@@anareel4562 the main reason I liked fallout 4 in the first place was its writing. anyways just remember that not being able to address stuff to a faction isn't new. you couldn't confront Ceaser about the legion's sexism. also, their are other things you can call out the institute for like their use of Kellog and whatnot.
@@robertdowling4673 what writing? It's literally the same as Fo3 with more than half the main quest removed, it's poor and lazy writing. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing the game, the writing just isn't there.
@@anareel4562 I liked the companions, and story, and its ending had me thinking for a long time. its the only fallout game in which I had that experience. But ya I personally can't enjoy games without their writing. if you can good on you but i personally can't
Hi, Ox! In 2016, I moved to Portugal for my husband's job. I was a stranger in a strange land, not speaking the language, having no friends over there. I had never played Fallout, but I saw some of your videos in my recommended section. I grew up watching stuff like Red Snapper and The Great Kodo, so I thought I'd like these too. With your videos, I fell down a rabbit hole, inhaling all the lore you shared, a complete stranger to Fallout but soon feeling like an expert. Every day for 3 months, I'd make myself lunch and put one of these videos on. Thanks for the company.
This man is excellent at sharing everything as if you're playing the game without the frustrations of dying when you haven't saved in 3 hours. I hope you enjoy your time in Portugal! You'll be a native in no time!
I too am a Cat person but be fair. It’s not like the Institute killed them on purpose. They just wanted something to calm and comfort the test subjects. I’m sure once they started killing the Cats the scientists stopped sending them.
I don't even like cats, but I still don't think anyone should kill or hurt them its just not my pet of choice. I still hated them over these two, lol 😂
Thanks for these lore videos. I listen to them at work and it's like you're right there telling me about Fallout while I work. I'm a high school custodian and from about 6pm to 9 I'm by myself on the far end of the building cleaning out my rooms nightly.
Wow what a small world I am also a high school custodian and from about 6pm to 9 I am also by myself on the far end of the building cleaning out my rooms nightly
The Virgil quest had to have had some kind of time restraint or something, the fact that you can't invite him to a settlement or back to the institute if you're the director is such a missed opportunity. I always feel bad for him after I cure him, because I basically just have to abandon him in the Glowing Sea.
Yeah. The man is brilliant. I would have loved to be able to invite him back to my reformed Institute. Its an incredible waste that his mind is left in that cave to work alone with practically nothing.
Poor Virgil, I would've liked the option (as the Minutemen's General) to recruit him for one of my settlements after you defeat the Institute. He could be a tier-four doctor for example.
Or, if you go with the BoS, convince him to join the Brotherhood. They could use his knowledge of the Institute and FEV. He may not be in favor of nuking the place, but he certainly isn't a friend of the Institute.
If you complete the mission 'From Within' by giving Li Virgil's holotape, spare him during 'A loose end', and then go ahead and cure him, he can write a note and ask you to give it to her.
I forgot to when the Prydwen went down so now it's forever on my Pip-Boy and the marker is underneath the rubble. Also I finished Pull The Plug and even went back to talk to Sully Mathis after it was done but after that he died amd the quest is still active lol this is on my lvl 152 Institute build
My theory why father kept the FEV program going is his "situation", he hoped for a cure from the program. When Virgil thrashed the lab, he was forced to enact plan B, getting the player out of the vault and cutting loose ends.
I like your theory of the color-conundrum for Virgil's lab coat. And in a sense, if "SRB" originally stood for "Subject Reclamation Bureau", then the Institute wouldn't have even needed to change the division's abbreviated designation within their files. The "R" in "SRB" could potentially have also stood for "Recovery", "Retention" (leaving only the "S" to be changed), or even "Reception". Personally, I think "Subject Reception Board" has the best possibility for the division's original designation, as it sounds just morally ambiguous enough that it could be easily mistaken for something relatively innocent by those who knew nothing of the division's actual activities.
I though the FEV lab looked like it is in a vault built underneath the original institute building. That area looks more like the vaults. I think it was a vault that they upgraded into what the institute is today.
Makes me think of that conversation you have with Father on top of CIT, where he talks about how bad the world above ground is, when he has had a direct impact on it. It's too bad Father can't be a companion so you can take him out to one of the heavily populated super mutant areas so he can wade through the meat bags himself.
So like why didn't the institute also take everyone in vault 111? I know sean was a baby but imagine all the tests you could run on those people who haven't had radiation
I love Fallout 4 so much. One of the reasons I enjoy your videos so much, is because you do too. Super fans know super fans. Your content is top notch because you love this stuff as much as we do, if not more. You dig deeper because you want to know every detail... and that makes your coverage of topics remarkably refreshing. Thank you sir.
Consider that the SRB has always and still is maintaining the FEV experiment. It's just at the "making perfect vat grown humans and telling them they're robots" phase.
If I’m understanding correctly, The Institute is responsible for all the super mutants in the commonwealth. Therefore, there should be a finite number of them. And since we don’t find centaurs or anything from previous games related to FEV, the commonwealth must be geographically isolated somehow. Which means, there is a finite number of super mutants and behemoths in the common wealth. Ad victoriam
I remember during my first playthrough, I was unsure who I was going to side with end-game. I was considering the institute right up to when I discovered all the cats in the FEV Lab. As a huge animal lover, that's where I drew the line!
I think it would’ve been really cool if they did something more with Virgil. Like it would be super cool if you could ask him to join one of the other 3 factions so he has more resources to work on the FEV cure. He could also have a unique interaction with Madison li if you recruited her to the brotherhood
Would’ve been cool if the minutemen invited him since he worked on fev and bio science to make perfect crops that they can roll out to other settlements
My assumption is that in later games we might find his future apprentice, on a quest to [perfect] the cure. At least that would be something. Collect Some mutant boss dna and have the out come be horrific for the cure or whatever.
