes, Emiiillllll YOU certainly...delivered on that one eh?
Tinker Tom is another aspect of the whacky zany nonsense that Bethesda thinks is the core of Fallout because of FO2's random nonsense which ruined the game.
@@BaconMinion Bethesda seems to think high energy borderline ADHD spastic grease monkey mechanic making quippy one-liners when his friend gets blown up by his invention = Fallout dark humor. It's insane.
P.A.M is an AI designed to run geopolitical models and predict the most prudent course of action.
P.A.M is so smart that she predicted the existence of a Chinese Ghost Fleet using nothing but current available data, or rather it's scarcity.
P.A.M is UNABLE to predict human behavior even after being given said human's psych profile , citing too many possible outcomes and shuts down.
P.A.M is a plot device that contradicts itself.
@@BaconMinion agree. F02 writing was a step BACK from f01
"How does the Railroad eat, where does their water come from, where do they get their resources from?"
Dude don't be disingenuous, there's two mole rats and an irradiated puddle a quarter mile away from their base.
Winner
I know it's a joke, but I've heard worse arguments from Bethesda enthusiast.
@@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290 That mole rat brood mother milk goes hard
I like the Deliverer, and Deacon is alright. But, the railroad is easily the worst faction in the game.
Also, it feels like Deacon is too smart to be in the railroad.
the response to the password is funny.
>uh, have you seen the average wastelander? they can't even read or write.
yes, i have. the average wastelanders write letters all the time. i mean, even super mutants can read and write to some degree. but your problem is neither with the wastelanders or super mutants, but the institute, and last i checked reading and writing, as well as above average intellect are required to make advanced robots.
I know right? My first response was: yeah, but you aren't hiding from the average below 80 IQ wastelander.
The Institute and The Railroad could have been interesting factions, if the writers were better. The Institute could have been an organization that wanted to control the Commonwealth, by replacing influential people with Synths.
The Railroad could have been a resistance group that wanted to stop The Institute. Not because they view synths as people, but because they view The Institute as a threat. They would have still helped runaway synths, but only if they provided useful information or help against The Institute. Kinda like how The Resistance is using T-800s against Skynet.
Cool idea, but if the Institute wasn't incompetent rescuing synths would have a tremendous risk of infiltration. If the Railroad priority wasn't to rescue synths they wouldn't take such risk and would instead act like Covenant.
@@DanielChico09 In my version, The Institute would still struggle with rogue synths, but not because of incompetence. They would struggle because the human looking synths would be a relatively new thing, and they haven't perfected their program yet. As for The Railroad.
In my version, Dr Amari wouldn't send you to their HQ. She would send you to a man, who would be a proxy between you and The Railroad. You would only see their HQ, after you completed a number of quests for them. They would work with the synths in a similar manner.
@@madarpauser2133 That's an improvement.
If I was from the Institute trying to deal with an opposing secret organization I would make synth agents programmed to believe they had escaped to be rescued by the Railroad. Some of those agents would be simple for information gathering, with implanted trackers or programmed to relay information to one of our surface agents. Others would be printed with less internal organs to fit explosives inside their bodies.
The Memory Den would likely be one of the first places to be destroyed as they attempt to reprogram a synth with a mininuke. Losing the complex facility and the specialist operating it would be a blow to the Railroad, but metal detection would become an efficient countermeasure, so I would instead fill future infiltrators with less powerful but more hard to detect plastic explosives and biological contaminants.
At the end it doesn't matter how efficient a better version of the Railroad is, their synth rescuing efforts is a weakness a more competent Institute would frequently exploit. That's why a more competent Covenant would be a better adversary for the Institute.
@@DanielChico09 As i mentioned in my first comment. My version of The Railroad wouldn't rescue synths, because they view them as people.
They would only help synths that can provide information or help against The Institute. They wouldn't help every single synth they stumbled upon.
Not to mention that the synths they do help, would be scanned and watched carefully.
Also. Since the human looking synths would still have issues with their programming, it would be risky to send them against The Railroad. Resource management would also be an issue. The human looking synths aren't easy to make, so The Institute would only use the more primitive models to carry out attacks.
@@madarpauser2133 Limited resources is a good explanation, but that also limit how many synths the Railroad can rescue before their activities become intolerable for the Institute. If the Institute is making, let's say, one human looking synth per month to replace someone important the Railroad cannot rescue one human looking synth per month, maybe not even one per year. Since the production is on the Institute side any limitation they are subjected to would be even greater for the rescues efforts for those factions' activities to be balanced.
