Is the PC an experimental Courser?

[Moraelin]

Well, what the title says. Pro:

 

1. The player has abnormal pin-point accuracy with the iron sights, FAR above anything anyone else can do, including a professional sniper like McCready.... something matching an upgrade intalled only in coursers.

 

2. The player can go into bullet-time (VATS) at will, unlike anything else in the Commonwealth.

 

3. "Father" is currently VERY interested in experiments involving strong family emotions in synths. See, synth Shawn. He doesn't ask you to spare anyone else or the institute as such, but the family simulation of synth Shawn is his dying wish.

 

4. Despite being his one surviving parent, Shaun shows NO empathy towards you, and is at most bemused at your loving him in spite of everything else.

 

5. "Father" is especially interested in pitting you against their top hitman, and a cybernetically enhanced one at that, something he wouldn't expect a normal human to have any chace to survive, much less someone with limited combat training or experience like his mom.

 

6. The player shows absolutely no sign of empathy to their victims, much less PTSD, after killing other humans. Even hundreds of them. Meaning they're either a complete psychopath -- which wouldn't match their drive to find Shaun -- or an engineered combat synth.

 

7. The institute doesn have the ability to transfer memories from a human to a synth.

 

8. Shaun admits that your awakening is an experiment, and that they don't need a backup on ice any more.

 

Cons:

 

1. Shaum seems to seriously discriminate against synths, to the point where he'd rather die than take the obvious route of tranferring his memory into a synth. But then again, he has no problems with letting synths think they're real people, to test their reactions. See, synth Shaun.

 

2. "Father" never uses a recall code on you, even when you're detroying his Institute. But then again, he'd also rather have synth Shaun continue to believe he's a real kid, if the institute is destroyed.

 

3. Would Shaun try to get the institute under the control of a synth, when he considers them just human-like tools? Good question. It seems out of character, but he also seems fixated on his experimental Shaun synth simulating a family life above all else, even the survival of the institute.

 

4. You supposedly need a program on your pip-boy to access the institute, while normal coursers can just teleport there at will. Then again, that would be something trivial to disable, if it served the purposes of an experiment.

 

So what do you think? Can it be that you died in that freezer like everyone else, and what "Father" woke up is a top of the line Courser with your memories?

[CyrusAmell]

No.

 

1. s*** combat AI (Bethesda's fault)

 

2. Game staple, Fallout 3 protagonist could do it too. Present in Fallout 1-2 in a diluted state.

 

3. Synth Kid Shaun is weird, in part Father's way to give his parent the child they had lost in some form and also as an experiment. His care for the Synth may betray his actual belief that synths are sentient beings (he stuck to the party line because the Institute cannot do without synth labor).

 

4. Bethesda's fault, no time to add in hugging animations. He is bemused because he has never had a parent and did not know what to expect. He was raised in the Institute and there would have been those who cared for him but they may not have shown him much affection.

 

5. Bethesda's fault, linear story-telling means that the mom had to be as combat savvy as the dad (despite being a lawyer) and the story telling here was pretty strained. Frankly, the mom should have also been a veteran - there are female members of the national guard at this time as evinced in Fallout 3 terminals. If she had been stationed at Alaska before the Chinese attacked then she would have met the Dad and had a chance to fight the Chinese before being pulled out due to high command not thinking her unit should be there.

 

6. The Fallout 3 protagonist similarly suffered no undue side effects from all of the terrible things I made him do.

 

7. Yes, if Nick Valentine is to held as an example, but the human has to be alive and hooked up to a machine first. That would mean they would have had to haul you out, alive, take down your memory in a machine and then kill you. Even the Institute is not that convoluted.

 

8. Shaun is a scientist, his life has been based on science, so he apparently justifies his odd whimsy on science. For example, Madison Li spoke of the Synth Kid Shaun as unnecessary while Shaun applauded how his creation furthered Institute research (in actuality, likely just wanted it to give you a synth child).

 

Now, if you are looking for a probable Courser candidate among the Fallout player cast then I would nominate the New Vegas Courier. Hell, exchange the "i" for an "s" and it even spells Courser.

 

Think about it, he or she is ridiculously over-qualified for an errand boy/girl, and has a job which requires moving around constantly. Railroad could have just given him or her new memories and sent the Courier on his or her way. Being on the other side of the country would be a good place to escape the Institute. Add to that the whole getting shot in the head and then later having it removed from your body (Old World Blues DLC) and we can surmise that he or she is either ridiculously lucky or not human. The Courier is also older than most protagonists are expected to be as a male Courier with the Lady Killer perk can ask if a guy called the Lonesome Drifter is 17, and then express relief after the Drifter says he is 28, implying the Courier impregnated (or believes he impregnated) a woman in Montana around 18 years ago (and yet can look as young as he wants).

 

Then let us not forget the Courier's ability to fight his or her way across Hoover Damn against the full might of Caeser's Legion.

Edited April 3, 2016 by CyrusAmell

[Moraelin]

I forgot to add in the pro column,

 

9. "Father" seems to know stuff about you, like that you've already contacted the Railroad (see, terminal messages,) that are hard to explain short of a transmitter in your head. Considering that, you know, you can be completely alone at the time and not tell anyone about it.

