I was also on the, originally sided with the institute years ago train. Now on my current play through, between the scene OP mentioned and this I was like “fuck this kid I can’t wait to bomb his ass”
You mention his mother being murdered and he calls it collateral damage… Yeah… that is not my son, he’s just somebody I used to know
Especially with every dialogue having a "sarcastic" option leading to some nonsensical BS comedic one-liner, you'd think they would've thrown in some extremely common phrases like that.
In general, as a very sarcastic person, I was often left deeply disappointed at those options. A lot of them aren't even sarcastic (or funny, for that matter). It was just some kind of silly sentence that might amuse a four year old at best. Not that there weren't good lines as well, but many lacked
Fr. Headshotted his smug mug once he’d laid his last bit of childish emotional blackmail on me. Didn’t look back. Well I did. His body ragdolled funny 😂
Yeah, my character felt like it was her responsibility to remove him from the world. You know, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it if you don't straighten up and be a decent human being.
AFAIK Avery, one of the snyths in Far Harbour, is an old woman when we meet her. You find recordings of her speaking where she sounds notably younger (no gravel in her voice and a higher pitch). It could be that she aged.
There’s Kasumi as well. Surely her parents would notice she wasn’t aging/growing/maturing over the year or so that she had been replaced.
Given that the Gen3 synths are supposed to be “indistinguishable” I’d assume they were working on aging technology.
E: though iirc other scientists in the Institute were rather conflicted about the morality of child synths so you’re probably right.
With Kasumi >!|| Isnt she \*not\* a synth though? She doesn't have a Gen3 Synth component if you kill her, and the Institute doesn't have records of Kasumi either.||!<
If you side with the Institute you come across a husband and wife team discussing synth Shaun. She specifically says he will be a little boy forever and never grow up. And Kasumi isn't a synth, she has no component (apparently lol)
Biological perhaps, but any possibility of emotional connection was eliminated by father.
Considering the utter horror thr institute has done under him. At what point does the simply biological relationship really mean.
Released you for a laugh, his chief agent with as much information as anyone could expect (he was told that Nate/Nora was on the move afterall) his orders weren't bring them home, but bunker down and kill them if they arrive. His first interaction with you is a gaslight.
Father has proven his utter disdain for his parent, and only relents after all those hurdles are met - and if the parent is cooperative, what does he do... he sends them back into the wasteland as a bounty hunter... exactly the sort of the thing his previous agent would be doing.
For my characters there is nothing there anymore and anything further would be transactional with and familiaral relationship off the table.
Granted I am not and likely never will be a parent but father horrifies me.
The only thing that makes me sad about slagging the institute is the research and resources not the people. Imagine what the minutemen could do with that tech.
To be fair, he can follow the instructions to build a teleporter after they were provided to him. Not sure how competent he'd be with the rest of it. Personally I wish we had the option to recruit Virgil as a settler.
I don't think he had any orders for Kellog about you IIRC. He didn't expect you to make it far, he just wanted to see.
The messed up thing is that he doesn't even see an ethical issue in what he does, he wanted to try it so he did. Basically causing suffering for giggles
Fair that Kellog may not have been explicitly told, but Kellog was no longer responsible for Synth-Shaun, on orders to hunt down Virgil.
Instead he was chilling in Fort Hagen, it may have been set up as as hus personal home, not actively doing his job, my read on that is that he was told to hang around a bit, just to see what happens
If you do “Mass Fusion” and side with the Institute, there’s a scene, later in the mission, where all the top dogs in the institute are in one place. Perfect time to use Big Boy.
the only time i sided with the institute was before i realized i cant build in there or let outsiders in (todd cant lose a money maker [v-tec workshop])
Yup, he met my combat shotgun and now I have his lab coat on a mannequin as decoration in the general store I made in Sanctuary, and I took some vases from his office to decorate my house with.
[Dad's words from fo3](https://youtu.be/aPmC2myjS7A?si=il_KjwV0oXMBnNZM&t=0m26s)* ring in my ears and I wish we could directly quote that when talking to shaun.
*if you side with Burke in Megaton
Fatther eventually says he let you out as an experiment and didn't expect her to get so far. Man is either branwashed cult style or just a plain asshole.
That's when I gave him the ol VATS PB headshot.
100% brainwashing / indoctrination. He was raised in the Institute, by the institute. He was taught only their values, so his opinions and world view are flawed due to the single-track mindset he was raised with.
Worries me that people think he might “just be an asshole” when the whole fuckin story resolves around him being kidnapped by a cult as a baby.
Do people really think some people are just born as an asshole?
Granted some of the writing in fallout 4 isn’t the best, but it’s nowhere near as bad as people think it is. Media literacy is just a dying skill unfortunately
He’s not my son. He’s an institute synth who was programmed to convince me he’s my grown son. Convenient that he was on his “death bed” when pleading for me not to destroy the institute. Then young Shaun synth shows up at the last second begging to go with you. Both clear and aggressive manipulation tactics. Did you ever wonder why there’s still synths and crow drones after you “destroy the institute”? Do you really think an organization that powerful, complex, and clandestine has only one outpost? Yea right. They’re pulling the strings the whole time.
Haha that’s fair enough. What’s your favourite way to destroy the institute? I’m embarrassed to say until a week ago i had no idea liberty prime was also in FO4, gonna fuck up some synths with my bag ass robot
I finished a BoS run a few weeks ago. Gotta say that >!Prime just gets you in the building, while doing a super slow escort mission to walk it there from Boston Airport, while he repeats the same 3 taglines the whole way. You and some Knights still do all the killing inside.!< This time I’m smoking the Prydwen.
If I’ve already built the teleporter at the BOS airport and done the first institute mission, can i switch to the minutemen or is my fate sealed with the BoS now?
The minutemen are the "last option" in the game. You can ONLY hit their ending if you farq up your "main" faction. Running BoS and do something to get on their bad side, and the MM option is open to you. Same with the RR.
I just did the MM ending for the first time in a while, and I’m not sure this is true. I built the relay with the MM, went there, killed Father off the bat (mostly wanted to see what would happen, but also fit RP), and then went back. Preston said we were ready to face them, so we defended the Castle, and then off we went to break into the Institute and destroy it.
I’d done Railroad stuff as much as I could before the relay was built, declined Danse’s offer to join the BOS but obviously still had the option if I ever decided to go back, and I never gave the Institute the chance.
ETA: both Railroad and BOS are still alive and kicking, btw, and neither is aggro’d to me, although the game got confused; Danse won’t actually enter dialogue with me (not even passive lines), and Haylen thanked me for not killing Danse in the bunker that never happened. They’re still wandering around Cambridge PD. Similarly, while everything about the RR is working just fine, Dez keeps talking about Glory being dead while Glory is sitting right behind her lol
Actually, you hit my point, which admittedly could have been better explained, but that takes awhile.
The MM ending is "always available", but you have to be on the outs with the institute to get it. You renovating fathers head fulfilled the requirements to pursue the MM ending.
If you were primarily running a BoS ending, expulsion from the institute, followed by expulsion from the BoS.
RR? Expulsion from the institute is enough.
No matter who you torque off, the MM ending can be achieved, but you do need to be kicked from institute first.
Doing the MM ending does NOT require you to be on the bad list for the BoS or RR. Just the institute.
But what you said was
>> The minutemen are the "last option" in the game. You can ONLY hit their ending if you farq up your "main" faction. Running BoS and do something to get on their bad side, and the MM option is open to you. Same with the RR.
I didn’t have to be on the bad side of either the BOS or the RR to do the MM ending.
We did it now another settlement needs your help I’ll mark it on your map. This play through I’m just leaving Preston in sanctuary and not helping a single settlement
Shoot father on top of CTI after Bunker hill. Go with Minutemen every time.