I am glad you bought it up. Wiping memories is tantamount to killing the individual. That alone is why I consider the Railroad either incompetent or malicious. Either way, makes a play through with them hard.
@CaseyC-bg4bb is restoring my smart printer to factory settings a morally grey action? The railroad is dumb.
@CaseyC-bg4bb human beings are just self-replicating entropy accelerators with a prime directive to create copies of themselves. The same as all other living things.
There's nothing fundamentally different between a human and a gen 3 synth, aside from the ability of the institute to Winter Soldier trigger phrase them into deactivating or whatever using that one brain chip. Without the institute, they're literally just regular people who happen to be better suited to survive the wasteland due to their resistance to radiation.
@CaseyC-bg4bb your point being?
Honestly, this can all be traced down to the most common denominator, a lack of a game design document that the writers can refer to so they do not contradict eachother. And Emil Pagliuero being in charge of the writing team. And thus, his most important job is keeping the game design document up to date. Which he felt he was too important to be doing so he never does. This is what causes the eerie sensation none of the writers communicated with eachother, because they basicly were not.
Wtf really!? That's even more annoying! Knowing it's the method rather than the writers themselves, I think the game has a really cool art style, cool looking graphics and setting, the factions COULD be awesome but instead a couple of morons cause it to have so much crap in it that it's boring to play, I've only finished it once despite trying to playing it 5 times! The shooting and environment bring me back, hell the companions and side quests are even really good and a more fleshed out settlement system could have been amazing, imagine if you could visibly change the area by essentially running the outskirt area and gradually make a NCR like nation!? The wasted opportunity is what I hate, it could have absolutely been the best game in the series if they would just COLLABORATE with obsidian, it's how close but far we are from this outcome that angers us all so much I think?
A *Core* game design document* to be more specific.
Another stupid thing about the Railroad is how easy it is to fail their quest. Literally if you leave the Institute AT ALL without first grabbing the thing they want, they'll treat you like you sided with the institute even if you go back and do it before talking to them. They just ASSUME you betrayed them even if you made no such decision.
well it is a faction lead by a woman..
What the hell does this even mean bro 😭
@@preyes164 exactly what it says. No matter what you do, if you leave the institute without getting the data or whatever the railroad wants you to get, even if you go back and do it BEFORE talking to the railroad, they treat you like you betrayed them and you can’t continue their quest. I was pretty clear with that.
@sixmillionisimpossible nothing like an obligatory sexist "whamen" and coffee emoji for the easy likes by alt right incels huh? Well a man wrote the factions history and the poor character writing in this game 😅 thats kind of akward. If all the previous leaders were men would you say their gender is proof why 50% of the popluation suck? The sexist comment is just fucking redundant and stupid. god please go touch some grass.
First time I played the game, I went to the institute without doing Tradecraft, because I was more interested in continuing the story than doing more faction stuff. I went back later, and Des wouldn't let me join. You can become enemies by forgetting to set off the evacuation alert when raiding the Institute with the Minutemen. It's the most finnicky faction in the game.
This is why I love the Calculator and the Robot Army from Fallout Tactics. A cold, methodical menace to all organic life. No human, ghoul, or supermutant was safe from it.
The Robot Army had various models to scout, infiltrate, and destroy a target. It had walking tanks called Behemoths and command & control pacification robots. It had infantry and flail tanks. The robots certainly were tougher than supermutants. As the Unity remnants leadership, including a former Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, informed the player of the mechanical menace coming out of Colorado.
Synths do not compare to this old world technology. Coursers would have difficulty dealing with the C27 humanoid robot. Also, the robot army C27s were equipped with advanced laser, plasma, and guass weapons. Including the guass gatling gun.
The Institute, with its synthetic humans and lackluster laser weapons, would be shreaded within a day by the Calculator's army. In both the figurative and literal sense.
I miss The Calculator and it's Robot Army...
Gauss*
The Railroad exists as a blunt reminder that Bethesda's creative leads have zero fucking clue in understanding plights more inteicate than "we can't put stuff in dirt 'cause raisers".
