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theology101 · 7 months ago

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I’m bored, so I’m rewriting fallout 4. Lets start with the big factions

Part 2

Fallout 4 Enhanced, part 1 - major factions

The Minutemen

So despite trying to uphold the values of Old World America, it’s a military junta made up of disorganized paramilitary troops. My brother in Christ, thats Yugoslavia.

After retaking the Castle, we should have the ability to form a democratic government and perfect the Commonwealth Provisional Government. And then have elections for Governor that the player can run for but also very much can choose not to. If you’re playing an evil Institute run one candidate should be Mayor McDonough as your puppet, but forbidding you from running. If we’re rebuilding America, let’s start with Democracy, eh? I think that the president should be Abigail Finch, but I’ll take Blake Abernathy or Preston Garvey.

Also, I want there to be a continuous through line of the Gunners-Minutemen rivalry. Honestly, once the Institute is gone, I want a big set piece battle against the Gunners in Quincy (maybe destroying the Overpass with Artillery?) and freeing the still captive population of Quincy. Give us a fourth act, semi protracted factional conflict

I think it would actually be fun if this was a multi faction battle, but we’ll get there.

Railroad

The biggest negative for them (besides the brain wiping) is that they put a lot of focus and effort into freeing *only* Synths. Which makes sense, because there are only Synth Slaves in the Commonwealth (besides ones explicitly being removed) - so here is an idea, say that is because of the Railroad. Make them be this famous and legendary group who’s broken up countless slaver groups and factions, and have no turned to the Synth as their latest Crusade.

It’d definitely give them a lot more good will with your average citizen who, even if they don’t like Synths, remembers their story. A large, established network that stretches across the entire East Coast that has the vast resources to fight the Institute on a level, if asymmetric, playing field. Hell, let’s even have a few long-term Brotherhood infiltrators who are leaking secrets to the Railroad (Maybe they’re a vertibird pilot who “throws their trash” and agents pick up the encoded message). They know of the Brotherhood and have agents in the Capital Wasteland, it isn’t impossible. There should be an option to assassinate Maxson and replace him with Danse whos more sympathetic and wont attack them, but also won’t work with them either.

Speaking of, during the Battle of Quincy, they should be freeing slaves. We see massive empty cages when we go in game, have them filled and make it the basis of the Gunner’s new slave trade operation. We convince Desdemona for a joint strike, so while our artillery is firing, a few squads of heavies and infiltrators hit the cages, free the prisoners, and bounce before anyone notices.

Brotherhood of Steel

This one is going to be the most radically changed, because I think the Brotherhood, while cool in principle, felt undercooked. Which is why I think there should be sub-factions within the Brotherhood of Steel - Hard Liners and Sympathizers, split between their view of Synths. Brotherhood Ideology is not monolithic, in fallout 2 there were debates if Super Mutants were bad, or Hostile Super Mutants only, and similar ones about Ghouls exist in Fallout 3. And then there are the ones who are Space Marines fighting for the God Emperor Elder Maxson.

Hard Liners: Kells, Quinlan and Teagen

Sympathetics: Ingram, Cade, Neriah and Madison Li

Maxson himself starts off as a Hardliner, but based off of choices in other questlines, the Brotherhood’s own new quest lines from the characters I just mentioned, and your charisma in dialogue checks, can be changed into being Sympathetic.

Kells is just a straight military man, also the easiest Hard Liner to convert once you convince him of the military impossibility of trying to actually find Synths, his quest would probably be making an airbase at one of your settlements for the Brotherhood. Quinlan is just a Maxson sycophant and propagandist and has fully bought into whatever Maxson says, even writing his propaganda piece, he also already has quests so he’s good. Teagan is a right bastard and Synth Racist, who will also disapprove of you making democracy if you’re a Minuteman - you have one quest were he sends a squad to intimidate your settlement and they kill the squad and you can either punish them or bring Teagan up on charges of plundering and terrorizing innocents.

Ingram feels a lot of sympathy for the Synths due to her own bio-mechanical nature and thinks that some institute tech can be used for good like agriculture or limb replacement. Her quests should be about finding a way to lessen her work load, maybe with robots, maybe by training and recruiting settlers, maybe by optimizing the Prydwen - her quest ends with her leaving the power armor frame and getting to sleep. Cade is a doctor, he isn’t too interested but since he cant tell a Synth from a Human under tests, he doesn’t really trust the Brotherhood to perform summary executions of them - his quest should just be getting the Covenant research to validate his assumption of ‘dont kill synths.’ Neriah thinks that Institute research in general, especially in bio science, and that Synth researchers with their long lives and rad resistance would be a massive boon for the Brotherhood, she also thinks Synths are similar to Star Paladin Cross and he was fine? - her quest already exists. Madison Li obviously values Synths and the Institute and, one step further, doesn’t want to destroy it either. Hold trials and take over? Sure, but not destroy a perfectly good lab filled with good people

Also, someone on the Sympathetic side is a Railroad agent but idk who, you decide! Not the only one, but definitely the highest ranking

Based off of all these people and their quests, I want a Far Harbor style “Everyone pause and let’s talk about it!” where there is just a full on debate between the leaders of the Brotherhood about wether or not Synths need to be destroyed, or just the method of creating and controlling Synths, allowing them to be free people. Hell, let this happen after Danse runs off but before you go get him. Make a case that the Institute records you stole have him as an escaped slave who then enlisted, of his own free will - while he needs to be taken off the active line of fire while the Institute still has the ability to control him (albeit only up close and if he hears it, so maybe just blast death metal?), let him be the thing that changes Maxson’s policy.