 

10. He shows up as "Father" not son in all your interactions

[Moraelin]

@CyrusAmell

 

While combat being a crap mechanic IS an obvious explanation, having an in-universe reason for it is, frankly, a less "meta" explanation. As in, it doesn't require breaking the 4th wall.

 

That said,

 

4. Nevertheless, he should have imprinted on you.

 

5. It's not just the mom. Even the dad SHOULD eventually get PTSD, no matter how much military experience they've had, after hundreds of other hunans killed. It's how the mirror neurons worked. For each killed person, you basically see yourself being killed. Other than being a psychopath, there's no way you'd just shrug off hundreds of them, one after another. Eventually the brain gets into a loop trying to figure out how that could have been avoided.

 

6. Other game characters in other games being abnormal doesn't diminish the fact that the current game character is.

 

7. So? Besides, it's not just Nick. Glory also talks about her friend (Curie's new body) getting mind-wiped all the time.

[CyrusAmell]

4. No, he need not have imprinted on you. He never knew you, he has lived without you for 60 years. And frankly, I believe he did show us emotions - it's just that Bethesda could not be arsed to have the hugging and tender moments that may ensue. Also, Shaun is married to his position as Director and is prepared to label you an enemy if you threaten it. He also gave the go-ahead to the continuation of the FEV Research so he may be slightly distanced from his humanity.

 

5. Regardless, PTSD as a mechanic have yet to be implemented successfully in a game like Fallout 4. Bethesda just did not want to invest the time to add in a mechanic that would be both expensive and whose only benefit would be slight realism in a fantastical game setting.

 

6. Yes it does, it means that the current game character is not special and need not be more special to be who he or she is.

 

7. Human to synth is possible as seen with Nick (human must be alive for first part) but Nick is his own person, the detective in the past is dead (such a transfer would not have saved Shaun, only his experience). With Curie it was Machine to Synth. Mind wipes are common among Institute synths both as a way for the Institute to maintain control over them and for the Railroad as a way for Synths to escape notice and be normal people. You are conflating these three instances. I see no reason why Father would bother with such and then name you Director - the moment anyone found out you were a synth after Shaun died you would get hauled off by the SRB and mind wiped.

 

Amended:

 

9. It's called "having spies." The Institute has many of them (both synth and human) and Father would have been able to keep track of your general movements and even learn of possible interactions with the Railroad (frayed story-telling here).

10. He shows up as "Father" first to not give the game away that he is your Shaun, and Bethesda either just did not bother to change that or wanted to show how the title had supplanted his prior name to an extent. It may also have to do with the synth Shaun later appearing as just "Shaun" so maybe it was easier that way for Bethesda.

Edited April 4, 2016 by CyrusAmell

[Fatalmasterpiece]

I feel it's perfectly reasonable to assume the player character is in fact a synth replacement of their human counterpart who died in the cryo chambers of Vault 111. Shaun, who was raised in the institute created you to replace the parent he never had and placed you in the vault as a backup synth in case the Institute was ever destroyed. It's also possible the intention was for you to awaken and kill Kellogg. For any matter Shaun can't bare to tell you the truth because even you believe you are real.

 

Besides, it's a better plot and ending that the half arsed one we got :/

[Moraelin]

Well, what I was trying to say at 7 is that the Institute does know how to convincingly put someone's memory in a synth. Probably the best example being the synth child. He seems very convinced that he's really your son.

 

And at 6, well, you're not special at a meta level. But in-game there is something that could explain the abnormal behaviour.

[Gilibran]

I think vault tec did more to you then just put you into cryogenic sleep. Perhaps fed you new memories making you believe you were a soldier/lawyer with a family. Shaun is not your son and whoever got shot isnot your husband/wife.

 

It was simply a carefull match up by Vault tec to see if they could " rewire" humans and then see how they survived once out of cryo. Think the "demolition man" movie with Snipes and Stalone and more recently the scifi series Dark Matter where 6 people have their memories wiped after cry/stasis but retain all their skills, just no memories of the past!

 

A simple freeze sleep is simply not an elaborate enough experiment for Vault tec considering what they were doing in other vaults. Interesting is how P.A.M. Acceses vault 111 files and then shuts down on the subject needing to further analyse but never returning to the subject! What really happened down there before the institute with Kellog stole the baby and killed one of the parents.

[Gilibran]

There is even more evidence you are not who you think you are. Right from the start you have to ask where Concord is? It's around the bloody corner and you used to go shopping there because there are no shops in sanctuary hills. Never having heard of the Freedom trail in Boston, never recognizing or commenting on any of the major landmarks? It's all a bit weird, you should know some things at least about the area even if you just moved there. In both FO3 and NV we had tons of background on the characters from the start, here we have litarely nothing, either, owww i was a soldier or owww i was a lawyer, have a baby run to vault and that's it, nothing more. Just a holotape, not even a single family picture in your old house, you can safely assume Codsworth would have preserved it even if just out of programmed nostalgia? Just a single line when you see shauns bed.

 

There simply has to be more to it, in NV we had the Lonesome Road dlc adding even more background to the courier.

[k361]

Ohohoh splendid splendid, I actually want a complete overhaul where you infact start as a synth:)

Other than that, this story is far more having time invested in than original one really, kudos for that.