I usually do this quest at higher level so it's a legendary. Good spot for farming, but it's a pain to kill. Plus there's the final nuke blast because it's a legendary robot. There's almost no where in the lab area where it spawns to escape the explosion.
You would think that Curie, as someone with literal centuries of experience with viruses, would have some special comments with talking with Virgil. Or does she? I never tried it.
As I recall she loves it when you help him, and is impressed with the results. She comments about wanting to talk to him about stuff but nothing comes of it.
Fun fact for those who play Fallout 76: if you're going by the timeline of when the institute was created type of thing. we the players of Fallout 76 would be meeting gen one institute synth more or less from my understanding of something I read recently whenever the game developers decide to put it into the game.
I think Virgil just grabbed whatever lab coat he could before escaping in hopes he could get the cure at some point. Also I think trying to work with huge Super Mutant hands on lab equipment with small buttons would be very hard. You could press the wrong button by mistake easily and have dire consequences because of it.
Volkert may have worked in the fev lab at one point. After they shut down the program after the Virgil incident he just transferred to another position
I've never gone down that dialogue tree with Virgil. Nor have I ever killed him for the Brotherhood. My conscience always dictates that I just hand over the serum.
I love that there is a resurgence in fallout 4 interest as people play it while they wait for Starfield. Lots of other youtubers look like they are coming back to it to.
A few pointers I wanted to make. First off, if I recall, isn't Virgil Bioscience? If I remember correctly, he says when you first ask him for help getting into the Institute that his specialty was Bio Science - so he's not likely working in Advanced Systems or Robotics. Also, what he wears as a super mutant doesn't look like a lab coat, but rather like one of those Institute Jumpsuits worn by people in the Institute who aren't scientists. I suspect he wasn't wearing it when he transformed, but rather it was probably all he had on him when he fled, and he had to make some adjustments to it to make it fit, though that's just guesswork on my part. Second, I don't think the FEV lab is a BioScience project - rather, I think it is a collaborative, top-secret effort between BioScience and SRB who are basically the black ops team of the Institute. If you investigate SRB, you will even find a terminal where Father tells them not to divulge to anyone what the resources they obtain are used for - possibly referring not just to things like materials and power, but also perhaps test subjects and more. The FEV lab fell under the perview of SRB in some capacity, this we know as Zimmer previously oversaw the projects (and may very well still do so, considering that Ayo is only the acting director of SRB in the absence of Dr. Zimmer). The FEV project seems to be a secret from just about all of the Institute, who may very well believe it's mostly used for crops and plants as it had been before they began experimenting on human test subjects. The reason I think this is that Dr. Li complains at one point that she dislikes the lack of transparency between departments, and if you show Dr. Li evidence of what occurred in the FEV lab, she decides to leave the Institute. For the most part, it seems most of the horrible stuff that the Institute does is kept secret from the rest of the scientists, with only Father, SRB, and a few collaborators from other departments are ever made aware of.
Hey, just a thought here but you guys know about the lone wanderer being a synth right? What if, instead of us being a synth, what if youre actually a tagged FEV superhuman. Explains why Father didnt want to turn off the FEV experiments. The institute also asks for other materials. Shaun for the synths and the lone wanderer for FEV-perfected supermutants that can technically be controlled by the Institute
Honestly of all the weak points in the Institute's writing the FEV plot is the one that frustratingly bad. 1. they magically had simples of the goverment top secret FEV beforehand for "reasons" 2. the project became redundant after gen 3 synths were made but kept going for "reasons" 3. Despite their power supply being the defining conflict of their story (to the point that a whole settlement was wiped out over pre-war data) they kept teleporting mutants out into the wasteland which is said to draw a lot of power for "reasons" and so on. end of the day the FEV really does just feel so forced, just there for Godd to have his iconic super mutants in the game and for the BOS to be able to recruit Li in their storyline.
i figured Virgil seemingly said the contradicting points about him being able to create a cure simply out of an elated state of emotion. He's just so happy he's found his cure, feeling damn near unstoppable. The fact that all of this actually worked probably got him all giddy. Likewise, when you first meet him he's still feeling rather down about being stuck as a Super Mutant, so likewise he's probably felt like he's unable to do much of anything with what little he has. In spite of being a man of science and logic, he's still got these things called emotions. What you call a lore inconsistency, I call an act of unreliable narration driven by emotion.
I thought about how virgil escaped from the lab at one point during exploration and came with the idea he put himself inside a vat, let it fill up with FEV turning himself into a mutant or at least started the transition and used the chair to smash his way out as he couldn't open it from the inside, he then went through the lab fighting synths because a broken vat would set an alarm off in the SRB causing a security team to check it out. He then proceeded through to the old robotics which is in bioscience and leads to the teleporter and their relayed to the glowing sea and went into hiding.
I think it would be basically the same as the intelligent Super Mutants created by the Master. They would retain their intelligence, but they would still be physically changed.
In regards to Doctor Zimmer's search for a synth in the Capitol Wasteland. Do you think it's possible, that the synth in question, would later become Paladin Danse? 🤔
16:26 That makes sense given the items on the lockers, but really doesn't make sense to the nature of Synth Retention or the critical fact that Virgil, who we know for a fact worked in the FEV lab, was Bioscience. If maybe Synth Retention took over the remains of the FEV lab in its capacity as the Secret Police after Virgil escaped this could be explained, but it sounds like Zimmer was in charge BEFORE Virgil hulked out of there so that unfortunately doesn't explain things.
