Anyone else think this whole 'Synth' thing has gone too far?

What is stupid is that the Institute seems to have absolutely no plan or goal for the Commonwealth, yet they keep saying they are the best hope for it, they release countless super mutants for no reason, apparently also destroy settlements with Synths for no reason and prevented the commonwealth from forming an unified government but they are the best hope.... somehow... They also replace a bunch of random people with Synths but nothing ever comes from it. You give a speech (that sounds really shitty on the radio when it plays back because it has long pauses on it) when you beat the game with them that just says "We will just hole up inside here" and they proceed to do fuck all.
 
Yep, also a reason I think that was brought up before; what is the exact goal of the Institute?
Nothing wrong with science for science/knowledge sake, but when there are practical problems to solve, shouldn't most effort go to that?
Also, scientists don't automatically make the best leaders, so even the Institute ruling the Commonwealth does not mean it all becomes a Utopia.

I would think the Institute would benefit the most if the settlements in the Commonwealth would become cooperative or even unified under leaderships that seek to rebuild the region.
It is much easier to work together with people who want progress and rebuilding because of its benefits. These people would be much more interested in doing business with the Institute or working for the Institute in return for knowledge and technology that can improve their lives and the world in general, and in return provide the Institute with resources such as raw material and services (perhaps operating manufacturing plants for the Institute).

Someone else suggested here: what if the player discovered that the entire Institute population was replaced by Synthetics?
I might actually have gone with that idea. I know it is a trope but it is not one we have not seen before.

Hypothetical scenario:

Decades before Fallout 4 Institute scientists and technicians start to develop androids and syntethics as a side project next to their research on how to rebuild the surface world for humanity.
After some successes in development the Institute starts to manufacture Synthetics to oversee their robot work force, assist the Institute with their work, and just as general companions.
At some point these Synthetics somehow get it in their 'mind' that they are actually humanity 2.0 (perhaps because of bad programming). They are the better humanity, stronger, smarter, more willing to work with another, and less inclined to kill each other.
They decide that it is time that the old humanity should be 'retired' in order to make room for the new humanity.

The 'revolution' is rather fast in the Institute's shelter, non of the scientists or other personnel manages to escape to the surface to warn the rest of humanity that their creations have gone out of control and have become genocidal. (perhaps only a few surviving holo tapes)

I might go as far as that even the Synthetics end up divided.
One group, the most compassionate side is horrified with what their brethren have done. They want to co exist with regular humanity, perhaps even merge with them one day to form a new species.

One group wants to continue as humanity 2.0. Created in the image of the creator in order to replace him but no serious changes to their design that they no longer resemble the baseline design.

One group wants to go even further. Why should they continue to resemble the clumsy human form when there are much better shapes and forms. Perhaps they even want to go as far as altering their own program to think less like a human and more like an advanced machine intelligence.


Some of these suggestions are basically copied from my own ideas for a Fallout game.
I had one faction led by a machine intelligence that were practicing transhumanism and cyborg modification with the intention of one day transcending humanity into a race of self optimizing machine lifeforms.
I also had this city inhabited by machine intelligences that are the descendants from human created artificial intelligences that were divided on the issue of how to react to the recovering human species.
Approach them and try to work out some form of co existence? Try to maintain isolation from humanity? Or exterminate humanity before it becomes a threat to the machine intelligences?
 
Dr Fallout said:
The fact that the Institute was able to create the BIGGEST breakthrough in artificial intelligence housed in smaller robotic bodies during a post apocalypse while centuries of technologically advanced scientists who were desperately searching for better tech failed.
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This shit aside, how about the fact that they can prolong human life for who knows how long and instead would rather build gen 3 fuckbots and never even bother discussing it again, or the supermutant cure for that matter.
 
Ragemage said:
Father explicitly states they haven't been above ground in a long time due to radiation, but fine, I'll take your 3 examples as proof the Institute sometimes ventures above ground. Doesn't prove they have contact with the above world though given how 2 out of those 3 interactions are only with your character.





