I like how the way Shaun defends the institute goes from "People just think we're evil because they don't know how we really are" to "Yeah, we're evil, but everyone else is evil so that makes it ok."
And from that to "We might be evil, but we also have a literal clone army and spies eveywhere. Now after we've destroyed all actual threats, would all you abovegrounders kindly go disappear yourselves from our land."
The stupid thing is that they sabotaged the CPG based in their own assumptions saying things like "we tried to help them, but they were to savage to run themselves" like that justifies what they did. The fact that many in the commonwealth were trying to come together to create a centralized covernment shows thry were not savage, according to other settlers yeah it was rough but progress was being made little at at time, according to father it wasn't fast enough so they just assumed it would never flourish into anything substantial. The institute is 100% evil because not only to they sabotage the above ground world when they have no reason to and have no gains in doing so, but they violate many moral dilemmas such as abduction people and killing them for the FEV project and or synth replacement, to creating near human robotics in every fashion but saying "they are just machines". Yeah machines that by nearly every definition are human.
@@millie3958 It's what I do. If I'm going to be playing a character whose ass I'm going to be seeing a lot, let it be a nice one. I just use a mod that gives Nora a military background.
@@themastermason1 I use the start-up mod that let's you skip the intro and roleplay Nora as a secret operative that used the whole lawyer thing as a front for her agency contract.
Shaun reeks of personal trauma. He made a synth child look like himself to see if anybody could love it. He released the sole survivor to "see what would happen". He wanted to know if the survivor, his parent, would come looking for him, to see if they still loved him, or were capable of doing so.
I'm like 95% sure the Sole Survivor was originally meant to be a synth and them finding Shaun was in part to fulfill his need to be loved that developed into his god complex. Shaun literally calls himself "Father" and has created an entire race of people - it's not subtle. I believe the creation of the SS synth was to see if his creation would seek out their creator and love them and not just because they were created to. If you reject him because he's a cruel, vindictive god and are incapable of looking past those cruelties and love him he then shackles you with a parody of the person you thought you loved in the beginning as a final twist of the knife. Heartbroken and believing that love isn't real he wants to remind you of it every day for the rest of your life.
@@QwertyCaesar If that last part is true, it's hilarious. Because 'synth' Shawn is no different than a human child in that he will grow, age, etc. So he can think he got one over on us, but really he just gave us what we wanted anyways.
@@picklepepper900Eh, no actually. You can find a terminal that mentions the Father spent a lot of resources ensuring that "Shaun" wouldn't age like the other synths would.
Yeah but the Institute has something no other faction does: bathrooms. It’s not their teleportation or synths that make them the most civilized faction, it’s their plumbing.
No, it’s obviously their clean coffee cups. The surface world could have them too, but the idea of putting a cup into water and scrubbing for 30 seconds is beyond the surface-dwellers.
So why did you side with your faction? "The minutemen simply help people with not unethical baggage" "The Railroad are the only one helping synths" "The Brotherhood will protect everyone" *Institute players looking at the institute* "I can fix them"
I spent all that time building up those stupid settlements - there's no way I'm going to abandon them now! Plus, I got to destroy the Prydwen with artillery. lol
I mean isn't that something we as the player can do to justify our institute alignment? It ultimately feels like shuan was trying to change everyone's views. Sure he could tell them to change but forcing them outright never works well for the long run.
"Hello, it's me, Shaun, your son. This is an exact replica of me from when I was but a strapping young lad of 10, specifically created, and I cannot stress this enough, to traumatize you."
Considering they murdered Nora or Nate instead of just defrosting the 3 of them and explaining to the parents why the Insitute is humanity's last hope, I'd have to say the Insuttie was evil from the get-go even if some individuals have scruples. you can't blame all the problems on them when how he got into their care was that callous. Shaun might have made things worse, but it was always like that.
@@dragoniceful The plan might not we well thought out but it was their stupid plain before Shaun started making decisions for them, so it's kind of their fault he sucks as Director.
I've always felt this, like how hard would it have been to say to Nate/Nora "we've detected a problem with your pod, we need to take you and your son out for a moment, please remain calm and follow our instructions." Instad of just saying "come here baby, come here." Like no parent is just going to hand over their son to a stranger without some kind of struggle without any information. Like just what the fuck.😅😅
I don't think it's a case of "evil just being evil". I think it's more a case of utmost ruthlessness. If you wake the parents and try to explain, it will 1) take longer and 2) create a situation where someone might try to interfere (namely, the parents) with your plans for the child. If your intention for the kid is just to be a source of DNA of a pre-bombs human, then the parents are technically unnecessary and so there's no point in getting them involved. I honestly think that was what the institute was meant to be seen as: they want the advancement of the human race through technology and science, but they are completely detached from humanity, to the point that anyone and everyone is just a tool for their research for them. This is why their most direct opposition is the Railroad, which is made up of a ragtag team of people who sympathise with the plight of synths and is based on compassion and empathy, the complete opposite of the Institute cold and rational search for perfection. AND I think that Shaun, Father, was supposed to go against this. Growing up in the Institute, but knowing they had killed his mother/father to get to him gives him the unique perspective of being at the same time their associate and their victim. And this is why Shaun sets up his own parent as the new head of the Institute: because their parents will bring a non-scientific perspective to the leadership of the Institute, possibly one composed of compassion for their fellow men on the surface after their time in the wasteland, a complete departure from the cold, detached ruthlessness of the scientific minds that had lead the Institute to that day.
"So, I'm stepping down. You're now the Director. Only, I'll still be telling you what to do. As will the other Research Heads. You'll be Director in name only. You'll not have the autonomy that I do, but it will be enough to cause more division in my already emotionally unstable underground cadre. Now, go and kill everyone who opposes me while I go play with my robotic incarnation of my lost childhood."
This is so true, but that can also be the same thing for the minute men. You're the General, but Preston still tells you to do everything regardless of being the general and leader of the Minutemen.
@@mellowdarkness3344 Eh, at least Preston is on the ground with you. And it has the contextualization that "he's your #2, he's the one the other minute men talk to, and he comes to you as head honcho". And, as the Minutemen thing is so tightly connected to town building, you can actually order around your Minutemen to some degree.
"i watched your birth, i held you and loved you with every part of me and so did your mother. I mourned you.. now the grief is gone and my fanily really is dead. Goodbye Shaun."
It is a really sad story if you think about the family angle. Son and spouse end up dead. Life with them robbed from you and you’re left alone in a literal wasteland.
@vincentm.7462 Well, maybe not completely alone. True, their real family is gone, but family doesn't always stop at blood. Just the people that you find that really grow to care about you.
My biggest problem with the Institute was this: You made all of these synthetic people, capable of true feeling and true AI learning and understanding, yet you take these creations and put them to do menial tasks that a simple robot could do with fewer resources and won't complain about it, then turn around and expend invaluable assets and resources attempting to retrieve 'lost or stolen' synths like they actually matter. The smartest den of idiots in the Commonwealth.
"Let's create synthetic humanoids that perfectly mimic what a human is and how we behave!" "To study the evolution of the human mind and what ultimately creates free will and thought, right?" *Looks at synths sweeping floors I mean, they couldn't even be bothered to use synths as a "humane alternative" to human guinea-pigs. They literally just built synthetic humans just because, then could not think of better things for them to do other than clean the place
I think the entire point was that they are the exact type of people to chase progress at all costs without really understanding the consequences. They were to some degree, supposed to represent the pre-war civilization that ended up destroying itself
Fun fact Father's plan worked so well in my first playthrough that he was eviscerated by an explosive minigun before the door was fully open then I let myself out.
From my memory back when the game first came out, most people did that. They either found out they screwed up their faction quest or were suddenly on the fast track to destroying the institute.
When I first played through 4, I got to the encounter with synth Shaun, found out what he did, quick saved, and shotgunned father. That was just. A messed up thing to do. After that was done I reloaded and destroyed them rationally, but the first time I found out he decided to trick his parent there was no mercy.
@@Blexmer1 yeah Father knew what attempted emotional manipulation he was trying to do. it wasnt even subtle, he just is used to getting what he wants with a
same for me. i called way early in the game that shawn had to be at least as old as the mc. when that "twist" was revealed i shot him and walked out. dumbest shit of all time
I still remember my first game. I joined the minutemen. I went into the institute, my son was there, some old dude started interrupting our conversation, I shot his head off with a sawed off shotgun, tried to open the cage but couldn't, I fought my way out... It was only 2 months later when I learned who the old man was from a let's play. Good times.
Similar experience. Got in with help from the Minutemen, packed to the gills with weaponry and a suit of the best Power Armor I had at the time. Soon as the door opened and I saw Mister Wrinkles stepping through, he caught a mini nuke to the chin. My brother who was watching at the time said "there's probably a twist that reveals he's your son" "Then he deserves twice what I just gave him."
Honestly Shawn just treats you like Kellogg. He emotionally manipulates you into doing what he wants. He released you and sent you on a direct course to kill Kellogg. He knew you would either die or kill Kellogg. Father makes it clear he hated Kellogg. He also knew that if you were driven enough to track him down against impossible odds, he could use that to manipulate you into doing what he wanted.
@orangecat504 I disagree. I think they knew sooner or later that people would find a way into the institute. With their reactor going online, with that much power output, sooner or later, someone would have figured it out that they were deep underground. It makes more sense for the future leader to have something no other leader of the institute to have: real experience in the waste land. By allowing the player to interact with the outside world, see both the good and bad in the commonwealth. It puts you at a far better position to do the most good for humanity while still being extremely cautious of the evil you've seen. It's by far the best solution for the next leader of the group. (Being the saving grace for a lot of factions does nothing but benefit their/your position)
Plus giving your choices, the institute has by far the best ability to do the most good for both the commonwealth and man kind. Every faction (minus maybe the minutemen and you might be able to argue the railroad, but i think they are just as evil personally, are just as evil as the institute)
@@be9240 Bro I’m sorry but that’s delusional there’s no way scientists would accept some random wastelander as leader, they saw the sole survivor as a tool
Dont forget that Dr Amari says "no one ever does this before" when breaking into Kelloggs memories meaning that Father relied on a technological breakthrough for the player to get to know about the teleporter etc.
This pretty much confirms that Shaun didn't think that the SS would survive their encounter with Kellog, like what would have been his plan then? To just keep using Kellog or eventually kill him himself? Like what was your endgame here Shaun? 😅😅
Dr. Amari trying to relay a information from dead man's brain implant through an upgraded Gen 2 synth into another person's memory lounger is what has never been done before.
That's the way we get it it's not the only way in Madison li got into contact with them somehow it's not impossible to conceive the player could as well.
Shaun's major flaw isn't about his character, a baby stolen from their parents wanting to rekindle that relationship after becoming the head of a scary shadow organization is kind of a cool idea. It's just that for as smart as the game wants us to think Father is not a single thing Father does makes sense and he just kind of comes across as stupid
That's a flaw of every faction leader in the game, to be honest. The leaders are VERY dumb. Desdemona is useless, Father's a mess, Preston's a suicidal dork, and Maxsen shows no interest in taking over the institute's technology -- which literally goes against the central ideology of the BoS.
@@JadeDude1973 preston makes it pretty clear he's not a leader, to be fair. he's just a soldier who didn't die. minuteman leadership is dead by the time we wake up. all the rest are pretty big fools, though. lol
@@theghostofthomasjenkins9643I think the problem with Preston is the resident quests, I have a mod that reduced the number you can receive and how often, and minutemen become so much more fun to play when you're not spammed with quests. He's associated with the fact his quest line was stupid, the character isn't too bad compared to some. Hell, he even has the best reason to make you leader so quick, he's desperate borderline suicidal, the first person to show him kindness and wanting to help he literally views as the savior of the minutemen because it gave him hope.
Father: "synts are just tools. No free will, no wishes, no future. Only program." Also Father: "Hey, look! A child synth! Will you love and treat him like a real boy??????" Me: "SRSLY?!"
Gives me "Interview with a Vampire" vibes. Little girl complaining about not being able to have sex and fall in love and start a family because she's a hundred year old immortal child and how she hates her creator. Child Shaun makes me so sick I.... I leave him behind as a courtesy.
@Haloguy3959The funny part is, because she's a vampire it wouldn't kill her. It would however be the most painful and miserable experience she could ever have.
@@Leech-Kisser07 I've never read "Interview with a Vampire" so it depends on which style of Vampire we're talking about, Classical or Modern. Classical Vampires were very literally a form of walking dead, they aren't technically "alive" and cannot have children the normal way, instead reproducing exclusively by injecting their blood into someone who already exists. Modern Vampires are usually just normal people with extra features, so the answer is usually yes unless specified otherwise.
Side-note: I feel like some of the "This motherfucker's a synth!" scenarios should've been representative of the paranoia. I.E., Sammy in Goodneighbor not having a synth component. I mean, yeah, the whole Kyle incident in Diamond City is good, but... I still feel bringing up the paranoia would've helped demonize the Institute more. Edit: Also, put Synth Components on unnamed NPCs with a 1/50 chance. For added realism.
if you kill a random settler theres a chance they'll have a synth component but thats the only group i know of. ive never seen any unnamed synth raiders, gunners, children of atom, or any other kind of aggressive human. it would be really cool to see that tho
@@Sunny-ek8sx Yeah. Also, Residents of Diamond City, Drifters in Goodneighbor, and some named but basically normal raiders like Bedlam, Sparta, and so on and so forth.
A thing that annoys me about the institute is that you can not confront them about what they have done. I wanted to call father out on creating a slave race, and keeping useful technology to themselves (especially the GMO crops). But no. All I get to say is "its for the greater good / you have made too many enemies".
Also hate that we can cure Virgil but never get him back in the Institute and make a cure for all the Super mutants even if we can't see it fully (we should be able to guide the Institute in a good direction apart from two lack luster side quests)
I would go even further. Besides just calling them out for creating slaves and other questionable decisions, let us participate. The ability to play a truly dark character.
Frankly, the very breaking point for me was when Shaun refers to the death of Sole's spouse as "unfortunate collateral damage", without mentioning ANY repercussions for any members of the team, nor any following changes in policy. I just felt a sense of "why don't I have an obvious dialogue option of "it was unfortunate and therefoooooore you did or changed what going forward?" ". Like I just can't imagine any intelligent adult just shrugging that off with an equivalent of "okay son yeah that tracks, attaboy you acknowledged that was a mistake, the bare minimum you could do!"
Or even an emotional response from the SS, "C-colateral damage? He killed your mother/father, my husband/wife infront of my eyes. And YOU juat handwave that away as "unfortunate collateral damage!?" How can you be so callus, they helped make you, you wouldnt be alive without them Shaun." Idk, just something to imply that the SS is at the end or at least nearing the end of their teather.
@@birdjericho Yeah all the reactions available were far too mellow. I mean especially if playing as Nora it should be possible for her as a lawyer to detect and call out a bullsh!tter.
My braking point was when real Shaun got into my line of sight. Holding a loaded gun to dump. Had already modded the game difficulty to avoid bullet sponges. So when the door opened I let the gun rip because that is what you do. I was quite done with Bethesda BS by that point. But I knew before killing the bastard how it probably was going to play out even without talking to the child. Because I still had hope of competent writing, (even after running after some stupid kid as the main objective of the game) I let the gun rip. There is no overkill. And there is no reason to not do it. NONE. Clearly this * are written badly or why the *. Then reloaded to check if it was that stupid or not. Like *****. *******. It makes no sense the hole thing. Why would the Institute and Shaun just walk into a room not expecting to be shot on sight. It really is just as bad as F3 story. But in F3 you where trying to make water drinkable and *. Platinum chip might be really stupid too. But it at least can be explained away within reason.
