Current Events > You know thinking back, the plot of Fallout 4 literally made no sense.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like it's not very good anyway but the whole thing falls apart when you wonder "Why is the institute making Gen 3 Synths exactly?"

Like if you just wanted to use them for labor wouldn't it be simpler and be much less of a moral dilemma to use the skeletal synths or something like the Assaultron?

This is explained like 5 minutes into the Institute
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I always thought it was to repopulate the earth with beings who were immune to radiation, that could be implanted with the minds of the living.
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wait til you try to logically explain why theyd make children synths
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Uhhh ... obviously for infiltration? Did you miss how this is a major concern for, like, everyone, five minutes into the game?

Never played it, how interesting are the synths?

Agents of SHIELD has an amazing scene where someone discovers her boyfriend is a robot replacement and she begins threatening him. He's crying and begging and pleading until he realizes it's pointless at which point he turns off all emotion in a split second and just attacks her.
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pegusus123456 posted...

Agents of SHIELD has an amazing scene where someone discovers her boyfriend is a robot replacement and she begins threatening him. He's crying and begging and pleading until he realizes it's pointless at which point he turns off all emotion in a split second and just attacks her.

I prefer how the remade TV series of Battlestar Galactica handled it because there was a real moral dilemma about what to do with the humanoid Cylons, many of whom did not know what they were and they became emotionally conflicted when their true nature was revealed.
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Dash_Harber posted...

Uhhh ... obviously for infiltration?

But to what purpose?

The Institute gains literally nothing by placing synth copies of people on the surface apart from making themselves a boogeyman.

@pegusus123456 posted...

Never played it, how interesting are the synths?

Agents of SHIELD has an amazing scene where someone discovers her boyfriend is a robot replacement and she begins threatening him. He's crying and begging and pleading until he realizes it's pointless at which point he turns off all emotion in a split second and just attacks her.

So was he caring for her at all or was it just a cover? Like was he aware of it until that point?
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EpicMickeyDrew posted...

@pegusus123456 posted...

Never played it, how interesting are the synths?

Agents of SHIELD has an amazing scene where someone discovers her boyfriend is a robot replacement and she begins threatening him. He's crying and begging and pleading until he realizes it's pointless at which point he turns off all emotion in a split second and just attacks her.

So was he caring for her at all or was it just a cover? Like was he aware of it until that point?

Her boyfriend is a real person, he was replaced with a duplicate. The real guy loved her, the robot didn't.
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Nothing about the institute made any fucking sense

I get the feeling it's because Bethesda wanted them to be morally ambiguous but it just comes off as making absolutely no sense and they come off as evil to their fanbase anyways.

Like, Gen 3 synths were *soooooo* important, but then when you question them about it they're just like "Oh, we don't really give a shit about the wasteland or the people in it at all."

But then...like...why are you kidnapping them?

"To make Synths"

but....why?

Like, it's been forever since I played Fallout 4 but I think they had some really vague answer that it had to do with the person who was in charge before Father, but that still doesn't explain why they kept up with it.
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pegusus123456 posted...

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

@pegusus123456 posted...

Never played it, how interesting are the synths?

Agents of SHIELD has an amazing scene where someone discovers her boyfriend is a robot replacement and she begins threatening him. He's crying and begging and pleading until he realizes it's pointless at which point he turns off all emotion in a split second and just attacks her.

So was he caring for her at all or was it just a cover? Like was he aware of it until that point?

Her boyfriend is a real person, he was replaced with a duplicate. The real guy loved her, the robot didn't.

:(((((((
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its so that they can manipulate the world. they still needed resources at the time and they dont like the commonwealth.
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Nothing about Bethesda fallout makes sense
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Irregardless posted...

Dash_Harber posted...

Uhhh ... obviously for infiltration?

But to what purpose?

The Institute gains literally nothing by placing synth copies of people on the surface apart from making themselves a boogeyman.

Recon, manipulating communities, capturing important, securing resources, etc.

There is literally never a reason not to have agents operating in hostile territory.

stop trying to explain Bethesda's nonsense guys
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Nothing about fallout 4 makes sense cus you're just Yes Man from NV in a human body for the whole game. All of it is some sort of fight club scenario with the body trying to reject the consciousness of Yes Man.
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Space_Man posted...

Nothing about fallout 4 makes sense cus you're just Yes Man from NV in a human body for the whole game. All of it is some sort of fight club scenario with the body trying to reject the consciousness of Yes Man.

lol
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Space_Man posted...

