Are YOU a robot? The SECRET Fallout 4 plot EXPOSED - Rethinking Fallout

This almost explains the lack of traits, like ‘Small Frame’ giving weaker limbs for agility; we don’t get to decide if SS has weaker limbs or other debuffs not related to surviving or damage. Our flesh can technically be exceptional if you want to consider the ghoulish perk, and even these features can be explained by being part synth since we were supposed to be being sought by the institute for having clean, pre-war DNA.

People keep mentioning other synths saying we’re human, but how could they recognize a new-gen synth that was made to be more human-like?

Why then, does every synth in Fort Hagan say DIE HUMAN when they see you? I went in with Nick Valentine. If the sole survivor is a synth, they wouldn't call you a human. Evidence is in the quest at Arc Jet with Danse. The synths acknowledged he was a synth.

It makes sense of why your SPECIAL is different than any of the other games too-

i keep hearing "simp"

remember the vault tec rep? yeah, i highly doubt the synth theory

This one is pretty good

U just blew my fucking mind dude HOLY CRAP MY CHARACTER IS A SYNTH that is so COOOOOOOOL

I totally agree with u

So I didn’t need to kill that family for immortality?

Well, if you can use VATS without a pipboy, you are a synth

I mean, with gameplay mechanics outside of survivor mode, the player is more like a synth. I believe they are human. But it doesn’t truly matter. If you’re a synth or a human, you are someone. Maybe you look like someone else, but twins do exist, so it shouldn’t be something so insane. It’s the attitude regarding synths that causes problems. How the institute thinks that they haven’t created something sentient, you can control humans too, psychology and soon, biology once we can map and understand the brain

holy shit I think you are right, after all the background visuals of various internal cells are different from that flash of the first unfreezing, making it a clear conscious design choice to have the neuronal background visuals
this leads to at bare minimum a scrapped plan to reveal your "gen 4" synthness or even that players suspect the very thing you concluded
either way as game protagonists always tend to be OP vs other enemies and "tech trees" being a terrible way for humans(in skyrim it is skill trees not tech trees) and how your interaction with your "inventory" is via a digital computer and not like, checking your pockets or a magical menu with no explanation
this all leads to, at the very least, a possible "sole survivor is a synth" semi-alt-start
think about your limb damage, your regen everything if you sleep barely an hour or fast travel(including rad loss) all of those seem like a retuned biology, plus lots of the adult mods treat gen 3 synths as "reproduction capable" and given they are just 3d printed humans with some neural code I suspect that if bethesda had made official x-rated dlc you would be handled like synths in code, 0% risk of death from failed pregnancy and a much higher success chance and much lower fertility as humans are too fertile and too bad at surviving hence why overpopulation was so easy to fall into
in fact if the creators of FPE and WDF ever see this video(I suspect they might) I respectfully request that this idea be implemented, synths of gen3+ having the ability to produce synth babies at a reduced fertility but a nearly 0% miscarriage rate vs other humans and a toggle to choose if the SS is synth gen 3+ or human resulting in more failed pregnancy(an annoying aspect of that mod) but more chances or more attempts before starting and less failures
either way the SS might actually really be a synth designed to hopefully stabilize the institute and sadly the events are tuned and your thoughts limited to choose to either 100% support or 100% oppose certain factions rather than an interesting mod I have seen where you can manipulate all three major competing factions(BOS, Institute, Railroad) into finding a valuable balance in the commonwealth as we can see as players that all three have value in a post-government world

1: the BOS have gone too far with controlling tech and there stance on synths, they are sentient now by accident yet they see them as evil rather than what they can become, a force of workers with no limits on radiation damage or strength, and the ability to be resurrected upon dangerous tasks destroying them if a backup is taken at a decent speed
2: the railroad has failed to realize that synths are actually not unlike humans in more ways than they accept and may actually be an opportunity to rebalance some of the flaws in human biology to ensure a paradise world in the far future
3: the institute refuses to accept that their methods are at best, the lesser of many terrible choices, and that they have no moral high ground to judge others up to the complete destruction of the railroad and the permanent hatred of the BOS

I think the manipulation mod actually makes a far more realistic outcome for the commonwealth, it lets the sole survivor find a valid way to correct the flaws in all 4 factions in the game, just like the rebuilding of the minutemen
I hope FO5 actually takes these ideas and builds further on the idea of the SS/LW/waterboy/ect being a synth plant(possibly with a unique set of pros/cons to "awakening") and allowing for their awakening to lead the main story to a wholly alternate ending that was only possible because they "awakened"
such a bit of game design allows for two whole games of content to be hidden in nothing more than a single player choice for the price of some clever ai and faction coding that takes the basic yet monumental choices of the player to change base faction relationship values and activate a simple "synth only" perk tree
possibly the player will be given PA perks but without wearing PA and consume energy ammo to refuel their internal functions at an increased rate over biological food intake
maybe even earning an energy shield, cloak, emergency relay, ect, all leading to a way the new protagonist can shape their world based on the tech they accept and that they reject
possibly even tying in the main choices of previous games(and the ability to mod a balance for all factions) into a post-game effect on the new games
like if I convinced the AI president in FO3 that there is a better way, not death, but also not as they were and so the AI began using supermutants like Fawkes to create a peace between humans and mutants, the raiders were rounded up and re-educated into productive members of society using methods and tech borrowed yet adapted from paradise falls and so much more, ultimately leading to a capital wasteland army to help balance the power dynamics to force peace in teh new game and even institue+BOS+railroad aspects to help stabilize the new zones
I suspect they have exhausted the ideas of the mainland USA so perhaps the new game will begin with the other lands in the great war, how they faired, and how to help them recover or destroy them with aspects of previous games

