bournvilleaddict Good news for you, if you kill the gorillas and take there meat. You can make gorilla cage (from the Wasteland Workshop DLC) so you can have them anywhere you want. I hope this information is useful for you.
@@jamesburke5873 Father unfroze the sole survivor because it was an "experiment", the sole survivor rescued synth Shawn for the sake of "XP", call that a poetic justice
@@mikecobalt7005They aren’t his family, Family means more than genetics. The institute is his family. Not nate or nora. He spent his entire life with the institute and became its leader. Besides when he was a baby He spent a couple days with his parents, as an old man, physically older than his own parents.
Synths age, Gen 3 synths are pretty much all organic except for the synth components in their brain. They still eat, sleep, dream and presumably grow as well.
@@poopbuDDiesfan I know it's been a month, but I don't think the growing part is true. You can over hear scientists in the Institute talking about synth Shaun, and they mention that he'll never grow.
Zeedawg I think that bit is probably specific to Shaun only imo. That might be why the Synth Child project was so difficult, they needed to create an organic being that would not grow or age. To suggest synths likely age I point to Synths like mayor Mcdunnaugh, Hancock knew him forever, he became mayor presumably when they were younger, at least enough years ago for Hancock to become a Ghoul and to firmly establish himself as mayor of Goodneighbor, nobody seems to question the mayor for never looking older. That and stopping synths from growing seems counter intuitive to the institutes goals of infiltration. The broken mask incident happened 50 years prior to the games present day. So for 50 years the commonwealth has known the institute is actively trying to hide synths among normal humans and have tried to root out these spies. We can clearly see they’ve missed many of them, and likely never find out about most.That proposition is a lot harder to believe if you consider that any Synth in a community would be easy to spot within 5 or 10 years of them entering a community by the mere fact they haven’t aged a day within that time. We don’t get to see how Synth Shaun is constructed or what’s actually inside him, but with normal Gen 3 synths we see they are sewn together with Bone, sinew, muscle tissue, ect. Nothing mechanical inside them to presume after this point they’d stop aging and keeping them from aging seems a lot more difficult to achieve, and makes their intended purpose more difficult. I suppose you could argue with people like they Mayor they just switch him out with a new older looking synth every few years, but that to me seems overly complicated, each time they’d do that they risk being discovered, and it seems to be a waste of valuable resources which the institute is shown to be rather particular about managing properly. We’re told in the game that Gen 3 synths are not cheap to produce and valuable enough that an entire branch of the institute is solely dedicated to making sure they don’t misplace even a single model, so designing them in such a way ( to not age naturally) that it necessitates making more of them, at a higher risk and lower efficiency just doesn’t seem to line up. Replacing a synth when it dies after a few decades, seems cheaper than replacing all the synths every couple years to keep up appearances. If Synth Shaun was said to age, like if that was made clear, I’d say then yes most synths probably don’t, and making Shaun age was what made the child synth project so time consuming, as it was trying to fix an inherent design flaw in the synth program. But the fact he’s stated to not age suggests to me that the opposite of this is true for most synths.
Sole Survivor, covered in Fathers blood surrounded by dismembered coursers: "WHERE IS MY SON?!" X6 now fully understanding the concept of fear: "You... you just painted the wall with his brains."
Father released you from 111 in the first place because he knew he was dying. I,e he allowed his sentimentality to get the better of him once he was facing the end. If you side with the Institute then you see that sentimentality of his slip out quite often in dialog. The most brazen display of this trait of his is when he names you his successor despite there being absolutely no logical reason to do so. Human beings are complex. His alpha male, stiff upper lip persona may have been what he needed to become in order to survive being raised by a bunch of scientists in labs, but that doesn't mean he's not emotionally damaged by knowing he was never meant to be there.
I think he has a half decent reason. he mentions something along the lines of "The institute doesn't need another scientist, it needs a leader." which makes sense as the institute expands and has more armed conflict. In the case of the male character, He has experience as a soldier and would be a great leader for future conflict.
That child synth was adult Shaun's ego. His way of cheating death and attaining immortality in some way. Shaun was a monster. Cold, unfeeling, ruthless and cruel. This last gambit was a play to your emotions and paternal instincts. I see synths as living beings, sure. But that one... That one seemed like a sick joke. A cruel last stab at the parent they never knew. The only reason they even spared you in that vault was to satisfy their own curiosity. So I left them behind. They were not my son. My son died the moment Kellog ripped him from his mother's arms and shot her through the heart. What he left for me at the end was a mockery of what the Institute took away from me, corrupted and turned against me. But, that's how I personally saw it.
Honestly I like this. It actually made me think about why you would save him. I know this comment is like super late but I couldn't help but say that you got me to rethink my ending and play the game again lol so thank you
I had the same thought, Shaun was never emotional or caring and let you out only as a twisted experiment. The kid synth is both him wanting to cheat death in a sense and by trying to ensure at least some of his lifes work lives on. To play on your emotions to his benefit even as the Institute burns around him.
@@Avariel xD the fucked up thing about it is that when you first see the kid he gets scared of you. Which tells you that he didn't bother correcting that until the last minute. He was going to send synth Shaun up to the surface once he died and if anything went wrong.
@@JayTowers901 Yeah like Shaun doesn't really hold emotional weight come to think of It. And The kid does try to pull on the heart strings a little bit but really if you think about it. It makes him feel more robot than human unlike they were advertising. So strange to me. I don't know if I like the ending or not lol
They don't know that the kid is a synth unless the Sole survivor tells them he is. An actual child would have no control over what happens in the institute, so they'd gladly save a child that they think is human. Ingram is even shocked when the SS tells her that Shaun is a synth, she didn't think the Institute would stoop to such a low level as to create child synths.
@@peterpalacios8128 If you tell Shaun that he's not coming with you, Ingram asks why. There's a dialogue option that allows you to tell her that he's a synth.
Shaun's dialogue is amazing. Brought him with me to Sanctuary. The kid is awesome, helps out on the farm and gives you free weapon mods if you bring him shit. Also helps make a settlement feel like home since all the other settlers must be celibate.
I'm just now incredibly paranoid Shaun is a trap laid by father. The thought of taking him out back and ahem ahem has graced my mind at least twice now. I love the character of Shaun. I love his dialogue but with our recent intel of synth settlers attacking turrets and generators during synth raids I think that's all the proof I need that they can be controlled at the snap of their fingers. Shaun could very well be extremely fake made by a creepy group of people who are responsible for super mutants in the commonwealth and seeing people as ants well I don't see any reason why they wouldn't commit another atrocity with young Shaun. I think the best option is to keep him at an abandoned settlement and perhaps give him a defensive perimeter with turrets and concrete with a nice house in the center. I believe Shaun deserves a chance but it's IMPOSSIBLE to viably trust him.. I'll move him from my mechanist lair because he may try to turn everyone against me and make a second institute there or smth. I already started disarming synth settlers and demoting their provisioner status. The synth settlers seem extremely dangerous now and perhaps the only way besides imprisoning/ murdering them is to send them over to the railroad.
Same, the Knight we meet in Cambridge was right about us the entire time. I remember when i met him and talked to him and he told me he didn't trust my intentions i was like "HOW DID YOU KNOW!!"
YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH i remember during the fight between synths and BOS at bunker hill i was literally helping the synths kill BOS and abusing the ally system to attack them without aggro and stealing all the power armor and laser guns off their corpses so i could sell it at diamond city lmao
Don't let this distract you from the fact that once you return to Preston he's sure as shit going to have a settlement for you to help.. here.. let him mark it on your map
Shaun's living wish was to imprison and enslave a bunch of people by kidnapping and murdering a bunch of other people and replacing them, so like... wah.
@@chiffmonkey easily the best point in his favor buy he also has access to prewar science and could give himself therapy and not destroy the rest of civilization to make robots
I wish the Far Harbor DLC had added an option for Nate/Nora to send Synth Shaun to live in Acadia. He'll never age, but then neither will any of the other synths around him and that's honestly his best chance at some kind of lasting normalcy.
I did that in my headcanon. Did a MM-only playthrough. (Again all headcanon) My character was torn up about what to do after taking him to the castle. Used the disable console command to remove him. My character needed to cut the cord with that past and made a selfish choice. She had Ronnie Shaw take the kid to Dr. Amari to have him reprogrammed, wiping any memories Father put in there. Hancock owed my character a favor and got him to Acadia.
@@br7693t I like that headcannon I wish there was a way in the minutemen to send him off and never see him again. Without leaving him in the institute.
I think you missed the whole point. Father, after seeing your reaction the young synth Shaun when you first arrived in the institute, reprogrammed him. He didn't do it for himself, he didn't do it for his created synth, he did it for you. He wants to give you the chance to have the family you were deprived of when your child was taken away.
Why would Father care? He literally dismisses the death of his other parent with no emotion in his voice. When he is literally dying, he is nothing but hostile towards you. He didn't even send anyone or anything to help you get accustomed to the Fallout world after releasing you. No synth bodyguards with gear, no guides to the Institute, nothing. He expected you to die. He does not care. Not before, not when he woke SS up, not when he reprogrammed Synth Shaun, not even on his deathbed If anything that kid is an assassin, maybe with a dormant copy of Father's mind that will activate later on, kill SS, and resume the Institute's work.
zachanikwano father says when you first meet him the reason why he has no emotion is because it’s been 60 years and he hardly even met her. Why would he? He’s had all that time to cope
You don't have a chance to have a family again. Shaun will *NOT* grow up. He won't fall in love, live out on his own, maybe have kids, none of it. A grown up synth could have those things. He can't and the lone survivor will grow to resent him.
Head Canon: Synth Shaun holds all the data to and is programmed to recreate the Institute years down the road. Father is a zealot and wouldn't let what he's built be destroyed so easily.
My Head Canon: Synth Shaun is actually Father's transferred consciousness and "Father" was the actual synth. This way he assures he has a higher chance at survival, a second chance to play grow up, and the most badass person alive as his parental guardian.
The Institute didn't have to be evil it was because of the choices people made. Having the good karma sole survivor as a role model likely changes those choices. Meaning the Institute could very well be a good thing. Imagine all thier tech being out towards actively saving the Commonwealth...
@@LanMandragon1720 great theory, unfortunately it would still be left open to someone without the best intentions taking over at some point and then it's back to being evil again. Something that has the ability to easily swing from good to evil like that doesn't deserve to exist.
@@jvazacas Hence why I said "could very well be". As for the ability to swing from good to evil not deserving to exist...Well humanity inherently has that as a feature of our species so. Your line of thought is kind of a dangerous one wouldn't you say?
@@LanMandragon1720 You arr putting it into a context of people when I clearly was talking about organizations or systems. To compare that to people is idiotic, no offense
"When you side with the institute, you buy the idea that synths are just machines" I joined the Institute because I thought I could tear that Ideology to shreds once I was put in charge of it.
Which you can't and you don't. Unfortunately Todd Howard made you, the Director, as a arrand boy. The institute still body swap family members, take tech for themselves, etc
@@NathanMarcusSPhua that's what I thought too! It was the first ending I chose but boy was I disappointed. Even modding it doesn't help. (Phase 4 mod, etc)
Its not racist to want humans to take prevalence over other species. Synths have digital components integrated into their brains. They're lobotomized clones.
Honestly Shaun being a Synth child got me super angry, Father was trying to do good by letting the Sole Survivor have a fatherhood or motherhood but instead it just made me feel so angry at the Institute for what was basically the final insult: We took your child, you're never going to see them again, not without us and our technology
Let's not forget, everyday you will resent him as he is the son that is but isn't. A constant reminder of what you lost, an emotional wound that would never heal.
In my playthrough I let him die, because in my mind Shaun has died, and this synth was a walking, talking reminder of everything that my charater lost and that was soemthing my character couldn't handle.
He would have a brain of a child for eternity too it would drive him insane seeing friends and family dying around him while he still thinks like a 10 year old
in my opinion i fully agree with Lolomlas, the real shaun died, he was human and this shaun is simply just a robot, a better upgraded Nick Valentine, a piece of technology and a tool to use .. no different than a phone or laser rifle. yes they can be programmed to have human behavior but thats ALL it is, artificial intelligence. and this is the reason why i hated the railroad path
This is late but I feel like bringing Shaun with you would be continuing the Institute's legacy. The Institute will always have something up their sleeves and who knows what they did to "Shaun". He might think, act and look like a kid but when he gets older I'm hella sure, something will click inside and he starts to slowly become father. A last resort of the institute if they were to lose the battle.
Exactly how i felt, pure manipulation by Father. Unfortunately Shaun was lost before it began and I couldn't see myself pretending the synth was actually shaun as well as the animosity I would have towards the institute for killing my wife in cold blood.
"You can't truly save your son." -downloads Father companion mod. -Save Shaun -Show Shaun what atrocities the institute committed -Change Shaun's mind -Truly Save Shaun
Not realistic, but could be fun. It would like trying to teach someone who has believed in God since they were a child that there really is no such thing.
phennec it was pretty realistic and well thought out. You’d be amazed what someone is capable of when faced with the atrocities that they caused face to face.
What if he only wanted Shaun to live because he implanted a copy of his consciousness in the kid to live on again, not to relive the childhood he never had. He knew the institute was doomed so he copied himself on Shaun to ensure the institutes survival. This sappy sentimental concept of an ending is sweet and all but father isn't an idiot and after everything he's done I just don't see he having a "coming to God" moment just because he's dying.
Drunken Sailor he's a robot albeit extremely sophisticated. He could upgrade it or switch his consciousness to a newer body to appear to be aging. Wouldn't be that hard
I’ve always saved little Shaun. I mean he is a synth, but so is nick and Danse. Maybe after awhile he could be switched into a older body, like how curie was put into a synth body in her side quest.
Shaun deserves an opportunity at a good life after being trapped in The Institute all his life plus it makes SS happy I always get a kick out of how the female SS talks to him because she always speaks to him with a slight laugh really showing how having at least some piece of her old life has made her bleak new existence a little more bearable
00rphb The body snatching synths are aware that they’re synths. Dance is likely a synth rescued by the railroad with his memory wiped. So there never was a human Danse.
00rphb Don’t really know why danse being a synth makes him dangerous. If you never had known he was a synth than you’d have no problem with him. I agree that the creation of synths is an abomination but the railroad destroys that at the source, ending anymore synths from being set into the commonwealth. They eliminated the synth threat while not killing any innocent synths. The synths that are left have no physical or mental advantage over humans, can’t reproduce, most don’t know that they’re synths, and they’re a small minority of the population. The real evil faction is the institute. They see their fellow man as test subjects, they are the ones doing the body snatching, and they claim no responsibility for their actions. The brotherhood is a good faction mostly, but their ideology keeps them from solving the actual problem in many instances. The railroad is a good faction but their completely obsolete after the institute is destroyed. The best option is the minutemen even if they’re the most boring faction. Unlike the brotherhood, they have the potential to unite the commonwealth.
Ima leave Shaun behind, the most painful thing is your taking care of a boy who can’t even grow up, even if child synths can grow up cause they are 99% human, but also the fact that he’s not your real child that makes it worse, they replace your real son and give you a synth child that’s possibly not even yours, that’s how bad the institute is
"When you side with the institute, you buy the idea that synths are just machines" I just sided with them because I came all that way to save my son and I wasn't gonna give up because he grew up to be an egghead
As mad as I was that Shaun called my late spouse "collateral damage", I still stuck with him and the Institute because that's the end goal; finding Shaun. The next run will be to incinerate the Institute tho lmao
9:30 It wasn't his decision. It happened when the Institute took him. He was a baby back then, when the Institute turned off the pods opened his one, then turned back on only the one with the player in it. He was a baby back then when that happened.
This!!! What really gets me is when you're going through Kellogg's memories and you get to the vault scene, Kellogg mentions that it was "The Old Man's" decision to kill all of the other 111 dwellers. They don't come out and say it but who's the Old Man? They make it sound like referring to Father. Can't be though since he was being kidnapped. Is Father really Shuan or is he someone claiming to be Shuan and the SS is just another experiment? He's already told the SS that releasing him/her from was an experiment to see how they would do in the post war Commonwealth. I demand answers!