@@TheDiner50 I mean I usually opt to hear him out thoroughly before deciding "yeah no this is horsesh!t, at least the other faction leaders are honest and straightforward about what they want and why, and how they aim to get it." Hell even the Nuka World raiders and the Far Harbor Children of Atom don't lie and gaslight to nearly the level of Father. (I refuse to call him Shaun now, he may be Sole's son in blood but all the important aspects of raising him were done by the Institute, they're his real parents for all intents and purposes)
Father: I can't believe you messed up Bunker Hill! My Minuteman/Railroad Survivor: And I can't believe you didn't expect my *incredibly* predictable actions.
Me standing in front of him in T-60 Brotherhood Armor: "Beats me why the Brotherhood showed up and all the synths(including the cousier you sent with me) are dead....definitely was a freak accident"
And now we ask the age-old question of "Is this character contradictory and hypocritical because they're intended to be flawed or because the writers are very confused".
...oh of course it's the writers... no, Shaun is a bad boy and that synth child is my real son. I would put Shaun in timeout. Put him in the damn Cryogenic pod. And seal the vault.
It's like Bethesda was trying to do the morally ambiguous thing with the Institute, and "ends justify the means" type situation. But they fumbled the ball and just made them a bit evil with some conflicting dialogue that doesn't reflect their actions. The one saving grace they have is that the railroad is one of the most poorly written factions in the fallout series.
The Railroad's definitely got some bad stuff - things like the unnecessary, contradictory Freedom Trail shooting their presentation in the foot, or the Brotherhood's conflict with them, with lacking explanations of intel and the fluctuating intelligence of Maxson's chapter. But to say their problems are worse than the Institute's (especially "the worst") is reaching.
@@a.monach7602 agreed. The Institute is by far the most poorly written faction in the game. That being said, the others are not a far off as some may believe. The RR just wants to help synths disappear. The MM are too spread out, by design , and disorganized, by design, to lead the Commonwealth. Once the threat is gone, the MM would go back to their lives … whatever they are. The Brotherhood’s problems are numerous and have been covered by many on TH-cams and on the interwebs.
@@a.monach7602 I certainly disliked the RR more than the Institute, but that was probably because I dislike the idea of working towards human rights issues for walking toasters.
@@bloodlustshiva1 when a synth looks and feels like a human he should be treated equal to a human. But i agree the railroad is bad cuz theres nothing wrong with slavery.
What i hate is that the game lets you roam around and discover horrible things the institute does but you never get to confront Shaun with it. For example the FEV lab where you find children's toys inside the containment cells indicating they experimented on children, or the entire point of the 3rd generations synths, the kidnappings, really anything. They put all of this evidence of the institute being evil in the game for you to find then they do nothing with it. I have a feeling the devs had a distinct plan for the institute but some higher up (todd probably) nixed it and told them to make Shaun the leader for a cheap plot twist and they had to scrap what could have been a good moral dilemma for you to decide to support them despite their evil nature or perhaps even convince them to destroy themselves like the Enclave in FO3.
That is really disappointing too, you should be able to truly confront and shame the Institute for this utterly and obviously contradictory pretension and pride they carry themselves with. It's like how nice, polite and formal a plantation manor's family is considering the brutal slavery around them. Father should be forced to explain exactly how moral it is to do what they do and ask how those people would have felt going through these kidnappings, torture and ultimately death. And whether they truly buy their own excuses about it's for "the greater good", "they would understand if they were high IQ scientists like they were" and so on. Being able to tell Shaun to his face that, you're disgusted at what he's become and as far as he's concerned the Institute killed him already and replaced him with whatever soulless ghoul that stands before him now. This is not the Shaun he knew, he loved and he would have raised. Would make a fitting and satisfying confrontation point.
I don't think the toys are evidence that they experimented on children, I think the toys indicate the mutants they created were of childlike intelligence.
there was going to be a lot of content for fallout 4 story that was cut off, the problem was zenimax didnt like delay bethesda games, so a lot of things where cut off +paladin Danse questioning about elder maxson +the combat zone restauration +kellogs inside nick`s mind +the minutemen taking quincy back from the gunners +apparently a entire gunner faction storyline and more things that i forgot, some of these things can be access with mods, but a lot is lost
"They can't be director, they aren't even a scientist!" Meanwhile, in Sanctuary... Sturges: "Welcome to Sanctuary, See those big nuclear fusion generators? Those shiny new laser turrets? Those twelve suits of near-new power armor? The damn fully supplied hospital? Yeah, the vault dweller built them out of scrap by himself in about an hour... trained the doctors too (yes, I know you just "assign" them)." Also, to point out. Playing as the male character, who is known as a former soldier. I don't know about other countries, but in the US it's not uncommon for people to enlist to take advantage of the educational opportunities they provide. Hell, you can even pretend the female player has more a minor degree along with just a law degree. So, from a roleplaying standpoint, it is entirely possible that your character is a scientist. So... SUCK IT INSTITUTE! 🤣
@@shadenox8164 It's not done to earn a qualification, but to earn the means to attend. Both money and the additional disciplinary qualifications that come with being ex-military is supposed to make attending a high university much easier. In the 1960s when Fallout's under-explained sociopolitical freeze began, this was practically a guarantee. As a retired veteran with a long successful career, the male Sole Survivor would be relatively rich and receive the full benefits of priority university enlistment, he'd really have no excuse not to. Of couse, IRL veterans these days are treated poorly by universities, the same way they are in may other fields, because a certain political faction pretends military equals fascist. But that hasn't stopped the recruiting ads from pretending it's still the 1960s, who is going to hold them accountable for the false advertising, the FTC? 🤣
Even more funny? Compared to the average wastelander, Even assuming no uni degree for male SS? The sole survivor would go through, a minimum. primary, middle, and high school. (All three exist in the wasteland after all, so the school tiering system is mostly the same) Alongside trade collages, and, the CIT itself, as potential options, and also assuming no education in another state. The survivor is a highly inteligent and well educated person, especially by the standards of the wasteland... the next best thing to a scientist as far as the institute should be concerned! And even at the lowest level of "Skill" Is capable of constructing weapon modifications using tools. The settlement stuff can be explained perhaps by settlers helping you out, but the actual weapon mods? That's all the player charecter.
@@shadenox8164 In the US, it's not a qualification. The military just offers to pay for higher education in return for your service, as it is ridiculously expensive here, unlike other countries.
Imagine destroying a whole village for information the girl would have readily sold them 🤔 And the money would have been a drop in the bucket for the Institute.
@@jermonejackson8437 I'm pretty sure Kellogg would've just gone in, handed over some caps for the info, maybe give them a scare if he thought he needed to, and left without any further violence unless he actually had to. Maybe kill a specific witness. As brutal as Kellogg is, everything indicates that he is a professional and that he wouldn't kill a whole village when there are much simpler solutions with fewer reprocusions.
And the information was for the most part worthless, it was pre-war seismic activity or something like that. They burned down a town and killed it's population for the equivalent of an out of date newspaper.
And remember, the Commonwealth is still using caps. The whole reason caps were established as currency was because no one really had the infrastructure to produce them, so they were finite. The Institute is definitely an exception to that, they have the technology and scrap aluminum is probably one of the few resources they have in spades, and even if they don't they can just send some synths up to salvage it. So they basically can print money with no consequences since the currency is so decentralized it would take ages before the inflation became noticeable and still they chose violence
I remember first time I played through the story. Used the Minutemen to set up the teleport platform. When i got to the institute I was impressed at first but I was still on edge. Then I met Shaun. After hearing him talk a bit I thought some of his reasoning was strange. I thought, "ok, maybe I've misheard. Let's see what they really do. Then I saw more of the hypocrisy and gas-lighting. Later I did a few side missions and found University Point. Then I found the FEV labs and put 2 and 2 together. And the moment I heard what happened I just thought, "Oh god! Shaun is insane! There is no saving him. The institute has to go." And that's exactly what happened.
Shaun waking up the Sole Survivor and bringing him to the Institute sounds like he wanted an external judge that still possesses the sensibilities of the Old World to come to judge the Institute and find something worthy in it.
That is fine with every faction if you play a bit outside of the pre-nuke honest citizen. Finished Nuka-World for the raiders? Well, the Institute overboss declares that heads on spikes and bloody leather are part of the new institute uniform. The Silver Shroud is here to end those villains once and for all! Those white walls don't look so great together with Brotherhood T-60 power armor. Was the Institute able to develop a portable martini? Because Bond, Nate Bond want's to have one on the go that doesn't drench the tuxedo. And obviously Glory to Atom! pickpocket all institute laser rifles for gamma guns, so that the entire Commonwealth may bath in his glow!
1 int , perception, and charisma,10 strength and con survivor is now the head of the institute, because the dumb, blind, introvert who can deadlift a car and take a rocket to the chest would definitely make a good scientist.
There should’ve been more postgame missions that let you establish your institute. I remember one small mission addressing treating Synths better but that’s it
Makes me wish there had been post game content with all of the factions, end the game with the MM? You can attempt and successfully create a Commonwealth Government and have an alliance with the remaining factions in Fo4. Side with the RR, you can try and succeed in easing the public's unease about synths now that the Institute is gone. Side with the BoS? Paladin Dance is now in charge and you as his second in command can help protect the Commonwealth by clearing out hostile Supers and Ferals. You know, just to make it feel more cohesive.
@@BrightWulph iirc there is a cut ending to the blind betrayal quest where you challenge elder maxon to trial by combat over the leadership of the BoS, and the ability to pass a hard speech check to make danse elder
@@coobk I heard about that cut ending, I wish it hadn't been scrapped because it's a genuinely good ending to the faction. Plus it was just so annoying to be chilling with Dase out in the Commonwealth after the end of his questline to be fired upon by BoS patrols. Like it would have been more "realistic" to be able to attempt to talk your way out of combat with a hard speech check, it felt wrong to put them down like that because of Elder Maxon being a zelot.
@@BrightWulph I don’t think Danae being the Elder should’ve been the only option. If we only get one I’d rather see the next steps of Maxson’s plans for the commonwealth. But the best option would be reintroducing the cut ending and have 2 different post games.
Behind all of his logic and apathy, Shaun is just like a synth. Ironically creating Synths so advanced they have emotional intelligence far beyond his own.
This is a great video. I think Father is a sad and rather disturbing invidual. The whole incendiary incident of Fallout 4, the SS being released and Kellog looking after the Shaun Synth, to me always indicated Father discovered how his parents were attacked when he became director and wanted to almost play make-believe by orchestrating events so that the SS could save "Shaun" from Kellog. At this rate, I don't think even Father understands his own motivations, dismissing everything he does as part of some nebulous experiment. Makes for an interesting villain honestly
One thing that you cannot shake off is the fact to the institute you're an enemy until you can prove that you're not, they're the only faction out of the 4 that shoots you (with synths) when they see you. Also the game the entire time literally tells you these are the bad guys, from the time you get unfrozen in Vault 111 until you reach the turning point of the game (when you reach Diamond City) and until you reach the end of the game.
They had literally zero need to turn synths in Boston's boogeyman. Wastelanders don't react with hostility to the mere existence of a robot. The infiltrator models could just act like a regular person with no identity theft involved and still spy on people without issue.
@@dagothurik1815 A walk down Boston Downtown, and it's all Raiders and Gunners for Wastelanders. The ratio of friendly settlements to Raider or Gunner outposts is ridiculous, especially with psychos like Daisy from the Disciples around. I see a lot more Raiders than I do regular people. And Goodneighbor is proof that plenty of regular wastelanders don't have to be a Raider to be dangerous.
Shaun isn't your dad though, he's your son. And I don't know about y'all, but in my 50+ playthroughs of the game, the Sole Survivor is a crazy sumnabitch
It's a pretty cool story element that the son you've been looking for turns out to be a horrible person. It really tests where you would draw the line between family and stopping a lunatic.
We are products of our environment, Shaun could have turned out entirely different. That's what's so frustrating about this. They stole the baby from his parents, and stole the future that they had planned for him. And created a new one where he lived up to some amazing potential, but at the cost of not being what his parents would have wanted him to be not in terms of success, but in moral fiber.
Except we're given no time to form a real connection with the kid. The bomb shouldn't have dropped until Shawn was a toddler. We should have been given a comparable amount of time with the character that is meant to be our child as we were given with Mr. Dad. We should have been given something like we were given for the spouse, a holotape meant to deepen that bond. Maybe a collection of letters that were written with no hope of ever really being sent. But we get thirty seconds with the baby, three minutes with the spouse, and twenty minutes with the elderly man the game claims is our son.
My first playthrough I got to the institute with the brotherhood because they were the continuation of the fallout 3 chapter. As soon as the plot twist was revealed I did a complete 180 to the institute.
The Institute's goal is either: A) Go full Ghost in the Shell and transfer their consciousnesses into immortal synthetic bodies that do not sleep, eat, or age. B) Create a pool of slave labor that must inexplicably be as close to human as possible so that humans don't need to work and can focus all time and energy to do... whatever, I guess.
There is a certain appeal in having the humanoid working machines not be too close to humans. On one hand there is the uncanny valley. But much more important, if the machines look too much like humans people would treat them like humans and will try to free them.
Oddly enough, it just occurred to me that Shaun has a brain tumor. I wonder just how much that tumor is affecting his reasoning and emotions. From the sound of it, Shaun's recent requests/decisions that lead up to him proclaiming the Sole Survivor to be his successor caught everyone completely by surprise - that would indicate his recent decisions are out of character for him. He likely was a decent director (albeit one that didn't consider the lives of those on the surface to be important or worthy of consideration) until around the time he realized he was dying - around the time his brain tumor was detected. As the tumor grew, its impact on his mental processes would also increase.
The thing that I still don't get about Institute Synths is how they actually go about replacing people. Some Synths will straight up tell you that they are with the institute like in the farmer random encounter or the mayor quest while others appear to act completely normal like Paladin Danse, sturges, and the Synths in Arcadia.
One that doesn't make much sense is the random encounter with a man and his duplicate. If they scan the brain to get the memory and the body to reproduce the appearance, *how did they make a perfect Copy to send out and find the man he's intended to replace* ?
There is a random encounter where you can find 2 npcs named "Art" one kneeled,one holding a gun,the synth one wants your help killing him if you succesfully pass a charisma check. So,i guess they just send the synth to do it then delete any memory of doing it? By the way,the synth didn't even have any backup.
13:15 It could also be because of Kellogg. We know from his dialouge that Father holds some resentment to Kellogg for killing one oh his parents. That's why Father created the plan to get Kellogg killed at the hands of the Sole Survivor, as a form of revenge. Perhaps he one some level (subconscious or not) associates the cybernetics program with Kellogg, seeing as he was the shining example of the program
@@MediumRareOpinions Whether or not he intended it, for all intents and purposes it is what he did. He said he didn't expect you to survive. To me he sent you to your death, and when you showed up on his doorstep ready to kick ass, he scrambled to cover his ass.