I can definitely see with those black labcoats maybe being a more spread out lab worker uniform that isnt tied specifically to the institute wings since when it started it may have not had that much for making those. Dunno. My best guess.
Oxhorn my guy I’ve watched your videos since the start I was literally in middle school watching your scotch and smoke rings at your old house now I’m a full grown person on my own and your videos are my religion
38:14 “that’s it?” If I remember correctly I think that was my exact reaction lol 😂. Also I don’t understand how curing FEV is a lore break. Even before the fourth game came out, I always expected that at some point Bethesda or obsidian would create a story that would involve curing this virus. The institute has the most intelligent scientists in America and it doesn’t surprise me that one of them could find a cure for it.
gods that assaultron in the storage room scared me to death the first time i encountered it. now i found a two shot gauss rifle very little scares me anymore.
Im currently working the 3 way ending (BOS, Minutemen, Railroad) and Sim Settlements 2. It's a fun run and juggling the groups AND the new mass content Kinggath and crew have given us it a blast and I'm looking forwerd to having all the factions to help with the conflicts to come. I cant recommend this enough to any one that hasn't checked it all out. See Sims Settlements 2 and its 3 chapters. Altogether it adds nearly 3 times the play content. including a lot a great voice acting and new story arcs.
To think about it, isn't killing Vigil objectively the better the choice? I mean sure the FEV works but what now? He's now a human trapped in the middle of the Glowing Sea. He literally can't leave the cave at all now or the rads will kill him. And even if some of the side effects he still has includes immunity to rads, as a Super Mutant he could fight off Deathclaws, Radscorpians and the such. As a human, all these things will kill him now. It seems like giving him the FEV is actually the worst choice for him.
@@jennott1703 Kinda makes you wonder if that's why Bethesda made it so you need to kill him to get the legendary gun whereas if you cure him you only get some random joke and armour for Strong. Could Bethesda be saying that killing Vigil is the right choice?
@@justinlynch3 Think to me killing him is worse. Imo letting him die would be better than killing him yourself, and before you say it, I don't think that's a mercy kill like harrold or the people in the simulation of tranquility lane in fallout 3 but apparently Bethesda disagrees ig
I've finished the game about 5 times now but never saw Virgil back in his human form somehow. Most factions want him dead in the first place. Anyway, you have good eye for the detail Ox, I'm learning so much more about the lore of the fallout universe thanks to your work. I love it!
@@christopherconard2831 the problem is that Gabriel becoming a raider isn't part of being a Synth. It's part of human nature. Humans can become raiders, or average citizens, or brotherhood paladins, or railroad agents. And so can synths once they have a free will. Gabriel is proof of Railroad not understanding what they're doing. Gabriel is the only confirmed raider out of all the freed synths. Looks like a pretty good track record to me
Thank you for these videos. I’m a huge fallout fan and lately I’ve been losing interest in my other shows and channels. These videos are like a cross between audiobooks and play throughs. I fall asleep, drive to/for work, eat food, just about everything I do I like to play these in the background or in my headphones! Thank you so much!!
I admire your dedication and ability to image connections (here: in regards of the lab cost colors) I personally think that Okhams Razor is at work here - a design overlook on the side of Bethesda
Why would Vergil have been in this Tube? That makes 0 Sense. "Lets put myself open on Display as I plot to escape" There is also 0 Reason to assume that Gen 3 Synths are based on a FEV-infused Human. The only Hint could be, that the Coursers are particularly ugly. But most Synths are skinny.
You made another video on the FEV lab a few years ago, didn't you? I assume this one has more information due to a longer run time, but I'm curious about your decision to cover it again. I don't mean this from a trolling or mean place, I promise XD
This explains why Gen3 synths, despite having reproductive organs, are unable to bear children similar to the first generation super mutants, because both are exposed to FEV.
@@belisarian6429 Right, I completely forgot about deathclaw and such. Then maybe it's something to do with human DNA that FEV makes them infertile? But what the hell. It's up for Bethesda to decide, not actual science.
@@brownjonny2230 Well issue with FEV is that there are different strains of it and it behaves differently under different circumstances (prewar human-> smart mutant, radiation polluted human-> dumb mutant). So it could be that Deathclaws mutated under different circumstances, also maybe not all supermutants are infertile and its just issue that infertile mutants are produced from vats which makes mixed population. (and with Deathclaw population, who are no longer produced in vats, only offspring of ones who could reproduce persevered ) Also deathclaws and supermutants are mutated in different way, Deathclaws are symetrical, ordered and look much more "natural" then Supermutants who sometimes look like ridden with tumors or something, its like FEV fits Deathclaws better. Btw of course its up to Bethesda to decide, but its fun to theorize, which is why I like it more when they keep these things more vague, gives more room for imagination (like smart Deathclaws maybe still live etc.)
Fallout 4 has a lot of missteps in the story department and most have to do with The Institute. However, the reveal of the FEV Lab is impressive. You see, holding cells? Strange but The Institute does kidnap people, at least that's the story. You open a very nondescript door and are greeted with a Super Mutant in a tank, an intense light burning brightly. What?! Were they experimenting on the Super Mutants? And the perfect part is reading what happened to the subjects. "Out of control growth, terminated." "Cognitive decline typical of FEV exposure, discarded." 'Discarded?' You go to the next entry: "subject experienced substantial growth while maintaining higher brain function, tagged and discarded." "My God... not only does The Institute kidnap and replaced people, they actively caused a central threat to the Commonwealth..." It is one of the few times in the entire game where a subtle touch was used very well. You don't need Preston saying "well garsh, they are sure bad people!" and the terminal entries are dry, scientific, perfectly in sync with a bunch apathetic eggheads. The only thing that holds this part of the story back is that the player cannot confront, anyone, about the lab. It'd be like if your bank's company handbook was The Turner Diaries; you WOULD have a few questions...
