Like a great man once said: "That's a nice theory, but I doubt Bethesda put that much though into it"

You know who would accuse the protagonist of being a synth? A SYNTH!

Sure you don't see a lie designation next to "I'm a Synth" but you also don't see it next to "I'm human"

Little issue with your theory. In Kellogg's memories, he says that every pod but the Sole Survivor's was turned off, so...

“It’s not a conspiracy, it’s an analysis” -Every conspiracy theorist.

A really good theory. However... one thing you overlooked deflates the entire premise. The vault tech rep turned ghoul. If those memories were implanted, how would the institute know of someone that was forgotten by vault tech, someone who had only a minor interaction with your character yet is forced to remember after all those years when you come back and meet them and the memory is shared. Shaun was too young to know this guy. If the OG parents are dead then those memories go with them so the institute couldn't back those up. And i don't think the rep would go talking about your character out of all the people he must've met that day to get the institutes attention on some random old world ghoul.

There is a terminal in the robotics lab with a file called 'unique project' that describes a new gen 4 synth that is basically the player character with all their abilities including vats and only Shaun and A.Benit know about it

Yes, you do become extremely powerful in the wasteland. All of the fallout protagonists do that and those people were not synths.

"You're not lying when you say you're a synth because of the dialogue color." Sure, except right next to it you can say you're a human without lying either

You try being locked in a cryopod for 200 years. Then see how much you remember.

The reason that you can see the memory stuff when you noclip the opening scene is because it's part of the memory scene also. They just reuse the same scene twice, same exact assets in the same spots.

8:05 "quick mastery of skills with little experience " if thats the case than every fallout character is a synth lol

Imagine if you were walking through the commonwealth and you see an exact copy of yourself. Same armor, weapons, everything. They are freaked out and so are you. You eventually kill them, search their body... And no component You check yourself And in your inventory, there’s one you can never remove

One of your points being how the character can improve their stats, become more bullet resistant, resistant to radiation etc. by this logic are you assuming that fallout 3, nv and 4 protaganists are synths?

Even on his deathbed Father never tells you you're a synth, even if you tell him you just want to see the place burn. In fact, in response to that specific dialog choice, he says "It's hard to believe we're related."

There is one simple way you can definitively know whether your character is a synth or not, and you can find out before ever leaving Vault 111. Here's how: You can use VATS to lock on to the roaches before you get the Pip-Boy.

There was a terminal entry inside the robotics lab, where they seemed to be testing with an upgrade, given to some selected synths, that allowed them to use a system pretty similar to VATS without the need of a pipboy. The interesting thing is that you as the sole-survivor can use the VATS system before you get the pipboy.

Kellog was instructed to cause a malfunction in all the cyro chamber except the sole survivors one

7:05 nope. There are multiple times (particularly in Nick Valentine's plotline) where the soul survivor says "oh, I remember that guy" like Eddie winter or the creator of the graygarden robots, so that is wrong.

i think the dima part is suppose to determine your headcanon in whether or not you're a synth. that's all

Love the smell of fallout theories in the morning.

Few points.... The Institute did say explicitly that they shut down all other pods to "tie up loose ends". Taking this as a bluff or actual lore coming from in-game characters is apparently up for debate? FO3 and FO:NV had similar traits that turned you into a literal Grim Reaper of the wastes. Perks like Adamantium Skeleton could be taken in those games as well. It's a gameplay mechanic. The options are only there when your character is intentionally trying to misinform. In the dialog tree with DiMA, IF that choice was taken, in THAT instance, then the Sole Survivor believes he/she is a synth. In addition, the Sole Survivor definitely remembers more of the past than just the intro moments, as he/she makes numerous references throughout the game that are so minor (Recognizing Greygarden's robot voices, remembering commercial jingles, stating "Grognak and the Jungle of the Bat Babies... my favorite!", etc) and unknowable to present-day people. Dunno, seems like the evidence was cherry-picked for this one...