@@corypowercat7277 it would depend on the Courier. Perhaps if one Courier "clicked" with Father, hsving similar ideals, or otherwise followed orders, he would have a better opinion of them. Or not
I'm of the opinion that the entire reason cybernetics existed at all in Fallout 4 was to try and help reinforce the easy to predict twist of Shaun being significantly older than expected, while also having a character that the player would (hopefully) want to hunt down for revenge. (Kelogg) Bethesda: "WOW I bet you were shocked by that revelation that Shaun is actually an old man!" Players: "Okay, but why does Kelogg look identical despite it being like sixty years since they took Shaun?" Bethesda: "I-It's because he has cybernetics that extended his life and completely stopped any sort of physical aging!" Players: "Oh, okay. Neat I guess, is there a cybernetics mechanic kind of like Fallout New Vegas?" Bethesda: "No... uh... Shaun... uh... Shaun didn't like them! So there's no more cybernetics! Look, It's in a terminal! We definitely didn't have someone wake up in a cold sweat with this thought two weeks before release and had to scramble for an explanation!" No idea if there's any voiced characters saying something about implants but I know there's terminals talking about it.
The Institute was evil long before Shaun got into the picture. Here's just what I remember off the top of my head. The Institute... ... starting at least 50 years before they kidnapped Shaun from the Vault, were experimenting with FEV and creating the local strain of Super Mutants, and just unleashed them on the Commonwealth. This research continued until Virgil (same one we meet in the game) torched the FEV labs and escaped, forcing that project on hold. ... dumped a lot of older synth models in the Commonwealth, ignoring that they go berserk and kill people. ... steal energy and electricity from the settlements in the Commonwealth, which most likely contributes to a fair number of deaths. ... are using current synth models as slaves, even though they are definitely intelligent enough to be indistinguishable from having free will. The fact that synths routinely work to escape to find freedom and a life of their own is a major red flag. ... are using their current models of synths to abduct and replace people in the Commonwealth. The Institute is *cartoonishly* evil and Shaun was only part of that, mainly responsible for the last point. Say what you will about the harsh nature of Brotherhood of Steel's rule of the Commonwealth, but Elder Maxson is entirely correct when he says the Institute is an existential threat to the people of the Commonwealth and possibly beyond.
And hell, you're able to talk Maxson down from being entirely genocidal towards Synths. He still views them as dangerous, sure, but he's a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, a tech-worshipping pseudo-cult
I think my favorite theory is that Father is not actually Shaun, the real Shaun died in Institute experimentation and Father knew Nate/Nora would destroy him and his whole crew up if they found out that truth...particularly after Nate/Nora kills Kellogg.
@@JoeMima-jx4ow Maybe Father didn't let the Sole Survivor out. He could be lying about that. The vault is falling apart when the player is unthawed it's not impossible that the cryopod simply broke down and unsealed him.
@@Darkgun231 Could have also been the kid who was doing the Synth escape program, came across data about the gen 3 synths and how their construction was made, found out that the child died in the experimentation but discovered that one parent was still alive in Vault 111 and decides to release the SS to see if they'd be able to or want to track down the Institute and liberate the synths somehow. IDK just spit balling ideas. 😅😅
That has been my thought as well, from Kellog's memories we know the Insitute killed everyone else in the vault. A group like that dosent seem likely to not carve the infant shawn, then eliminate and discard the left overs. Even if they kept him alive in no way would they let him become the leader.
Except that the director changes looks depending on the looks of his parents. Meaning that if you alter the 2 main characters appearance at the start of your game the director of the institute looks will change to reflect this including changing skin color if you make your 2 potential characters black. So while the theory is sound it's not how bethesda made things.
I really pity the sole survivor. he lost everything after fight in a never ending war: his life, his wife, and his only son, who grow up to become a jerk...it's sad...
While I commend your joke at the end, I'm afraid I must disagree. Father takes after neither of his parents, he takes after the ones who kidnapped him as an infant: the old Directorate of the Institute. They began the Synth replacements and FEV experiments. They massacred the Vault 111 residents and kept the Sole Survivor frozen and away from their son for no explained reason. All of Father's issues stem from them and how they treated him. We see happy families living in the Institute, so poor Shaun must've grown up seeing other kids receiving real love, while he was just the Institute's prize guinea pig for pre-war DNA. While Father claims his abductors treated him well, his obsession with building a family with the Sole Survivor and S9-23 indicate that that's just another lie, one he's forcing himself to believe. It's like an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Which is why i have no problem killing him. If i were the main character i would not look at him as my "son". He is just an old guy having similar genetics, but hold none of the values i have. Should i chose to side with the Institute it might only happen in a hope to make them aid humanity for a change, and should i chose to go against them, then it will be revenge for all their atrocities. At least for good guys. For evil main character i side with them for the comfort, and slaves they provide.
@@akuladoctor7355 yeah that's a hard one to share with the old bulter handy...I usually tell him that Shaun passed away give him a half truth because yeah old man shaun isnt the baby he went out to look for oringally or the child he was hoping to find but a corrupt old man that has to be put down like every other corrupt individual in the fallout world.
Still would have been nice if we had an option in game to try and show him the error of his ways, even if it isn't a speech check and this always fail, you rarely get to call out the Institutes crap and get dumb answers when you do
@@highlordlaughterofcanada8685 In case of Father you can. If you fail Bunker Hill you can piss him off to the point, that he kicks you from the Institute without using direct violence.
Or maybe farther wants to subconsciously know non of them have any real drive and knows that handing over responsibility to someone who clearly has real focus on rebuilding is better than just destroying everything that has been created.
He was so "smart" that treated the Sole survivor partner death as a mere colateral effect, didn't even considered making a synth, it would be a perfect manipulation tool, since the only reason I see he using the sole survivor is Kellogg's death, otherwise he would not care at all.
That's kind of like the song "Jesse's Girl." The guy isn't in love with Jesse's girl, he's jealous of what Jesse has (a relationship) and he wants it too. Furthermore he doesn't completely understand what love is.
Lmao listening to Shaun talk is like listening to that South Park nambla episode. "We are only trying to do what is best for humanity" "Dude. You murder people and replace them with robot spies"
It’s like they had two different writers working on this faction who weren’t allowed to know about each other. Then they both got fired and a third was hired to smash their work together.
The institute should of been the good guy faction that would of been a good twist instead of being a bogey man they would be seen as unseen hero’s with synths acting as guards for settlements you would still have to find them
I would have liked to see a morally grey institute. A faction with good intentions, does provide a positive impact on the world, but maybe has some less than ideal methods of spreading their message. I think this is what Bethesda was going for, but bad writing and or time constraints left the faction kind of mono, unidirectional.
@@LysergicKids I think it might have been the time constraints problem. Bethesda had many ideas to work with for the Institute from fallout 3 , but time constraints lead to the Institute being the way it is!
I had the notion that they could have been an iceberg like faction. You meet them on the surface where they run hospitals and trade medical services for supplies and resources. Only later do conspiracy theories from apparent crazy folk like Piper get revealed with underground activities and attempts to make synthetic people happening below. The medical services provide the opportunity to take fresh cadavers for study, take the Terminally ill away to see if they can be uploaded into synth bodies and recruit the best and brightest to be let in on the secret underground operations.
The most ironic part, that highlights the biggest flaws of the Institute itself, is that Shaun is for all intents and purposes, a man raised within the Institute. He's less of a hijacker of the faction's purpose, as some have claimed Lyons was to the Brotherhood, and more a distillation of their practices into a single person. That changes nothing about the analysis of course, but I find it poetic that the Institute experiment we have the most concrete knowledge about is the one that sending it off the rails.
I always felt like Lyons was a different way the Brotherhood could've gone. Still along their original principles, but less of a jerk. They hoard technology to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. The whole nuclear apocalypse stuff. That is what the soldiers at the Mariposa base set out for. That can lead to the technology crusade we see in most of the games, but could also give us the sort of responsible use Lyons was after.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Yeah, like Lyons' perspective was that one glimmer of hope that keeps the Brotherhood together, but because its the Wasteland, nobody is allowed to be a moral person without getting cut down
@@KyleLyre13 I still believe Sarah Lyons was murdered. Sorry suffered a tragic case of "friendly fire". Really all the factions in Fallout 4 are ass. They are all shallow and worthless.
@@tomleary508 I agree, it seems like after Owen died the D.C. Chapter almost immediately started immolating itself and I could see a lot of people wanting Sarah dead. That being said, I actually have grown to love Fallout 4's methods of storytelling primarily because they compensated for the voiced protagonist by creating inferred implications. That being said, I don't blame ya for not digging it, it's not everyone's cup of coffee
I always thought Shaun releases his father as a way of seeking approval for his lifes work as his life is coming to an end never having gotten his father's approval before because he was taken by the Institute as a child. That is what I feel from Shaun's character anyway.
There's so much they could have done, but just... didn't. Like, Shaun asking you if you're proud of what he's done would have been an incredible moment, both for character building and narrative.
For me I assumed it was because he knew he was dying and thought his parent was the closest way to continue running the institute. It is shown he does have some nepotism despite knowing almost nothing about you.
Shawn and the ending were badly written but few things have impacted me more as a gamer, weirdly. I was a mother, grieving her husband and desperately searching for her son. Only to discover he’s not even dead, but a monster. And his last act of cruelty was Synth Shawn, a child in need of a mother the same as any other, but is still a parody of the child I lost. So what can I do? I take him in. I end the evil of the institute. I take him home to my new wife Curie, herself a synth. With my dog that is likely a synth. And my best friend, a synth detective. And I can’t decide if I’ve built something meaningful and beautiful from the ruins, or if I’ve surrounded myself with clockwork parodies of what I’d lost. Heavy shit. I cried. And then was mad because the shitty writing didn’t deserve it. And I think if I’d played differently or been a different person, it wouldn’t have had so much meaning.
Genuinely? This was my exact experience, only I headcanoned in my Sole’s romance with Nick. And the thing is… my maternal love for Shaun and my mourning of my Sole’s husband drove her hatred for Kellogg and was her main driving narrative; Rita was a kind woman once, but now she’s woken up into a world where her husband was shot and her baby was stolen from her? I’ll never forget Nick’s soft “Oh… Oh, I’m so sorry.” She had a goal, she was driven, she was Angry. And then Bethesda was like “haha be a mom again Woman” and I felt so fcking underwhelmed. I still took Synth!Shaun home and it felt like the right move, but it felt so… insulting? To the mama bear rage that had driven me through the whole game, that I bonded with certain characters over… just dumped away for “welp here’s another kid for you to mother, does that help?”
I always thought that the Enclave had a thing going with the Institute. There was too much....going on for them not to have been aware of one another. The FEV alone points to some level of contact, even if in the past before their destruction in both the West and the East.
@@highlordlaughterofcanada8685 the enclave serve an important purpose: they are the remnants of the old world unable to accept the new one. The institute are just "what if scientists didn't have ethics"
I doubt they had any contact post war. The whole reason the institute kidnapped shaun is because the institute scientists were still contaminated by radiation. To the enclave that would make them mutants, and we all know how the enclave deals with mutants.
The Institute having the CGP wiped out reads so clearly as “We’ve been under a totalitarian regime for so long that we cannot possibly understand how a republic would work so we must destroy what we do not understand.”
Shaun releases you into a dangerous new world and watches from the sidelines, he doesn't bother to order Synths to not attack you and after the battle of Bunker Hill he admits that he treated you like an experiment of sorts, the lack of empathy is disturbing but it also got me thinking that the survivor might have been a Synth experiment all along, Far Harbor also plays with that idea, unfortunately that train of thought falls over when you realise that recalls codes exist, any acts of violence or betrayal against the institute could have been resolved with a courser and a recall code. In summary Shaun really is a bad scientist, I blame the parents.
@@HappyBeezerStudios If the SS was a syth, even if no one else knew their recall code it would be on record somewhere, within the data banks of the Institute, they don't strike me as the type to delete data. And the whole Far Harbour DLC synth argument falls apart to me, when DiMA says that Kasumi isn't a synth but then turns arround to the player all "but you could be!" Like that's just the writers giving the player permission to believe in their HC.
I think shaun definitely has a lot to answer for, but you kind of have to remember who MADE shaun this way, the institute, he wasn’t made this why by accident, he was taught from a very young age how to think and how to see the outside world, and certainly taught him far more practical, scientific, and leadership skills than they have taught him moral life lessons, he grew up learning how to manipulate people to get what he wants from them rather than having the empathy and courage to ask with sincerity, and he learned to use the only advantage he ever had in the institute above others there, his status as the genetic source of the gen 3 synths, to get whatever he wants as leader, getting away with as many ventures he wants such as making a child synth and releasing the player from the vault under the guise of an “experiment”, and shutting down any and all disagreements with his subordinates with nothing more than “I said it, therefore it’s true”, just like kellog he’s a complete monster, but unlike kellog rather than the institute simply taking advantage of him, they MADE him into a monster through their complete lack of care in his mental development
Exactly, all of his actions make sense when you realized who raised him: the people that were willing to murder parents and kidnap their children. The only problem is the writing never let's us or anyone else acknowledge that
also keep in mind thats sturges is a synth, if you follow the minutemen route hes the one who just happens to find out how to enter the institute, its possible the knowledge is deliberately placed in him somehow knowing he will help you.
To me it seems like the institute faction seems like a rush job. It's the last faction you meet and instead of it being well thought out and fun. It almost seems like Bethesda said "Ok everybody we have 3 weeks until release clean up the game as much as you can." and then plopped it out the door with a half assed institute faction which is probably what happened. I blame Todd not Shaun.
I love the institute despite the fact they're undercooked. I play as the director end game. They're not evil, they just have bad leadership that makes bad decisions.
@@justinjames965 you're absolutely wrong they are evil. What do you mean "they just have bad leadership" you mean to tell me a bunch of geniuses cant brandish a weapon, cant teleport away, cant refuse an order? They don't ever make a single effort to refuse shauns maniacal orders, they are a bunch of brown nosed suckups. And they literally own slaves.
The thing that struck me, literally a few days ago while doing the battle of bunker hill in a railroad playthrough, was that they can track just about anything with ease, but don't monitor the one person using their own teleporter. Like you can teleport directly into the railroad from the institute and vice versa no problem. Then Shaun is just taking you at your word that you don't have any contact with the railroad and/or brotherhood.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof Why not both? Blame Todd for making his own games worse as the years go on, replacing all his story writers with quest writers and letting Emil have full creative license to do whatever he wants, even though Emil has only ever been good when writing quests and not the stories behind them, and blame Emil for writing absolute shit.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof After the whole Starfield drama where Emil got so defensive and how basically told the players that they are playing the game wrong, I have this strong feeling that Emil Pagliarulo can't write to save his life, like after Baldur's Gate 3 won GOTY I really hope this shapes Bethesda up and makes them see on what we the players want to see in Elder Scrolls VI and the future Fallout games, but seeing how Todd is o hardly doubt it, Todd Howard always did strike me as arrogant and thinking he is better than others. Bethesda still seems to harbor a hidden hatred for Obsidian's New Vegas as that game was so good in terms for Freedom of Choice and writing. Like for example take a character like Randell Clark from the Honest Hearts DLC, dude isn't even an NPC but is very well written now compare this to say Amata from Fallout 3 or Shaun from Fallout 4, the writing is night and day.
