Synth Based Ramblings and Theories

[TheGadget1945]

It was interesting when DIMA asked you if you were a synth. In the game you walk past places like the Red Rocket which in 2077 you must have passed or used every single day and you go to to Concord but you never pass any comment or reminiscence like "Oh I remember the Red Rocket was run by X let's see if we can find what happen to him". The best you ever do is generic comments like saying you remember Bradberton's name but you never go any further. These could all be planted into your mind.

[TheVampireDante]

The best you ever do is generic comments like saying you remember Bradberton's name but you never go any further. These could all be planted into your mind.

 

There's a few times you make comments/have interactions about life before the war.

 

- Living at Sanctuary when you bring Preston and co.

- The Vault-Tec Salesman encounter in Goodneighbour

- The USS Constitution conscription encounter about the PC's military/legal service

- Correcting Moe in diamond city about how baseball is played

- The Sole Survivor might comment on remembering Arlen Glass (The giddyup Buttercup creator) when you meet him.

- During the first encounter at Graygarden with the robots talking about their creator

- Nuka world, when you get the thirst zapper. Nate/Nora say that they always wanted one of them for Shaun.

- The Bradberton Nuka world material (which you mentioned)

 

There's a few others, but those are the ones I recall right now.

[TheGadget1945]

 

The best you ever do is generic comments like saying you remember Bradberton's name but you never go any further. These could all be planted into your mind.

 

There's a few times you make comments/have interactions about life before the war.

 

- Living at Sanctuary when you bring Preston and co.

- The Vault-Tec Salesman encounter in Goodneighbour

- The USS Constitution conscription encounter about the PC's military/legal service

- Correcting Moe in diamond city about how baseball is played

- The Sole Survivor might comment on remembering Arlen Glass (The giddyup Buttercup creator) when you meet him.

- During the first encounter at Graygarden with the robots talking about their creator

- Nuka world, when you get the thirst zapper. Nate/Nora say that they always wanted one of them for Shaun.

- The Bradberton Nuka world material (which you mentioned)

 

There's a few others, but those are the ones I recall right now.

 

 

That's what I mean though by "generic". They are easy things to implant as memories but when DIMA asks something like "what is your earliest memory ?" it is just the day the bombs fell. The bit where the Consititution guard knows your military history is good proof though.

If it was me I would be saying "Oh I used to eat here" or commenting on places I used to go in Boston. Nate/Nora has hardly any comments as they are walking through the ruins of what used to be their back yard.

[pra]

Not only the military history, also the Vault-Tec Rep. If he isn't a synth himself, that is.

 

Of course, it could be that you died in Vault 111, and the Institute replaced you with a synth good enough to fool both the Rep and the Constitution robots.

 

But, there is one even more important thing: you can become the Director of the Institute. If you were a synth, at least someone there would know. And they most certainly wouldn't allow a synth (which they compare to nuka cola machines) to lead them. Not even these two guys who try to rebel against you and lock themselves in the hydroponics lab mention it.

[Gilibran]

If you are indeed a synth and some elaborate Institute experiment it would be easy for the institute to make you encounter some things from the past.

 

How do you know you are not subconsciencely directed to the Fraternal post where that note on the speech was left by the Institute on the PC.

 

If you were in a post apocalyptic world, a ship on a building would be hard to ignore to at least check out closer. The robot is easily re-programmed to recognize you and tell you exactly what you want to hear to reinforce your memory of living before the bombs fell and being in the military.

 

Slocum Joe was as prominent as Macdonalds in our world, so adding a bit of knowledge is obvious.

 

The Vaulttec rep, could be a synth, no reason they cannot make a synth look like a ghoul.

 

All the other details could also easily be fabricated memories but still be real prewar things. Remembering a few famous names and places to reinforce your belief you lived before the war. If you were expected to interact with the commonwealth as part of the experiment it's easy to anticipate people will tell you about a farm run by robots or ghouls and implant some details about it. You had a child so knowing a bit about Atomatoys is obvious.

 

The only thing i can come up with you not being a synth and some elaborate Institute experiment is no recall code. They would have to catch on to you working to destroy the institute at some point and stop you by simply de-activating you.

