If Shawn was snatched because the Institute wanted to use his DNA, wouldn't that mean that all flesh and blood synths would share in that DNA? That would make all living, breathing synths the progeny of the the Soul Survivor, which would make Paladin Danse his... son? Maybe?

Logically speaking, yes.

And so it'd be an incist if you bang Curie and Danse - or any Synth with another Synth.

Not necessarily. The synths aren't clones of Shaun. My guess is they needed pre-war baby DNA to use as a template - no degradation from radiation exposure or any number of things that could happen as the subject gets older. It's the cleanest "blueprint" of human DNA they could find, and they wanted to make sure their backup had similar DNA so that they wouldn't have to start over from scratch if Shaun failed.

So I'm thinking they didn't use Shaun's DNA directly, but as something to reference and iterate on to create synthetic DNA.

You people are killing me with this logic. Just ruined Curie for me.

I don't think so but I killed the original just to be sure

So curie is a female clone of your son that you have six with. Wtf.

No. Shaun'S DNA was used as a model.


They aren't clones. Think about it: 1. The Brotherhood ran a DNA check on all Synths and compared them to records of their soldiers don't you think they'd have mentioned if they turned out to be your kids? 2. Synths DNA is tailored to whoever they are replacing. Otherwise it'd be pretty easy to find them out. 3. It's synthetic DNA anyway so it's not like blood relations mean anything even if the DNA is genetic. And finally 4. Does anyone seriously think bethesda intended to have parent/child incist in the game? Really? I mean come on.

You forget cannibalizing your elderly son.

A very good point, but from the things senior Brotherhood members say to the SS, it seems taken as a given that the SS was fully debriefed about his/her doings so they probably know Shaun is the SS's biological son by that point. If that is true, the SS having parental DNA links to a Gen 3 Synth wouldn't be surprising to them, and may well be the key they are using to ID Danse as a Synth. Given their somewhat prudish view on six with Wastelanders and ghouls, they may just not want to talk about it, or the ramifications of the SS...or for that matter any lovers Danse may have taken during his career...having six with a Gen 3.

Even if the BOS was debriefed on Shaun it seems a stretch to think they'd know how his DNA was used in the Synths creation process or that they wouldnt find thia shocking. I doubt the ss understands fully the details of Gen 3 development.


Now maybe they did try and cover it up. But it seems strange to never mention it at all. No hint whatsoever. Likewise they only found dance was a synthetic by directly comparing his DNA to the DNA of a synthetic in the institute. So they did check all their personnel records.


Also Roacher, yes you can eat people. But at the same time the act of lovemaking is a black screen and a snide comment. Violence in games, especially in america, had always been less prudish than six related things. incist among them

LOL your last statement it the truth! I guess the Puritan views of the early settlers messed it up for everyone in America... and for all times!

Anyway, I also think that Shaun's DNA was just used as a model. DNA determines your six, skin color, eye color, hair color etc. If they used the same DNA for all Gen 3's then why do they all look different? So, yea, there's no way that the SS is related to any Synth.

Gen 3 synths' DNA most likely started with Shawn's as a base, then selected parts were replaced with DNA from other Institute members, as they could use non corrupted parts of their own DNA to improve the Synths, and then most likely synthetic or heavily modified genes would have been added after that. So basically it would be like sleeping with the 4th cousin of your great great great great Grand Father/Mother, so genetically you would have some commonalities, but no more then two random people as humans genetic variation isn't that great.

Personally I'd love the game industry to shed the virgin manboy stigma and have them depict six realistically. The median age is 25 I think we can handle a plot more mature than a pg movie.

All humans share 99% DNA that doesn't make it incist

Since Danse's DNA was specific to Danse that's how they ID'd hjim after all, and nothing is mentioned about all synths having the same DNA, (and how could it - identical DNA would produce identical phenotype as well as genotype - obviously your "pure" DNA is mixed with DNA from other humans.) So Danse is only related to you only to the extent that all homo sapiens are related.

Given what they know about Mitochondrial DNA, they are pretty sure that the population of our ancestors was reduced to a mere 7000 or so at some point in our evolution due to some natural catastrophe. That's a pretty small gene pool.

Of course there would be gene splicing so the DNA wouldn't be pure, but everybody at the Institute does call Shawn 'Father,' except for the SS, who calls him Shawn.

Catholic priests are called 'Father' too. Doesn't make them biological fathers.

Wait what.... I am pretty sure your son dies. So you best get to swapping your Dna with a companion !

What are we talking about here?? Synths?? Your joking right only those crazy Railroad types would say those toasters are even close to human, Let Alone related to one..... Come on, This must be a sick joke.

(puts on his Railroad cap and runs away laughing)

It's the Institute of Technology. The DNA would have been for study purposes.


They already will have had human DNA for centuries, and studied it as best they could. They 'almost' figured out the entire blueprint, yet they knew that without access to a 'pure' specimen, impurities they know are there due to radiation could never be pinned down and eliminated. Shaun's DNA was the final key.


It's clear Shaun's DNA wasn't used verbatim except in one unique case. No other synth resembles Shaun in the slightest - indeed it's likely the Institute is still replacing living beings with synths at this time. In those cases, a hybrid of the victim and Shaun's DNA is the most probable result. Just like you'd sew a fabric patch on a torn teddy bear Shaun's DNA merely fills in the cracks in the victim's DNA code making the replicated flesh much more durable and resiliant over long periods thanks to the weakening effect being overwritten.


So the synths are about as related to the SS as someone he'd given a blood transfusion to, or his parents had donated an organ to after death figuratively speaking.


And 'incist' exists for one reason and one reason only - to prevent stagnation and reduction of the genepool, and therefore the damaging side effects in children born with damaged or mutated DNA, which can occur more often in cases where both parents have similar DNA. Because, in 2016, we lack free access to any way of knowing that the girl you met does not randomly happen to have 99% identical DNA (which is rare but CAN happen, there have been cases in the US where crimes have lead to two or more unrelated people in a small area all having DNA matching a crime scene sample - wierd but true) we just forbid copulation with 'immediate' family - cousins for example are not considered to be 'at risk' and are usually perfectly legal.


But that's humans.


Synths resemble humans mainly to fit in, including the ability to copulate. As it's not unusual for humans to simply never produce children for dozens of reasons, their ability to impregnate or get pregnant is unimportant and any visible aspect is likely a facade ie. a female synth never gets pregnant, and a male synth may appear to have sterility issues - but as either parent could be the reason why a child doesn't 'happen' it's rarely investigated in the post nuclear world, especially as radiation may be a very common cause.


So 'mating' with a synth isn't incist as there's no risk of a child.


And in the post nuclear world which has many settlements with a limited gene pool, their choice is literally inbreed or die out - not such a hard moral choice considering radiation is already causing way more damage and mutation than inbreeding ever could.

Nope. In Institutionalized Shaw says "It was my DNA that became the basis of the synthetic organics used to create every human-like synth you see today." He also says that the radiation corrupted the DNA everywhere... except for those frozen in time. And why couldn't there be a child? They're supposed to be perfect human beings, which means they should be able to reproduce perfect human babies.