Mr. House vs. The Institute - who wins? spoilers

[omegaspruz]

Overall I think their goals got lost on the editting floor at Bethesda.

Shaun outright tell you their goals
A. Fix their reactor, obtaining nearly unlimited energy.
B. Finish the synth program, obtaining the perfect workfroce.
C. Continue digging underground, away from the broken and destroyed world above, which they feel has no hope of ever obtaining anything worthwhile.

I mean, the institute came of to me as the corrupted glimmer of hope for humanity, and obviously the future is their goal. While those are goals, they are very short term. What are their long term goas? Why do they replace some people? How can everybody be on board with it? I hoped by becoming the director I could specify those a bit more.

 

[omegaspruz]

Big MT and the research there actually had a positive and well defined purpose in the world before the war, where it's hard to imagine crafting an AI menace and teleporting replicants was going to be beneficial to mankind..

How is creating a robotic workforce that never needs to eat, sleep, and can run forever with basically no oversight, unlike the retarded Protectrons and Mr Handy bots, NOT useful to the pre-war world which was incredibly lazy, highly consumerist, and largely relied on a robotic workforce to do everything for them anyways?

They already had controllable robot helper monkeys everywhere, and from all of the in-game lore they were plenty useful and didn't need a lot of oversight as long as someone programmed them correctly. They ran forever, did their jobs and didn't THREATEN HUMANITY.

They didn't need this AI replicant idiocy, and it was actually detrimental to the purpose of having a 2nd class of mechanical helpers.
Creating a slave population only works if they don't know they are slaves, so giving them AI is just plain stupid.
Doing so would be setting yourself up for absolute failure, and spending a bunch of resources and time just to do so.


Just because Bethesda says a bunch of autonomous robots would be the perfect workforce, it does not a fact make.
It's just a stupid idea from so many angles, and when applied to a world that already had a better solution (non-autonomous robot workforce) it makes very little sense other than as a progress for the sake of progress concept. (which is as inherently flawed as their writing)

No. They tried with FEV. Failed. They tried with synth Gen 1. Success. Gen 2. Success. Why wouldnt you try to go further when you can? You are a scientist. If you can do something, why wont you? Liam Bennet illustrated this point. He tried rescuing the synths at first for the lolz of it. With time he became more patriotic to their cause. Gen 3, to me, is just Institutes sign that they have no limits and that they are the main scientific authority in the wastes. To say that they will threaten hmanity? They shouldnt or wouldnt. Plus they are not AI, self determination is a malfunction. Problem Solution is not, but its not exactly an AI.

Progress for progress sake is not a horrible writing trick. It is something very common with bright people, if you never had anything you wanted to do because you can you should try it is very satisfactory. It is also a great premise for 50 type of sci-fi where everything ends with "somethings men should not meddle with cliche" and it is how we evolve tehnologically as well. Great scienstist were of nobility through out history, they could have easily lived on slave labor they had. However they had an abundance of time and resource to do things because they could, while no one else could. Hence they came with a lot of stuff. As time progresses this obviously became less the case, but it never really did go anywhere. look at the universty papers published each year, barely any of them are needed, but they are progress because people sit in real life at unis and research and accomplish tehnoogical advancements for the sake of it.

 

[whirlingdervish]

For supposedly smart people you'd think someone might have forseen that making the robots smarter and convincingly people shaped would be problematic. Maybe they might do a cost/benefit analysis, etc.

The supposed Pros of synths, vs the Cons would tend to make them a poor choice of research path. If the researchers are working toward a realistic goal and not just being batshit crazy like the disembodied scientist brains of Big MT, they would actually weigh these things and not bother.


Why did they need to invest all of this effort for synths precisely?

They had Mr. Handy and variants for domestic work and even industrial production. They are perfectly suited to these repetitive tasks and cheap and simple to make. They had the dexterity enough to cook meals and do housework, and work in robotic assembly lines, and they did what they were told while running on fusion power nearly indefinitely, so there is not much room for improvement here.