You forgot that most modern synths have VATS built into them, and you can activate VATS before getting the Pipboy

Say Synth theory is true: I wonder if another facet of the sole survivor experiment was to test the limits of free will and emotional motivators? After all when you first come face to face with synth Shaun, father explains a moment later that he was testing shauns emotional responses. Given there are more and more synths showing they are fully aware people and not just high functioning AIs, Shaun could also be testing in the sole survivor how a synth might act with only one emotional motivation, rather than a complete programming and indoctrination. I might be wrong, but I think the institute hasn’t ever intentionally left a free roaming synth on the surface, unaware of what it is? Those sort usually are freed ones with mind wipes.

Kellog himself in his own memories said the institute wanted the player character kept alive.

didn't kellog say in his memory: "i don't know why the old man wanted the rest killed and only the parent to survive, but a jobs a job." doesn't this mean kellog killed all the other vault residents And about the synth thing there is no way shaun can make a synth without someone else from the institute knowing about it. and the whole inside a memory thing is just bethesda reusing the same thing for the scene and later the quest.

The system-wide faliure in vault 111 was induced by the institute strike-team. The gaps in the sole survivor's memory are there to allow for the player to make their character into what they want them to be. The intro sequence thing is most likely down to just laziness. Why render a sequence twice if you can get away with doing it just once?

Austin : it’s outlandish to think that one member could survive The Courier getting shot in the head and surviving ; am I joke to you

Oh hey, the Institute brought back Shoddycast!

You see several occasions where you do actually seem to remember things from the old world...silver shroud, baseball, conversation with Daisy the goul...so it can go either way I think but I doubt it...I think like most things you get to decide...one constant is there is zero fucking way the institute would let a synth be the director

Theres a line at the beginning of the game, right before the first bombings are announced, where Nate or Nora asks if you want to go to the park later. Responding sarcastically refers to the 'event' where Shaun was conceived the previous year. It's a memory the player never sees. This is why I don't think the sole survivor is a synth.

5:30 "This created an avalanche of bugs..." so, every Bethesda game ever?

Counterpoints 1. Kellogg memories "I never knew why we didn't just refreeze the rest of them" AKA it wasn't actual system error but the Institute actively killing them thus the SS surviving is a purposeful action made by the institute as well to have them as the "Back up", forward supported by "even then, I knew it was a mistake to leaving (them) alive" 2. The paradox and conflicting information of the Memories, Your statement is 'the SS only remember what a synth needs to know' but that would imply that the Institute themselves MADE those memories up to that point, which then adds the plot hole of the them remembering the Vault-tec Rep and the dialog about the speech, where the Institute would have to have beat the odds of hearing the story from the Vault-Tec rep to add that into the Memories and finding the speech Memo at fraternal Post 115. THEN the points in the game were the SS does reminisce on the past too "My family and I used to listen to every new episode on the radio" for example. 3. Capabilities- we have 4 other examples of people with varying level skills do such massive deeds as well. Gameplay disconnection does not mean lore 3.a But if we ARE using gameplay as lore, the fact that it's highly implied that Synths don't need food, water, and especially sleep (to the point where a known synth is laying in bed awake at night and Eve within the Institute doesn't even have a bed) then the SS is a synth unless they are playing on survival then they are human. 4. The kill code and secret, your theory is built on two things, that Shaun was able to secretly create a synth that looks just like his parent WITH false memories put in (something the institute doesn't actively do, Nick and Synth Shaun were just using scanned brains as their based) in the institute without anyone noticing is in itself highly improbable then add in the problems of after a few decades your lake of aging is going to give you away to everyone and lead to best case the institute just removing you or worst case a civil war/rebelling of said synths against his people. And that we would have some program fail safe, just having one that's set to trigger if the SS kills Shaun (or even taking aggressive action against him) would had fulfilled this role and protect the institute. Shaun is (poor written) a logically person and not a prideful one like House for example.