[iXenite]

 

 

 

That's what I mean though by "generic". They are easy things to implant as memories but when DIMA asks something like "what is your earliest memory ?" it is just the day the bombs fell. The bit where the Consititution guard knows your military history is good proof though.

If it was me I would be saying "Oh I used to eat here" or commenting on places I used to go in Boston. Nate/Nora has hardly any comments as they are walking through the ruins of what used to be their back yard.

 

 

The Vault-Tec Representative recognizes the player character. That's pretty strong evidence that the prologue sequence was real, and not just a fabrication created by the Institute. The only way the Sole Survivor could be a Synth would be if the Institute unfroze them, and then extracted their memories somehow and then proceeded to murder the real Sole Survivor. They then would need to refreeze the Synth version and then proceed from there. Then the Sole Survivor's son, for no reason at all, decides to wake up this Synth to see what would happen. They arrive at his doorstep - as he had hoped - and he proceeds to convince this Synth to run the Institute. I'm not so sure the other scientists of the Institute, who would have been aware of this creation, would like taking orders from a Synth. It just seems very out there. In my opinion, Dima was trying to throw the Sole Survivor off their guard. He convinces Kasumi she might be a Synth even though she isn't. He's just manipulative.

[Gilibran]

DaddyDirection,

 

For all we know you were frozen the day before you woke assuming you are a synth and some elaborate experiment to see how synths evolve. There never was a real sole survivor, DNA could be from anyone. The whole clean DNA just a made up story. The institute discovered vault 111 and it's the perfect place for just such an experiment and maybe they did use DNA of the original vault 111 residents, but where ever your DNA comes from does not really matter.

 

We know from FO3/NV there are VR pods and that they survived in working condition (Anchorage simulation, Tranquility lane, Boomers flight sim) + there is the memory den that can read and perhaps even manipulate memories. The technology is available. They could easily be used to "program" a blank synth, straight from production into the pod and let the learning, memory implantation and manipulation begin.

 

The Vault rep could easily be working for the institute, and most if not all people in the commonwealth have few, if any, moral objections to lie to someone for a sum of caps, food or supplies. The constitution robot is probably the easiest to use to fabricate evidence, simply re-program him.

 

The first scientists from the institute also very probably recorded about life before the bombs, there are also enough terminals left with info, newspapers, books advertisements to fabricate enough pre war knowledge and memories to fool anyone in the commonwealth.

 

Just because one guy selling swatters does not know how baseball was played does not mean everyone else in the commonwealth does not know either. The importance of sports and stadiums before the war is also easily obtained knowledge, so you replying "My favorite ballpark has turned into a shanty town" is'nt that hard to implant.

 

And as director, father tells you, you cannot really order the scientists to do anything. For all we know you are continously observed as part of the experiment the whole time when you are made director and in meetings.

 

The only thing that is against you being a synth and part of an experiment is the no recall code they could and should use on you when you take the destroy the institute path.

 

But in the end, there is no evidence in the game to prove any theory, but it's fun to speculate.

[pra]

Another thought: There is this woman at Egret Tours Marina who thinks he is a synth with fake memories which might get reactivated on command. Or Kasumi from the Far Harbor addon. And in general, it seems to be a somewhat common idea that some synths don't even know that they are synths. But, is this actually true?

If you catch an infiltrator in a settlement, they are fully aware of what they are. So is McDonough.

 

I think the only synths who don't know what they are are those who have been mindwiped by the railroad, and that the institute doesn't actually do this. For a simple reason: if you give a synth memories of being a specific human, then you effectively turn that synth into a copy of said human. See Nick Valentine. Then, if some trigger command reactivates the true memories, it is IMO very likely, that the synth will simply decide do "stay human". See Harkness in F3. Even if they know that they aren't actually who they think they are, the memories, fake as they might be, will still define their personality, including morality and stuff like that. Even more, if those synths have lived for years in a settlement already, they formed real memories anyway, found friends, etc. I think just flipping a switch which tells them "oh btw, we actually made you as a slave, now go betray your friends for us!" won't do any good in this case.

