avatar_mandru

FO4 FAr Harbor DLC dissapointment

Started by mandru, December 18, 2016, 11:04:20 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

mandru

Over all I've enjoyed the game content for Far Harbor and as I've stated elsewhere I've kept Nick Valentine with me throughout.

There's been a lot of specific dialog that wouldn't have made as much sense if it had been any other companion than Nick providing the lines.  Though I do suspect there would have been other amusing lines of dialog from other companions that I've missed by sticking with Nick steadfastly.  My typical play style throughout the game play in the Commonwealth has been as a lone wandered so that I only had to protect myself.

To avoid possible spoilers I'll hide what I would have liked to happen in Far Harbor.
Spoiler: ShowHide


My disappointment stems from an option not made available that I realized was possible through the discovery of Acadia, it's synth inhabitants, and technology they reveal they have access to.

First it is learned that the leader of Far Harbor (Avery) is actually a synth (placed by DiMA) substituting for a former town inhabitant to have influence there and secondly a replacement for the High Inquisitor for the Children of Atom is substituted (again by DiMA) with yet another synth who will promote peace with the rest of the islanders if you follow the story line arc where you kill or convince the original to flee the Nucleus and the islands altogether

Clearly the synths of Acadia have the ability to alter or correct the appearance of one of their own by cosmetic re-skinning.

Even beyond those two examples there was one of the Acadia inhabitants who while engaged in a mission for DiMA piloting a boat had a catastrophic accident and she was grievously injured.  When found she was off line and so near death with massive burns and badly damaged systems the only way for Dima and the Science staff to save her was with a complete restructuring of her physical mechanics.  But deeply etched memories of the extreme agony from her injuries while the recovery team was trying to bring her around would cause a cascade failure shutting her down again.

Knowing it was against the core beliefs of Acadia's Free Will and Autonomous Rights of resident synths it was deemed that because of her physical inability to grant permission they proceed with a mind wipe.  Because she was a treasured member of a community who was faced with losing her altogether they chose take this potentially immoral action of performing the mind wipe and then reseeded her with new memories and a personality but hid those facts from her I guess in an attempt to kick their sins against her under the carpet.  This was one of several of DiMA's confrontations and how he handled the "The ends justify the means" conundrum which left DiMA so conflicted that he actually removed these memories of his unsettling decisions to a security protected computer in a location he eventually turned over to be a home base for the Children of Atom.   

Unfortunately the now physically restored woman could find no relief from the nagging migraine headaches she suffered from a botched mind wipe as traces of agony from her injuries incessantly seeped back into her subconscious awareness all while having no understanding of the reasons for her ongoing malady.   (I wasn't too satisfied with the outcome I arrived at in trying to help her as even the thought of killing her would have seemed kinder but in turn would have turned Acadia against me when I needed them to achieve peace for every one)  :(

But a reskin for Nick would not have carried those risks.

With the ability to re-skin a synth it bugged me that it was never offered to Nick to restore his physical appearance and maybe restore his right hand that has been completely degloved of flesh.

I know Nick would have never wanted to pass as human.  It was (I suspect) his willingness help others and to stand out as being different having nothing to hide that gained him the trust of the inhabitants of Diamond City.  He never pretended to be anything other than what he was and earned a good reputation of being reliable.

Whether he refused in full or accepted some portion of a reskin I still think DiMA should have offered it.

I would have loved to see the reaction of Nick's adoring secretary when returning Nick back to his office in restored condition.  Even if Nick limited the process of resurfacing his exposed metal fingers into a caressing right hand and I know (from earlier story line) the kindly pastor at the church in Diamond City would have been delighted to conduct a synth groom/human woman wedding for all of the city's inhabitants to see.

"Damn it, I'm a sentimental (semi-mental?) old romantic and I can't help that I like to see good folk who deserve finding happiness.  ^-^


I've seen a mod (Nexus I believe it was) that gives Nick a decent reskin but it wouldn't carry the fun of the homecoming scene I would have liked to have seen.