Maybe Father thinks this synth Shaun will take his place one day and recreate the Institute, fooling you by playing the "I have feelings" game. I seriously doubt he considers this young version of himself as real.
He probably doesn't. This was something he did for you, not for himself. He's too conceited to have true regrets, but deep down he thinks there's some sort of amends he needs to make, and this is the best he can think of. He can't help who he is at this point. Whether you choose to accept the gesture or not, I think it's sincere. I didn't keep him for Father's sake, or for mine, I kept him for "Shawn's" sake. He deserves life regardless of his circumstances.
I just watched the Castlevania show on Netflix. Father reminds me of that Dracula. He keeps saying that he is super rational, but his actions are wildly inconsistent, ranging from psychopathical grandiosity to sentimental self sabotage. It actually makes a bit of sense to view his entire sole survivor project as an extended suicide. Why does he make a child version of himself? As a way to vicariously experience a better childhood than the one he had? As a way to try out parenting but without actual responsibility and the option to quit any time? As bait and bread crumb for his remaining parent when he thaws her or him out? As psychological leverage? Maybe a bit of all of these? The only thing I’m sure of is that his stated beliefs and motivations cannot be taken at face value. The moral question is easy. Child Shaun is a living feeling sentient beeing, and completely innocent of Fathers many crimes. You should save his creepy annoying little behind. But is it safe? Is he going to grow up into the kind of monstrous psychopath genius that Father was? Is he going to grow up at all, by the way? Cynths are assembled, not grown. It seems likely that his body will remain a childs while his mind ages. I know he acts like a child, but how much of that is just training and programming? He isn’t actually a child as we understand the concept. He can also build a legendary laser rifle from scratch, from scrap parts. What other abilities have father added to his programming? What other booby traps might be hidden in his programming? Or will he just remain clingy manipulative and childish forever? What kind of life can he have if he doesn’t age physically or intellectually? I’m not totally sure we’re doing him a favor. Is it healthy for a grieving parent to play act parenting with this perma-child substitute? I really doubt that. So for a variety of reasons I kinda wish the protagonist could walk away and let child Shaun burn with the rest of Fathers works. But of course, that’s not a thing my sole survivor could do, not in any version, not in any playthrough.
Dammnit.. why'd you have to say this now? Grrr... now I have to go searching for the guy I totally *ahem did not sell a certain person to as a slave...
@Deus Dex dude. Going around every comment to show your hate towards Shawn 'a machine' and other non humans shows just how pathetic a human being you were raised to be. If you really hate them that much, start your own god damn post instead of spamming your shit everywhere without provocation
I always felt Shaun/Father releasing the Sole Survivor was less of an experiment and more of an actual desire to meet his parent. He wanted to prove to himself that he was loved before his dies. The same reason he made the synth version of his younger self. He wanted to see the lengths you'd go for him, how much you love him. It's also why even if you're an enemy of the Institute he "gives you your son back", a part of him could have the family he never had
See this I feel here, despite the “experiment” line. He wanted his Parent at the end of his life, the child felt like a parting give and a reward for all your efforts to find him
@@Trigger99X I never saw it that way. Shaun had no childhood, he had no true life, and his goal in life was to kill humans and replace them with robots… He’s a psychopath dealing with incredible trauma, far more trauma than most any of us can understand. He saw synths as real people. He saw the synth child as an opportunity for him to be able to have the childhood that was stolen from him, by giving his real father his synth “clone” of himself.
An angle I don't see people seeing is that Shaun has been raised since infancy to work at the institute and most likely, like orphans, he probably was starved for real familial affection and wondered why his parents weren't around. He may have asked the institute caretakers at some point but its likely that they gave him lies so he doesn't question further. Whether it was directly by the institute or his own conclusions, I'm sure he probably resented his absent parents for not being there. Most of that resentment screeching to a halt decades later when he finds out the truth of how he came to be taken by the institute. He was probably still struggling with some lingering resentment that his parents weren't able to save him and that's why he 'released us to see what happens'. He is so hardstuck in his ways as a cold and calculating Director but when he realizes through our journey that we were looking hard for him, he grew to forgive us and love us as a parent. That's how I view his character between the lines. It's the only real reason that I see a logical man like him would make a Synth Shaun for us, he is a child and he doesn't really have any purpose beyond some in game rewards but it has meaning because Shaun didn't want to leave us all alone. Like a birthday card doesn't have a real practical purpose but it gives the impression that you care about the person. By extension, I could also say that it might even be the reason that he gives us the director position(In the Institute Ending), it's just not something a man like him would do on a whim. His first and last act as a man who felt the love of his parents is to let his parents continue what he couldn't finish and maybe even make it better. Something he couldn't do ever since he was a baby.
@@mr.doctorcaptain1124 seems more like letting us be the parent we could never be, even if his goals were to kill all humans he would have no reason to release us. I still subscribe to the idea he had a burning question of “what if” and knowing your end is coming can push people to find those answers sooner
That's not how that works, friend. If I use my DNA to make a clone, my clone isn't my parents grandchild, it's a copy of their son...me. Is Father had mixed his own DNA with another person's then maybe, but the kid's just a "clone suit" worn by a robot.
It's because of that final talk with Father that I always believed Shaun (synth kid) was a final middle finger... one last attempt at the same sort of manipulation of you that he's been about from the beginning. Why else program Shaun, which had to be done well in advance of your final assault, to believe you're his parent? He's enough of a psychopath to pull off that regretful sounding holotape and I absolutely believe that he's lying through his teeth while recording it. He's said himself: he doesn't understand or feel love or compassion. Suddenly he feels it towards this synth, a member of the slave race he's created and used horribly for decades? No. This is one last attempt to drag you around by the heartstrings. Take the kid to Amari and get on with your life. Edit Addendum: Same thing for the Institute ending, by the by. Father knows you're more emotional than him; most if not all vanilla dialogue options make this clear. He also knows that you have emotional attachments to the Commonwealth and the people thereof. He's not above using a synth to try and swing that towards favoring the Institute, and like any villain he'll happily embrace hypocrisy to get what he wants. Glossing over how he's referred to synths up to now? No problem, he's counting on his parent (whom he's ever been condescending toward) to not pick up on it, or simply not care after your 'emotional' goodbye with him and now this 'chance to have a family'. ....Joke's on him, if I'm starting a family with a synth, it'll be Curie and the children we adopt.
I couldn't agree more. Aside from the moral ramifications of creating a child that can never grow beyond adolescence, it's far too likely Shaun is pulling one over on you and the commonwealth with synth shaun as a plant.
@@morgantollhall True, and I never said it was. All the more reason not to punish him for it. I never said leave him to die nor would I. But I also won't punish him by having him live a lie. I will always know he's not my son, and that his believing himself to be is a program. It's a delusion that's been forced onto him by Father. No matter what you or I think of Father's motivations, I don't think that's right. I may sound cavalier when I say 'take the kid to Amari' but this is the one time I'm fully in favor of a mind wipe for a synth. He cannot decide his own future when he's been programmed to live out a lie. And I can't be a real parent to him when I know that lie the whole time. Maybe others can and I don't judge them, but I can't do it. In game terms I drop the kid at a settlement and never see him again. I don't come back for the Wazer Wifle, I don't want a gift from someone who's been programmed to believe he's my son. It's messed up and he needs a doctor. That's true no matter the faction I side with (even in the Institute there were strenuous objections to making kid Shaun in the first place, with good reason). Though thinking about it now... post mind wipe? I could see adopting him at that point, if he wanted. Curie and I (to keep to my original joke/realtalk) would be uniquely suited to take care of a synth kid. But if I believe synths are people (and I do), then he has to have free will to decide for himself, unshackled by a programmed belief that he was mine all along.
@@sunsage3754 but that programming makes him who he is. However those memories came to be, they still make up his identity and form his personality. I know the RR wipes memories, and I do side w/them (along w/ the MM, ofc!), but I don't feel great about them doing that. The RR has their consent, so I'm not really objecting though. It seems akin to euthenasia, with the re/birth of another being. Also, the kid kind of is yours, more than he is anyone else's anyways. Your son made him, and your son is dead. Perhaps one could make the argument for a synth raising him/getting him accustomed to what the world is like for a synth, but you're related to him as no other human is.
Another reason to take Shaun is as a coping mechanism, the sole survivor refuses to fail in finding his/her kid and takes synth Shaun to make themself believe there is nothing wrong
The male one gets to literally become his favourite superhero as Silver Shroud, meanwhile with the female one she’s just internally thinking “I never thought my husbands obsession with that stupid show would actually come in handy”
not really no... synth shaun is HUMAN... dna/genetics are OBJECTIVE end of story.. this relation would be no different an adult taking in a child thats not theirs to care for.... no need for coping.. we are beyond coping at this point in the story... super mutants.. death claws.. wasteland.. if ur character manage that as well as help rebuild and lead the minutemen.. then dealing with shaun so be childs play.. no pun intended.. also to be miniutemen.. which we lowkey know is the canon ending.. it would be extremely hypocritical to be anti synth.. as the solo surivier has not only NICK as a friend... butt curie.. a robot now synths.. also other actual robots.. a super mutant.. plus ghouls .. all part of the mintutne rebuilding effort.. so the sole survivor takes shaun for the most simple and human reason.. its a child and killing it is wrong.. end of story.. or rather.. say u have a family member with a "kid" butt they die.. and before they die.. they ask to u take in their "kid" which is normally what most families do.. they take in kids of their family members who die.. or some just dont care and let the state take them...
I believe Father created Shaun so he can rebuild the Institute. Seems weird that he would have a change of heart at the very last moment like that for no soild reason
might be a dying old man moment looking back at all his life finding meaning because he has only the past and presents now until he gets stage 5 dead seems like he has problem understanding people and emotions maybe his own maybe at the end he felt lonely all along his journey and didn't want to die alone even tho he felt betrayed he still is human
I find your videos to be some of the most enlightening and intellectually challenging on all of RUclips regardless of topic. As a parents with young children of my own I don't believe I could ever possibly let even a machine version of them die
i mean, it's possible because real shaun was in his last bed so he could have used some modifications to bed so bed would transfer his life to synth shaun and keep living.
THIS! I mean with the weapon he makes, and some stuff he says, seems a lil too grown up or knowledgeable for a 10 year old boy. Even if he is a synth. he may even have altered his memories, blocked most of his adulthood life or something! O_O THE IMPLICATIONS!!!!
Two items: Oxhorn assumes the tape was made during the final moments of the Institutes destruction. I always believed it was created beforehand, and if you kill Shaun before getting locked out of the Institute and before coming back with w/e faction you side with... you still get the tape. 2nd item: Father (Shaun) did not kill the other inhabitants of Sanctuary Hills. He didn't make the decision not to turn the life support back on. That happened the day he was kidnapped. There was only one back-up.
whitelion1284 yea and the son in Kellogg's memory was just a synth, idk were he got that info, but it's all different from the way the average player perceives it, the only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Kellogg has been hunting Vergil for over 50 years
No, Father absolutly did. Kellogg even mentions "Father said to keep THIS one alive." which had me spending the entire game thinking Father wasn't Shaun, because of that fucking line.
Dapper Changeling I thought Durring the memory retrieval he said "The Old Man didn't want any loose ends. But to keep that one as backup." Probly not how he fully said it, but he didn't say Father it was Old Man.
whitelion1284 Good point. Shaun was raised by the Institute. However, when close to death, it looks as if he really did regret never having a father and mother.
About destroying your last connection to life before the war, I think Codsworth and the Vault-Tec rep are much more positive connections. Synth Shaun is a reminder that your true son (and spouse) is dead, as well as all of the killing you did to get to this point. Codsworth is a reminder of the good times because he's always trying to cheer you up and cracks jokes, he's basically the same friend you had before the war. The Vault-Tec rep is a reminder that despite all the horrible things that have happened, some pre-war ideals live on in you and him, and (if) when you take him in to Sanctuary, it shows that both of you together can move on and rebuild. Throuought the whole game, everyone in the Commonwealth tells you to fear the institute because they take people and replace them with a synth, which is exactly what they did to your son, only it's worse in your case because they're trying to guilt trip you into taking him because 1. he's a child, and 2. he's YOUR child. Ingram's response when you tell her he's a synth is fitting, because she's utterly appalled at the fact that the Institute could sink that low. Tom's response is fitting because he's taken aback but because of his Railroad ideals he has to take the kid somewhere safe. I wish there was an option where you personally could say that Shaun could escape with you, but he'd have to live on his own because it's really not fair to the SS that he/she was thrown this awful situation.
I love saving Shawn because he has a bunch of funny lines based on who your current companion is like once I was walking around sanctuary and he went”you’re friend Cait says a bunch of funny words...most of them start with “f”
i couldnt save him. just think about your Character.. everytime you see him you KNOW hes not your real son. and he still thinks he is and acts like it. must be huge pain to realize it. your real son is no more. you are just left with this wanna be shaun. and thats all you got
Fiundal undso but you are his dad you are related to him by DNA because all synths use father's DNA who is your son so therefore synth Shaun is still you son, and you can still love your son even if he is a synth, adopted parents still love there children
Fiundal undso Fiundal undso but you are his dad you are related to him by DNA because all synths use father's DNA who is your son so therefore synth Shaun is still you son, and you can still love your son even if he is a synth, adopted parents still love there children
Id be more concerned that Shaun is a Fail safe. given fathers attitude towards you if you turn against him. I would not be suprised in the least if at some point (possibly when YOU are on your death bed) Synth Shawn turns against you and trys to bring down everything you have built whether its the BOS, Railroad or Minutemen.
I agree with you to the letter my friend. It is highly possible that he created him as a form of successor with his knowledge and his attitude to ensure that what he has created can not go to hell that easily and that whatever the player has built gets sabotaged or simply blown out of the water. Good theory :)
That's a really mind blowing theory, but there's one flaw. What if you decide to side with the Insitute? He still asks you to watch after Shaun, even though you accepted to be his successor. So why would Father want to sabotage you even after you accepted your role as the leader of the Institute? That part doesn't really make sense, but with every other faction it makes perfect sense.
Exactly, I have never understood as to why people don't think that far. If Father has time to reprogram him to "become your son" how do I know he has not also programmed me to ruin everything?
One last selfish act of father, he wants to live the life he missed having a life with parents, or maybe he deep down he knows he was brainwashed and feels a twinge of agreement with hour actions and feels you deserve a life with your son you fought so hard to find. And thus it's a selfless act
I think it would have been a really cool plot twist in the game if you didn’t know he was a synth from the minute you saw him. Like if he had that behavior all along and could grab him and make your way out of the Institute only to be surprised later (like 75% of the way in when you’re deep into a war with the Institute) by the real Shaun who then shuts him down and tells you the truth.
That Guy great idea I would have it if you didn't listen to father when you first met him he allows you to escape with shaun until you get to the rellay where he stops and explains it
I feel that Father just has a lot of emotional detachment. He says he is personally a pacifist, but he's okay with violence if it's the only option. Father absorbing the synths are machines thing to hide his own 'love' for them just makes sense to me.
Shaun is an Institute spy. He says all the right things to trigger feelings of guilt and remorse in the player. I hate being emotionally manipulated, and the sudden shift in tone from Father in the tapes from the hardcore murdering bastard to loving/remorseful wasn't believable. Just one last final manipulation, so while you push onward, protecting the little infiltrator unit as you go, it can go on about its business continuing the work of the Institute. Perhaps even to eventually setting up new Institute cells after you're gone. Less 'omg i regret everything!' and more 'oh fucking shit, its all going down in flames, how could this happen...wait, I know, 'come here Shaun...''
OrbitalRescueSage Same! It honestly seemed a lot like emotional manipulation. I've been on the receiving end of that type of abuse for years and I've got a good nose for it now. Shaun was conducting an experiment on you, why wouldn't this be the final stage of his living experiment?
If it was an experiment, it's never going to get finished. With the Institute exploded, that data is being transmitted somewhere in the vicinity of jack-shit. Perhaps he was meant to spy on you originally by getting close to you, and that might be exactly what is going on in the Institute ending, but Father knows that by leaving Shaun with you in any scenario where the Institute is blown up, he is leaving Shaun only. The Institute does not exist anymore. And apparently, the Shaun Synth is incapable of growing older, making the likelihood of him being sent to the surface to revive the institute very unlikely as he is incapable of emotionally maturing; as Father said, that level of emotion and emotional development had not been possible with the tech the Institute had before being blown to smithereens. For once you can rest easy; Shaun is not a spy, and if he was ever designed to be a spy and NOT just Father's twisted pet project, he is spying for no-one.
