what faction do Imogen and Solomon end up joining? What do they do when they find out who “Father” is?
The minutemen! I finished the game without ending off any other faction.
BOS: Sol Became Paladin
Railroad: Imogen advanced in the ranks and Glory is still alive
Minutemen: Sol and Imo built an army, one settlement at a time.
As for Father... it wasn't easy at all for both of them. They both did their best to stay on the best of terms with him until the end and tried to help understand him and his institute... but they disagreed on almost everything as Shaun was far gone already. They couldn't convince him to leave the commonwealth alone.
This is a snippet of their conversation after they made the decision to destroy the institute and what it stands for.
Truly heartbreaking event for the them, but one thing for sure, they got eachother.
Some incoherent thoughts about reworking the opening of Fallout 4
While I understand that a large majority of the Fallout Fandom finds Fallout 4's story- lacking, I think it has it's merits. That being said I was suddenly struck with Inspiration so: here's how I'd retool Fallout 4's opening tutorial. Read on:
This is no surprise to anyone, the single biggest weakness in Fallout 4's opening is the fact that you are given a spouse and child, as well as a predefined career for your Sole Survivor based on your gender.
In addition to the lack of RPG mechanics, and the voiced protagonist, this all created a beginning that really shoe-horned your player character into being a limited character. (As opposed the Elder Scrolls Method of, 'we don't care who you are as long as you've been arrested')
What I don't think is a weakness however, is the Cryogenic Vault and the Pre-War start. I initially considered having the player character simply wake up from Cryo-Stasis and start the game there, but in practice this disconnected us from the protagonist in a different way. Having lived pre-war without having seen it ourselves would've limited our ability to empathies with their point of view as we wouldn't get to see what they lost. It would be like starting out Fallout 3 as a 19 year old without the formative years in Vault 101.
So instead, I want to try and retool specifically the Pre-War section of the prologue, and riff on Cyberpunk 2077 a little bit to do so:
In my version of events, Fallout 4 begins with 'Boy or Girl' choice from Fallout 3 before we see the screen fade in. The player character walking into the Red Rocket Truck Stop just outside Sanctuary. It's up to the player's imagination what they're doing here, or even if one of the cars parked outside is theirs.
Walking into the little diner, the clerk at the desk will remark that you're a sight for sore eyes, and your character asks if they can use the sink to wash up. The clerk lets you and when you arrive at the bathroom you can begin character customization.
The door is open though so another customer accidentally walks in- but upon realizing your only washing up, hangs in the doorway waiting. This is my clunky way of allowing the player to immersive switch between a afam and afab player character. Per this model though you would 'have' to play as one for a moment until you get to the bathroom. So a good old Fallout 3 style 'are you a boy or a girl' before the scene fades in would also be appropriate.
From there you shapeshift into your appropriate self, and can poke around the diner. As you return, the Vault-Tec Rep is just making himself comfortable on the seat and insists you join him. He will give you the basic propaganda about Vault 111, and despite your protests that you're not applicable, or your not even from this area- he seems insistent that it's fine, there will be time to work out the paperwork. But he seems distinctly nervous about the whole thing.
Once you unfortunately have to relent, you go through SPECIAL assignment and what not. I think having some other NPCs from Sanctuary around would also be nice. Give them a line, a hint of personality.
Now if you want to include Codsworth here, I'd suggest he become the Red Rockets mechanic- and have him serve the coffee before trundling on back to his garage. We can swap him and Dogmeat's locations later so you find Codsworth at the Red Rocket.
Following that train of thought, once the Vault-Tec rep leaves, maybe the player can notice some military vehicles rushing past the Rocket, and Codsworth calls the Clerk- and by extension the player to come and see the TV in the garage.
"We do have coming in... That's um... confirmed reports. I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania... My god."
The clerk ushers you to run to Vault 111, the garage door opens, and the player runs out into the road leading up to Sanctuary. Things go as normal here- the player runs up, encounters the Vault Tec rep again and discovers his eager disposition to get you to sign was because he was nearly at his quota to get a place in the Vault. The fact that you get in instead of him becomes an even more twisted fate.
Of course, we're missing one important thing: Shaun
This little plot device is unfortunately, pretty damn important. Removing the family aspect means that the rest of the game beyond the intro requires some more advanced retooling but here's my stab at it:
When you arrive in the Cryo-Chamber, one pod is just being frozen as you enter the room. You do not get a chance to see the individual inside. When you awake from your cryo sleep early- you are first awoken by the sound of gunshots.
The pod across from you, a friendly NPC you met in the Red Rocket Station- is seemingly deemed unimportant and executed. The mysterious figure goes to open your pod but hesitates- the other figure reminds him that they need a back-up. You get a good look at the assassin, but he leaves without another word.
[ From here I start rambling about how this would pan out in the Main Story at least up to finding Father so- bare with me ]
When you awaken- the entire room had been frozen by leaking cryogenics- so the twist about how long has passed remains in tact. The only one not accounted for, is the open Cryo-Pod at the end of the hall, the first one you saw when you arrived in the Vault.
Following along through the vault, you can now find Terminal Entries, left behind by this mysterious other survivor, who we will call Shaun for the sake of giving him a name. He wasn't taken by the assassins seemingly- he got out at some other point. This begs further questions- Who was this Shaun? Did he escape before or after the assassins came through? How did he escape? Why did the Assassins leave you alive?
So now instead of the plot being 'find my son', the plot instead becomes 'find the only other pre-war survivor' and while a potentially intriguing plot line, it also means that this is a story that the player can fully ignore it if they so choose, allowing them to spend 50 hours on settlement building without damaging the immersion too much.
Furthermore, by following a breadcrumb trail of terminals left by Shaun, we can hear about his troubles and how he survived, and what he misses about before the war. It gives us a reason to connect to this figure, and takes advantage of one of Bethesda's strengths: environmental storytelling. This character could almost become like Randall Clark. A deep, full character that we want to find because we actually can get to know him. Maybe we get some teases that he's not in the best health, and we worry we might only ever find a corpse.
Following his trail to Diamond City can still point us to Nick, and from our description Nick can identify Kellogg. With this new plotline we don't have to specifically be wanting to track Kellogg down because we want to find Shaun, maybe we want to avenge the people he murdered in the Vault, maybe we can reason with him or maybe even befriend him. Like Benny, the motivation for tracking down the Act 1 Antagonist dosen't have to be so black and white.
From Kellogg we find out that the Institute 'got' Shaun at some point. And he can confirm that Shaun escaped before Kellogg got to the Vault. The plot progresses as normal and we find what we assume to be Shaun, an adult man who's a little confused. Only having his pre-war memories. Before we meet the real Shaun, the grizzled overseer of the Institute.
This Shaun, just Director Shaun, not Father, was 'rescued' from the Surface by the Institute, wanting to examine a pre-war specimen. Through his cunning he worked his way to the top. Now, with his disdain for the wasteland curated by his time there, he can have real, tangible intent. He dosen't want to 'save' the Wasteland he wants to use it. Take the little it has to offer and reshape it in the Institutes image. His experience can directly parallel your own, or juxtapose it depending on how you choose to perceive the wasteland!
I could go into my ideas about how to reshape the Institute questline, maybe by using a GECK but I originally intended to only resculpt the Pre-War section. The creation of Shaun obviously meant I had to go into the main game itself some so, I hope this was at least somewhat engaging!
Did you know Shaun always takes after his surviving parent? He always has his mother's eye shape and his father's eye color, but his mouth and nose mimic the Sole Survivor's.