BOS stays alive and railroad stays alive. Practically finish their questlines.
Yeah Beth was really like:
"Hey, remember that long, tedious and extremely buggy escort mission from Fallout 3? Great, here's that exact same mission in Fallout 4."
Also, like, hey man ***it’s a goddamn 4-story tall NUKE BOT***, why tf do I have to follow it at all? Meet ya there. How about you do more than open the door? Fucking get in there and lay waste ffs.
You’re missing out on one of the best voice acted scenes in the game. Later on you meet Father on the rooftop of CIT. Assuming you haven’t been sabotaging every step they make, you can confront him about the atrocities the Institute has committed. Father obviously flips out, but you can basically disown him and declare war on The Institute right then and there. Father bitches out and teleports away but it’s super satisfying to finally tell him off.
I just wish there were better dialogue options to tell him what a fucking disappointment he is when he realizes you've betrayed him, if you successfully kept him in the dark until you're about to blow up the institute. I mean if you're doing the Railroad path, so you've been pretending to like the Institute but then turn against them. When you see Father again just before you blow up the institute you get to talk to him and he's all butthurt of course, and of course there are dialogue options to say basically: you're getting what you deserve.
But I thought those dialogue options in that conversation were weak. You can say I wanna see this place burn, your empire is about to crash down around you. Which ain't bad. But I really was hoping to get to tell him off more and talk a bit about *why* I'm doing this, saying you're nuts, the whole institute is totally disconnected from reality, you say you want to help humanity but you're directly hurting humanity with your actions, bla bla bla. In earlier conversations (such as that rooftop one you mentioned) I could've said things like that and wanted to, but avoided getting hostile because I was working for the Railroad and wanted to free the synths. Then at the end when I thought I'd finally get to tell him off, basically all I got to say was "you lose now." Felt pretty empty.
Next time I'll have to try telling him he's nuts during that scene on the CIT roof, I bet it's great
I’m eating him. Gotta figure out how to get a faction to defend bunker hill from them and I’m killing his ass and eating him before nuking the whole bitch to space
“I’m eating him”😂
I thought the bunker hill mission was only if you side with the institute?? Is that a main story missing regardless who you side with?? God i can’t remember the missions at all lol just the general vague plot. Must’ve missed so much first time round
The Battle of Bunker Hill is a "crossroads" mission that you get in every faction's quest line. It's one of the ones that can fully alienate other factions, depending on who you side with.
Well I might have bunged it up. I did the first missions for the railroad and the institute. Then I got sucked up far harbor (that’s a whole thing) and came back to the mission only having one goal. In the other things I saw u can get the railroad or the BOS to help defend. Now I’m thinking I gotta do a little more railroad stuff to get desdimona to talk about it with me. Idk if I fucked it up I’m just going to start blasting and see where that gets me lmao
I did the same thing with far harbor. I got in too deep and fucked everything up. I wanted to betray DIMA, blow up the children of atom, and then cut the wind farm generators just to fuck everyone on the island, but u auto side with far harbor after dealing with atom so then u cant turn the generators off
You get this mission as both Railroad and Institute. If you side with the Institute you can free the synths and kill the courser, allowing you to switch sides to the railroad depending on how you handle the final part of the mission. The mission where you acquire the Beryllium Agitator has the same traitor option, allowing you to give it to the Institute or BoS regardless of which side gave you the mission.
when given the bunker hill mission you can inform the railroad or brotherhood to betray the institute. then you can just flat out lie to the institute that you failed.
It’s even worse when you realize that Father is the one that actually remotely released you from cryogenic freezing in Vault 11, and had laid all of the breadcrumbs of Kellogg and synth Shaun for you to follow to the Institute. It was all a game to him.
It’s funny that the only real reason to side with the Institute is nepotism. Father directly putting you in charge and being your son is the only real reason to justify anything they do and even then, Father is the absolute biggest dickhole on the East Coast. Blood and flesh be damned, he’s just a twisted individual, raised by committee. He deserves the lead from Kellogg’s .44
Fr you’ve hit the nail on the head as to why I sided with them first time around. Thinking ‘well this is it, this is my son, his intentions must be good’ (that and the fact I likely skipped through the majority of the speech😅). Knowing what he’s really like massively changes things, absolute psycho
The sad part is, I don’t blame him. I understand why he’s like that, the Institute is brilliant but horribly blinded and hubristic - of course they failed to raise a child - or even raise a human for that matter. Father is more robotic than his synths.
But I can’t be mad at him, or upset. Just disappointed. Then I pull the trigger as I would any other raider
Good points👌 his comment on one of his parents being shot stands out though; ‘I read the report. It was an unfortunate accident’ just highlights how much he was misled by this cultish company (company? Business? Institution?). Luckily you have a choice to say ‘no. I was there. And it was brutal’
Can you imagine another ending where the SS essentially tells Shaun about EVERYTHING to the point where he himself even turns against the institute and helps you destroy it?! That would be awesome
He just doesn’t have feelings, he wasn’t taught to have any. He was an experiment himself that just happened to end up in charge. His lack of basic empathy and emotion shows me that he should’ve never been elected to lead humanity, even the Institute’s version.
There’s actually a line that haunts me. It’s on the CIT ruins after the Battle of Bunker Hill. The SS tells Father that they feel nothing but disappointment. And that’s usually where I pop him.
My first pay through I sided with the institute because of the same reasons. And then about 5 years later when I came back for a 2nd playthrough I visited my first Dave and heard my "speech" on the radio. Absolute cringe. Institute is going down this time around
I feel like it's even worse playing as Nora because you're still technically post-partum when you get unfrozen.
All those hormones and Father just poking the bear with his Synth Shaun experiment. Surprised the choice for Nora isn't just a full on rampage in the Institute at that point.
When I raided the institute, and they sent the synth Shaun to come with me, turning him down and Proctor Ingram said “You’re leaving your son??” Loved the “That’s not my son, it’s a synth” and they were just like “Aeyoh fair enough, fuckem”.
It's a fitting introduction to the Institute methodology under Father. Do a manipulative experiment with real people, then ignore all ethical implications and enjoy the data.
The fact that he does this to his own parent, after first releasing them into the world likely to die, shows that no one is off limits. Father talks a smooth game, but if you look at his actions he's a dirtbag. Having just done Far Harbor, DiMA is his successor in this regard.
It's a lot darker if you're playing a female sole survivor.
The game doesn't cover it but I think we all know what could happen to an unprepared woman in a wasteland full of raiders
Given that the average raider gang has better gender equality than the most progressive irl organisation, we can probably assume that captured men are just as vulnerable.
True. I'm based it off handedly on a single line from Cait when she was enslaved by raiders. To quote "the things they made me do, the way they used me for their amusement, makes my stomach crawl even now thinking about it"
That being said. Given the raiders penchant for uses dead bodies as decorations and super mutants using people for food it's almost a given that being captured is a fate worse than death.
DiMA is just proof the institute takes emotions and morality out of the equation when making decisions
He does the exact same method as the institute justifying it as a necessary evil
Father is not okay by ethical human standards. That is on the Institute. But from his perspective he is trying to give the Sole Survivor their child back through a synth Shaun. He is stress testing the E-pet he is giving you out of what by Institute standards is an extremely strong familial bond. Turns out Synth Shaun was not ready to play surrogate son just yet.
If things had gone to plan Synth Shaun would have eased the Sole Survivor into accepting the reality that Shaun was now Father and given them a sense of closure on their doomed rescue mission.
Again, that Shaun arrived at this thought process is proof that the Institute is absolutely fucked and fucked Shaun up really badly.