All this time, I thought I was the only one that noticed that. So many people either wrote this off as "Lol bad writing" or "Omg what a tweest! Such deep writing!", I thought I was the only one that thought of this.
OrbitalRescueSage If anything, I would worry that Child Shaun would not just be a spy but be meant to restart the Institute behind your back or after your death. LOL! Despite that gut feeling, I couldn't let him die in any set play through.
Personally I let Shaun go down with the institute simply because I felt my character just lost his son and the child synth of him would've just been a horrific reminder of the loss that he'd suffered...the guy has enough trauma to deal with in his life...being around a living reminder of his son's death wouldn't exactly help.
Spang Scrungus I was born from an organism. I am an organism. I have live cells that keep me going. I have the power to make my own choices to execute myself. This argument is poor with the reality of sentient vs non sentient. Prove your fucking TV remote or your computer is not sentient. YOU CAN!
Spang Scrungus Just try it on a true sentient being. If it can be shut off with a simple code , i don't count it as a sentient being , no matter how sentient it appears to be. Especially when i saw that being put into one piece by piece by piece. Is it alive? Doubtful. It is a biological machine.
9:28 Hey Oxhorn you're mistaken. Shaun was the infant baby when the life support was turned off for the other vault 111 residents remember. It was the previous director who made the choice. Sean wasn't even a year old when those life supports were turned off.
@@keaganchipps739 The occupants were frozen solid, would have taken ages to reach that state they were in. If life support was shut off just after releasing then they would still have been alive all be it not for long before suffocating.
See that is what I did not understand Father was a different person at time of abduction than what your son so how is it that farther is Shawn it was his predecessor who who stole Shawn so what the other guy died then why was Shawn chosen for the job is what I do not understand
Synth Shaun is actually the Institute's newest infiltration and espionage unit, later version to the courser, capable of emotional reasoning and incubation tactics. You saw how easily the railroad let itself be infiltrated with Tinker Tom adopting him if the player doesn't. That's why father offers Shaun even if he is completely pissed off before he dies. The institute's primary goal has always been to make synths as close to human as possible. Much like Mayor Mc Donough, synth Shaun is the final bluff.
Now imagine if he uploaded his consciousness into young shawn after doing his recording and the reason he asked to save him from the explosion is so he could live on how he should have with his father/mother
That legit would make so much of the cluster fuck that is Bethesda writing make sense in that game. Like then we'd have a clear reason of why Father Prime would have searched so hard for a pre-war baby that fit this SPECIFIC gene-profile. He needed someone to Raʼs al Ghul himself into.
Father is a manipulative narcissist. He wants the player to take care of Shaun partly because the synth is his second chance at life, and a kind of immortality. But more importantly, making the player form an emotional bond with a synth effectively binds the player to the Institute, Father's way of manipulating the player from beyond the grave. Once the player is bonded to that fake "child", and loves it, here's no knowing what kind of corrupting influence the synth could have been programmed with. They both had to die, for the player to have a clean start and build a better future.
psammiad unless you side with the railroad where you have some sort of emotional feeling towards every synth. if that's the case, he's not manipulating you since you're choosing to not kill Shaun based off of your morals that you've had for a long time
psammiad it is not immortality, because that is not father. Shaun is a bunch of ones and zeros that look like Father. If I created a robot that looked and acted just like you, would you just accept that it is you and you are just as much you as the ones and zeros?
depends, if I could download my brain into a file (as seen ingame) then I have to accept it. because that exactly what I am. an incredibly complicated set of 1's and 0's sure, but 1's and 0's the same.
GoPro Central It's the same level of immortality that having a kid or making a well known novel is. Not actually Immortality but still a grasp at life.
It's like hearing your dead kid through a interactive chatbot. I don't think I could emotionally handle something like that. I'm glad that we don't have technology for it yet. Black mirror proved how depressing it could be, not being able to move on.
Save him? My son, my REAL son, wound up ruling the most feared, most dreaded organization in the Commonwealth, and not only did he do nothing to change any of what they were doing once he became its overseer, he then put me through all he did seemingly out of what amounted to little more than just bored curiousity, and then when all was said and done, when all there was left of him is a cancer-ravaged elder, I find he's created this... thing... this inhumanly-ageless mirror of a childhood he had and I never got to enjoy... for what reason? To make up for what I missed? This abominable false clone I'll never see grow up into the strong and proud and smart young man I dreamed of when I held him in my arms because my boy is now a cold and distant old man twice my age... This... this damnable MACHINE replica is meant to be what, some kind of fucking apology?! "Gee, sorry I and my spooky secret laboratory terrorized the landscape for decades and treated you like a puppet on a string! Whoopsy, my bad! Here, have this robot clone of me when I was still young and cute and didn't round up people and have them killed and replaced by artifical duplicates. Looks like my time's up... gonna go die now, bye!" No, I won't "save" him. He's not my son. My son died at that damnable Institute, decades ago, the day he stopped being called "Shaun" and started being called "Father".
I don’t understand at all the hate Fallout 4 gets storywise. This choice especially is a masterpiece. No matter how you look at it. Either Old Man Shaun is someone who has spent a life being brainwashed into believing something they know deep down is horrible and morally corrupt, using their last moments to reach out to their parent, beg for forgiveness and to allow a piece of him to have the life he missed out on. Or... Shaun is still one step ahead of you, as the Institute always is, and is using young Shaun to keep the sole survivor in constant torment with the memories of the life they lost, and eventually rebuild the Institute from the ground up and sustain his legacy. He was always nothing but evil and a monster, the sole survivor is too late to save him.
The hate is based around what it could have been and what it takes away from, overall. It is a good idea, a good story, and a great bit of lore. It's a poor base for identity creation, player choice, and immersion for roleplaying diversity.
The story was good. Towards the end. But the journey to that end was poor. The dialogue options gave no difference like pats fallouts. This ruined the whole journey for me. Little real choice like previous games, the revelation that Shaun was father was great but tha was about it.
Bethesda is a lot like telltale. Both are games with choices but most of them don't matter. The only choices that do matter are big choices. Like "who would you kill? _____ or _____". This is why people hate bethesda. The choices are always big instead of small or medium. They're like the questions your friends or family ask you. Would you father die from fire or from drowning etc...
I saved Shaun, despite him being a synth. My character's ultimate goal was to try and rebuild his old life, with his kid (or something that can be his kid) in Sanctuary, and try and make the most of this new world that he stumbled into.
chapman5578 "if humans die can they come back as a sinth and live again? You know that isnt possible and by you saving him you are lieing to him basically.
I tried to save the actual Shaun, but he was a moron and wouldn't take the immortality serum I had that would have extended his life a bit more (would be worth breaking my deal). Also wasn't sure why transferring his memories to a synth wasn't an option
@@overlorddante there's no point to say yes. You'd just be blinding yourself into thinking that your dead son is still with you but only he's made out of metal, wires and circuits.
@@NurseAmamiya eh, gen 3 synths are made of everything a human is. That's why they're only discernable from an autopsy. But yes, he's technically a robot made out of meat and bone. Personally, I wouldn't see him as my son but on the fence about if I'd take him in.
when i play games like this, i like to create a personality for my character and then get into their head. i make decisions based on what they would decide, not me. so when it came to the decision of leaving shaun to die or not, i left him to die. it would have been too painful for my character. the synth shaun was a reminder of my character failing to be there for her child as he grew. it was a reminder of her dead husband. and if she had to constantly see him, be by him, and take care of him after everything that had happened with the actual shaun? it was too much. i might be taking it too seriously but it just makes the game a lot more enjoyable and emotional for me idk
Omg I do that aswell, I sided with almost every faction in the playthroughs I did but never did I side with the Institute cause I couldnt stand what they were doing and I also couldnt take Synth Shaun with me cause it would be too painful for my character! Edit: Oh and I also didnt join the Institute cause I couldnt bring Curie there lmao
So if I'm the father of the father, that makes me the grandfather of synth Shaun, or because synth Shaun is 100% Shaun DNA does that make me the father of synth Shaun as well as the father of Father, and does that make Father and me both synth Shaun's fathers? damn this shit is confusing.
I’m so confused as to why Shaun couldn’t grow into a normal human? Gen 3’s are nearly made organically with the exception of the chip in their head. It makes sense to me that you could take Shaun and raise him like a normal human.
@@ziimulhah3223 that’s an interesting perspective. As in, his software wouldn’t be able to update. However I still feel like this is the most fundamental flaw of synths, they don’t age or grow?! I get your trying to redefine humanity but that’s a pretty long term design flaw if you talk about espionage
While it's stated that's gen 3 synths don't age I don't believe that's it's confirmed their lack of aging is a unintended result of their creation or if the institute purposefully creates them that way which would imply that they could create synths that age if they wanted to. The game also never states if synth Shaun was designed to never age or if synth Shaun is perhaps the only gen4 synth capable of aging. It's been a while since I played thru the main campaign so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
@@freekill1018 I know that dummy. I’m asking what part of them makes them ungrowable? Gen 3 synths are nearly identical to people. They are organically made, but have a chip near the hippocampus which allows the institute to influence them. If that’s true, then why can’t they continue to age? Also, as I stated in another video, I think this is the greatest flaw to get 3s. How easy is it to notice yourself aging and your friend who hasn’t aged a day in 5 years. The more you dive into the lore behind synths the more you start to realize how flawed a design they are: they can’t age (for some reason even though they’re “indistinguishable” from humans), if they can’t age then I feel they are poor at espionage and infiltration for long term missions, there’s also no clear reason why some are obedient and some rebel, do they have free will or not. Overall from a writing standpoint and a gameplay standpoint I feel as if the creators were like: hey we need a reason for people who aren’t aging in our games, let’s make them robots that can’t age. It’s dumb
I do like how Synth Shaun's dialogues imply that he's very unlikely to grow up to be a condescending prick like Father Shaun thanks to the fact that Synth Shaun won't be isolated from the Wasteland which allows him to form his own informed opinion about the Wasteland and its people rather than assuming that anyone that isn't a part of his group are all hopeless savages.
@@boethia7367 kinda. His body is human. Gen 3 synths have synth components n their brain, that's about it. Much other information is heavily debated (ex: do synths need to eat, drink, urinate, sleep, ect?). I think this is mostly a problem with the information often being vauge and sometimes downright contradicting. People have found information proving synths don't sleep, but curie's dialogue mentions feeling tired and hungry. People have found information saying synths don't age but if that's true how don't they get noticed after a few years of not aging a day? Especially the mayor of diomond city. Hancock was able to turn goul and take over good neighbor in the time since the guy was replaced by a synth but no one has noticed the supossive not aging thing. Honestly, no one's really gonna age in fallout 4. If you think Shawn and the other synths will age, you find the evidence and head cannon it. If not, use the other sides evidence and head cannon it for your game. How you imagine it isn't going to change the actual gameplay
@@Morbid_Magpie You dont see much ageing in a man between 30 and 50, that gives The mayor 20 years to not be noticed. The SRB is cutting him lose because it is only a matter of time before he is discovered.
@@Morbid_Magpiethis is a year late, but the institute scientists mention it in a random conversation encounter that you can overhear. They say that synth Shaun with never age. He will be a kid forever, unfortunately.
I think what father means by leaving the synth Shaun behind... Is his way of leaving a piece of himself. Obviously It isn't him, but at the very least the sole survivor can feel like she hasn't missed out on his childhood. maybe it's some form of compassion and empathy that came out of interacting with his mom for a short time.
This video is 5 years old now and I've been playing fallout since pretty the release of fallout 4. I have a lot of hours in the game at this point and I NEVER knew it was possible to leave Shaun. When he asks to come with me I immediately say yes. It might just be a video game but I could not imagine leaving a child behind. I took him every time without hesitation.
Ox: there is no ramification for not saving synth shaun, none of your companions hate you... Me: piper hated that... (at least from my experience, this happened)
I couldn't leave child Shaun simply for the fact that I didn't know if that machine had actual, human feelings. I mean, how far can AI go to point where there is no difference between a person and a machine? That was the part that haunted me the most about that mission. It left me in an array of doubt, paranoia, and confusion. This game has really made me think.
Claude Frollo Synths actually do have feelings. Nick Valentine is a synth, and he has feelings of "like" and "dislike", and also is mad at times and happy. Danse is the same way, a synth, that has feelings. He can be your love interest in the game. So it's obvious some have feelings.
I kinda wish that there was a compromise option. I feel that the tech of the Institute could do a great amount of good for the Commonwealth, but its leadership won't allow it to utilize it for that purpose. The Brotherhood has the ability to bring order to the Commonwealth, but their moral compass is pointed way too south (or whatever direction involves bigotry). The Railroad has good intentions, but they're only really focused on helping synths. The Minutemen are probably the best overall option, but lack the resources to accomplish much other than sending you to do everything for those damned settlements. If there were a way to eliminate the troublesome leadership of certain factions, and get them all to work together on some level, it would be the best possible outcome. Too bad Bethesda never gave us their option.
Yeah as Director i would have liked to have had one final meeting with the division heads to change how the institute operates and turn them good after taking down the Air Ship i know their are some that secretly want to help to people above ground like Dr Lee for example
It’s the opposite for me. Why bring an immortal child, someone incapable of adapting to the environment, into the horrid wasteland, where even the most capable men and women struggle to survive? What type of life could he even live?
He/it will stay a child forever. I think it is cruel from the real Shaun to do that to his father/mother. Also the lack of trying to give any form of compensation for the shit they did to the sole survivor . I think the first meeting with the synth shaun as a test was like "Father" asking to get shot at the first conversation. He was intended as a puppet for the sole survivor.
Mortally Challenged no, the SS can just go to the memory den to have kid Shaun's consciousness eventually transferred into an adult body as the years go by
@@acecashman1237 You all say that, but who will transfer said consciousness? Didn't the Sole Survivor nuked, literally every piece of equipment that did that?
My first thought was, he'll be programmed to kill my character in their sleep or something. The institutes way of killing you for what you did after they knew they were fucked
You dont understand because you're missing a very important line by father. Father does not believe synths are just machines with no souls. He simply believes that they are not built well enough yet to live as humans. The institute is working on making them completely human but they are still dangerous. He doesnt want to keep the synths as they are forever. He simply wants to perfect them before they are released.
What if letting the Railroad find a home for Shaun is the cannon or taking him home could the ending because he goes on to rebuild the institute that's why Father tricked you into thinking he did it for you be in reality he's getting his way giving you that last middle finger secretly by making you feel sorry for him!
I couldn't leave synth Shaun. So I had him live in The Castle. Check on him frequently. Besides, Wazer Wifle is awesome, especially when modded with automatic fire.
Childhood memories... Shaun was a BABY, when he was kidnapped by Kellog. What memories of consequence could he have had at that time? So whatever memories Father gives the Shaun synth, do not deserve to mean ANYTHING to the Sole Survivor, if you want my opinion.