Agreed, he didn't become an old man over night. The guy has been part of the institute for a while, and led it for a good portion of his adult life, so he can't play innocent. There where lot of chances for him to clean up the mess, and his ultimate plan was to get his long lost family involved and hope for the best. That you would agree with their methods and goals, and somehow be a perfect mental clone of himself after he passed on... child becoming parent motif.
A lot of this makes me wonder if he did all these things that would ultimately hurt the Institute in order to "hands off" hurt the Institute, which caused the death of one of his parents and kidnapped him from the other, disallowing him to ever have a real childhood.
Unless I’m mistaken, if you wipe out The Railroad you can use Tom’s terminal yourself and design the relay without their help, correct me if I’m wrong.
@@AndrewCJWinter if I recall the stages in the right order once you decode the chip and return to Virgil your options are to give the plans for the Signal Interceptor to Sturges or Proctor Ingram and carry on with the BoS or Miniutemen unless you decide to back the Institute of course.
The reason I created for Shaun not specifying which division he’s in is because he doesn’t have a specific area he specializes in. He’s knowledgeable in every scientific division in the institute, which is why he became the leader of the institute, since as leader he needs to oversee all of the other divisions.
He probably did as well but after you complete the institute questline you get fathers lab coat with the green sweater and an orange lab coat that matches the robotics division. Could be before he became director he was head of the robotics division.
Just imagine the mental state of the sole survivor after he sees the true face of his lost son he finally found. The sole survivor didn't see their child grow up, since he was a baby. And then they are facing their flesh and blood as an old man, a mad scientist making the world around him suffer for science. Terrible desillusion. At this point, the sole survivor could choice to make a new family and have another child they can take care of
The Institute could have simply paid for the reactor data via their own network of caravaneers and spies. The girl who discovered the data could be later recruited, etc. The problem is terrible writing and bad editing.
i feel like having cut-ins between songs on the classical (institute) radio station, like diamond city radio, would help a lot with humanizing the institute
In my mind I'd become director of the Institute but finish the game with the Minutemen. With that I can slowly lead the Institute into the role of helping the wasteland and being more open to them so the Minutemen can keep them in check. For example they can use their teleportation to help the Minutemen respond quickly to settlements under attack, and Doctor Li can go back to working on her hydroponics and water filtration from the Capitol Wasteland. The synth program would stop and all sentient synths would be released (preferably to the railroad but I think they'd have to die in game in this scenario). The Gen 1's and 2's would continue to help do menial labor around the Institute and above ground. Then the Institute would just help scientifically with the needs of the Commonwealth while my character transfers into an immortal synth body and guides both the Minutemen and Institute eternally because the dumb NPCs can't be trusted to run things😂
It makes sense. What better way to send help to settlements that need it than by teleporting some Minutemen into the problem area? It makes more sense than waiting for ME to finish whatever quest I'm doing, sell some stuff, put away my junk, and then walk there...
@@JadeDude1973 Also they would live up to their name. being able to be on site to protect people in literally a minute's notice thanks to Teleportation.
All their advances in medicine, crop production, teleportation, everything they are capable of, the Institute had such a huge opportunity to actually help the surface. The farmer they killed and replaced didn’t need to be. I’m pretty sure a small farming family would have accepted the chance for healthier crops from the institute and work in secret cooperation. But the institute doesn’t see the surface as people, they are only things to experiment on; what they can’t control, they see as a threat and destroy.
Just a nitpic, but it's Fort Hagen that you confront Kellogg in, not Fort Strong. I always remember that Fort Strong is the one with all the super mutants that the brotherhood sends you to, because the super mutant companion in the game is also named Strong.
Thanks for not being a facetuber. I love seeing relevant gameplay footage over interesting narration over someone just staring into a camera the whole time
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There is one possible excuse for Lookout Point I can think of, which is that was the event which made Father realize the kind of man Kellogg actually was. He sent him out to go get the information, expecting him to trade or perhaps create a copy to send to the Commonwealth. Instead, Kellogg stormed the place and killed everyone, causing Father to look back at the records and realize who he was. But thats a big maybe, and its equally possible he just expected a slaughter anyway.
If you did become director, managed to shut down the synth program except for maybe making synthetic limbs and replacement organs, and revamping the cybernetic program then maybe the institute could save humanity. Heck I'd be interested to see what FEV does to pure non irradiated synthetic material.
You brought up a good point of the risk Shaun makes just letting the sole survivor loose, he could’ve very easily teleported him into the institute and given him a sheltered view of the commenwealth to support the institute and look past the atrocities
“No one is really attached to the Lone Wanderer” absolutely false. Playing as them from their birth to adulthood drew me in more than any other game ive ever played, especially when as a child myself and relating to this character’s vulnerable mind. My first Fallout 3 character still lives on in my mind, because he was me.
Same. I mean it effected the choices I'd make in game. I had personal mission to find his dad not just cause the game wanted me too. I really was super invested. I replayed 3 the most and cared about the capital and it's future
There is some small potential for a tragic story about a traumatised parent going along with everything their insane, megalomaniac son wants out of a sense of guilt and wanting to make up for lost time. But that's only if you try really hard to roleplay. Because outside of your barely existing connection to your ''son'', there's really no good reason to join the Institute.
Ironically, if this sort of thing was leant into with the writing, it could've been fascinating. A man who was stolen from his family and raised in a sterile environment that either could not or would not deal with his feelings; given the reigns of his captors and informed that he still has a single parent out there and he is incapable of ordering them to be brought to the institute. Someone who desperately wants a family, who wants something his captors never gave him; yet doesn't know how to describe that feeling. Imagine if you could point all these flaws out to Shawn and he just breaks down; sobbing like the child he never got to be and begging for his mother/father.
The whole synth-Shaun thing is so messed up. You wake your parent from cryostasis, make them fight a half-robotisized killer, assume they'll discover TELEPORTATION to enter your Institute, and then you taunt them with a puppet of the son they were hoping to find? Way to make an awful first impression, Dr. Braincancer. Ad Victoriam.
I think father is consistent with his apathy of the surface. It was important they don't interfere with institute business, it doesn't matter what they think or what happens to them other than that. If the surface could hate them but be unable to stop them then its all good in father's eyes.
Takin a action to se what would happen is a study not and experiment. Scientists do studies, experiments, simulations etc. Stating that not having a hypothesis makes you a "bad scientist" really shows a lack of understanding over what science is. Not reviling the reason of a study does not make you a "bad scientist" either. to be honest the argument "I want to see what happens" is absolutely sufficient to do science. what makes a bad scientist is cherry picking, hiding data not accepting clear evidence. Don't confuse a bad person with a bad scientist. One can be a good scientist and a bad person at the same time.
Great video as always. I always struggled to decide if Father was a terrible person, or a terribly written character - which are two completely different things. Seeing it all laid out like this, I am leaning towards the former, although he definitely could have been written better. Would it have killed anyone to include some more random terminal entries establishing his and the Institute's goals and reasoning better? One minor nitpick about 45:45: Father almost certainly never expected SS to make it to the Institute. He would have been content to see that SS had at least made an attempt to find him. However, upon seeing that the mad lad/lass was about to teleport into the Institute (using his watcher birds) he most likely brought out Synth Shaun and set up the interaction between them as a last-minute decision.
I wonder how the Institute would've been done by Obsidian or even Black Isle studios. I wish Bethesda would improve or just hand the property to someone better.
@@QuothTheRavenclaw11 … The Legion was just as nonsensical and moustache twirling evil. “So I have the platinum chip and instead of giving it to one of my trusted soldiers I’m going with some random person who might have even been working against me!” “Also I’m a genius 🤪” Honestly I thinks John Henry Eden was way more interesting and morally grey than Caesar, and WAY better voice acting.
I don't think Shaun is entirely to blame for the Institute. While I never follow the Institute, I think Shaun suffers from Stockholm syndrome, and is by the time we get there is having a crisis of faith. He's known nothing but the Institute for his entire life, and doesn't learn about his parents until he's the director. Now he knows about you and he is probably having all these thoughts running around. It's like finding out your parents aren't really yours and you try to find your real parent. What would you do but react emotionally, and he's been raised to think like a scientist. He can't balance the two, and he wants to give you a chance to raise the child you never had ( even if the child won't age ) and giving you a safe home in the Institute. He's not focusing because despite not knowing you, you're his parent and suddenly you exist to this man who hasn't been to the surface and know anything outside of the underground science center since he arrived as an infant. I just wanted to give my two cents to the discussion, I don't support the Institute and when I first played fallout and until recently I always felt like Shaun was a poorly written character and his motives were not well defined. I still think that way, but I wanted to try and justify the actions of Shaun.
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I like how the way Shaun defends the institute goes from "People just think we're evil because they don't know how we really are" to "Yeah, we're evil, but everyone else is evil so that makes it ok."
He's such a toxic manipulator.
Shawn is a spitting image of the US government!
And from that to "We might be evil, but we also have a literal clone army and spies eveywhere. Now after we've destroyed all actual threats, would all you abovegrounders kindly go disappear yourselves from our land."
@@deusvult99 random...
The stupid thing is that they sabotaged the CPG based in their own assumptions saying things like "we tried to help them, but they were to savage to run themselves" like that justifies what they did. The fact that many in the commonwealth were trying to come together to create a centralized covernment shows thry were not savage, according to other settlers yeah it was rough but progress was being made little at at time, according to father it wasn't fast enough so they just assumed it would never flourish into anything substantial. The institute is 100% evil because not only to they sabotage the above ground world when they have no reason to and have no gains in doing so, but they violate many moral dilemmas such as abduction people and killing them for the FEV project and or synth replacement, to creating near human robotics in every fashion but saying "they are just machines". Yeah machines that by nearly every definition are human.
I wish we had the dialog option to tell Shaun on his deathbed: "I have no son", "You are no son of mine" or "Shaun died in Vault 111".
Imagine Nora saying that, Nora’s VA had better line delivery than Nate’s VA
@@millie3958 It's what I do. If I'm going to be playing a character whose ass I'm going to be seeing a lot, let it be a nice one. I just use a mod that gives Nora a military background.
@@themastermason1 Nora being just a pre war lawyer then going to utter killing machine does seem sketch without a military background
@@themastermason1 I use the start-up mod that let's you skip the intro and roleplay Nora as a secret operative that used the whole lawyer thing as a front for her agency contract.
@@dootmarine1140 My current playthrough with a start-up mod has Nora as an ex-Gunner who was there at the Quincy massacre.
Shaun reeks of personal trauma. He made a synth child look like himself to see if anybody could love it. He released the sole survivor to "see what would happen". He wanted to know if the survivor, his parent, would come looking for him, to see if they still loved him, or were capable of doing so.
I'm like 95% sure the Sole Survivor was originally meant to be a synth and them finding Shaun was in part to fulfill his need to be loved that developed into his god complex. Shaun literally calls himself "Father" and has created an entire race of people - it's not subtle. I believe the creation of the SS synth was to see if his creation would seek out their creator and love them and not just because they were created to. If you reject him because he's a cruel, vindictive god and are incapable of looking past those cruelties and love him he then shackles you with a parody of the person you thought you loved in the beginning as a final twist of the knife. Heartbroken and believing that love isn't real he wants to remind you of it every day for the rest of your life.
I like that idea alot for Shaun however I don't think Bethesda is capable of thinking that much
@@QwertyCaesar If that last part is true, it's hilarious. Because 'synth' Shawn is no different than a human child in that he will grow, age, etc. So he can think he got one over on us, but really he just gave us what we wanted anyways.
@@picklepepper900Eh, no actually. You can find a terminal that mentions the Father spent a lot of resources ensuring that "Shaun" wouldn't age like the other synths would.
And then I told him he was a disappointment. Get rekt nerd.
Yeah but the Institute has something no other faction does: bathrooms. It’s not their teleportation or synths that make them the most civilized faction, it’s their plumbing.
fr if i was the Sole Survivor, the first thing I'd do is have a hot shower
I think you can do that in vault 88 too
No, it’s obviously their clean coffee cups.
The surface world could have them too, but the idea of putting a cup into water and scrubbing for 30 seconds is beyond the surface-dwellers.
allied with them just for their clean towels and gorilla robots
Woah there pal, the NCR has plumbing too.
So why did you side with your faction?
"The minutemen simply help people with not unethical baggage"
"The Railroad are the only one helping synths"
"The Brotherhood will protect everyone"
*Institute players looking at the institute* "I can fix them"
The reason I sided with them was because I wanted to nuke the Prydwen. Plus, they'll do jack shit for topside, anyways.
@@GrubbusHubbus You can do that with the Railroad though
I spent all that time building up those stupid settlements - there's no way I'm going to abandon them now! Plus, I got to destroy the Prydwen with artillery. lol
@@VexdinLord you can do that with every fraction that isn't the Brotherhood.
And nuking the Prydwen with minutemen artillery is satisfying af
I mean isn't that something we as the player can do to justify our institute alignment? It ultimately feels like shuan was trying to change everyone's views. Sure he could tell them to change but forcing them outright never works well for the long run.
"Hello, it's me, Shaun, your son. This is an exact replica of me from when I was but a strapping young lad of 10, specifically created, and I cannot stress this enough, to traumatize you."
Absolute Chad🗿🗿🗿
I think it was more created as a way to make it easy for them to get the player closer to the institutem
aah i forgot is it not so long ago for you then for me silly me :P
Jokes on you shawn im a enclave
This .. boy will server perfectly in the enclave fev division
@@Vampirecronicler it was, but since father has absolutely no idea how human feelings work, this just ends as a traumatizing experience
Considering they murdered Nora or Nate instead of just defrosting the 3 of them and explaining to the parents why the Insitute is humanity's last hope, I'd have to say the Insuttie was evil from the get-go even if some individuals have scruples. you can't blame all the problems on them when how he got into their care was that callous. Shaun might have made things worse, but it was always like that.
The plan was not thought through
@@dragoniceful The plan might not we well thought out but it was their stupid plain before Shaun started making decisions for them, so it's kind of their fault he sucks as Director.
I've always felt this, like how hard would it have been to say to Nate/Nora "we've detected a problem with your pod, we need to take you and your son out for a moment, please remain calm and follow our instructions." Instad of just saying "come here baby, come here." Like no parent is just going to hand over their son to a stranger without some kind of struggle without any information. Like just what the fuck.😅😅
VERY good point!
I don't think it's a case of "evil just being evil". I think it's more a case of utmost ruthlessness. If you wake the parents and try to explain, it will 1) take longer and 2) create a situation where someone might try to interfere (namely, the parents) with your plans for the child. If your intention for the kid is just to be a source of DNA of a pre-bombs human, then the parents are technically unnecessary and so there's no point in getting them involved.
I honestly think that was what the institute was meant to be seen as: they want the advancement of the human race through technology and science, but they are completely detached from humanity, to the point that anyone and everyone is just a tool for their research for them. This is why their most direct opposition is the Railroad, which is made up of a ragtag team of people who sympathise with the plight of synths and is based on compassion and empathy, the complete opposite of the Institute cold and rational search for perfection.
AND I think that Shaun, Father, was supposed to go against this. Growing up in the Institute, but knowing they had killed his mother/father to get to him gives him the unique perspective of being at the same time their associate and their victim. And this is why Shaun sets up his own parent as the new head of the Institute: because their parents will bring a non-scientific perspective to the leadership of the Institute, possibly one composed of compassion for their fellow men on the surface after their time in the wasteland, a complete departure from the cold, detached ruthlessness of the scientific minds that had lead the Institute to that day.
