You have no clue how tempting it was to just stretch this out 6 more minutes to make it an hour.

Well I wasn't planning on watching an hour long fallout 4 video but here I am

Fun fact: Deacon can actually be found posing as "Deacon" in the Railroad HQ.

I love how the railroad is the only faction in the game with a literal red line leading to it, with letters corresponding to numbers on the trail, and lanterns to follow as well, and when you show up they ask “how did you find us?” Like they can’t understand.

Moments like these, make me realize how dumb I am. Every time I saw “Deacon”, I thought I was seeing the story of the bald security guard through my game. He had an easy job guarding the mayor, he lost it and became a drifter and struggles to survive. Having ups and downs, like having a third person perspective of our character.

Plot Twist: Deacon does not exist. He's just an invention of the player's paranoia...

Nazeem was watching us from the Cloud District the whole time.

I haven’t seen anyone mention this in the comments and probably no one will see this since it’s been two years but I feel that one of the reasons this theory holds up is for the simple fact that Desdemona doesn’t give Deacon any orders and Deacon is able to do what he wants. At any moment had anyone else tried to start project Wanderer she would have told them to let it go or let them go off on their own and not acknowledge it as official railroad business that needed to be documented. This shows me at least that not only does Deacon have seniority over Desdemona but also more sway and importance and the only reason he does so is because he doesn’t want to lead.

Deacon had intel that you were next in line to the Institute's throne and was grooming you to be a more friendly rival, perhaps ally.

“Murdered to death.” Every 60 minutes in Africa a hour passes

Deacon: I'll just sign "-D" Nate: right, it says "smiley face"

Im on my 2nd play through of Fallout 4 currently and so far I have noticed Deacon in disguise as a Diamond City guard, a drifter that hangs out around KLEOs shop, and lastly as a patron in the Memory Den.

"Wait... it's all deacon?" *Loads pistol* "Always has been..."

But can you imagine how unnerving it must be to have the person who you stalked for a long ass time suddenly came up to you while you're disguised and attempt aggressively to chat with you while you're posing as a guard/caravan trader/random passerby

Nate texting, sighing, and his phone going off in the background while capturing dialogue, due to him either not muting his mic or turning off the input source, is the best thing ever i swear

Yes there is one secret entrance to the institute, it requires a certain set of events to happen to find it and to use it. The way in is from the river underwater close to a bridge. When you use this entrance it will take you through all the original bunkers that the institute used first, right after the bombs dropped. And into a side door right outside the teleport room control room.

Well I mean, yeah. Dog meat is always with us, of course he's watching everything we do

Player after mudering hundreds of people: "YOU KILLED SOMEONE!?"

It makes sense his last story is the real deal, because it's the only one where he doesn't portray himself as a good person and puts himself at real risk of losing your friendship by telling you this. It comes off as someone that has lived with this confounding guilt for years and is confiding in you about it to finally get it off of his chest.

if your listening to the Dimond city radio early on the host ends up saying that someone spotted the player exiting vault 111 so either Deacon told somebody and it spread from there (tho that is unlikely as that could alert the sole survivor that somebody was watching him leave) or somebody else was watching them for Deacon and ended up telling other people not knowing the importance of keeping it a secret

“I feel like someone is trying to SELL ME SOMETHING.” *todd and Pete behind a rock* “I told you he was onto us.”

A little secret for ya: Deacon can be found in a settlement that needs your help, here i’ll mark it on your map

"- D" isn't a smileyface... he signed his inital letter of his name. you know like graffiti artists tag their work ^^

Also to note that if during that final conversation (after gaining maximum affinity ) with him -- He gets noticeably upset/angry that you don't believe him and say yeah it was all a lie. He doesn't do that for any other time you talk to him after gaining some affinity .

I love how fallout 4 is a massive slaughter regardless of which side you choose and there’s typically a dialog your character can say to companions or some other shit maybe and it goes something along the lines of “y-you killed someone.”