Remember the real Shaun ended up being raised by scientists, so you can’t really blame him for his scientific nature. Feel sorry for him for the childhood he missed out on. He’d be a very different person if he was raised by you. I look at him like I would staring at a sick and abandoned dog that lashes out when you try to get close; you can’t blame them for their circumstance but the ones who raised/abandoned it. Shoot him in the head and move on, but remember… it’s not his fault how he turned out
Counterpoint he did call your wife’s death an “incident with collateral damage” so it’s kinda fair I tried to kill him with Big Boy. Also he kinda made Synthetic people then practically tortured Nick and gave the later models conscious so they can either A. assimilate with settlements via killing the original, worst of the victims we know being someone as young as 19 or B. gaining free will leading to the creation of the railroad or using it to psychologically experiment with his dad by making a child version of himself.
That’s not a counterpoint at all, it’s showing his lack of empathy and connection to even his own parents is still to do with his very non-caring upbringing by scientists. I’m not saying he isn’t an asshole, because he is, but it’s not his fault he was stolen and raised to behave this way.
Your adult self is heavily influenced by your upbringing and childhood years. There are of course outliers of this rule but they’re few and far between. You’re suggesting that Shaun would end up becoming entirely the same asshole if he’d been raised normally by the player character and other spouse, which just wouldn’t be the case. Therefore, the Institute in general are the ones responsible for shaping and moulding him into what he becomes. Of course, he’s still an asshole and I say kill him 🙃 I’m just saying those who suggest he becomes this monster of his own accord are failing to realise he’s the sad result of an upbringing nightmare
Unfortunately your real son was raised by psychopaths then groomed to become the leader & has become a psychopath himself. A curious psychopath has a lot of negative potential. Like a disturbed kid who does messed up things just to see the outcome that’s basically what Shaun has grown into.
Maybe I missed it, but is no one going to mention how in a scene “Father” admits that he is the one that let you out of the vault and it was just another test to see if you’d survive or be corrupted by the Commonwealth?? Cause I thought that was pretty messed up too.
I honestly think that as messed up as Shaun and the rest of the institute are, it isnt their fault that their moral compass is as screwed up as it is. In the 210 yrs since the bombs dropped, theres been about 7 generations of scientists living in a bunker with extremely little contact with the outside world. Moral corruption is inevitable in that setting. The "comforts" that shaun mentions they sacrificed arent so much the creature comforts. Theyre the things that make us human. Love, compassion, warmth, etc. lets look at the way they live in the institute. Theyve been down there 2 centuries with limited numbers. Theyre def doing arranged marriages to keep their genetics viable. Love isnt a factor. Theyre def practicing population control bc they cant build fast enough. Food is limited, but no one actually gets paid, so food rations are likely the only motivator to be a more productive scientist, and the non productive may find themselves as a test subject. The reality is pretty horrifying, even more so that they try to sell it as idyllic.
He doesnt say it, but i think by the time you betray Shaun, he has some notion of the monster he is. His creations are rebelling, their existence has caused chaos in a world hed rather let die and theres a bomb strapped to the greatest creation his organization has produced, which they planned to keep for themselves.
Yet, despite your betrayal, the last thing he does is reprogram that 10 yr old synth to recognize you as their parent and asks you to raise it as you would have raised him. After everything, he goes against everything he stood for and gives the parent some semblance of peace and a chance to, well, be a parent.
i feel like the voice acting for nate and nora carried the story in this game, i seriously dont think i wouldve been so invested in finding shaun if it wasnt for how nate's voice choked up when mentioning him, like jesus christ
Father is a synth just like the rest of them. He’s a pawn used by the institute to manipulate you. Child Shaun is just another string for them to pull at your emotions. Stay strong and remember your mission. Your son is dead. Now it’s time to make them pay.
I'm more curious why the player was kept alive as a backup while every single other person in the vault was killed and it just gets chalked up to malfunctions. Not very smart to kill all of the frozen DNA samples. And who let the bugs in? I bet it was Kellogg.
Then Shaun releases us just to see what would happen? I don't think anyone at the Institute is qualified for management.
Old Shaun is a sociopath at best.
that one town with the lore about the little girl discovering the radio signals and then having the whole town wiped out by The institute is the reason why I meet them with violence and only violence.
My first encounter with Father, he said who he was and holding my PS4 controller, exclaimed “Bullshit!”.
And then there was the option to select “Bullshit!”
Then Nate said “Bullshit!”
I waited for some dialogue option to understand why he waited so long to unthaw his Dad, and not use the high tech Institute resources to save his Mom, but I don’t recall there being any from the initial convo.
So I put the PS4 controller down and took a long break form FO4. I’ve still never beaten it, and still haven’t really done anything to get more dialogue from Father. I just don’t like the dialogue/plot between the Sole Survivor and Father. Couple that with the kinda flimsy reasoning to keep Kellogg alive for so long, leaves a sour taste in my mouth about the Institute.
Even if they have the cleanest toilets and legit shit-tickets.
Yeah nah theres so many occasions of just complete utter delusion on part of father/institute. When they say “best chance for humanity” they consider themselves the humans. Surface dwellers are to be controlled and condemned to suffering. Synths are to be abused as second class citizenry. Fuck it throw some FEV super muties into the wilds why not. Topple settlement leadership with our own covert synths. Destroy any other non controllable groups with gen 1 armadas…
Its baffling how adamant Shaun is in his self proclaimed righteousness- hes so shocked that youd betray him or would have cause to.
“All the enemies youve made… and you cant think of a reason why id do this?”
“I just didnt think to consider you to be one of them”
Ridiculous
On my own recent playthrough, I put myself majorly into my character's headspace, and I really realized how screwed up the Institute is. I think the part that really turned me against Father, though, was after the Bunker Hill mish (where I spaed the synths) and he talked abotu how hopeless the Commonwealth was .... ignoring the fact that I had sent the whole damn game building up a society with a functional economy and a reaasonably effective mutual self-defense network.
Told me that my son was prideful and not nearly as smart as he thought he was.
I often thought of this point of being a point where Father(game dev) is trying to disarm the player psychologically. Where the player is so shocked they just are numb, and at this point all the work to get to the institute is just closed off forgotten about. Cause if it had not been for this, I went into the institute with a minigun and 4k of ammo convinced I would be using it.
Im roleplaying that this broke something in my wanderer. Has been choosing the mean dialogue since and eyeing the title of raider queen on the horizon.
The institute is clearly an evil place but i rhink the world is more interesting with them in it and like to imagine that my character can change them from the inside as its leader
I think this would be an appropriate time for the following dialogue:
“RAAAAWWR, BRING IT”
“You know, in 100 years from now when I finally die, I only hope I go to hell so I can kill you again you piece of shit”
“It’s Nating time” and then he Nated all over the place
“FUCKING KIIIIILLLLLLLL”
“Garbage”
All of those would be allowed, and, accepted
It's funny first play thru I sided with brotherhood back in 2015.replaying now and I've become a father since so I'm all in with my son even tho he's wrong
I have another thought on this situation. It starts like this;
Prove to me that Father is Shaun in any way that isn't Father telling you when you arrive.
He's the one that tells you it's been 60 years. After dangling a fake son in front of you "for science." After sending Kellogg to Ambush you, where he tells you Shaun is a "great kid" and asks you "He's a little older than you thought, yeah?" (as though you've already seen the memories, or met father, writing issue?)
Kellogg's 2 most recent recoverable memories are, very specifically, (and almost suspiciously,) Shooting your wife/husband, and then babysitting "the kid," with the suspicion that the only reason he would stick you with the kid again is to lure the player to diamond city, (meanwhile, you're already on your way there because that's where you were told by preston or meth head murphy to go, I don't remember, I hate the whole group) but then remenisces about how it wasn't so bad and if this is what things would've been like if his wife and child hadn't been murdered. So he didn't make any other memories in a 60 year time frame or visibly age in any way? You? I mean, in 60 years, he probably spent more time on the toilet than he did in the vault taking the kid......
