I completed the game with the Institute questline and I am now the Director of the Institute. I have read a lot of the stuff on terminals, spoken with everyone in the Institute and I still have a lot of questions about the place.

Why tell me the Director's suite is now mine and the store is now stocked with new items? The Directors suite doesn't upgrade in any way and doesn't even have a bed I can sleep in. The store items are exactly what they were before. I am told that I am the director and there will be meetings to set new policy, but that never happens either.

Why does the Institute make synths? Why make them look, act and think like humans? I can understand that the scientists wanted free labor so they could do their science stuff, but they could have just build a bunch of Mr. Handy or keep them as Gen 1. They go to a lot of effort to make them look and act human. They go through a lot of effort to program them to have personality and ability to think like humans. Then they seem genuinely shocked then they think for themselves.

Why does the Institute kidnap people and replace them? Where do the replaced people go? At one point the story had me thinking that they never actually did replace them. That those people always were synths who malfunctioned, but it becomes clear that they really are replacing people. At one point I had a random encounter with two identical people both claiming the other was a synth trying to replace him. If the whole deal is just obsessive information gathering, who at the Institute is running that program and where is that division located?

Why are there thousands of synths roaming around various locations in the wasteland? Through discussions with "Father" and others they give an impression of, "we just want to be left alone and do our research, but some synths escape." So I can see why they have the SRB coursers to track down those that escaped, but that does not explain why all of the Gen 1 and Gen 2 are out there. I followed the Railroad questline far enough to learn that the only escapes were the result of a teenage Institute boy doing it as a prank.

Why is the Institute mass producing Gen 3? Where are they going? What are they doing? The robotics lab produces a Gen 3 about once every minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then they disappear into a hole in the wall.

Who made the decision to kidnap Shaun? "Father" explains that they wanted to make human synths and needed non-corrupted DNA. This seems to me an extreme measure for mere scientific curiosity and wanting their janitors to seem more lifelike. Kellogg was nearly immortal with his implants, so perhaps the people who made this decision and gave Kellogg his orders have similar implants and are still lurking around.

I would love to get some clarification on these questions if anyone came across any in game info that I missed or misinterpreted. I would also enjoy reading pure speculation.

If I recall correctly, you can now purchase Synth Relay Grenades (allowing you to summon synths wherever you go to aid you in battle). I can't quite remember whether or not those were available for purchase before the ending or not. There might also be some more weapons/ammo/medical supplies to purchase than before. But again, I can't really remember what was in stock before the ending. Note that you might have to wait a few days for the inventory at Requisitions to respawn.

But yeah, the Director's quarters are utterly disappointing. Something for mods to fix.

And, no, there doesn't appear to be any directorate meetings post-game. Which again is very disappointing and hopefully something mods might be able to add. Presumably though, they're going on "behind the scenes" if you will.

I have a theory on the missing/replaced people. They aren't actually replaced at all. The Institute simply kidnaps someone, fills their brain with Kellog type brain-synth addons, thereby making them a synth, under institute control, but while retaining the memories/personalities/bodies of the actual person.

Makes more sense than kidnap someone, clone them, build a synth, transfer brain stuff, kill original. That's a waste of time and effort when they have the technology for a more elegant solution

Except there's Art. In which we see both the human Art and his doppelganger.

So unless he's a unique case, they're just kidnapping and then replacing them. Gen-3 Synth production is apparently cheap as [censored] anyway. So I doubt its much more effort on their part.

But not a bad idea though. I kind of wish that was what they were doing.

oh yeah, i forgot about Art. Dammit, I would have gotten away with it too lmao