That’s always been a Bethesda problem if anything the follows of apocalypse are far better railroad then the ones in 4 but the biggest problem I have with fallout 4 is your choices and decisions don’t matter because there’s really no fallout with them unlike NV where they do matter but there’s also no good factions in 4
- Emil Paliwaliluccigucci, "On Writing Stories Gooder"
I enjoyed storming their base with brotherhood knights, that was a fun at least
Exactly, it felt like an exterminatus from warhammer lmfao
I work with the Railroad up until they give me Ballistic Weave. Then I go full Order 66 on their "organization"
It would make more sense if they were doing some shit to stop people from being kidnapped in the game or where fully synth led. Otherwise, them being a "major faction" was a complete mistake, but we all know they did that because NV had 4.
"We are an organisation that relies on secrecy"
"Okay time for you to meet the team after one mission :)"
No, you see you didn't meet anyone actually, because they only told you their code names! Ha, brilliant... Why even use code names? Non of you ever leaves the basement?!?
I encountered a bug where Glory was still alive after she was supposed to die, and people kept saying they missed her while she was right there without any dialogue.
I've hit the same bug but it's different for me -- I can have all her normal conversations with her, she says hello when I walk past, all that stuff. IMO the rest of the RR is just gaslighting her by telling her she's dead.
@@gregghelmberger You think maybe there was gonna be a way to save her originally but it got patched out badly?
@@duncanmcokiner4242 I'd say there's a 50% chance of that and a 50% chance of it just being badly coded from the start. It's Bethesda, so your guess is as good as mine. Their attitude does seem to be "the makers of the Unofficial Patch will fix it."
@@gregghelmberger Awful company, worse fanbase.
@@duncanmcokiner4242 I'm in the fanbase. :) I love their games in spite of all the warts and imperfections. I'm appalled at the number of hours I've sunk into Skyrim and the Fallout franchise. I don't have Starfield because A) I don't have a machine capable of running it, and B) I only buy their games once the Creation Kit has been released and modders have had a go at it. Eventually I'll play it though, and I will curse Bethesda's laziness and sloppiness even as I rack up the hours. Nothing's perfect in this world. 😁
I like it how in second quest the game gives you "Go through the main entrance (optional)" and when you go to the main entrance, Deacon says "Welp, that didn't work out, it's locked, my bad, looks like you HAVE TO go through the only option bethesda made".
The one good thing about the Railroad is gaining access to the Ballistic Weave Mod. After that, then scorched earth option. Well maybe 2 good things because the Deliverer but literally both of those can be gotten before going in more than like 3 or 4 quests.
not to mention the game can't decide what synths are. Are they perfect androids, indistinguishable from humans? Or are they robots with a human skin on the outside? Are they independent and sentient, or programmed machines? The game can't seem to make up its mind, so it's no surprise this entire quest doesn't make sense
I've seen some people defend this on the basis that it let's you come to your own conclusions about synths, but I don't think that works. Multiple perspectives is one thing, but you can't just have multiple contradictory sets of facts, all of which are seemingly true. That's just incoherent.
I personally interpreted it as them being fully human except their brain, hence the synth component. And that would explain the remote control. But yea the writing is very dumb tbh
You can literally watch the entire process of how a synth gets made. What are you even talking about?
It would be like fallout New Vegas only to have a secret faction within free side trying to liberate House's security bots... While ignoring the Legion getting ready to murder everyone or the NCR focused on expanding their territory.
House would only let them exist only because he thinks they are too stupid to be a threat when compared to the actual threats to his rule.
If you write the factions all equally stupid, it isn't unrealistic if they act in stupid ways and still win. That's smartitude right there.
Wait a second, if the (Underground) Railroad is helping synths, are they a stand-in for Blacks, or something? Is their leader supposed to be a Harriet Tubman stand-in? None of this just works.
No they are a stand in for imposter replacements. I have discovered over 700 public figures (and counting) who you know, who were replaced with imposters and never seen again, stretching back over 100 years. You might say it's far-fetched but the real Joe Biden was replaced with an imposter in 2018 and Vladimir Putin was replaced with an imposter in 2010. This railroad quest in Fallout 4 is coming from the same mind that has you meeting your doppelgänger at the end of the main quest in Starfield. That game is one big imposter replacement simulator.
@@IIJOSEPHXII zartan has entered the chat
@IIJOSEPHXII so true!
@@IIJOSEPHXII who is doing that?
@@0tt0z I haven't found out yet. Why have you used an image of Jack Parsons as your avatar?
