Shaun

While they're certainly the most fashionable faction in FO4, they're also the most hated one by the NPC's. Only the NCR and the Legion gave much of a damn when I sided with Mr. House, but I figure that joining with my son would lead to many characters in the game despising me. I get that this is a franchise built of a "you do you" sort of philosophy, yet I still want people to give me side quests instead of denouncing me. So, can anyone tell me what an Institute playthrough's like? Just give me the basics.

Does the brotherhood of steel know that the adult Shaun is the leader of the institute or not

I don't know if this is a bethesda mistake or not, but it has me questioning everything we think we know about the vanilla story.

Alright let me start with the fact when your playing the last part of Kellogg's memory, if you mute the dialogue of the voices and only hear the audio through the radio, you can clearly hear about the incident of when Piper is being kicked out of Dimond city, not really sure this is a bethesda mistake or not, but i think it's worth mentioning.

so Shaun is supposedly age 10 in this scene, but for some reason we hear both the radio announcer dude and him talking about piper being kicked out of the city, but Shaun is only 10 years old at this point, now either Piper is a 3rd gen synth along with the radio host, or perhaps something else is going on here.

or maybe 60 year old Shaun isn't Shaun at all, maybe he's someone pretending to be Shaun and everyone involved in the story is in on it somehow, another thing to point out is when talking to nick and his assistant Ellie when they talk about Kellogg and the kid who was with him, they say that it wasn't that long ago when Kellogg lived in town, and nick doesn't offer up the amount of time of when they were last there or even really question that time period being almost 50ish years ago.

so is this a big bethesda mistake, or is there a possibility that there is another story that the player is supposed to pay attention to that offers up what's really going on from this point of view?

Welcome back to the weekly image and meme thread. Have a cool image you found, but you don’t know what to do with it and have nothing to say about it? Here’s the place. Have memes? Of course we’ll take those too!

And can Synth Shaun become an adult or will he stay a child forever?

Massive spoilers ahead. The game isn't that new but, hey, warning.

Still there ?

Now that you've read enough to know you're in spoiling territories, let's talk about the nature of the SS, and what if he's a synth.

First, sorry if it has already been discussed. New here. Hi. Don't know how to search through the discussions (or if it's possible). Hi again.

Second, English isn't my mother tongue, so my apologies for any and all mistakes I can and will make. I try my best and can say that I handle grammar quite correctly, but feel free to correct me, it's rather welcome.

Third, a little context. I have played the game 10th to 15th times or something like that, so F4 isn't at all new to me (I might even say I've pretty much saw it through and through). Done it several times when it was fresh and all, then recently dug the ole thing along with the PS4 while waiting for another game to be patched (something a little cyber with punks in it, you've probably never heard of it) and I wanted to share a bunch of my conclusions, questions and experiences. Please share yours, I'm quite eager to discuss those.

Well let's get down to business. So, is the SS a synth?

Far Harbor's DiMA is rather clear about the possibilities of that hypothesis to be true. I recall being really puzzled by it when I first went through the DLC, but more because I was astonished by the fact that I didn't think of it first. I mean, that intro the game gives you is such an example of a cookie-cutter basic ad for a family product that it has 'fake' written all over it, and I didn't like it until that moment, when I saw it way differently. More like a childish fantasy of a perfect life. In my last game I felt like I would dig everything that could validate or invalidate that hypothesis, so here what I have :

- Shaun could definitely have done it. Not only is he a cold man with a taste for long term plans and ways to torture two-legged guinea pigs, but he also happens to create a synth of himself as a child. It's not that much of a leap to create your own little synthetic (nuclear) family after that, and to give that synth the keys to the Institute ? Talk about living forever. I always suspected Father to have cut researches about implants like Kellogg had 'cause he was already sick and would die (so why leave others to live forever amirite) and as he was childless, he could not give the keys to another little him... Except the ones he was a father of. Amusing how he chose to be called Father for what he always describe as machines. Way to send mixed messages there, kiddo. Just imagine being raised in the Institute, achieving the ultimate rank inside to learn what happened to your mother/father, then when you look into the frozen Vault you discover that everything has malfunctioned and your other parent died, like the rest of them all ? Kellogg was ordered to basically kill everyone but the 'backup' (classic Institute here) but the Vault was kept unattended for 60 years after. The other parent could have died, or, maybe, when the synth experiment was successfull, the survivor was simply put down like the other, as the Institute isn't known for letting loose ends loose.

- Futhermore, he had the means to do it. Another set of pre-war memories (DiMA said there were other ones than Nick's) for the flavor, another secret project sworn to secrecy (maybe even to the point in which he would 'dispose' of the key witnesses, Virgil and Kellogg are proof he's not above a little murder here and there), some searches in the Vault or in the archives, and voilà. You have Codsworth there, and the good ol' robot doesn't say a word about such presences, but he also doesn't say a word about the inhabitants of Sanctuary before your arrival (and there's traces of them, like a skeleton on a bed made of carpets, so definitely after the war) and he also totally missed Kellogg's little trip to the frozen aisle, so there's that. He could also have been tampered with for his memories, he's a robot after all, he can be reprogrammed. Add the strange fact that no one thought of Sanctuary as a settlement before Mama Murphy (University point shows how the Institute deal with lifes above ground, so maybe it was older ?), and you can have a little place that the Institute was looking way more closely than expected for an expired contingency plan.