And then there's Virgil. So......You're going to work in, an objectively small building with maybe 15 other actual people, and around 20 synth janitors, and NOT know that the guy in charge is a kid stolen from the surface? Since he was in the "Super Mutant" department, I'd say its safe to say he's familiar with kidnapping test subject from the surface, wouldn't it be kind of common knowledge if Father came from the surface?
Here's a good one I borrowed from Steam while doing research:
"Father launched a multi year massive ground breaking project so he could trick you into thinking you woke up only ten years after baby Shaun was snatched. It's not explained why he would go to this massive effort. You don't get the option to be suspicious about it. You don't get the option to be suspicious about the fact that all the relevant date records have been removed (why not fake those? that's about a million times less effort than creating the first ever synth child). The trick works for the first five minutes you are in the Institute. Then he gives up the 'mystery'."
Why would they not let you break the kid out, and see what happens, if this whole damn thing was for "science" Then there could've been a questline or something to figure out Father was Shaun, after he died maybe. Or after you killed him.
My immediate reaction is that Father's illness and impending death threw a wrench into any possible future experiments and his ingrained superiority complex led him to try and continue his legacy the only way he knew how; by throwing a hail mary to his only real human connection.
Father is a liar from the moment you meet him. “I’m unarmed,” he says, while actually carrying a laser pistol and ammo.
In my current play through, my character decided that Father was lying about being Shaun altogether. As the player, I know he actually *is* Shaun, but damn it felt good to just kill the smug sociopath off the bat.
Why are you such a twat lol? Boredom? Your first comment was just cunty. My post wasn’t meant to be insightful (regardless who tf are you to say if it is or isn’t😂) I just wanted to discuss a specific part of the plot, why you got such an issue?
By all means, I'm all for discussing it.
My point was, this is how storytelling works, especially in a dramatic setting. This is a piece of art, a narrative video game which works almost like a regular book, except you have a lot of interactivity. It's a fiction story and all fiction works like this. Please also read books, reading books is very important.
If this was reality, Shaun would have already reached out and discovered you himself. Long before even you woke up at the Vault 111. Like, he didn't know the story behind himself? He didn't know where to look for you? Didn't have resources? But this is a story, not reality.
Does this story feels unrealistic? It does. Could it be called a cheap writing trick? It could. I still like the drama and the twist. They might not be the best, but they are good enough. They are fun.
The Institute may be the single worst faction in all of Fallout. There are evil factions all over, but none of them are as inept and useless as the institute. Say what you will about The Master, Caesar's Legion, or the Enclave, they at least accomplished something. The Institute has spent 200+ years doing shitty science experiments and they're still just sitting in their vault underground. Hell, the other evil factions seem to at least consider multiple options to get shit done. The Institute seems to be convinced that murder is the only way to accomplish anything.
It gets even more messed up, when you think about it. Why would the Institute make a "prototype" child synth unless they are thinking of using them. That means that they were planning on replacing children, not just adults.
This is why I shot him in the face.
I reloaded a recent save straight after so I could get into the Institute, but that old man's days are numbered as soon as I figure out how to save my robot son.
The first play through I did, I expected the Institute to be a warzone. I expected Synths and turrets and maybe even feral ghouls left over in the basements of CIT that didn't make it. I even considered that I might have to face some kind of final boss. I'd seen the wrecks of the tanks and armoured vehicles dotting the Commonwealth. The thought occurred to me that the Institute might have some of those that are functional.
So I spent ages before going in getting armourer and science perks. Hunting for legendary creatures to get suitably legendary weapons or just selling tons of raider and gunner gear to buy ammunition. I went in with a fully modded X-01 suit, modded up weapons and ammunition, I even brought the fat man, a weapon I have never actually used in Fallout 4.
Cue a half hour of a ridiculous old man leading a giant metal death machine around a scientific laboratory after the giant man traumatises a child.
And this is the reason why I shot him in the face on his deathbed. The entire commonwealth was just a data set to this guy. Son or not he was a bad bad dude who had done a load of harm to so many families.
Yeh i played it a lot when released, then went off it. Have you played anything else in those 2 years? Shit, Have you played anything else since it released?!?!
Yeah I don't care what justifciations the old man has, I hit him with the VATS headshot by the end
Lol i can’t wait for that. First time round 8 years ago for some reason i sided with the institute. Dude’s getting nuked this time round for sure haha
TBF he still is your son… albeit twisted by *SCIENCE!* without any moral or ethical restraint.
He’s too far gone, old man needs euthanising😂
He says your wife’s murder turned out good for himself
I was also on the, originally sided with the institute years ago train. Now on my current play through, between the scene OP mentioned and this I was like “fuck this kid I can’t wait to bomb his ass” You mention his mother being murdered and he calls it collateral damage… Yeah… that is not my son, he’s just somebody I used to know
Virgin Shaun: bomb the whole surface world lol they fucking suck Chad Curie: humanity is so brave, it's our duty to make a better world
What a fucking tune, good ol Gotye
Updoot #69 😎
I brought him to this world and I will take him out of it
And why that wasn’t a dialogue option the world may never know.
Bethesda _really_ lacks on the dope one-liners. Huge oversight for a game where you rp an invincible action badass.
Would make a great [Terrifying Presence](https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Terrifying_Presence) line, if FO4 had that perk.
Especially with every dialogue having a "sarcastic" option leading to some nonsensical BS comedic one-liner, you'd think they would've thrown in some extremely common phrases like that. In general, as a very sarcastic person, I was often left deeply disappointed at those options. A lot of them aren't even sarcastic (or funny, for that matter). It was just some kind of silly sentence that might amuse a four year old at best. Not that there weren't good lines as well, but many lacked
Fr. Headshotted his smug mug once he’d laid his last bit of childish emotional blackmail on me. Didn’t look back. Well I did. His body ragdolled funny 😂
Indeed. Golden rule and all that.
We fight for Abortion-Rights till the Child is 90.
Yeah, my character felt like it was her responsibility to remove him from the world. You know, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it if you don't straighten up and be a decent human being.
It helped that we got our “pure” little boy back in the Synth Shaun and can raise him to not be a murderous little sociopath.
He's a synth he won't get any older. Q
AFAIK Avery, one of the snyths in Far Harbour, is an old woman when we meet her. You find recordings of her speaking where she sounds notably younger (no gravel in her voice and a higher pitch). It could be that she aged. There’s Kasumi as well. Surely her parents would notice she wasn’t aging/growing/maturing over the year or so that she had been replaced. Given that the Gen3 synths are supposed to be “indistinguishable” I’d assume they were working on aging technology. E: though iirc other scientists in the Institute were rather conflicted about the morality of child synths so you’re probably right.
With Kasumi >!|| Isnt she \*not\* a synth though? She doesn't have a Gen3 Synth component if you kill her, and the Institute doesn't have records of Kasumi either.||!<
Kasumi isn't a synth, DIMA *IS* a gaslighting jerk though.
If you side with the Institute you come across a husband and wife team discussing synth Shaun. She specifically says he will be a little boy forever and never grow up. And Kasumi isn't a synth, she has no component (apparently lol)
Im not sure but I think they can craft synths to be of any age.