The funny thing about Bethesda is that with the base stories they provide you can easily think up of ways to make it better or make sense
It's sad. Imagine having your very own fanbase, hundreds of thousands of people analyzing and coming up with better plot/conflict, only for you to not listen or consider a single one. The only acknowledgment was the mod menu...they restricted trophies...jackasses.
I always found it interesting a character model matching Desdemona can be found behind sanctuary in that shack guarded by a raider and a dog. While I also don’t like the faction it felt like a thrown away section that she might be a synth and trying to free her own kind. Which might’ve been an interesting sub plot when I inevitably raid the base with the Bos. To be fair she might have a synth component and I’m misremembering I usually clear the place and move on and it’s been awhile since I’ve gone near the end of the game.
The problem with the Railroad is that synths are machines and the RR prioritizes their own mechanical kind over the safety and security of humans.
I just LOVE how Memory Interrupted involves doctor Amari, who they claim you wouldn't know... even if you're far enough into the main quest to have met her. And did Curie's personal quest in which she gets put into a synth body.
Glory seems to recognize you if you joined the Railroad before doing Emergent Behavior (Curie's quest). When you go to her, doctor Amari recognizes you if you've done the main quest. So why couldn't they add a bloody check to see if you're far enough into the main quest?
Of course, it goes so much deeper than that, but I guess I shouldn't even expect that much from one of the most poorly written and incompetent so called factions in Fallout history.
I'm not rescuing simps from the institute, f the railroad
I run through their base with guns blazing on every play thru.
Ah yes, trust Nick Valentine. The broken discarded synth who has the memory of a SD card on lore on the institute
Thank you for making such well-thought content. When the real world seems ridiculous and full of clowns, it's refreshing to dissociate with "pointless" rants.
Keep at it, I sincerely hope you can make youtube your primary source of income.
I hated the railroad when they started screaming about how bunker hill was theirs. Robots can’t own anything and when they start saying they do they have to be destroyed
Imagine you're the actual Underground Railroad and you declare a random town is yours because you've been illegally using their open market to smuggle escaped slaves without anyone knowing.
Like nah, I'm pretty sure everyone in Bunker Hill would hate the Railroad, especially the two or three traders who are Institute spies.
@@kingofthegrill that’s a funny thing too, they’re running their operations in bunker hill where nearly every caravan trader is an institute asset
@@3rd.Eye.Saw.Destruction Stockton is like "do you have a Geiger counter? We need to move HL-22 soon" meanwhile Trashcan Carla, Cricket and Doc Weathers are two feet away.
There was a moment when a switch flipped inside me and I just couldn't stand the Railroad anymore. Third playthrough I think.
It just dawned on me that practically *NOTHING* they do makes sense. From memory wiping synths, to having their HQ being easily found by the likes of someone that's been in the wasteland for just a few days, to having no backup plans, to letting someone they believe works for the institute go, to blowing up the institute and effectively doom those they've sworn to protect to extinction, to the fact that if they were consistent they would've tried to blow up the Prydwen after a Minuteman ending for the same reasons they do in their own.
They are the worst kept secret in the commonwealth. The only thing protecting these incompetent twats from annihilation by the Institute is the horrible writing.
The problem is that the writers behind the railroad are entirely uncritical. Deacon almost points out a valid arguement on robot rights as a whole when he brings up that technically the Railroad should be defending the rights of every protectron and autoturret they come across.... Before the counterarguement to that is several Railroad characters saying "Synths are people too" over and over again
New Vegas is a great example here, while a lot of people agree the NCR are the better option, there are some genuine systemic flaws that system has that the writers explore.
Obviously, faction writing has always been kinda weak for Bethesda, but then you have to wonder, why put such emphasis in their games on that feature? Are they stupid?
Yes.
I feel a great example of seeing how flawed the NCR was is actually working with them.
You could see the disfunction at several points where characters clearly don't trust their own chain of command but they're still optimistic about the NCR as a whole even with its systemic flaws.
You weren't being told it was perfect and that made it believable.
That trick is also used on companions. I remember one clip that showcased if Cass decided she was done being your companion, you could say to her:
"Oh, sorry, well you'll probably go back to your paren.... Oops, sorry!"
