Fallout 4: Piecing Together The History Of The Institute

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Of the four main factions in that the sole survivor can side with, the Institute is easily the most mysterious and malicious. The underground technocratic organization seeks to maintain control and surveillance of the Commonwealth wasteland, and does so mainly through the deployment of humanoid robots known as «synths.» Even for players that wish to join the Institute, they serve as the primary antagonists for the game's first act, beingthe group responsible for the kidnapping of the sole survivor's son.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Fallout 4.

The Institute is feared and villainized by the majority of folks in the Commonwealth, but few know anything about the group's members or its history. The game itself is shy on details about the Institute's past, especially during the first act, reflective of the organization's clandestine nature. But it is possible to piece together the information players can acquire to create a rough timeline of the Institute's activities in the Commonwealth,from before the Great War and up to the point that the Sole Survivor enters their facility.

The Institute's existence technically predates the nuclear war that destroyed the world, having been built under the Commonwealth Institute of Technology before 2077. It was originally intended as an underground research facility housing an experimental nuclear reactor, hence the incredibly advanced architecture the Institute lives in compared to everything above ground. But the group wasn't officially created until the year 2110, more than thirty years after the bombs dropped, when the children of the original C.I.T. survivors banded together under that name.

To join one of Fallout 4's carefully crafted factions comes with pros and cons, which makes deciding one of the game's most important questions.

The goal of the group was to continue the scientific discovery and advancement the college above them had focused on before, and mainly did so byworking on creating the first