What if it wasn't the son that we were initially looking for? What if somehow our spouse were trying to find us?

And as for clues, there are already some very clever potential candidates that have been put right in front of us in the footage...

That'd be pretty awesome. Maybe we can confront him about all the things he's done good or bad like James did with us with regard to our decision about Megaton.

But yeah, it'd svck in an ironic way if we spoiled the plot before we ever even played the game.

Son is raised a by MIT eggheads, heralded as the second coming because of his awesome pre war genetics. Maybe genetics has something to do with cybernetic augmentations because SCIENCE?

Dear old dad has a run in with MIT eggheads. Kills or is somehow at fault for the death of his son's new guardians without knowing who he is.

Son now how no authority. Takes over what's left of MIT and is pretty mad at this mysterious man who murdered everyone he's ever known and loved. Vows to make his life hell.

Not the direction I was thinking, and I'm not entirely sure how that would work. It would also be a little too far removed from whole post-apocalyptic theme.

The post apocalypse is rapidly becoming not so terrible a place.

Clean water is readily available, and Boston was only hit with one nuke and most of the area seems intact.

With most evil power players out of the way (mutants are on the run from the eastern brotherhood and the enclave is all gone), we probably won't be seeing the classic "super powerful faction that wants to kill anyone but me" that we saw in 1-3.

The only people potentially capable of that are the institute, but they don't seem to be genocidal maniacs, just people with too big a hard-on for technology. I'll wager they are very xenophobic, but not exactly evil.

In past games there was a clear good and evil in the enclave, the master's army, or the legion/NCR depending on your ideals.

In Boston we have just a bunch of guys who aren't exactly bad, just not getting along with each other. The institute use androids as slaves, but they did make them and they are just machines so they aren't 100% incorrect.

The BoS may be intimidated by technology and want to fight for it, but the eastern guys also protected the DC area and its inhabitants.

The rest of the factions don't seem big enough to be any danger to either of these factions or anyone.

There isn't really an obvious threat to the whole place, just petty squabbles that won't really affect anyone save those invested in the fight.

Super edit: I would put a tiny bit of money on the institute and brotherhood conflict being the civil war of fallout 4, instead of the main plot focus.

I disagree, I got the impression that the spouse who is not your character always says that to the spouse you are playing. This comes from the fact that she says that to the protg before he goes to open the door when the vault salesman lets the player set his SPECIAL

So if you are playing as the female protag, her husband would say she has a speech to give, then the doorbell rings & you go to answer it. I don't think that scene would play out different depending on your protag choice.

Another example would be if you were playing the woman, then your husband would grab the baby & run to the vault with you, leaving the protags arms free to go through the tutorial

In the E3 footage, there is a folded American flag visible on the book case, and next to it a framed certificate that appears to say "Suffolk County School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts", so it's possible that one of the parents is in the legal profession.

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Anyway, have to say you've got a vivid imagination! I'm sure you're going to love this game!

Much depends on things we don't know; specifically the exact date we wake up and leave the Vault, and wether or not our family survived.

This would not actually make sense based on what we have seen. Todd said that "whoever you leave the menu as is who you'll play", meaning the comment about the Veteran's Hall will always be said before you choose to play as the husband or the wife. Also, in the OP of this thread, I clearly stated that "In the case of a female protagonist, it will be the baby's father who carries him to the vault". I agree with you that this is to allow the protagonist more freedom when running through the rest of the tutorial, but it believe that this also serves a much greater purpose when going into the vault.

No one ever says who exactly is the main guest at the veterans hall.

It could very well be the mom, and she's just letting the husband know he'll look good as her plus 1.

Even if the female says it while being the protagonist, it's still up in the air as to who is the guest of honor or whatever.

Couldn't actually read the text from the certificate on my monitor, so thank you for that info! With this we can pretty much assume that it's the wife who is a lawyer, or at least went to law school. But I did mention the flag in the display case somewhere, possibly in this thread, can't remember off the top of my head. And I think that this may even be used in gameplay.

She actually says "you're gonna knock em dead at the Veteran's Hall tonight hun", which strongly suggests that her husband is the guest of honor.