For military applications? There are a multitude of killbots of varying shape and size and purpose already and they are quite deadly.

Scouting? Eyebots.

Policing? Securitrons.

Their only advantages over these other robots are (accidental or not) AI and human shape, and one of those causes a huge problem while the other makes it worse. They are literally designed to be a huge potential problem, without improving on the qualities of the other robots in a substantial way.

You won't lose a securitron in a crowd of people and need to invent magical teleporting terminators to go find them.

All that risk and what do you get? Metal tits..

 

[Earth]

Mr House vs The Institute? The answer to that is simple.

Neither, because The Institute in Fallout 4 isn't canon. Problem solved.

 

[Someguy37]

I mean, the institute came of to me as the corrupted glimmer of hope for humanity, and obviously the future is their goal. While those are goals, they are very short term. What are their long term goas? Why do they replace some people? How can everybody be on board with it? I hoped by becoming the director I could specify those a bit more.

From what we are told, The Institute has no plans to try to retake the surface. They are perfectly content with staying down there forever.

They replace people to serve as watchers, and to drive people apart so they couldn't unite against them. They replaced Mcdonough with a synth, and had him run for mayor on an anti-ghoul campaign to drive people apart. After the main quest is over, and if you sided with The Instute, you can go on a short quest to get a report from him that has updates on local threats. They also replace those they find to have useful things. They replaced Mr. Warwick for example because his farm sat on the most fertile land in The Commonwealth, which was useful for their tests into new kinds of crops.

And everyone is on board with it because The Institute already tired to help the people of the surface. They spent years trying to help The Commonwealth Provisional Government stay together, and then when it fell apart, everyone turned around and blamed them for it. They tried to help the people on the surface, the people of the surface shat all over them, so they decided it wasn't worth bothering trying to help them anymore. You can see several people talk about how they feel bad for the kids at the Warwick farm for having to live in such a place, and they tried to get the FEV program shut down many times. They feel bad for the people on the surface, but history as shown to them that the people on the surface can't be helped.

 

[omegaspruz]

I mean, the institute came of to me as the corrupted glimmer of hope for humanity, and obviously the future is their goal. While those are goals, they are very short term. What are their long term goas? Why do they replace some people? How can everybody be on board with it? I hoped by becoming the director I could specify those a bit more.

From what we are told, The Institute has no plans to try to retake the surface. They are perfectly content with staying down there forever.

They replace people to serve as watchers, and to drive people apart so they couldn't unite against them. They replaced Mcdonough with a synth, and had him run for mayor on an anti-ghoul campaign to drive people apart. After the main quest is over, and if you sided with The Instute, you can go on a short quest to get a report from him that has updates on local threats. They also replace those they find to have useful things. They replaced Mr. Warwick for example because his farm sat on the most fertile land in The Commonwealth, which was useful for their tests into new kinds of crops.

And everyone is on board with it because The Institute already tired to help the people of the surface. They spent years trying to help The Commonwealth Provisional Government stay together, and then when it fell apart, everyone turned around and blamed them for it. They tried to help the people on the surface, the people of the surface shat all over them, so they decided it wasn't worth bothering trying to help them anymore. You can see several people talk about how they feel bad for the kids at the Warwick farm for having to live in such a place, and they tried to get the FEV program shut down many times. They feel bad for the people on the surface, but history as shown to them that the people on the surface can't be helped.

Perhaps.

How did they try to Commonwealth Provisional Government, from what I remember it was infiltrated by a synth on their very first meeting.

How did replacing the patron at Warwick farm actually help anything? Replace the Bob Sutton guy, or have a trader join the farm. Its a father with two kids after all.

Now replacing MacDonough makes sense, but what did they do with the real MacDonough. Thats what bothers me most about replacing people, we never know what happens with the replaces human. Actually might have been an interesting quest, where by siding with brotherhood or railroad, we get replaced and then have to fight the synth version of us( voice acting would obviously be useful here).

