Gather ‘round wastelanders: I've got a public service announcement.
What if I told you there was this “modification” you can get that adds a certain radio station to your PipBoy?
What if I also told you that this station was playing more songs than GNR, Radio New Vegas, and Diamond City Radio combined?
Oh, and what if I was the DJ? Does that sound like something you’d wanna listen to?
"Old World Tunes" provides a 24 hour broadcast for even the most down trodden wanderer.
Billy, Ella, Crosby, The Ink Spots and more are at your disposal.
I'm your chatty disc jokey, the Storyteller, and I'm dedicating this one to you. Personally.
DOWNLOAD LINK IN THE DESCRIPTION
Ours was not the first civilization to dream up the idea of androids so lifelike they can
mimic the complexity humans.
Alchemists, aristocrats and scientists contracted a fever for early robotics.
In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci sketched plans for a mechanical knight in shining armor,
run completely autonomously.
And even earlier than that, 400 years before Christ, the Greeks spun tall tales about Talos,
a giant forged from bronze by Hephaestus, the god of technology.
Yup, the Institute wasn’t the first to dabble in such ideas, but they’re certainly the
first to succeed on such a scale.
Humans are little more than machines really.
We depend on an intricate system of processes to complete even the most menial tasks.
Perhaps it’s this understanding of ourselves that has led some of us to play god; one machine
building another.
The Institute has created three distinct generations of automata that I know of.
The first generation synthetics are rudimentary creations patterned after the human silhouette.
The central processing unit and visual receptors are located inside the head, with the power
cell in the torso; a brain and a heart if you will.
Artificial limbs are actuated by high strength tensile fibers and despite their primitive
appearance, they allow for fine manipulation of small objects.
Of course, as a very old platform, their core software is prone to bugs and unexpected behavior.
The data dump contains plenty of references to pathfinding errors – and the need to
constantly update instructions.
The first generation synth served as the basis of the second generation model – and is
still, in fact, fundamentally the same unit as its predecessor.
However, a host of hardware and software upgrades resulted in a dramatic improvement in performance.
The most apparent is the thick, rubber-like skin covering the second generation synth,
mounted to a fine mesh that mimics the general body and shape of a human.
It protects the internal hardware, allowing the Institute to deploy second gens on the
surface without worrying about the environment as much.
At this stage, second gens are the most plentiful type of synth at the Institute's disposal
– and the backbone of its combat operations; limited in the “brains department”, but
cheap to manufacture and field in large numbers.
Later models get uniforms and armor, older ones get dumped naked with a gun.
Unlike humans or third generation synths, these just keep coming until you dismantle
them permanently.
Third generation synths are the holy grail of android technology; indistinguishable from
that of a human being, inside and outside.
They can pass for regular humans with ease, and short of a DNA analysis compared against
the Institute's own records or dissection of brain tissue, they cannot be separated
from the population.
The synthetic tissue is virtually indistinguishable from human.
Extrapolating from what I know, the Institute isn't growing them, but rather assembling
them.
Prefabricated bones serve as the scaffolding, which is then covered in soft tissue.
The absence of irregularities indicates organs, muscles, tendons, the whole nine yards are
woven onto the skeleton.
Then it's a matter of jumpstarting the body and growing the synthetic skin on top of everything.
Yes EDNA.
And that just creates the canvas.
Judging by the variety in synthetic faces we've encountered, each synth is then processed
and tailored for a specific task.
This includes, but is not limited to facial reconstruction, voice box alteration, changes
in body shape, and of course, reprogramming.
I believe that is the most insidious element of a third generation synth: A body of a human
married to a mind that can be rewritten like a holodisk.
The structure of a synthetic brain appears to be the same as the structure of a human
brain, however, unlike the human brain, the contents of a synth's noggin can be modified
with the use of Institute technologies.
This allows them to create near perfect replicas of humans they abduct, effectively copying
the contents of their neural pathways in addition to whatever programming the Institute sees
fit to add on top of it- a human rights violation if I ever heard one.
Imagine everything that you are dissected, copied, and put to work for the Institute.
And if anything backfires, the synth's mind can be wiped and reprogrammed with new contents.
This is the same process the Railroad uses to disguise synths it takes from the Institute.
Memories of the Institute are removed or otherwise suppressed and replaced with a new identity
– though from what I understand, a synth may refuse this treatment and take their chances
without the benefit of anonymity.
Built into the synth's mind are also emergency failsafes the Institute can fall back on.
With the right phrase, a third generation synth can be rendered inert.
The drawback is that each synth has to be physically present and hear the phrase in
its entirety.
Of course, there's also another solution the Institute can decide to reach for.
Rather than shut down the synth, the Institute can also remotely remove the personality and
all of a synth's safeguards, setting it loose on the unsuspecting populace.
The worst part is that, to my knowledge, there's no way of protecting a synth against this
kind of remote interference.
If an infiltrator were to make his way into the heart of the Prydwen and then be set loose,
I can scarcely imagine the kind of damage it can do to our operations in the Commonwealth.
Coupled with the virtual invisibility of an infiltrator and the ability to replace anyone
in the field, a third generation synth is the worst operational security nightmare in...
Well, in history.
Almost perfect camouflage, superior physique, and seemingly unwavering loyalty.
I'll be honest – even if a synth has gone rogue, there's no way of verifying that.
The Institute has mastered the art of perfidy in warfare and it could be an elaborate ruse.
Which means that should a third generation synth be detected within the Brotherhood of
Steel, even a rogue one...
well, I’d rather not think about it.
You know EDNA, I feel like I'm getting old.
This isn't a war like the ones fought before.
There are no visible frontlines, not like with the Enclave or raiders.
It's enough to make you feel tired.
After all these years of traveling, learning, study, I feel like I don't know anything.
Perhaps that's what enlightenment feels like.
The Commonwealth is beautiful this time of day.
And looking out… you can see the flames of civilization ebbing and flowing.
If the synth creation has taught me something, it’s that you never know when the seed of
an old idea will finally bloom.
Perhaps somewhere out there is the seed of a new nation.
A new Commonwealth.
But that- will have to be a story for another day.