SynthSleuthing

What if, instead of playing one of the concerned parents, you are actually Shaun / the child, kidnapped before you could even retain proper memories?

What if you grow up in the Institute and learn all its ideology and reasons for wanting to dominate the commonwealth? What if you have a choice to either befriend or reject synths as a youngster, shaping you for the rest of your life?

What if you can decide to escape the Institute in a fit of youthful rebellion and your caretakers let you, deciding that maybe you’ll only truly understand their vision if you’ve seen the post-nuclear horrors for yourself?

What if you can find all the other factions and learn their side is the story? What if you help people in need and learn how happy some of them are despite having a mere fraction of the luxury you grew up in?

What if you can grow older through playing the main story, and as you do, the political landscape changes? The Institute is responsible for the deaths of many. You know both sides of the story, yet you become unsure of the truth… unsure of your destiny as the Institute’s leader.

What if you find out the truth about your own kidnapping? Hidden somewhere deep within Institute archives? Or revealed by Kellogg, the man who was supposed to be your father figure but around whom you always felt a little off? What if your people had told you— all your life— that your parents were dead? Will you forgive them? Or will you try to find your kin against all odds? You know nothing about your history, you were just a baby. Will the memory den unearth subconscious memories you retained as a child? Will you find clues leading you to Sanctuary and then to the vault? Will some of the companions help you on your quest? Will you need to convince Codsworth of your identity before he will trust you and tell you everything he knows?

What do you do when you find your patent(s)? Will your release him/her/them or spare them the horrors of this world?

If you bring them back, will your forge your own life with them or bring them to the Institute? What if they don’t agree with your decisions in life, your vision?

What if you turn your back on the Institute? The people who used you? Stole away a life that could have been? What if you side with the Brotherhood, having seen how power corrupts? What if you side with the Minutemen, having seen how much the hardworking, surviving souls out there depend on you? What if you side with the Railroad, having seen how synths are treated in the Institute, wanting to save your lifelong friends?

What if you turn your back on it all? What if there’s an all out war between the factions, a power vacuum coming to blows? You could have stopped it. You didn’t. But was it ever your responsibility at all? You never asked for this.

cool cool. But I wouldn’t mind so much if the game gave you options to point out that Fathers androids are bullshit and he’s just making clones with cybernetics that destroy memories. Because it feels like the world and the game wants you to see the Gen 3s as machines that have ambiguous free will. It just feels very jarring.