Like, that choice to gut punch your own writing lends a lot of credence to the work. Even if it's never seen, the fact its there makes it all so much more fleshed out
Something to add onto this video- if you actually side with the Railroad, it’s all about a Synth revolution, and invading to help. But then you just blow it up anyway???? Which makes ZERO sense. Wouldn’t the logical thing to be to get rid of the Institute leadership and then take it over themselves so the Synths are free? What’s the point of a revolution if the place where it happens gets evaporated? All of this because Bethesda was too fucking lazy to make a unique faction specific ending and instead made EVERY SINGLE ONE EXCEPT THE INSTITUTE about destroying the Institute.
I somehow hate the railroad more than the institute even though I consider the railroad quests more tolerable than the pointlessness of the institute quests. So stupid...
Ah fallout 4 the only fallout game where i ended up hating everyone and killing them all in a rage ended up with the minutemen ending
TLDR all faction leaders failed my speech check and initiated combat
@CaseyC-bg4bb no, it is actually possible to get rid of all the factions (minus the minutemen) if you know what you're doing.
Even far harbour and nukaworld can be turned into lifeless wastelands if that's what you wish for.
Getting rid of the minutemen isn't possible tho, you can disqualify yourself from the general position however if you do the nuke world dlc before saving them, then again saving them in the museum of freedom is optional.
Hot take but I think Railroad is like the only faction that thematically fits to be stupid. Even the game sort of calls them out on their aimlessness with Deacon saying "What next? We gonna save toasters next?"
It's just, it needs slightly more tweaks and this faction could've worked, as sort of parody of activists but in nuclear world
The only reason you would have all of the head honchos in one base is if they are all ultra paranoid about each other.
As they would demand to keep eyes on each other.
Glory, the Mark V armor, and the ballistic weave are the only good things from the Railroad
The railroad would make a lot more sense if it was made up of escaped synths. Like replace desdemona with another gen 2+ like Nick and Dima. That would relegate them to a secondary faction similar to the brotherhood in NV but at least answers questions like “why don’t they need resources like food and clean water?” Or “how can they see this as the top priority?”
The Railroad are a laughable Bunch that should have been a Chain of Side Quests. It feels like a Self-Insert that they suddenly manage to take out everyone.
it’s also established in far harbor and that seemingly safe town quest that the ONLY way to find out who’s a synth is dissecting their dead body
The quest where you have to find the “hidden” railroad is the most hilarious quest Bethesda has ever released, I cannot believe the password is actually railroad
At least God Howard left us a way to wipe out railroad as soon as you meet them. Usually I take a last rank of nuclear physicist and right before dialog with Desdemona I drop a fusion core. Only if I could do the same with the minutemen 😈
I can't believe they do a mind wipe on escaped synths. It's akin to murder to me.
Love how decon tells you that the arrow points in a direction lol
Exactly! That's why in Babylon 5 (and other science fiction) death of personality (so a full mind wipe!) is used as an alternative to the death penalty (that way the body - because frankly you will be dead, your body will just get a new guy forming inside - can still do good for society and you are dead!)...so yeah, mind wipes are IMHO akin to killing someone!
your b roll footage is the fucking best. just a calm voice as the exploding bullet gun blasts the railroad around the room
Would have been better if Railroad protected ghouls super mutants, synths and slaves and had been a minor faction that could become consumed by the minutemen if you go that route
The funniest part is just that Railroad Armor and their Gaussrifles outmatch the Coursers Uniform and Laserrifle BY FAR.
They act like the only response to them is running away, but they can easily outgun them.
When you hunt the chip, they take out a whole Gunnerbase offscreen as some sort of setpiece, as if a Courser could take on 5 gunners.
@CaseyC-bg4bbI think institute weapons were supposed to be recharger laser guns, with lower damage but no need for energy cells. They got an ammo requirement later in development but kept their shitty damage.
I watched Andor, and Luthen really shows how it's done. Pretend to be a vendor, act like you are a normal person. And travel as much as you can.
they help synths escape
but erase their memories
so synths are as terrified to find out they are synths just like everyone else
that alone makes railroad completely retarded and a waste of a faction
if they were there like a joke plot they would be more tolerable
Hope your critique/reaction on Fallout TV show episode 2 and onward is gonna come out sooner than latter, shills are in full force defending that show 24/7 and we need some critique of it
Look I personally like the show, HOWEVER, I really want to see this guys take on it! Because he is a very good critic especially if Fallout!
Both sides of the discourse on it have gone really far, not everyone though, one side acts like it killed Jesus or is bad because it has a diverse cast the other acts like it's the best piece of Fallout media ever made!