But in Kellogg’s memory he comments on why the scientists couldn’t just refreeze the others. The scientists killed the other vault dwellers, not some error. They could’ve easily picked and chosen who to kill and who to spare. This is some game theory level of incompetence here dude, cmon

This almost explains the lack of traits, like ‘Small Frame’ giving weaker limbs for agility; we don’t get to decide if SS has weaker limbs or other debuffs not related to surviving or damage. Our flesh can technically be exceptional if you want to consider the ghoulish perk, and even these features can be explained by being part synth since we were supposed to be being sought by the institute for having clean, pre-war DNA. People keep mentioning other synths saying we’re human, but how could they recognize a new-gen synth that was made to be more human-like?

Synth : immune to diseases (according to Doctor Carrington's dialogue). Human : diseases in Survival, Molerat Disease in Vault 81, chems addiction…

One hole in the theory, those aren't the soul survivors only memories, he tells what's his face in diamond city what baseball really is because he remembers it, there's other examples of other memories too, also you can't really count perks as reasoning for being a synth because you have to remember it's a game and perks aren't part of the story line

You overlooked one key terminal entry that explains all the deaths. Overseer's terminal/Operations Protocol Manual/Staff Duties/Science Staff Members of the research team must daily monitor the vital signs of cryogenically preserved residents. Cardiopulmonary and cognitive activity in particular must be recorded hourly. *Life-saving intervention is only permitted if greater than 80% of the resident population has perished while in cryogenic suspension, and must not interrupt suspension*

What? Your character gets better and progress his/her skills? In a RPG? What sort of madness is this?

"Does this unit have a soul?"

During the Kellogg memory sequence he literally says they killed everyone on purpose to tie up loose ends except the main character so they could have a DNA backup this theory was poorly researched.

"They froze to death." Actually, the terminals say asphyxiation and Kellogg killed everyone but the protag in the vault.

>in months you can become the most powerful person on the planet [Big Iron plays in the distance]

Another point is that the Institute does not leave loose ends EVER. The Sole Survivor is the biggest loose end the Institute has ever made. I think you were initially kept as a backup but once the Gen 3 Synth program was a success there was no more need for a backup. Until Shaun needed a successor that it...

Things you missed. VATS is usable before you get the Pip-Boy, something thats noted on the Institute terminals about Gen 3 Synth abilities. The player icon for Institute quests is a Synth Uniform. Father never explains why he made a child synth of himself and have Kellogg been seen with him weeks before you are released from the Vault. Despite all this planning that Kellogg noted himself, and Father admitting he wanted you to kill Kelogg, Father says he released you "on a whim" The game explores the fact that not only that you can download memories from near dead brains (Kellogg) but that you can drop an entire personality into a Synth (Curie) Everyone in Vault 111, while dead ,are still perfectly preserved 200 years later, which would in theory, allow a person to be dropped into a Synth body. Father was able to keep all of the Institute in the dark on the FEV Project, and the escape of one of their scientists.

Ah, its glad to hear Austin's voice over on ShoddyCast again.

One big flaw....during the memory playback Kellogg clearly stats " I dont know why we didn't leave the others alive maybe the old man didn't want to many loose ends"....

I like this but you give Bethesda too much credit... I think whether or not you're a synth is for you to decide, when you say "I'm not a synth" that's also not followed by [Lie] so that's the part I always thought of as the time you get to decide for yourself

If you go to Diamond City and talk to the baseball vendor your character explains how baseball works to him, how would he know how this works if he could only remember what happened after he woke up?

The free cam argument for the opening cut scene is flawed. The synapsis background you can see in free cam mode was probably a lazy short hand for the programmers since you can revisit the cinematic in the memory den from a different perspective.

When you first go to diamond city and you talk to the lady I can’t remember her name she will tell you that her supplies are only for humans not synths and she has said it quite a few times to me

Big problem. Inside the pod, it says, "reinitialized." Means, the sole survivor was frozen. Again.