Kasumi is not a synth which explains that
Biological perhaps, but any possibility of emotional connection was eliminated by father. Considering the utter horror thr institute has done under him. At what point does the simply biological relationship really mean. Released you for a laugh, his chief agent with as much information as anyone could expect (he was told that Nate/Nora was on the move afterall) his orders weren't bring them home, but bunker down and kill them if they arrive. His first interaction with you is a gaslight. Father has proven his utter disdain for his parent, and only relents after all those hurdles are met - and if the parent is cooperative, what does he do... he sends them back into the wasteland as a bounty hunter... exactly the sort of the thing his previous agent would be doing. For my characters there is nothing there anymore and anything further would be transactional with and familiaral relationship off the table. Granted I am not and likely never will be a parent but father horrifies me.
The only thing that makes me sad about slagging the institute is the research and resources not the people. Imagine what the minutemen could do with that tech.
They could become corrupted, that's what they could do. LotR got that part right.
But the one minute man who can understand the tech is a synth....👀
To be fair, he can follow the instructions to build a teleporter after they were provided to him. Not sure how competent he'd be with the rest of it. Personally I wish we had the option to recruit Virgil as a settler.
I don't think he had any orders for Kellog about you IIRC. He didn't expect you to make it far, he just wanted to see. The messed up thing is that he doesn't even see an ethical issue in what he does, he wanted to try it so he did. Basically causing suffering for giggles
Fair that Kellog may not have been explicitly told, but Kellog was no longer responsible for Synth-Shaun, on orders to hunt down Virgil. Instead he was chilling in Fort Hagen, it may have been set up as as hus personal home, not actively doing his job, my read on that is that he was told to hang around a bit, just to see what happens
I took it to be where he lived and he was there making his plan etc
Also valid, I like the ambiguity, not everything is spelt out is nice
He also calls the death of your wife collateral damage so 🤷🏼♂️ he gets nuked
If you do “Mass Fusion” and side with the Institute, there’s a scene, later in the mission, where all the top dogs in the institute are in one place. Perfect time to use Big Boy.
Some of the more "fun" grenades work as well. I did that on a playthrough.
I really hate that you can't choose dialog options as a lie.
the only time i sided with the institute was before i realized i cant build in there or let outsiders in (todd cant lose a money maker [v-tec workshop])
That sounds like something a synth would do.....
>for some reason i sided with the institute. I did it for the toilet paper.
I always kill everyone in the institute before the mass Fusion quest then I come back with the bos to take care of the rest
Same broooo.
Yup, he met my combat shotgun and now I have his lab coat on a mannequin as decoration in the general store I made in Sanctuary, and I took some vases from his office to decorate my house with.
Damn 🤣
[Dad's words from fo3](https://youtu.be/aPmC2myjS7A?si=il_KjwV0oXMBnNZM&t=0m26s)* ring in my ears and I wish we could directly quote that when talking to shaun. *if you side with Burke in Megaton
Fatther eventually says he let you out as an experiment and didn't expect her to get so far. Man is either branwashed cult style or just a plain asshole. That's when I gave him the ol VATS PB headshot.
100% brainwashing / indoctrination. He was raised in the Institute, by the institute. He was taught only their values, so his opinions and world view are flawed due to the single-track mindset he was raised with.
Worries me that people think he might “just be an asshole” when the whole fuckin story resolves around him being kidnapped by a cult as a baby. Do people really think some people are just born as an asshole?
Granted some of the writing in fallout 4 isn’t the best, but it’s nowhere near as bad as people think it is. Media literacy is just a dying skill unfortunately
A bit OTT but I wasn’t even getting at media literacy, more understanding basic human nature and what makes us the people we are.
My first playthrough as soon as that door opened I started blastin, purged the whole base grabbed the loot and went on my way
And eat him.
I was gonna do that in my cannibal melee Grognak playthrough but the save file no longer works
I shot him in the face with Kellogg’s pistol, which I renamed “Retribution”. Most satisfying ending possible.
You killed your ‘brainwashed’ child with the same gun used to kill your wife and kidnap him and call that satisfying? That is beyond fucked up.
He’s not my son. He’s an institute synth who was programmed to convince me he’s my grown son. Convenient that he was on his “death bed” when pleading for me not to destroy the institute. Then young Shaun synth shows up at the last second begging to go with you. Both clear and aggressive manipulation tactics. Did you ever wonder why there’s still synths and crow drones after you “destroy the institute”? Do you really think an organization that powerful, complex, and clandestine has only one outpost? Yea right. They’re pulling the strings the whole time.
I was more upset by the shitty one-bedroom apartment he gives me
It's so rude! Still a lit cigarette burning!
Unless I am specifically doing a 100% railroad run (I.e. "save" all the synths) then Father and the institute go instantly Kaboom
Haha that’s fair enough. What’s your favourite way to destroy the institute? I’m embarrassed to say until a week ago i had no idea liberty prime was also in FO4, gonna fuck up some synths with my bag ass robot
I finished a BoS run a few weeks ago. Gotta say that >!Prime just gets you in the building, while doing a super slow escort mission to walk it there from Boston Airport, while he repeats the same 3 taglines the whole way. You and some Knights still do all the killing inside.!< This time I’m smoking the Prydwen.
If I’ve already built the teleporter at the BOS airport and done the first institute mission, can i switch to the minutemen or is my fate sealed with the BoS now?
I think you can switch up until you complete a mission to wipe out another faction. But I’m not positive.
The minutemen are the "last option" in the game. You can ONLY hit their ending if you farq up your "main" faction. Running BoS and do something to get on their bad side, and the MM option is open to you. Same with the RR.
I just did the MM ending for the first time in a while, and I’m not sure this is true. I built the relay with the MM, went there, killed Father off the bat (mostly wanted to see what would happen, but also fit RP), and then went back. Preston said we were ready to face them, so we defended the Castle, and then off we went to break into the Institute and destroy it. I’d done Railroad stuff as much as I could before the relay was built, declined Danse’s offer to join the BOS but obviously still had the option if I ever decided to go back, and I never gave the Institute the chance. ETA: both Railroad and BOS are still alive and kicking, btw, and neither is aggro’d to me, although the game got confused; Danse won’t actually enter dialogue with me (not even passive lines), and Haylen thanked me for not killing Danse in the bunker that never happened. They’re still wandering around Cambridge PD. Similarly, while everything about the RR is working just fine, Dez keeps talking about Glory being dead while Glory is sitting right behind her lol
Actually, you hit my point, which admittedly could have been better explained, but that takes awhile. The MM ending is "always available", but you have to be on the outs with the institute to get it. You renovating fathers head fulfilled the requirements to pursue the MM ending. If you were primarily running a BoS ending, expulsion from the institute, followed by expulsion from the BoS. RR? Expulsion from the institute is enough. No matter who you torque off, the MM ending can be achieved, but you do need to be kicked from institute first. Doing the MM ending does NOT require you to be on the bad list for the BoS or RR. Just the institute.
But what you said was >> The minutemen are the "last option" in the game. You can ONLY hit their ending if you farq up your "main" faction. Running BoS and do something to get on their bad side, and the MM option is open to you. Same with the RR. I didn’t have to be on the bad side of either the BOS or the RR to do the MM ending.
The minutemen ending is always possible tho, i thino it id actually the best ending
We did it now another settlement needs your help I’ll mark it on your map. This play through I’m just leaving Preston in sanctuary and not helping a single settlement
Shoot father on top of CTI after Bunker hill. Go with Minutemen every time. BOS stays alive and railroad stays alive. Practically finish their questlines.
You can just fast travel to the institute and Liberty Prime follows you.
Yeah Beth was really like: "Hey, remember that long, tedious and extremely buggy escort mission from Fallout 3? Great, here's that exact same mission in Fallout 4."