During Deacons final heart to heart that "You are carrying too much and can not run !" Hit different...

I just feel like it was a right time right place scenario. Deacon was the information man, it would make sense for him to be at 111 if they had some sort of info on activity. He happens to see a single vault dweller leave and scamper out into the wastes screaming "SEAN?! SEAN?! WHERE ARE YOU?!". That obviously interests Deacon so he goes to watch and see how long they will survive. By his surprise the vault dweller is very skilled and handy, crafting armor and weapons, slaying anything in their way including a death claw. He overhears you talking to Preston and shoots up to diamond city to wait for you. On top of all of that the vault dweller would be easy to mold/manipulate as they were new to the wasteland.

Just had a thought. Do the synths of the institute know about Shaun? Like they call him Father, but do they know he's from Vault 111? Do they know Kellogg left one of Shaun's biological parents alive in the Vault? If so... Is it possible that one of the escaped synths told Deacon in an offhand remark about who Shaun is and where he's from?

If you pass 3 speech checks , when you enter the railroad for the first time, he tells you he has been spying on you

Imagine investigating deacon’s stalking habits for so long you end up being the stalker

Bit late but “wonderer” is not just what deacons secret mission is called, its also what desdamonda calls the player if they are asked to choose their nickname. Suggests deacons mission was finding us

I love your investigations and how thorough you are. You’ve enhanced the story each time you investigate. Thank you!

He is actually John Deacon, bassist of the band Queen. He was kidnapped by the Zetans in 1986 and, after escaping to the commonwealth 280 years later with no memories and having not aged a day, he joined the Railroad in their early years so he can help others break free when they are under pressure.

It is kind of fun how you find pompadour wigs all over the place and then you meet a guy with a pompadour and don't even realize that it's a wig until he mentions it

It's incredible. You'll have to play the game like 10 times in a row to get all the small details and unlock all the gameplay, understand and experience the full potential of this game. This shows how much work Bethesda have put into this. Truly amazing game

Great video. I watched the whole thing with no breaks and it didn't even feel like 55 minutes. Really great work, thanks for the entertainment.

The phrase "Decan Sneakin" Will never not be funny

Imagine Deacon plotting this great plan around us, and then see us siding with the institute

Wow this is well structured and turns something so convoluted into a step by step break down. Awesome video!!!

I gotta thank you for researching and compiling all of this wonderful secret plotline (among the others of course!) because no matter how hard I try, I can't keep all of it together! ❤

_"I always feel like, somebody's watching me!"_

Don’t forget the Institute spy synth “pigeons” that are everywhere.

I just got back into fallout so I’m playing while watching your videos but it’s so hard to play bc your videos are just so interesting that most of the time I just pause the game and watch and not even notice 😂. Love the videos keep it up and your should’ve made it a hour😂😂🥺

The thing with Deacon's tall tales is that basically any of them could be true in the world the games are set in. We have people from the other side of the Atlantic, people being frozen for two centuries in a vault, a connected VR simulation, space stations, real aliens, ancient gods, a robot president, immortals with psychic powers, synths, talking deathclaws, etc Even his fake recall code proves the point that you can't trust people.

It actually opened my mind when he said: "There're other organizations out there. And, in time, I'm sure they're goinng to spoon-feed you their own patented form of bullshit. Ignore the verbage and look at what they're doing. What they're asking you to do." This line is such a life advice it's awesome. As hillarious he is joking around. Deacon learned life lessons the hard way and still jokes around.

Deacon: "Don't you have, like, important things to do." Me after having saved Curie: Nope

Nate, your videos are absolutely wonderful. The biggest compliment I can give is, it didn’t feel like an hour! It felt like 5 mins. TY

Great video! I wanted Deacon to be the reveal of even greater things afoot and the answer to questions not directly answered in dialogue, but F4 still leaves me wanting more:(

The Railroad: Deacon is our best spy. Deacon, posing as anyone at all, ever: Hey there. I sure do love this place I'm in. Doing the thing I'm doing, on this day that it certainly is. Many weather we're having, isn't we? Much weather. My SS, sweating nervously: IS HE, THOUGH?

