FictionalPlagueProductions

“Come on…you don’t want to wake up to this mug every morning… never wish that on anyone I cared for…”

“John… I love this mug. I love you.”

No pressure, Markus.

A Legend falls

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Please don’t use or repost my art without my permission!

All the factions in Fallout 4 are difficult to side with for varying reasons, but the Institute just… baffles me to no end.

They’re not just evil, they’re fucking stupid. They have the most advanced technology in the Wasteland, yet they fail to use it to its full potential, or even in the most obvious ways. They build the Generation 3 Synths, artificial humans which are indistinguishable from a “natural-born” human, yet they never age, are immune to disease and radiation, and require no food, water, or sleep- they don’t even gain or lose weight. They are, in every way, an improvement to humans. Why doesn’t the Institute use these amazing bodies to make themselves immortal? They have the technology to transfer human consciousness to a machine; with this tech they could easily live for centuries, and just move to a new body if they break their current one. Instead, they use them as petty slave labor, mopping floors and tightening screws. What a waste of incredible technology!

And even then, using the Gen-3 synths as slave labor is pretty much a step down from the Gen-1s and 2s. Because they have free will, the Institute has to jump through so many stupid hoops to keep them in line. Unlike the simple and obedient Gen-2s, the Gen-3s need to be constantly beaten down psychologically to maintain obedience. They have to train them like a human on how to do their job instead of just programming them like a Gen-2. Hell, the Institute had to create a whole new department (The SRB) because of their free will! Can you imagine having to put your Roomba in chains and beat it every day to make sure it vacuums the floor without trying to escape? It’s so unnecessarily cruel it’s ridiculous!

Speaking of escaping, how the fuck does the Institute allow synths to escape in the first place? There’s only one way in or out of their underground facility (the Molecular Relay), do they not monitor who goes in or out? Even if a synth runs away while they’re on an away mission, what’s the deal with sending Coursers? Never mind why they don’t just subject every synth to the same emotion-suppressing trials that the coursers have that make them follow orders without question- WHY THE HELL DON’T THEY JUST PUT A COURSER CHIP IN EVERY SYNTH? The courser chip is what allows coursers to get teleported back to the Institute; why not just put one of those in every synth so they can instantly track their location and teleport them back to the lab? Hell, why don’t they just use whatever they use to track all their spy synths like Mayor McDonough? This isn’t fan speculation of what they could do; everything I’ve just said has been available to the Institute for decades and yet they Don’t. Fucking. Use it.

And don’t even get me started on their spies. Why do they have to kidnap, murder, and replace people in order to spy on the Commonwealth? Why not just make an average Joe synth to quietly integrate into their communities? Surely that would be easier and have less risk of being discovered or rousing the ire of the surface-dwellers who might catch wind that their loved one has been murdered and replaced by a robot double. Or hell- make synths that look like birds or dogs or something. Kidnapping is just so needlessly evil.

Furthermore, why does the Institute use the surface as a dumping ground for all their failed experiments like the Super Mutants? That has to be pretty costly using the Molecular Relay just to essentially take out the garbage. Surely they have some kind of recycling facility? Or at least kill the mutants before sending them topside? Because if they wanted to take over the wasteland, they just made it harder for themselves by infesting it with a bunch of man-eating Shrek monsters.