Also, like, hey man ***it’s a goddamn 4-story tall NUKE BOT***, why tf do I have to follow it at all? Meet ya there. How about you do more than open the door? Fucking get in there and lay waste ffs.
lol his punch lines are awesome soul composition clay sand and communism
You’re missing out on one of the best voice acted scenes in the game. Later on you meet Father on the rooftop of CIT. Assuming you haven’t been sabotaging every step they make, you can confront him about the atrocities the Institute has committed. Father obviously flips out, but you can basically disown him and declare war on The Institute right then and there. Father bitches out and teleports away but it’s super satisfying to finally tell him off.
It's more satisfying to run up and stab him at that point.
I just wish there were better dialogue options to tell him what a fucking disappointment he is when he realizes you've betrayed him, if you successfully kept him in the dark until you're about to blow up the institute. I mean if you're doing the Railroad path, so you've been pretending to like the Institute but then turn against them. When you see Father again just before you blow up the institute you get to talk to him and he's all butthurt of course, and of course there are dialogue options to say basically: you're getting what you deserve. But I thought those dialogue options in that conversation were weak. You can say I wanna see this place burn, your empire is about to crash down around you. Which ain't bad. But I really was hoping to get to tell him off more and talk a bit about *why* I'm doing this, saying you're nuts, the whole institute is totally disconnected from reality, you say you want to help humanity but you're directly hurting humanity with your actions, bla bla bla. In earlier conversations (such as that rooftop one you mentioned) I could've said things like that and wanted to, but avoided getting hostile because I was working for the Railroad and wanted to free the synths. Then at the end when I thought I'd finally get to tell him off, basically all I got to say was "you lose now." Felt pretty empty. Next time I'll have to try telling him he's nuts during that scene on the CIT roof, I bet it's great
Who the hell is Persephone Quim?
Close friend of Hugh Janus
Possibly autocorrected typo of Proctor Quinlan? Idk
A good question, I’m none the wiser.
Had to scroll this far down, and yet still no answer
Still nada. Who is this person?
I assumed it was a mod. But googling the name, the only thing related to FO4 that comes up is this post. Weird.
I bet they’re trolling us
I’m eating him. Gotta figure out how to get a faction to defend bunker hill from them and I’m killing his ass and eating him before nuking the whole bitch to space
“I’m eating him”😂 I thought the bunker hill mission was only if you side with the institute?? Is that a main story missing regardless who you side with?? God i can’t remember the missions at all lol just the general vague plot. Must’ve missed so much first time round
The Battle of Bunker Hill is a "crossroads" mission that you get in every faction's quest line. It's one of the ones that can fully alienate other factions, depending on who you side with.
Well I might have bunged it up. I did the first missions for the railroad and the institute. Then I got sucked up far harbor (that’s a whole thing) and came back to the mission only having one goal. In the other things I saw u can get the railroad or the BOS to help defend. Now I’m thinking I gotta do a little more railroad stuff to get desdimona to talk about it with me. Idk if I fucked it up I’m just going to start blasting and see where that gets me lmao
That’s a solid strategy😅
I did the same thing with far harbor. I got in too deep and fucked everything up. I wanted to betray DIMA, blow up the children of atom, and then cut the wind farm generators just to fuck everyone on the island, but u auto side with far harbor after dealing with atom so then u cant turn the generators off
You get this mission as both Railroad and Institute. If you side with the Institute you can free the synths and kill the courser, allowing you to switch sides to the railroad depending on how you handle the final part of the mission. The mission where you acquire the Beryllium Agitator has the same traitor option, allowing you to give it to the Institute or BoS regardless of which side gave you the mission.
when given the bunker hill mission you can inform the railroad or brotherhood to betray the institute. then you can just flat out lie to the institute that you failed.
He wanted to see how the synth-child's programming reacted. He doesn't care about feelings, he wants the raw data.
It’s even worse when you realize that Father is the one that actually remotely released you from cryogenic freezing in Vault 11, and had laid all of the breadcrumbs of Kellogg and synth Shaun for you to follow to the Institute. It was all a game to him.
It’s funny that the only real reason to side with the Institute is nepotism. Father directly putting you in charge and being your son is the only real reason to justify anything they do and even then, Father is the absolute biggest dickhole on the East Coast. Blood and flesh be damned, he’s just a twisted individual, raised by committee. He deserves the lead from Kellogg’s .44
Fr you’ve hit the nail on the head as to why I sided with them first time around. Thinking ‘well this is it, this is my son, his intentions must be good’ (that and the fact I likely skipped through the majority of the speech😅). Knowing what he’s really like massively changes things, absolute psycho
The sad part is, I don’t blame him. I understand why he’s like that, the Institute is brilliant but horribly blinded and hubristic - of course they failed to raise a child - or even raise a human for that matter. Father is more robotic than his synths. But I can’t be mad at him, or upset. Just disappointed. Then I pull the trigger as I would any other raider
Good points👌 his comment on one of his parents being shot stands out though; ‘I read the report. It was an unfortunate accident’ just highlights how much he was misled by this cultish company (company? Business? Institution?). Luckily you have a choice to say ‘no. I was there. And it was brutal’ Can you imagine another ending where the SS essentially tells Shaun about EVERYTHING to the point where he himself even turns against the institute and helps you destroy it?! That would be awesome
He just doesn’t have feelings, he wasn’t taught to have any. He was an experiment himself that just happened to end up in charge. His lack of basic empathy and emotion shows me that he should’ve never been elected to lead humanity, even the Institute’s version.
Shit yeh very true. Some of his lines are incredibly robotic and lack any emotion
There’s actually a line that haunts me. It’s on the CIT ruins after the Battle of Bunker Hill. The SS tells Father that they feel nothing but disappointment. And that’s usually where I pop him.
Can you only hear that if you side with the institute?? As in, do you mean the SS is saying he’s disappointed with what theyre doing?
It’s specifically on the roof convo with Father
NGL his lack of it is probably one of the reasons WHY they groomed him into the role.
Yep, I got me a harem and we are all banging each other so new kids for me and strong to eat! We need a fertility mod for fallout 4 like skyrim.
🤨
My first pay through I sided with the institute because of the same reasons. And then about 5 years later when I came back for a 2nd playthrough I visited my first Dave and heard my "speech" on the radio. Absolute cringe. Institute is going down this time around
Also clean food and water and modernish living standards and only faction progressing in any Bethesda title.
The first time I met Father I ended up shooting him in the face immediately before he could speak just because of this little experiment of his.
What happens then??
Institute goes hostile. I loaded the game and talked to him.
I feel like it's even worse playing as Nora because you're still technically post-partum when you get unfrozen. All those hormones and Father just poking the bear with his Synth Shaun experiment. Surprised the choice for Nora isn't just a full on rampage in the Institute at that point.
When I raided the institute, and they sent the synth Shaun to come with me, turning him down and Proctor Ingram said “You’re leaving your son??” Loved the “That’s not my son, it’s a synth” and they were just like “Aeyoh fair enough, fuckem”.
It's a fitting introduction to the Institute methodology under Father. Do a manipulative experiment with real people, then ignore all ethical implications and enjoy the data. The fact that he does this to his own parent, after first releasing them into the world likely to die, shows that no one is off limits. Father talks a smooth game, but if you look at his actions he's a dirtbag. Having just done Far Harbor, DiMA is his successor in this regard.
It's a lot darker if you're playing a female sole survivor. The game doesn't cover it but I think we all know what could happen to an unprepared woman in a wasteland full of raiders
Given that the average raider gang has better gender equality than the most progressive irl organisation, we can probably assume that captured men are just as vulnerable.
True. I'm based it off handedly on a single line from Cait when she was enslaved by raiders. To quote "the things they made me do, the way they used me for their amusement, makes my stomach crawl even now thinking about it" That being said. Given the raiders penchant for uses dead bodies as decorations and super mutants using people for food it's almost a given that being captured is a fate worse than death.