- mandru
Gramma said "Never turn your back 'till you've cut their heads off"

Dweller_Benthos

The thing is, Nick and Dima are gen 2 synths, and I believe the only two gen 2 synths ever created. The gen 1 synths you see all over are the earliest models and only passing humanoid. Nick and Dima could probably pass as human as long as they weren't in close contact with someone, when they were brand new. The rest of the synths are gen 3, or artificial human. There is no way to tell they are not human except to kill them and see if they have a synth component on them. Advanced imaging techniques like MRI probably don't exist anymore, but that would probably have been a way to figure out who is a synth and who isn't.

So, the "reprogrammed" synths used in Far Harbor are gen 3 synths who have essentially had plastic surgery to look like someone else. Being synths, this is probably easier to do than on a human, since gen 3 synths are essentially 3D printed with organic materials. Fixing Nick to look normal again would probably be possible, but since Dima never bothered to fix his looks, maybe it's not possible with the gen 2 synths, but you'd think getting whatever covering they used for their artificial skin wouldn't be that hard. But the Institute abandoned the gen 2 research once the gen 3 systems came on line and just didn't care anymore about the gen 2's. They keep the gen 1's around just for menial labor I guess.

Which brings me to my main beef with the Institute, they had autonomous humanoid robots in the gen 1's that can pretty much do anything, and can take over all the menial and dangerous jobs, so why bother going so far as to make the gen 2 and even gen 3 synths? And they never explain why they think the gen 3 synths are mankind's best hope for survival, how is that? Did they plan on replacing everyone with synths where they can live a long time (forever?) and more importantly, be controlled by the Institute? It was just dumb and not explained, so I nuked them.
"You've read it, you can't un-read it."
D_B

PZ


mandru

I understand that I'm prying deeper into the theory of the game than the developers anticipated.  There's lots of little loose ends overlooked by the script writers.

Spoiler: ShowHide


Things like, why weren't the memories and identity of Father (the adult Shawn) copied and pasted into any number of gen 3 synths (to make sure they got it right) so as to preserve his skills as the leader of that community?

But then Humanity forbid that the Institute should be led by a mere synth, right?  ;)

I know I'm a nuisance when it comes to overlooked plot holes.  It always annoyed me in Star Trek series that no one ever figured out that by running a teleport scan using each of the crew member's communicator (original) or comm badge (the sequels) to locate them once or twice a day (overwriting the individual's old scan file each time) and then keeping a fresh (retrieve copy) on hand to be able to resurrect a dead crew mate or restore someone who'd encountered a catastrophic crippling injury.  Then if someone actually teleported at some point through the day (say on departure or return from an away mission) that scan would become the automatic default save for that crew member in an emergency.  I know it would have made huge difference to all those poor damn lost redshirts!

This process would have also provided a save copy of Tasha Yar so we would have been spared that maudlin funeral scene.  >:D



I think cosmetic repairs for DiMA would have been hampered by the protruding external cybernetic additions to increase his effectiveness as leader of Acadia so it was not a personal concern for him.  It's possible that as his processing capacities were expanded he probably left the control hub less and less as witnessed that he never strayed too far from his interface lounge.

I'd noticed that among all of the Gen 3 synths of Acadia they all appeared human in spite of the stories of persecution they had come under before finding their way to Acadia.  Not one of them is missing a limb or bearing disfigurements from their hardships.  So the possibility of compensating repair is either implied or more likely overlooked by the game developers.

From what I could make out of the Institute's production process of the gen 3 synths it appeared the new synths were knitted together from the cellular level up through several steps to eliminate any possibility of detection from a casual inspection or even if in case of an injury a non-Institute physician examining them and attended to their wounds.

