From what I can tell after several play-throughs, it is not possible to rescue the human prisoners held in the military base. As soon as they leave the confines of their cells, they appear to get taken apart by hidden bomb collars. Anyone find differently?

Military base?
I'm ever found those prisioners in the Cathredral, and not, they cannot be saved :(

My bad, it was in the vault under the Cathedral. Working on memory from years-old playthroughs :p

There doesn't seem to be a way to save them.

The Vault doesn't mention one and neither does [url=http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/fallout.html#cathe]Per's walkthrough[/url], so their death is probably inevitable.

Thought so. The experience you get for releasing them isn't much at that point in the game, so I guess I'll leave them be next time.

They're dead either way.

The open endings are relative. Even if you did something different you will not see the results in FO2/FO3 or NV.

What railroading? You are free to tackle the main quest in whatever order you wish and the game still functions perfectly. Hell, you can even join the Master.

Or do you mean the lack of choice with the prisoners? Sometimes you don't have a choice. This is one of them.

It is very tragic.