Or if you’re an absolute bastard, instead of doing anything that I just said you encourage everyone’s worst tendencies. Tell Cade that Covenant is almost there and that you let them carry on, get Proctor Ingram believing in conspiracy theories and Teagan an alt-right podcast where they debate whether or not the Brotherhood should have mandatory breeding regulations. I doubt anyone would play it, and all this option would do is lock you out of other stuff (probably preventing or toppling the Commonwealth Provisional Government but hey, at least you get to be Elder of the newly founded Commonwealth Chapter!), but if someone wants to be a bastard and not an unhinged freak who eats corpses, this is how

Let your choices in the story matter.

For the Battle of Quincy, just send a vertibird or two and drop in some guys in power armor and heavy weapons. Land them inside the walls while the Minutemen storm the gates - after the Artillery and Railroad have escaped, of course

The Good Ending

Before we get to the Institute, this is what I call the Good Ending. With the Brotherhood no longer having a desire to take down the Synth, and the Railroad, while powerful, very much lacking the firepower to take down the Institute, are both brought to the Castle for a meeting between Maxson, Desdemona, the Governor, Preston Garvey and you (if you’re not Governor-General). There is shouting, yelling, insults traded (maybe there is even an intermission) but unless you fuck up badly or intentionally screw yourself, you have a joint Minuteman-Railroad-Brotherhood attack force against the Institute.

The Brotherhood still play Pacific Rim, as a distraction, while Railroad operatives sneak through the tunnel system in the Charles. By the time Liberty Prime has blasted a hole into the Earth and Minutemen and Brotherhood troops are storming the base, Loyal and Rebel synths are already fighting on the ground for their freedom. Unlike in game, some of these scientists absolutely would not go down swinging. I can talk those nerds in bioscience or engineering are gonna fight to the Death? SRB sure, but come on. Maybe not all of them are genuine and there is some post game shit with that but with your planning and overwhelming advantage, the Institute falls rather bloodlessly

Now, you can decide to do what Arthur wants you to do and blow it up, or… you can decide to give the Institute to be jointly run by the three factions and the Synths. It’s just a social hub, maybe some act 4 shenanigans (racial conflict)

Oh boy,

The Institute

Hey what’s their goal?

Like, beyond keeping the surface permanently destabilized (Sabatouging any collective government, fomenting conflict between Goodneighbor and Diamond city, seeding Super Mutants at random to ensure chaos) so it remains their pretty, perfect little petri dish, what are their goals?

I got the idea for this from a youtube video, so I’m just gonna say it “Why did you program them to feel fear?” Like, what purpose does it serve to give the Synths complete, perfect sentience and then enslave them? The Gen 2s seemed to be doing just fine. Okay, maybe you wanted to make perfectly humanoid ones, why arent they all like Coursers? Why, why, why? And no one can give me a damn answer!

So, here’s an idea: Shaun is dying of Cancer, so he had his eyes set on True Immortality. A Gen IV Synth, perfectly capable of human thought and creativity, perfectly human in every biological way only superior - faster, stronger, quicker reflexes - immune to radiation, disease and starvation and, once they reach a certain age, become immortal. And I did say “reach a certain age.” Using biotech and nanomachines, lil Shaun is the first Gen IV Synth, born as an infant in a lab womb and fully capable of spreading as a new Ubermensch i mean, new tomorrow. Shaun was going to wait until the body was in its 20s, but his brain cancer is getting so bad that only fragments of his mind can be copied into the 10 year old body.

This should be an active debate of whether or not this is the next step in Cyborgs and Synths (after all, was Kellog not just a Synth at a certain point?) where as some view it as a gross violation of human dignity. Show me some angry academics, damn you! Regardless, some (especially older people) should be Quite Excited about getting flash copied into a “perfect” Gen IV body. This also, at least to me, explains why they needed to be perfectly human - they wanted a perfectly platform to hold onto their intelligence and not go insane or lose their “soul” like the Necrontyr-Necron. It gives an actual reason for all the weird shit they do

As Director you get to decide wether or not this gets to go ahead or not - also whether or not you should kill and replace people with Synths. Give me moral consequences, damn it, there is NO WAY Piper isnt getting replaced in an Institute Victory and you the player should have to carry that burden.

Also i want assassination missions where I replace people with Synths. I think it would be a fun stealth segment to get NPCs alone and either kill em or teleport em. We’re a shadowy cabal, we should be able to end all the faction disputes quietly. Send the brotherhood home, break apart the railroad in a single night. Right proper evil stuff. Or, if you want to play terminator, you role up with an army of death bots and destroy everything for the Gen IV Synth Army!

End Notes

Fallout 4 needed a fourth act. After the Institute is gone, nothing changes. I just blew up a solid chunk of cambridge and am i high ranking leader in two military governments and im a secret agent, and that’s it? No interaction with each other beyond killing? No “crossing idealogical boundaries for the greater good?” I don’t want to fanboy for New Vegas but there, I could cross boundaries and convince people to join their enemies for their own safety and betterment. Preston Garvey is just like “Hey, we can blow up the Blimp if you wanna. Danse is cool, and I know there are kids on board, but I don’t want them breathing down our neck.” Like, motherfucker I’m their Sentinel - no.

The point of the series is “War Never Changes, so Men Must Change.” There’s no change in Fallout 4. There is no seeing the bigger picture and reaching peace. Once the Institute blows up, most factions could probably just go home because the only reason they’d bother to do anything is to kill each other. And that’s deeply boring to me.

Next episode, the minor factions - Gunners, Children of Atom, Raider Gangs, and Super Mutants

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