All of it is some sort of fight club scenario with the body trying to reject the consciousness of Yes Man.

This Fallout would have been literally better than the story in Fallout 4.
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The synths had fucking great potential, and were glimmers of that being realised, but they just took a shit in their hands and wiped themselves with it instead.
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TC does hit on the biggest shortcoming of Fallout 4's plot. The Institute is simply doing what it does for the sake of it, and has no great plan nor goal. Their systematic above-ground infiltration is not working towards any specific outcome, and their entire questline revolves around getting a power generator just so they can keeping trucking along and building shit for the sake of building shit.

It's a shame, because while the game never had a chance of reaching NV-caliber writing, it was at least a noteworthy step up over Fallout 3's mess. The factions ditch the shoehorned black hat / white hat crap in favor of more varied and morally gray options, two of these factions have clearly-defined goals (Brotherhood: synths are abominations that must be wiped out; Railroad: synths are real people who deserve autonomy), and the central theme of the game / main quest (synths) permeates nearly every facet of Commonwealth life, as opposed to the tacked-on purifier that has no actual relevance to the game world.

But things fall apart when you finally get to infiltrate the big bad Institute and you realize that they're essentially just a pack of aimless tinkerers. I think people would have been a lot more forgiving of FO4's story as a whole if Beth had presented the player with a clearly-defined goal on par with the Brotherhood and Railroad if they chose to join the Institute.
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masterpug53 posted...

TC does hit on the biggest shortcoming of Fallout 4's plot. The Institute is simply doing what it does for the sake of it, and has no great plan nor goal. Their systematic above-ground infiltration is not working towards any specific outcome, and their entire questline revolves around getting a power generator just so they can keeping trucking along and building shit for the sake of building shit.

It's a shame, because while the game never had a chance of reaching NV-caliber writing, it was at least a noteworthy step up over Fallout 3's mess. The factions ditch the shoehorned black hat / white hat crap in favor of more varied and morally gray options, two of these factions have clearly-defined goals (Brotherhood: synths are abominations that must be wiped out; Railroad: synths are real people who deserve autonomy), and the central theme of the game / main quest (synths) permeates nearly every facet of Commonwealth life, as opposed to the tacked-on purifier that has no actual relevance to the game world.

But things fall apart when you finally get to infiltrate the big bad Institute and you realize that they're essentially just a pack of aimless tinkerers. I think people would have been a lot more forgiving of FO4's story as a whole if Beth had presented the player with a clearly-defined goal on par with the Brotherhood and Railroad if they chose to join the Institute.

I mean, to be fair, they are violent isolationists who want to just spend all their time doing research and preserving humanity. That's a motivation in itself.

The Railroad came across really stupid to me. Like, I get the premise of freeing the synths from "slavery" or whatever, but their entire objective completely falls apart when they erase those synths' entire brain/personality/memories and implant them with personalities who don't know they are synths. So they basically kill the person they saved and send a synth out into the wastes where he or she will inevitably by exposed and completely fuck them over because, again, they don't know they are synths.

And the game really is inconsistent in regards to how easy it is to find out someone is a synth. Sometimes it's impossible to tell the difference. Other times it couldn't be more obvious. Depends on what they need the story to do.
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The goal of Synths was to create a more perfect Human. Gen 3 Synths were pretty much indistinguishable from Humans but had advantages to them.
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eston posted...

The Railroad came across really stupid to me.

The 3 big factions come off like this; To support one, you must obliterate the other two.

What's wrong with rising to the heads of all, and unifying them? Or using covert infiltration to replace the leaders? Killing everyone you disagree with is just lazy plot writing on Bethesda's behalf.
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Fallout 4 is trash
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Vyrulisse posted...

The goal of Synths was to create a more perfect Human.

But they only use them as slaves, they don't seem to have any intention beyond that.

008Zulu posted...

To support one, you must obliterate the other two.

This annoyed me too. Especially since it's basically a war of ideologies and no one really gains anything from the other's total destruction, not to mention all of the factions seem like they should be able to be reasoned with.

Irregardless posted...

But they only use them as slaves, they don't seem to have any intention beyond that.

They also use them for recon and infiltration, quite a bit, actually. For example, the entirety of Diamond City is controlled by one who is pretending to be the Mayor. I'd say controlling a major hub is pretty advantageous.

pegusus123456 posted...

Never played it, how interesting are the synths?

Perfect example of an interesting idea with horrible execution.

