Finally get to share my synth OC, X5-51! You can just call him X5, though. He’s part of an AU with my friend @cumbernuggets, where the Sole Survivor actually dies in the vault but her consciousness is transferred to a synth replica by Father, who doesn’t inform her of her true identity.
Here’s a bit of lore for X5: The Institute was working on manufacturing synths specifically for Courser work rather than extracting from the pool of general Synths. X5-51 was supposed to be one such Courser, but somewhere in the creation process he ended up not exactly being Courser material: he's timid, shy, clumsy, and incredibly bad when it comes to any sort of combat situation. The Institute definitely tried to figure out where it went wrong, but ultimately after multiple resets and tests concluded that this particular unit in the Courser project failed. X5 was relegated to electrical and janitorial work, until some red tape could be cut through to proceed with termination and extraction of his Courser Chip.
However, X5 eventually met my friend @/cumbernuggets’s OC Mariana, the synth of the Sole Survivor, who had recently discovered that she was not the original Mariana… and finding out this weak synth actually had a courser chip was exactly what she needed to help her and her synth son Shaun to escape.
At first Mariana was attempting to get close to X5 to use him and his courser chip, but very quickly found a lot of maternal affection for him. It didn’t take long for Mariana to secretly get X5 on board with her escape plans, and the family of three synths were able to teleport out of the Institute to try and find a life away from the organization. The threat of the Institute being after them hangs over their heads, but to X5 having a new family makes it all worth it to him.
Some assorted notes about X5:
X5 was initially inspired by Connor from Detroit: Become Human, but also gained a lot of inspo from Waterboy from Dispatch lmfao.
He can't really be diagnosed in the wasteland, but X5 is absolutely autistic.
Related to his autism, X5 has a lot of sensory issues surrounding clothes- really the only things he can wear directly on his skin are institute clothing and vault suits. This can make blending in as a regular Wastelander difficult.
X5 has refused both a memory wipe and any changes to his name.
Where X5 lacks in combat and social skills he more than makes up for in his skills with terminals, other electronics, and mechanics. He is great at hacking terminals and building gadgets.
I can’t wait to share more about this guy! He’s one of my sweetest OCs and I hope y’all like him as much as I do <3