Maybe. But "old man" is slang for father, and Father is a title given to Shaun, specifically, for his contributions with the gen 3 synths. We don't really know much about other directors, but the director when Shaun was taken was probably a woman, given the Director's Recording 108 holotape.

I got the sense Kellogg knew who Shaun was in Fort Hagen when he talked about him being safe and happy at the Institute but a "bit older" than the Sole Survivor might expect *wink wink.* Also, Father is widely known throughout the Institute, even low-on-the-totem-pole synth workers know his story and profess to adore him. It doesn't really make sense to me that Kellogg would be kept in the dark.

All it took was what happened at the Warwick Homestead to convince me that the Institute needed to be wiped out. I did sound the evacuation, although I was a little shocked about the Railroad's brutality when they went in.

Really? Of all the things, Warwick? To me the Warwick Homestead seems like one of the milder cases among Institute 'projects', as it's beneficial for both the settlers and the Institute, plus it's an actually useful experiment, unlike say, the fev shenanigans. The farmers get better crops and a caring patriarch (it's implied the real Roger was a lowlife drunk) and the Institute develops superior food sources.

Unless, of course 'purge all surface evidence of the initiative' does mean 'send synths to raze the farm to the ground and burn the bodies'... Still, that's some prize winning gourds there.

Shaun 'Father' made two mistakes. First, he handed over the reins to the player character, then kept interfering after he did so (he couldn't let go); and second, he wasn't smart enough to put his terminal with the synth shut down instruction next to his bed, where he could implement it.

Tag for later. I plan on joining them this weekend...

After seeing what happened after talking his suspicions friend down and then reading the note on his body, I felt like, "screw this, I'm going to blow off Rogers head even if the family can't understand".

Shaun is quite the evil person it seems.

His endgame plan to save humanity is for the great institute to.................just stay underground until everyone on the surface dies.

He also plans to just pillage the commonwealth and take anything helpful or destroy it so no one else can use it.

He destroys any attempts that the surface makes at organization or forming a government.

He captures people, replaces them with synths and then uses the captured people as fev test subjects.

He is on par with the enclave believing anyone not part of their organization is worthless.

Also anyone saying that "you can change that if you become the director". You can't. The other directors can just over rule you. The director isn't all powerful.

As crappy of a human as the original Warwick may have been, it's hard to justify murdering the man.

Still, look at McDonough in Diamond City. How much of what happened to the ghouls (which resulted in multiple deaths) is the original or the synth? Hancock describes not recognizing the man by the time that his inauguration rolled around.

Yeah, Hancock's not the most trustworthy of sources, but it was still his brother, who he knew quite well.

It's even harder to justify the infiltration attacks that can happen on the various settlements. Synths that reveal themselves only as Gen1s and 2s teleport in and attack. Had this happen myself, with my General Trader turning out to be a Synth after she sabotaged all the turrets in town and the Gen1s and 2s started in on the townsfolk. That's some real humanitarianism there.

I've never once had this happen. When does it?

Yeah well, I'm just saying the Warwick project doesn't strike me as all that bad, comparatively, so I'm surprised someone would focus on that as proof of the Institute's wickedness or whatnot.

The synth settlement attacks are a bit weird, tbh. I only had one, but then I joined the Institute and they never happened again, but I hear they can (bug, possibly?). So, I wonder what happens then, are the gen-1's and 2's hostile to me? What if I relay grenade some synths myself, will they fight each other? As for humanitarianism... I do have synth patrols benevolently guarding the Commonwealth now that I'm Director, so that's something.

It's very random, but I've had it happen twice actually. Once at Sanctuary Hills, the second time at Egret Marina. Both were prior to completing Shadow of Steel, but after Taking the Castle. I've seen other posters talking about it, but I can only speak to my own experiences.

In both instances I received a XYZ is under attack! standard message. I fast traveled when I could and on arrival, I see a settler being gunned down by the rest (and in the Sanctuary Hills case, I very quickly recognized the General Trader and the uniform I'd given her, and that resource showed as unassigned afterwards). There was a synth component on the bodies in both cases and just as I looted them, Gen1s and 2s started pouring into the settlement. In the instance of Sanctuary Hills, every single turret and all five water purifiers were damaged. For Egret, only a few turrets were down.