Alright, I missed that one. Still a really stupid reason to shut down an amazing program with the only excuse being "Father wills it" but whatever. I'm still calling it a complete cop-out just so they could have the excuse of giving Shaun cancer so you could take over the Institute and/or have an "emotional" moment with your son.




Oh yes, because 10 years of research with only ONE positive result means the whole thing was a success yeah? No, not at all. And second of all, Virgil doesn't count. He turned himself into a mutant along with making some bullshit miracle cure for himself. He made the FEV he injected himself with special, in other words, without jurisdiction or authority from other Institute scientists. What he used on himself was something completely different than what was used on the other mutants. He even says himself that the cure he made can only be used on himself because he injected himself with a unique strain of FEV that would let him retain his intelligence. For that matter, if you wait too long to bring him the cure, he eventually goes hostile, indicating the fact that he goes feral like the other Super Mutants if you take too long to cure him.



It does have to do with tracking, go back and play through the H2-22 quest line. Here, I'll even pull up the mission names for you: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Boston_After_Dark http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Memory_Interrupted Both Doctor Amari and Old Man Stockton talk about it. The memory wipe is something completely different than changing their appearance. Those 2 don't mutually go together. Not all synths have their memories wiped, as proven by Glory in the Railroad HQ.

For that matter, where is it mentioned that synths can magically disable the chip that would be used to track them? I certainly don't recall that being mentioned anywhere at all. Considering it's lodged in their head, it's almost impossible that they would be able to do it on their own without some sort of outside help.

Finally, yes the Courser chip allows the Courser to teleport around, but the Institute still has full control over it. For example, if you start to piss the Institute off after working with them, Father himself will teleport you into this little prison-like area and berate you. He teleports you using the same signal that you use to get in the Institute, meaning that yes, the Institute has complete control over their teleportation technology.
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They send up Synths to get stuff, And it's quite obvious they have been above ground. Zimmer for example somehow treks all the way to Rivet City.
 
Walpknut said:
What is stupid is that the Institute seems to have absolutely no plan or goal for the Commonwealth, yet they keep saying they are the best hope for it, they release countless super mutants for no reason, apparently also destroy settlements with Synths for no reason and prevented the commonwealth from forming an unified government but they are the best hope.... somehow... They also replace a bunch of random people with Synths but nothing ever comes from it. You give a speech (that sounds really shitty on the radio when it plays back because it has long pauses on it) when you beat the game with them that just says "We will just hole up inside here" and they proceed to do fuck all.
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I have to make a correction, The Institute didn't prevented that unification, they even wanted to help but one of the scientist used a gen-3, when they're still considered as prototype, to prevent the unified government from failing but this over-eagerness lead to The Broken Mask incident.

Also why institute has to have a plan for the Commonwealth? They simply don't want to rule or help. Just like Robert House didn't care to save the world since he(like the Institute) considered it a lost cause.

Spacemunkey said:
This shit aside, how about the fact that they can prolong human life for who knows how long and instead would rather build gen 3 fuckbots and never even bother discussing it again, or the supermutant cure for that matter.
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They don't go through that road because they consider it a dead. It's apparent that they want to replace Synths with traditional humans (ones produced with sex) however, since having Minuteman as a faction wasn't enough, to have even more patriotic story, The Institute acts like slave masters. Maybe they plan to transfer their consciousness to synth bodies and that's why they don't consider artificial personalities of synths as human(?). Though there are some vague hints it's not openly admitted or written anywhere so i can't provide any solid proof.
 
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House actually plans on rebuilding the Mojave, he has only limited himself to the Strip because he lacked resources but still managed to "rehabilitate" some tribals into his doing. Talking to him reveals that has plans for the mojave that stretches through decades, with him even saying that he can get them to have a space program within a lifetime.
House also doesn't release mindless orcs into the wasteland.