I feel as if i understand father and his flawed surrounding and influences. After being groomed for so many years and being intellectually superior than most whilst at the time being a leader; Father created a wall of which seemed tyrannical, unjust and perhaps corrupted (depends on whose perspective u listen to). The only thing that made father negative was the institute, they kidnapped him when he was a baby, when he was defenceless. His negative emotions was caused by a huge lack of tender love and care since childhood, the institute could not give him true love, they only gave him conditional love hence why he was living under their conditions, he eventually knew this and thus, knowing something like that, not knowing who your real parent were; it made his warm heart turned cold. The negative childhood, plus additions of negative emotions and the lust of hunger for family love in-turn created a defected in his ability to think critically, emotionally and most importantly, empathically; being the leading man acting the leading role, he did the best he could with the imperfect system he had, whilst knowing his imperfections and his department's imperfections, he tried to be perfect but it was not good enough for everyone, same can be said for his programs and their nightmarish outcome. Synths gen 3 program and Super Mutant program. He basically tried to create super human and the hulk but, encountered human errors or errors of human genetics in correlation with their technology and thus the negative outcome took a snowball effect and and unfortunately, affected the whole of the commonwealth and beyond. Last but not least he created the young Shaun, he created the "what if", as u have known, father always thought of "what if" but never had a chance to experience it for himself and so he wanted to see, he wanted to feel even if he was only able to feel it from a second-hand experience. It was just a scientific research of which father persuaded the departments to believe, but really it was a dream come true for him. A desire, a deep secrete of which Father's emotions were brewing and boiling for over 60 years, he finally made Shaun, he made it for the Sole survivor, hoping that the sole survivor, his mother/father would take him back, would take "what if" back with them and start the "what if" life. He had to come up with it and do it because he knew his days were numbered. It was his will, it was his last wish. Intelligent and wisdom are almost two different things, father had all the intelligence anyone could wish for, but as for wisdom, he lacked because u need to experience life, the positive and negative and to reflect on those experiences; the knowledge and information gained from reflection is called wisdom. The Father only got his wisdom from old age. Being old he admitted his regret and so he tried healing and patching that hole in his human heart. In the end, u the player have to think critically, emotionally and intellectually on the what the outcome will be for the father, Shaun and the institute. The indecisiveness of human emotions in correlation to the game and the outcome of its reality is what made it special for me. A very enticing story, a very thoughtful game. There was one mission of which i played over and over from saved game just so i knew all different outcomes. That mission should of only took 30 minutes to do but it took me something like 3 hours. I just didn't know how to cope with the moral making side of things at the time. That mission was when u had to save or let the synth girl die by the hand of the doctor from Covenant. I really admired Honest Dan value but i also felt sorry for the people of Covenant and agreed with their Docotors ideology regarding Synth and saw logic in their docotor's scientific research. I didn't want the synth to die but at the same time i didn't want to save one Synth just so i can kill 50 or so people relating to Covenant. It is truly a beautiful game.
When he said Shaun is just a chair that talks. I lost it. Never played any of the fallouts but hearing the stories and comments from oxhorn make my day sometimes.
I managed to avoid spoilers for this and when I had to make this decision playing under BOS and on a rampage for Institute destruction, I also could not do it. I knew he wasn't a "real boy" or truly Shaun, but he's a child. The way he speaks to you...oh man..pulled at my heart strings too much. I was also pretty happy about getting Biwwy's Wazer Wifle. I found this hard. I killed Shaun on his deathbed as a "mercy kill" but I took Synth Shaun. What kind of logic is that?
The adult Shaun isn't so helpless and his true character can't be changed. The little Shaun is more helpless and i guess you wanted to protect him. In the players role your memories of Shaun are those of a infant or at least a child. The adult Shaun has lived longer than you and gained more life experience and wisdome than you, while you were in the freezer. I guess it is logical that your feelings can't connect to the adult Shaun, because with 60+ he is more than responsible for his doings. It is hard to accept that the adult Shaun is a monster and it is easier to have compassion with a thinking robot, who is used, than with an old man, who is carrying nothing from you, but some infant memories. He is genetically your child, but he simply "died" the moment he was robbed. I would compare this story to children who were skiped at birth. They grow up unnoticed with the other family and the raising family is the family, not the mother of birth. Sure, a lot of adopted children want to know about their parents, but i think they really see their adopting family as their home (if their childhood was nice), do they? The same is for adult Shaun - he was raised by the Instutute and accepted their moral decisions. He sees the Instutute as the family. In the dialoge was no option, that old Shaun would leave the Institute and come with you to get to know you, because he know what crimes he did, and don't wand to see the consequences. I guess at some point an child abduction leads to quite a lot of problems to the child, that he/she is believing what the robbers are saying and doing. Plus here we have the "timetravel" paradox. I guess not let him dying of cancer and "make it quick" is a pretty "human" decision. Otherwise you let him suffering from pain. This would fit to another topic, but I leave this here. Well, these are my thoughts about it, why "this paradox" isn't paradox at all. By the way - did anyone played on the Institute's side? I want to see the story, but don't want to play those manipulating bastards as I don't want to play the ghoul-hating nazis xD. Sneeking throu the underground and adopting synth-Shaun is simply my way ^^. The immersion of this game is too high for me xD - I can't play those roles.
What sort of logic is that? Human logic. For every cast iron belief that humans have there is usually a few caveats. People may logically accept that paying kidnappers or terrorists will only encourage them and others to follow them but that belief usually changes when it is your child or loved one. I suppose when you don't know the person being affected it makes it easier. Not right just easier.
Sophie T It was father who gave the orders for The Institute, made the calls on all the evil and harm they'd caused. They have so much potential to do a lot of good...but they don't do the right thing. I really wrestled with this when I did play for The Institute. But, my character was "family/blood first nothing else matters" I've played every faction except Railroad.
Sophie T Playing this time for the BOS, when I killed Father, my thinking was, "Its better that I do it and make it painless." and maybe coming from that characters anger at everything she went through because of the Institute. The coldness and his using you as an experiment too. I love that this game gives such hard moral/ethical decisions that you have to make.
Max Power Max Power Good point. I just remember thinking to myself that the "right" thing according to my BOS play would be to let it all go. Plus, I was out for destruction against the Institute. I needed vengeance. But, I caved, even knowing he'll never grow up. Even knowing how the BOS would react to a child synth. Even if he wasn't "Shaun" I would have saved him. I couldn't kill a child crying for help. You take them and figure something out for them later. So, yes, human. 😊
I know this is a 4 year late reply, but I've replayed this recently and I have a new viewpoint on this scenario. Initially I left Shaun behind on my first playthrough because I just thought of all synths as the enemy (obviously a BoS mentality) However I did save him on another character just to see what would happen. Having played this again recently, leaving Shaun behind is a simple but still challenging decision. I role play my character with who Nate was before the war, with a little bit of my own morals added in the mix, and I feel both Nate and my own experience as a father leads me to make the decision to leave Shaun because everything you journey through to get to this point was for the sole purpose of finding your son. Shaun isn't your son, and he never will be. Your son lived his own life, he grew up and made decisions of his own without Nate or Nora. Who he became cannot be replaced or altered by pretending that you get a second chance at raising your son. It isn't like adopting a child. Your choosing to pretend Shaun is something (or someone) that he isn't. It is sad, and to some immoral, but I personally believe that Nate (and myself) would respond to Shaun with a "No, you are not my son."
@115Ironwolf currently replaying skyrim anniversary edition on my ps5 with a few simple mods sprinkled in and I'm having more fun than I ever had in the last 12 years of playing it.
For Me It's kinda different... But nonetheless same I'm a BoS Sentinel... I saved Acadia, I rescued Paladin Danse, I'm friends with Nick. I'm not a super non human hater like Maxson (and yes I just stroked maxson's ego with my responses non reflecting on myself) Once BoS have lost interest on the commonwealth, I would start anew here... Maybe raised a different BoS and Minutemen But Synth Shaun's case is different... I destroyed my son's dreams and legacy burned it to the ground. And for me to have a happy ending where I raise Synth Shaun? Even if Shaun wanted me to live the life I lost I just can't. So I put a bullet on Shaun's head and Leave the Synth to die on explosion. My last words to him: See you in Hell...
@@DeathkaiserGThat's exactly how i finished the game last time. İ like BoS, but i also don't hate synths. But still, don't want to take that little shit with me
Gonna be honest, I left him behind in a fit of rage when I realised that I couldn't take one of the gorillas with me.
Best thing I've read all day
I probably would've done that too.
😂😂😂🤘🏻
bournvilleaddict honestly, I just wanted Gorilla meat
bournvilleaddict Good news for you, if you kill the gorillas and take there meat. You can make gorilla cage (from the Wasteland Workshop DLC) so you can have them anywhere you want. I hope this information is useful for you.
Synth Shaun: I am your true son!
The Sole Survivor: I have a son, and his name is Dogmeat!
SnowFlake nice profile
*Me:* “No... IT’S CODSWORTH WEARING A FRICKING BOWLER HAT!!”
Nice one
NoctisDrake
L
O
L
If you played fallout 3 little lamp light had Biwwy and his weapon is
Waser wifle
Synth Shaun:please take me with you
Sole survivor: uhh I need to get milk
Damn that's an underrated comment.
milk of human kindness
[Strong like that]
Some 1 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
*Happy Strong Noises*
Father reveals what type of person he is when he called his own birth mother collateral damage
He was manipulated by the people who took him.
Or when father unfroze him, he called it an experiment
@@jamesburke5873 Father unfroze the sole survivor because it was an "experiment", the sole survivor rescued synth Shawn for the sake of "XP", call that a poetic justice
Sociopath, He doesn't care, live or die, it means nothing, even his own family.
@@mikecobalt7005They aren’t his family, Family means more than genetics. The institute is his family. Not nate or nora. He spent his entire life with the institute and became its leader. Besides when he was a baby He spent a couple days with his parents, as an old man, physically older than his own parents.
Shaun: "Dad help! I'm scared!"
Sole Survivor: "Hi, Scared! Nice to meet ya, I'm Leaving!"
Is that really the sarcastic choice ? hahahaha thats great.
Lmao XD
Karousi Fighter i tried to kill him with my gauss rifle
Karousi Fighter
Shaun: You can't leave me! I'm your son!
Sole Survivor: No you're not! You just said you were scared!
Karousi Fighter
If synths don't age they would start to stick out pretty quickly.
well it could be that most synths simply haven't spent enough time on the surface for that lack of aging to be noticeable.
Synths age, Gen 3 synths are pretty much all organic except for the synth components in their brain. They still eat, sleep, dream and presumably grow as well.
@@poopbuDDiesfan I know it's been a month, but I don't think the growing part is true. You can over hear scientists in the Institute talking about synth Shaun, and they mention that he'll never grow.
Interesting, thank you
Zeedawg I think that bit is probably specific to Shaun only imo. That might be why the Synth Child project was so difficult, they needed to create an organic being that would not grow or age. To suggest synths likely age I point to Synths like mayor Mcdunnaugh, Hancock knew him forever, he became mayor presumably when they were younger, at least enough years ago for Hancock to become a Ghoul and to firmly establish himself as mayor of Goodneighbor, nobody seems to question the mayor for never looking older. That and stopping synths from growing seems counter intuitive to the institutes goals of infiltration. The broken mask incident happened 50 years prior to the games present day. So for 50 years the commonwealth has known the institute is actively trying to hide synths among normal humans and have tried to root out these spies. We can clearly see they’ve missed many of them, and likely never find out about most.That proposition is a lot harder to believe if you consider that any Synth in a community would be easy to spot within 5 or 10 years of them entering a community by the mere fact they haven’t aged a day within that time. We don’t get to see how Synth Shaun is constructed or what’s actually inside him, but with normal Gen 3 synths we see they are sewn together with Bone, sinew, muscle tissue, ect. Nothing mechanical inside them to presume after this point they’d stop aging and keeping them from aging seems a lot more difficult to achieve, and makes their intended purpose more difficult. I suppose you could argue with people like they Mayor they just switch him out with a new older looking synth every few years, but that to me seems overly complicated, each time they’d do that they risk being discovered, and it seems to be a waste of valuable resources which the institute is shown to be rather particular about managing properly. We’re told in the game that Gen 3 synths are not cheap to produce and valuable enough that an entire branch of the institute is solely dedicated to making sure they don’t misplace even a single model, so designing them in such a way ( to not age naturally) that it necessitates making more of them, at a higher risk and lower efficiency just doesn’t seem to line up. Replacing a synth when it dies after a few decades, seems cheaper than replacing all the synths every couple years to keep up appearances. If Synth Shaun was said to age, like if that was made clear, I’d say then yes most synths probably don’t, and making Shaun age was what made the child synth project so time consuming, as it was trying to fix an inherent design flaw in the synth program. But the fact he’s stated to not age suggests to me that the opposite of this is true for most synths.
When I first played fallout 4 an I got to the institute I just got so emotional an shot father in the head instantly not knowing he was Shaun lmao
I just laughed so much I pissed myself!
Haha yeah, i shotgunned his ass before he hardly got a word out......oops.
Sole Survivor, covered in Fathers blood surrounded by dismembered coursers: "WHERE IS MY SON?!"
X6 now fully understanding the concept of fear: "You... you just painted the wall with his brains."
@@zigfaust "Well fuck me then I guess..."
I did and still shot him
Father released you from 111 in the first place because he knew he was dying. I,e he allowed his sentimentality to get the better of him once he was facing the end. If you side with the Institute then you see that sentimentality of his slip out quite often in dialog. The most brazen display of this trait of his is when he names you his successor despite there being absolutely no logical reason to do so. Human beings are complex. His alpha male, stiff upper lip persona may have been what he needed to become in order to survive being raised by a bunch of scientists in labs, but that doesn't mean he's not emotionally damaged by knowing he was never meant to be there.
I think he has a half decent reason. he mentions something along the lines of "The institute doesn't need another scientist, it needs a leader." which makes sense as the institute expands and has more armed conflict. In the case of the male character, He has experience as a soldier and would be a great leader for future conflict.
If Shaun's DNA was used to create all synths, does that technically make the sole survivor related to all synths?
so you are the synth's grandparent?
Zedusty I suppose so XD
Warbly Zombie your killing all the grandchildren, gg
+worthless trash a.k.a smiley trashbag
Only the shitty ones.
hes not the sole survivor tho
That child synth was adult Shaun's ego. His way of cheating death and attaining immortality in some way. Shaun was a monster. Cold, unfeeling, ruthless and cruel. This last gambit was a play to your emotions and paternal instincts. I see synths as living beings, sure. But that one... That one seemed like a sick joke. A cruel last stab at the parent they never knew. The only reason they even spared you in that vault was to satisfy their own curiosity. So I left them behind. They were not my son. My son died the moment Kellog ripped him from his mother's arms and shot her through the heart. What he left for me at the end was a mockery of what the Institute took away from me, corrupted and turned against me.
But, that's how I personally saw it.
Honestly I like this. It actually made me think about why you would save him. I know this comment is like super late but I couldn't help but say that you got me to rethink my ending and play the game again lol so thank you
Indeed, Shaun never thought about revenging for the death of his mom or dad. That's sad.
I had the same thought, Shaun was never emotional or caring and let you out only as a twisted experiment.
The kid synth is both him wanting to cheat death in a sense and by trying to ensure at least some of his lifes work lives on. To play on your emotions to his benefit even as the Institute burns around him.
@@Avariel xD the fucked up thing about it is that when you first see the kid he gets scared of you. Which tells you that he didn't bother correcting that until the last minute. He was going to send synth Shaun up to the surface once he died and if anything went wrong.
@@JayTowers901 Yeah like Shaun doesn't really hold emotional weight come to think of It. And The kid does try to pull on the heart strings a little bit but really if you think about it. It makes him feel more robot than human unlike they were advertising. So strange to me. I don't know if I like the ending or not lol
The irony is that the brotherhood hates the institute and their synths yet they happily let this synth boy onto the prydwen
Even when they wanted to kill one of their best soldiers (danse) just cuz its a synth
They don't know that the kid is a synth unless the Sole survivor tells them he is. An actual child would have no control over what happens in the institute, so they'd gladly save a child that they think is human. Ingram is even shocked when the SS tells her that Shaun is a synth, she didn't think the Institute would stoop to such a low level as to create child synths.
Stomach is literally a nuclear device. GET TROJAN HORSE'D BoS...
Thicc Meme how can you tell her he’s a since ?
@@peterpalacios8128 If you tell Shaun that he's not coming with you, Ingram asks why. There's a dialogue option that allows you to tell her that he's a synth.
Shaun's dialogue is amazing. Brought him with me to Sanctuary. The kid is awesome, helps out on the farm and gives you free weapon mods if you bring him shit. Also helps make a settlement feel like home since all the other settlers must be celibate.
I'm just now incredibly paranoid Shaun is a trap laid by father. The thought of taking him out back and ahem ahem has graced my mind at least twice now. I love the character of Shaun. I love his dialogue but with our recent intel of synth settlers attacking turrets and generators during synth raids I think that's all the proof I need that they can be controlled at the snap of their fingers. Shaun could very well be extremely fake made by a creepy group of people who are responsible for super mutants in the commonwealth and seeing people as ants well I don't see any reason why they wouldn't commit another atrocity with young Shaun. I think the best option is to keep him at an abandoned settlement and perhaps give him a defensive perimeter with turrets and concrete with a nice house in the center. I believe Shaun deserves a chance but it's IMPOSSIBLE to viably trust him.. I'll move him from my mechanist lair because he may try to turn everyone against me and make a second institute there or smth. I already started disarming synth settlers and demoting their provisioner status. The synth settlers seem extremely dangerous now and perhaps the only way besides imprisoning/ murdering them is to send them over to the railroad.
