I Finally Figured Out Fallout 4's Biggest Secret 

You know who would accuse the sole survivor of being a synth? A synth.

“Todd Howard’s terminal secret” sounds like a cancer joke

I'm 80 years old and have been playing Fallout 4 since the day it was released and I'm still enjoying it. I don't really need any special secrets to make it anything more than it is. It's an amazing game.

Crazy Fallout 4 has more content in 2020 than fallout 76 had by early 2019

Consider the following: The brotherhood of steel finds a list of all synths and their DNA, which is how they find out Danse is a synth, and that they have every soldiers DNA on file. that means that they also have yours on file, and they didn’t see you on the synth list, meaning you likely are not a synth

Actully its that todd has a only fans.....but its just him reading the argonien maid book from skyrim

Fans in 2025: "it's been ten years what was the secret?" Todd Howard: "It just works."

How perfect is that? 'No one is talking about this Easter egg!' 'Umm...Todd...that's because we kind of forgot to activate it...' I mean how perfect can you get with it being the perfect encapsulation of a Bethesda experience

The biggest secret is how there’s always a settlement that needs your help

When the father was creating the sole survivor in the institute, the board asked him how effective he will be in the field, to which the father replied "he/she just works"

The biggest secrete is that PAM is having an affair with a sentry bot named ROY

In playing the game there are many occasions where the Sole Survivor remembers things from the past: when talking to Moe Cronin about baseball; when talking to Nick about Eddie Winter; and so on. When DiMA asks his question, the player isn't given the chance to refer to any of these memories, only to things that happened in game. When the game first appeared, the Sole Survivor was human. It was only with Far Harbour that the idea of them being a synth emerged as a plot element. And that's when your terminal entries appeared. The idea that the Sole Survivor might be a synth is just retconning.

I think the synth terminal is for a cut quest where you met an older version of yourself who claimed he was real and you were a synth but it was the other way around. Old nate is still in the files.

Quick tip: try to listen to the whole entire video by mishearing synth and actually hearing simp

One of the things DiMA talks about being evidence of being a synth is the lack of feelings about your early life, just maybe some facts, and the Sole Survivor responds basically just remembers right before the bombs dropped. But I've been replaying the game and there are a number of options to choose "oh yeah, I remember that!" Notably, talking to Daisy in Goodneighbor, but there are a number of other things

I always felt like DiMA in Far Harbor suggests the idea that the MC is a synth as well. Interesting to see this pop up as well!

Seriously, does anyone really think the Institute would allow a synth to be named their leader?

That makes sense, especially with how ham-fisted DiMA's questioning your humanity is. (He points out that you only have memories back to the day the bombs dropped, but in the base game you bring up watching baseball games, listening to the Silver Shroud as a kid, and other things you say you remember that were well before the game started.) I can definitely see Todd getting frustrated that no one is asking that question, so decides to throw it in our face instead of being subtle- only to realize they forgot to put the subtle bits in.

My god, how many "Biggest secrets" does Fallout 4 gonna have

Synths don't experience damage from radiation. Now THAT would have been a twist, though, if the veil dropped in The Glowing Sea during the recovery of the nuclear arsenal. Imagine an accident and the Sole Survivor somehow survives a super lethal dose of radiation, and after that point the simulated Radiation effects you experienced just stop happening.

This all fits too nicely for the player character to be a Synth. I doubt he's a Synth. I remember the game mentioning Synths can't get diseases and outside of survival mode, there's a whole Vault quest where you get a disease that you have to choose whether you eliminate your disease or save the individual in that vault.

And the legend comes to a close

If the SS is a synth then how does he remember the Vault-Tec Rep down to his voice, clothing and body type? That is some ultra specific points that the institute would have no way of knowing. The only way they would would be to interview the rep but that would demand them knowing that he exists. The theory seems fun but ultimately to far fetched. Is the Courier a synth too?

Blade Runner has found its way into Fallout and now we have the "Deckard Dilemma". LoL

Interesting that that entry was activated with far harbor, given that DiMA straight up questions if the sole survivor is a synth in dialog. could have just been added/activated to go with far harbor as a bit of extra world building.

Question for those who hold to this theory: why would the institute not use the synth shut down code for the sole survivor (see with Gabriel at Libertalia) to stop him/her in an anti institute run? Why would they even allow a synth to be director as they seem universally to believe synths are sub-human?

