Hate the Institute? Blame Shaun 

I wish we had the dialog option to tell Shaun on his deathbed: "I have no son", "You are no son of mine" or "Shaun died in Vault 111".

I like how the way Shaun defends the institute goes from "People just think we're evil because they don't know how we really are" to "Yeah, we're evil, but everyone else is evil so that makes it ok."

"Hello, it's me, Shaun, your son. This is an exact replica of me from when I was but a strapping young lad of 10, specifically created, and I cannot stress this enough, to traumatize you."

Shaun reeks of personal trauma. He made a synth child look like himself to see if anybody could love it. He released the sole survivor to "see what would happen". He wanted to know if the survivor, his parent, would come looking for him, to see if they still loved him, or were capable of doing so.

So why did you side with your faction? "The minutemen simply help people with not unethical baggage" "The Railroad are the only one helping synths" "The Brotherhood will protect everyone" *Institute players looking at the institute* "I can fix them"

Considering they murdered Nora or Nate instead of just defrosting the 3 of them and explaining to the parents why the Insitute is humanity's last hope, I'd have to say the Insuttie was evil from the get-go even if some individuals have scruples. you can't blame all the problems on them when how he got into their care was that callous. Shaun might have made things worse, but it was always like that.

I still remember my first game. I joined the minutemen. I went into the institute, my son was there, some old dude started interrupting our conversation, I shot his head off with a sawed off shotgun, tried to open the cage but couldn't, I fought my way out... It was only 2 months later when I learned who the old man was from a let's play. Good times.

Father: I can't believe you messed up Bunker Hill! My Minuteman/Railroad Survivor: And I can't believe you didn't expect my *incredibly* predictable actions.

Yeah but the Institute has something no other faction does: bathrooms. It’s not their teleportation or synths that make them the most civilized faction, it’s their plumbing.

My biggest problem with the Institute was this: You made all of these synthetic people, capable of true feeling and true AI learning and understanding, yet you take these creations and put them to do menial tasks that a simple robot could do with fewer resources and won't complain about it, then turn around and expend invaluable assets and resources attempting to retrieve 'lost or stolen' synths like they actually matter. The smartest den of idiots in the Commonwealth.

Shaun's major flaw isn't about his character, a baby stolen from their parents wanting to rekindle that relationship after becoming the head of a scary shadow organization is kind of a cool idea. It's just that for as smart as the game wants us to think Father is not a single thing Father does makes sense and he just kind of comes across as stupid

"i watched your birth, i held you and loved you with every part of me and so did your mother. I mourned you.. now the grief is gone and my fanily really is dead. Goodbye Shaun."

Fun fact Father's plan worked so well in my first playthrough that he was eviscerated by an explosive minigun before the door was fully open then I let myself out.

And now we ask the age-old question of "Is this character contradictory and hypocritical because they're intended to be flawed or because the writers are very confused".

Thanks Bethesda for giving me the opportunity to play out the fantasy of having a son that I’m disappointed in.

What i hate is that the game lets you roam around and discover horrible things the institute does but you never get to confront Shaun with it. For example the FEV lab where you find children's toys inside the containment cells indicating they experimented on children, or the entire point of the 3rd generations synths, the kidnappings, really anything. They put all of this evidence of the institute being evil in the game for you to find then they do nothing with it. I have a feeling the devs had a distinct plan for the institute but some higher up (todd probably) nixed it and told them to make Shaun the leader for a cheap plot twist and they had to scrap what could have been a good moral dilemma for you to decide to support them despite their evil nature or perhaps even convince them to destroy themselves like the Enclave in FO3.

Honestly Shawn just treats you like Kellogg. He emotionally manipulates you into doing what he wants. He released you and sent you on a direct course to kill Kellogg. He knew you would either die or kill Kellogg. Father makes it clear he hated Kellogg. He also knew that if you were driven enough to track him down against impossible odds, he could use that to manipulate you into doing what he wanted.

"So, I'm stepping down. You're now the Director. Only, I'll still be telling you what to do. As will the other Research Heads. You'll be Director in name only. You'll not have the autonomy that I do, but it will be enough to cause more division in my already emotionally unstable underground cadre. Now, go and kill everyone who opposes me while I go play with my robotic incarnation of my lost childhood."