 

[Someguy37]

Perhaps.

How did they try to Commonwealth Provisional Government, from what I remember it was infiltrated by a synth on their very first meeting.

How did replacing the patron at Warwick farm actually help anything? Replace the Bob Sutton guy, or have a trader join the farm. Its a father with two kids after all.

Now replacing MacDonough makes sense, but what did they do with the real MacDonough. Thats what bothers me most about replacing people, we never know what happens with the replaces human. Actually might have been an interesting quest, where by siding with brotherhood or railroad, we get replaced and then have to fight the synth version of us( voice acting would obviously be useful here).

See
http://i.imgur.com/HYwyj0N.jpg
The entire "synths killed everyone at the CPG" thing seems to be revisionist history on the part of the wastelanders. The CPG was already falling apart due to infighting, and they seemingly just blamed the synth when everyone started killing each other.

Because he was the guy who ran the farm. Replacing him ensures that they can get whatever they want planted and tested. Its doubtful Warwick would allow some newcomer to try out would have his stuff planted.

As far as I recall, they simply kill and dispose of people they replace. There is a random encounter with a guy named Art, and a synth duplicate of him, fighting it out, and you can figure out who is who. Its greatly implied in this encounter that the original people are simply killed and disposed of.

 

[omegaspruz]

Perhaps.

How did they try to Commonwealth Provisional Government, from what I remember it was infiltrated by a synth on their very first meeting.

How did replacing the patron at Warwick farm actually help anything? Replace the Bob Sutton guy, or have a trader join the farm. Its a father with two kids after all.

Now replacing MacDonough makes sense, but what did they do with the real MacDonough. Thats what bothers me most about replacing people, we never know what happens with the replaces human. Actually might have been an interesting quest, where by siding with brotherhood or railroad, we get replaced and then have to fight the synth version of us( voice acting would obviously be useful here).

See
http://i.imgur.com/HYwyj0N.jpg
The entire "synths killed everyone at the CPG" thing seems to be revisionist history on the part of the wastelanders. The CPG was already falling apart due to infighting, and they seemingly just blamed the synth when everyone started killing each other.

Because he was the guy who ran the farm. Replacing him ensures that they can get whatever they want planted and tested. Its doubtful Warwick would allow some newcomer to try out would have his stuff planted.

As far as I recall, they simply kill and dispose of people they replace. There is a random encounter with a guy named Art, and a synth duplicate of him, fighting it out, and you can figure out who is who. Its greatly implied in this encounter that the original people are simply killed and disposed of.

Needless death in my opinion, but ok.

Its actually makes the Institute properly grey faction, which is good. And I dont see, no matter how hard I look, why everybody loves to hate on Fallout 4 writing. Not amazing, not [give me a horribly written game](id say Call of Duty Ghosts for exampe)

 

[Plzstandbuy]

Well, tbh as much as I liked NV I didn't like the more ridiculous inventions in it either. I understood the theme and feel they were going for, but it ultimately didn't match up with rest of Fallouts internal consistency.

That being said, the transpeleponder or whatever it was called felt more like an excuse to get the player back and forth and wasn't a major plot device like it was in Fallout 4.

 

[Languorous_Maiar]

-He failed to get prime working before the war.

It doesnt' matter. He was most important corpo genius from pre-war America. It was American Army, who wanted working Prime, but not House. If he wanted to, he could probably create working one, but it was just army wet dream and he has better things to do in person...

-He failed to correctly predict when the war would happen. and because of this...

Being idiot for not correctly prediciting it? Seriously? Using such logic we can namy EVERY person from pre-war America to be an idiot. Even Enclave moved to Oil Rig few months before the conflict, probably did not knownig the date of it, when China will send nukes. It was all about chinese ruling party, and no one could predict 100% accurate date.