In far harbor you find the secret DiMA medical facility in the main storyline. You run into a ai guarding the medical lab. He scans you and says only synth type can enter. So you can't enter. Though you can get in by talking to the ai enough to stop guarding the lab and goes into low power mode.

One of the biggest Easter eggs in the Fallout series is time travel. You see people from before the bombs fell, Dr. Who, and a character who claims to be 1,000 years in the future researching how humanity got back on its feet in Fallout 1. In Fallout 2 the Enclave found technology not of their own and started to experiment with it. The character in Fallout 2 even goes back in time to start the actions of Fallout 1. In Fallout 3 an Enclave officer uses a time machine to get out the fortress while it’s being destroyed and you can meet and talk to him in two different parts of the game depending on Karma. Evil karma/ after broken steel randomly in the waste land, Good Karma/ after you meet 3 Dog but before the Enclave show up. Neutral Karma/ in Megaton or Tem penny tower after level 30. Fallout 4, the Institute got messages from a gen 3 synth before general 1 began and before the sole survivor enters the Institute, they try to teleport the gen 3 synth to the moon but goes back in time. In Fallout New Vegas with a max reputation with the NCR, you find out on a terminal that the NCR found an old world time traveling machine and they started to do tests. In Fallout 76 you find a Dead New Republic of America soldier from the year 3177 with weapons and gear you can see but not pick up. You can pick up the five page journal entry however.

This may or may not have been confirmed by a Bethesda employee

“It just works... Unless I forgot to put it in...” -Todd Howard

Meanwhile in FNV:OWB. Game: We took your organs including your brain. Fight with your brain and go get it.

The terminal contains a list of all of Todd's sweet little lies

Kellogg himself destroys the theory kind of, he mentioned keeping you alive and says he should've "killed you while you were on ice."

That is why Deacon follows you around, he knows you are a synth with a mind wipe.

“At least we still have the backup”

One thing I've noticed when playing is that in my travels I find a lot of dead NPC's that look like the sole survivor.

i really think they left it open ended on purpose for role playing, so it's really up to us if we are a synth or not.

I mean Shaun even says that the sole survivor being set free was a test to see what he would do

what if todd meant literally inside a terminal, like one with a breakable screen

The terminal entry was clearly left out deliberately so they could then add it in when Far Harbor was released. The fact that Dima mentions that you could be a synth to me means that this isn't the secret Tod was talking about. Its not even a secret, simply BECAUSE Dima mentions it. I think the secret was the hint about F76 and nothing else. If the terminal had the entry from the release of the game then i would agree, but it didn't. Its very likely the terminal entry was talking about Kellogg. The reason i say this is because of his extended lifespan. If it were possible for the institute to extend the lifespan of humans then why didn't they do it with Shawn or any of their scientist ?

I still doubt he's a synth. Yea after the character gets a pip boy in other games they can use vats. But again, we don't truly know how vats actually works. Also you would think the institute would do more than just "no he shouldn't be leader...ima rebel against the leader". Now, How? They don't have the technology, they just started on generation 3, birds and recently gorillas. I feel like they want us to focus on the question is because it might be important in a future game where the player is a generation 4 synth.

WAIT SO THATS WHY THE DESCRIPTION OF V.A.T.S WAS SO SECRETIVE?

In a way you are a synth, the main character never controlled itself, YOU did

The real synths are the friendships we made along the way.

I'm far more annoyed nobody noticed the final synth you kill in the game, next to the main reactor of the institute was called A2018 in defiance of established synth naming rules. We sure did go somewhere starting with A in 2018...Appalachia! And to think people dismissed it like they dismissed the leaked E3 memo in 2014 that predicted it all.

When you give the institute files to the BOS they find a list of names of “people” that are actually synths. Wouldn’t the player’s name have been on the list? Paladin Danse’s was and he was killed depending on what choices you made.

I feel like it makes the player character infinitely more interesting if they were a synth replacement made in secret, regardless of likelihoods one way or the other. It's not like there's no way to rationalize every apparent inconsistency, anyway. It's especially very possible if the synth replacement SS was specially made by Father off the record with certain specific component modifications as a way of grieving over (one of) the parents he never knew, as well as as a last hurrah experiment to see the fullest extent of synth potential before he would succumb to his ailment.

