So I watched Vidoes Of FO4 Theories...

[Deleted3507349User]

Here's one of my own:

 

Father is the true Sole Survivor. The player is actually Shaun with implanted memories.

[MarkusTay]

I have a very complex 'personal reality' going on in my games. Basically, it started out with me just trying to figure out more logical reasons for stuff than the pitiful reasons given for stuff IG (mostly by NPCs). I suppose you can call it my custom-built (overly complex) 'theory' at this point...

 

You see, You were SUPPOSED to get locked in that vault, so Shaun could be 'born' into the future. That Vaultec salesman? He KNEW the apocalypse was about to happen. The Institute was actually run by clique of ex-vaultec engineers, and they figured-out they needed a very precise set of DNA to do something (probably in regards to immortality, which the Synth program is just one offshoot of). Thus, they found the correct 'sequence' in hospital records, but their current level of genetic technology wasn't quite there yet. They hit upon a plan to freeze the family they needed until they could finish their work (build custom bodies to house their existing minds). In the interim, they would continue their experiments with robots in the hopes that something might pan-out there as well (although every time they built an AI that was advanced enough to host a human consciousness, it became self-aware... and usually less-than-cooperative. Except they ran out of time themselves, despite all their well-laid plans. An emissary from their own future arrived telling them they had a matter of hours to prepare, and that was the Vaultec salesman. He was supposed to insure that the baby made it into the vault (something that may not have happened the first time around). He was told that after a certain amount of time they would be able to retrieve him, but they lied, and instead the time-travel process filled his body with deadly radiation. They planned for him to die, but when the bombs dropped somehow the double-dose of radiation turned him into a ghoul instead... and he slowly waited for his past to catch up to him. This is the real reason why he was so bitter (and why the beginning game sequence seems so contrived... because it was).

 

But thats not the end of it. When the Institute 'unfroze' everyone, they removed all three while they were still unconscious. This occurred about 60 years before the game starts, supposedly when ******** broke in and did his thing (spoilers). But thats not when that scene we see happened - that was only TEN years before the game starts, and none of the survivor-family were the 'real deal'. They were all already LONG dead, dissected in a lab some fifty years earlier. This explains why the people 'on ice' still look fine and haven't rotted away - they all suffocated to death when the cryo was shut down some sixty years ago, and then after they released just the three people they wanted, they refroze the rest... already dead. Thats why they are all already dead when Nate/Nora wake-up. They had been dead for fifty years already. The dead spouse is probably the real deal (we can just assume the parent that 'lives' is part of the genetic lineage they need). So I guess they just took the two and locked everyone back up - dead - in frozen storage. Nora/Nate IG is a synth - a VERY advanced one they are testing out. problem is, it was TOO advanced (this is why the player can do tons of stuff that seemingly no-one else could do for 210 years!)

 

Anyhow, its a bit convoluted (and I probably didn't explain things in a proper order), but anyway, this helps explain-away all the oddities with NPCs - or rather, the UNBELIEVABILITY of their actions. All of those people - starting with Sturges ("I can build a sub-molecular relay but can't hack an easy terminal"), and going on through Deacon, Doctor Amari, Virgil, and even (and maybe especially) Doctor Madison Li - they are all part of a clandestine group operating within the institute to bring it down (father IS actually a clone of the original Shaun... turns out the early-model synths are just like the Replicants they are based off of, and they don't last very long). In fact, there may have been any number of 'Shauns' before the 'current' one). But even though he isn't 'real', he still has deep emotions regarding what happened to 'him' (the real Shaun, and his family). Thus, father is bitter.. and maybe even a bit insane from having his mind transferred so many times. The rest of them all have their own reasons for bringing the place down. So the main plan is to bring down the Institute, but father insisted they do t in such a way that he gets his vengeance using the 'family' he never truly had.

 

Everything the character does, from the moment they wakeup in the Vault, right up until they destroy the Institute (or decide not to, which would be the 'twist' no-one saw coming) is being steered by others from the shadows. You can see this by how Deacon is literally shadowing the character and knows EVERYTHING they've done... including a bunch of stuff he shouldn't have known about! And how about Diamond City radio? The sole survivor takes a crap and three minutes later Travis is talking about it. In a real world, wouldn't you be getting paranoid as hell? No-one was anywhere around when most of that happened! That's because the Institute (and really Father) is watching everything through all the cameras hidden in mannequins (most of them are very early model Gen2's), and that information is being relayed to McDonough, who in turn gives it to Travis to 'report' on his radio broadcasts.

 

Now, instead of that complex, Machiavellian plan, we could just think that Bethesda doesn't really know how to do 'open world' anymore, so they fake it with these dialogues that have 'pretend choices' which either all lead to the same thing anyway, or if there as an actual choice, it is meaningless to the rest of the game. We could very well think that. And they give us character decisions that make NO sense ("Hi, I'm doctor Li, and I quit the Brotherhood because they were douches and now I live and work in this beautiful, amazing place with nice people all around me... who shower. Hey, Doctor Li, I'm some random person you just met a minute ago and I think you should help kill all these people you like and live with, by going back to work for the people you can't stand. Ummm.. Okay! I am a genius, after all...")

 

Yeah... right. Either thats just one example of one of the worst plots in the history of gaming, or the whole thing is exactly what it looks like - its all prearranged, and the character is just 'along for the ride' (as are we). The 'dark powers' pulling the strings are just smart enough to keep us (our character and the real us) busy with settlement building so we don't notice just how hokey the whole thing is (both IG and out). Nate, Nora, poor little baby Shaun, and the real us... all just pawns in game. We never had any choices... not until the very end when we got to choose if the Institute lives or dies. And even then, how much of a choice was that? Side with the very people who murdered and kidnapped your family, and murdered all your neighbors just for the hell of it? Thats why no-one ever expected the survivor to side with the institute - siding with them is the only way to break-free from the puppetmasters.

 

But even if you do, the true puppetmasters are still out there. The Enclave, the Institute, Vault-tec - they are all just 'arms' of the Kraken. With every game we peel back another layer, only to find more layers beneath. And with each, our choices become fewer, as the timelines converge. Or haven't you noticed history 'changing'? In the latest game, you aren't even given the illusion of choice - everything has already happened just before you got there... and all you can do is read about it. Its basically just a bad novel with graphics attached.