Writing this at 15:00 but I feel like the reason the fev program was switched to synth retention is because theyd send courses out to retrieve people to test on. Just my theory 😁
synths are basically cyborgs. thats why i think the institute hated kellog so much. He was a living breathing contradiction to their vision of a perfect human. and he was outliving them. When a cyborg's only "part" is a small 'synth componet' (control module?) where do we draw the line at human or machine. is it simply a human, being controlled by a machine, or is it a machine hitching a ride on a human brain? Synths left to their own devices will develop self-awareness, which is seen as a defect by the SRB. The only way to repair it is with a "mind wipe". With this in mind I believe the Railroad is more right than they know. Synths are humans, created by man and machine, controlled by both their own minds and a machine mind. which is further controlled by the Institute. Take away the synth componet, or the institute's ability to control it, and you have Kellog.
That bloody Assaultron nearly kicks your ass, no matter what faction you're aligned with, or whatever your level is. Found the best way to deal with it any time is to use EMP mines and grenades, and blast it with a shotgun
It seems there is a lot of confusion about the Lab coat colors. The institute must have changed the assignment of them at least once or twice. That OR the color represents the status on the hierarchy - either now or back then. I am going full theory here. The color of the FEV scientists was Red. Black was reserved for Lead Scientists. After the incident, when the lab closed down, the remaining scientists were recolored black to cover up the FEV incident. The remaining (stored) red coats got unused. When the FEV research got (kinda?) merged with synths technology, Red was reintroduced for Robotics, but the black coats got reassigned to SRB. Just a theory on my end, which makes sense to me.
I wish you could used the serum or for it to have a use maybe placing it in strongs inventory does something maybe gives him a perk but Virgil should of had a cool ending ONLY if you side with the brotherhood give him the note from Maddison could you potentially get him to join working with neriah I mean there’s already a super mutant there for him to study and after the main quests are done after the institute he should of had unique dialogue just feels like it makes sense
Virgil's only wearing a blue lab coat because he happened across one in someone's dirty laundry on his way to the teleporter as he was transforming while the Institute was distracted by the diversion he made in the FEV lab BOOM! Lab coat and how he got outta there mystery solved!
While it obviously wouldn't be a cure, the VIM! soda from Far Harbor did cure Erickson of being a "dumb" Super Mutant. Even if it's not a legit cure for FEV, it might serve as a cure of Super Mutant unintelligence and hostility.
also if you are going to run with a shotty, make it a sawed off with the calibrated reciever. It's one of the very best weapons in the game for close quarters as it triple crits, even without any legendary perk. combo blitz for covering distance with a sawed off shotty to deliver close range crits and you make yourself a highly effective, highly mobile killing machine.
It's a shame there isn't the option for Virgil to have some radiant quests afterwards. It would make sense - he needs stuff for his research... and frankly, he direly needs a hazmat suit... or relocate to another settlement - outside the Glowing Sea alltogether...
I’m just so dumbfounded that you can’t confront Shaun about this. Or really, anyone in the Institute.
Poor writing
@@anareel4562 sadly
@@anareel4562 the main reason I liked fallout 4 in the first place was its writing. anyways just remember that not being able to address stuff to a faction isn't new. you couldn't confront Ceaser about the legion's sexism. also, their are other things you can call out the institute for like their use of Kellog and whatnot.
@@robertdowling4673 what writing? It's literally the same as Fo3 with more than half the main quest removed, it's poor and lazy writing. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing the game, the writing just isn't there.
@@anareel4562 I liked the companions, and story, and its ending had me thinking for a long time. its the only fallout game in which I had that experience.
But ya I personally can't enjoy games without their writing. if you can good on you but i personally can't
Hi, Ox! In 2016, I moved to Portugal for my husband's job. I was a stranger in a strange land, not speaking the language, having no friends over there. I had never played Fallout, but I saw some of your videos in my recommended section. I grew up watching stuff like Red Snapper and The Great Kodo, so I thought I'd like these too. With your videos, I fell down a rabbit hole, inhaling all the lore you shared, a complete stranger to Fallout but soon feeling like an expert. Every day for 3 months, I'd make myself lunch and put one of these videos on. Thanks for the company.
This man is excellent at sharing everything as if you're playing the game without the frustrations of dying when you haven't saved in 3 hours. I hope you enjoy your time in Portugal! You'll be a native in no time!
As a portuguese who watches oxhorn since 2017 i hope you are enjoying Portugal and fallout 🇵🇹
Thank you for the wonderful comment!
Hi dear, how is Portugal? Hope I can come
Bem vinda(o) a Portugal c@r@lho
Hope you have been treated well by the rest of my countrymen
Brian Virgil made this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
I hear this in my soul hahaha
I can even hear this in Shaun's voice
With all due respect sir, I'm not Brian Virgil. -Dean Volkert, probably.
😆🤣
Tbh, the dead cats in the lab is what truly turned me against the institute for good and hellbent on their destruction.
I too am a Cat person but be fair. It’s not like the Institute killed them on purpose. They just wanted something to calm and comfort the test subjects. I’m sure once they started killing the Cats the scientists stopped sending them.
@@victimsofthewolf definitely the cats is the deciding factor
I don't even like cats, but I still don't think anyone should kill or hurt them its just not my pet of choice. I still hated them over these two, lol 😂
Thanks for these lore videos. I listen to them at work and it's like you're right there telling me about Fallout while I work. I'm a high school custodian and from about 6pm to 9 I'm by myself on the far end of the building cleaning out my rooms nightly.