Shaun could have minimized Kellog's collateral damage to the lowest possible by teleporting him inside solid rock.

Shaun waking up the Sole Survivor and bringing him to the Institute sounds like he wanted an external judge that still possesses the sensibilities of the Old World to come to judge the Institute and find something worthy in it.

Father: "synts are just tools. No free will, no wishes, no future. Only program." Also Father: "Hey, look! A child synth! Will you love and treat him like a real boy??????" Me: "SRSLY?!"

It's a shame that the institute isn't very well written, I really liked their aesthetic.

It's a pretty cool story element that the son you've been looking for turns out to be a horrible person. It really tests where you would draw the line between family and stopping a lunatic.

I think its really humanizing to have shaun release the sole survivor as a way to find answers...if only it was written better.

"They can't be director, they aren't even a scientist!" Meanwhile, in Sanctuary... Sturges: "Welcome to Sanctuary, See those big nuclear fusion generators? Those shiny new laser turrets? Those twelve suits of near-new power armor? The damn fully supplied hospital? Yeah, the vault dweller built them out of scrap by himself in about an hour... trained the doctors too (yes, I know you just "assign" them)." Also, to point out. Playing as the male character, who is known as a former soldier. I don't know about other countries, but in the US it's not uncommon for people to enlist to take advantage of the educational opportunities they provide. Hell, you can even pretend the female player has more a minor degree along with just a law degree. So, from a roleplaying standpoint, it is entirely possible that your character is a scientist. So... SUCK IT INSTITUTE! 🤣

This wouldn't have happened if President Dave was in charge

Behind all of his logic and apathy, Shaun is just like a synth. Ironically creating Synths so advanced they have emotional intelligence far beyond his own.

The truly sad part is that the Institute actually could have saved the Commonwealth.

Dont forget that Dr Amari says "no one ever does this before" when breaking into Kelloggs memories meaning that Father relied on a technological breakthrough for the player to get to know about the teleporter etc.

Frankly, the very breaking point for me was when Shaun refers to the death of Sole's spouse as "unfortunate collateral damage", without mentioning ANY repercussions for any members of the team, nor any following changes in policy. I just felt a sense of "why don't I have an obvious dialogue option of "it was unfortunate and therefoooooore you did or changed what going forward?" ". Like I just can't imagine any intelligent adult just shrugging that off with an equivalent of "okay son yeah that tracks, attaboy you acknowledged that was a mistake, the bare minimum you could do!"

Father has got to be either one of the most inconsistently-written main story "villains" I've ever encountered in a AAA game, or he is one of the most nonsensically evil middle-managers I've ever seen portrayed in gaming. Sure, he may be the man in charge, but he doesn't act like it. If something needs to be done (like the seizing of University Point research data), he sees it performed by the worst tools and personnel possible so that he isn't directly blamed for the poor results (like putting the Sole Survivor in charge of the Bunker Hill attack, and the Institute's single announcement to the Commonwealth). If something shouldn't be done, or resources need to be reallocated (further FEV research), he lets the dead-end research continue regardless until someone else has to step in and take responsibility for ending it. His personal projects get in the way of actual meaningful work to the point that legitimately-talented people like Madison Li can be persuaded to leave the most advanced scientific community in the post-war US. If something catastrophic happens accidentally (the Broken Mask Incident), oh well; "That's science for ya." And if pushed on his behavior or blamed for something specific, well, someone else always did something much worse. I swear I've had this boss before. No wonder Ayo and some of the other directors have sticks up their asses when they meet the player; they're all refusing to take the inevitable fall for Father's poor set of priorities and decision-making. For all they know, the Sole Survivor is Father's new pet project, and everybody already knows what that means: something bad is going to happen because Father doesn't realize how incompetent he actually is, but they can't say anything against it lest they end up like Virgil (or "retired" like Zimmer, whatever happened to him). Doesn't Father say at one point that he was specifically raised to be the leader of the Institute? Whatever Shaun's story is now, screw that: it's the previous director's story that I want to learn about. Who the hell raised Shaun to be such an unscientific and inefficient bureaucrat? And why did they (apparently) do it on purpose? THAT'S the story I'm interested in.

The whole synth-Shaun thing is so messed up. You wake your parent from cryostasis, make them fight a half-robotisized killer, assume they'll discover TELEPORTATION to enter your Institute, and then you taunt them with a puppet of the son they were hoping to find? Way to make an awful first impression, Dr. Braincancer. Ad Victoriam.

