My first thought on finally entering the Institute was that it reminded me of mass effect and that I wasn't given a lot of reason to betray the Minutemen, Railroad or The Brotherhood beyond isn't it nice here and the revelation itself.

I was quite unimpressed with everything Father had to say, the speech wasn't selling it to me and then...

...ooooh toilets! And showers! Where do I sign up???

You my friend have not done enough detective work. You need to find a certian detective and get his full story on what CIT has been doing to the Commonwealth for years. Reasearch what happened to the CPG.

I can tell you exactly why Father made that speech short. Because he knew if he revealed too much too early you would see The Institute for what it is. Genocide. All The Institute really cared about was themselves and saw it as humanity's reset button. Why give a da*n about those filthy war-mongering commoners, let's replace them with synths that will do as they are told? When you first meet father he says what he needs to to get you on board, it's called reeling you in. He needed someone to take over because he is dying. Honestly I think he is an awful kind of person and after siding with The Institute the first playthrough I really was glad he died.

To be honest, I was more than a little creeped out by the interactions I had with Shaun, not even necessarily because of the whole 'I'm an experiment to him' vibe, but because of this weird role-reversal, where I, his biological father, suddenly became more like a son to him, or rather, an heir. Still, he was my son, the one I risked so much looking for, and I wasn't going to fail him again by rejecting him.

As for his and the Institute's plans, it seemed clear they were primarily interested in remaining where they were, and the only 'evil' they caused was either isolated incidents - side effects of vital experiments (supermutants - that that 'experiment' lasted long after it proved unsuccessful was probably in vain hopes of a breakthrough, since who in the Institute would purposefully waste invaluable resources without hope of getting something out of it?), or itself a necessary evil in the name of humanity-preserving science. They have little love for the people of the Commonwealth, but they do not bear then any malice either. They simply believe life in the wasteland is actually a slow, torturous death, and the sooner it ends the better humanity will be. They're not trying to destroy the commonwealth, however. They're just waiting for it to die a natural death, while occasionally taking what little they need from it, be it data from experiments, power sources, or talented people. And to be honest, the Commonwealth vastly exaggerates the 'threat' they pose to them.

Now, when I recorded the speech Shaun wanted me to broadcast, I changed only one phrase - instead of saying 'we are the future' I said 'we are in control'. I just felt like it was more appropriate for my upcoming reign, seeing as I, as both Director of the Institute and General of the Minutemen, was more than likely going to involve myself in the affairs of the Commonwealth, and I wanted to emphasize that from now on the Institute would not be just a mythical boogeyman, but a tangible power. And honestly, Father seemed a little freaked out by that, judging by his response. Which further shows his Institute simply wanted as little as possible to do with the Commonwealth, and certainly had no 'genocidal plans', which is what some accuse them of.

You may be right about that. I still think they are evil though for kidnapping settlers and replacing them with synths. I still think Father is an awful kind of person for sweet talking the PC into joining without a detailed explanation about what The Institute is and why it does the things they do first, doesn't mention he's dying until some time later and how his plan was for the PC to take over. It's like he was just using the PC.

Ah, but he was using you. He doesn't, after all, know you as a person. He admits this himself, on the CIT rooftop. He was using you just the same as the Institute uses the Commonwealth. And yet, he is using you, not a scientist from one of the divisions, or some wasteland genius like Wallace. And that is purely because you do mean something to him.

And besides, like I said, even if I was nothing but an experiment to him, he was still a son to me, and that's what mattered.

After doing some vault, I realised, that really maybe the informations are not said by father, because there are other sources of informations, in the terms of the game mechanics (as someone said already):

I think searching the remaining vaults may give a lot of answers.

For example think who Vault-tecs were, whom they were responsible, who sent them and gave them instructions.

It all leads to the university, that is now in ruins and Institute is their successor.

The vaults are full of inhuman experiments with 2 ways:

1. make humen better - by testsings

2. replacing unwanted humans with robots who do better job (like Warwick)

and I think Father was responsible for 2.path of Institute.

Also he said he had control over my vault, so it means he had control over other vaults too, so university was the owner of vaults?

And it seems like Bethesda did their homework A lot of informations to find behind the scene...

Having played further into the story (to the Mass Fusion quest), that is the impression I get, but not because Shaun convinced me like he said he would do. It was just from passively observing the goings on at the Institute and in the Commonwealth. I also joined the Brotherhood to see if they could convince me, to no avail, although I understood Maxon's motives a little more than Shaun's. This may only be the case because I already know what the Brotherhood is all about from previous games, though.

I can really see now why a lot of players complained about the changes to the dialogue in this game. Every step of the way, I keep hoping to ask questions of the people in eacth faction about this or that - "Why are you killing people of the Commonwealth and replacing them with synths?" "What gives you the right to hoard advanced technology and not the Institute?", etc. but it seems like they just give you one line of dialogue then shoo you off to your next quest. As a result, I'm not really invested with either one of these factions.

Of course, I could read wikis and/or assume certain things about each faction from clues found on terminals and holotapes for the sake of role-playing but it's not as immersive a storyline when done that way. Again, compare it to New Vegas where throughout the game, there was much more opportunity to speak to people of both the NCR and Legion about the merits of each and gradually form a real opinion about them.

