Could Synths have worked in the Fallout setting?

Dr Fallout said:
Synths can work as long as they lack the intelligence of a basic Human.
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But Synth in Wasteland 2 also worked and they are smarter than normal human in some cases,
remember the synth who found a way to cause AG center full of killer planets? and Tinker the synth who cause all dead robots "alive" again, able to do surgery to replace the heart of a girl with artificial heart, and install a chip in the head of Lexcanium cause he can no more speak normally (assuming he can do that before) in Damonta?

Before "It's Wasteland", since Fallout was supposed to be a Wasteland spin off, i think it can be count.
 
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Ragemage said:
Ah Jesus lady the spoiler tag exists for a reason. Some of us haven't finished Wasteland 2, mind slapping a spoiler tag up there? Goodness gracious.
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Ah Jesus @Ragemage you can edit and delete parts of quotes for a reason :lmao: now that a721402 made it in a tag anyone can still read it in your post on the quote :lmao:.

Well I am not really a worry about reading spoilers so this is obviously a kinda joke post :drunk:.

Now to make it serious and relevant to this thread:
I don't think Synths like they are in Fallout 4 would have worked in the Fallout setting because it is too much of what I will call "refined science", I mean in Fallout the technology is clunky and retro futuristic, the most advanced computers fill rooms, robots are totally 50's sci-fi style, etc. Make "synthetic humans" it's just too much for that kind of vibe in my opinion.

Now if we have some totally clunky robots that are humanoid and have "real AI" and emotions/feelings and then bring the old cliché of "We are machines and even if we don't look like it we feel and think and are self aware, what is being human? Can we be considered human?" or whatever the writers wanted to transmit in it, could work, maybe.
 
a721402 said:
But Synth in Wasteland 2 also worked and they are smarter than normal human in some cases,
remember the synth who found a way to cause AG center full of killer planets? and Tinker the synth who cause all dead robots "alive" again, able to do surgery to replace the heart of a girl with artificial heart, and install a chip in the head of Lexcanium cause he can no more speak normally (assuming he can do that before) in Damonta?

Before "It's Wasteland", since Fallout was supposed to be a Wasteland spin off, i think it can be count.
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It's an entirely different world, though, with a different set of physics. The world of Fallout didn't invent transistors and integrated circuits until very shortly before the War, but had access to miniaturized nuclear power and stuff like that instead. Wasteland is closer to our world, with less power available, but common computer technology.
In Fallout AIs are usually big machines, filling an entire room, or based on biological brains. Robots had simulations of personality, but were just highly sophisticated programs, not actually intelligent, because it couldn't be built that small.
Now the Institute developing synths... Dunno, could work. Could also work in the setting of Fallout, why not. The Institute had hundreds of years of time, after all. Too bad they went down the Blade Runner route with not really knowing what synths are. Robots? Clones? Something in between? Very inconsistent, especially with the previous synth generations.
Well, since Bethesda also established full blown pre-War AI androids none of this matters, really.
It just pisses me off that they wasted the opportunities coming from the whole synth-thing.
I mean, this could have been great. What does it mean to be human? How human can a machine be, and where does machine end and human begin? Have the player question him- or herself if he or she is actually human or not, have the game track your behaviour and in the end you meet your own replication (or not?) and it will answer to you how you (the player) would answer. Have the game decide randomly at the start that you're a synth or not (similar to the Blade Runner video game), with the only option to find out for sure being shooting your replicant.
Or finding out that an old ghoul has been pulling strings all that time, only to realise that you're the synthclone of that ghoul. Endless possibilities, with video games providing a novel way to explore action, reaction, and humanity.
And what did we get? Press (X) to SHAAAAAUUUUN.
They didn't even add the fucking .223 pistol because they fucking suck!
 
Hassknecht said:
I mean, this could have been great. What does it mean to be human? How human can a machine be, and where does machine end and human begin? Have the player question him- or herself if he or she is actually human or not, have the game track your behaviour and in the end you meet your own replication (or not?) and it will answer to you how you (the player) would answer. Have the game decide randomly at the start that you're a synth or not (similar to the Blade Runner video game), with the only option to find out for sure being shooting your replicant.
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What can change the nature of a man?

Wait... wrong game, sorry. On that subject, if anyone needs me, I'll be over here playing Planescape :D
 
Radiosity said:
What can change the nature of a man?
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XS5LK.gif
 
Radiosity said:
What can change the nature of a man?