I would just like to say, even though DiMa brings up the sole survivor not remembering anything before the opening, that's not really true, Nate remembers a whole lot about his grandfather(?) who was in WWII because he talks about him in the opening cutscene, same with the invention of some of the more major scientific discoveries in pre-war America. Nora, on the other hand remembers less, but when compared to some of the synths it's more than normal, she remembers that something happened at the park that led her to become pregnant with Shaun and she seems to have a detailed memory of all of the nights she spent studying. There is other things they both remember, like in the silver shroud quest they remember specifically listening to every new episode as it aired, as well as when Kent tell you you are like one of the characters because you were frozen, you can correctly answer that the character he referred to was a caveman. I feel like even though I don't really think it's correct, it is a pretty cool theory.

he found todds money printer.

To me the "you were a synth all along" is as disappointing as ending a story with "it was all just a dream".

Theres also that bit during the Automatron ( Its been how long? But spoiler warning just in case. ) When you first access the Mechanist's lair with Ada. You both get scanned. But, according to the facilities security system no life signs are detected.

I think there's another terminal entry to support this that you missed. The first terminal you encounter in the game is the Vault 111 Monitoring Terminal. On that terminal, under the occupant status, if you look at your own entry, it says your cryo pod was opened by "remote override", whereas opening a pod normally with the button like you do to Nora or Nate's pod results in a "manual override" message. This must mean that your cryo pod was opened intentionally by someone who had access to the vault's network. The only people who could possibly have done that would either have been the institute or the railroad, which have their own implications: either the institute planned on releasing the Sole Survivor, which could support the synth theory, or the Railroad somehow found out about the institute's plans for you and released you so you could help them get in, which would explain why Deacon follows you around.

The issue I have with this is actually seeded by a side quest, when you go to that one ship that you eventually get to fly your character is referred to by their rank and identified by one of the robots there (as a male ss). As far as we know the robots have nothing to do with the institute. So by that I’m inclined to believe that you are human...or at the very least made from an imprint (similar to Nick) and basically at that point he would actually have his own(ish) memories and would still be in essence human. As being human is as much our psyche as our physiology.

@JuiceHead idk if you saw but one of the wine bottles in fallout 4 actually says Appalachia winery on the cover. Wonder if that was Bethesda hinting to the next game location (fallout 76).

Dude, every time I’ve said the player character is a synth on Facebook or Reddit I’ve been torn a new one.

"TOLD YOU!!!" I yelled at 6:30 in the morning, to no one at all. Playing through for the first time... While casually investigating the Institute the idea was sparked. What if I'd been a 3G synth? Then I came across the very terminal you mention and I knew I had found something. I've been keeping a journal of my playthrough and that has been my big reveal. The Synth Who Was Me... Howbout it!

Well, I've been of the belief that the player character is a synth since I played far harbour originally, one of the conversations with dema was basically bethesda saying "look, I'm not saying you're a synth, buuuut...." that and the fact that when you tell dema you're a synth if you choose to, there is no [lie] indicator with the option, which was odd. My belief was further cemented when I saw some stuff do with the kellog theories a while back, where bastically if you free cam during the whole cryo stasis scene at the start, you're in a kellog like memory construct not a.normal game cell. This vats thing which I always thought was weird is just more evidence.

That’s just a theory A Fallout Theory

Todd howard would be the only person to forget to turn on a easter egg then tell people to go looks for it

Bethesda gloating that no one has found a secret, only to realize they forgot to enable it in game. So very Bethesda

I had a short period where i expeced a "but thats just a theory a *bethesda* game theory" ending. I have multiple characters and some are convinced to be synths. I simply use it as a roleplay element and i guess thats what Bethesda intended with that storyline over all. Give the player the option to see their character as what they want. And Bethesda took so much inspiration from Mass Effect for Fallout 4 it would make sense if they Shepard their protagonist... Edit: Mass Effect *spoiler* Shepard is for the most of the games a human synthetic "hybrid."

can you do a video on fallout 3 mods?

Blade Runner: "Deckard is a replicant" Fallout 4: "The Sole Survivor is a synth" Some things are destined to be repeated

This is what I was thinking the very first time I played the game. You get asked if you are a Synth soooooo many times throughout the game that I started to question if it was true or not. I LOVE this theory.