I think the biggest change in dialogues is cosmetic, so I'm not sure if that is the problem, but I'm not really communicative person, so answers yes/no/maybe/sarcastic does fit just fine for me .

I think what is different from NV is that in NV the factions were very different from each other - they were the opposite, so a lot of things were much more clear.

Fallout 4 main factions are much more gray, so there is bigger need for answers to even distinquish them from each other.

So again I would say that it could be problem of the main faction optional quests - if they would be more about what they do really, if there would be some progress from less important to more important, where you could get those answers by doing more and more important missions, not just random clearing of buildings /fetch quests most of the time, you wouldn't have this problem.

Lets say in Fallout NV if you would be just a soldier in NCR army, never did anything important for them, never discovered any secrets during quests, and in the end you would have to decide who is wrong and who is right - would you have the same problem?

And btw. I didn't have this problem with Institute, but with Rairoads. It was never said clearly what they do or who they are - just a lot of "also" and "we are the good guys" statements.

I would have to disagree. In fallout 3 at least you could get huge amounts of information about cities and people just from asking around. There was dozens of questions you could ask to get information about the history and lore and stuff. Now that just isn't possible most of the time. If you talk to random strangers you get generic responses, and if you talk to quest npcs they have nothing to say that isn't related directly to their quest.

Agreed. This was my issue. I had so many questions I wanted to ask Shaun about the Institute but I kept getting shoo'd away. Seems we have to rely on the wikis and make assumptions about each faction based on clues, rather than having their leaders make a compelling case to us.

I always play the first go around doing what I would do if it were actually me. I wouldn't have destroyed all their technology. Becoming the leader of the institute was exactly what I wanted. But... I wanted to be able to change the direction that they went in. That would've been a nice touch to be able to make them use their technology for good.

I always play the first go around doing what I would do if it were actually me. I wouldn't have destroyed all their technology. Becoming the leader of the institute was exactly what I wanted. But... I wanted to be able to change the direction that they went in. That would've been a nice touch to be able to make them use their technology for good.

The institute sees the surface as a Petri dish at best. Any resources you devoted to helping the surface would be considered wasted. If you want to role play your character doing this then find a bed, go to sleep and then delete the character because they poisoned your character to remove them from power. They give the character a really nice funeral though before getting back to business.

Lol, well put sir

It was compelling to me - I wanted to do what Father wanted after his speech. If a lot of info around or better quests are not enough for you, then this is just about the new dialogue issue...

Wait, which speech? Maybe I haven't heard it yet. I'm up to the part where he told me to go to Mass Fusion and where the Brotherhood will become hostile if I do it. Is there a speech after that?

What I never really got about the Institute is very simple: Why Synths?

Yeah, they talk about humans being the 'perfect machine' to copy, and about how versatile Synths are, and they devote huge resources to recovering 'rogue' Synths because they're supposedly such an expensive resource - but then, all they seem to actually employ them for is menial work that any Mr Handy could do, or as foot-soldiers barely more capable and competent than a dirt-cheap Protectron.

It's not for their infiltration potential, either. Sure, they use some synths that way - but in most cases it seems to be just to see whether it works. Even their agents in positions of authority have no grander scheme behind them - the Institute is largely indifferent to the surface world, and wants as little contact with it as possible.

Nor does it seem to be for their brains. Synths aren't employed in any significant scientific work except as subjects, and the Institute maintain an insistence that they're not truly capable of independent thought, even in the face of mounting evidence.

With their "Mankind, Redefined" slogan, you might think that the Institute are intent upon perfecting Synths into a new breed of humanity, or using them for parts to enhance existing humans - but Shaun seems to be completely opposed to such goals, given his resistance to any further experimentation along the lines of Kellogg's cybernetic enhancements. He is not seeking a melding of Man and Machine.

Ya the institute tells you very little because they have a lot to hide. Whatever guess I'll just kill them every time because they keep secrets from me.

I like Shawn's line "what else can I say?" How about everything you are planning not just stuff about your mom and Kallog?

I'd say "Mankind , Redefined" = the Institute are the elite , just by breathing and doing Science! they think they are the future of humanity.

Synths are there to replace the peasents , doing all the chores those scientist can't be bothered with.

They think people on the surface are far too chaotic and a lost cause , but really it's just the Institute felt really deep into the science! rabbit hole...they are an university gone very very wrong.

It's getting to the point where they're looking at synth to do chores but also fulfill emotional needs , with the child synth prototype , and one scientist got a synth to keep him company since his wife died.

At this rate they'll all end up like the Think Tank and put their brains in jars so there is nothing left but Science!

Step 1: Make synths

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Save humanity

My son is a monster playing god. I knew the Institute had to go when I read the Warwick files, but the CIT rooftop discussion made me realize that Shaun was beyond redemption. He released his father into the wasteland as an "experiment", and believed the world was beyond saving after popping his head out for a few minutes and looking at the landscape. How about sharing some of your clean water tech before you write off the thousands that were born into the wasteland, you selfish, self-entitled bastard?

After getting their power up it sounded like he was going to complete Insolationism as far as the Institute in concerned. Basically "We're down here and leave us alone" was their message. I wondered after that if they really needed to kill more people on the surface and stuff since the new power source sounded like the answer to all their problems. Curious how the Institute plays post MQ if you select them.