"So, I'm stepping down. You're now the Director. Only, I'll still be telling you what to do. As will the other Research Heads. You'll be Director in name only. You'll not have the autonomy that I do, but it will be enough to cause more division in my already emotionally unstable underground cadre. Now, go and kill everyone who opposes me while I go play with my robotic incarnation of my lost childhood."
this may be the most accurate description of shaun i've ever read
@@callmewisteria until i blasted him im the face with a robot maid
This is so true, but that can also be the same thing for the minute men. You're the General, but Preston still tells you to do everything regardless of being the general and leader of the Minutemen.
@@mellowdarkness3344 Eh, at least Preston is on the ground with you. And it has the contextualization that "he's your #2, he's the one the other minute men talk to, and he comes to you as head honcho". And, as the Minutemen thing is so tightly connected to town building, you can actually order around your Minutemen to some degree.
@@mellowdarkness3344 exactly why should you do what the black man tells you
"i watched your birth, i held you and loved you with every part of me and so did your mother. I mourned you.. now the grief is gone and my fanily really is dead. Goodbye Shaun."
Bro.. That goes hard
@IanLowe308 he and Randal Clark(Fallout New Vegas's Honest Hearts) are one in the same. Both dealt with "survivor's" guilt.
It is a really sad story if you think about the family angle. Son and spouse end up dead. Life with them robbed from you and you’re left alone in a literal wasteland.
@vincentm.7462 Well, maybe not completely alone. True, their real family is gone, but family doesn't always stop at blood. Just the people that you find that really grow to care about you.
@@vincentm.7462not totally alone, you still have dogmeat
My biggest problem with the Institute was this: You made all of these synthetic people, capable of true feeling and true AI learning and understanding, yet you take these creations and put them to do menial tasks that a simple robot could do with fewer resources and won't complain about it, then turn around and expend invaluable assets and resources attempting to retrieve 'lost or stolen' synths like they actually matter. The smartest den of idiots in the Commonwealth.
It definitely gives slavery ai and I hate them for it
This has always been my issue with them.
"Let's create synthetic humanoids that perfectly mimic what a human is and how we behave!"
"To study the evolution of the human mind and what ultimately creates free will and thought, right?"
*Looks at synths sweeping floors
I mean, they couldn't even be bothered to use synths as a "humane alternative" to human guinea-pigs. They literally just built synthetic humans just because, then could not think of better things for them to do other than clean the place
I think the entire point was that they are the exact type of people to chase progress at all costs without really understanding the consequences. They were to some degree, supposed to represent the pre-war civilization that ended up destroying itself
Smart idiots it's probably the best way to describe the Institute.
Fun fact Father's plan worked so well in my first playthrough that he was eviscerated by an explosive minigun before the door was fully open then I let myself out.
From my memory back when the game first came out, most people did that. They either found out they screwed up their faction quest or were suddenly on the fast track to destroying the institute.
When I first played through 4, I got to the encounter with synth Shaun, found out what he did, quick saved, and shotgunned father. That was just. A messed up thing to do. After that was done I reloaded and destroyed them rationally, but the first time I found out he decided to trick his parent there was no mercy.
This but with max vats shots from Kellogg’s pistol all to the head
@@Blexmer1 yeah Father knew what attempted emotional manipulation he was trying to do. it wasnt even subtle, he just is used to getting what he wants with a
same for me. i called way early in the game that shawn had to be at least as old as the mc. when that "twist" was revealed i shot him and walked out. dumbest shit of all time
I still remember my first game. I joined the minutemen. I went into the institute, my son was there, some old dude started interrupting our conversation, I shot his head off with a sawed off shotgun, tried to open the cage but couldn't, I fought my way out... It was only 2 months later when I learned who the old man was from a let's play. Good times.
LMAO
familicide
You did what Nate Hawke would do...
Similar experience. Got in with help from the Minutemen, packed to the gills with weaponry and a suit of the best Power Armor I had at the time.
Soon as the door opened and I saw Mister Wrinkles stepping through, he caught a mini nuke to the chin.
My brother who was watching at the time said "there's probably a twist that reveals he's your son"
"Then he deserves twice what I just gave him."
I’m glad I’m not the only one who did that 😂
Honestly Shawn just treats you like Kellogg. He emotionally manipulates you into doing what he wants. He released you and sent you on a direct course to kill Kellogg. He knew you would either die or kill Kellogg. Father makes it clear he hated Kellogg. He also knew that if you were driven enough to track him down against impossible odds, he could use that to manipulate you into doing what he wanted.
Guess Shaun overestimated the probability of you actually allying with him.
*bang*
If he cared he would’ve picked you up right out of vault 111
@orangecat504 I disagree. I think they knew sooner or later that people would find a way into the institute. With their reactor going online, with that much power output, sooner or later, someone would have figured it out that they were deep underground. It makes more sense for the future leader to have something no other leader of the institute to have: real experience in the waste land. By allowing the player to interact with the outside world, see both the good and bad in the commonwealth. It puts you at a far better position to do the most good for humanity while still being extremely cautious of the evil you've seen. It's by far the best solution for the next leader of the group. (Being the saving grace for a lot of factions does nothing but benefit their/your position)
Plus giving your choices, the institute has by far the best ability to do the most good for both the commonwealth and man kind. Every faction (minus maybe the minutemen and you might be able to argue the railroad, but i think they are just as evil personally, are just as evil as the institute)
@@be9240 Bro I’m sorry but that’s delusional there’s no way scientists would accept some random wastelander as leader, they saw the sole survivor as a tool
Dont forget that Dr Amari says "no one ever does this before" when breaking into Kelloggs memories meaning that Father relied on a technological breakthrough for the player to get to know about the teleporter etc.
This pretty much confirms that Shaun didn't think that the SS would survive their encounter with Kellog, like what would have been his plan then? To just keep using Kellog or eventually kill him himself? Like what was your endgame here Shaun? 😅😅
Dr. Amari trying to relay a information from dead man's brain implant through an upgraded Gen 2 synth into another person's memory lounger is what has never been done before.
Only the institute knows of that technology. That is why she thinks it's never been done before
@@BrightWulph I think maybe the writing is just bad
That's the way we get it it's not the only way in Madison li got into contact with them somehow it's not impossible to conceive the player could as well.
Shaun's major flaw isn't about his character, a baby stolen from their parents wanting to rekindle that relationship after becoming the head of a scary shadow organization is kind of a cool idea.
It's just that for as smart as the game wants us to think Father is not a single thing Father does makes sense and he just kind of comes across as stupid
That's a flaw of every faction leader in the game, to be honest. The leaders are VERY dumb. Desdemona is useless, Father's a mess, Preston's a suicidal dork, and Maxsen shows no interest in taking over the institute's technology -- which literally goes against the central ideology of the BoS.
I mean I always read "incurable/inoperable cancer" as "brain cancer," which could definitely explain why he's dumb.
@@JadeDude1973 preston makes it pretty clear he's not a leader, to be fair. he's just a soldier who didn't die. minuteman leadership is dead by the time we wake up.
all the rest are pretty big fools, though. lol
@@theghostofthomasjenkins9643I think the problem with Preston is the resident quests, I have a mod that reduced the number you can receive and how often, and minutemen become so much more fun to play when you're not spammed with quests. He's associated with the fact his quest line was stupid, the character isn't too bad compared to some. Hell, he even has the best reason to make you leader so quick, he's desperate borderline suicidal, the first person to show him kindness and wanting to help he literally views as the savior of the minutemen because it gave him hope.
@@freshrimp9013 oh, i like preston and theminutemen. Youre right. The ones i called fools were maxson, shaun, and desdamona, lol.
Father: "synts are just tools. No free will, no wishes, no future. Only program."
Also Father: "Hey, look! A child synth! Will you love and treat him like a real boy??????"
Me: "SRSLY?!"
Gives me "Interview with a Vampire" vibes. Little girl complaining about not being able to have sex and fall in love and start a family because she's a hundred year old immortal child and how she hates her creator. Child Shaun makes me so sick I.... I leave him behind as a courtesy.
@Haloguy3959 They can, but it'll literally kill them.
@Haloguy3959The funny part is, because she's a vampire it wouldn't kill her. It would however be the most painful and miserable experience she could ever have.
@@KiraSlith can vampires have children though?
@@Leech-Kisser07 I've never read "Interview with a Vampire" so it depends on which style of Vampire we're talking about, Classical or Modern. Classical Vampires were very literally a form of walking dead, they aren't technically "alive" and cannot have children the normal way, instead reproducing exclusively by injecting their blood into someone who already exists. Modern Vampires are usually just normal people with extra features, so the answer is usually yes unless specified otherwise.
Side-note: I feel like some of the "This motherfucker's a synth!" scenarios should've been representative of the paranoia. I.E., Sammy in Goodneighbor not having a synth component. I mean, yeah, the whole Kyle incident in Diamond City is good, but... I still feel bringing up the paranoia would've helped demonize the Institute more.
Edit: Also, put Synth Components on unnamed NPCs with a 1/50 chance. For added realism.
if you kill a random settler theres a chance they'll have a synth component but thats the only group i know of. ive never seen any unnamed synth raiders, gunners, children of atom, or any other kind of aggressive human. it would be really cool to see that tho
@@Sunny-ek8sx Yeah. Also, Residents of Diamond City, Drifters in Goodneighbor, and some named but basically normal raiders like Bedlam, Sparta, and so on and so forth.
@@GrubbusHubbus You'd think the Institute would love to have some inside eyes on raider gangs, and perhaps even super Mutant gangs.
Not the muties. I feel them not being synths makes logical sense in-lore, actually.
I think they should have made a randomized chance that any npc could be a synth in any given playthrough. Including companions.
Thanks Bethesda for giving me the opportunity to play out the fantasy of having a son that I’m disappointed in.
A thing that annoys me about the institute is that you can not confront them about what they have done.
I wanted to call father out on creating a slave race, and keeping useful technology to themselves (especially the GMO crops). But no. All I get to say is "its for the greater good / you have made too many enemies".
Also hate that we can cure Virgil but never get him back in the Institute and make a cure for all the Super mutants even if we can't see it fully (we should be able to guide the Institute in a good direction apart from two lack luster side quests)
I would go even further. Besides just calling them out for creating slaves and other questionable decisions, let us participate. The ability to play a truly dark character.
I think this is a single symptom of the simplistic dialogue system of Fallout 4.
What?😭😭😭he is a genius for making synths
yeah i hope the institute aren't canonically gone after fallout 4 events. i think they're cool and should stick around like the brotherhood will
Frankly, the very breaking point for me was when Shaun refers to the death of Sole's spouse as "unfortunate collateral damage", without mentioning ANY repercussions for any members of the team, nor any following changes in policy.
I just felt a sense of "why don't I have an obvious dialogue option of "it was unfortunate and therefoooooore you did or changed what going forward?" ".
Like I just can't imagine any intelligent adult just shrugging that off with an equivalent of "okay son yeah that tracks, attaboy you acknowledged that was a mistake, the bare minimum you could do!"
Or even an emotional response from the SS, "C-colateral damage? He killed your mother/father, my husband/wife infront of my eyes. And YOU juat handwave that away as "unfortunate collateral damage!?" How can you be so callus, they helped make you, you wouldnt be alive without them Shaun."
Idk, just something to imply that the SS is at the end or at least nearing the end of their teather.
I was furious that there wasn't a "Punch Father in the Face" option with that line.
@@birdjericho Yeah all the reactions available were far too mellow.
I mean especially if playing as Nora it should be possible for her as a lawyer to detect and call out a bullsh!tter.
My braking point was when real Shaun got into my line of sight. Holding a loaded gun to dump. Had already modded the game difficulty to avoid bullet sponges. So when the door opened I let the gun rip because that is what you do. I was quite done with Bethesda BS by that point. But I knew before killing the bastard how it probably was going to play out even without talking to the child. Because I still had hope of competent writing, (even after running after some stupid kid as the main objective of the game) I let the gun rip. There is no overkill. And there is no reason to not do it. NONE. Clearly this * are written badly or why the *.
Then reloaded to check if it was that stupid or not. Like *****. *******. It makes no sense the hole thing. Why would the Institute and Shaun just walk into a room not expecting to be shot on sight. It really is just as bad as F3 story. But in F3 you where trying to make water drinkable and *. Platinum chip might be really stupid too. But it at least can be explained away within reason.
@@TheDiner50 I mean I usually opt to hear him out thoroughly before deciding "yeah no this is horsesh!t, at least the other faction leaders are honest and straightforward about what they want and why, and how they aim to get it."
Hell even the Nuka World raiders and the Far Harbor Children of Atom don't lie and gaslight to nearly the level of Father. (I refuse to call him Shaun now, he may be Sole's son in blood but all the important aspects of raising him were done by the Institute, they're his real parents for all intents and purposes)
Father: I can't believe you messed up Bunker Hill!
My Minuteman/Railroad Survivor: And I can't believe you didn't expect my *incredibly* predictable actions.
Me standing in front of him in T-60 Brotherhood Armor: "Beats me why the Brotherhood showed up and all the synths(including the cousier you sent with me) are dead....definitely was a freak accident"
Would’ve been a great sarcastic response
@@assassinzakral7023spy crows watching me build a bomb being a perfect fit for the reactor I was just told about: nothing to see here
Me who told nobody: how the fuck should i know
And now we ask the age-old question of "Is this character contradictory and hypocritical because they're intended to be flawed or because the writers are very confused".
Lol exactly, but since we know how poorly written bethesda games are, this is a pattern, so its the latter.
Crappy writers. Remember "kid in a fridge?"
Considering modern writing "standards" or the lack there of and the direction that betesda took its almost certainly the second.
I’m thinking the writers were just garbage.
...oh of course it's the writers... no, Shaun is a bad boy and that synth child is my real son. I would put Shaun in timeout. Put him in the damn Cryogenic pod. And seal the vault.
It's like Bethesda was trying to do the morally ambiguous thing with the Institute, and "ends justify the means" type situation. But they fumbled the ball and just made them a bit evil with some conflicting dialogue that doesn't reflect their actions. The one saving grace they have is that the railroad is one of the most poorly written factions in the fallout series.
At this point I have come to expect that kind of lazy low effort half baked writing from Bethesda
The Railroad's definitely got some bad stuff - things like the unnecessary, contradictory Freedom Trail shooting their presentation in the foot, or the Brotherhood's conflict with them, with lacking explanations of intel and the fluctuating intelligence of Maxson's chapter.
But to say their problems are worse than the Institute's (especially "the worst") is reaching.
@@a.monach7602 agreed. The Institute is by far the most poorly written faction in the game. That being said, the others are not a far off as some may believe. The RR just wants to help synths disappear. The MM are too spread out, by design , and disorganized, by design, to lead the Commonwealth. Once the threat is gone, the MM would go back to their lives … whatever they are.
The Brotherhood’s problems are numerous and have been covered by many on TH-cams and on the interwebs.
@@a.monach7602 I certainly disliked the RR more than the Institute, but that was probably because I dislike the idea of working towards human rights issues for walking toasters.
@@bloodlustshiva1 when a synth looks and feels like a human he should be treated equal to a human. But i agree the railroad is bad cuz theres nothing wrong with slavery.
