A House Divided A House Divided is an Institute side quest in " Fallout 4 " . This quest occurs after Father declares the Sole Survivor his successor , when Dr . Higgs and Dr . Loken decide to protest the Sole Survivor ' s promotion by locking themselves in the Institute BioScience Laboratory . Detailed walkthrough . Speak with Newton Oberly in The Institute . He ' ll tell the Sole Survivor that Max Loken and Lawrence Higgs locked themselves in the BioScience lab and cut off the Institute ' s food supply in protest of Father ' s decision to make them his successor and refuse to come out . After suggesting to reason with them , he opens a side door that leads to the BioScience observation room and gives the Survivor the BioScience systems access holotape . Head through the hallway and eliminate the defending synth guards found in the first room . In the next two hallways there is a laser turret in each . One can either proceed to the observation room designated by the quest marker to speak to Lawrence , or they can make their way through the FEV Lab and bypass dialogue in the observation room , this will result in missing out on speech check experience points and a like from X6 - 88 ( if he is the player character ' s current companion ) . Once in the designated room with the terminals and observation window , the Survivor can either talk Lawrence down with two persuasion attempts ( the first attempt is more difficult ) , or the situation escalates and a fight will ensue . To gain access to the lab , which can be done without initiating dialogue at all and that becomes a necessity if the dialogue fails , insert the systems access holotape into any one of the terminals in the room or the Pip - Boy . From the overridden terminal , the options to " shutdown turrets , " " release specimens " and " open lab door " will be offered . If one went through the FEV Lab , they will be at this step already . Note that at this point , Lawrence is hostile and will attack as soon as the Survivor enters the lab . The " release specimens " option releases the gorilla s in the lab , which will attack and kill all inside ( including the Sole Survivor ) , proceeding the quest without the Sole Survivor needing to do so themselves . Take the key from Max ' s corpse to open the door to Hydroponics . If the options to " shutdown turrets " and " open lab door " are selected , only the synths inside the lab will be hostile . After they are defeated , one can then talk to Lawrence again and during conversation , Max will talk Lawrence into surrendering . This is one peaceful way to resolve this quest without passing the speech checks . After Laurence has either been talked down , or everyone in the lab has been killed , take Lawrence ' s security override password and open the shortcut door back to Newton . Alternatively , if Max persuaded Lawrence to surrender , they will walk to the door and open it . Max will place himself and Lawrence under house - arrest . After either of these events happen , walk outside to the main Institute area to talk to Newton . He ' ll express regret if any violence took place , and comment that funeral arrangements should be made . If Lawrence was talked down , the Survivor will be asked to decide his and his colleague ' s fate . The disciplinary actions available are to take no action to punish them , put them on probation , exile them from the Institute , or have them executed . If spared , Newton will reward the player character with chems and take back the BioScience security override holotape . If their execution is ordered , there is no additional reward , but the security holotape is kept by the Sole Survivor . Behind the scenes . The name of the quest is a reference to Abraham Lincoln ' s famous quote " A house divided against itself cannot stand . " Lincoln quoted this from the Bible [ Mark 3 : 25 ] .