EDIT:

Quick video of a Settler turning on the rest as Synths attack. There's a few videos like this on YouTube --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6WUJfID-V8

I've had repeated single Synth Settler attacks who are always dead when you get there (meaning there is no way not to fail the defence since nothing happens until you leave) with automatic damage to the settlement and I've had Institute Synths attacking after I joined the Institute, in that case there was a dead Synth Settler in the pool that the Synths were teleported into.......at least that my reasoning why the swimming pool was full of Institute Synths.

Does this not happen if you're friendly with the Institute?

I do not know the answer to this question.

If the question is do you still get single Gen-3 Synths (Railroad or Institute) and Institute Gen-1&2 Synths attacking Settlements when you are friendly with the Institute, then yes being friendly just means the Institute Synths don't attack you while trying murdering your settlers. One person claimed that if your only friendly with the Institute then the attacks don't happen but given how random the attacks are, it seems to be hard to judge whether that is intentional or not.

The synths are definitely the rarest of the types of attacking enemies, but they're the most annoying due to the sabotage being as bad as if you failed the defense.

My first Synth attack actually happened after I became friendly with the Institute.

The one synth attacker I had didn't seem to have sabotaged anything, is that supposed to always happen with these incidents?

(The funny thing was, I'm not very invested in the whole 'settlement' aspect, so I barely give my settlers anything, but the one that turned out to be the infiltrator was actually the one I did give a good weapon and armor to, on a whim. I must have a completely broken synth-dar... )

The Gen-1 relay grenade synths appear to be only allied to The Institute faction. Which makes for very odd situations. Meaning that if you relay one into one of your settlements, it'll begin attacking your settlers.

The checkpoint Gen-2's however, are allied with both The Institute and wastelanders. Meaning they'll help your provisioners/caravaners/random wastelanders if they get into a fight nearby. The Gen-1's are allied to these Gen-2's, but if a random caravan happens to walk by, they'll start attacking it. But the Gen-2's won't.

With regards to The Institute attacks on settlements, I've only ever seen a Gen-3 get 'found out' myself but this was before I allied with The Institute. No Institute Synths relayed in afterwards. I'm sure it happens, but it must be pretty rare since I've only seen it once since I started playing.

Well, that's a bit of a mess... I guess there's no point trying to derive anything lore-relevant from post-main quest game since it's probably just Bethesda not bothering to change alignments and such. Or I can headcanon gen-1's are just stupid. Still won't explain hostile infiltrators in their own Director's settlements though.

'Building so many poorly designed, deadly, autonomous machines is bound to result in unpredictable results' seems like a potentially acceptable explanation.

No matter how one judges their breaches of ethics or potential for reform or how one wishes to allocate blame, this I think is the most inescapable flaw of the institute: they take virtually no responsibility for their actions.

Yeah people are reading way too much into what amounts to Bethesda just assigning some faction alignments and not giving too much thought to post-game gameplay. The relay Gen-1's being assigned only to The Institute faction is either just an oversight, or a bug. There's already a mod which corrects it.

The faction attacks are randomized, so Bethesda just might not have bothered to change the conditions under which The "Synth attack" event occurs. Simple as that. I have yet to see it after siding with The Institute however.

Well the Gen-1's in Diamond City seem pretty okay. None of them go berserk and start killing DC residents.

Again, I wouldn't read too much into it. The checkpoints and the Gen-1 DC synths indicate that The Institute isn't just attacking everything on the surface. The checkpoints do in fact help to guard caravans and provisoners. And the Gen-1's will help DC residents fight.

The relay grenade Synths and the settlement attacks are the only outliers. And both of those are just oversights.

Yet there's no indication of Warwick having been murdered. Who's saying, he didn't booze himself to death and got replaced after the fact? There isn't a single record inside the institute really saying what happened to the replaced people or if they have been killed to replace them.

Kellogg is literally talking about the fact they just unfroze EVERYONE in Vault 111. What, do you think he came back sixty years later on the order of Sean to unfreeze everyone at the same time as the SS and then rush off to Diamond City or somewhere else before the SS found him hanging around the vault?


Because that's what would have had to happen to make it true that he was referring to Sean as the Old Man in that first video.

Kellogg just seems to refer to elderly male Institute Directors as "the old man".

It was also intended to be a misdirection on Bethesda's part, because when you hear "the old man" the second time, in the Kellogg house memory, you're presuming its the same person. But its actually not.