- It would explain many of his reactions : he let you in with a great amount of trust, maybe because you could have been recalled. Or, once again, just because he was dying anyway. He is really, really cold to you, and even admits that your survival was an experiment. That he does not love you ('I had no love to feel') and when after Bunker Hill's battle you say 'I still love you' he answers an incredible 'I can see that you do. It's... well, it's remarkable.' In a way, he is much more human if you consider that you're not. Because otherwise, he would have just thrown his surviving parent out in the Commonwealth when he could have housed him or her. It's worse if it's his mother : his father was a soldier, he would have a fighting chance. His mother ? A lawyer ? In a world when there's no laws anymore ? It would also explain why you don't have any leverage over him in any discussions. Every exchange you have with him, he just says what he expects of you, and that's it. Maybe because he expects you to obey. Cause you're, like, a machine. The only choice you can have by talking is telling him that you will not be a part of the Institute at your first meeting. So why letting you go ? Because he wouldn't murder his parent ? Well, you have synths chasing your hide afterwards (and ever before if you run into some), so no. Maybe because killing you would reveal anyone too close to the corpse that you're a synth ? Far stretched that one, I know, as he doesn't do the dirty work himself (he's too civilised, he has Daddy or Mommy to do it for him).

-It would explain why Lawyer Mom knows to handle every weapon, too. I don't know about you, but I for example wouldn't know how to reload a minigun without hesitation the first time I even hold one. It's only gameplay, I know, but that's in the game too. The SS know also about cooking Jet, which didn't exist pre-war. Gameplay again, but let's dig deeper. Synths don't need sleep, although they can sleep. Synths don't need food or water, but they can drink and eat. You know another being that fits that description ? The SS, if you're not in survival mode. You can't loot your own corpse to search for a synth component and even if the dead SS wouldn't have one, that wouldn't mean that he or she isn't a synth, as some Coursers for example don't give you one. Glory neither.

So here's what I've got : the SS is indeed a synth if you're not playing on that mode. It does make sense in a way : if Shaun did realise his true parent in the atomic wilds, it would take a surprising Survivor to accomplish such a feat. If you're not in the Survival mode, well Shaun took a synth trained for the Courser activity (hence the weapon and field knowledge) that was rejected and toyed with it/him/her to see how far would it go (the SRB explains you that they don't make Coursers from the start, they are chosen in the batch and not all synths make it).

Maybe you don't agree, and the game let you decide either way, so the question is : is YOUR Sole Survivor a synth ? How do you play it ? Does it matter to you ?

A little thought for the end : don't you think it's really strange to romance synths when your character is somewhat the grandparent of all synths (or their sister/brother), as they are built on Shaun's DNA (so half yours) ? I mean, I like Danse (his character is a little cliché at first but the way he handles the whole Blind Betrayal situation is downright the pure essence of nobility) and I like Curie (not her accent, heh, figures) but it's... Something to think about. And never talked about. But it's F4 for you here : a great, great game not finished enough in pure RPG terms.

I feel like there's something important going on between the two of them, because she is literally the only person in the entire Institute who calls him Shaun. But I just can't figure out what.

What are you guys planning for yo dad?

I'm planning on playing wasteland warfare with my actual dad, and making a new fo4 game to join the institute (guess why)

Hi. I’m sort of new here. I’ve been here a while, just not that active. Anyway, I’m reaching the end of my first fallout 4 playthrough and I have reached a dilemma. Allow me to explain.

My Sole Survivor, Male, watched his wife get shot and his son taken. As he left Vault 111, his only concern was finding Shaun. He eventually stumbled upon Preston Garvey and the Minutemen, who helped him immensely. Mace eventually rose to become general of the Minutemen and wanted to help the people of the Commonwealth, having seen how crappy their lives are. He did the Brotherhood mission where you help Danse out, but was put off by their attitude towards ghouls and synths. He joined the Railroad under the alias Charmer (he has high charisma) and helped runaway synths from the institute, hearing about how bad it was.

Now I am unsure on what to do. I have learned Shaun, the whole reason I’ve been killing dozens of people and wandering the Commonwealth to rescue, leads the Institute, the big bad of the Commonwealth and I don’t know what to do.

On the one hand, I help the Minutemen and blow Shaun up (yeah I know what happens) or I help him and the Institute, but in the process kill the Railroad, without whom I would never have even found Shaun and Shaun dies anyway. I’m also close friends with Nick, and dislike how the Institute treat synths as slaves, but feel they could really benefit the Commonwealth (and I don’t want to murder my son) so I need advice on which route to go down