Celibate? More like infertile.
*Get your Shaun today!*
@@sigmasquadleader Unless EVERYONE is a synth, they all can't be infertile. I mean, how'd *they* get there? Their parents weren't infertile.
he is also a fake kid that will never grow up
When you said if you join the BOS, you would kill all synths. But I joined them just to steal their fusion cores and power armors. LOL
same
Yeah me too
Same, the Knight we meet in Cambridge was right about us the entire time. I remember when i met him and talked to him and he told me he didn't trust my intentions i was like "HOW DID YOU KNOW!!"
YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH
i remember during the fight between synths and BOS at bunker hill i was literally helping the synths kill BOS and abusing the ally system to attack them without aggro and stealing all the power armor and laser guns off their corpses so i could sell it at diamond city lmao
Give them to the minutemans and then destroy the prydwen
Shaun: "Make a synth that's a child version of me"
Institute scientist: "Why?"
Shaun: "Just do it"
Star Foth *institude intensifies*
“You would be crushing the dreams of the only physical connection to the pre-war world that you knew”
Codsworth: 😢
Does anyone even like Codsworth?
@@adenmoore3055 I do his nice
156 people do
@@legitrob95 true
@@adenmoore3055 Codsworth is a big sweetheart I love him
If a chair could beg for it's life, I would spare it.
Here is a salient point...hmm
Thank god my chair can't. If he could he would plead every time i fart on it.
If my chair started to beg for it's life, I would throw it in a wood chipper, just for the lols
@@sombodythatyouusedtoknow9046 ok...
That's a mimic and it needs to be dealt with 😂
Don't let this distract you from the fact that once you return to Preston he's sure as shit going to have a settlement for you to help.. here.. let him mark it on your map
Rangers Of Aesthetica
*burns map
Rangers Of Aesthetica 11th
Shaun's dying wish is not to have a childhood. It's to let his parent give him a childhood. Which is incredibly sad.
Wow, never thought about it like that, now I feel bad for killing him
Shaun's living wish was to imprison and enslave a bunch of people by kidnapping and murdering a bunch of other people and replacing them, so like... wah.
@@TheNecromorphkiller Dude was brainwashed from infancy.
@@chiffmonkey easily the best point in his favor buy he also has access to prewar science and could give himself therapy and not destroy the rest of civilization to make robots
@@TheNecromorphkiller How would he even know he needed therapy? Everyone around him is a yes man or compliant synth.
when I first played I sobbed when Shaun got taken even though there was a mod on that made him look like a butterfinger :/
Out of all things you wanted candy
You have my respect🤜🤛 👊
Why would u alter your first impressions of a game with a mod on your first playthrough
shots fired it was a friends xbox that I played it on, I only got the game for myself recently.
lol
Nobody touch my butterfinger
I wish the Far Harbor DLC had added an option for Nate/Nora to send Synth Shaun to live in Acadia. He'll never age, but then neither will any of the other synths around him and that's honestly his best chance at some kind of lasting normalcy.
That would be perfect
One hand- can't tell a synth from a human
other hand- synths don't age
I did that in my headcanon. Did a MM-only playthrough. (Again all headcanon) My character was torn up about what to do after taking him to the castle. Used the disable console command to remove him. My character needed to cut the cord with that past and made a selfish choice.
She had Ronnie Shaw take the kid to Dr. Amari to have him reprogrammed, wiping any memories Father put in there. Hancock owed my character a favor and got him to Acadia.
@@br7693t
I like that headcannon I wish there was a way in the minutemen to send him off and never see him again. Without leaving him in the institute.
Except I burnt it to the ground.
I would have preferred a synthetic gorilla to synth Shaun. At least it could have made a great companion.
Synthrambe
Why not have the best of both worlds and upload Shaun into the gorrilla? Then we could get the "Harambe Rifle"!
r3dp9 hawambe wifle
fivebythree :D
@@whiggles9203 yes
I think you missed the whole point. Father, after seeing your reaction the young synth Shaun when you first arrived in the institute, reprogrammed him. He didn't do it for himself, he didn't do it for his created synth, he did it for you. He wants to give you the chance to have the family you were deprived of when your child was taken away.
thegeneralreggie I now regret killing Father just an hour ago.
Why would Father care? He literally dismisses the death of his other parent with no emotion in his voice. When he is literally dying, he is nothing but hostile towards you.
He didn't even send anyone or anything to help you get accustomed to the Fallout world after releasing you. No synth bodyguards with gear, no guides to the Institute, nothing. He expected you to die.
He does not care. Not before, not when he woke SS up, not when he reprogrammed Synth Shaun, not even on his deathbed If anything that kid is an assassin, maybe with a dormant copy of Father's mind that will activate later on, kill SS, and resume the Institute's work.
zachanikwano father says when you first meet him the reason why he has no emotion is because it’s been 60 years and he hardly even met her. Why would he? He’s had all that time to cope
You don't have a chance to have a family again. Shaun will *NOT* grow up. He won't fall in love, live out on his own, maybe have kids, none of it.
A grown up synth could have those things. He can't and the lone survivor will grow to resent him.
Exactly, it's not about the bot it's about his estranged father and a gift to him.
Head Canon: Synth Shaun holds all the data to and is programmed to recreate the Institute years down the road. Father is a zealot and wouldn't let what he's built be destroyed so easily.
My Head Canon: Synth Shaun is actually Father's transferred consciousness and "Father" was the actual synth. This way he assures he has a higher chance at survival, a second chance to play grow up, and the most badass person alive as his parental guardian.
The Institute didn't have to be evil it was because of the choices people made. Having the good karma sole survivor as a role model likely changes those choices. Meaning the Institute could very well be a good thing. Imagine all thier tech being out towards actively saving the Commonwealth...
@@LanMandragon1720 great theory, unfortunately it would still be left open to someone without the best intentions taking over at some point and then it's back to being evil again. Something that has the ability to easily swing from good to evil like that doesn't deserve to exist.
@@jvazacas Hence why I said "could very well be". As for the ability to swing from good to evil not deserving to exist...Well humanity inherently has that as a feature of our species so. Your line of thought is kind of a dangerous one wouldn't you say?
@@LanMandragon1720 You arr putting it into a context of people when I clearly was talking about organizations or systems. To compare that to people is idiotic, no offense
"When you side with the institute, you buy the idea that synths are just machines"
I joined the Institute because I thought I could tear that Ideology to shreds once I was put in charge of it.
Which you can't and you don't. Unfortunately Todd Howard made you, the Director, as a arrand boy.
The institute still body swap family members, take tech for themselves, etc
@@yharnamiyhill787 yeah, emphasis on "I thought"
@@NathanMarcusSPhua that's what I thought too! It was the first ending I chose but boy was I disappointed. Even modding it doesn't help. (Phase 4 mod, etc)
@@yharnamiyhill787 I think either Subversion mod or Project Valkyrie can fix that I currently am using Valkyrie
@@NathanMarcusSPhua very interesting. I'll look into it
Brotherhood: IM NOT RACIST, I JUST HATE EVERYTHING THAT ISNT JUST LIKE ME
Railroad: LETS GO LIBERATE SOME REFRIGERATORS
Minutemen: IT'S MY DUTY TO LEND A HAND TO THOSE IN NEED, EVEN IF WHAT THEY NEED IS TO HAVE EVERYTHING DONE _FOR_ THEM >.>
Its not racist to want humans to take prevalence over other species.
Synths have digital components integrated into their brains. They're lobotomized clones.
Aaron565pwns the east coast chapter of the brotherhood hated ghouls and super mutants as well.
GoPro Central refrigerator lifes matter
But not toasters they tend to be evil
No one:
Child Shaun 6 Months After Saving Him: *ACTIVATING INSTANT KILL*
That would be terrifying to watch a small child rip the castle/prydwen/railroad hq, apart.
@@chriskopp1361 Then you use thee recall code.
Shaun built the gun with unlimited ammo for this purpose.
@@chriskopp1361 imma find a mod for that
@@Civsuccess2 Then he gives it to you synths don't work like that they have to have been given a signal which was destroyed in the explosion.
To bring synth Shaun with me was always what faction I'm in. Brotherhood: no. Railroad: yes. Minutemen: yes.
Same
I respect another good RPer
I kill it in every faction
I brought him with me in the brotherhood.
Benjamin Menken I kept him alive in the brotherhood play-through as well, I put him in a cage though a reminder of what once was.
Honestly Shaun being a Synth child got me super angry, Father was trying to do good by letting the Sole Survivor have a fatherhood or motherhood but instead it just made me feel so angry at the Institute for what was basically the final insult: We took your child, you're never going to see them again, not without us and our technology
Let's not forget, everyday you will resent him as he is the son that is but isn't. A constant reminder of what you lost, an emotional wound that would never heal.
I completely agree. It's basically rubbing it in your face that you never had the opportunity to have a real family dynamic
Synth Shaun: IM A REAL BOY!
Player:Pinocchio shut up
Synth Shaun: Want a wazer wifle?
Player:YES!
I'm not sure how Pinocchio is spelt (the wooden boy thing)
Mr.Tree_ that's your right spelling Pinocchio
Little Tree too bad the F4 Wazer Wifle is just a UP-77 that’s harder to get.
Hot damn
Laser beams are must
Everybody I see just turn into dust
Little Wittle Willow ... wow
sturges: we're taking the kid
tinker tom: We're taking the kid
ingram: we'll leave him here
LOL
In my playthrough I let him die, because in my mind Shaun has died, and this synth was a walking, talking reminder of everything that my charater lost and that was soemthing my character couldn't handle.
Lolomlas interesting way of looking at it.I kind of agree with you... a little bit
Bert Turbaville what if you side with Lorenzo in the Cabot house quest?
Bert Turbaville: Well, all children will outlive their parents if they don't die an unnatural death.
He would have a brain of a child for eternity too it would drive him insane seeing friends and family dying around him while he still thinks like a 10 year old
in my opinion i fully agree with Lolomlas, the real shaun died, he was human and this shaun is simply just a robot, a better upgraded Nick Valentine, a piece of technology and a tool to use .. no different than a phone or laser rifle. yes they can be programmed to have human behavior but thats ALL it is, artificial intelligence. and this is the reason why i hated the railroad path
This is late but I feel like bringing Shaun with you would be continuing the Institute's legacy. The Institute will always have something up their sleeves and who knows what they did to "Shaun". He might think, act and look like a kid but when he gets older I'm hella sure, something will click inside and he starts to slowly become father. A last resort of the institute if they were to lose the battle.
It's never to late. People are always watching older videos. 😉 and you could be right. They may have done something with him.
In that logic all other synths are threat to humankind. Kill them all?
Exactly how i felt, pure manipulation by Father. Unfortunately Shaun was lost before it began and I couldn't see myself pretending the synth was actually shaun as well as the animosity I would have towards the institute for killing my wife in cold blood.
synths can not age or get older so your theories is wrong shaun stays a kid forever
With/without shaun, there will be people who will try to revive the institute anyway. There always people who want to play "god".
"You can't truly save your son."
-downloads Father companion mod.
-Save Shaun
-Show Shaun what atrocities the institute committed
-Change Shaun's mind
-Truly Save Shaun
Sarah Nicole Shame that's not on ps4
Now that's what I call effective teaching
Not realistic, but could be fun. It would like trying to teach someone who has believed in God since they were a child that there really is no such thing.
phennec it was pretty realistic and well thought out. You’d be amazed what someone is capable of when faced with the atrocities that they caused face to face.
GlamourMusic2k - Your Musical Adventure thankfully mods exist so you can take the real Shaun out
What if he only wanted Shaun to live because he implanted a copy of his consciousness in the kid to live on again, not to relive the childhood he never had. He knew the institute was doomed so he copied himself on Shaun to ensure the institutes survival. This sappy sentimental concept of an ending is sweet and all but father isn't an idiot and after everything he's done I just don't see he having a "coming to God" moment just because he's dying.
FRED- DY But shaun cant age so how would a kid continue the institute?
Drunken Sailor he's a robot albeit extremely sophisticated. He could upgrade it or switch his consciousness to a newer body to appear to be aging. Wouldn't be that hard
Become as gods
huh here I was thinking it was just a sleeper program in the "kid" to kill me as I slept
FRED- DY nah I beat the shit outta him with Barb wire wrapped baseball bat on his death bed, and believe me he ain't goin to god
I’ve always saved little Shaun. I mean he is a synth, but so is nick and Danse. Maybe after awhile he could be switched into a older body, like how curie was put into a synth body in her side quest.
Shaun deserves an opportunity at a good life after being trapped in The Institute all his life plus it makes SS happy I always get a kick out of how the female SS talks to him because she always speaks to him with a slight laugh really showing how having at least some piece of her old life has made her bleak new existence a little more bearable
But how are you going to do that when the tec to do it has been destroyed
@@marcnolan2409 The memory den & railroad could do it. The only tech destroyed was the tech to create new synths.
00rphb The body snatching synths are aware that they’re synths. Dance is likely a synth rescued by the railroad with his memory wiped. So there never was a human Danse.
00rphb Don’t really know why danse being a synth makes him dangerous. If you never had known he was a synth than you’d have no problem with him. I agree that the creation of synths is an abomination but the railroad destroys that at the source, ending anymore synths from being set into the commonwealth. They eliminated the synth threat while not killing any innocent synths. The synths that are left have no physical or mental advantage over humans, can’t reproduce, most don’t know that they’re synths, and they’re a small minority of the population.
The real evil faction is the institute. They see their fellow man as test subjects, they are the ones doing the body snatching, and they claim no responsibility for their actions. The brotherhood is a good faction mostly, but their ideology keeps them from solving the actual problem in many instances. The railroad is a good faction but their completely obsolete after the institute is destroyed. The best option is the minutemen even if they’re the most boring faction. Unlike the brotherhood, they have the potential to unite the commonwealth.
After the Silver Shroud quest I found my son, Kent Connolly the purest thing in this wasteland alongside my good boy dogmeat
Ima leave Shaun behind, the most painful thing is your taking care of a boy who can’t even grow up, even if child synths can grow up cause they are 99% human, but also the fact that he’s not your real child that makes it worse, they replace your real son and give you a synth child that’s possibly not even yours, that’s how bad the institute is
@@Manhunt811 and that is synth Shaun's fault. You are condemning him because of the sins of the institute?
"When you side with the institute, you buy the idea that synths are just machines"
I just sided with them because I came all that way to save my son and I wasn't gonna give up because he grew up to be an egghead
I sided with them because they had toilet paper
@@SwanTeeth best thing I’ve read all day
I sided with them for the cool shit they have, same with the bos.
As mad as I was that Shaun called my late spouse "collateral damage", I still stuck with him and the Institute because that's the end goal; finding Shaun.
The next run will be to incinerate the Institute tho lmao
He grew up to be hitler tbh
9:30 It wasn't his decision.
It happened when the Institute took him. He was a baby back then, when the Institute turned off the pods opened his one, then turned back on only the one with the player in it.
He was a baby back then when that happened.
This!!! What really gets me is when you're going through Kellogg's memories and you get to the vault scene, Kellogg mentions that it was "The Old Man's" decision to kill all of the other 111 dwellers. They don't come out and say it but who's the Old Man? They make it sound like referring to Father. Can't be though since he was being kidnapped. Is Father really Shuan or is he someone claiming to be Shuan and the SS is just another experiment? He's already told the SS that releasing him/her from was an experiment to see how they would do in the post war Commonwealth. I demand answers!
@@manoftheyear69 I think he's talking about whoever led the institute at that time.
@italkcrab yea well the story is hell of confusing sorry
oooooooohhhh shiny!
@@Ak-6969 it really isn´t it tho
Maybe Father thinks this synth Shaun will take his place one day and recreate the Institute, fooling you by playing the "I have feelings" game.