Same
Yep, Oxhorn best audio book.
Wow what a small world I am also a high school custodian and from about 6pm to 9 I am also by myself on the far end of the building cleaning out my rooms nightly
Honestly I'd have way too much fun listening to fallout lore in an empty school lol thanks for everything you do!
Keep grinding man ! Life can always be worse, you got this dude
The Virgil quest had to have had some kind of time restraint or something, the fact that you can't invite him to a settlement or back to the institute if you're the director is such a missed opportunity. I always feel bad for him after I cure him, because I basically just have to abandon him in the Glowing Sea.
Exactly!!! Honestly woulda love some extra Virgil quests!
Yeah. The man is brilliant. I would have loved to be able to invite him back to my reformed Institute. Its an incredible waste that his mind is left in that cave to work alone with practically nothing.
Poor Virgil, I would've liked the option (as the Minutemen's General) to recruit him for one of my settlements after you defeat the Institute. He could be a tier-four doctor for example.
Or, if you go with the BoS, convince him to join the Brotherhood. They could use his knowledge of the Institute and FEV. He may not be in favor of nuking the place, but he certainly isn't a friend of the Institute.
Hold up,
Now Virgil needs a Hazmat suit unless the reversed FEV treatment made him immune to radiation.
Lol he's just stuck in the cave now 😂
Thats the first thing I thought when I saw him human again. "Uhhh. Well have fun in here."
@@nateplayz8555 Exactly lol.
It would have been fun to have an optional quest to escort Virgil out of the glowing sea with a hazmat suit for him
@@TheStardustConspiracy Sounds.. Kinda annoying. Just imagine all the radroaches and deathclaws. Better put on the doom music.
I'm pretty sure if you bring Strong to Virgil, you can convince him that life as a supermutant isn't that bad.
Strong has opinions about it
Pretty sure Strong hates it and wonders why you would want to go back to human or something. if I remember correctly
If all the Super Mutants are the kidnapped victims, then I wonder which one is the original Mayor of Diamond City and I wonder who Strong used to be.
If you complete the mission 'From Within' by giving Li Virgil's holotape, spare him during 'A loose end', and then go ahead and cure him, he can write a note and ask you to give it to her.
Yep, we will cover that when we visit Virgil again while working with the brotherhood.
I forgot to when the Prydwen went down so now it's forever on my Pip-Boy and the marker is underneath the rubble. Also I finished Pull The Plug and even went back to talk to Sully Mathis after it was done but after that he died amd the quest is still active lol this is on my lvl 152 Institute build
@@arintheseatsesh6242So you convinced Dr. Li to leave the institute only to then join the institute yourself and blow her up 😂
My theory why father kept the FEV program going is his "situation", he hoped for a cure from the program. When Virgil thrashed the lab, he was forced to enact plan B, getting the player out of the vault and cutting loose ends.
I like your theory of the color-conundrum for Virgil's lab coat. And in a sense, if "SRB" originally stood for "Subject Reclamation Bureau", then the Institute wouldn't have even needed to change the division's abbreviated designation within their files. The "R" in "SRB" could potentially have also stood for "Recovery", "Retention" (leaving only the "S" to be changed), or even "Reception". Personally, I think "Subject Reception Board" has the best possibility for the division's original designation, as it sounds just morally ambiguous enough that it could be easily mistaken for something relatively innocent by those who knew nothing of the division's actual activities.
I though the FEV lab looked like it is in a vault built underneath the original institute building. That area looks more like the vaults. I think it was a vault that they upgraded into what the institute is today.
That’s what I though too.
Makes me think of that conversation you have with Father on top of CIT, where he talks about how bad the world above ground is, when he has had a direct impact on it. It's too bad Father can't be a companion so you can take him out to one of the heavily populated super mutant areas so he can wade through the meat bags himself.
Oxhorn videos are audio comfort food. Thanks for all your work, man!
So like why didn't the institute also take everyone in vault 111? I know sean was a baby but imagine all the tests you could run on those people who haven't had radiation
Bad writing!!!
@@randyortonsbulge This entire game has poor writing. A lot of holes. Bethesda has been lacking on quality lately.
because they're an inherently evil organization that doesn't care about human life outside their own members
Probably cause they were dead idk
@@hellcat1401 Far Harbor was much better. Hell, the two others were too, but not to the same caliber.
I love Fallout 4 so much. One of the reasons I enjoy your videos so much, is because you do too. Super fans know super fans. Your content is top notch because you love this stuff as much as we do, if not more. You dig deeper because you want to know every detail... and that makes your coverage of topics remarkably refreshing. Thank you sir.
Consider that the SRB has always and still is maintaining the FEV experiment.
It's just at the "making perfect vat grown humans and telling them they're robots" phase.
If I’m understanding correctly, The Institute is responsible for all the super mutants in the commonwealth. Therefore, there should be a finite number of them. And since we don’t find centaurs or anything from previous games related to FEV, the commonwealth must be geographically isolated somehow. Which means, there is a finite number of super mutants and behemoths in the common wealth. Ad victoriam
Thanks ox. I know you may not see this but these videos help make the day better. Keep up the great work.
The institute: Ultimately they have nothing to fear from us.
Also the institute: Release the failures upon this broken land
I’m surprised you can’t offer Virgil to build a new lab in his cave, seems like a prime opportunity for a unique type of settlement in the glowing sea
Right? Such a missed opportunity. The building feature could have been done way better. With a lot more stuff to do with it in more places.
Madison gave Virgil a Blue lab coat when he escaped .
I remember during my first playthrough, I was unsure who I was going to side with end-game. I was considering the institute right up to when I discovered all the cats in the FEV Lab. As a huge animal lover, that's where I drew the line!