Wait... wrong game, sorry. On that subject, if anyone needs me, I'll be over here playing Planescape :D
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Exactly :D
With proper writing there could be some meta mindfuck like in the original Bioshock. Add in some other aspects of transhumanism (like cyborgs [remember Lou Tenant?], or maybe even some functional psykers) and the whole "rebuilding the world" part of Fallout could take a whole new direction.
Granted, it's a bit too "High Science Fiction" compared to the pulp-approach the original Fallouts had, but hey, if we're doing synth we might as well go all the way.
 
Hey Hassknecht, you have some interesting ideas for the Synths and changes to the storyline.

I myself am still thinking of separating the Synths and the Institute from each other, making the Synths sort of like a threat on par with the Super Mutants and the Enclave.
The Institute, well I am rather sick of them being yet another very advanced group that is planing to take over the world, so I might either have made them morally neutral or perhaps even somewhat positive.
Perhaps the Synths would have been created by a splinter group of the Institute, or the Institute is the splinter group, and they like everyone else in the region suffers from Synth attacks while the more advanced Synths try to infiltrate them and take over.

The whole question of 'what makes us human' could come into play when confronting the leader or creator(s) of the Synths and a possible doubleganger of the player, the Synths believing themselves to be Humanity version 2.0.
 
Another idea is to have the player themselves potentially be the catalyst for Humanity 2.0, by joining forces with the (whoever is doing the synth/cyborg stuff) faction and working with them. All sorts of morally and ethically grey areas could be explored by having the player be complicit in pushing a pro transhumanist agenda.
 
Radiosity said:
Another idea is to have the player themselves potentially be the catalyst for Humanity 2.0, by joining forces with the (whoever is doing the synth/cyborg stuff) faction and working with them. All sorts of morally and ethically grey areas could be explored by having the player be complicit in pushing a pro transhumanist agenda.
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There would be no explicit 'good or evil' scenario, just like in Fallout New Vegas or Deus Ex that there are different possible futures for humanity.
Could humanity rebuild and eventually overcome its own nature without changing itself physically and/or mentally? Or must humanity fundamentally change itself, accept that Synths are the future, our legacy and our successors and that we will continue by transferring our personalities and memories to a Synth body that does not have the same needs and weaknesses as 'old' human bodies has. (no desires of the flesh)
 
There's so much you can do with the transhumanism jazz. What about cybernetic modification (to improve survivability) as an alternative to Synths? Could have heavily modified people clash with the synths only to realise that nobody really knows what it means to be human anymore. Or a Zen-Ghoul-Cult, going with Bethesda's Ghouls-are-basically-immortal-Ghouls, with people willingly turning into ghoul-monks to forever ponder the questions of life?
Or, taking a page from Dune, a collection of Luddites who seek total freedom from the technology that scorched the world by extreme self-improvement (through training and breeding)? Sort of a post-apocalyptic luddite shaolin cult that tries to selectively breed psykers and posthumans into existence to ensure humanity can face the future?
Again, kind of a step away from the rather low-brow pulp approach Fallout usually does, but who says the game can't be a bit more philosophical?

(Actually, I think I'll keep the Zen Ghouls and Luddite Shaolins in mind for the Fallout PnP)
 
Never said it'd be explicit good/evil, you should know my stance on providing options if you've read anything I've written on the subject (my extensive series of posts on my site for example). I just mean you'd have that route available to you if you want to try it.

edit since Hass posted at almost exactly the same time: Pretty much what I'm planning for my own series talking about Fallout 4's missteps, lots of stuff involving augmentation and so on.

Also, interesting you mentioned Dune, I used some of the background to that series of novels for inspiration in a book series I'm writing (or rather, planning) :)
 
Radiosity said:
Never said it'd be explicit good/evil, you should know my stance on providing options if you've read anything I've written on the subject (my extensive series of posts on my site for example). I just mean you'd have that route available to you if you want to try it.

edit since Hass posted at almost exactly the same time: Pretty much what I'm planning for my own series talking about Fallout 4's missteps, lots of stuff involving augmentation and so on.
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Actually I did not meant my post as criticism on your writing, rather I was trying to continue on your train of thinking of what could have been done with a concept like this. On how it could have moved beyond clear good and evil choices Bethesda's writers seemed to have gone for.
It was more intended as musing on my side after reading your response.
 