It wasn't a "system wide failure" it was deliberate sabotage of every other pod. BOTH Norah and Nate were meant to be backups Kellogg is the idiot who shot one of them but the institute scientists WOULD ABSOLUTELY know whether or not their Backups would die from what they're planning Father as an institute scientist sent someone to open your pod and that's where the tutorial starts. Joseph Anderson did a really great job piling up the evidence against this theory I'd recommend his video for more on the topic.

He has more memory then that if you ask the guy in Diamond City about the baseball bats the Soul Survivor we'll talk about how they used to play baseball before the war

The vault-tec rep recognizes you FROM BEFORE THE WAR

I'm sad now.... he didn't say "But that"s just a theory a GAME theory"

the problem with the memory point is that you DO have memory of other things trough the game, like the silver shroud radio for example. And dimma isn't exactly trustworthy, he's a massive manipulator and conviced the person you were there to save in the first place that she was a synth when she's a human. And if you are a synth, why not stop you when you start shooting at the institute.

You're back on Shoddy?!?!?!? Yesssss Rethinking!!!!

See the problem with that theory is that the sole survivor does have memories of the past. When you go to graygarden and talk to supervisor white where you can tell her yeah you remember hearing about Dr. Gray on TV. Also again when you’re talking to Kent in Goodneighbor you can say you remember listening to the silver Shroud on the radio with your family.

So by your own train of thought, the Dragonborn is a synth.

what would be the point of reinserting a synth into the system? How are you able to tell the guy in Diamond City about baseball? How do you have a conversation about prewar life with the woman in Goodneighbor? How do you have a conversation with Codsworth about what happened? Why wouldn't Shaun make a synth of his other parent? And like you said - Kellogg is smart. He'd obviously know that the spouse of the person he murdered and parent of the kid he kidnapped would come looking for him if s/he ever got out. And for the cutscene being Kelloggs memory sequence - it's far easier to just re-use that asset. it's less stable becaUse, well, obviously. It doesn't have all the other elements to run the way it does in gameplay. Besides, from this interpretation, The Courier is a synth.

Counter Arguments: - If you're suggesting that the " bullets hurt less" sound like a synth update, than the protagonists from the older fallout games are also synths, which does not make sense.Also, eating and not gaining weight happens in Skyrim as well, so there are synths in Skyrim now? -The memory scene, is the same for kelogg's memories as well. and we know that he was not a synth, he was a human with synth add-ons .

More evidence is the fact you can use VATS just before you get your hands on a Pip-Boy at the beginning of the game.

Sad he did not mention the terminal in the Institute that explains why you can use VATS. The one terminal in the same room that builds the synths.

The problem with your logic is it’s the same way in all Fallout Games. We don’t suspect The Courier, Lone Wanderer, Chosen One, or.. (legit I don’t remember the other protagonist’s name...) as being synths, yet they can do just as much as the Sole Survivor. Say what you will about everything else, but that point is invalid.

So you’re saying that Father somehow created a generation 4 synth under the noses of everyone in the Institute, transported that Synth to Vault 111, had him take the place of his dead father, dispose of the corpse, then unfreeze him sometime in the future to exact revenge on Kellogg? And that, to you, is more plausible than you just miraculously being the only survivor of a horrible cryogenic experiment? Gen 3 synths are fairly new to the wasteland, so even if you were a synth, you would’ve had to have been made quite recently. And if you, the protagonist, had died, in what way would Father have been able to extract memories from the frozen brain of his parents which has been lying dead for 50+ years in an underground bunker? I admit that Far Harbor’s dialogue was creepy, but I think it was meant more to make you think about the philosophical and existential question: “How do you know you are you and the world around you is real?”

There are two memories that appear. Your first conversation with Daisy in Goodneighbor and the microphone at the Fraternal Order where you give the start of your speech

Playing survival mode debunks this theory. Soul survivor requires sleep, and food. Synths do not.

1. The institute sabotaged the cryo pods, except yours. That's why you're the backup, the others were liabilities. 2. The fighting mechanics where you're OP is in the other fallouts (3 and NV) as well. 3. The choice where it says he's not a synth isn't a lie either. 4. The rest *WAS* a theory!