I think it would’ve been really cool if they did something more with Virgil. Like it would be super cool if you could ask him to join one of the other 3 factions so he has more resources to work on the FEV cure. He could also have a unique interaction with Madison li if you recruited her to the brotherhood
Would’ve been cool if the minutemen invited him since he worked on fev and bio science to make perfect crops that they can roll out to other settlements
OMG, Swan was one of my favorite mutants and I never knew that his notes could have the story open up like this
My assumption is that in later games we might find his future apprentice, on a quest to [perfect] the cure. At least that would be something. Collect Some mutant boss dna and have the out come be horrific for the cure or whatever.
gosh that assaultron is no joke, I find them more terrifying than the sentry bot
I usually do this quest at higher level so it's a legendary. Good spot for farming, but it's a pain to kill. Plus there's the final nuke blast because it's a legendary robot. There's almost no where in the lab area where it spawns to escape the explosion.
You would think that Curie, as someone with literal centuries of experience with viruses, would have some special comments with talking with Virgil.
Or does she? I never tried it.
As I recall she loves it when you help him, and is impressed with the results. She comments about wanting to talk to him about stuff but nothing comes of it.
Much different than the first one he did, really shows how he grew as a person
Fun fact for those who play Fallout 76: if you're going by the timeline of when the institute was created type of thing. we the players of Fallout 76 would be meeting gen one institute synth more or less from my understanding of something I read recently whenever the game developers decide to put it into the game.
I think Virgil just grabbed whatever lab coat he could before escaping in hopes he could get the cure at some point.
Also I think trying to work with huge Super Mutant hands on lab equipment with small buttons would be very hard. You could press the wrong button by mistake easily and have dire consequences because of it.
Volkert may have worked in the fev lab at one point. After they shut down the program after the Virgil incident he just transferred to another position
I've never gone down that dialogue tree with Virgil. Nor have I ever killed him for the Brotherhood. My conscience always dictates that I just hand over the serum.
That Assaultron fight was so cinematic!
I love that there is a resurgence in fallout 4 interest as people play it while they wait for Starfield. Lots of other youtubers look like they are coming back to it to.
A few pointers I wanted to make.
First off, if I recall, isn't Virgil Bioscience? If I remember correctly, he says when you first ask him for help getting into the Institute that his specialty was Bio Science - so he's not likely working in Advanced Systems or Robotics. Also, what he wears as a super mutant doesn't look like a lab coat, but rather like one of those Institute Jumpsuits worn by people in the Institute who aren't scientists. I suspect he wasn't wearing it when he transformed, but rather it was probably all he had on him when he fled, and he had to make some adjustments to it to make it fit, though that's just guesswork on my part.
Second, I don't think the FEV lab is a BioScience project - rather, I think it is a collaborative, top-secret effort between BioScience and SRB who are basically the black ops team of the Institute. If you investigate SRB, you will even find a terminal where Father tells them not to divulge to anyone what the resources they obtain are used for - possibly referring not just to things like materials and power, but also perhaps test subjects and more.
The FEV lab fell under the perview of SRB in some capacity, this we know as Zimmer previously oversaw the projects (and may very well still do so, considering that Ayo is only the acting director of SRB in the absence of Dr. Zimmer). The FEV project seems to be a secret from just about all of the Institute, who may very well believe it's mostly used for crops and plants as it had been before they began experimenting on human test subjects. The reason I think this is that Dr. Li complains at one point that she dislikes the lack of transparency between departments, and if you show Dr. Li evidence of what occurred in the FEV lab, she decides to leave the Institute.
For the most part, it seems most of the horrible stuff that the Institute does is kept secret from the rest of the scientists, with only Father, SRB, and a few collaborators from other departments are ever made aware of.
Hey, just a thought here but you guys know about the lone wanderer being a synth right? What if, instead of us being a synth, what if youre actually a tagged FEV superhuman. Explains why Father didnt want to turn off the FEV experiments. The institute also asks for other materials. Shaun for the synths and the lone wanderer for FEV-perfected supermutants that can technically be controlled by the Institute
It depresses me the Old Man Stockton's daughter was kidnapped and could now be roaming the Commonwealth as a super mutant.
Do the covenant quest. She’s alive
My favorite part was the assaultron dropping the bass after saying "Engaging the human"
There is another way to get Virgil's rifle you just have to have a high pickpocketing then you can pick pocketed from Virgil as he's a super mutant.
Honestly of all the weak points in the Institute's writing the FEV plot is the one that frustratingly bad.
1. they magically had simples of the goverment top secret FEV beforehand for "reasons"
2. the project became redundant after gen 3 synths were made but kept going for "reasons"
3. Despite their power supply being the defining conflict of their story (to the point that a whole settlement was wiped out over pre-war data) they kept teleporting mutants out into the wasteland which is said to draw a lot of power for "reasons"
and so on.
end of the day the FEV really does just feel so forced, just there for Godd to have his iconic super mutants in the game and for the BOS to be able to recruit Li in their storyline.
On 1. I am pretty sure they will tie in FO76 for this, one survivor of the FEV lab there brought the samples to his old CIT contact.
The lab coat conundrum is fascinating! TFS Ox for another wonderful start to the weekend!
Like many of us, Listening to your videos gets me through my shift at work and more.
i figured Virgil seemingly said the contradicting points about him being able to create a cure simply out of an elated state of emotion. He's just so happy he's found his cure, feeling damn near unstoppable. The fact that all of this actually worked probably got him all giddy.
Likewise, when you first meet him he's still feeling rather down about being stuck as a Super Mutant, so likewise he's probably felt like he's unable to do much of anything with what little he has.