If the Institute has no goal, then why are they even a main faction at all? Their route is the most anticlimatic and dumb of them all. It just kind of ends and they are focused on Synth production yet they don't seem to be interested in any transhumanist development, with Father even dying of cancer instead of upload his mind to a Synth clone like all the others. Hell they are even completely dismissive of the concept of the Synths being sentient and self aware, they literary spent two centuries on AI development just to create floor sweepers....
 
Izak said:
The fact that the Institute focused on developing AI rather than on scientific pursuits that would actually help people is insulting, scientists don't just develop shit because they feel like it, they do it to expedite common procedures to save people time and, to save lives; they don't lock themselves in underground bunkers, develop superiority complexes and, forget everybody else.
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That's an awfully broad statement to make. Scientists aren't some sort of super-men above ego and personal interest. After all, plenty of scientists study fields that are utterly useless too mankind.
 
Walpknut said:
What is stupid is that the Institute seems to have absolutely no plan or goal for the Commonwealth, yet they keep saying they are the best hope for it, they release countless super mutants for no reason, apparently also destroy settlements with Synths for no reason and prevented the commonwealth from forming an unified government but they are the best hope.... somehow... They also replace a bunch of random people with Synths but nothing ever comes from it. You give a speech (that sounds really shitty on the radio when it plays back because it has long pauses on it) when you beat the game with them that just says "We will just hole up inside here" and they proceed to do fuck all.
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But walpknut, that would've required Bethesda to write something. Gotta keep your expectations realistic.
 
Walpknut said:
House actually plans on rebuilding the Mojave, he has only limited himself to the Strip because he lacked resources but still managed to "rehabilitate" some tribals into his doing. Talking to him reveals that has plans for the mojave that stretches through decades, with him even saying that he can get them to have a space program within a lifetime.
House also doesn't release mindless orcs into the wasteland.

If the Institute has no goal, then why are they even a main faction at all? Their route is the most anticlimatic and dumb of them all. It just kind of ends and they are focused on Synth production yet they don't seem to be interested in any transhumanist development, with Father even dying of cancer instead of upload his mind to a Synth clone like all the others. Hell they are even completely dismissive of the concept of the Synths being sentient and self aware, they literary spent two centuries on AI development just to create floor sweepers....
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In that post i mostly mentioned his attitude toward pre-war world. Still his approach wasn't much different toward the post-war world anyway. He rehabilitated those tribes because his robot army wasn't big enough to force NCR negotiate. His vision for humanity is purely about making technological leaps and he makes no attempt to better human life, he only stabilize Vegas so NCR citizens and NCR money keeps coming.

How the institute treats GEN-3 synths is silly and i believe only reason for that to give a "slavery" vibe, because otherwise it would be too hard of dilemma for players who choose Railroad(they're "the good" faction and if you ask me freedom is always worth price /s preston garvey). So i utterly agree that the institute's end goal not explained clearly and that's 4 time in row for Bethesda not explaining the purpose of the villain (5 if you'd count Dagoth Ur too).
 
Greentoast11 said:
They send up Synths to get stuff, And it's quite obvious they have been above ground. Zimmer for example somehow treks all the way to Rivet City.
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Zimmer is a very special case due to the fact that it was his job to track down Harkness, and it was also before they had Synth Coursers. The scientists VERY rarely go above ground. Even Inner Fish could only list 3 times the scientists go above ground, and two of them are just to greet you before the final mission so I'd hardly count those. Also if you read the rest of the posts you'd know that was referring to scientists before they had synths, thus why no mention of synths. Read everything before butting into a nearly 30 paragraph argument spanning at least 2 pages.
 
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I'm inert to the concept of Gen III synths. I think Gen I and II seem to make less sense given how convincing they are but seemingly based on less abuse of innervated, nociceptive, and cognition-capable animal tissues and how they seem to operate complex human mechanical structure seemingly needlessly. Likewise, I could never really get Mr. Handy's not being based on similar barbaric research and abuse. Part of the whole premise of the Fallout world seemed to be based on the aftermath of a further extreme of halcyon "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" global capitalist consumerist mentality channeling rose-tinted post-war 50s culture and kitsch, where amazing things and corporate irresponsibility were unrestricted and no one cared where anything came from.