Would make sense why Shaun was so insistent on making, reprogramming, then dumping synth Shaun on you, even after many in the Institute questioned it.
"Hey, you're my synth parent with most of their memories. Here's a synth me with all my childhood memories, so now you can have a real nuclear family. (I'll even introduce mod support so you can have a synth version of my other parent parent who thinks they're the real deal) have fun being a super robot human, mom/dad, I'm gonna die now"

If such a theory were true, I wonder if Shaun was continuing the DiMA/Nick experimenting with the goal of some form of transcendence with synth bodies... (new theory idea?)

Y

damn i've never thought of that but it fits!

Now to balance this out Austin you need to argue for the sole survivor being human. Being a synth thats a great hidden plot point but we know with far harbour Kasumi believes she's a synth and so we may actually know we are or we aren't unless we age but even then that could be Gen 4 capabilities.

Did Bethesda think this much into the plot I think when they released Far Harbour this actually crossed their minds but initially perhaps not.

Thanks Austin

I don't thunk Shaun would put a synth in charge of Institute when he had loyal, good scientists around him. But you are right about SS's memories. This theory is still cool

For everybody saying that the Sole survivor cannot be a synth Because there's evidence you remember your life....

I have two things to say to that...

1. Buthesda has always been piss poor at retcons.

2. Part 1. And More importantly My personal theory is that we are a synth But we were generation 4... therefor we Had massive upgrades INCLUDING having every memory of our pre-war lives!!! We are Essentially the same person From before in a different body!!! nothing more nothing less.

2. part 2. We go throughout the entire main question as a synth Who remembers being human and we go through all the trauma of the main question And then After all that Trauma and all that pain We blot out our memories Because of it...

Then we do far harbor...

Then after far Harbor we Snap and do nuka world Because the memories are still there they're just blocked...

At the end of the day though it's up to the player to choose if there character is a synth or not... But both are equally possible.

OH....
I didn't know you were from game theory

I know this is really late but here's my personal ideas on this, as it appears in the video, but first just want to say the Brotherhood gets a list of synths and try to execute Paladin Danse, but not you.


First you can see the ice going back over the cryogenic array for yourself.

Second, how do you know that the cryogenic array failure was 2227? And even if it was, you have the Institute's knowledge of the array that can fix it, and through Kellog's memories we know they did.

Dimas section without the LIE bracket is there for both the synth and human part.

Hacking computers: The game never specified what you were in the army, other than being below a CO, you could have been a computer analyst or something else in computers.

Running: AP, you cannot run for miles, maybe a few meters but.

Entire level up system: The Sole Survivor isn't the only one who can do this, look at every other Fallout game, even those before the Synth program.

Child synth: The fake Shaun had issues with emotions, and was unable to completely cope with them, an error that is implied to exist in most synths with memories.

Preservation of Humanity: There is the entire directorate that could take over Shaun's place, and even if Shaun did want his parents as the director, why would Shaun even let his parents kill the Institute? Oh well they didn't have a kill switch? What about all the other synths? Even Coursers have kill switches, why would the Sole Survivor be any different?

Bro for the memory part wtf do you mean bro no clipping doesn't mean shit. What's the explanation for the lack of rock in the Institute's outside? That it's in the fucking air?

Beep boop mother cluckers

Sole survivor is not a synth because you can have sex with people in the game

What about the covenant test?

I think it’s mentioned that synths cannot sexually reproduce. Wouldn’t a fairly easy check to see if someone is human to check to see if they’re fertile?
Or even carbon dating, a fairly common forensics technique for determining someone’s age. The skin on a “54 year old synth” isn’t going to be 54 years old
Or an X-Ray machine that looks for a piece of plastic inside of you shaped like a synth component

Part of the institutes faction issue is purpose, mostly from what actually explained in game. Tho with all the evidence I think possibly its the opposite of whats suggested with fathers intentions.
In short (HAHAHAHA)


I think father saw the institute as flawed and greedy for knowledge, like big MT from new vegas and how Dr.morphius contained the other brains. He, father, knew after his death they, other institute leadership, treat the people like lab rats for THEIR better tomorrows (example is the supermutants like vergil or swan). So father intervened. Possibly with a scout report he found out about the "sole survivor" and swapped them out. This is why i think deacon was waiting, he knew the vault and knew every one inside was dead. But if he saw the institute poking around with a small team to secretly sent by father himself after the kellog kidnapping, also would explain why deacon vouches for the sole survivor so easily is cause of the railroads mission. To replace the sole survivor to bring down the institute to work to a better tomorrow for ALL I think makes more sense. Its also why your character might be so trustworthy to others, because of advanced systems of empathy and such to manipulate emotions for such tests (building settlements,equipment,knowing enemy from foe int he new world ect). Hence why Marcy long never trusts you fully, she might have a mental disability preventing her seeing empathy or reading emotions correctly, hence why her mans sensitive nature goes unnoticed and never trusting the player even if you give her literally everything in the commonwealth.