The Theory really centres around two key pieces of evidence: 1. A terminal entry in the Institute robotics lab that tells us about an experiment they want to do with a gen 3 synth that would give the synth the ability slow time and see hit chance percentages which is what the SS has at the start of the game before they get the pip-boy 2.DIMA asks the SS if he/she is a synth and the we can tell him we suspect we are one and then DIMA will ask us about our memories at which point its established that what we see before the being frozen is actual the only memories the SS has. Put this with what father says in his terminal about releasing the SS he says 'was it all for nothing?' all of what? sending a synth into vault 111 hitting a button and leaving before the SS can spot it, and then further in the entry he states that he will have 'learned valuable things about myself my past' but how does he learn anything from the SS wondering the wasteland other than if he/she wants to find their son Sean, also after the battle of bunker hill he tells the SS that releasing them was a 'experiment of sorts' and he 'wanted to see what would happen' And finally Nicks memories and personality comes from a pre war detective whose brain was scanned and copied, with that copy hundreds of years later after the war being put on to Nicks synth hardware. So maybe everything before the cryo pod was the real SS but he died in the pod at some point after seeing baby Sean taken then the grown up Sean found out the truth and that both his parents were now dead but preserved in the pod so he hatched a plan to bring back to life his parent in a gen 3 synth, but because he wanted fidelity he needed the synth to believe he's the real parent and that rules out the one who got shot because waking up in the cyro pod after dying from being shot would be a bit of a give away, so by scanning their brain but only being able to get the memories of the day the bombs dropped he created a story that would bridge the gap in time between being frozen, having baby Sean taken and waking up with just enough to get the SS to act on trying to find sean just like the real parent of Sean would have, only the synth SS has the experimental upgrade that gives him/her the ability to slow time and see hit percentages before they get the pip-boy. Oh and Synths can get Sick as its motioned on a terminal that gen 3 synths had a blood upgrade that improves clotting and reduces infection risk and there's the institute Doc we can see testing a drug on a gen 3 synth they do seem to need to eat as there is evidence for this on Liam Binet's terminal stating that the like to eat fancy lad snake cakes which it is the institute would let the eat if theirs no reason to also Curie says she needs eat and drink as a synth.

I've been saying this for a long time. The other clue that you may be a synth is Deacon. He knows you're a synth and that's why he's waiting for you to come out of the vault, then follows you around. Remember, Deacon is the longest surviving member of the Railroad. He knows, but never passed the information on to Desdemona.

I enjoy your videos you usually get straight to the point speaking rapidly and coherently. Good job. I never have to play the video at 2x speed lol.

I’m so glad someone finally made a video about this. I’ve been commenting about the vats-in-vault-111 thing on your and @theepicnate’s channels for years

I feel like people need to realize that the reason why we was only left alive not because we are a synth but because it's for the story progression.

Given the fact that synth Shaun was created to research the emotional limits of a synth, it only makes sense to do the same with an adult synth. But the only way to have a controlled experiment, which the institute would want, is to control ever variable. Meaning that the Sole Survivor would have to be a synth

11:58 - Shaun literally says this about the SS when you talk on top of the CIT ruins (after the Bunker Hill battle, I think). That he released you from the vault to see what you would do in the wasteland "as an experiment, of sorts."

If you were a synth, especially so highly advanced, wouldn't the institute either want to reclaim and repair you? Or not make you the leader since they want the synths to be servants?

i've read that entry, but alway tought it was abaut kellog.

Another dialogue line I find odd that fits into this - is when you enter the Mechanists Lair - the speaker voice says “no biological life form detected”

4:35 I found that terminal on my first playthrough. I hadn't heard about the "mystery terminal" by that time, but I realized what a game changer it was and was surprised no one else had said anything.

I'd say the Vault Dweller can't be a synth. The Institute is completely opposed to the idea of free-willed synths, to the point of believing they aren't possible. Synths out of their control inevitably become dangerously irrational according to them. So the idea that Father would even think of creating a free-willed synth AND want it to replace him as Director of the Institute is insane. Plus, the Institute fears loss of control over synths so much they embed shutdown codes that can't be removed even by a complete mindwipe and reprogramming, so why wouldn't Shaun 'turn-off' the Vault Dweller in the Brotherhood, Railroad, or Minuteman endings? Unless the Vault Dweller was created by somebody other than the Institute (like the Railroad?) the idea just doesn't make sense.

I honestly never considered the idea of the player character being a synth until I played far harbor. When my dialogue option came up I was really surprised and adamantly sure that my character was not a synth. But I guess we'll never know for sure..

I've been playing my first play through of far harbor and I was using Nick Valentine and I googled his likes and he likes it when you tell dima that you are a synth so I wonder if Nick knew the whole time if we actually are a synth

Vats in fallout 1, 2, 3, and Vegas:”Za Warudo” Vats in Fallout 4:*Uses Slow Time Shout* In fallout 76:”It just works...”