What about the Mr. Handy near the U.S.S. Constitution that identifies you as a veteran/spouse of a veteran?

Shaun's last thoughts before I put a bullet between his eyes the first time I played through Fallout 4: "Shit. This wasn't in the script."

I always felt when going through Kellogs memories that he knew more than he was letting on.

Westworld. Detroit Become Human. This. Gotta love people’s obsession with manifestation of humanity outside of humanity itself.

WE DON'T MIND YOU DOING FALLOUT CONTENT

1; dialogue in game in the institute indicates the institute, not plot powers, preserved the sole survivor and discarded the rest. 2; you have the option of taking over the institute, given to you by Shaun, who does not believe synths are people. 3; No one in the institute, if you choose to destroy it, uses a kill code on you or even tries. No, you aren't playing a synth.

Fallout 4 release: " Great job on the story everybody" Far Harbor DLC: "But, hear me out, what if the sole survivor was a synth?" Bethesda has no consistency, that's a theory I could get behind.

Holy crap, Austin's on ShoddyCast again!

13:15 That's Kinda Pushing It On What Is Evidence And What Is Something Done To Save Time

He/She actually remembers watching TV with their family and remembers a character from the silver shroud. So no, they don’t only have memories of when the bombs went boom-boom.

So.. you're a Synth in all Fallout Games + all TES games + literally every other RPG ever made?

Yeah, no. There are way too many things contradicting this theory. 1: Why doesn't Shaun use your recall code to shut you down the moment you attack the Institute? If he is worried that someone else would shut you down and end the 'experiment', he just wouldn't tell it to anyone else. He and the rest of the Institute clearly oppose you if you go with the other factions and triy to stop you at every opportunity, so they definitely care more about surviving than fulfilling his little experiment. He is also clearly resentfull of you when you meet him on his deathbed during the last mission in the MM/RR/BOS ending, so i don't think this is a case of 'just as planned' lol. 2: Shaun doesn't consider synths to be human or even capable of true free will, why would he let some machine take control after his death? He thinks they just follow their programming and aren't capable of making their own decisions. A synth wouldn't work as a long time leader anyway because they don't really age as humans do. The other people in the Institute would notice their leader was a synth in 10-15 years at the latest. 3: Shauns 'revenge' plan makes no sense whatsoever. He doesn't care about Kelloggs brutality, the people on the surface mean nothing to him and neither do his parents. Even if he did, why make this super convoluted plan and build a super synth that looks like one of his parents when he could just sabotage the molecular relay and teleport him into a rock or drop 50 gen 1 synths on top of him? That seems like a much safer solution. 4: Survival mode: Dialogue between Institute scientists establishes that synths don't need to eat, sleep and they can't get diseases. The player character gets ill all the time and he isn't immune to hunger or sleep deprivation either. If he was superior to coursers, why does he have these massive flaws? Sure, you might say: Hey, you are just programmed to feel hunger' but considering that you actually die if you don't eat for a couple days, i find that to be doubtful. 5: Where did the Institute get your memories of the last day before the bombs fell? They are clearly real, because Codsworth and the vault tec rep still exist in the game world and reference events of that day. The institute couldn't have gotten them if the real parent died in their cryo pod. 6: Brotherhood DNA testing. The BoS finds out about Danse because his DNA matches that of a synth. Why doesn't the sole survivor get found out the same way? 7: Why doesn't Dr. Amari notice that the player is a synth when you use the memory loungers? Given that she is the person who performs all the mind-wipes for the RR, i would think she would be able to tell from her scans. 8: All the other player characters from the previous fallout games were capable of taking ridiculous perks and mastering complex skills in record time, why do you single out the SS as if he was something special in that regard?

A few counter arguments driven from game mechanics logic: The whole scene of your son taken by Kellogg is made in a Kellogg's brain environment to recycle the scene, that way they can use the whole complete scene twice without having to use more memory space to make 2 different scenes. For the point of inhumane strength and powers it's called gameplay over realism, if a game's too realistic it becomes too brutal to most players, if realism is overlooked the game becomes more fun. Could you explain how a double barrelled shotgun can fire endlessly without having to reload with the legendary "never ending"? Gameplay cheat, realism overlooked and plot holes.