What i hate is that the game lets you roam around and discover horrible things the institute does but you never get to confront Shaun with it. For example the FEV lab where you find children's toys inside the containment cells indicating they experimented on children, or the entire point of the 3rd generations synths, the kidnappings, really anything. They put all of this evidence of the institute being evil in the game for you to find then they do nothing with it. I have a feeling the devs had a distinct plan for the institute but some higher up (todd probably) nixed it and told them to make Shaun the leader for a cheap plot twist and they had to scrap what could have been a good moral dilemma for you to decide to support them despite their evil nature or perhaps even convince them to destroy themselves like the Enclave in FO3.
That is really disappointing too, you should be able to truly confront and shame the Institute for this utterly and obviously contradictory pretension and pride they carry themselves with. It's like how nice, polite and formal a plantation manor's family is considering the brutal slavery around them. Father should be forced to explain exactly how moral it is to do what they do and ask how those people would have felt going through these kidnappings, torture and ultimately death. And whether they truly buy their own excuses about it's for "the greater good", "they would understand if they were high IQ scientists like they were" and so on. Being able to tell Shaun to his face that, you're disgusted at what he's become and as far as he's concerned the Institute killed him already and replaced him with whatever soulless ghoul that stands before him now. This is not the Shaun he knew, he loved and he would have raised. Would make a fitting and satisfying confrontation point.
I don't think the toys are evidence that they experimented on children, I think the toys indicate the mutants they created were of childlike intelligence.
In og fallout, fallout 2 and New vegas have some amazing dialogue options to stay out of combat. You can beat legate lanius, with a barter of 100
there was going to be a lot of content for fallout 4 story that was cut off, the problem was zenimax didnt like delay bethesda games, so a lot of things where cut off
+paladin Danse questioning about elder maxson
+the combat zone restauration
+kellogs inside nick`s mind
+the minutemen taking quincy back from the gunners
+apparently a entire gunner faction storyline
and more things that i forgot, some of these things can be access with mods, but a lot is lost
Todds actually a really good writer. Emil the lead writing ad story directir however cannot write his way out of a paper bag without a mcguffin.
This wouldn't have happened if President Dave was in charge
Ah, finally someone making sense.
Ave, True to Dave
Dave would transform the Institute hole into a DAVEEEE nuclear silo tbh
Ah yes the republic of Dave. A true example of how to be a republic
@@Cheeeseyboi I bet Dave loves democracy even more than you.
"They can't be director, they aren't even a scientist!"
Meanwhile, in Sanctuary...
Sturges: "Welcome to Sanctuary, See those big nuclear fusion generators? Those shiny new laser turrets? Those twelve suits of near-new power armor? The damn fully supplied hospital? Yeah, the vault dweller built them out of scrap by himself in about an hour... trained the doctors too (yes, I know you just "assign" them)."
Also, to point out. Playing as the male character, who is known as a former soldier. I don't know about other countries, but in the US it's not uncommon for people to enlist to take advantage of the educational opportunities they provide. Hell, you can even pretend the female player has more a minor degree along with just a law degree. So, from a roleplaying standpoint, it is entirely possible that your character is a scientist. So... SUCK IT INSTITUTE! 🤣
Oh, in other countries people just like... go to Uni without needing military service to qualify for assistance.
@@shadenox8164 It's not done to earn a qualification, but to earn the means to attend. Both money and the additional disciplinary qualifications that come with being ex-military is supposed to make attending a high university much easier. In the 1960s when Fallout's under-explained sociopolitical freeze began, this was practically a guarantee. As a retired veteran with a long successful career, the male Sole Survivor would be relatively rich and receive the full benefits of priority university enlistment, he'd really have no excuse not to.
Of couse, IRL veterans these days are treated poorly by universities, the same way they are in may other fields, because a certain political faction pretends military equals fascist. But that hasn't stopped the recruiting ads from pretending it's still the 1960s, who is going to hold them accountable for the false advertising, the FTC? 🤣
Even more funny? Compared to the average wastelander, Even assuming no uni degree for male SS? The sole survivor would go through, a minimum. primary, middle, and high school. (All three exist in the wasteland after all, so the school tiering system is mostly the same) Alongside trade collages, and, the CIT itself, as potential options, and also assuming no education in another state.
The survivor is a highly inteligent and well educated person, especially by the standards of the wasteland... the next best thing to a scientist as far as the institute should be concerned! And even at the lowest level of "Skill" Is capable of constructing weapon modifications using tools. The settlement stuff can be explained perhaps by settlers helping you out, but the actual weapon mods? That's all the player charecter.
@@shadenox8164 In the US, it's not a qualification. The military just offers to pay for higher education in return for your service, as it is ridiculously expensive here, unlike other countries.
You could roleplay as a scientist in New Vegas. This game is different though. The sole survivor was a solider
Shaun could have minimized Kellog's collateral damage to the lowest possible by teleporting him inside solid rock.
I was thinking to the bottom of the harbor.
Teleported Straight into a mirelurk queen's nest or perhaps a deathclaw alpha male's arms?
@@Streetcleanergaming glowing sea
Imagine destroying a whole village for information the girl would have readily sold them 🤔
And the money would have been a drop in the bucket for the Institute.
I blame people like Kellogg the mercenary and Justin Ayo and a few who probably did get in trouble for stuff like that or died out cause of old age
@@jermonejackson8437 I'm pretty sure Kellogg would've just gone in, handed over some caps for the info, maybe give them a scare if he thought he needed to, and left without any further violence unless he actually had to. Maybe kill a specific witness. As brutal as Kellogg is, everything indicates that he is a professional and that he wouldn't kill a whole village when there are much simpler solutions with fewer reprocusions.
"This is the institute... we don't negotiate with lowly, dirty wastelanders"
And the information was for the most part worthless, it was pre-war seismic activity or something like that.
They burned down a town and killed it's population for the equivalent of an out of date newspaper.
And remember, the Commonwealth is still using caps. The whole reason caps were established as currency was because no one really had the infrastructure to produce them, so they were finite. The Institute is definitely an exception to that, they have the technology and scrap aluminum is probably one of the few resources they have in spades, and even if they don't they can just send some synths up to salvage it. So they basically can print money with no consequences since the currency is so decentralized it would take ages before the inflation became noticeable and still they chose violence
I remember first time I played through the story. Used the Minutemen to set up the teleport platform. When i got to the institute I was impressed at first but I was still on edge. Then I met Shaun. After hearing him talk a bit I thought some of his reasoning was strange. I thought, "ok, maybe I've misheard. Let's see what they really do. Then I saw more of the hypocrisy and gas-lighting. Later I did a few side missions and found University Point. Then I found the FEV labs and put 2 and 2 together. And the moment I heard what happened I just thought, "Oh god! Shaun is insane! There is no saving him. The institute has to go." And that's exactly what happened.
Shaun waking up the Sole Survivor and bringing him to the Institute sounds like he wanted an external judge that still possesses the sensibilities of the Old World to come to judge the Institute and find something worthy in it.
You give Bethesda far too much credit.
@@Xbalanque84 Sometimes.... we just need to headcanon it better. ;)
I am amused by Father declaring the RadKing as Director. The department heads staring at the zealot Child of Atom as their new leader. 😂
Build phase 3
Flood the facility with radiation
Glory to atom!
That is fine with every faction if you play a bit outside of the pre-nuke honest citizen.
Finished Nuka-World for the raiders? Well, the Institute overboss declares that heads on spikes and bloody leather are part of the new institute uniform.
The Silver Shroud is here to end those villains once and for all!
Those white walls don't look so great together with Brotherhood T-60 power armor.
Was the Institute able to develop a portable martini? Because Bond, Nate Bond want's to have one on the go that doesn't drench the tuxedo.
And obviously Glory to Atom! pickpocket all institute laser rifles for gamma guns, so that the entire Commonwealth may bath in his glow!
1 int , perception, and charisma,10 strength and con survivor is now the head of the institute, because the dumb, blind, introvert who can deadlift a car and take a rocket to the chest would definitely make a good scientist.
There should’ve been more postgame missions that let you establish your institute. I remember one small mission addressing treating Synths better but that’s it
Their really should have been. Or at least some "post game" dlc expansion, like Fallout 3s Broken Steel DLC.
Makes me wish there had been post game content with all of the factions, end the game with the MM? You can attempt and successfully create a Commonwealth Government and have an alliance with the remaining factions in Fo4.
Side with the RR, you can try and succeed in easing the public's unease about synths now that the Institute is gone.
Side with the BoS? Paladin Dance is now in charge and you as his second in command can help protect the Commonwealth by clearing out hostile Supers and Ferals.
You know, just to make it feel more cohesive.
@@BrightWulph iirc there is a cut ending to the blind betrayal quest where you challenge elder maxon to trial by combat over the leadership of the BoS, and the ability to pass a hard speech check to make danse elder
@@coobk I heard about that cut ending, I wish it hadn't been scrapped because it's a genuinely good ending to the faction. Plus it was just so annoying to be chilling with Dase out in the Commonwealth after the end of his questline to be fired upon by BoS patrols. Like it would have been more "realistic" to be able to attempt to talk your way out of combat with a hard speech check, it felt wrong to put them down like that because of Elder Maxon being a zelot.
@@BrightWulph I don’t think Danae being the Elder should’ve been the only option. If we only get one I’d rather see the next steps of Maxson’s plans for the commonwealth. But the best option would be reintroducing the cut ending and have 2 different post games.
Behind all of his logic and apathy, Shaun is just like a synth. Ironically creating Synths so advanced they have emotional intelligence far beyond his own.
This is a great video. I think Father is a sad and rather disturbing invidual. The whole incendiary incident of Fallout 4, the SS being released and Kellog looking after the Shaun Synth, to me always indicated Father discovered how his parents were attacked when he became director and wanted to almost play make-believe by orchestrating events so that the SS could save "Shaun" from Kellog. At this rate, I don't think even Father understands his own motivations, dismissing everything he does as part of some nebulous experiment. Makes for an interesting villain honestly
He's unhinged. I'm doing the Commonwealth, and him to be honest, a favor by painting the walls with his brains.
That's very generous of you, but all of this is the result of Beth's terrible writing.
@@buttnutt I mean.. if you can get something good out of it either way, isn't that still an overall positive?
@@zashgekido5616 someone murdered my parents in an alley so I protected the city dressed up like a bat.
@@basketbomberslackingson4417 And now Gotham has one of the smartest cookies in the box using it for a home address
Net positive
It's a shame that the institute isn't very well written, I really liked their aesthetic.
gave off a sort of ”bad guys acting like good guys” shit.
@@dani.2479 I took it as "bad guys who think they are good guys while doing bad things for the greater good"
except their weaponry. their weaponry look like toys for children
@@HenryGreenEngine3 And overall not very good. The only thing they have going for them is the fact they can absorb casualties that others can't.
They are written well. They're written well as hypocritical bad guys. Bad guys acting like bad guys is not the same thing as bad writing.
I think its really humanizing to have shaun release the sole survivor as a way to find answers...if only it was written better.
One thing that you cannot shake off is the fact to the institute you're an enemy until you can prove that you're not, they're the only faction out of the 4 that shoots you (with synths) when they see you. Also the game the entire time literally tells you these are the bad guys, from the time you get unfrozen in Vault 111 until you reach the turning point of the game (when you reach Diamond City) and until you reach the end of the game.
"Shoot first and ask questions later" serves you well in an apocalypse.
@@liamodahl1205 That mindset only works for those who actively deal with danger. The institute invents their own problems
They had literally zero need to turn synths in Boston's boogeyman. Wastelanders don't react with hostility to the mere existence of a robot. The infiltrator models could just act like a regular person with no identity theft involved and still spy on people without issue.
@@dagothurik1815
A walk down Boston Downtown, and it's all Raiders and Gunners for Wastelanders. The ratio of friendly settlements to Raider or Gunner outposts is ridiculous, especially with psychos like Daisy from the Disciples around. I see a lot more Raiders than I do regular people. And Goodneighbor is proof that plenty of regular wastelanders don't have to be a Raider to be dangerous.
@@liamodahl1205 It’s the institute’s choice to deal with that crap. They send more missions to the commonwealth than what’s necessary
in fallout 3 when you nuke megaton, your father expresses disappointment.
in fallout 4, shaun wouldve done all this and more.
Capital D Dad would be very disappointed in Shaun, both as a father and as a scientist.
And, remember, that disappointment is a crazily lowkey response to his child exploding a city with a fuckin nuke. Shaun sucks sucks
Shaun isn't your dad though, he's your son. And I don't know about y'all, but in my 50+ playthroughs of the game, the Sole Survivor is a crazy sumnabitch
@@akumajoy So? Wouldnt you be pissed if your da nuked a town for shits and giggles?
@@elseggs6504 no, because I realize it's a fictional universe where the things that happen don't affect me whatsoever.
It's a pretty cool story element that the son you've been looking for turns out to be a horrible person. It really tests where you would draw the line between family and stopping a lunatic.
We are products of our environment, Shaun could have turned out entirely different. That's what's so frustrating about this. They stole the baby from his parents, and stole the future that they had planned for him. And created a new one where he lived up to some amazing potential, but at the cost of not being what his parents would have wanted him to be not in terms of success, but in moral fiber.
Except we're given no time to form a real connection with the kid.
The bomb shouldn't have dropped until Shawn was a toddler. We should have been given a comparable amount of time with the character that is meant to be our child as we were given with Mr. Dad. We should have been given something like we were given for the spouse, a holotape meant to deepen that bond. Maybe a collection of letters that were written with no hope of ever really being sent. But we get thirty seconds with the baby, three minutes with the spouse, and twenty minutes with the elderly man the game claims is our son.
My first playthrough I got to the institute with the brotherhood because they were the continuation of the fallout 3 chapter. As soon as the plot twist was revealed I did a complete 180 to the institute.
The Institute's goal is either:
A) Go full Ghost in the Shell and transfer their consciousnesses into immortal synthetic bodies that do not sleep, eat, or age.
B) Create a pool of slave labor that must inexplicably be as close to human as possible so that humans don't need to work and can focus all time and energy to do... whatever, I guess.
There is a certain appeal in having the humanoid working machines not be too close to humans. On one hand there is the uncanny valley. But much more important, if the machines look too much like humans people would treat them like humans and will try to free them.
If they wanted to do slave labor, they should have made a stronger type of synth
You can tell Todd Howard likes Blade Runner.
@@nick0875 the movies or the book?
Just make the like working joes from alien isolation, definitely not human but still can do the task
Oddly enough, it just occurred to me that Shaun has a brain tumor. I wonder just how much that tumor is affecting his reasoning and emotions. From the sound of it, Shaun's recent requests/decisions that lead up to him proclaiming the Sole Survivor to be his successor caught everyone completely by surprise - that would indicate his recent decisions are out of character for him.
He likely was a decent director (albeit one that didn't consider the lives of those on the surface to be important or worthy of consideration) until around the time he realized he was dying - around the time his brain tumor was detected. As the tumor grew, its impact on his mental processes would also increase.
How convenient. :D But it also means he was always a prick.
Go easy on father, he was an incredibly badly written character. You can't fault him for that
The thing that I still don't get about Institute Synths is how they actually go about replacing people. Some Synths will straight up tell you that they are with the institute like in the farmer random encounter or the mayor quest while others appear to act completely normal like Paladin Danse, sturges, and the Synths in Arcadia.