I like this channel and community because it's not full of fanaticism but it's turning into "if you like or dislike this you are X" split in a fandom, it's quite upsetting considering Fallout has a major theme of humans working together despite the apocalypse! 🤣 The irony burns...
@@zakbrown9256
bot reply.
@@zakbrown9256 Well good thing to see you try to be open minded, kinda like that german guy who talked with Synthetic Man about the tv show.
Honestly diversity isn't really an issue of this show, I mean Cree very slightly hinted at mc being maybe Mary Sue but nothing major, same goes to me, I don't think the show is woke per say, even the bad decisions like destroying NCR and destroying Mr House character can be explained by poor writing but even without wokeness, I just don't see the appeal of the show man, I'd rather have a show/game that literally changes every single lore detail but is actually interesting to watch/ interesting rpg to play then... Whatever F3,76,TV show is.
So hope we see ya on Cree stream and maybe you can manage to have a lil talk with Cree crew and discuss the show.
What's the appeal is what I'm saying. Characters look and feel bland so far at best and story is basically as generic and safe as possible, on par with F3,4 story.
@@zakbrown9256 I could care less about the Diversity bs , and more about how this " show" wrecks the Black Isle games and lore. 3 Vaults that didnt exist in Fallout 1 and 2? A new serum that keeps ghouls from going Feral that didnt exist in the first game. There's nothing to defend. The Amazon show isnt canon to Fallouts 1 and 2.
and yes, it does retcon New Vegas. The first battle of Hoover dam was 2277 and NPCs in FNV still talk about going back home to the Hub and Shady Sands.
The Show is literally another Witcher fiasco in the works.
It's telling that the RR HQ is in a crypt filled with the dead remains of humans. It echoes the idea that synths are no human, and a dead end. I feel like the RR and synth storyline is basically to show how easily humans (players) will anthropomorphize and empathize with things, and spend scares resources on something we've attached out own emotions to. The RR is like saving a pet cat instead of putting those resources toward a starving human. Does the prioritization make sense? Synths don't get sick. They don't starve. They don't die from radiation poisoning. They also don't procreate-- they are not the future of Humankind. But Millennials have been gaslit about children, family, and our future for so long that many of us cannot prioritize timelines longer than our own immediate emotions.
Sure, synths are capable of independent thought and action, but deep down it's nothing but sophisticated mimicry of a human mind. 1s and 0s. As you said, they'll never procreate or even grow old. One day, their internal clock will just stop ticking, they'll shut down, and be as they always were. A "dead end" is an understatement.
Very well said!
I never liked the idea that synths never get sick or need to eat/drink/sleep. It makes no sense when you combine it with mind erasing synths to no longer know they’re synths (or synths needing to infiltrate a place and pretend to be human). And it’s so wildly inconsistent in the game.
Just imagine somebody having the conversation “Hey, Bill, how come I never see you eat, drink, or sleep?”
Even if they can choose to do those things, that just makes synths like Warwick in particular a terrible infiltrator because multiple people point out how he never sleeps.
Not to mention the mind erased synths themselves. Can you imagine somebody like Danse going all those years without ever feeling hungry, thirsty, or tired and just never questioning why?
@@Death2all546 I'm with you. Though, when you consider synths are literal weapons meant to subvert and eventually annihilate sacred Humanity, their behaviors become understandable. They are compelled to do many things, like eat and sleep, that they may easier deceive. A mind-wiped synth still has these imperatives, and are likely still compelled to subvert, even "subconsciously". "Mankind Redefined", by a bunch of anti-social nerds' offspring, worshipping at the altar of scientism. Most optimistically, the Institute and their refuse is a critique of modern transhumanism. Tho, considering most fo4 fans probably feel the Institute is the best faction for "progress", it's less a criticism and more a warning.
On the Subject of Synths can't Procreate and THEM being the Future of Humankind, according to the Institute, how is Humanity going to even Survive if there are no Humans alive to Procreate? Synths will eventually be Killed by SOMETHING, and if there are no Humans, then that's it, it's Done, the End. The Institute is Retarded for even thinking that Synths are the Future and the Best Chance of Human Evolution, when the Synths can't even Reproduce.... WTF are they even Thinking?
i dropped f4 after playing and trying to get some mods working after 100 hours, came across this and yeah, is there anything that isn't badly written in f4???