 

Nick might have actually been an experiment to test just that. They tried putting some old memories into a synth to see how much that synth will believe itself to be that person, and found that the result is "very much". They might have tried it a few other times afterwards, but in general, I think they absolutely do not do it anymore.

[TheGadget1945]

There have been several replies to my post but I think I need to make the following points in reply -

1) "What would be the point of replacing Nate/Nora ?" Well what was the point of Synth Shaun ? It's a fairly crackpot idea that any parent could feel, or want to feel, any love for a "10 year old" synthetic replacement for a child they never saw grow up anyway ? I think most women would be revolted by the very idea of a replica of someone they had given birth to.

2) Roger Warwick has apparently been duplicated so successfully that if it wasn't for his hard work and not sleeping, his family wouldn't suspect him. Did the Institute download his memories in a similar way to Dr Amari and implant them ? - precedent in the game world. We don't know how much contact if any McDonough has had with John Hancock since he was replaced but again he seems a passable duplicate of the real man, whereas only the Vault Tec rep is capable of remembering Nate/Nora pre war and as has been pointed out he could be a Synth too.

3) At "10" surrounded by scientists, Synth Shaun might be expected to be pretty smart but despite abundant evidence of it's own nature it seems to be unaware that it is a synth, as shown by your first meeting when it doesn't know you to your final encounter in the Institute when it calls you "Mom/Dad". So there's a precedent for a Synth to be programmed in such a way that it doesn't know it is a Synth, just as Danse was.

4) I never understood the encounter at the USS Constitution. Were all Mr Gutsys programmed with facial recognition for all US Army soldiers ? That would be a hell of a big file !

Edit* Of course if the Mr Gutsy was using facial recognition and you were a Synth duplicate it would recognise you as the real person. I don't recall any example of a robot being able to distinguish Synths from humans ?

 

I'm not saying the Player is a Synth , just if all these things are possible you don't really know. Think like "Total Recall" where Quaid doesn't know who he is.

Edited October 26, 2017 by TheGadget1945

[Deleted40542685User]

There have been several replies to my post but I think I need to make the following points in reply -

1) "What would be the point of replacing Nate/Nora ?" Well what was the point of Synth Shaun ? It's a fairly crackpot idea that any parent could feel, or want to feel, any love for a "10 year old" synthetic replacement for a child they never saw grow up anyway ? I think most women would be revolted by the very idea of a replica of someone they had given birth to.

2) Roger Warwick has apparently been duplicated so successfully that if it wasn't for his hard work and not sleeping, his family wouldn't suspect him. Did the Institute download his memories in a similar way to Dr Amari and implant them ? - precedent in the game world. We don't know how much contact if any McDonough has had with John Hancock since he was replaced but again he seems a passable duplicate of the real man, whereas only the Vault Tec rep is capable of remembering Nate/Nora pre war and as has been pointed out he could be a Synth too.

3) At "10" surrounded by scientists, Synth Shaun might be expected to be pretty smart but despite abundant evidence of it's own nature it seems to be unaware that it is a synth, as shown by your first meeting when it doesn't know you to your final encounter in the Institute when it calls you "Mom/Dad". So there's a precedent for a Synth to be programmed in such a way that it doesn't know it is a Synth, just as Danse was.

4) I never understood the encounter at the USS Constitution. Were all Mr Gutsys programmed with facial recognition for all US Army soldiers ? That would be a hell of a big file !

Edit* Of course if the Mr Gutsy was using facial recognition and you were a Synth duplicate it would recognise you as the real person. I don't recall any example of a robot being able to distinguish Synths from humans ?

 

I'm not saying the Player is a Synth , just if all these things are possible you don't really know. Think like "Total Recall" where Quaid doesn't know who he is.

My mind says that Synth Shawn was created for the sole purpose of having fathers thoughts and memories transferred. Synth Shawn would then be able to be with has parents for the rest of their life as a son substitute. That is why it becomes so important after father dies that SynthShwn is accepted by the player. Father asked directly on the roof of the CIT ruins if the player could accept a synth as a person. or something to that effect.