I just finished Fallout 4 and I have questions about the Institute

maximaz

maximaz

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Finally finished the game. Been playing it with massive breaks so I don't remember many details. What did the Institute actually want?

The whole thing was about achieving a perfect synthetic human being.

Why?

Are they trying to replace all humans with synths? How is that the future of humanity?

Will they continue to use them as their labor force and security? Then why make them more human?

It's so frustrating playing as a retard with INT of 10, who can't ask basic questions.
 
What did the institute want?

"Yes", [Sarcasm] "Synth's are people too", "Yes", "Well duh, how do you think babby is formed"

</snark at INT 10 conversation in a game with only 4 static responses which commonly are all exactly the same outcome or utterly redundant comedic responses>

Real response:

As far as I could tell, lore-wise; the 'evolution' and improvement of synth's simply ties to the fact that the institute had decided their best course of action required 'deep-cover' operatives such that they could covertly monitor and manipulate the outside world, having a T-800 pretending to be a bartender might just give the game away... It also stems from the fact that as intellectuals they would as a group naturally tend toward the improvement of their own capabilities.

To me, it seems to be an incredibly forced plot-point to have such incredibly high production rate of a very technical and resource demanding thing in a world which is starved both of resource and realistic infrastructure. In my mind's eye, when synths were introduced I had imagined them to be a part of a post-nuke world which was very different from the previous examples, and yet the world of Fart-about 4 is much of the same.

Listening to the dialogues of Fallout 3, I imagined a world on the brink of almost complete recovery in which the tech of synths was a commonplace and accepted nuance of their everyday lives, and along with synths, the commonwealth would be in a renaissance of sorts... But what we got given was more of the same (or worse) droll, raider infested, skeleton-adorned "wasteland" which shows pretty much zero sign of any real post-war recovery, let alone a burgeoning technological resurgence into a 'new paradigm' of post-war life.

Bad writing, poor imagination and Cashcow 4 is the result.
 
cratchety ol joe said:
What did the institute want?

"Yes", [Sarcasm] "Synth's are people too", "Yes", "Well duh, how do you think babby is formed"

</snark at INT 10 conversation in a game with only 4 static responses which commonly are all exactly the same outcome or utterly redundant comedic responses>

Real response:

As far as I could tell, lore-wise; the 'evolution' and improvement of synth's simply ties to the fact that the institute had decided their best course of action required 'deep-cover' operatives such that they could covertly monitor and manipulate the outside world, having a T-800 pretending to be a bartender might just give the game away... It also stems from the fact that as intellectuals they would as a group naturally tend toward the improvement of their own capabilities.

To me, it seems to be an incredibly forced plot-point to have such incredibly high production rate of a very technical and resource demanding thing in a world which is starved both of resource and realistic infrastructure. In my mind's eye, when synths were introduced I had imagined them to be a part of a post-nuke world which was very different from the previous examples, and yet the world of Fart-about 4 is much of the same.

Listening to the dialogues of Fallout 3, I imagined a world on the brink of almost complete recovery in which the tech of synths was a commonplace and accepted nuance of their everyday lives, and along with synths, the commonwealth would be in a renaissance of sorts... But what we got given was more of the same (or worse) droll, raider infested, skeleton-adorned "wasteland" which shows pretty much zero sign of any real post-war recovery, let alone a burgeoning technological resurgence into a 'new paradigm' of post-war life.

Bad writing, poor imagination and Cashcow 4 is the result.
Click to expand...

Nah, Zimmer from the Institute does state that their wasteland is also a hellhole. That part they laid down already.

"The Commonwealth itself is nothing but a war-ravaged quagmire of violence and despair. Inside the sealed environment of the Institute, however...."

That's basically what we got. It's the execution that sort of mucked it up.
 
I can't remember if there was a thread about this, or if we just kept getting derailed onto it, but either way there are threads discussing this baffling absence of explanation.
 
Pure supposition, but I think there could be two questions; (1) what did the Institute want, and (2) what did Father want? Not sure the aims were the same.

I believe the scientific community of the Institute were developing Synths as a work / security force so that they could continue to live in their Utopian underworld free from dealing with what awaits them above or getting their hands dirty with menial labor below. As for Father and a few of his inner-circle, that plan may have been somewhat different, as they knew it was only a matter of time the wolves would be knocking at their door.