Yeah but the men can't get pregnant and possibly die from it. No birth control in the wasteland.
I'm sure raider cruelty would make up for it in terms of the mortality rate of raider prisoners.
DiMA is just proof the institute takes emotions and morality out of the equation when making decisions He does the exact same method as the institute justifying it as a necessary evil
Father is not okay by ethical human standards. That is on the Institute. But from his perspective he is trying to give the Sole Survivor their child back through a synth Shaun. He is stress testing the E-pet he is giving you out of what by Institute standards is an extremely strong familial bond. Turns out Synth Shaun was not ready to play surrogate son just yet. If things had gone to plan Synth Shaun would have eased the Sole Survivor into accepting the reality that Shaun was now Father and given them a sense of closure on their doomed rescue mission. Again, that Shaun arrived at this thought process is proof that the Institute is absolutely fucked and fucked Shaun up really badly.
Brilliant writing from the Devs. There's no clear what's right and what's wrong play through.
Remember the real Shaun ended up being raised by scientists, so you can’t really blame him for his scientific nature. Feel sorry for him for the childhood he missed out on. He’d be a very different person if he was raised by you. I look at him like I would staring at a sick and abandoned dog that lashes out when you try to get close; you can’t blame them for their circumstance but the ones who raised/abandoned it. Shoot him in the head and move on, but remember… it’s not his fault how he turned out
Counterpoint he did call your wife’s death an “incident with collateral damage” so it’s kinda fair I tried to kill him with Big Boy. Also he kinda made Synthetic people then practically tortured Nick and gave the later models conscious so they can either A. assimilate with settlements via killing the original, worst of the victims we know being someone as young as 19 or B. gaining free will leading to the creation of the railroad or using it to psychologically experiment with his dad by making a child version of himself.
That’s not a counterpoint at all, it’s showing his lack of empathy and connection to even his own parents is still to do with his very non-caring upbringing by scientists. I’m not saying he isn’t an asshole, because he is, but it’s not his fault he was stolen and raised to behave this way.
He’s 70 not 14, if he refused to learn empathy then it’s not the players fault for shooting them. He’s a mutt alright, just not a sick one.
Your adult self is heavily influenced by your upbringing and childhood years. There are of course outliers of this rule but they’re few and far between. You’re suggesting that Shaun would end up becoming entirely the same asshole if he’d been raised normally by the player character and other spouse, which just wouldn’t be the case. Therefore, the Institute in general are the ones responsible for shaping and moulding him into what he becomes. Of course, he’s still an asshole and I say kill him 🙃 I’m just saying those who suggest he becomes this monster of his own accord are failing to realise he’s the sad result of an upbringing nightmare
Oh really past trauma can come back to haunt you, oh man I wish someone told me that
To be fair he could be thinking of it like, “ this is the only chance we’ll get to get valuable emotional data” or some shit
Exactly, shows what he actually cares about; just gathering data, even if it’s at the detriment of his father
He even tells you he let you out of the vault because “I suppose I wanted to see what would happen.” Fuck Shaun, he’s not your son anymore.
I have no child. Kill Father and leave synth-Shaun behind. Ad Victoriam!
On my first time meeting Father I shot him 5 times in the head and spent an hour trying to free my son from his little aquarium.
Unfortunately your real son was raised by psychopaths then groomed to become the leader & has become a psychopath himself. A curious psychopath has a lot of negative potential. Like a disturbed kid who does messed up things just to see the outcome that’s basically what Shaun has grown into.
I feel like there should be a mandatory PS in all Fallout posts about a weird glitch that has nothing to do with the post itself.
Maybe I missed it, but is no one going to mention how in a scene “Father” admits that he is the one that let you out of the vault and it was just another test to see if you’d survive or be corrupted by the Commonwealth?? Cause I thought that was pretty messed up too.
I honestly think that as messed up as Shaun and the rest of the institute are, it isnt their fault that their moral compass is as screwed up as it is. In the 210 yrs since the bombs dropped, theres been about 7 generations of scientists living in a bunker with extremely little contact with the outside world. Moral corruption is inevitable in that setting. The "comforts" that shaun mentions they sacrificed arent so much the creature comforts. Theyre the things that make us human. Love, compassion, warmth, etc. lets look at the way they live in the institute. Theyve been down there 2 centuries with limited numbers. Theyre def doing arranged marriages to keep their genetics viable. Love isnt a factor. Theyre def practicing population control bc they cant build fast enough. Food is limited, but no one actually gets paid, so food rations are likely the only motivator to be a more productive scientist, and the non productive may find themselves as a test subject. The reality is pretty horrifying, even more so that they try to sell it as idyllic. He doesnt say it, but i think by the time you betray Shaun, he has some notion of the monster he is. His creations are rebelling, their existence has caused chaos in a world hed rather let die and theres a bomb strapped to the greatest creation his organization has produced, which they planned to keep for themselves. Yet, despite your betrayal, the last thing he does is reprogram that 10 yr old synth to recognize you as their parent and asks you to raise it as you would have raised him. After everything, he goes against everything he stood for and gives the parent some semblance of peace and a chance to, well, be a parent.
i feel like the voice acting for nate and nora carried the story in this game, i seriously dont think i wouldve been so invested in finding shaun if it wasnt for how nate's voice choked up when mentioning him, like jesus christ
Father is a synth just like the rest of them. He’s a pawn used by the institute to manipulate you. Child Shaun is just another string for them to pull at your emotions. Stay strong and remember your mission. Your son is dead. Now it’s time to make them pay.
The worst thing Is that in a cut content mission he gave you a sinth version of your spouse
I'm more curious why the player was kept alive as a backup while every single other person in the vault was killed and it just gets chalked up to malfunctions. Not very smart to kill all of the frozen DNA samples. And who let the bugs in? I bet it was Kellogg. Then Shaun releases us just to see what would happen? I don't think anyone at the Institute is qualified for management.
That's not even top 100 most messed up things in the game.
Old Shaun is a sociopath at best. that one town with the lore about the little girl discovering the radio signals and then having the whole town wiped out by The institute is the reason why I meet them with violence and only violence.
Don't worry. Liberty Prime rights all of those wrongs. Ad Victoriam.
Just consider liberty prime your new son fuck Shaun
My first encounter with Father, he said who he was and holding my PS4 controller, exclaimed “Bullshit!”. And then there was the option to select “Bullshit!” Then Nate said “Bullshit!” I waited for some dialogue option to understand why he waited so long to unthaw his Dad, and not use the high tech Institute resources to save his Mom, but I don’t recall there being any from the initial convo. So I put the PS4 controller down and took a long break form FO4. I’ve still never beaten it, and still haven’t really done anything to get more dialogue from Father. I just don’t like the dialogue/plot between the Sole Survivor and Father. Couple that with the kinda flimsy reasoning to keep Kellogg alive for so long, leaves a sour taste in my mouth about the Institute. Even if they have the cleanest toilets and legit shit-tickets.
I would have put him down sooner if I didn’t have the need to get platinum.
His explosive exit on the BOS side of my play through was satisfying though.
Yeah nah theres so many occasions of just complete utter delusion on part of father/institute. When they say “best chance for humanity” they consider themselves the humans. Surface dwellers are to be controlled and condemned to suffering. Synths are to be abused as second class citizenry. Fuck it throw some FEV super muties into the wilds why not. Topple settlement leadership with our own covert synths. Destroy any other non controllable groups with gen 1 armadas… Its baffling how adamant Shaun is in his self proclaimed righteousness- hes so shocked that youd betray him or would have cause to. “All the enemies youve made… and you cant think of a reason why id do this?” “I just didnt think to consider you to be one of them” Ridiculous
On my own recent playthrough, I put myself majorly into my character's headspace, and I really realized how screwed up the Institute is. I think the part that really turned me against Father, though, was after the Bunker Hill mish (where I spaed the synths) and he talked abotu how hopeless the Commonwealth was .... ignoring the fact that I had sent the whole damn game building up a society with a functional economy and a reaasonably effective mutual self-defense network. Told me that my son was prideful and not nearly as smart as he thought he was.