The latter don't receive any transmission or instruction from the institute whereas the former such as the farmer are directly on missions for them
The ones you state act normal are freed synths from the railroad. The others are actual replacements for real people by the institute.
One that doesn't make much sense is the random encounter with a man and his duplicate.
If they scan the brain to get the memory and the body to reproduce the appearance, *how did they make a perfect Copy to send out and find the man he's intended to replace* ?
@@MediumRareOpinions thats actually a good point because if they made a perfect copy they would have already had the original in custody
There is a random encounter where you can find 2 npcs named "Art" one kneeled,one holding a gun,the synth one wants your help killing him if you succesfully pass a charisma check. So,i guess they just send the synth to do it then delete any memory of doing it? By the way,the synth didn't even have any backup.
13:15 It could also be because of Kellogg. We know from his dialouge that Father holds some resentment to Kellogg for killing one oh his parents. That's why Father created the plan to get Kellogg killed at the hands of the Sole Survivor, as a form of revenge.
Perhaps he one some level (subconscious or not) associates the cybernetics program with Kellogg, seeing as he was the shining example of the program
Equally if Shaun is a cold man deep down, Kellog is set up to kill the remaining parent. One less loose end.
@@MediumRareOpinions Whether or not he intended it, for all intents and purposes it is what he did. He said he didn't expect you to survive.
To me he sent you to your death, and when you showed up on his doorstep ready to kick ass, he scrambled to cover his ass.
Makes me wonder how he'd feel about the Courier 6. With their cybernetics and all and lack of organs.
@@corypowercat7277 it would depend on the Courier. Perhaps if one Courier "clicked" with Father, hsving similar ideals, or otherwise followed orders, he would have a better opinion of them. Or not
I'm of the opinion that the entire reason cybernetics existed at all in Fallout 4 was to try and help reinforce the easy to predict twist of Shaun being significantly older than expected, while also having a character that the player would (hopefully) want to hunt down for revenge. (Kelogg)
Bethesda: "WOW I bet you were shocked by that revelation that Shaun is actually an old man!"
Players: "Okay, but why does Kelogg look identical despite it being like sixty years since they took Shaun?"
Bethesda: "I-It's because he has cybernetics that extended his life and completely stopped any sort of physical aging!"
Players: "Oh, okay. Neat I guess, is there a cybernetics mechanic kind of like Fallout New Vegas?"
Bethesda: "No... uh... Shaun... uh... Shaun didn't like them! So there's no more cybernetics! Look, It's in a terminal! We definitely didn't have someone wake up in a cold sweat with this thought two weeks before release and had to scramble for an explanation!"
No idea if there's any voiced characters saying something about implants but I know there's terminals talking about it.
The Institute was evil long before Shaun got into the picture. Here's just what I remember off the top of my head.
The Institute...
... starting at least 50 years before they kidnapped Shaun from the Vault, were experimenting with FEV and creating the local strain of Super Mutants, and just unleashed them on the Commonwealth. This research continued until Virgil (same one we meet in the game) torched the FEV labs and escaped, forcing that project on hold.
... dumped a lot of older synth models in the Commonwealth, ignoring that they go berserk and kill people.
... steal energy and electricity from the settlements in the Commonwealth, which most likely contributes to a fair number of deaths.
... are using current synth models as slaves, even though they are definitely intelligent enough to be indistinguishable from having free will. The fact that synths routinely work to escape to find freedom and a life of their own is a major red flag.
... are using their current models of synths to abduct and replace people in the Commonwealth.
The Institute is *cartoonishly* evil and Shaun was only part of that, mainly responsible for the last point. Say what you will about the harsh nature of Brotherhood of Steel's rule of the Commonwealth, but Elder Maxson is entirely correct when he says the Institute is an existential threat to the people of the Commonwealth and possibly beyond.
And hell, you're able to talk Maxson down from being entirely genocidal towards Synths. He still views them as dangerous, sure, but he's a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, a tech-worshipping pseudo-cult
I think my favorite theory is that Father is not actually Shaun, the real Shaun died in Institute experimentation and Father knew Nate/Nora would destroy him and his whole crew up if they found out that truth...particularly after Nate/Nora kills Kellogg.
I like the idea but if that where the case what motivation would father have to let the sole survivor out of vault 111
@@JoeMima-jx4ow Maybe Father didn't let the Sole Survivor out. He could be lying about that. The vault is falling apart when the player is unthawed it's not impossible that the cryopod simply broke down and unsealed him.
@@Darkgun231 Could have also been the kid who was doing the Synth escape program, came across data about the gen 3 synths and how their construction was made, found out that the child died in the experimentation but discovered that one parent was still alive in Vault 111 and decides to release the SS to see if they'd be able to or want to track down the Institute and liberate the synths somehow. IDK just spit balling ideas. 😅😅
That has been my thought as well, from Kellog's memories we know the Insitute killed everyone else in the vault. A group like that dosent seem likely to not carve the infant shawn, then eliminate and discard the left overs. Even if they kept him alive in no way would they let him become the leader.
Except that the director changes looks depending on the looks of his parents. Meaning that if you alter the 2 main characters appearance at the start of your game the director of the institute looks will change to reflect this including changing skin color if you make your 2 potential characters black.
So while the theory is sound it's not how bethesda made things.
I really pity the sole survivor. he lost everything after fight in a never ending war: his life, his wife, and his only son, who grow up to become a jerk...it's sad...
"Every lie incurs a debt to the truth that will one day need to be paid." I'm going to remember that line.
It's from the Chernobyl HBO miniseries, you should totally watch it its full of lines like this
@@Denominov Unfortunately I dont have HBO, but I'll keep an eye out so I can watch it!
While I commend your joke at the end, I'm afraid I must disagree.
Father takes after neither of his parents, he takes after the ones who kidnapped him as an infant: the old Directorate of the Institute. They began the Synth replacements and FEV experiments. They massacred the Vault 111 residents and kept the Sole Survivor frozen and away from their son for no explained reason.
All of Father's issues stem from them and how they treated him. We see happy families living in the Institute, so poor Shaun must've grown up seeing other kids receiving real love, while he was just the Institute's prize guinea pig for pre-war DNA. While Father claims his abductors treated him well, his obsession with building a family with the Sole Survivor and S9-23 indicate that that's just another lie, one he's forcing himself to believe. It's like an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Which is why i have no problem killing him. If i were the main character i would not look at him as my "son". He is just an old guy having similar genetics, but hold none of the values i have. Should i chose to side with the Institute it might only happen in a hope to make them aid humanity for a change, and should i chose to go against them, then it will be revenge for all their atrocities. At least for good guys. For evil main character i side with them for the comfort, and slaves they provide.
@@akuladoctor7355 yeah that's a hard one to share with the old bulter handy...I usually tell him that Shaun passed away give him a half truth because yeah old man shaun isnt the baby he went out to look for oringally or the child he was hoping to find but a corrupt old man that has to be put down like every other corrupt individual in the fallout world.
Still would have been nice if we had an option in game to try and show him the error of his ways, even if it isn't a speech check and this always fail, you rarely get to call out the Institutes crap and get dumb answers when you do
@@highlordlaughterofcanada8685 In case of Father you can. If you fail Bunker Hill you can piss him off to the point, that he kicks you from the Institute without using direct violence.
@@highlordlaughterofcanada8685 Agreed.
Institute Science, We do what we must because we can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead…
🎂 so delicious and MOIST. Btw glados is more human than Shaun.
@@kamilmalazdra233 Yeah, she's friendly and rational when she's not all doped up on science.
Or maybe farther wants to subconsciously know non of them have any real drive and knows that handing over responsibility to someone who clearly has real focus on rebuilding is better than just destroying everything that has been created.
He was so "smart" that treated the Sole survivor partner death as a mere colateral effect, didn't even considered making a synth, it would be a perfect manipulation tool, since the only reason I see he using the sole survivor is Kellogg's death, otherwise he would not care at all.
I've always seen Shaun as a man who saw all those loving families around him, and fell in love with the *idea* of having one of his own.
That's kind of like the song "Jesse's Girl." The guy isn't in love with Jesse's girl, he's jealous of what Jesse has (a relationship) and he wants it too. Furthermore he doesn't completely understand what love is.
Lmao listening to Shaun talk is like listening to that South Park nambla episode.
"We are only trying to do what is best for humanity"
"Dude. You murder people and replace them with robot spies"
It’s like they had two different writers working on this faction who weren’t allowed to know about each other. Then they both got fired and a third was hired to smash their work together.
The institute should of been the good guy faction that would of been a good twist instead of being a bogey man they would be seen as unseen hero’s with synths acting as guards for settlements you would still have to find them
"would *have* "
I would have liked to see a morally grey institute. A faction with good intentions, does provide a positive impact on the world, but maybe has some less than ideal methods of spreading their message.
I think this is what Bethesda was going for, but bad writing and or time constraints left the faction kind of mono, unidirectional.
@@LysergicKids I think it might have been the time constraints problem. Bethesda had many ideas to work with for the Institute from fallout 3 , but time constraints lead to the Institute being the way it is!
I had the notion that they could have been an iceberg like faction.
You meet them on the surface where they run hospitals and trade medical services for supplies and resources.
Only later do conspiracy theories from apparent crazy folk like Piper get revealed with underground activities and attempts to make synthetic people happening below.
The medical services provide the opportunity to take fresh cadavers for study, take the Terminally ill away to see if they can be uploaded into synth bodies and recruit the best and brightest to be let in on the secret underground operations.
*should have, would have
Listening to this is like sitting in on a closing argument of a prosecuting lawyer in a case against Father.
Great job, subscriber earned.
The most ironic part, that highlights the biggest flaws of the Institute itself, is that Shaun is for all intents and purposes, a man raised within the Institute. He's less of a hijacker of the faction's purpose, as some have claimed Lyons was to the Brotherhood, and more a distillation of their practices into a single person. That changes nothing about the analysis of course, but I find it poetic that the Institute experiment we have the most concrete knowledge about is the one that sending it off the rails.
I always felt like Lyons was a different way the Brotherhood could've gone. Still along their original principles, but less of a jerk. They hoard technology to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. The whole nuclear apocalypse stuff. That is what the soldiers at the Mariposa base set out for. That can lead to the technology crusade we see in most of the games, but could also give us the sort of responsible use Lyons was after.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Yeah, like Lyons' perspective was that one glimmer of hope that keeps the Brotherhood together, but because its the Wasteland, nobody is allowed to be a moral person without getting cut down
@@KyleLyre13 I still believe Sarah Lyons was murdered. Sorry suffered a tragic case of "friendly fire". Really all the factions in Fallout 4 are ass. They are all shallow and worthless.
@@tomleary508 I agree, it seems like after Owen died the D.C. Chapter almost immediately started immolating itself and I could see a lot of people wanting Sarah dead. That being said, I actually have grown to love Fallout 4's methods of storytelling primarily because they compensated for the voiced protagonist by creating inferred implications. That being said, I don't blame ya for not digging it, it's not everyone's cup of coffee
I always thought Shaun releases his father as a way of seeking approval for his lifes work as his life is coming to an end never having gotten his father's approval before because he was taken by the Institute as a child. That is what I feel from Shaun's character anyway.
That explains why he gets so frustrated at you when you tell him how evil he is at the top of CIT
There's so much they could have done, but just... didn't. Like, Shaun asking you if you're proud of what he's done would have been an incredible moment, both for character building and narrative.
For me I assumed it was because he knew he was dying and thought his parent was the closest way to continue running the institute. It is shown he does have some nepotism despite knowing almost nothing about you.
His whole "this was all just an experiment" kind of made sure I'll never side with them ever.
Shawn and the ending were badly written but few things have impacted me more as a gamer, weirdly. I was a mother, grieving her husband and desperately searching for her son. Only to discover he’s not even dead, but a monster. And his last act of cruelty was Synth Shawn, a child in need of a mother the same as any other, but is still a parody of the child I lost. So what can I do? I take him in. I end the evil of the institute. I take him home to my new wife Curie, herself a synth. With my dog that is likely a synth. And my best friend, a synth detective. And I can’t decide if I’ve built something meaningful and beautiful from the ruins, or if I’ve surrounded myself with clockwork parodies of what I’d lost.
Heavy shit. I cried. And then was mad because the shitty writing didn’t deserve it. And I think if I’d played differently or been a different person, it wouldn’t have had so much meaning.
I had a very similar experience with the game, except for Curie, I didn't marry anyone. But yes same feelings about it.
Genuinely? This was my exact experience, only I headcanoned in my Sole’s romance with Nick. And the thing is… my maternal love for Shaun and my mourning of my Sole’s husband drove her hatred for Kellogg and was her main driving narrative; Rita was a kind woman once, but now she’s woken up into a world where her husband was shot and her baby was stolen from her? I’ll never forget Nick’s soft “Oh… Oh, I’m so sorry.” She had a goal, she was driven, she was Angry.
And then Bethesda was like “haha be a mom again Woman” and I felt so fcking underwhelmed. I still took Synth!Shaun home and it felt like the right move, but it felt so… insulting? To the mama bear rage that had driven me through the whole game, that I bonded with certain characters over… just dumped away for “welp here’s another kid for you to mother, does that help?”
You guys seem to like role play and fallout. I highly recommend fallout: new Vegas
Don't forget, the sole survivor is almost definitely a synth too.
You people are genuinely cringe.
I always thought that the Enclave had a thing going with the Institute. There was too much....going on for them not to have been aware of one another. The FEV alone points to some level of contact, even if in the past before their destruction in both the West and the East.
As much as I dislike the Enclave, at least their writing is ok. They're better off as separate groups that have had no contact
@@highlordlaughterofcanada8685 the enclave serve an important purpose: they are the remnants of the old world unable to accept the new one. The institute are just "what if scientists didn't have ethics"
@@ICantThinkOfAFunnyHandle I know. I'm saying I prefer that the Institute and Enclave have no in game relation like the original comment says
I doubt they had any contact post war. The whole reason the institute kidnapped shaun is because the institute scientists were still contaminated by radiation. To the enclave that would make them mutants, and we all know how the enclave deals with mutants.
@@ICantThinkOfAFunnyHandle Ironically, the Institute are more ethical than most real world "scientists" today.
Ah yes, my favorite past time;
Finding new reasons to hate the Institute.
I always felt like even as Shaun insists that he controls the Institute, the Institute controls him, and both suffer for it.
The Institute having the CGP wiped out reads so clearly as “We’ve been under a totalitarian regime for so long that we cannot possibly understand how a republic would work so we must destroy what we do not understand.”
Father feels like the outcome of the quote from Jurassic Park:
"You were to busy wondering if you could but never stopped to think if they should"
Shaun releases you into a dangerous new world and watches from the sidelines, he doesn't bother to order Synths to not attack you and after the battle of Bunker Hill he admits that he treated you like an experiment of sorts, the lack of empathy is disturbing but it also got me thinking that the survivor might have been a Synth experiment all along, Far Harbor also plays with that idea, unfortunately that train of thought falls over when you realise that recalls codes exist, any acts of violence or betrayal against the institute could have been resolved with a courser and a recall code. In summary Shaun really is a bad scientist, I blame the parents.
Yeah, and it's not possible for the player to be sure.
And if nobody but Father/Shaun knows the SS is a synth, nobody would try a recall code on them.