Radiosity said:
Also, interesting you mentioned Dune, I used some of the background to that series of novels for inspiration in a book series I'm writing (or rather, planning) :)
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Don't we all?
Seriously though, I love Dune (who would have guessed?). Just waiting for Folio Society to make a full box set of all seven books in the style of their 50th Anniversary Edition.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Actually I did not meant my post as criticism on your writing, rather I was trying to continue on your train of thinking of what could have been done with a concept like this. On how it could have moved beyond clear good and evil choices Bethesda's writers seemed to have gone for.
It was more intended as musing on my side after reading your response.
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No worries, didn't mean it like that either lol It just seemed like you took my post to mean the story would have a specific karmic tint to it when really I meant it'd be one of many possible options depending on how the player decided to do things.

On Dune: I need to grab the rest of the books and read them. I read the original and I think one other many years ago (like when I was a teen, so uh... yeah, 20+ years haha) but I never did get round to the rest. Need to rectify that.
 
Okay, glad that is cleared up.

I just had this thought why a schism between Institute scientists could make a good background story.
At one side you have a group that believes that they can help humanity by trying to assist in rebuilding civilization and create a new world of plenty so that no one has reason to wage conflict with each other in general.
On the other side you have a group that believes that the best way to help humanity is by changing it fundamentally, if necessary replacing it with a better version of humanity (the Synths).

Typically that fans put more effort in trying to explain an idea in a better and more fitting way and building a more interesting world than Bethesda's writers do.
 
a721402 said:
But Synth in Wasteland 2 also worked and they are smarter than normal human in some cases,
remember the synth who found a way to cause AG center full of killer planets? and Tinker the synth who cause all dead robots "alive" again, able to do surgery to replace the heart of a girl with artificial heart, and install a chip in the head of Lexcanium cause he can no more speak normally (assuming he can do that before) in Damonta?

Before "It's Wasteland", since Fallout was supposed to be a Wasteland spin off, i think it can be count.
Click to expand...
Last time I checked Wasteland was vastly different to Fallout, with a higher technological standard.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
Sadly I don't have a complex elaborate plot yet in my mind to explain it all (those who know me here know that I love coming up with complex plots).

I probably still would have wanted to do something with the Institute and a 'City of Tomorrow'/new hope for humanity, and suddenly Synths start to appear in the wasteland.
First the mechanical ones that attack settlements and caravans, and later on the more organic ones (I rather prefer the idea that their organic side is the result of cloning and grafting living tissue onto non mechanical parts) that start infiltrating settlements, all for some unclear goal.

I would like to keep the origin and background of the Synths more of a mystery similar to the Master and Unity in Fallout 1, and the Enclave in Fallout 2, and there being all kinds of bits of background information spread across the Commonwealth, and when the player starts putting these pieces together there is this 'a ha moment' when you see the complete picture.

Even in Fallout 3 I wanted that the Super Mutants did not appear as they are not suppose to be on the East Coast and in my take on Fallout 4 the Synths would completely replace them as higher tier enemies, those Tracers being the worst type of enemy you could run into. (think those fully augmented agents from Syndicate)

There would of course be some plot twist in which you can spare some of the Synths (not all are evil/want to exterminate humanity, something like that), explaining why there would still be some Synths roaming around in any follow up game on the East Coast, they like the remnants of the Master's Army and the remnants of the Enclave being just another group of survivors trying to find a place in this new world.
But unlike the first two the mechanical Synths can still increase their numbers to a small degree.

But it would be to obvious that even if tried to separate the Institute from the Synths that there would be some kind of connection any way as they are the most advanced society on the East Coast with the technology to build them. (I would like to have made it that the Institute is instead a group descended from Pre War scientists, scholars, technicians and so on who returned to the surface to rebuild civilization and giving humanity a new future, explaining that City of Tomorrow they are building on the ruins of Boston)
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I am with you when it comes to the human synths being clones or some such thing. My idea was they found a way to create synthetic DNA and grew armies of people in tubes. The tubes being hooked to VR and the people being indoctrinated into the ways of the Institute.

Or they use Vault 75 as a source of DNA. They give DNA and the Institute upgrades the Vault and the Institute builds its advanced city. The BoS shows up and thinks it the result of FEV or some such nonsense and go to war with them. That is more believable than the Institute has computer tech beyond us when their world barely managed to have transistors.

On a side note, I never really got the point of the human synths. If they're basically janitors, the first generation ones would have been good enough. At least indoctrinated people grown in incubators is closer to being done rather than making semi organic robots that are dubiously self aware.
 
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