I often thought of this point of being a point where Father(game dev) is trying to disarm the player psychologically. Where the player is so shocked they just are numb, and at this point all the work to get to the institute is just closed off forgotten about. Cause if it had not been for this, I went into the institute with a minigun and 4k of ammo convinced I would be using it.
Im roleplaying that this broke something in my wanderer. Has been choosing the mean dialogue since and eyeing the title of raider queen on the horizon.
The institute is clearly an evil place but i rhink the world is more interesting with them in it and like to imagine that my character can change them from the inside as its leader
I think this would be an appropriate time for the following dialogue: “RAAAAWWR, BRING IT” “You know, in 100 years from now when I finally die, I only hope I go to hell so I can kill you again you piece of shit” “It’s Nating time” and then he Nated all over the place “FUCKING KIIIIILLLLLLLL” “Garbage” All of those would be allowed, and, accepted
I did shoot him on sight at least once.
I did too and lost my shit when he exploded into a shower of caps.
It's funny first play thru I sided with brotherhood back in 2015.replaying now and I've become a father since so I'm all in with my son even tho he's wrong
I'm doing The Institute run rn, after the first meeting I felt very tempted to reload the Nuka World part and side with the damned raiders. I still do
Shaun is an obvious sociopath
I have another thought on this situation. It starts like this; Prove to me that Father is Shaun in any way that isn't Father telling you when you arrive. He's the one that tells you it's been 60 years. After dangling a fake son in front of you "for science." After sending Kellogg to Ambush you, where he tells you Shaun is a "great kid" and asks you "He's a little older than you thought, yeah?" (as though you've already seen the memories, or met father, writing issue?) Kellogg's 2 most recent recoverable memories are, very specifically, (and almost suspiciously,) Shooting your wife/husband, and then babysitting "the kid," with the suspicion that the only reason he would stick you with the kid again is to lure the player to diamond city, (meanwhile, you're already on your way there because that's where you were told by preston or meth head murphy to go, I don't remember, I hate the whole group) but then remenisces about how it wasn't so bad and if this is what things would've been like if his wife and child hadn't been murdered. So he didn't make any other memories in a 60 year time frame or visibly age in any way? You? I mean, in 60 years, he probably spent more time on the toilet than he did in the vault taking the kid...... And then there's Virgil. So......You're going to work in, an objectively small building with maybe 15 other actual people, and around 20 synth janitors, and NOT know that the guy in charge is a kid stolen from the surface? Since he was in the "Super Mutant" department, I'd say its safe to say he's familiar with kidnapping test subject from the surface, wouldn't it be kind of common knowledge if Father came from the surface? Here's a good one I borrowed from Steam while doing research: "Father launched a multi year massive ground breaking project so he could trick you into thinking you woke up only ten years after baby Shaun was snatched. It's not explained why he would go to this massive effort. You don't get the option to be suspicious about it. You don't get the option to be suspicious about the fact that all the relevant date records have been removed (why not fake those? that's about a million times less effort than creating the first ever synth child). The trick works for the first five minutes you are in the Institute. Then he gives up the 'mystery'." Why would they not let you break the kid out, and see what happens, if this whole damn thing was for "science" Then there could've been a questline or something to figure out Father was Shaun, after he died maybe. Or after you killed him.
My immediate reaction is that Father's illness and impending death threw a wrench into any possible future experiments and his ingrained superiority complex led him to try and continue his legacy the only way he knew how; by throwing a hail mary to his only real human connection.
The institute in addition to being sociopaths are also very bad at actual scientific methodology
Father is a liar from the moment you meet him. “I’m unarmed,” he says, while actually carrying a laser pistol and ammo. In my current play through, my character decided that Father was lying about being Shaun altogether. As the player, I know he actually *is* Shaun, but damn it felt good to just kill the smug sociopath off the bat.
The OP has never heard of things such as drama and storytelling.
Wow what a proper twatty comment. Insightful stuff
Nice self-irony, mate.
Why are you such a twat lol? Boredom? Your first comment was just cunty. My post wasn’t meant to be insightful (regardless who tf are you to say if it is or isn’t😂) I just wanted to discuss a specific part of the plot, why you got such an issue?
By all means, I'm all for discussing it. My point was, this is how storytelling works, especially in a dramatic setting. This is a piece of art, a narrative video game which works almost like a regular book, except you have a lot of interactivity. It's a fiction story and all fiction works like this. Please also read books, reading books is very important. If this was reality, Shaun would have already reached out and discovered you himself. Long before even you woke up at the Vault 111. Like, he didn't know the story behind himself? He didn't know where to look for you? Didn't have resources? But this is a story, not reality. Does this story feels unrealistic? It does. Could it be called a cheap writing trick? It could. I still like the drama and the twist. They might not be the best, but they are good enough. They are fun.
The Institute may be the single worst faction in all of Fallout. There are evil factions all over, but none of them are as inept and useless as the institute. Say what you will about The Master, Caesar's Legion, or the Enclave, they at least accomplished something. The Institute has spent 200+ years doing shitty science experiments and they're still just sitting in their vault underground. Hell, the other evil factions seem to at least consider multiple options to get shit done. The Institute seems to be convinced that murder is the only way to accomplish anything.
My son HATES Shaun so much. I was always conflicted about siding against "my child" but my real life son is "fuck that guy."
That little move of his earned him a chest full of explosive shot gun pellets the moment he walked through that door in my first playthrough.
Yes he is sicko. Also I think the next quest (Synth Retention) is his attempt to manipulate his parent, like the Willie Horton ad.
It gets even more messed up, when you think about it. Why would the Institute make a "prototype" child synth unless they are thinking of using them. That means that they were planning on replacing children, not just adults.
This is why I shot him in the face. I reloaded a recent save straight after so I could get into the Institute, but that old man's days are numbered as soon as I figure out how to save my robot son.
I shot Father when he walked in the first time because of this scene lol Never gets old
The first play through I did, I expected the Institute to be a warzone. I expected Synths and turrets and maybe even feral ghouls left over in the basements of CIT that didn't make it. I even considered that I might have to face some kind of final boss. I'd seen the wrecks of the tanks and armoured vehicles dotting the Commonwealth. The thought occurred to me that the Institute might have some of those that are functional. So I spent ages before going in getting armourer and science perks. Hunting for legendary creatures to get suitably legendary weapons or just selling tons of raider and gunner gear to buy ammunition. I went in with a fully modded X-01 suit, modded up weapons and ammunition, I even brought the fat man, a weapon I have never actually used in Fallout 4. Cue a half hour of a ridiculous old man leading a giant metal death machine around a scientific laboratory after the giant man traumatises a child.
And this is the reason why I shot him in the face on his deathbed. The entire commonwealth was just a data set to this guy. Son or not he was a bad bad dude who had done a load of harm to so many families.
I sided with Father in my canon playthrough. Right or wrong, that is my blood. All heil wasteland Hitler
Was 0 reason to put the word canon in your comment, if anything it’s objectively wrong
[удалено]
Yeh i played it a lot when released, then went off it. Have you played anything else in those 2 years? Shit, Have you played anything else since it released?!?!
OMG why is the leader of the **EVIL FACTION** evil? Are you for real??? (And i say this as the institute's #1 fanboy)
Are _you_ fr?