I just rewatched the video & it looks like I misremembered when she says that. I thought she said it after you were finished picking your character.

That is a compliment.

The only thing it confirms is that they are going to an event for veterans, not that either of them are said veteran.

It's the equivalent of the husband telling her she's going to look great tonight, should such a line exist. It is entirely up to you to interpret it.

Unless the female is given some sort of extensive training in the vault, how would she know how to use power armor to use in the early minuteman quest or is able to handle a gun after waking up after 200 years?

Why else would they be going to a conference/ball room for veterans, and the wife telling him he'll knock 'em dead?

Why wouldn't you compliment your significant other? It seems like a healthy marriage.

We know women fought in the war from anchorage, and we know the protagonist has power armor training because they use it during the minuteman encounter.

We also know they are going to a veterans dinner type affair.

According to http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Knock+em+dead page, "Knock em dead" means to 'do great, succeed, achieve above and beyond expectations'. Or in this case to give a speech.

Can one not knock them dead with appearance? You're assuming he is making a speech. We are in front of a mirror and she even says to stop hogging it.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/knock+them%2F

There's an example of the phrase being defined in relation to appearance.

Again, this is oddly vague, and we know the PC has to have a military background to use the power armor.

Read https://res.cloudinary.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1993h06hw9hg8png.png extract from the documents leaked to Kotaku at the end of 2013, especially the bit where he mentions his wife and his infant son.

We've seen the intro to the game.

None of that was said.

That appears to be said at an event, much like a the veterans hall, but we know that never comes about because the war starts before it can happen.

The only place to say it would be inside the vault? But...the war has already started.

The reason none of it was said is that this is clearly the speech (or at least an earlier version of it) that he was supposed to give at the event. I'm sure later on in the finished tutorial we will see him practising said speech, which he then gives to his wife for safekeeping. But the event never took place due to the outbreak of war.

The tutorial seemed done though. We went from character creation right to going inside the vault and that's where it cut off.

I'm sure we'll get more stuff inside the vault like shooting a gun and using vats.

Even if he does practice said speech, that doesn't rule out the female protagonist doing the exact same thing; if you went solely off those leaks you'd be convinced that the game was male protagonist only, and that is clearly not the case.

It also doesn't answer the mom being trained in using power armor without any army training if she isn't the PC.

I think we're getting a bit off track with this dialogue. All she meant was, "You're gonna impress the hell out of them tonight."

He was going to make a speech at the Veteran's Hall, but the atomic war that broke out later that day kinda sorta changed all that. Forever.

ETA: As for the wife? Well, we don't know yet. Perhaps if we chose her to be the protagonist, it'll be assumed that *she* is the one whose supposed to give that speech.

That's exactly what I'm saying; whoever we play as is the veteran.

Unless the mom is given a large amount of military training between arriving in the vault and being frozen, she wouldn't be able to just jump into power armor or be trained to use firearms.

The gameplay footage shows what looks like a shorter edited version of the final tutorial. And so I am sure there are elements that we have not seen, especially if the devs don't want to show them just yet. And I don't think we'll have very long inside the vault before our protagonist and any other survivor's end up in cryogenic sleep.

Also, as I stated earlier, it would not make sense for a female protagonist to be the one making this speech when she has already given this compliment to her husband before you chose to play as her. As for the documents, they actually said that there were casting calls for both a male and female voiced protagonist.

Finally, with regards to power armor, in Fallout 3 we played as an individual who had spent their entire life so far locked up inside a vault, and yet later learned to use power armor through specialist training.

Edit: and I'm quite sure that, being the wife of a senior naval officer, she knows at least how to fire a weapon.

I'm not sure what the training in fallout 3 had to do with anything.

PA is completely useless without training, and very early in the game you have to make use of it in a quest, so where does the female protagonist get this training? In 3 you learn it from the brotherhood, who teach it to initiates much like the military did before the war.

The alternative is female characters being unable to do this quest until they get the training from somewhere else, and I really don't see this being the case.

The only thing we have going for a male only veteran is a compliment that can be taken as both reference to a future speech, but also just him looking great for the event.