It's like Bethesda was trying to do the morally ambiguous thing with the Institute, and "ends justify the means" type situation. But they fumbled the ball and just made them a bit evil with some conflicting dialogue that doesn't reflect their actions. The one saving grace they have is that the railroad is one of the most poorly written factions in the fallout series.

Imagine destroying a whole village for information the girl would have readily sold them 🤔 And the money would have been a drop in the bucket for the Institute.

"Every lie incurs a debt to the truth that will one day need to be paid." I'm going to remember that line.

Go easy on father, he was an incredibly badly written character. You can't fault him for that

A thing that annoys me about the institute is that you can not confront them about what they have done. I wanted to call father out on creating a slave race, and keeping useful technology to themselves (especially the GMO crops). But no. All I get to say is "its for the greater good / you have made too many enemies".

Side-note: I feel like some of the "This motherfucker's a synth!" scenarios should've been representative of the paranoia. I.E., Sammy in Goodneighbor not having a synth component. I mean, yeah, the whole Kyle incident in Diamond City is good, but... I still feel bringing up the paranoia would've helped demonize the Institute more. Edit: Also, put Synth Components on unnamed NPCs with a 1/50 chance. For added realism.

The Institute was evil long before Shaun got into the picture. Here's just what I remember off the top of my head. The Institute... ... starting at least 50 years before they kidnapped Shaun from the Vault, were experimenting with FEV and creating the local strain of Super Mutants, and just unleashed them on the Commonwealth. This research continued until Virgil (same one we meet in the game) torched the FEV labs and escaped, forcing that project on hold. ... dumped a lot of older synth models in the Commonwealth, ignoring that they go berserk and kill people. ... steal energy and electricity from the settlements in the Commonwealth, which most likely contributes to a fair number of deaths. ... are using current synth models as slaves, even though they are definitely intelligent enough to be indistinguishable from having free will. The fact that synths routinely work to escape to find freedom and a life of their own is a major red flag. ... are using their current models of synths to abduct and replace people in the Commonwealth. The Institute is *cartoonishly* evil and Shaun was only part of that, mainly responsible for the last point. Say what you will about the harsh nature of Brotherhood of Steel's rule of the Commonwealth, but Elder Maxson is entirely correct when he says the Institute is an existential threat to the people of the Commonwealth and possibly beyond.

Ah yes, my favorite past time; Finding new reasons to hate the Institute.

One thing that you cannot shake off is the fact to the institute you're an enemy until you can prove that you're not, they're the only faction out of the 4 that shoots you (with synths) when they see you. Also the game the entire time literally tells you these are the bad guys, from the time you get unfrozen in Vault 111 until you reach the turning point of the game (when you reach Diamond City) and until you reach the end of the game.

There should’ve been more postgame missions that let you establish your institute. I remember one small mission addressing treating Synths better but that’s it

Imagine fallout 4 that locked fast travel behind having to get the molecular relay chip, Ppl might have invested more in the main story.

Nah I'd blame lazy writers

The Institute's goal is either: A) Go full Ghost in the Shell and transfer their consciousnesses into immortal synthetic bodies that do not sleep, eat, or age. B) Create a pool of slave labor that must inexplicably be as close to human as possible so that humans don't need to work and can focus all time and energy to do... whatever, I guess.

in fallout 3 when you nuke megaton, your father expresses disappointment. in fallout 4, shaun wouldve done all this and more.

I think shaun definitely has a lot to answer for, but you kind of have to remember who MADE shaun this way, the institute, he wasn’t made this why by accident, he was taught from a very young age how to think and how to see the outside world, and certainly taught him far more practical, scientific, and leadership skills than they have taught him moral life lessons, he grew up learning how to manipulate people to get what he wants from them rather than having the empathy and courage to ask with sincerity, and he learned to use the only advantage he ever had in the institute above others there, his status as the genetic source of the gen 3 synths, to get whatever he wants as leader, getting away with as many ventures he wants such as making a child synth and releasing the player from the vault under the guise of an “experiment”, and shutting down any and all disagreements with his subordinates with nothing more than “I said it, therefore it’s true”, just like kellog he’s a complete monster, but unlike kellog rather than the institute simply taking advantage of him, they MADE him into a monster through their complete lack of care in his mental development

Father feels like the outcome of the quote from Jurassic Park: "You were to busy wondering if you could but never stopped to think if they should"

I think my favorite theory is that Father is not actually Shaun, the real Shaun died in Institute experimentation and Father knew Nate/Nora would destroy him and his whole crew up if they found out that truth...particularly after Nate/Nora kills Kellogg.