@@HappyBeezerStudios If the SS was a syth, even if no one else knew their recall code it would be on record somewhere, within the data banks of the Institute, they don't strike me as the type to delete data.
And the whole Far Harbour DLC synth argument falls apart to me, when DiMA says that Kasumi isn't a synth but then turns arround to the player all "but you could be!" Like that's just the writers giving the player permission to believe in their HC.
If the you, the player, was a synth, the Brotherhood would have been hunting you along with Danse.
Gotta love how lore channels spend more time thinking about bethesda writing than the writers.
What writers?
@@BrandonDenny-we1rw well, the most famous is the dark brotherhood, I got hired cuz of friend, Emil
It's because Bethesda writers get paid to write this crap. While we players have to pay to play this crap.
I think shaun definitely has a lot to answer for, but you kind of have to remember who MADE shaun this way, the institute, he wasn’t made this why by accident, he was taught from a very young age how to think and how to see the outside world, and certainly taught him far more practical, scientific, and leadership skills than they have taught him moral life lessons, he grew up learning how to manipulate people to get what he wants from them rather than having the empathy and courage to ask with sincerity, and he learned to use the only advantage he ever had in the institute above others there, his status as the genetic source of the gen 3 synths, to get whatever he wants as leader, getting away with as many ventures he wants such as making a child synth and releasing the player from the vault under the guise of an “experiment”, and shutting down any and all disagreements with his subordinates with nothing more than “I said it, therefore it’s true”, just like kellog he’s a complete monster, but unlike kellog rather than the institute simply taking advantage of him, they MADE him into a monster through their complete lack of care in his mental development
Exactly, all of his actions make sense when you realized who raised him: the people that were willing to murder parents and kidnap their children. The only problem is the writing never let's us or anyone else acknowledge that
also keep in mind thats sturges is a synth, if you follow the minutemen route hes the one who just happens to find out how to enter the institute, its possible the knowledge is deliberately placed in him somehow knowing he will help you.
To me it seems like the institute faction seems like a rush job. It's the last faction you meet and instead of it being well thought out and fun. It almost seems like Bethesda said "Ok everybody we have 3 weeks until release clean up the game as much as you can." and then plopped it out the door with a half assed institute faction which is probably what happened. I blame Todd not Shaun.
I wish there was more morally grey stuff.
I love the institute despite the fact they're undercooked.
I play as the director end game. They're not evil, they just have bad leadership that makes bad decisions.
True
@@justinjames965 you're absolutely wrong they are evil. What do you mean "they just have bad leadership" you mean to tell me a bunch of geniuses cant brandish a weapon, cant teleport away, cant refuse an order? They don't ever make a single effort to refuse shauns maniacal orders, they are a bunch of brown nosed suckups. And they literally own slaves.
They really just need reformation
The thing that struck me, literally a few days ago while doing the battle of bunker hill in a railroad playthrough, was that they can track just about anything with ease, but don't monitor the one person using their own teleporter. Like you can teleport directly into the railroad from the institute and vice versa no problem. Then Shaun is just taking you at your word that you don't have any contact with the railroad and/or brotherhood.
Blame Shaun? Nah, I think I'll blame Todd.
I'll blame Emil, who seems to resent the players for wanting narrative options in their CRPG.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof Why not both? Blame Todd for making his own games worse as the years go on, replacing all his story writers with quest writers and letting Emil have full creative license to do whatever he wants, even though Emil has only ever been good when writing quests and not the stories behind them, and blame Emil for writing absolute shit.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof After the whole Starfield drama where Emil got so defensive and how basically told the players that they are playing the game wrong, I have this strong feeling that Emil Pagliarulo can't write to save his life, like after Baldur's Gate 3 won GOTY I really hope this shapes Bethesda up and makes them see on what we the players want to see in Elder Scrolls VI and the future Fallout games, but seeing how Todd is o hardly doubt it, Todd Howard always did strike me as arrogant and thinking he is better than others.
Bethesda still seems to harbor a hidden hatred for Obsidian's New Vegas as that game was so good in terms for Freedom of Choice and writing.
Like for example take a character like Randell Clark from the Honest Hearts DLC, dude isn't even an NPC but is very well written now compare this to say Amata from Fallout 3 or Shaun from Fallout 4, the writing is night and day.
Agreed, he didn't become an old man over night.
The guy has been part of the institute for a while, and led it for a good portion of his adult life, so he can't play innocent. There where lot of chances for him to clean up the mess, and his ultimate plan was to get his long lost family involved and hope for the best. That you would agree with their methods and goals, and somehow be a perfect mental clone of himself after he passed on... child becoming parent motif.
A lot of this makes me wonder if he did all these things that would ultimately hurt the Institute in order to "hands off" hurt the Institute, which caused the death of one of his parents and kidnapped him from the other, disallowing him to ever have a real childhood.
Unless I’m mistaken, if you wipe out The Railroad you can use Tom’s terminal yourself and design the relay without their help, correct me if I’m wrong.
You can, it's a failsafe of sorts so that there is always a way to do it. But you will still need help to build the Signal Interceptor I believe.
@@MediumRareOpinions Fascinating, I’m gonna have to try it and find out
@@AndrewCJWinter if I recall the stages in the right order once you decode the chip and return to Virgil your options are to give the plans for the Signal Interceptor to Sturges or Proctor Ingram and carry on with the BoS or Miniutemen unless you decide to back the Institute of course.
That is the speedrun strat. Avoid dealing with the Railroad, just blast them and diy the shit
They should have had a Dante too
The reason I created for Shaun not specifying which division he’s in is because he doesn’t have a specific area he specializes in. He’s knowledgeable in every scientific division in the institute, which is why he became the leader of the institute, since as leader he needs to oversee all of the other divisions.
He probably did as well but after you complete the institute questline you get fathers lab coat with the green sweater and an orange lab coat that matches the robotics division. Could be before he became director he was head of the robotics division.
Wow. I'm impressed. Well thought out and presented. The mother bit at the end was epic! Thank you.
"The people above ground are savages"
SS: no.. they're not all that bad.
*Meanwhile in sanctuary Hills*
SS: YEAH!!! PRESTON FIGHT THAT DEATHCLAW!!!
Just imagine the mental state of the sole survivor after he sees the true face of his lost son he finally found. The sole survivor didn't see their child grow up, since he was a baby. And then they are facing their flesh and blood as an old man, a mad scientist making the world around him suffer for science. Terrible desillusion.
At this point, the sole survivor could choice to make a new family and have another child they can take care of
The truly sad part is that the Institute actually could have saved the Commonwealth.
Would have been neat for a DLC where you become director and dispatch armies of gen 2 synths to rebuild the commonwealth.
The Institute could have simply paid for the reactor data via their own network of caravaneers and spies. The girl who discovered the data could be later recruited, etc. The problem is terrible writing and bad editing.
Villains acting like villains isn't bad writing. They're. The. Bad. Guys.
@@etcetera1995 And nothing else. And in a series that likes its morally grey areas, The Institute is so pure black it's kind of odd.
@@etcetera1995 That the game desperately tries to convince you are morally grey. It objectively is SUPER BAD WRITING.
@@tonystank3091 The Enclave is pure evil. Or did I just hallucinate Fallout 2?
@@shorewall We must have played two different games then.
i feel like having cut-ins between songs on the classical (institute) radio station, like diamond city radio, would help a lot with humanizing the institute
In my mind I'd become director of the Institute but finish the game with the Minutemen. With that I can slowly lead the Institute into the role of helping the wasteland and being more open to them so the Minutemen can keep them in check. For example they can use their teleportation to help the Minutemen respond quickly to settlements under attack, and Doctor Li can go back to working on her hydroponics and water filtration from the Capitol Wasteland. The synth program would stop and all sentient synths would be released (preferably to the railroad but I think they'd have to die in game in this scenario). The Gen 1's and 2's would continue to help do menial labor around the Institute and above ground. Then the Institute would just help scientifically with the needs of the Commonwealth while my character transfers into an immortal synth body and guides both the Minutemen and Institute eternally because the dumb NPCs can't be trusted to run things😂
It makes sense. What better way to send help to settlements that need it than by teleporting some Minutemen into the problem area? It makes more sense than waiting for ME to finish whatever quest I'm doing, sell some stuff, put away my junk, and then walk there...
@@JadeDude1973 Also they would live up to their name. being able to be on site to protect people in literally a minute's notice thanks to Teleportation.
All their advances in medicine, crop production, teleportation, everything they are capable of, the Institute had such a huge opportunity to actually help the surface.
The farmer they killed and replaced didn’t need to be. I’m pretty sure a small farming family would have accepted the chance for healthier crops from the institute and work in secret cooperation.
But the institute doesn’t see the surface as people, they are only things to experiment on; what they can’t control, they see as a threat and destroy.
Just a nitpic, but it's Fort Hagen that you confront Kellogg in, not Fort Strong. I always remember that Fort Strong is the one with all the super mutants that the brotherhood sends you to, because the super mutant companion in the game is also named Strong.
Thanks for not being a facetuber. I love seeing relevant gameplay footage over interesting narration over someone just staring into a camera the whole time
Facetuber Radking: HEY DUDES ITS UR BOY RADKING, BEFORE THE VIDEO STARTS BE SURE TO SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON AND SUBSCRIBE AND COMMENT DOWN BELOW, ALSO HERES OUR SPONSOR SQUARESPACE
Next April fools he becomes something worse than a facetuber, a vtuber
@@shoelessbandit1581 In my opinion the way the videos are done he already is a vtuber of a sort, just not your typical anime avatar variety.
@@73_65 True. And for me, Vtubers are easier to take than face cam. Maybe I'm that anti-social. :D
@@73_65 He only briefly has his character on screen in the videos, Vtuber my ass.
There is one possible excuse for Lookout Point I can think of, which is that was the event which made Father realize the kind of man Kellogg actually was. He sent him out to go get the information, expecting him to trade or perhaps create a copy to send to the Commonwealth. Instead, Kellogg stormed the place and killed everyone, causing Father to look back at the records and realize who he was. But thats a big maybe, and its equally possible he just expected a slaughter anyway.
If you did become director, managed to shut down the synth program except for maybe making synthetic limbs and replacement organs, and revamping the cybernetic program then maybe the institute could save humanity. Heck I'd be interested to see what FEV does to pure non irradiated synthetic material.
You brought up a good point of the risk Shaun makes just letting the sole survivor loose, he could’ve very easily teleported him into the institute and given him a sheltered view of the commenwealth to support the institute and look past the atrocities
“No one is really attached to the Lone Wanderer” absolutely false. Playing as them from their birth to adulthood drew me in more than any other game ive ever played, especially when as a child myself and relating to this character’s vulnerable mind. My first Fallout 3 character still lives on in my mind, because he was me.
Same. I mean it effected the choices I'd make in game. I had personal mission to find his dad not just cause the game wanted me too. I really was super invested. I replayed 3 the most and cared about the capital and it's future
There is some small potential for a tragic story about a traumatised parent going along with everything their insane, megalomaniac son wants out of a sense of guilt and wanting to make up for lost time. But that's only if you try really hard to roleplay. Because outside of your barely existing connection to your ''son'', there's really no good reason to join the Institute.
Ironically, if this sort of thing was leant into with the writing, it could've been fascinating.
A man who was stolen from his family and raised in a sterile environment that either could not or would not deal with his feelings; given the reigns of his captors and informed that he still has a single parent out there and he is incapable of ordering them to be brought to the institute. Someone who desperately wants a family, who wants something his captors never gave him; yet doesn't know how to describe that feeling.
Imagine if you could point all these flaws out to Shawn and he just breaks down; sobbing like the child he never got to be and begging for his mother/father.
Yes, give us a dialog option or thread that gives payoff to the (unintentional?) undertones!
The whole synth-Shaun thing is so messed up. You wake your parent from cryostasis, make them fight a half-robotisized killer, assume they'll discover TELEPORTATION to enter your Institute, and then you taunt them with a puppet of the son they were hoping to find? Way to make an awful first impression, Dr. Braincancer. Ad Victoriam.
😂
Shaun's incompetence is a product of Bethesda's incompetence
I think father is consistent with his apathy of the surface. It was important they don't interfere with institute business, it doesn't matter what they think or what happens to them other than that. If the surface could hate them but be unable to stop them then its all good in father's eyes.
Takin a action to se what would happen is a study not and experiment. Scientists do studies, experiments, simulations etc. Stating that not having a hypothesis makes you a "bad scientist" really shows a lack of understanding over what science is. Not reviling the reason of a study does not make you a "bad scientist" either. to be honest the argument "I want to see what happens" is absolutely sufficient to do science. what makes a bad scientist is cherry picking, hiding data not accepting clear evidence. Don't confuse a bad person with a bad scientist. One can be a good scientist and a bad person at the same time.
Great video as always. I always struggled to decide if Father was a terrible person, or a terribly written character - which are two completely different things. Seeing it all laid out like this, I am leaning towards the former, although he definitely could have been written better. Would it have killed anyone to include some more random terminal entries establishing his and the Institute's goals and reasoning better?
One minor nitpick about 45:45:
Father almost certainly never expected SS to make it to the Institute. He would have been content to see that SS had at least made an attempt to find him. However, upon seeing that the mad lad/lass was about to teleport into the Institute (using his watcher birds) he most likely brought out Synth Shaun and set up the interaction between them as a last-minute decision.
I don't buy the bird hypothesis, but I support this post otherwise.
The Institute being poorly written? NOOOOOOO WAAAAY!!!!
@Falcon_by_the_lake the institute were most certainly not excellent to one another
I wonder how the Institute would've been done by Obsidian or even Black Isle studios. I wish Bethesda would improve or just hand the property to someone better.
They're as shallow as a river
@@QuothTheRavenclaw11 Prime Obsidian or modern Obsidian? Cuz they suck now.
@@QuothTheRavenclaw11 … The Legion was just as nonsensical and moustache twirling evil. “So I have the platinum chip and instead of giving it to one of my trusted soldiers I’m going with some random person who might have even been working against me!” “Also I’m a genius 🤪”
Honestly I thinks John Henry Eden was way more interesting and morally grey than Caesar, and WAY better voice acting.
As father saw it he was giving the sole survivor something he/she had lost by making synth Shaun. The synth is a gift to his father/mother.
I don't think Shaun is entirely to blame for the Institute. While I never follow the Institute, I think Shaun suffers from Stockholm syndrome, and is by the time we get there is having a crisis of faith. He's known nothing but the Institute for his entire life, and doesn't learn about his parents until he's the director. Now he knows about you and he is probably having all these thoughts running around. It's like finding out your parents aren't really yours and you try to find your real parent. What would you do but react emotionally, and he's been raised to think like a scientist. He can't balance the two, and he wants to give you a chance to raise the child you never had ( even if the child won't age ) and giving you a safe home in the Institute. He's not focusing because despite not knowing you, you're his parent and suddenly you exist to this man who hasn't been to the surface and know anything outside of the underground science center since he arrived as an infant.
I just wanted to give my two cents to the discussion, I don't support the Institute and when I first played fallout and until recently I always felt like Shaun was a poorly written character and his motives were not well defined. I still think that way, but I wanted to try and justify the actions of Shaun.
interesting take
@Shawn Allen He has a point tbh.
@shawnallen7865I doubt Bethesda put this much thought in, but this is a pretty believable take
But they didn't give a single dialog option that redeems him along this thread.