The only good writing that I can remember is talking with Arlen Glass about his backstory and that’s it, that’s the only good writing that I can remember.
k, so with the whole door password thing, and the opponent being the institute, my question is, if the institute even suspects a location is a railroad facility, couldn't they just teleport in? it's not like there are any limitations stated for whether the relay only functions if you have been to a place before. one could imagine with a little bit of math you could offset coordinates from a known point, like an outside wall and then simply jump right into the base. with the ability to send virtually limitless disposable "troops", even a gen 1 synth could be used as a test to determine if the coordinates are good; then within a few seconds just dump a few coursers in after it and carry on as if the door was wide open.
It would be so much more interesting if they worked to integrate synths rather than "help them escape"
13:25 too be fair. The railroad says that this is a voluntary procedure and dont require synths to do it.
LaST yEAr, I dROpPEd aN EgG iN MY CErEAl!!!! Gave me 10 health points. :)
The problem w/ the Railroad: they exist.
With regards to what you said about Nick there is also the chance that he doesn’t know for certain and is simply make that conclusion from what he know as we only learn about memory wipes from the railroad and it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge outside of them
The main problem with the railroad is that they never actually gave any proof that synths arent just robots
It wouldn't of been hard to flesh out Desdemona and her leadership team as being ex-Institute to give them some further reasoning and motivation. Hell, Desdemona say's "Sam" when she dies - was Sam a Synth she was in love with? Who cares! Go shoot things and collect rubbish, we don't have time for emotional attachment in these parts. Have you got a legendary weapon yet? pew pew pew
16:11 actually, synths don't have such kind of failsafe at all. İt is just Nick's assumption, later, when we reach Far Harbor, we can learn that Nick wasn't discarded, but escaped with Dima together. But his mind was wiped too many times, he was experimented on too often, so he forgot everything and didn't even recognize Dima. Escaping synths don't really forget about the İnstitute. Because everyone at Acadia remembers their lives in the İnstitute
After watching your 4 part series, I get the feeling, that playing Fallout 4 is probably something you really dislike. That is understandable, not everyone will like playing this game. But you spent a awfully long time breaking apart the factions and problems of gameplay in Fallout, and I thank you for that effort. Although your analysis is overwhelmingly negative, there is useful information for players to learn about.
11:10 Considering that its the Railroad and how dumb the Railroad is, I think the Brotherhood is trying to prevent the Railroad from corrupting the gene pool even further with advance idiocy.
Would have made a bit more sense if the whole Railroad was made of escaped synths or maybe got a few humans, but its something that should be made obvious. Wouldn't make the faction good, but it'd be a step forward at least.
I feel the same about the Railroad and didn't need this video. I came to ask these questions and looked it the lore on this faction. This group is the one I played the least because I kept asking question and getting angry at this group.
This was another botched oppurtunity. What should have been a series of night raids, ambushes, clandestine escort missions, spying, disinformation, and basically full on guerilla warfare....turned into a bunch of drug addicts and art students larping in a basement. Kind of like the real Antifa.
I will admit, though, I did chuckle a bit during the attack on the Prydwen. The bad flying and haphazard methodology was a nice touch. But every single factions arc could have been so much more if they took it all the way.
16:00 I'm pretty sure Nick is just wrong about every synth losing memories. Dima and Chase have institute memories and other synths seem to as well. Was probably just Nick who lost his memories.
Railroad is "the Best" of them all. Even minutemen aren't that ridiculous.
Brotherhood really are the only decent faction and it isn't even a competition.
@@sixmillionisimpossible wait for brotherhood video. :-) they are 'better" because they hold some butchered legacy from previous devs .
@@MrCatFromOuterSpace
they're the only one with consistent ideology and goals in the game.
@@sixmillionisimpossible Comparing to others, yes. Still huge mess.
@@sixmillionisimpossible all the factions are terribly written, the brotherhood is just the least bad one. Which still doesn't mean much.