This is a great video. I think Father is a sad and rather disturbing invidual. The whole incendiary incident of Fallout 4, the SS being released and Kellog looking after the Shaun Synth, to me always indicated Father discovered how his parents were attacked when he became director and wanted to almost play make-believe by orchestrating events so that the SS could save "Shaun" from Kellog. At this rate, I don't think even Father understands his own motivations, dismissing everything he does as part of some nebulous experiment. Makes for an interesting villain honestly

A lot of this makes me wonder if he did all these things that would ultimately hurt the Institute in order to "hands off" hurt the Institute, which caused the death of one of his parents and kidnapped him from the other, disallowing him to ever have a real childhood.

In my mind I'd become director of the Institute but finish the game with the Minutemen. With that I can slowly lead the Institute into the role of helping the wasteland and being more open to them so the Minutemen can keep them in check. For example they can use their teleportation to help the Minutemen respond quickly to settlements under attack, and Doctor Li can go back to working on her hydroponics and water filtration from the Capitol Wasteland. The synth program would stop and all sentient synths would be released (preferably to the railroad but I think they'd have to die in game in this scenario). The Gen 1's and 2's would continue to help do menial labor around the Institute and above ground. Then the Institute would just help scientifically with the needs of the Commonwealth while my character transfers into an immortal synth body and guides both the Minutemen and Institute eternally because the dumb NPCs can't be trusted to run things😂

While I commend your joke at the end, I'm afraid I must disagree. Father takes after neither of his parents, he takes after the ones who kidnapped him as an infant: the old Directorate of the Institute. They began the Synth replacements and FEV experiments. They massacred the Vault 111 residents and kept the Sole Survivor frozen and away from their son for no explained reason. All of Father's issues stem from them and how they treated him. We see happy families living in the Institute, so poor Shaun must've grown up seeing other kids receiving real love, while he was just the Institute's prize guinea pig for pre-war DNA. While Father claims his abductors treated him well, his obsession with building a family with the Sole Survivor and S9-23 indicate that that's just another lie, one he's forcing himself to believe. It's like an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome.

I am amused by Father declaring the RadKing as Director. The department heads staring at the zealot Child of Atom as their new leader. 😂

There is one possible excuse for Lookout Point I can think of, which is that was the event which made Father realize the kind of man Kellogg actually was. He sent him out to go get the information, expecting him to trade or perhaps create a copy to send to the Commonwealth. Instead, Kellogg stormed the place and killed everyone, causing Father to look back at the records and realize who he was. But thats a big maybe, and its equally possible he just expected a slaughter anyway.

As father saw it he was giving the sole survivor something he/she had lost by making synth Shaun. The synth is a gift to his father/mother.

I remember first time I played through the story. Used the Minutemen to set up the teleport platform. When i got to the institute I was impressed at first but I was still on edge. Then I met Shaun. After hearing him talk a bit I thought some of his reasoning was strange. I thought, "ok, maybe I've misheard. Let's see what they really do. Then I saw more of the hypocrisy and gas-lighting. Later I did a few side missions and found University Point. Then I found the FEV labs and put 2 and 2 together. And the moment I heard what happened I just thought, "Oh god! Shaun is insane! There is no saving him. The institute has to go." And that's exactly what happened.

Shawn and the ending were badly written but few things have impacted me more as a gamer, weirdly. I was a mother, grieving her husband and desperately searching for her son. Only to discover he’s not even dead, but a monster. And his last act of cruelty was Synth Shawn, a child in need of a mother the same as any other, but is still a parody of the child I lost. So what can I do? I take him in. I end the evil of the institute. I take him home to my new wife Curie, herself a synth. With my dog that is likely a synth. And my best friend, a synth detective. And I can’t decide if I’ve built something meaningful and beautiful from the ruins, or if I’ve surrounded myself with clockwork parodies of what I’d lost. Heavy shit. I cried. And then was mad because the shitty writing didn’t deserve it. And I think if I’d played differently or been a different person, it wouldn’t have had so much meaning.