In spite of being a man of science and logic, he's still got these things called emotions. What you call a lore inconsistency, I call an act of unreliable narration driven by emotion.
I thought about how virgil escaped from the lab at one point during exploration and came with the idea he put himself inside a vat, let it fill up with FEV turning himself into a mutant or at least started the transition and used the chair to smash his way out as he couldn't open it from the inside, he then went through the lab fighting synths because a broken vat would set an alarm off in the SRB causing a security team to check it out. He then proceeded through to the old robotics which is in bioscience and leads to the teleporter and their relayed to the glowing sea and went into hiding.
I wonder what would happen if they used FEV on a Gen3 synth?
I think it would be basically the same as the intelligent Super Mutants created by the Master. They would retain their intelligence, but they would still be physically changed.
IIRC, they are immune to the effect, one reason they were created
After watching this, I have to wonder. What would happen if a Synth Was dipped in FEV?
There's plenty of lore I often overlook, I thank you Oxhorn for these videos for that reason.
In regards to Doctor Zimmer's search for a synth in the Capitol Wasteland. Do you think it's possible, that the synth in question, would later become Paladin Danse? 🤔
But the synth Zimmer is searching for is that guard at Rivet City. Danse wasn't even born yet.
16:26 That makes sense given the items on the lockers, but really doesn't make sense to the nature of Synth Retention or the critical fact that Virgil, who we know for a fact worked in the FEV lab, was Bioscience. If maybe Synth Retention took over the remains of the FEV lab in its capacity as the Secret Police after Virgil escaped this could be explained, but it sounds like Zimmer was in charge BEFORE Virgil hulked out of there so that unfortunately doesn't explain things.
I can definitely see with those black labcoats maybe being a more spread out lab worker uniform that isnt tied specifically to the institute wings since when it started it may have not had that much for making those. Dunno. My best guess.
Kinda bugs me that you cure him and he’s like, k thanks bye
Man I remember watching these videos when I was a kid it’s crazy to see that your still making these videos really brought me back home
I, for one, appreciate that the Institute is trying to eliminate the existential threat to human kind that is the domestic house cat
Oxhorn my guy I’ve watched your videos since the start I was literally in middle school watching your scotch and smoke rings at your old house now I’m a full grown person on my own and your videos are my religion
the sewer system is accessable to the institure in the minutemen attack on the institue
I was so interested in Virgil. I wanted so much more with his story. But he was determined to get back to work. Im so glad he was able to be cured.
38:14 “that’s it?” If I remember correctly I think that was my exact reaction lol 😂. Also I don’t understand how curing FEV is a lore break. Even before the fourth game came out, I always expected that at some point Bethesda or obsidian would create a story that would involve curing this virus. The institute has the most intelligent scientists in America and it doesn’t surprise me that one of them could find a cure for it.
If there is a way to neutralize FEV then a cure isn't a stretch.
Same OX time Same OX channel. Love watching your content particularly the Fallout lore.
For the lab coats that Virgil wears, it could be those were the coats he could grab on the way out
gods that assaultron in the storage room scared me to death the first time i encountered it. now i found a two shot gauss rifle very little scares me anymore.
I want to see Virgil and Madison go on a date for drinks
Im currently working the 3 way ending (BOS, Minutemen, Railroad) and Sim Settlements 2. It's a fun run and juggling the groups AND the new mass content Kinggath and crew have given us it a blast and I'm looking forwerd to having all the factions to help with the conflicts to come. I cant recommend this enough to any one that hasn't checked it all out. See Sims Settlements 2 and its 3 chapters. Altogether it adds nearly 3 times the play content. including a lot a great voice acting and new story arcs.
To think about it, isn't killing Vigil objectively the better the choice?
I mean sure the FEV works but what now? He's now a human trapped in the middle of the Glowing Sea. He literally can't leave the cave at all now or the rads will kill him. And even if some of the side effects he still has includes immunity to rads, as a Super Mutant he could fight off Deathclaws, Radscorpians and the such. As a human, all these things will kill him now.
It seems like giving him the FEV is actually the worst choice for him.
I never thought about this...
@@jennott1703 Kinda makes you wonder if that's why Bethesda made it so you need to kill him to get the legendary gun whereas if you cure him you only get some random joke and armour for Strong.
Could Bethesda be saying that killing Vigil is the right choice?
@@justinlynch3 Bethesda does like its moral conundrums in its roleplay.
@@justinlynch3 Think to me killing him is worse. Imo letting him die would be better than killing him yourself, and before you say it, I don't think that's a mercy kill like harrold or the people in the simulation of tranquility lane in fallout 3 but apparently Bethesda disagrees ig
then convince him not to take the cure.
@6:20 when dead cats were mentioned my cat took off running lol she did not approve
I've finished the game about 5 times now but never saw Virgil back in his human form somehow. Most factions want him dead in the first place.
Anyway, you have good eye for the detail Ox, I'm learning so much more about the lore of the fallout universe thanks to your work. I love it!
You gotta cure him before you ever report back to the Brotherhood. Then you can tell them that he isn't a threat and no need to kill.
Father doesn't send you to Libertalia because of how dangerous the Synth is to the commonwealth
Father sends you because "someone took my stuff"
He uses it as an excuse and example of how dangerous the Railroad is by messing with something they don't understand.
@@christopherconard2831 the problem is that Gabriel becoming a raider isn't part of being a Synth. It's part of human nature.
Humans can become raiders, or average citizens, or brotherhood paladins, or railroad agents.
And so can synths once they have a free will.
