During the middle of Act 2 in The Alters, Molly passes away due to circumstances. If you do follow Molly’s death by researching the topic, you will come across the news of diseases inside every Alter in your base. And the only option to save the Alters is by siding with Maxwell or Lena. Here is a quick look at whether you should side with Maxwell or Lena to save the Alters in the quest A Thread of Hope.
A Thread Of Hope: Side With Maxwell Or Lena?
Both choices have their fair share of changes to the story; your previous choices will also impact the story later on, even if you choose to side with Maxwell or Lena. Things will change, but the action of siding with Maxwell’s Tabula Rasa and Lena’s Neural Implants has its own dilemma and consequences.
Tabula Rasa (Bad Route)

Crafting Tabula Rasa: First, you have to research QC Hacking via the Research Lab to get the option for Tabula Rasa in the Quantum Computer.
After finding out the Alters are dying, the first option to save them is given by Maxwell. His vision of saving the Alters is by creating an emotionless biological vessel to extract brain cells from them and put them inside the consciousness Alter to save them.
The first choice of saving the alters is by creating Alters without awareness of any kind that includes pain. As you can tell, this has the bad guy vibe written all over it. Without spoiling too much about the event, the consequences of choosing Tabula Rasa will make the Jan Technician, along with many other Alters, not happy with this direction of solution. Jan Scientist will be all for choosing Tabula Rasa to fix the problem, while the rest of the Alters will prefer the alternative.
Consequences: The major consequence of this choice will affect Jan Technician Alter. He will leave the base forever and won’t come back.
Note: Even after you choose the Maxwell side, you still have time to align yourself with Lena or Lucas. Your previous choices will factor in the favour you have with Lena or Lucas.
Neural Implant (Good Route)

Crafting Neural Implant: After making a call to Lena, you will get the blueprint to craft the Neural Implant via the Workshop. You will need to craft the implants based on the number of Alters in your base.
After the call with Maxwell, you can give Lena a call about Alters having the disease; she will give you an alternative to Tabula Rasa, researching Neural Implant to fix the problem. Here you are taking a more good-guy approach to fix the problem. It will also make some alters mad, but it won’t be as severe as the Tabula Rasa route. Again, Jan Technician will also be mad with this decision as well, but he still has a chance to make a comeback to the base, unlike the first choice.
Consequences: We decided to roll with Lena’s Neural Impact to save the Alters. Which made our Technician, Miner, and Shrink not happy with the decision. For a few days, we couldn’t strike up a conversation with these Alters. The conversation icon under their picture was greyed out with a yellow-locked icon. While the locked button did stay on their profile pictures, after a while, the conversation icon was turned white, allowing for a brief conversation with the Alter. At the start of Act 3, the Technician betrays Jan (MC) with a few others. The scientist stayed with the crew along with some.
The choice is in your hands, either you decide to help Maxwell and carry out his idea of Tabula Rasa or side with Lena for a more neutral choice of helping the Alters.