I've always thought that Father was never honest with the sole survivor. It seemed too easy for him to just be lying about his heritage. All of his defenses and non-answers about the Institute's crimes always seemed delusional. Even when he nominates you as 'head' of the Institute, you never get any real power over the organization. It's like it was a giant ploy to keep you loyal.

His whole "this was all just an experiment" kind of made sure I'll never side with them ever.

Oddly enough, it just occurred to me that Shaun has a brain tumor. I wonder just how much that tumor is affecting his reasoning and emotions. From the sound of it, Shaun's recent requests/decisions that lead up to him proclaiming the Sole Survivor to be his successor caught everyone completely by surprise - that would indicate his recent decisions are out of character for him. He likely was a decent director (albeit one that didn't consider the lives of those on the surface to be important or worthy of consideration) until around the time he realized he was dying - around the time his brain tumor was detected. As the tumor grew, its impact on his mental processes would also increase.

Gotta love how lore channels spend more time thinking about bethesda writing than the writers.

Should have had Father be a synth, and he wasn't even aware. Sean could be a child or baby frozen in stasis.

Or maybe farther wants to subconsciously know non of them have any real drive and knows that handing over responsibility to someone who clearly has real focus on rebuilding is better than just destroying everything that has been created.

The thing that I still don't get about Institute Synths is how they actually go about replacing people. Some Synths will straight up tell you that they are with the institute like in the farmer random encounter or the mayor quest while others appear to act completely normal like Paladin Danse, sturges, and the Synths in Arcadia.

The most ironic part, that highlights the biggest flaws of the Institute itself, is that Shaun is for all intents and purposes, a man raised within the Institute. He's less of a hijacker of the faction's purpose, as some have claimed Lyons was to the Brotherhood, and more a distillation of their practices into a single person. That changes nothing about the analysis of course, but I find it poetic that the Institute experiment we have the most concrete knowledge about is the one that sending it off the rails.

So one thing i want to say is that when shaun says "after all this time would you come find me" as if the survivor was aware of how long it was between shaun being atolen and the survivor being thawed. To the sole survivor it more than likely felt like no more than a day between the two events. Its even said ingame that the survivor still thought that shaun was still a baby

I can just imagine how insane it would be if Shaun did whole heartedly push for the progress of humanity alongside the progress of the institute, focusing on more of what made Keller as proficient as he was and more study into the FEV thanks to his DNA. If he grasped the progress he brought to the table, there is no doubt that he could have made agreements with all factions of the wasteland. One idea that comes to mind would be obvious synths he sends in groups for each faction to work with and study as they please as a show of peace. He’d announce through their designated synth group leaders that they will be of aid and bring back knowledge to the institute to better aid the factions. Minutemen synths would be a constant task force running back and forth through the commonwealth in aid of the people and gaining settlements for protection, bringing back info on wildlife, beasts and raiders. Railroad synths would basically be masters of disguise with Kevlar clothing, some even working independently from the institute from the gifted group, which can give the institute more intel on human personalities to better synthesize synths indistinguishable from humans to the point they could be grown from child to adult, possibly even breed with humans to create a more healthy generation of humanity. Brotherhood synths would be, as you can imagine, humanoid tanks, who’ve went through extensive training, and even lost a few, to gain the BOS trust. They’d give the institute field data of power armor, improving it’s design, possibly even taking its design into consideration to amplify some synths bodies with even stronger parts to push capabilities of a humanoid in power armor. I’d call them the fist of the brotherhood. With all these different synths of different factions in play, Father would act as a supporting force while also trickling out progressive tech throughout the wasteland in places the synths control for better protection and goodwill to the people. However, I think the incarceration system that comes from this would be quite interesting. I think when you’d be jailed, you’re genetically scanned to possibly be teleported into the institute to be used for FEV research. I think instead of just making super mutants and dumping them, the institute could push for super synths, which would have a heavily modified fabrication process in which implants, FEV and stronger parts are put into play, creating massive cybernetic organisms dispersed throughout synth territories for a greater push in forces.