You forgot that gen 1 synths werent even made before the war, so how could the sole survivor be a gen 3 synth? Sure, on the other hand, your memories could be wiped. However, all synths, if you are not affilated with the institue or (probably) railroad, they will be immediatly hostile, however they are not hostile to eachother

Nice theory but in multiple conversations from the Silver Shroud, to Nick and the Winter quest lines, and many other conversation the sole survivor remembers things from his time before the vault. Also the institute would never let a synth become the leader. Shaun said it at the end of the Battle of Bunker hill of he was no longer needed in cold storage, the imp[lied reason we learn later the back up was needed in case he, Shaun died, and Shaun is dying therefor his father/mother was no longer needed to stay frozen.

I still believe the Sole Survivor is pure human, but I will say this was a pretty good theory/analysis

Ok, it makes sense, bbbbbuuuuuutttttt, the pod the sole survivor was in was preserved when the institute caused the failure, they needed to save a backup subject Incase Shaun was killed during experimentation,

13:14 I'd call that Bethesda lazyness as opposed to an actual clue.

At the beginning of the game the lone survivor is capable of using The targeting system available through the Pip-Boy before actually acquiring it, this targeting effect is actually described by a terminal inside the institute as something some Gen-3s have the ability to do.

It all falls apart with the Radiation bit. The synths are canonically immune to Radiation but for whatever reason in gameplay the gamma guns and shit still hurts them. Not only is the opening sequence pretty much all the proof you need the protagonist isn't a synth radiation still harms them. There is also a flaw in Dima's logic. When he asks what is your earliest memory and you answer it. He continues by asking if you can remember any finer details cuz that is what synths don't have. But in the opening scene there is a comic on the counter. "Grognak The Barbarian: The Jungle of the Bat Babies". The male protagonist reads out the full title and specifically says it is his favorite. Also in the Silver Shroud quest there is a dialogue option where the protagonist states they listened to it with their family every weekend. The protagonist's memories and dialogue about said memories are too finely detailed where as other synths have too many gaps. The theory holds no water

A great channel died and now is back walking around like nothing happened ........you're the synth :D :D :D

Some of this logic would mean then other player characters from the other games are synths too.

The _"Mr. Metal-For-Hands doesn't know how to go back to the factory?"_ joke really backfired, didn't it?

What about when you encounter Moe Cronin in Diamond City and you have to explain to him what baseball is? You character would have to have knowledge about that and since Shaun was a baby he would have no idea what American Baseball was. Just something to think about.

about the vault: i was under the impression that the institute had intentionally killed everyone but you. its been a while, so is this (my interpretation) wrong?

The thing is the sole survivor being a synth would've been perfect for the themes of fallout 4 where your belifs of synths being alive or not are put into question by the time they tell you are a synth but i guess that's too much for bethesda writing team

This video DISTINCTLY forgets to separate game mechanics from storytelling

Because the Institute has full recorded episodes of The Silver Shroud and Comics of Grognak.

I mean The Sole Survivors power isn't really a point all Fallout characters are basically Demigods by the end of the game. I always had a theory that the real Vault Experiment was some kind of secret Enclave Super Soldier Program.

Only one question. If Kellogg knew you were a synth, and that you were created to kill him, why wouldn't he tell you? If he proved the sole survivor to be a synth, it would've shook their world. Everything the synth has seen and done would come into concern. And while the sole survivor is distracted questioning their own reality, Kellogg puts a bullet in them.

When you look through Kellogg’s memories, you see that they purpouse kill off everyone else but the sole survivor. 7:18 when you do the mission for the ghoul in good neighbor for the silver shroud costume, you can talk to him about the past tv show episodes, a memeory of watching the show with your family, so that kinda debunks that those are his earliest memories.