Great video! However after playing the game through 4 or 5 times I have come to believe that your character isn't actually a synth but in fact a clone of the original soldier. We know from lore that cloning was a pre-war thing introduced in Fallout 3, and clones predate human impostor synths. Dima tries to make your player question being a synth but there is too much that points to something slightly different. Father says that your DNA was preserved and since synths don't use DNA to make the copycat synths (they have synth components), how does the DNA factor in? I think it is because your character is a clone of the one that died in the re-freezing process. Making a clone and freezing it to preserve the DNA is the thing that makes the most sense in the context of the game and explains why your character doesn't remember much from before the bombs fell. So instead of replacing the body in the cryobed every time there is a new synth upgrade, it would make sense to just clone another human from the DNA originally collected at the Vault.

I'm not sure if I am right but it is something that I have thought long and hard about as well

Well thought out, and we’ll presented. I think the parts revolving around perks and the overall power of the protagonist are wrong though, because they not only apply to every other fallout protagonist in some way or another, but really damn near every videogame protagonist. Even in gritty horror games we are interacting with some level of power fantasy, and wether it’s climbing a wall at speeds and distances that even the greatest ninja warriors couldn’t hope to match, or rolling up some herbs to heal damage from a zombie bite that should have infected you, it’s all part of suspension of disbelief and the medium we interact with the game on, it’s not meant to be read into so deeply, except maybe sometimes. Mostly I just default to the fact that the writing in this game is pretty bad, none of the factions were fleshed out in a believable way, so there’s just no way Bethesda’s team thought this far ahead and planned out some amazing subversion in a story with dialogue choices where your options are “ask question” “yes” “yes but sternly” and “yes but sarcastically”.

No. The BOS sent us in to retrieve a holograph with synth data on it. It showed Danse was a synth but not the sole survivor who’s dna would have been on the record of they were a synth

If the memories was based in what Shaun could program then it makes sense the difference between sanctuary from your memories and sanctuary in-game.

There is only one piece of evidence needed to say if you are a synth.. can you use vatts before getting a pipboy..

Synths habe built in vatts

at least we can see the videos in this playlist

It's only impossible to arrive at another conclusion if you refuse to believe they left you alive in cryo all those years but it is possible you are a synth

This...... actually makes sense

“What is wrong with me”
You’re a gamer now

You look identical to the SS as their synth version. That's why the vault tec rep recognizes you. You recognize him because those memories were implanted in you. I don't believe the SS is a synth, but it's easy to explain that plot hole. There's no way Bethesda would make the player character a synth and not implement a quest that reveals it, I highly doubt it.

The first time I played through fallout 4 this always kind of bothered me. Much like yourself far harbor really just kind of put the last nail in that coffin for me, it really does seem to be the unspoken case. Moreover the fallout games pretty famously have hidden narratives going all the way back to before fallout with wasteland.

You missed the most important evidence, you can use VATS without a Pipboy

My first playthrough of Fallout 4 I met the fake Preston, I discovered the mayor of Diamond City was a Synth, and I discovered Dantz was a synth. I became obsessed after my playthrough that ANYBODY could be a synth. I immediately B-lined it to Dr Li because I needed to know someone was real LOL.
Definitely love this theory, and I agree that its a genuinely plausible explanation for the game.

Cool theory but there are some major holes in it for one the player character remembers the vault tec representive and addition in Kellogg memories he confirms that the protagonist survives(while it's possible that the current director lied and placed that info cover up everyone's death but there would be no reason to. Also to that point in time they just started the synth program so they only had gen 1's now it is possible that Shaun had a secret project but the problem with it lies with again Kellogg memories which remember it is a "very recent memory" so it's not yrs old. So it kind of kills the synth theory. Holes in it and not simple ones, im not saying it out of the grounds of possibility but the evidence within the story itself makes it highly unlikely.

I know that I am very late to this party, but I'll still make a stab at it. The evidence that the SS is a synth is pretty good until you consider the existence of the Vault Tech sales rep. That is a pre-war memory that Shaun would not be likely to know about but that both the SS and the sales rep share. So you would have to come up with an explanation for that before one can seriously consider the SS to be a synth.

To all the ppl in the comments saying he remembers the silver shroud and a walk in the park... two words... memory implant

i miss shoddy cast

Great theory. I would also like to add that Kellogg looks at the protagonist and says, "At least we have the backup". He could, theoretically, be speaking of another vault.. it's kind of open there as well.

Counter argument, beginning of the silver shroud. Quest. You can answer that you know what that is.