This led to use of the immensely powerful technology, like "cheap" energy from nuclear power making smaller more efficient technologies less a focus of anything, let alone a capitalist society seeing no demand for efficiency unless it were needed to not limit profit--so CRTs and vacuum tubes unreplaced and still everywhere. (I've always thought a similar retconn'y explanation in the continuation of the Alien universe in Alien: Isolation of the retrofuturism may have worked.) While computer science could have gone somewhere amazing in the pre-war Fallout world, these computers you would expect would be the size of skyscrapers, not the size of a Mr. Handy. If Mr. Handy's and other robots with personality and are conscious from a preference utilitarian ethical standpoint, they should all have elements like Robobrains. This would make sense as obviously the world that created Fallout was an extreme of our own, some obvious political commentary on how far we go with zero concern for ethics, who is harmed, to what degree, now or down the road--to capitalism and state-capitalism those are mere externalities not calculated.

The Institute makes less sense than Synths, unless it is under or came under the control of something bigger or less natural at some point. It is near omnipotent, but at the face of it--or of what you get to see--it's not a large group of people. Maybe technological singularity fappery could explain how their technological progresssion was accelerated so dramatically, but I don't sense that, at least not as a whole explanation, and I hope that rationale isn't attempted even though it technically could explain why ethics became further and further removed from their [decision-making,] being guided by technology which would have no such insight.

Honestly, the notion they are destroyed at the end given their power seems so implausible. OTOH, if they were or unknowingly attracted the influence of a hidden Master-like entity (like the Reapers to Cerberus of Mass Effect) it would both explain how advanced and extreme they were, better explain why they retreated into an isolated easily controlled cell towards specific still IMPOSSIBLY AMBITIOUS aims rather than in defeat and dismay, repeating abominable experiments of the past while claiming they were retreating to not "repeat the errors of the past", that whole baffling hypocrisy verging on delusion[;] including a more plausible explanation for what I feel Mr. Handy's etc, are: proto-synths, sentient robot life, somewhere terrible from the past we have (proposedly again, by my own theorising) already been.

The Railroad has no African-American history that I could find and I don't know how this terrible appropriation got through, or how it wasn't publicly roasted like the neo-Apartheid concept in the new Deus Ex which actually had a person of African background who coined it. That cringe is pretty insufferable, but I could have only seen Gen III and like synths being made from far more abominable torturous experimentation, research, and manufacturing processes upon aware animal and human animal flesh than portrayed. I could totally see conscious ethical beings of any sort fleeing it and averse to involuntary service or permanent custody under it due to the nature of what they do even if they don't have such subjective memory of such torture in their memory but are aware of what they do and feel fully justified doing. The Railroad could have made a lot of sense, the Institute's sense of ownership of people for whatever they intend is terrifying. But the Railroad's mere name with no African American progenitor as canon in the story currently, no African American writer afaik, it is both disgusting and makes no sense in terms of having a character who would be so inspired and need their mission to be named the Railroad. A wearier Preston Garvey coming to constantly with quests would have made more sense than a white-seeming Desdemona.
 
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olestra said:
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I agree with most of what you wrote, save for the whole "having a black founder" thing. That part seems unnecessary. It doesn't really matter who founded it so long as it's based on the original Railroad's ideals. White people helped on the Railroad too you know, abolitionism was spearheaded by both whites and blacks.

Thing is, in Fallout 3 the only representative of the Railroad we see is a black woman, and by the way she talks it does seem like the Railroad is at least partially based on the first Underground Railroad. There's no mention of it in FO4 but hey, at least it's in FO3 I guess.