I seriously doubt he considers this young version of himself as real.
He probably doesn't. This was something he did for you, not for himself. He's too conceited to have true regrets, but deep down he thinks there's some sort of amends he needs to make, and this is the best he can think of. He can't help who he is at this point.
Whether you choose to accept the gesture or not, I think it's sincere. I didn't keep him for Father's sake, or for mine, I kept him for "Shawn's" sake. He deserves life regardless of his circumstances.
Well I do not have feelings so his devious plan did not work on me, heck I ecen enjoyed watching the institute go boom.
That sounds way more plausible based on Father's actions.
This is very Philip K Dick of you but you definitely got a point.
I just watched the Castlevania show on Netflix. Father reminds me of that Dracula. He keeps saying that he is super rational, but his actions are wildly inconsistent, ranging from psychopathical grandiosity to sentimental self sabotage. It actually makes a bit of sense to view his entire sole survivor project as an extended suicide.
Why does he make a child version of himself? As a way to vicariously experience a better childhood than the one he had? As a way to try out parenting but without actual responsibility and the option to quit any time? As bait and bread crumb for his remaining parent when he thaws her or him out? As psychological leverage? Maybe a bit of all of these? The only thing I’m sure of is that his stated beliefs and motivations cannot be taken at face value.
The moral question is easy. Child Shaun is a living feeling sentient beeing, and completely innocent of Fathers many crimes. You should save his creepy annoying little behind.
But is it safe? Is he going to grow up into the kind of monstrous psychopath genius that Father was? Is he going to grow up at all, by the way? Cynths are assembled, not grown. It seems likely that his body will remain a childs while his mind ages. I know he acts like a child, but how much of that is just training and programming? He isn’t actually a child as we understand the concept. He can also build a legendary laser rifle from scratch, from scrap parts. What other abilities have father added to his programming? What other booby traps might be hidden in his programming? Or will he just remain clingy manipulative and childish forever?
What kind of life can he have if he doesn’t age physically or intellectually? I’m not totally sure we’re doing him a favor.
Is it healthy for a grieving parent to play act parenting with this perma-child substitute? I really doubt that.
So for a variety of reasons I kinda wish the protagonist could walk away and let child Shaun burn with the rest of Fathers works. But of course, that’s not a thing my sole survivor could do, not in any version, not in any playthrough.
I wish Shawn and billy (the kid in the fridge) could be friends
Family guy clips me too
I don't see why they can't you know both of them and on good terms with the family
Dammnit.. why'd you have to say this now? Grrr... now I have to go searching for the guy I totally *ahem did not sell a certain person to as a slave...
@@arjunnava 😂😂
@Deus Dex dude. Going around every comment to show your hate towards Shawn 'a machine' and other non humans shows just how pathetic a human being you were raised to be. If you really hate them that much, start your own god damn post instead of spamming your shit everywhere without provocation
"It's not my son, it's a synth."
"Its not delivery, its digiorno."
"He's both. He's a sonth"
@@I_am_always_correct sonths
gee gones lmaoooo
Shaun? Synth. Hotel? Trivago
I always felt Shaun/Father releasing the Sole Survivor was less of an experiment and more of an actual desire to meet his parent. He wanted to prove to himself that he was loved before his dies.
The same reason he made the synth version of his younger self. He wanted to see the lengths you'd go for him, how much you love him. It's also why even if you're an enemy of the Institute he "gives you your son back", a part of him could have the family he never had
See this I feel here, despite the “experiment” line. He wanted his Parent at the end of his life, the child felt like a parting give and a reward for all your efforts to find him
@@Trigger99X I never saw it that way.
Shaun had no childhood, he had no true life, and his goal in life was to kill humans and replace them with robots… He’s a psychopath dealing with incredible trauma, far more trauma than most any of us can understand.
He saw synths as real people. He saw the synth child as an opportunity for him to be able to have the childhood that was stolen from him, by giving his real father his synth “clone” of himself.
That logic is even more fucked up.
An angle I don't see people seeing is that Shaun has been raised since infancy to work at the institute and most likely, like orphans, he probably was starved for real familial affection and wondered why his parents weren't around. He may have asked the institute caretakers at some point but its likely that they gave him lies so he doesn't question further. Whether it was directly by the institute or his own conclusions, I'm sure he probably resented his absent parents for not being there. Most of that resentment screeching to a halt decades later when he finds out the truth of how he came to be taken by the institute. He was probably still struggling with some lingering resentment that his parents weren't able to save him and that's why he 'released us to see what happens'. He is so hardstuck in his ways as a cold and calculating Director but when he realizes through our journey that we were looking hard for him, he grew to forgive us and love us as a parent. That's how I view his character between the lines. It's the only real reason that I see a logical man like him would make a Synth Shaun for us, he is a child and he doesn't really have any purpose beyond some in game rewards but it has meaning because Shaun didn't want to leave us all alone. Like a birthday card doesn't have a real practical purpose but it gives the impression that you care about the person. By extension, I could also say that it might even be the reason that he gives us the director position(In the Institute Ending), it's just not something a man like him would do on a whim. His first and last act as a man who felt the love of his parents is to let his parents continue what he couldn't finish and maybe even make it better. Something he couldn't do ever since he was a baby.
@@mr.doctorcaptain1124 seems more like letting us be the parent we could never be, even if his goals were to kill all humans he would have no reason to release us. I still subscribe to the idea he had a burning question of “what if” and knowing your end is coming can push people to find those answers sooner
It's worth noting that synth Shaun is technically your grandson because he's made with real Shaun's DNA.
That's not how that works, friend. If I use my DNA to make a clone, my clone isn't my parents grandchild, it's a copy of their son...me.
Is Father had mixed his own DNA with another person's then maybe, but the kid's just a "clone suit" worn by a robot.
It's because of that final talk with Father that I always believed Shaun (synth kid) was a final middle finger... one last attempt at the same sort of manipulation of you that he's been about from the beginning. Why else program Shaun, which had to be done well in advance of your final assault, to believe you're his parent? He's enough of a psychopath to pull off that regretful sounding holotape and I absolutely believe that he's lying through his teeth while recording it. He's said himself: he doesn't understand or feel love or compassion. Suddenly he feels it towards this synth, a member of the slave race he's created and used horribly for decades? No. This is one last attempt to drag you around by the heartstrings. Take the kid to Amari and get on with your life.
Edit Addendum: Same thing for the Institute ending, by the by. Father knows you're more emotional than him; most if not all vanilla dialogue options make this clear. He also knows that you have emotional attachments to the Commonwealth and the people thereof. He's not above using a synth to try and swing that towards favoring the Institute, and like any villain he'll happily embrace hypocrisy to get what he wants. Glossing over how he's referred to synths up to now? No problem, he's counting on his parent (whom he's ever been condescending toward) to not pick up on it, or simply not care after your 'emotional' goodbye with him and now this 'chance to have a family'. ....Joke's on him, if I'm starting a family with a synth, it'll be Curie and the children we adopt.
THIS!! ^
I couldn't agree more. Aside from the moral ramifications of creating a child that can never grow beyond adolescence, it's far too likely Shaun is pulling one over on you and the commonwealth with synth shaun as a plant.
but..that's not the kid's fault
@@morgantollhall True, and I never said it was. All the more reason not to punish him for it. I never said leave him to die nor would I. But I also won't punish him by having him live a lie. I will always know he's not my son, and that his believing himself to be is a program. It's a delusion that's been forced onto him by Father. No matter what you or I think of Father's motivations, I don't think that's right. I may sound cavalier when I say 'take the kid to Amari' but this is the one time I'm fully in favor of a mind wipe for a synth. He cannot decide his own future when he's been programmed to live out a lie. And I can't be a real parent to him when I know that lie the whole time. Maybe others can and I don't judge them, but I can't do it. In game terms I drop the kid at a settlement and never see him again. I don't come back for the Wazer Wifle, I don't want a gift from someone who's been programmed to believe he's my son. It's messed up and he needs a doctor. That's true no matter the faction I side with (even in the Institute there were strenuous objections to making kid Shaun in the first place, with good reason). Though thinking about it now... post mind wipe? I could see adopting him at that point, if he wanted. Curie and I (to keep to my original joke/realtalk) would be uniquely suited to take care of a synth kid. But if I believe synths are people (and I do), then he has to have free will to decide for himself, unshackled by a programmed belief that he was mine all along.
@@sunsage3754 but that programming makes him who he is. However those memories came to be, they still make up his identity and form his personality. I know the RR wipes memories, and I do side w/them (along w/ the MM, ofc!), but I don't feel great about them doing that. The RR has their consent, so I'm not really objecting though. It seems akin to euthenasia, with the re/birth of another being. Also, the kid kind of is yours, more than he is anyone else's anyways. Your son made him, and your son is dead. Perhaps one could make the argument for a synth raising him/getting him accustomed to what the world is like for a synth, but you're related to him as no other human is.
Another reason to take Shaun is as a coping mechanism, the sole survivor refuses to fail in finding his/her kid and takes synth Shaun to make themself believe there is nothing wrong
It also gives SS something of his/her old life all they had left was Codsworth so having Shaun probably helps
@@mrcritical6751 well, SS has grognak the barbarian. Their favorite comic. I guess that's...
Something
The male one gets to literally become his favourite superhero as Silver Shroud, meanwhile with the female one she’s just internally thinking “I never thought my husbands obsession with that stupid show would actually come in handy”
not really no... synth shaun is HUMAN... dna/genetics are OBJECTIVE end of story..
this relation would be no different an adult taking in a child thats not theirs to care for....
no need for coping.. we are beyond coping at this point in the story...
super mutants.. death claws.. wasteland.. if ur character manage that as well as help rebuild and lead the minutemen.. then dealing with shaun so be childs play.. no pun intended..
also to be miniutemen.. which we lowkey know is the canon ending.. it would be extremely hypocritical to be anti synth..
as the solo surivier has not only NICK as a friend... butt curie.. a robot now synths.. also other actual robots.. a super mutant.. plus ghouls .. all part of the mintutne rebuilding effort..
so the sole survivor takes shaun for the most simple and human reason.. its a child and killing it is wrong.. end of story..
or rather.. say u have a family member with a "kid" butt they die.. and before they die.. they ask to u take in their "kid"
which is normally what most families do.. they take in kids of their family members who die..
or some just dont care and let the state take them...
Maa'Quchii
By your logic robobrains would be humans as well..
“He’s basically just a chair that can talk” that made me laugh way harder than I should have lol
I've tried all paths. On the "moral" front I consider Codsworth to be a person, so synths being a person isn't that hard to believe.
😂
@@freekill1018 In game, obviously! 🤣
@@otherunicorn just had to check 😂 elder maxon would be pissed lol
I believe Father created Shaun so he can rebuild the Institute. Seems weird that he would have a change of heart at the very last moment like that for no soild reason
might be a dying old man moment looking back at all his life finding meaning because he has only the past and presents now until he gets stage 5 dead seems like he has problem understanding people and emotions maybe his own maybe at the end he felt lonely all along his journey and didn't want to die alone even tho he felt betrayed he still is human
Shaun can’t grow up
That's what the institute wants you to believe
But This Generation of Synths have a free will.
FO4: where's my baby, Shuan!?
Heavy Rain: SHUAN! SHUAN! SHUAN!?
dAd? DAd?
Oh man, I used that joke too on my first playthrough, so I wasn't the only one who thought of that LOL
shuan...
Sichuan sauce?
JA-SON
I left that sucker there to die. No need for a kid when I have a dog with goggles
Sebastian Gomez right?! Lol
is a dog with goggles technically doggles?
Edward Ford I believe so. It's am ancient creature who is beloved by those who are righteous
Sebastian Gomez Lmao
agreed
I find your videos to be some of the most enlightening and intellectually challenging on all of RUclips regardless of topic. As a parents with young children of my own I don't believe I could ever possibly let even a machine version of them die
What if Shaun put himself into the boy so he could live his childhood with a parent
phrasing
i mean, it's possible because real shaun was in his last bed so he could have used some modifications to bed so bed would transfer his life to synth shaun and keep living.
THIS! I mean with the weapon he makes, and some stuff he says, seems a lil too grown up or knowledgeable for a 10 year old boy. Even if he is a synth. he may even have altered his memories, blocked most of his adulthood life or something! O_O THE IMPLICATIONS!!!!
this
It's possible, however if that was the case then most of our Shaun's would hate us
Two items:
Oxhorn assumes the tape was made during the final moments of the Institutes destruction. I always believed it was created beforehand, and if you kill Shaun before getting locked out of the Institute and before coming back with w/e faction you side with... you still get the tape.
2nd item:
Father (Shaun) did not kill the other inhabitants of Sanctuary Hills. He didn't make the decision not to turn the life support back on. That happened the day he was kidnapped. There was only one back-up.
whitelion1284 yea and the son in Kellogg's memory was just a synth, idk were he got that info, but it's all different from the way the average player perceives it, the only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Kellogg has been hunting Vergil for over 50 years
No, Father absolutly did. Kellogg even mentions "Father said to keep THIS one alive." which had me spending the entire game thinking Father wasn't Shaun, because of that fucking line.
They wanted the backup to be as close as possible to the original subject's DNA. So, unless Nora was banging one of the neighbors...?
Dapper Changeling I thought Durring the memory retrieval he said "The Old Man didn't want any loose ends. But to keep that one as backup." Probly not how he fully said it, but he didn't say Father it was Old Man.
whitelion1284 Good point. Shaun was raised by the Institute. However, when close to death, it looks as if he really did regret never having a father and mother.
About destroying your last connection to life before the war, I think Codsworth and the Vault-Tec rep are much more positive connections. Synth Shaun is a reminder that your true son (and spouse) is dead, as well as all of the killing you did to get to this point. Codsworth is a reminder of the good times because he's always trying to cheer you up and cracks jokes, he's basically the same friend you had before the war. The Vault-Tec rep is a reminder that despite all the horrible things that have happened, some pre-war ideals live on in you and him, and (if) when you take him in to Sanctuary, it shows that both of you together can move on and rebuild.
Throuought the whole game, everyone in the Commonwealth tells you to fear the institute because they take people and replace them with a synth, which is exactly what they did to your son, only it's worse in your case because they're trying to guilt trip you into taking him because 1. he's a child, and 2. he's YOUR child. Ingram's response when you tell her he's a synth is fitting, because she's utterly appalled at the fact that the Institute could sink that low. Tom's response is fitting because he's taken aback but because of his Railroad ideals he has to take the kid somewhere safe. I wish there was an option where you personally could say that Shaun could escape with you, but he'd have to live on his own because it's really not fair to the SS that he/she was thrown this awful situation.
I agree
I agree
A synth will always be a synth and must be vanquished... AD VICTORIUM
I love saving Shawn because he has a bunch of funny lines based on who your current companion is like once I was walking around sanctuary and he went”you’re friend Cait says a bunch of funny words...most of them start with “f”
He also said if she can beat me and he would like to see that
i couldnt save him. just think about your Character.. everytime you see him you KNOW hes not your real son. and he still thinks he is and acts like it. must be huge pain to realize it. your real son is no more. you are just left with this wanna be shaun. and thats all you got
thats the exact same reason i had in mind when i let him die
Might as well let him wander off the wasteland, capturing creatures and forcing them to fight for you in battles
Fiundal undso
He may not be your real son he is made of your real son
Fiundal undso but you are his dad you are related to him by DNA because all synths use father's DNA who is your son so therefore synth Shaun is still you son, and you can still love your son even if he is a synth, adopted parents still love there children
Fiundal undso Fiundal undso but you are his dad you are related to him by DNA because all synths use father's DNA who is your son so therefore synth Shaun is still you son, and you can still love your son even if he is a synth, adopted parents still love there children
Id be more concerned that Shaun is a Fail safe. given fathers attitude towards you if you turn against him. I would not be suprised in the least if at some point (possibly when YOU are on your death bed) Synth Shawn turns against you and trys to bring down everything you have built whether its the BOS, Railroad or Minutemen.