-He failed to protect the city as he wanted to

He actually protected it. 0 nukes hit the city directly...

Then, despite regaining consciousness in 2138, he failed to do anything to secure Vegas until 2274,

He went to sleep again, because there wasn't enough conditions. He was just waitin for such post-war state like NCR to appear, to use them on large scale, like he did in story. Most probably, it wasn't important for him, if he would re-create his lovely Vegas in 2300 or 2400... if civilization has rebuiled by itself at specific point around Vegas, he can use it.

-When picking the three Families, he failed to pick anyone decent, as all of them betrayed him in some sort of manner.

Who other he could pick? He used EVERYTHING he could. It wasn't about bad choices, but the lack of any right choice. ; )

-And as events transpired in NV, if the Courier did not help him, House had zero chance of beating the NCR or Legion because he managed to blow every advantage he could have had on various dumb moves, and really bad judgement of people.

It seems like he failed only with Benny. Even successful Omertas run against Vegas itself wasn't that big of problem:

• The NCR Embassy on the New Vegas Strip was bombed, and if they had not been stopped by the Courier already, the Omertas attempted a coup d'état but were stopped by the Chairmen and the White Glove Society, as well as the Securitrons.

 

[Dr Fallout]

So in general House isn't a failure because of his idiocy but because of the surrounding environment which limited his choices.

 

[MercenarySnake]

Meanwhile the Insitute screws up everything they do like releasing big stupid super mutants and replacing people with doppelgänger for some silly ass reason. Why would anyone defend such an incompetent faction that tried to figure something out that West-Tek had already figured out long before them. What a joke of a faction.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Meanwhile the Insitute screws up everything they do like releasing big stupid super mutants and replacing people with doppelgänger for some silly ass reason. Why would anyone defend such an incompetent faction that tried to figure something out that West-Tek had already figured out long before them. What a joke of a faction.

They're literally a copy of the Think Tank, Enclave and West Tek.

 

[MercenarySnake]

Meanwhile the Insitute screws up everything they do like releasing big stupid super mutants and replacing people with doppelgänger for some silly ass reason. Why would anyone defend such an incompetent faction that tried to figure something out that West-Tek had already figured out long before them. What a joke of a faction.

They're literally a copy of the Think Tank, Enclave and West Tek.

I could tell they attempted to do something like that but it fell flat because of writing. They tried to be all of the above and failed.
Do they bother to explain how they were able to invent things like teleportation and FEV(lol) or is it a hand wave?

 

[Dr Fallout]

Meanwhile the Insitute screws up everything they do like releasing big stupid super mutants and replacing people with doppelgänger for some silly ass reason. Why would anyone defend such an incompetent faction that tried to figure something out that West-Tek had already figured out long before them. What a joke of a faction.

They're literally a copy of the Think Tank, Enclave and West Tek.

I could tell they attempted to do something like that but it fell flat because of writing. They tried to be all of the above and failed.
Do they bother to explain how they were able to invent things like teleportation and FEV(lol) or is it a hand wave?

They obviously mined handwavium.

 

[RangerBoo]

Meanwhile the Insitute screws up everything they do like releasing big stupid super mutants and replacing people with doppelgänger for some silly ass reason. Why would anyone defend such an incompetent faction that tried to figure something out that West-Tek had already figured out long before them. What a joke of a faction.

Well that is Someguy37 for ya. A diehard fanboy trying desperately to grasp at straw while saying we are all a bunch of idiots for not understanding his "genius".

 

[Dr Fallout]

Meanwhile the Insitute screws up everything they do like releasing big stupid super mutants and replacing people with doppelgänger for some silly ass reason. Why would anyone defend such an incompetent faction that tried to figure something out that West-Tek had already figured out long before them. What a joke of a faction.

Well that is Someguy37 for ya. A diehard fanboy trying desperately to grasp at straw while saying we are all a bunch of idiots for not understanding his "genius".

Or who ignore his points and lose to his might every time.