Gen 3 synths eat, they drink, and even smoke which makes me wonder if the synth component found in the inventories of eliminated settlement synth infiltrators is something akin to the Mr Fusion power plant the future Doc Brown used to power his flying Delorean.  ^-^

As you pointed out D_B there may have been an incompatibility issue between the gen 2 and gen 3 synth's physical characteristics but I still think the offer of a re-skin for Nick (but not his eyes, they're too cool to mess with  :-D ) from his brother DiMA would have been a fitting reward for his participation in the Far Harbor DLC.


- mandru
Gramma said "Never turn your back 'till you've cut their heads off"

Dweller_Benthos

Right, it seems that would have been a nice side mission, even, getting the materials needed to fix Nick's face.

As for the transporter in Star Trek, exactly, why do they even need a doctor? I mean one who's not just a specialized transporter technician? I think they even did that once, someone had some disease and they ran them through the transporter with some of their original DNA thrown in and it cured them.
"You've read it, you can't un-read it."
D_B

fragger

Just to be a boring killjoy for a moment, the whole concept of teleportation in the original Star Trek TV series was something of a deus ex machina, driven by monetary and time constraints. The producers didn't have enough of either to film additional shuttle scenes such as models taking off, landing and docking and so on (although they did use a shuttle in some episodes, but you never saw it land on, or take off from, a planet. I seem to recall there was a sequence where you saw it entering the Enterprise's shuttle bay though). The teleporting became such an entrenched part of Trek lore (and such a handy get-out-of-trouble device) that it was carried over into the later films and next-gen shows.

In "reality", energizing would probably be an excruciating process. You're essentially being disintegrated and turned into energy, "beamed" to a destination, then reconstituted back into matter. That's gotta hurt... Also, the computational power required would be immense as the correct relative location and placement of every sub-atomic particle that makes up your body would have to be stored in memory - not to mention the inherent difficulties of turning the energy not just back into matter, but into the correct configurations of the matter - types of atoms, arrangements of those atoms into the correct molecular structures, etc. They also somehow manage to "beam" people to and from places where there is no teleportation apparatus, such as the surface of some barren or uninhabited planet, so the disintegrating and reconstituting gets done from an orbital distance. How that is accomplished is anyone's guess ????

If any kind of teleportation is possible, it will more likely involve some esoteric trick of quantum entanglement, not physical disintegration and reintegration.

But what the heck, it's all in the name of entertainment :-()

[/killjoy] Please continue, gentlemen

Art Blade

[titlebar]Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.[/titlebar]What doesn't kill us, makes us weirder.

Dweller_Benthos

Thanks, Fragger, my joy is sufficiently killed, and so close to Christmas too, you monster!

But yeah, that type of disintegration/reintegration would not only require an almost Godly amount of computer storage space, but and enormous amount of energy, you know, E=MC2 and all that. Then there's the deal that you haven't actually transported anything, you've made a copy of something, then destroyed the original and made a duplicate somewhere else. The series "Enterprise" was set earlier in the Star Trek timeline where transporters hadn't been perfected enough for human travel yet, and they had to use shuttles and such, but even then, they used it to "cop out" and get themselves out of a serious jam because there was no other way out.
"You've read it, you can't un-read it."
D_B

Art Blade

[titlebar]Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.[/titlebar]What doesn't kill us, makes us weirder.

PZ

 :laugh: :-X

I love conversations like this  :-()

fragger

 :laugh:


And the more the Grinch thought of this Who-Christmas-Sing,
The more the Grinch thought, "I must stop this whole thing!
"Why, for fifty-three years I've put up with it now!
"I MUST stop this Christmas from coming!
                                                                             ...But HOW?"

mandru

Yes. YES!  When I read those words I hear them in my head as narrated by Boris Karloff from the now iconic 1966 TV special.  :laugh:
- mandru
Gramma said "Never turn your back 'till you've cut their heads off"

PZ

 :laugh:  I love that program! (Charlie Brown too)

🡱 🡳