Simple question, can't find a straight answer anywhere in game. Are synths sterile?


If they are, well... Covenant is comprised entirely of morons. You don't need a psychological test to determine someone is a synth if they're all sterile. That's something that's fairly easy to determine.


If they aren't and can reproduce, that opens a big box of potential problems (and a lot of fun drama if Bethesda wanted to go there).

Yes, Synths are sterile (I think Deacon confirms it). Maybe Institute will improve their hardware in future, but right now the only way for them to have kids with their genes is to nicely ask the Institute to make them some (which they aren't crazy enough to do).

As for Covenant, Sterility does not prove that you are a Synth: many normal humans are sterile and sometimes it takes several attempts to create a child.

Many normal humans are sterile, but the "Safe Test" gives tons of false positives. There would be far, far fewer false positives if they just have the men who want to enter fill a sample cup and tested it for sperm count. Are some men sterile? Well, yeah, but there wouldn't be five false alarms for every synth found using that method. Isn't getting it down to 'only' three or four false positives per synth detection their goal? That's still a lot of innocent people dead.


Though I guess that test wouldn't work as well for lady synths.

Keep in mind we are talking about the wasteland which has been, and in large portions still is, heavily radiated.

I guess good reproductive capabilites are the exeption in the wasteland and not the norm.

This brings up an interesting issue. The Gen 3 synths (at least) are created from pre-War "pure" human DNA organics. They are allegedly indistinguishable from humans via conventional tests. Not sure if they consider X-Ray Machines to be conventional or not, but clearly they bleed, sweat, have tears and feel warm to the touch and so on. So if they were created using organics, ~are~ there any metal or in-organic parts? Kellog was a sort of proto-synth, a human with cyborg parts that let him live longer than he should have. Do more modern Synths have metal bits inside them at ALL, though?

They have recall codes, but that could be "programming" put into a human mind. Do Synths have, like, access ports in the back of their head where they can plug in a cable and then connect directly to a terminal? Looks like that would be an easy way to spot a Synth vs a human if that were the case.

So if Synths are entirely organic, then what's the real distinction between a "cloned" human with altered features, and a Synth? Aren't they just ~engineered~ life forms? If they ARE mechanical, in any way, it looks like they would be able to be detected as such. Hold a magnet to their skull, see if it sticks.

Just always rubbed me wrong that they were ~so~ indistinguishable from humans and yet NOT human, even though (we find out) they are made --- at least partially --- with human organics.

And do synth children get older?

I'm guessing the synth components are like brain to them since you can only get them by killing them (except the glitch with the Covenant synth). They also can receive update and memories altercation with just coding and patches.

No, the most advanced synth is Shaun and he would never grow up. Synths' body doesn't change and they can't grow old, don't need to eat food or sleep either, they can, but it's not necessary.

Maybe they're just doing it wrong.

IS anyone else thinking Synth Babies would be a great punk rock band name??

(and ya with all the rad storms I am really surprised there are children at all.)

I'll try and see if I can find the yaoi hole, then I'll get back to you.

My character has been conducting ongoing tests, but there have been zero little synth babies so far.

Maybe Danse has a vasectomy.

Synths also don't age so a Synth baby would remain a baby forever (until mechanical failure).

I always thought that since Synths were immune to radiation, you could just get everyone to hug a radioactive barrel and measure their rads after... but that's probably too dangerous to keep around the area, I guess.

What abut replacing Deezer's "lemonade" with radioactive material?

You shouldn't swear, it's against the forum rules.

I can see Elder Maxson screaming about synths not being born in the belly of a mother, test tube metal kids and whatnot. The I can see Maxson throwing out toaster babies in the trash. If the Institute wasn't a joinable faction, I'd be kicking it back with Maxson.

Anyway, I don't think Synths can have kids. Deacon (The most honest [censored] in the game) says he tried having kids with his talking flesh-light and that failed, though, no evidence exists to tell us that they can't have kids...

Yeah they are sterile. We know this simply because it was a shock to the institute staff when Father requested they even work on a synth child. This wouldn't have been such a big deal if the synths could reproduce on their own.

To be honest, if synths could have kids, they wouldn't be a synth kid anyway but regular children, despite how advanced synths are, machine parts can't be replicated. The babies wouldn't be machines but the parents are machines, kinda dampen the whole Maxson's argument when accusing my favorite toaster. Since it's not possible irregardless, we don't have to worry about that anyway.

This too, we know even the Gen 3's have "some" inorganic parts to their makeup as can be seen when you kill them, and yeah these wouldn't transfer over when conceiving a child.