Alternative Start and Mainquest: You Are A Synth

[pra]

There are a few Alternative Start mods, and there is some discussion here whenever the protagonist is a synth or not. Why not actually combine them?

 

You start as some institute scientist in that synth fabrication room. You pick a gender, some traits, use some configuration terminal to select the synth's face, then the synth gets made. This is now the player character. Also, there is this "easter egg" in one of the terminals at the institute where they are talking about basically integrating a pip-boy into a synth. I'd use that. You don't get an actual pip-boy, instead it's always the powerarmor-style overlay.

 

You then get sent to some settlement. Maybe to Sanctuary, only this time, it's populated by the Minutemen already. You replace the general and are supposed to play along. You get quests from Preston (Maybe promote him to Admiral or something, so that it makes more sense that he orders a general around), and from time to time a courser appears, with whom you have to talk, without getting caught by the regular settlers.

 

You have the options:

- Stay at the Institute's side for the time being. At some point, you will get the order to let some synths in who will kill everyone and take over the settlement. They will repeat it for other settlements.

- Fully switch sides to the Minutemen: Tell them you are a synth, give the courser fake reports, then, after retaking the castle, you can attack and destroy the institute as usual.

- Contact the Railroad, help them infiltrate the Institute. Compatible with:

- While at the Institute, contact Z1-14. Or he contacts you. Actually participate in the Synth Rebellion, take over the Institute. Or just get everyone out and destroy it.

- Join the BoS. You don't have to tell them what you are, after all. Maybe skip the Dr. Li part. Or, combine it with this unused Danse dialogue: Maxon has no idea that you both are synths, then, telling Danse to challenge Maxon is the only way to proceed with the BoS.

 

With the courser, you have the options:

- Give him the real, accurate reports

- Give him fake reports (Persuation check)

- Tell him you need to go to the Institute. For a checkup or something. (Persuation check which gets easier with time. You needing a checkup on a weekly basis is suspicious). While in there, you are able to use the Network Scanner holotape. Just don't let a courser see that.

- Attack him. He just says your recall code and it's game over :D

 

 

Failing the aforementioned persuation checks will rise your suspicion level at the Institute. At some point they will try to reclaim you (Courser: "you seem to be defective. I will report this to the SRB". Quest start: "I need to go into hiding, otherwise they will catch me"). Now going to the Railroad and getting a new face is your only chance.

 

Your options with the BoS:

- Do everything as usual, except From Within. Dr. Li just starts on board of the Prydwen.

- At Blind Betrayal, you yourself are outed as well. You can either leave the Brotherhood (they become hostile), convince Danse to take over, or get the face job at the Railroad.

- If you got the Railroad face job, you have to do some token fetch/kill quests, and then continue whereever you left. If you got the facejob done before Blind Betrayal, it still happens as described above.

 

Your options with the Railroad:

- You start at the point where you have to contact "Patriot", talk to Z1-14, and if nothing goes wrong, you join the rebellion.

- If the SRB notices you, you have to get a new face. This can be done at any point. The synth rebellion quest fails here.

- After you got the new face, you get the normal "heavy" role at the RR, and have to do the quests with the Switchboard, the safehouses, etc. You have to use the Minutemen to destroy the Institute at this point as usual.

- If you didn't do the network scan before getting the facejob, you get a new quest: Dr. Amari pulls some data from your brain, and PAM can use that to find a point where network cables from the Institute still reach the surface. You can get the holotape there.

- After the facejob, there is a low chance that a courser appears and asks around for you. You have to kill him, obviously.

 

Your options with the Minutemen:

- You start off with Sanctuary, and are supposed to make settlements join as usual.

- If you want to stay with them, you have to keep giving the courser fake reports, otherwise they will get wiped out by the Institute.

- If you came out to them, Preston will make the fake reports for you, making the speech check way easier.

- If you get caught while meeting with the courser and didn't came out, the Minutemen will turn hostile.

- If you got the face job and came out, you can just tell Preston "It's me, I got a new face" and continue.

- If you got the face job and didn't come out, you can re-join, but have to do some token kill/rescue/secure settlement quests before continuing where you left.

 

Your options with the Institute:

- If you give the courser real reports, you cooperate and destroy the Minutemen. Sanctuary is under Institute control now and populated by synths (Gen 1-3, all commandable). After that, all other Minutemen settlements turn hostile. You have to take them over as well. Otherwise, this part is just skipped.

- Meanwhile you talk to other synths about the rebellion. You have to do that quest with dumping weapons into the chest and killing the gen2 guards for the fake cave-in.

- You have to replace older models with rebel gen3s. You get a message like: We got another rebel for topside operations, kill or shutdown some older model at <location> so that it can be replaced.

Sneakily kill them, or sabotage (reverse pickpocket something into them). This is considered a malfunction, and you get a gen3 replacement, recommended by Liam.

- At some point, the rebels have found the back entrance. This is the point where the actual rebellion happens. The attack happens both topside and in the institute. You get to decide where you want to fight.

- If in the Institute, you lead some railroad guys through the back entrance, meet with the rebels, and start killing gen1-2s, coursers, and Ayo.

- Topside, you stay at Sanctuary and have to kill all gen1s and gen2s, as well as the coursers who get teleported in. After that, you get some confirmation (over Radio Freedom?) that the fight was successful at all the other settlements as well.

- In both cases, the Institute remains intact, but is now run by you. Most of the scientists remain alive, and synth production continues.

- The SRB gets renamed into something like "Bureau of Synth Affairs". Here you will get quests like "there are still some gen1-2s active, go kill them" or "some raiders are attacking us, go kill them" or "there is a good settlement spot, go build there".

- At this bureau, you can also oder synths to be produced as settlers. However, if happiness at the settlements is too low, they will file complaints here. You won't be able to order any until you fixed the happiness.