The synth theory does make sense because it would explain Father's weird gamification of your journey from the vault, as opposed to you being his living relative that he would protect at all costs. Then again, this could also be chalked up to his very obvious megalomania, but yeah- interesting 👍

This actually ties nicely with Deacon watching over Vault 111: Shaun was taken 60 years ago, so it wouldn’t make much sense for Deacon to specifically check that vault with likely Institute activity all around the Commonwealth, but if something more recent took place, and it involved, say 3 individuals coming in, but only 2 coming out, it would raise suspicion on what happened to the 3rd individual. Same could hold true if the SS was transported in a container they left behind upon leaving.

The character being a synth was a theory before the game even came out, and it’s so annoying that they didn’t follow through on that in the narrative cause I think it would have been a pretty good twist.

Solid work with the research on this one.

The only problem I have with this theory is that Father says he had no expectations of the SS to actually be able to survive in the wasteland. If the SS is a synthetic, I feel like it would've been mentioned from father in some way. Since day 1 i was confused as to why I could use vats without a pip boy but chalked it up in the same way I did when in fallout NV, you're handed a pipboy to put on even though they weren't supposed to be able to transfer owners. In the fallout 3 expansion for Operation Anchorage, you can find a Gary clone with a cut off arm where the enclave tried to use his pip boy to access the simulation but it would not work on the soldiers. I wish Bethesda would stop with the retcons so we can be absolutely certain.

I also wondered at one point if the main character is a synth but I don't think they are for a few main reasons. In several dialog options the sole survivor talks about his/her time in the military. If you approach the USS constitution the robot doesn't shoot you because he was made before the war and identifies you as your rank in the military. Showing that the sole survivor does have a past that he/she does remember. Also, things like the interaction in Graygarden where you talk about how you knew of the Dr that created Curie and all the other robots that tend to the farms there. Is it possible the memories were a copy of the sole survivors and put onto the synth? Absolutely! except for one thing, so lets talk about mods. There's a mod that when the sole survivor dies, they stay dead and you instead assume control of a settler who can then loot the items off the corpse of the sole survivor. A synth component is not found on the corpse. That's how we know for sure nope wasn't a synth.

has anyone ever tried spawning another player character and check if he has a synth component when killed?

That would make sense why Dan is so interested in the soul survivor. Maybe he watched the institute plant him and ever since he's been trying to figure out why.

My favorite thing about Fallout 4. I grew up in Natick on Lake Cochituate. So cool seeing those in a video game. And so many other things I've seen or experienced in person.

You being a synth also explains the loss of skills and the perk tree, since the abilities would be pre-programmed into your synth component allowing for unlimited potential(aqua boy/girl, blitz, pain train and the ability to max all specials) with enough time.

The memory from just before the bomb is real as the vault tech rep remembers you so that would be much harder for them to recreate as by the time they showed up he had already moved on from the area.

this game is just nostalgia I've played it for several years and love it and now im finding out something

I think the questions put to the sole survivor is aimed at making you question the ending you choose as a player. The terminal seems more likely to be an explanation of coursers. Deacon talks about them being able to kill quickly and efficiently, vats allows the player to do this as well. being able to use vats as soon as you exit the cryopod seems like a bug, or like you were supposed to get the pipboy much earlier and a last minute change was made and the ability forgotten in the rush

Oxhorn already discovered this “secret” a long while back.

Such a refreshing video in a sea of “76 had an update.... but there is an issue”

That terminal entry means your character in fallout 3 was a synth. As you can gain that enhancement from the quest, "The Replicated Man".

Maybe the soul survivor killing all those older gen synths was the phasing out. And the "test" that was our playthrough was for some future plan involving other vaults, like assessing possible future threats, so the institute could know the potential of vault dwellers.

Lots of questions concerning "If the Sole Survivor is a synth, why did person A do action B?" Answer: It was a secret project. It's likely only Kellogg and Father knew. Deacon somehow found out as well at some point (maybe he was following Kellogg?) Desdemona, the institute board of directors, whoever wrote that list the brotherhood obtained, didn't know.

This one is like the theory that the Dragonborn is a Shezzarine, where even if it isn't true it's still fun to roleplay like it is.

The theory that the main character is a synth does not hold up against the moment in the memory den. The doctor would have noticed.

I actually hope the MC is a synth, because they wouldn't age and maybe allow us to play them again