So, if your ready to entertain some imagination, what if the lone wanderer (you) are a Synth? Your not a 200+ year old lone vault survivor, as both parents were killed with the remainder of the vault at the time the baby was extracted from suspension. When the team left the vault with the baby, they simply flipped the cryo switch to off!

What if you, as the PLAYER, are a Synth implant programmed to believe you are truly a 200+ year old survivor with the mission of infiltrating the highest ranks of an enemy faction so that you would be in the best position to protect the true future of the Institute in the form of the young Synth child that father has placed in your care! O.o

You replicate Synth Gen 4 body was placed in the Vault tube, programmed to believe this entire story and driven to find your stolen son. Who knows if there really was a baby in that tube in the first place, or is this just a planted deed in your programmed brain.

Why you may ask ... a secret test of an unauthorized Synth model by the inner circle (Mod 4) that can actually replace a human being (as the 3's have glitches and their are concerns among the other scientists in replicants), in being the perfect soldier and infiltrator in the cruel world above. In addition, prove testing the perfect protector for the real prodigy, the Mod 5. The child with Fathers transferred consciousness, to rule the world and be immortal ... :drummer:
 
My guess is they just used Bladerunner as a reference and didn't really explore why. In Bladerunner the explanation was that they served as an intelligent work-force for colonizing new worlds, fighting wars, serving as pleasure models, etc. In Bladerunner 2049 the explanation was that Wallace had a massive god-complex, so much so that he wanted to mimic the same achievement God had with humans (and was also massively jealous that Tyrell had achieved something he hadn't). Hell, West World rationalizes it as trying to replicate a living, breathing theme park where visitors will actually feel like they're in the Wild West (and the androids make it that much more authentic and believable).

In Fallout 4 there are some possibilites:
  • Intelligent workforce that could handle intricate jobs better (remember the gen-2 synth that's getting scolded because it fucked up a basic task)
  • Infiltration units that can control the world above.
  • Everyone was focused on how that not one scientist stopped to ask whether they should
The synths in 4 are more of a science for the sake of science plothole. There's no logic to it, and any task (beyond infiltration) is already doable for Gen-2s (they could have just kept making the Gen-2's better). The leap in technology between the Gen-2's and the Gen-3's is so staggering that it's unexplained as to how they could go from synths that messed up constantly to human replicas that actually feel and think for themselves.

I want to believe that Bladerunner 2049 is what they wanted to achieve but just lacked the writing staff to 'realize' that kind of story. Imagine Father, with his God complex, wanting to swarm the Commonwealth with his children and conquer everything before him.
 
Nobody knows. Don't waste your time searching for terminals or npcs ingame to get your anwser. Is not there.
 
The one thing I can applaud Fallout 4 for that Fallout 3 didn't do was coming up with original factions. Granted, one of the three factions new to F4 was nothing more than a reason for you to use the new settlement building mechanics, but the point still stands.

The thing is, all of the new factions aren't written very well. You've got the Minutemen who just want to protect themselves (actually, they're only really there to get you to use the settlements, but nevermind that). The Railroad is essentially nothing more than a foil to the Institute; instead of wanting to control synths, they want to free them. Railroad good, Institute bad. What an amazingly nuanced ideology, am I right? These two factions at least have actual goals and beliefs, however simplified they may be.

Finally, you've got the Institute. At first there's a bit of intrigue around them. They kidnapped the main character's son, they continue to kidnap and replace people with synths, etc. But why ? The highest point of the Institute is before you even know their true identity. It's ironic that the Institute only falls apart when you actually meet them. It's at that point when you learn that the Institute doesn't have any concrete goals. It's at that point that you learn that Bethesda didn't get to writing the actual reasons for the Institute's existence. But thank god they have android gorillas.

The answer's simple: "We thought it would be cool to introduce androids to Fallout. It's just that we didn't take the time to write a proper explanation for their existence. So, uh... they don't really want anything, because we never got that far.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "
 
Stop thinking. Just shoot stuff until you hear that cash register sound that triggers your dopamine response, and makes you feel good about playing a boring game full of bad writing.
 
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