A note about "Project Wanderer": if the Sole Survivor refuses a code name when joining the Railroad, Desdemona will assign them the name "Wanderer". Further, after you build the signal interceptor and enter the Institute for the first time, Dez will refer to the Sole Survivor again as the Wanderer.

Always thought Deacon really was a Synth. One with Jonny D's memories. Jonny didn't actually survive the attack, at least not intact, and put his memories in a Synth.

My great suspicion is that deacon is a former institute agent who ditched once synths were sentient. Also, with how he completely changes his looks and has been with the railroad so long, it's likely he was in the same experimental program as kellog. All this would explain how he would know to watch for vault 111. Maybe he was even one of the agents there for your wife's death, who knows.

Also maybe something of note for the last point - when you join the Railroad, if you choose to not give yourself a codename, then Desdemona will give you the codename "Wanderer"

Me: Wow, he must've been really well hidd- *hes always wearing his glasses and comes up multiple times, using some of the same dialoge options* Me: well now I feel stupid

My guy, thank you for putting this together. I'm just glad this video ended on a happy note.

“Barbra Deacon” is what the sign looks like. The final letter looks like a cut off n. And where the À would be has a circular area that was not touched. It could be she kept her maiden name and he adopted it in memorial of her. Hence why even pinkie is confused at his name change that being he never told anyone not even those he started everything with. When he makes a connection with the sole survivor due to them travelling together and sharing the same mentality he might have felt true acceptance. With the railroad having to be so secretive to keep themselves safe the sole survivor openly accepts everyone and tries to help the people of the commonwealth.

This one thinks Deacon lies more than M'aiq.

I love how Deacon called the Project "The Wanderer", that was the main song used to promote the game. The first reveal of your character is too that song. Not in-game, but still a nod.

I love the details like during the first interaction if you have done stuff like be the general of the minutemen etc etc deacon will use it as leverage to convince Desdemona instead of saying he "has a good feeling"

Deacon could have just talked to MacCready, since he grew up in the capital wasteland. He would have known all those facts. Project purity, enclave, children of atom, all of it.

Something else is always watching you in FO4 too... The crows... They're all synths and they act as the main eyes and ears of the institute. If you see a crow, blow its head clean off. :)

Deacon is like miaq the liar Nobody knows their backstorys They either lie or dont lie, no one really knows Theyre both awsome and funny characters

The first one I found was on the hill across from the red rocket. My head cannon was that he saw you being put in the vault by institute and probably had info as to what was going on since they have spies in the institute and regularly get synths out. He figured you'd be useful since you're essentially an advanced courser programmed to think they were Shaun's parent. Partly an experiment (Shaun says as much. But not that you're a synth), and partly for revenge against Kellogg, who killed his parents.

this was a masterclass on in game lore hunting. Piper would be proud. Awesome video man!

Deacon is so hardcore he's gotta relive memories of spying on you while he's spying on you.

imagine randomly running into an invisible person that won't attack

When I don’t need the pump up music, these videos are great for my cardio sessions. Thank you Nate ❤️

Deacon actually coming clean about his life story: Meanwhile lofi beats in the backround

My first time in Goodneighbor, Deacon glitched himself into a conversation cutscene. Just... idiotically smiling in my face while I tried to talk to Daisy. I hadn't met him yet and assumed it was a random NPC until literally just now, but it was funny enough that I recorded it. Knowing it was Super Spy Deacon makes it so much better 😭

I love how the player judges deacon for killing someone, when you kill for a living

I love seeing you and oxhorn have noticeably different trains of thought but coming to the same conclusion, very cool

When you show the picture of Barbara's intended grave marker, along with the D, amidst the part that's scratched out, I pretty clearly saw an N, which made me think that her last name might actually have been Barbara Deacon, which would make Johnny D's full name Johnny Deacon. I don't know if that's still true, but that could have been Bethesda's thought process at the time.