16:08 so my opinion on this is that for Nick, because he's an older model synth, it's his assumption that it's a programmed out of them to know the location of the institute, but i feel like it's more about the limited memory of nick's generation synth, as Dima suggests in the far harbor DLC this version that they exist as have a limited memory and for Dima, he just had to create holo tape program copies of his memories and some personal modifications to keep his memories and extend them.
it could also be that Nick was mem wiped many times and took damage while him and Dima escaped, but because of his brain damage he rejected Dima and fought against him not knowing what he was at the time thinking that Dima was the crazy robot helping him out and wanting nothing to do with him.
maybe they receive a memory wipe via Mr. Benet when he allows them to escape, but maybe sometimes he allows them to escape with their memories intact on some occasions, perhaps it has to do with situations within the institute, he says he often allows them to escape via through hacking, but i feel like there is more to his method and might involve mem wipes after he releases them but perhaps in H2-22's case Mr. Benet didn't have the time and just allowed the synth to escape.
I sense a disdain for deacon by how you shot at his corpse 😂
Man this dude's on fire not only did he react to that trash fire fallout show but then he also managed to keep up with the fallout 4 analysis by uploading a video about the faction I hate the most
The only good thing in Fallout 4 is The Storyteller’s documentary of Mariposa and the birth of The Brotherhood in the Memory Den.
The only way I can come up with for how Synths keep escaping the Institute is that they use the same pipes the player uses to enter the Institute when going down the Minutemen path. It's hard to believe that the Institute would not know about this major security oversight, but we do know they're incompetent. Without this method, it would be truly impossible for a Synth to escape since the use of the teleporter is so tightly regulated.
as dumb as it sounds; the institute should just make a chalk scanner to identify railroad agents; almost no one else uses chalk for anything. if they are carrying; get em.
Liam knowing you nuked megaton might be handwaved by GNR; i can't remember if 3dog comments on it, but even then idk how he knows the rando is YOU.
How exactly does he know, though? For all you know, 3Dog could've been lied to if someone other than the LW nuked Megaton and then pinned it on them.
Oh yeah, and you can gain the karma back and James'll even say he doesn't believe you bombed Megaton
@@TheBreakingBenny like i said; idk
maybe some cthulu thing told him in his sleep XD
@@ShishouDzukiZaManako At least we can write better than Emil Pagliarulo, most probably.
I swear 3 dog was practically omniscient…
Three Dog is another good example of inconsistency tbh. He knows everything that happened at Megaton, at Canterbury Commons, and even exactly who you gave Bryan Wilks to, but he doesn't know how you finished Blood Ties, and doesn't even know about the Oasis quest resolution despite cluing you in on its existence. Good VO though.
What fucking rustles my jimmies (among so much stuff) when i watch these in depth videos, is how much bethesda doesnt figure out just whats the hell synths actually are. They hint more of a robot and then more of a full on lab grown human back and forth
The game is so much more fun when you mod it to change everything
But the realest problem with the railroad is that they _aren't_ saving any synths. Every single synth they save is sent to Dr. Amari, where they suffer ego death and a new, shallow, false persona is placed on top of the empty shell. We can see what happens to a memory wiped synth in Curie's companion questline. They're braindead. Empty. That person is _gone._
Synths are able to choose if they want to have their mind wiped. They aren't forced to do it. Though perhaps it is suggested as an option and encouraged too heavily to the desperate people trying to escape their old miserable life.
But I always got the impression that many suffered from trauma due to their experiences as slaves to the institute and actively wanted to forget their trauma. I think there was a holotape of a synth before their wipe that mentioned how they just wanted to forget about their life in the institute. Much like how Dima chose to forget the painful memories he had about the terrible choices he made. But sometimes, as dima shows, it is important to remember that pain. But perhaps for some people with ptsd, forgetting is for the best.
@@masterofthecontinuum every single escaped synth we meet is mindwiped. All of them.
@Xahnel then I guess a lot of them picked the mind wipe option. What is your point? Also, glory I believe was not mind wiped. So you do meet ones that weren't.
@@masterofthecontinuum glory didn't leave the railroad, though. Those are the only options an escaped synth has in the commonwealth. So they either work for the railroad forever, or suffer ego death.
And that's bad writing.
The Railroad would've made sense if they were about keeping people from being replaced, and also a part of the Minutemen. Didn't need to be a separate faction
The Railroad fall out of favor with me the moment Deacon made his "little people" comment at the Castle. Sure he's just one lying guy, but this one guy is our one deepest look into the Railroad. I grinded his affinity and then never contacted them again. That was my first ever run.
AGED LIKE JELLY MOLD!
Already watched the full coverage, but I’ll watch this again. Always worth a refresher when factions are this dumb.
Fallout hasn’t been the same since New Vegas 😔
Honestly the only reason to even join them is just to unlock balistic weave for your gear