Legate Australis Woah that's true
If anyone does that it better be Kellogg Valentine
I agree with you to the letter my friend. It is highly possible that he created him as a form of successor with his knowledge and his attitude to ensure that what he has created can not go to hell that easily and that whatever the player has built gets sabotaged or simply blown out of the water. Good theory :)
That's a really mind blowing theory, but there's one flaw. What if you decide to side with the Insitute? He still asks you to watch after Shaun, even though you accepted to be his successor. So why would Father want to sabotage you even after you accepted your role as the leader of the Institute? That part doesn't really make sense, but with every other faction it makes perfect sense.
Exactly, I have never understood as to why people don't think that far. If Father has time to reprogram him to "become your son" how do I know he has not also programmed me to ruin everything?
0:49 love how a synth trooper slide tackles Z1-14 to death
6:27 so much emotion in his face
😐I can’t believe it. I hate you!😐
@@PryzmMusic I'd say shit in a funny kind of way. I like looking at the stupid expressions npcs make during Dialogue
Lion King remake quality emotion
@@PryzmMusic Bethesda games aren't exacly known for high quality facial animation. Even the glorified New Vegas had plenty of bad facial animation
Couldn’t see it my game because of the ultra low settings
One last selfish act of father, he wants to live the life he missed having a life with parents, or maybe he deep down he knows he was brainwashed and feels a twinge of agreement with hour actions and feels you deserve a life with your son you fought so hard to find. And thus it's a selfless act
I think it would have been a really cool plot twist in the game if you didn’t know he was a synth from the minute you saw him. Like if he had that behavior all along and could grab him and make your way out of the Institute only to be surprised later (like 75% of the way in when you’re deep into a war with the Institute) by the real Shaun who then shuts him down and tells you the truth.
That Guy great idea I would have it if you didn't listen to father when you first met him he allows you to escape with shaun until you get to the rellay where he stops and explains it
That Guy A
I feel that Father just has a lot of emotional detachment. He says he is personally a pacifist, but he's okay with violence if it's the only option. Father absorbing the synths are machines thing to hide his own 'love' for them just makes sense to me.
Shaun is an Institute spy. He says all the right things to trigger feelings of guilt and remorse in the player. I hate being emotionally manipulated, and the sudden shift in tone from Father in the tapes from the hardcore murdering bastard to loving/remorseful wasn't believable. Just one last final manipulation, so while you push onward, protecting the little infiltrator unit as you go, it can go on about its business continuing the work of the Institute. Perhaps even to eventually setting up new Institute cells after you're gone. Less 'omg i regret everything!' and more 'oh fucking shit, its all going down in flames, how could this happen...wait, I know, 'come here Shaun...''
OrbitalRescueSage Same! It honestly seemed a lot like emotional manipulation. I've been on the receiving end of that type of abuse for years and I've got a good nose for it now. Shaun was conducting an experiment on you, why wouldn't this be the final stage of his living experiment?
If it was an experiment, it's never going to get finished. With the Institute exploded, that data is being transmitted somewhere in the vicinity of jack-shit. Perhaps he was meant to spy on you originally by getting close to you, and that might be exactly what is going on in the Institute ending, but Father knows that by leaving Shaun with you in any scenario where the Institute is blown up, he is leaving Shaun only. The Institute does not exist anymore. And apparently, the Shaun Synth is incapable of growing older, making the likelihood of him being sent to the surface to revive the institute very unlikely as he is incapable of emotionally maturing; as Father said, that level of emotion and emotional development had not been possible with the tech the Institute had before being blown to smithereens. For once you can rest easy; Shaun is not a spy, and if he was ever designed to be a spy and NOT just Father's twisted pet project, he is spying for no-one.
All this time, I thought I was the only one that noticed that. So many people either wrote this off as "Lol bad writing" or "Omg what a tweest! Such deep writing!", I thought I was the only one that thought of this.
OrbitalRescueSage
If anything, I would worry that Child Shaun would not just be a spy but be meant to restart the Institute behind your back or after your death. LOL! Despite that gut feeling, I couldn't let him die in any set play through.
OrbitalRescueSage I
Personally I let Shaun go down with the institute simply because I felt my character just lost his son and the child synth of him would've just been a horrific reminder of the loss that he'd suffered...the guy has enough trauma to deal with in his life...being around a living reminder of his son's death wouldn't exactly help.
Spang Scrungus Oh no, I found the robot SJW. It's not a sentient being. IT IS PROGRAMMED!
Spang Scrungus I was born from an organism. I am an organism. I have live cells that keep me going. I have the power to make my own choices to execute myself. This argument is poor with the reality of sentient vs non sentient. Prove your fucking TV remote or your computer is not sentient. YOU CAN!
Spang Scrungus Bacteria is alive, dumbass. Just like cells, they are organism. All organisms are sentient.
Spang Scrungus
Try using a recall code.
Spang Scrungus
Just try it on a true sentient being.
If it can be shut off with a simple code , i don't count it as a sentient being , no matter how sentient it appears to be.
Especially when i saw that being put into one piece by piece by piece.
Is it alive? Doubtful.
It is a biological machine.
9:28 Hey Oxhorn you're mistaken.
Shaun was the infant baby when the life support was turned off for the other vault 111 residents remember.
It was the previous director who made the choice.
Sean wasn't even a year old when those life supports were turned off.
What if father shut life support off just before you left the pod though?
@@keaganchipps739 The occupants were frozen solid, would have taken ages to reach that state they were in. If life support was shut off just after releasing then they would still have been alive all be it not for long before suffocating.
@@braden7843 I definitely do see what you're saying but what if father shut it off say 10 - 20 years before you were released?
See that is what I did not understand Father was a different person at time of abduction than what your son so how is it that farther is Shawn it was his predecessor who who stole Shawn so what the other guy died then why was Shawn chosen for the job is what I do not understand
@@keaganchipps739 that's what I thought
Synth Shaun is actually the Institute's newest infiltration and espionage unit, later version to the courser, capable of emotional reasoning and incubation tactics. You saw how easily the railroad let itself be infiltrated with Tinker Tom adopting him if the player doesn't. That's why father offers Shaun even if he is completely pissed off before he dies. The institute's primary goal has always been to make synths as close to human as possible. Much like Mayor Mc Donough, synth Shaun is the final bluff.
This is the answer
Now imagine if he uploaded his consciousness into young shawn after doing his recording and the reason he asked to save him from the explosion is so he could live on how he should have with his father/mother
This theory is the one I can get down with. Great take on it
That legit would make so much of the cluster fuck that is Bethesda writing make sense in that game. Like then we'd have a clear reason of why Father Prime would have searched so hard for a pre-war baby that fit this SPECIFIC gene-profile.
He needed someone to Raʼs al Ghul himself into.
Father is a manipulative narcissist. He wants the player to take care of Shaun partly because the synth is his second chance at life, and a kind of immortality. But more importantly, making the player form an emotional bond with a synth effectively binds the player to the Institute, Father's way of manipulating the player from beyond the grave. Once the player is bonded to that fake "child", and loves it, here's no knowing what kind of corrupting influence the synth could have been programmed with. They both had to die, for the player to have a clean start and build a better future.
psammiad unless you side with the railroad where you have some sort of emotional feeling towards every synth. if that's the case, he's not manipulating you since you're choosing to not kill Shaun based off of your morals that you've had for a long time
psammiad it is not immortality, because that is not father. Shaun is a bunch of ones and zeros that look like Father. If I created a robot that looked and acted just like you, would you just accept that it is you and you are just as much you as the ones and zeros?
depends, if I could download my brain into a file (as seen ingame) then I have to accept it. because that exactly what I am. an incredibly complicated set of 1's and 0's sure, but 1's and 0's the same.
Plot twist - Father had his brain dissected and installed as a robo-brain inside synth Shaun. He then lives on as an immortal in an artificial body.
GoPro Central
It's the same level of immortality that having a kid or making a well known novel is.
Not actually Immortality but still a grasp at life.
Shaun : " I love you mom "
Me: *tears in my eyes * ...i love you too kid
Shaun: "I love you father."
Me: I'm going to blow you ski high you filthy animal!!!
It's like hearing your dead kid through a interactive chatbot. I don't think I could emotionally handle something like that. I'm glad that we don't have technology for it yet. Black mirror proved how depressing it could be, not being able to move on.
The whole story of fallout 4 is is so great, and gives of an interstellar vibe to it, its just a work of art
Sorry for the typos lol
Save him?
My son, my REAL son, wound up ruling the most feared, most dreaded organization in the Commonwealth, and not only did he do nothing to change any of what they were doing once he became its overseer, he then put me through all he did seemingly out of what amounted to little more than just bored curiousity, and then when all was said and done, when all there was left of him is a cancer-ravaged elder, I find he's created this... thing... this inhumanly-ageless mirror of a childhood he had and I never got to enjoy... for what reason? To make up for what I missed? This abominable false clone I'll never see grow up into the strong and proud and smart young man I dreamed of when I held him in my arms because my boy is now a cold and distant old man twice my age... This... this damnable MACHINE replica is meant to be what, some kind of fucking apology?! "Gee, sorry I and my spooky secret laboratory terrorized the landscape for decades and treated you like a puppet on a string! Whoopsy, my bad! Here, have this robot clone of me when I was still young and cute and didn't round up people and have them killed and replaced by artifical duplicates. Looks like my time's up... gonna go die now, bye!"
No, I won't "save" him. He's not my son. My son died at that damnable Institute, decades ago, the day he stopped being called "Shaun" and started being called "Father".
Does the game give you this dialogue option? Please tell me it does.
Nope, I thought all that up spontaneously just then.
ChaosWolf1982 if a anything you can head cannon that you start a new family after destroying the Institute or just live out your days on your own
I think I agree with ChaosWolf :) :)
First person I found that has a reasonable mind in the RUclips comments. Cheers to you Sir!
I don’t understand at all the hate Fallout 4 gets storywise. This choice especially is a masterpiece. No matter how you look at it.
Either Old Man Shaun is someone who has spent a life being brainwashed into believing something they know deep down is horrible and morally corrupt, using their last moments to reach out to their parent, beg for forgiveness and to allow a piece of him to have the life he missed out on.
Or...
Shaun is still one step ahead of you, as the Institute always is, and is using young Shaun to keep the sole survivor in constant torment with the memories of the life they lost, and eventually rebuild the Institute from the ground up and sustain his legacy. He was always nothing but evil and a monster, the sole survivor is too late to save him.
this is an underrated comment
The hate is based around what it could have been and what it takes away from, overall. It is a good idea, a good story, and a great bit of lore. It's a poor base for identity creation, player choice, and immersion for roleplaying diversity.
The story was good. Towards the end. But the journey to that end was poor. The dialogue options gave no difference like pats fallouts. This ruined the whole journey for me. Little real choice like previous games, the revelation that Shaun was father was great but tha was about it.
Bethesda is a lot like telltale. Both are games with choices but most of them don't matter. The only choices that do matter are big choices. Like "who would you kill? _____ or _____". This is why people hate bethesda. The choices are always big instead of small or medium. They're like the questions your friends or family ask you. Would you father die from fire or from drowning etc...
Or the Kid is the real Sean, and Father has been manipulating you to the end. The clues are out there, you just have to notice them.
I saved Shaun, despite him being a synth. My character's ultimate goal was to try and rebuild his old life, with his kid (or something that can be his kid) in Sanctuary, and try and make the most of this new world that he stumbled into.
i left shaun, would rather start anew than look after the child that is living a lie.
chapman5578 "if humans die can they come back as a sinth and live again? You know that isnt possible and by you saving him you are lieing to him basically.
I tried to save the actual Shaun, but he was a moron and wouldn't take the immortality serum I had that would have extended his life a bit more (would be worth breaking my deal).
Also wasn't sure why transferring his memories to a synth wasn't an option
Jude Pelaez I don’t give a fuck
Mitchell Elliot that's exactly what he did though he gave his childhood memories to the synth boy
I do appreciate you playing Father's tape right in front of Shaun like, "YOUR LIFE IS A LIE KID!"
Well, “synth” Shaun is technically still your son as Fathers DNA was used to make them sooooooo...
I think that just makes him Father's biologically identical sibling and the machine that made him is his mother.
Arthur Morgan so your saying you would accept a replacement for your real life child
@@jonnymars2254 if your child died and a clone of your child showed up, would you accept them?
@@overlorddante there's no point to say yes. You'd just be blinding yourself into thinking that your dead son is still with you but only he's made out of metal, wires and circuits.
@@NurseAmamiya eh, gen 3 synths are made of everything a human is. That's why they're only discernable from an autopsy. But yes, he's technically a robot made out of meat and bone. Personally, I wouldn't see him as my son but on the fence about if I'd take him in.
when i play games like this, i like to create a personality for my character and then get into their head. i make decisions based on what they would decide, not me. so when it came to the decision of leaving shaun to die or not, i left him to die. it would have been too painful for my character. the synth shaun was a reminder of my character failing to be there for her child as he grew. it was a reminder of her dead husband. and if she had to constantly see him, be by him, and take care of him after everything that had happened with the actual shaun? it was too much. i might be taking it too seriously but it just makes the game a lot more enjoyable and emotional for me idk
I play with a mind like that too. That’s really interesting
i alwhays play on what i whould do if i was in that position thats why i never play bad side on fallout games i just cant
Shit, I thought I was the only one doing something like that hahaha
It is a very interesting and different way of playing.
Love it
Omg I do that aswell, I sided with almost every faction in the playthroughs I did but never did I side with the Institute cause I couldnt stand what they were doing and I also couldnt take Synth Shaun with me cause it would be too painful for my character!
Edit: Oh and I also didnt join the Institute cause I couldnt bring Curie there lmao
So you condemned synth Shaun to death for the sins of the Institute?
So if I'm the father of the father, that makes me the grandfather of synth Shaun, or because synth Shaun is 100% Shaun DNA does that make me the father of synth Shaun as well as the father of Father, and does that make Father and me both synth Shaun's fathers? damn this shit is confusing.
No, if you clone yourself its your clone not your father's clone.
I’m so confused as to why Shaun couldn’t grow into a normal human? Gen 3’s are nearly made organically with the exception of the chip in their head. It makes sense to me that you could take Shaun and raise him like a normal human.
I always interpreted that as Synth Shaun never being able to grow out of the mindset of a child.
@@ziimulhah3223 that’s an interesting perspective. As in, his software wouldn’t be able to update. However I still feel like this is the most fundamental flaw of synths, they don’t age or grow?! I get your trying to redefine humanity but that’s a pretty long term design flaw if you talk about espionage
While it's stated that's gen 3 synths don't age I don't believe that's it's confirmed their lack of aging is a unintended result of their creation or if the institute purposefully creates them that way which would imply that they could create synths that age if they wanted to. The game also never states if synth Shaun was designed to never age or if synth Shaun is perhaps the only gen4 synth capable of aging.
It's been a while since I played thru the main campaign so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Synths aren't human lol that's why they don't grow
@@freekill1018 I know that dummy. I’m asking what part of them makes them ungrowable? Gen 3 synths are nearly identical to people. They are organically made, but have a chip near the hippocampus which allows the institute to influence them.
If that’s true, then why can’t they continue to age? Also, as I stated in another video, I think this is the greatest flaw to get 3s. How easy is it to notice yourself aging and your friend who hasn’t aged a day in 5 years.
The more you dive into the lore behind synths the more you start to realize how flawed a design they are: they can’t age (for some reason even though they’re “indistinguishable” from humans), if they can’t age then I feel they are poor at espionage and infiltration for long term missions, there’s also no clear reason why some are obedient and some rebel, do they have free will or not.
Overall from a writing standpoint and a gameplay standpoint I feel as if the creators were like: hey we need a reason for people who aren’t aging in our games, let’s make them robots that can’t age. It’s dumb
I do like how Synth Shaun's dialogues imply that he's very unlikely to grow up to be a condescending prick like Father Shaun thanks to the fact that Synth Shaun won't be isolated from the Wasteland which allows him to form his own informed opinion about the Wasteland and its people rather than assuming that anyone that isn't a part of his group are all hopeless savages.
He'll never age. He's a robot.
@@boethia7367 kinda. His body is human. Gen 3 synths have synth components n their brain, that's about it. Much other information is heavily debated (ex: do synths need to eat, drink, urinate, sleep, ect?). I think this is mostly a problem with the information often being vauge and sometimes downright contradicting. People have found information proving synths don't sleep, but curie's dialogue mentions feeling tired and hungry. People have found information saying synths don't age but if that's true how don't they get noticed after a few years of not aging a day? Especially the mayor of diomond city. Hancock was able to turn goul and take over good neighbor in the time since the guy was replaced by a synth but no one has noticed the supossive not aging thing.