“Nobody could open vault 111” Uhhhh... you mean like via the giant red button in the guardhouse nearby?

When you do the mission to retrieve the sword at the smelter, when you return, if you are careful, you can catch Deacon jumping off the roof and walking away. You never get the opportunity to interact with him, but you do see him.

I find that each time you call out Deacon for his lies, there's always an underlying lesson that he teaches you.

If you play the Fusion City mod, it goes into great detail about Deacon and his back story. Granted, its not canon but still explains a lot...spanning from The Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 to The Sole Survivor in Fallout 4.

Fun fact: at the beginning of the railroad finishing tradecraft, when Des tells you to pick a codename. If you refuse she chooses the codename WANDERER for you.

What's really strange is why are we the only ones who can jump? Everyone else can't jump!

And now I have a new rabbit hole to listen to at work and while I'm writing my dnd campaing haven't even looked at your skyrim videos yet because I know I won't get anything done today at work if I do

Sometimes i love having ADHD because whenever you release a new video I can come binge all your older content and it's like watching it for the first time. I also love that you explain stuff that seems basic knowledge about the game, it helps my crappy memory.

I noticed Deacon standing on one of the overpasses watching me as I was walking down a road in FO4VR. It felt pretty strange realizing that I was being watched.

Fun fact: the guy who voiced him is cool as hell.

7:27 -true you may not be able to talk to him, but you can attack him if you get on top of the pod and use a critical hit, this will turn everyone hostile and deacon will jump out of the chamber.

i watched a video awhile back that you covered in like the first 5 minutes, so im hoping this hour long video tells me anything about my favorite (and least well known) character in any video game

Deacon: “Hey, did I ever tell you that I used to be a Bass Player for a rock band? There was three other guys. Roger was our Drummer. Brian was our Guitarist, and Freddie was our lead singer, and also played the piano.”

"When the bombs first started following..." A heat seeking nuke? Oh gods.

This is now one of my designated videos to fall asleep to

Maybe at some point, Deacon found out that Vault 111 was somehow connected to The Institute, and since it was one of the few Commonwealth vaults that hadn't opened up on its own or been opened from the outside, he decided to stalk the outside of it. Eventually, the Sole Survivor escaped while Deacon was out, and when he found this out quickly went to looking for whoever left the Vault. Since the Sole Survivor would tell most people they met that they left Vault 111 and are looking for their son, it wouldn't be hard.

Developers: "So we'll make this character interesting with a bit of complicated backstory, yeah?" Bethesda: "Then cut it out at the end. Yes."

16:55 Deacons iPhone went off

Wow I have over 1000 hrs, about 3 railroad play throughs, and never knew this! Thank u so much, amazing video ❤

This is kinda cool. Deacon to me gives off some major 'Unbreakable Patches' vibes. The guy who's a consistent character from From Softwares' games that seems to have a lot to do with the Sin of Greed. Only with Deacon here it has to do with Truth and Lies. That's honestly kinda cool!

counter theory: Deacon is the real shawn who escaped the Institute.

I think a reason why they called him “Johnny D” Was because when police find a person that has no records of anything they call them “John Doe”.

Great video man! I use to love playing Fallout so much 😂

Actually, on all major events he's there in the background on all of them until you join the railroad and move him to a specific area settlement, apperently he was in Covenant while you do your thing. He then tells desdemona of all these accomplishments. I think Deacon is the real leader

"Deacon was interested is us for a while" yet we couldn't romance him

“Smiley face” 😂 he just signed it with -D

Idk when this video was made but nearly an hour long video on Fallout 4 lore is apparently all I need to sub 😂

Love the outside videos... was really hoping for that... a certain level of calmness occurs while being agitated.