I feel like the Railroad would be a much better faction if, like you seemed to hint at above, if instead of being made up of random people who don't really seem to have any tie-ins to the other factions, the Railroad was made up of ex-Institute members. The Institute are really the only ones who know fully about Synths, and the Gen 3 Synth project is extremely unethical, morally and scientifically. Thus if a lot of scientists did revolt to the idea of the project, manage to escape the Institute, and form the Railroad, well that would patch up a lot of holes right there. As it stands in the game currently, the Railroad doesn't really have motivation to help synths outside of "they look and act like us" which is fairly weak. I'd like it a lot more if the Railroad was made up of rescued synths and ex-Institute scientists who think the Institute has become corrupted.
 
Ragemage said:
the Railroad doesn't really have motivation to help synths outside of "they look and act like us" which is fairly weak. I'd like it a lot more if the Railroad was made up of rescued synths and ex-Institute scientists who think the Institute has become corrupted.
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I do think humans could have very intense and individualised responses to coming across something like synths and as hinted at in the game could send humans flying off on their own to all sorts of extremes, I just don't think current Fallout (or past, tho I don't mean to be divisive here, FO1 was made with far smaller a pool of resources, from scratch, over less time) storywriting could cover it convincingly. Deacon is interesting, having lost a life partner and processes no part of the world without being driven by the effects of losing/failing someone he thought he would have forever. I found it very interesting how he changed his *own* identity; he was very pathetically in love, his entire concept of himself being completed by someone now gone--so now he too in effect, apart from his convictions, is gone as his own person. His lie that he actually ran the Railroad wasn't implausible. Had there []been better writing, people's emotional [tie-ups] with whole people deemed fake both by society who wants them cleansed, and creators who see them as property in furthering terrifying ends--I could totally see those tie-ups being part of extreme human reactions to the idea of synths. It could be argued that people who became emotionally involved with synths in spite of all the immense violent opposition would be alienated and beaten back into forming their own culture with those they cared about.
 
olestra said:
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Fair enough, but I think the main problem with the Railroad is that they expect you to buy into the fact that Synths are humans. Sure they act like humans, function like humans, but if you cut them open you aren't going to see organs, you're going to see machinery mixed with organs. Synths have literal recall codes as shown by Deacon, they can have their entire brains remapped and removed in order to give them new memories. They can also be given a new face easier than normal people given how Doctor Amari gives them face surgery but she won't give us face surgery. We even see that synths can fall into logical fallacies just like computers as shown through Covenant's entry test.

I mean the literal very first question Desmonda asks you is "Would you die for a synth?" If you had gone in there for the first time with no knowledge of what a synth is, this would sound insane. They really needed to focus more on what makes a synth human instead of just saying "Oh, Synths are people because they look like them".

I honestly find it way more insulting that they're comparing synths to African slavery here in America. Synths look like people and can form emotions and whatnot like people but at the end of the day they're still machines, made in a literal factory, with recall codes and hardware. African Americans meanwhile are truly human, with a soul, and the real life Underground Railroad deserves a lot more respect than this. There needed to be a lot more explanation in-game about why we should care about Synths. It seemed like they tried to do that with H2-22 in that one Railroad quest but it wasn't enough.
 
The Railroad does more harm than good, they release deadly machines into the world, erase their memory so they don't even know who they really are and don't even bother following up on them, machines that have recall codes and superhuman abilities. There are even Synth Raiders because the Rail Road are a bunch of imbeciles.
THey also kill a bunch of children and declare war on the BOS without even stopping to try and negotiate anything with them even tho their goal is destroying the Institute too....
 
Walpknut said:
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None of the factions do any good whatsoever. The BOS kidnaps NONferal ghouls for experimentation and tries to exterminate them alongside Super Mutants without really any explanation, the Railroad releases Synths into the wild like Pokemon being released from their balls with no way to track them or without sending anyone to keep an eye on them, and the Institute.. Well we already have 2 pages on this thread dedicated to why the Institute is a terrible, awful, plothole of a faction.

The only faction that really does any good is the Minutemen, and that's only because you ARE the Minutemen. Literally no one else in the Minutemen does anything but you, so essentially you are that faction, thus why it's the only one capable of doing anything right.
 
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