My first encounter with them was in some small town where some weird shit was going on and then I got a mission to rescue somebody or something? And there was a bad person I had to kill (because that's the only way to resolve anything in the game lol) but in the dialogue leading up to her death she started accusing me of acting on someone else's behalf and then *MY* dialogue started talking about the other person that I hadn't even met yet in the game (broken flags/scripting anyone?).

Besides that I mean they just didn't really do anything with them. They're a huge plot point for two of the factions but the other two factions don't even really seem to give a shit about them at all, so they're like this central plot point that's... kind of disregarded if you don't ally yourself with one of those two factions.

I don't know, that whole game was a terrible trainwreck of aborted fetuses so I can't even really begin to touch on why the plot sucked.
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I remember there was this brief period in Fallout 4 when you get to lead the Institute and you can do absolutely nothing with it outside of progressing the Institute quests. No creative double crosses or manipulation. Nothing. Just progress one of the three plotlines until one of them locks out the others. So damn shitty for an RPG.
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Dash_Harber posted...

I'd say controlling a major hub is pretty advantageous.

But why?

That's the problem I'm talking about, nothing indicates the Institute needs anything from the surface. Hell it's funny you mention the mayor because nothing he does seems to be any actual benefit to the institute and only makes the citizens distrust them even more.

Irregardless posted...

Dash_Harber posted...

I'd say controlling a major hub is pretty advantageous.

But why?

That's the problem I'm talking about, nothing indicates the Institute needs anything from the surface. Hell it's funny you mention the mayor because nothing he does seems to be any actual benefit to the institute and only makes the citizens distrust them even more.

Why is controlling a major hub advantageous? Diamond City is not only a main center of population, but also a major trading hub with plenty of businesses, traders, and a healthy stock of supplies. If you are running a secret society that sometimes requires supplies or test subjects from the surface, don't you want someone in the local government to pull a few strings for you?

Not only that, but they view the outside as hostile and dangerous. It's the whole point of their xenophobia. Going out there themselves would be putting their scientists at risk. Completely shutting themselves off would put them at risk of being blindsided by what is going on or running out of supplies. It's made explicitly clear that they are running operations all over the commonwealth.

So why would they not take advantage of that? I mean, it'd be a bigger plot hole if they had the capability to create human synths, but then just locked their door and starved to death or risked the Brotherhood of Steel kicking down their door because or missed out on all sorts of tech and experiments for literally no reason.

Why did they kidnap a baby and made him their leader again?
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Darmik posted...

Why did they kidnap a baby and made him their leader again?

See, that's a good question.

IIRC, though, they kidnapped him because they needed prewar samples, and he just grew up with them and eventually worked his way up to leader because he was particularly clever and skilled. It's weird for the player because of the conception of time, but you have to remember that literally a lifetime passed between the kidnapping and the realization.

Darmik posted...

Why did they kidnap a baby and made him their leader again?

Something to do with how he had like really pure genetics or something because he was perfectly preserved in the cyrogenic tanks? Is that right?

I love how Bethesda has no sense of pacing at all and they just reveal that to you the very first time you actually make contact with the Institute.

They could have had you do at least *one* (preferably a few) missions for other people first and *then* revealed that your son was the leader.
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Hexenherz posted...

Darmik posted...

Why did they kidnap a baby and made him their leader again?

Something to do with how he had like really pure genetics or something because he was perfectly preserved in the cyrogenic tanks? Is that right?

I love how Bethesda has no sense of pacing at all and they just reveal that to you the very first time you actually make contact with the Institute.

They could have had you do at least *one* (preferably a few) missions for other people first and *then* revealed that your son was the leader.

Well it makes sense, your first run ins with the institute are all pretty bad. So when you get into the main building its understandable he doesnt want you going on a rampage.
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I4NRulez posted...

Hexenherz posted...

Darmik posted...

Why did they kidnap a baby and made him their leader again?

Something to do with how he had like really pure genetics or something because he was perfectly preserved in the cyrogenic tanks? Is that right?

I love how Bethesda has no sense of pacing at all and they just reveal that to you the very first time you actually make contact with the Institute.

They could have had you do at least *one* (preferably a few) missions for other people first and *then* revealed that your son was the leader.

Well it makes sense, your first run ins with the institute are all pretty bad. So when you get into the main building its understandable he doesnt want you going on a rampage.

Yeah, to be fair, the first time you get in there, it's basically a scorched earth mission, so it makes sense they'd be like, "hold up, listen to this exposition first!".

That's also pretty terrible writing though. I don't think you have negative interactions with the other three factions up to that point.
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