The institute should of been the good guy faction that would of been a good twist instead of being a bogey man they would be seen as unseen hero’s with synths acting as guards for settlements you would still have to find them

Either the writers were really bad or they purposely made him this way. He comes off as someone that is detached, depressed and has an identity crisis. Plus a whole mid life or in his case, end life crisis.

The thing that struck me, literally a few days ago while doing the battle of bunker hill in a railroad playthrough, was that they can track just about anything with ease, but don't monitor the one person using their own teleporter. Like you can teleport directly into the railroad from the institute and vice versa no problem. Then Shaun is just taking you at your word that you don't have any contact with the railroad and/or brotherhood.

Lmao listening to Shaun talk is like listening to that South Park nambla episode. "We are only trying to do what is best for humanity" "Dude. You murder people and replace them with robot spies"

The Institute having the CGP wiped out reads so clearly as “We’ve been under a totalitarian regime for so long that we cannot possibly understand how a republic would work so we must destroy what we do not understand.”

Institute Science, We do what we must because we can For the good of all of us Except the ones who are dead…

Listening to this is like sitting in on a closing argument of a prosecuting lawyer in a case against Father. Great job, subscriber earned.

the fact that father was so intensely brainwashed by the institute shows how evil it is.

I've always seen Shaun as a man who saw all those loving families around him, and fell in love with the *idea* of having one of his own.

I always thought Shaun releases his father as a way of seeking approval for his lifes work as his life is coming to an end never having gotten his father's approval before because he was taken by the Institute as a child. That is what I feel from Shaun's character anyway.

Wow. I'm impressed. Well thought out and presented. The mother bit at the end was epic! Thank you.

For me, joining the institute in Fallout 4 was the only path that made sense from a story perspective. Due to the way the intro segment plays out, trying to find and then deal with the aftermath of your son's abduction is / should be your main motivation. While it is far from ideal as far as outcomes go, it is the logical through line to follow.

I really pity the sole survivor. he lost everything after fight in a never ending war: his life, his wife, and his only son, who grow up to become a jerk...it's sad...

It’s like they had two different writers working on this faction who weren’t allowed to know about each other. Then they both got fired and a third was hired to smash their work together.

Amazing video! One thing throughout it though that itched me, was it reaaaaalllyy seems like our character is a synth. Especially the fact that we’re “trusted” from the start when we walk in the institute. Father creating a “father” and then a version of himself as a “son” to be reborn again seemed a lot more like our existence was also false and implanted. We got to explore so many themes towards that in the game, it felt like we as the protagonist were the fourth gen synth so lifelike and a personal project of “father” to be the perfect successor

Okay I’ve given considerable thought to the plot of FO4. I think the default plan was for Nora to be released from the Vault and find Kellogg in Diamond City with the child synth Shaun. She would kill Kellogg (ideally) and believe that she had rescued her genuine son, then settle down with him in the wasteland where she could be discreetly monitored by him. But then Virgil sabotaged the FEV lab and escaped, forcing him to recall the child Shaun and redeploy Kellogg to track him down. Then everything went awry for him as Nora tracked Kellogg to Fort Hagen and killed him, then started tracking down the Institute. At some point he realised that she was going to succeed and saw an opportunity-and started to prepare himself and the Institute for her imminent arrival. I think that explains his hidden curiosity about how Nora reacts to the Synth Shaun, hence how he tricked her right before their first conversation and in how he foists him upon her at the end of the game regardless of your faction choice. Finally, I think his opinion of the surface people is more than indifference. I think that he, and by extension the rest of the Institute want to exterminate the surface dwellers as you’ve covered in this video. That’s why he continued the FEV programme despite it being a dead project-because each super mutant released will kill surface dwellers and make it harder to unify into a threat. I agree with his having deep problems emotionally. I get the impression that however he was raised by the Institute, it didn’t provide him with the love and care that every child needs and thus he grew up cold and logical. But damaged. I speculate that he didn’t care about legacy until it was too late-until he was diagnosed with cancer. I think he would have been much healthier if he had married and had children of his own. In his old age, dying of cancer, the closest thing he could get to a legacy was Nora. He wanted that family before he died, and for his synth copy to have the parent he never did. But even that is selfish because the boy will never grow up.