Honestly, no one's really gonna age in fallout 4. If you think Shawn and the other synths will age, you find the evidence and head cannon it. If not, use the other sides evidence and head cannon it for your game. How you imagine it isn't going to change the actual gameplay
@@Morbid_Magpie You dont see much ageing in a man between 30 and 50, that gives The mayor 20 years to not be noticed. The SRB is cutting him lose because it is only a matter of time before he is discovered.
@@Morbid_Magpiethis is a year late, but the institute scientists mention it in a random conversation encounter that you can overhear. They say that synth Shaun with never age. He will be a kid forever, unfortunately.
@@mochafirefoxy Maybe his brain can be placed into an adult synth's body, like it was done with Curie.
I think what father means by leaving the synth Shaun behind... Is his way of leaving a piece of himself. Obviously It isn't him, but at the very least the sole survivor can feel like she hasn't missed out on his childhood.
maybe it's some form of compassion and empathy that came out of interacting with his mom for a short time.
Exactly my thoughts but I didn’t wanna type it cause my fingers broke 😂
As someone who got "down and dirty" with Danse, getting Shaun completed my matching synth family set, and pleased be to great extent.
Seeing as synths share your DNA..... you kind of did it with your grandkid 🤮
@@moralityisnotsubjective5 . Nope. Ox already covered this topic with is it ok to romance Curie when she is in a synth body ?
Goddammit you had sex with on of your grandchildren
@@Deadsea_1993 but she is a miss nanny
@@Deadsea_1993 frankly, you're wrong
This video is 5 years old now and I've been playing fallout since pretty the release of fallout 4. I have a lot of hours in the game at this point and I NEVER knew it was possible to leave Shaun. When he asks to come with me I immediately say yes. It might just be a video game but I could not imagine leaving a child behind. I took him every time without hesitation.
Ox: there is no ramification for not saving synth shaun, none of your companions hate you...
Me: piper hated that...
(at least from my experience, this happened)
Kats Cagurangan
I hate how modding your weapons certain ways will make people like or dislike you
@@rngclips8267 I think only strong will dislike that
100,000,000 subscribers without any videos “TINKER TINKER TINKER”
@@averzio7151 "Human always tinker with stuff and make stuff, HUMAN should SMASH THINGS more often
I love though how the companions, especially Strong, react to cannibalism, pure gold in my opinion
I couldn't leave child Shaun simply for the fact that I didn't know if that machine had actual, human feelings. I mean, how far can AI go to point where there is no difference between a person and a machine? That was the part that haunted me the most about that mission. It left me in an array of doubt, paranoia, and confusion. This game has really made me think.
Claude Frollo Synths actually do have feelings. Nick Valentine is a synth, and he has feelings of "like" and "dislike", and also is mad at times and happy. Danse is the same way, a synth, that has feelings. He can be your love interest in the game. So it's obvious some have feelings.
It can't feel betrayed if it's dead
You are a good person.
@@chandlerlocklear3854 it? So YOU are an it?
Skyrim and Skuldduggery Pleasant. On what?
I kinda wish that there was a compromise option.
I feel that the tech of the Institute could do a great amount of good for the Commonwealth, but its leadership won't allow it to utilize it for that purpose.
The Brotherhood has the ability to bring order to the Commonwealth, but their moral compass is pointed way too south (or whatever direction involves bigotry).
The Railroad has good intentions, but they're only really focused on helping synths.
The Minutemen are probably the best overall option, but lack the resources to accomplish much other than sending you to do everything for those damned settlements.
If there were a way to eliminate the troublesome leadership of certain factions, and get them all to work together on some level, it would be the best possible outcome.
Too bad Bethesda never gave us their option.
Yeah as Director i would have liked to have had one final meeting with the division heads to change how the institute operates and turn them good after taking down the Air Ship i know their are some that secretly want to help to people above ground like Dr Lee for example
There was a alternative ending in blind betrayal where you or danse become leader of the brotherhood but that was cut for whatever reason
@@Thenextbestjester Whatever the reason, it was dumb, and they should feel dumb.
I think the fact that the young synth can’t ever grow up, and is forced to always be a child played my part in making him stay
It’s the opposite for me. Why bring an immortal child, someone incapable of adapting to the environment, into the horrid wasteland, where even the most capable men and women struggle to survive? What type of life could he even live?
He/it will stay a child forever. I think it is cruel from the real Shaun to do that to his father/mother. Also the lack of trying to give any form of compensation for the shit they did to the sole survivor . I think the first meeting with the synth shaun as a test was like "Father" asking to get shot at the first conversation. He was intended as a puppet for the sole survivor.
Compensation? Wow, what are u, 12??
Mortally Challenged no, the SS can just go to the memory den to have kid Shaun's consciousness eventually transferred into an adult body as the years go by
@@acecashman1237 You all say that, but who will transfer said consciousness? Didn't the Sole Survivor nuked, literally every piece of equipment that did that?
There’s the tech that transferred Curie’s consciousness
Can’t synths age since they’re pretty much human?
My first thought was, he'll be programmed to kill my character in their sleep or something. The institutes way of killing you for what you did after they knew they were fucked
You dont understand because you're missing a very important line by father. Father does not believe synths are just machines with no souls. He simply believes that they are not built well enough yet to live as humans. The institute is working on making them completely human but they are still dangerous. He doesnt want to keep the synths as they are forever. He simply wants to perfect them before they are released.
Seven Star Vapor not saying he doesn’t say that but where do you hear Shaun say that
Maybe the kid is the first perfect one
He also seems to prefer synths, care for them.
What if letting the Railroad find a home for Shaun is the cannon or taking him home could the ending because he goes on to rebuild the institute that's why Father tricked you into thinking he did it for you be in reality he's getting his way giving you that last middle finger secretly by making you feel sorry for him!
I saved Shaun and send him to Old Longfellows cabin. He is his new father.
Bro sent Shaun to live in The Fog with Longfellow 😭
@@jordanholder Well, that sounds way worse now than what I thought of it two years ago.
@@NautyCat BAHAHAH
Nah I feel like Longfellow would just drop his ass off at Acadia.
I couldn't leave synth Shaun. So I had him live in The Castle. Check on him frequently. Besides, Wazer Wifle is awesome, especially when modded with automatic fire.
I think wazer wifle may be the best laser wep aside from r. Authority, especially for commando, because using auto in vats is sort of a waste.
GL and HF once Synth Shaun has finished his secret subroutines of rebuilding an even more aggressive Institute run entirely by robots.
nintendoboy17
wounding and a splitter
nintendoboy17 The weapons you get from all the mods available make the Wazer Wifle pretty obsolete 🤷♂️
Childhood memories... Shaun was a BABY, when he was kidnapped by Kellog. What memories of consequence could he have had at that time? So whatever memories Father gives the Shaun synth, do not deserve to mean ANYTHING to the Sole Survivor, if you want my opinion.
probably young Shaun's memories of kellog has been replaced of you, programmed to believe that it was you instead of kellog who took care of shaun.
Ore he gave the young sinth the memories, which old Shaun wished for.
I feel as if i understand father and his flawed surrounding and influences.
After being groomed for so many years and being intellectually superior than most whilst at the time being a leader; Father created a wall of which seemed tyrannical, unjust and perhaps corrupted (depends on whose perspective u listen to).
The only thing that made father negative was the institute, they kidnapped him when he was a baby, when he was defenceless.
His negative emotions was caused by a huge lack of tender love and care since childhood, the institute could not give him true love, they only gave him conditional love hence why he was living under their conditions, he eventually knew this and thus, knowing something like that, not knowing who your real parent were; it made his warm heart turned cold.
The negative childhood, plus additions of negative emotions and the lust of hunger for family love in-turn created a defected in his ability to think critically, emotionally and most importantly, empathically; being the leading man acting the leading role, he did the best he could with the imperfect system he had, whilst knowing his imperfections and his department's imperfections, he tried to be perfect but it was not good enough for everyone, same can be said for his programs and their nightmarish outcome.
Synths gen 3 program and Super Mutant program. He basically tried to create super human and the hulk but, encountered human errors or errors of human genetics in correlation with their technology and thus the negative outcome took a snowball effect and and unfortunately, affected the whole of the commonwealth and beyond.
Last but not least he created the young Shaun, he created the "what if", as u have known, father always thought of "what if" but never had a chance to experience it for himself and so he wanted to see, he wanted to feel even if he was only able to feel it from a second-hand experience. It was just a scientific research of which father persuaded the departments to believe, but really it was a dream come true for him. A desire, a deep secrete of which Father's emotions were brewing and boiling for over 60 years, he finally made Shaun, he made it for the Sole survivor, hoping that the sole survivor, his mother/father would take him back, would take "what if" back with them and start the "what if" life.
He had to come up with it and do it because he knew his days were numbered. It was his will, it was his last wish.
Intelligent and wisdom are almost two different things, father had all the intelligence anyone could wish for, but as for wisdom, he lacked because u need to experience life, the positive and negative and to reflect on those experiences; the knowledge and information gained from reflection is called wisdom. The Father only got his wisdom from old age. Being old he admitted his regret and so he tried healing and patching that hole in his human heart.
In the end, u the player have to think critically, emotionally and intellectually on the what the outcome will be for the father, Shaun and the institute.
The indecisiveness of human emotions in correlation to the game and the outcome of its reality is what made it special for me. A very enticing story, a very thoughtful game.
There was one mission of which i played over and over from saved game just so i knew all different outcomes. That mission should of only took 30 minutes to do but it took me something like 3 hours. I just didn't know how to cope with the moral making side of things at the time. That mission was when u had to save or let the synth girl die by the hand of the doctor from Covenant. I really admired Honest Dan value but i also felt sorry for the people of Covenant and agreed with their Docotors ideology regarding Synth and saw logic in their docotor's scientific research. I didn't want the synth to die but at the same time i didn't want to save one Synth just so i can kill 50 or so people relating to Covenant.
It is truly a beautiful game.
Your comment is very well made. I have nothing to add. •́ ‿ ,•̀
Mike Chaiyachin I think you’re looking a little to hard into this.
Shit that was deep
Woa
Mean while i was all
"Hurr durr gatling laser go *brrr*
When he said Shaun is just a chair that talks. I lost it. Never played any of the fallouts but hearing the stories and comments from oxhorn make my day sometimes.
I managed to avoid spoilers for this and when I had to make this decision playing under BOS and on a rampage for Institute destruction, I also could not do it. I knew he wasn't a "real boy" or truly Shaun, but he's a child. The way he speaks to you...oh man..pulled at my heart strings too much. I was also pretty happy about getting Biwwy's Wazer Wifle.
I found this hard. I killed Shaun on his deathbed as a "mercy kill" but I took Synth Shaun. What kind of logic is that?
The adult Shaun isn't so helpless and his true character can't be changed. The little Shaun is more helpless and i guess you wanted to protect him. In the players role your memories of Shaun are those of a infant or at least a child. The adult Shaun has lived longer than you and gained more life experience and wisdome than you, while you were in the freezer. I guess it is logical that your feelings can't connect to the adult Shaun, because with 60+ he is more than responsible for his doings. It is hard to accept that the adult Shaun is a monster and it is easier to have compassion with a thinking robot, who is used, than with an old man, who is carrying nothing from you, but some infant memories. He is genetically your child, but he simply "died" the moment he was robbed. I would compare this story to children who were skiped at birth. They grow up unnoticed with the other family and the raising family is the family, not the mother of birth. Sure, a lot of adopted children want to know about their parents, but i think they really see their adopting family as their home (if their childhood was nice), do they? The same is for adult Shaun - he was raised by the Instutute and accepted their moral decisions. He sees the Instutute as the family. In the dialoge was no option, that old Shaun would leave the Institute and come with you to get to know you, because he know what crimes he did, and don't wand to see the consequences. I guess at some point an child abduction leads to quite a lot of problems to the child, that he/she is believing what the robbers are saying and doing. Plus here we have the "timetravel" paradox. I guess not let him dying of cancer and "make it quick" is a pretty "human" decision. Otherwise you let him suffering from pain. This would fit to another topic, but I leave this here.
Well, these are my thoughts about it, why "this paradox" isn't paradox at all.
By the way - did anyone played on the Institute's side? I want to see the story, but don't want to play those manipulating bastards as I don't want to play the ghoul-hating nazis xD. Sneeking throu the underground and adopting synth-Shaun is simply my way ^^. The immersion of this game is too high for me xD - I can't play those roles.
What sort of logic is that? Human logic. For every cast iron belief that humans have there is usually a few caveats. People may logically accept that paying kidnappers or terrorists will only encourage them and others to follow them but that belief usually changes when it is your child or loved one.
I suppose when you don't know the person being affected it makes it easier. Not right just easier.
Sophie T It was father who gave the orders for The Institute, made the calls on all the evil and harm they'd caused. They have so much potential to do a lot of good...but they don't do the right thing.
I really wrestled with this when I did play for The Institute. But, my character was "family/blood first nothing else matters"
I've played every faction except Railroad.
Sophie T Playing this time for the BOS, when I killed Father, my thinking was, "Its better that I do it and make it painless." and maybe coming from that characters anger at everything she went through because of the Institute. The coldness and his using you as an experiment too.
I love that this game gives such hard moral/ethical decisions that you have to make.
Max Power Max Power Good point.
I just remember thinking to myself that the "right" thing according to my BOS play would be to let it all go. Plus, I was out for destruction against the Institute. I needed vengeance.
But, I caved, even knowing he'll never grow up. Even knowing how the BOS would react to a child synth.
Even if he wasn't "Shaun" I would have saved him. I couldn't kill a child crying for help. You take them and figure something out for them later.
So, yes, human. 😊
I know this is a 4 year late reply, but I've replayed this recently and I have a new viewpoint on this scenario. Initially I left Shaun behind on my first playthrough because I just thought of all synths as the enemy (obviously a BoS mentality) However I did save him on another character just to see what would happen. Having played this again recently, leaving Shaun behind is a simple but still challenging decision. I role play my character with who Nate was before the war, with a little bit of my own morals added in the mix, and I feel both Nate and my own experience as a father leads me to make the decision to leave Shaun because everything you journey through to get to this point was for the sole purpose of finding your son. Shaun isn't your son, and he never will be. Your son lived his own life, he grew up and made decisions of his own without Nate or Nora. Who he became cannot be replaced or altered by pretending that you get a second chance at raising your son. It isn't like adopting a child. Your choosing to pretend Shaun is something (or someone) that he isn't. It is sad, and to some immoral, but I personally believe that Nate (and myself) would respond to Shaun with a "No, you are not my son."
My exact thoughts, And I wasn't trying to be anti-Synths, I just thought "The son I knew is dead, your not him, sorry kid."
@115Ironwolf currently replaying skyrim anniversary edition on my ps5 with a few simple mods sprinkled in and I'm having more fun than I ever had in the last 12 years of playing it.
For Me It's kinda different... But nonetheless same
I'm a BoS Sentinel... I saved Acadia, I rescued Paladin Danse, I'm friends with Nick. I'm not a super non human hater like Maxson (and yes I just stroked maxson's ego with my responses non reflecting on myself) Once BoS have lost interest on the commonwealth, I would start anew here... Maybe raised a different BoS and Minutemen
But Synth Shaun's case is different... I destroyed my son's dreams and legacy burned it to the ground. And for me to have a happy ending where I raise Synth Shaun? Even if Shaun wanted me to live the life I lost I just can't. So I put a bullet on Shaun's head and Leave the Synth to die on explosion.
My last words to him: See you in Hell...
@@DeathkaiserGThat's exactly how i finished the game last time. İ like BoS, but i also don't hate synths. But still, don't want to take that little shit with me
Me, about Synth Shaun: This is my 100% natural, organic son. My actual real Son Boy
lol my actual real son boy
That part from Kid Shaun about death and becoming a synth really touched me, idk why but it just did...
He's hinting that he's really father. Idk man I smelled a rat and who knows what programming "Shaun" had to be activated down the line.