13:15 It could also be because of Kellogg. We know from his dialouge that Father holds some resentment to Kellogg for killing one oh his parents. That's why Father created the plan to get Kellogg killed at the hands of the Sole Survivor, as a form of revenge. Perhaps he one some level (subconscious or not) associates the cybernetics program with Kellogg, seeing as he was the shining example of the program

Blame Shaun? Nah, I think I'll blame Todd.

Yo Atom you dropped this king 👑 The institute must be brought to justice 💪💪

I mean the big problem with the idea of blaming Shaun is that the Institute raised Shaun. They quite literally made him who he is. It's a self-fulfilling cycle.

I always felt like even as Shaun insists that he controls the Institute, the Institute controls him, and both suffer for it.

Shaun releases you into a dangerous new world and watches from the sidelines, he doesn't bother to order Synths to not attack you and after the battle of Bunker Hill he admits that he treated you like an experiment of sorts, the lack of empathy is disturbing but it also got me thinking that the survivor might have been a Synth experiment all along, Far Harbor also plays with that idea, unfortunately that train of thought falls over when you realise that recalls codes exist, any acts of violence or betrayal against the institute could have been resolved with a courser and a recall code. In summary Shaun really is a bad scientist, I blame the parents.

The most impactful decision I had in my first playthrough of Fallout 4 was the decision whether or not to save synth shawn. It was just a vanilla, no frills playthrough with the BOS cause power armor and guns, whatever. Im approaching the end of the game, assaulting the institute and I'm close to leaving when synth shawn comes up to me and asks me to take him too. I sat and thought about how the institute made the most perfect copy of humans and how father made this one specifically to get a reaction from the sole survivor and attempt to manipulate them and it made me a little angry. I had already killed Father, and Shawn died when Kellogg shot his mother to take him. This wasn't my son, not even in the narrative suspension of belief I'm playing a video game type way, it was a targeted attempt by father to bend me to his will; a skidmark on the same road of bullshit ideals that I killed Father in his hospital bed for. I left synth Shawn, and i didn't feel bad about it. Much to my chagrin, companions or other characters,( I cant remember its been 8 years since that playthrough) asked and antagonized me about my decision and I was flabbergasted! He's not just *a* synth, which is already questionable to some in terms of humanity, he is *THE* synth thats was made to dredge up the grief of the sole survivor. I left his ass and will never regret it.

Remember folks the only real difference between practicing the scientific method and screwing around is writing down your results.

I don't think Shaun is entirely to blame for the Institute. While I never follow the Institute, I think Shaun suffers from Stockholm syndrome, and is by the time we get there is having a crisis of faith. He's known nothing but the Institute for his entire life, and doesn't learn about his parents until he's the director. Now he knows about you and he is probably having all these thoughts running around. It's like finding out your parents aren't really yours and you try to find your real parent. What would you do but react emotionally, and he's been raised to think like a scientist. He can't balance the two, and he wants to give you a chance to raise the child you never had ( even if the child won't age ) and giving you a safe home in the Institute. He's not focusing because despite not knowing you, you're his parent and suddenly you exist to this man who hasn't been to the surface and know anything outside of the underground science center since he arrived as an infant. I just wanted to give my two cents to the discussion, I don't support the Institute and when I first played fallout and until recently I always felt like Shaun was a poorly written character and his motives were not well defined. I still think that way, but I wanted to try and justify the actions of Shaun.

Thanks for not being a facetuber. I love seeing relevant gameplay footage over interesting narration over someone just staring into a camera the whole time

Its the people who were responsible for raising Shaun, if he was showed love and not treated like an object he would've been more empathetic.

34:25 Bro thinks he is Valery Legasov

He was so "smart" that treated the Sole survivor partner death as a mere colateral effect, didn't even considered making a synth, it would be a perfect manipulation tool, since the only reason I see he using the sole survivor is Kellogg's death, otherwise he would not care at all.

To me it seems like the institute faction seems like a rush job. It's the last faction you meet and instead of it being well thought out and fun. It almost seems like Bethesda said "Ok everybody we have 3 weeks until release clean up the game as much as you can." and then plopped it out the door with a half assed institute faction which is probably what happened. I blame Todd not Shaun.

Gotta remember Shaun was kidnapped and brainwashed into believing the Institutes' ways. He's just a man lost in time and space.

Shaun dumped Intelligence to Max out Charisma. He persuasion checked his way to being director.