Gabriel is proof of Railroad not understanding what they're doing. Gabriel is the only confirmed raider out of all the freed synths. Looks like a pretty good track record to me
Thank you for these videos. I’m a huge fallout fan and lately I’ve been losing interest in my other shows and channels. These videos are like a cross between audiobooks and play throughs. I fall asleep, drive to/for work, eat food, just about everything I do I like to play these in the background or in my headphones! Thank you so much!!
I admire your dedication and ability to image connections (here: in regards of the lab cost colors)
I personally think that Okhams Razor is at work here - a design overlook on the side of Bethesda
If Virgil objected he might have worked on a cure while at the institute , which is also why it works just for that strain
👋😊 I am glad you came back to fallout 4 ox.
Why would Vergil have been in this Tube? That makes 0 Sense.
"Lets put myself open on Display as I plot to escape"
There is also 0 Reason to assume that Gen 3 Synths are based on a FEV-infused Human. The only Hint could be, that the Coursers are particularly ugly. But most Synths are skinny.
May be 8 months, but I still rewatch this since it surprises me that the Assaultrons take more damage if you VATs on their chest instead of the head.
The range of instruments used in the intro is awesome
You made another video on the FEV lab a few years ago, didn't you? I assume this one has more information due to a longer run time, but I'm curious about your decision to cover it again. I don't mean this from a trolling or mean place, I promise XD
Of course it's possible you addressed this IN the video and I either missed it or I'm dumb
It's just to continue the full story of Fallout 4. Meaning everything he may have covered before just more in depth I'd say.
This explains why Gen3 synths, despite having reproductive organs, are unable to bear children similar to the first generation super mutants, because both are exposed to FEV.
Maybe so, it could be also intentional defect, FEV does not always result in sterility, Deathclaw and Radscorpion are examples of it.
@@belisarian6429 Right, I completely forgot about deathclaw and such. Then maybe it's something to do with human DNA that FEV makes them infertile?
But what the hell. It's up for Bethesda to decide, not actual science.
@@brownjonny2230 Well issue with FEV is that there are different strains of it and it behaves differently under different circumstances (prewar human-> smart mutant, radiation polluted human-> dumb mutant). So it could be that Deathclaws mutated under different circumstances, also maybe not all supermutants are infertile and its just issue that infertile mutants are produced from vats which makes mixed population. (and with Deathclaw population, who are no longer produced in vats, only offspring of ones who could reproduce persevered )
Also deathclaws and supermutants are mutated in different way, Deathclaws are symetrical, ordered and look much more "natural" then Supermutants who sometimes look like ridden with tumors or something, its like FEV fits Deathclaws better.
Btw of course its up to Bethesda to decide, but its fun to theorize, which is why I like it more when they keep these things more vague, gives more room for imagination (like smart Deathclaws maybe still live etc.)
Fallout 4 has a lot of missteps in the story department and most have to do with The Institute. However, the reveal of the FEV Lab is impressive. You see, holding cells? Strange but The Institute does kidnap people, at least that's the story. You open a very nondescript door and are greeted with a Super Mutant in a tank, an intense light burning brightly. What?! Were they experimenting on the Super Mutants? And the perfect part is reading what happened to the subjects. "Out of control growth, terminated." "Cognitive decline typical of FEV exposure, discarded." 'Discarded?' You go to the next entry: "subject experienced substantial growth while maintaining higher brain function, tagged and discarded."
"My God... not only does The Institute kidnap and replaced people, they actively caused a central threat to the Commonwealth..."
It is one of the few times in the entire game where a subtle touch was used very well. You don't need Preston saying "well garsh, they are sure bad people!" and the terminal entries are dry, scientific, perfectly in sync with a bunch apathetic eggheads. The only thing that holds this part of the story back is that the player cannot confront, anyone, about the lab. It'd be like if your bank's company handbook was The Turner Diaries; you WOULD have a few questions...
About Volkert and food... mutant must eat a lot they are always hungry. So researches on them must deplete a lot their fridges.
oxhorn is simply the best and my favorite fall out player. stories are riveting.
Writing this at 15:00 but I feel like the reason the fev program was switched to synth retention is because theyd send courses out to retrieve people to test on. Just my theory 😁
Whenever I watch Oxhorn's fallout 4 videos I think about the "The humans are dead" fallout robot version. X
Love that this series continues. Keep up the great work!
What if Kellogg just went to vault 81 instead of 111?
synths are basically cyborgs. thats why i think the institute hated kellog so much. He was a living breathing contradiction to their vision of a perfect human. and he was outliving them. When a cyborg's only "part" is a small 'synth componet' (control module?) where do we draw the line at human or machine. is it simply a human, being controlled by a machine, or is it a machine hitching a ride on a human brain? Synths left to their own devices will develop self-awareness, which is seen as a defect by the SRB. The only way to repair it is with a "mind wipe". With this in mind I believe the Railroad is more right than they know. Synths are humans, created by man and machine, controlled by both their own minds and a machine mind. which is further controlled by the Institute. Take away the synth componet, or the institute's ability to control it, and you have Kellog.
I think is VERY important the fact that someone was able to reverse the FEV. Wonder if Bethesda will ever take it into acount in the future.
robots heads are not their weak points as most other enemies Ox :)
That bloody Assaultron nearly kicks your ass, no matter what faction you're aligned with, or whatever your level is.
Found the best way to deal with it any time is to use EMP mines and grenades, and blast it with a shotgun
I love these fallout 4 lore videos keep it up oxhorn!
i dont know how you dont get tired of playing fallout4 oxhorn but i love your videos always reignites my interest in the game
This was definitely a bit more than I expected about the FEV lab
It seems there is a lot of confusion about the Lab coat colors.
The institute must have changed the assignment of them at least once or twice.
That OR the color represents the status on the hierarchy - either now or back then.
I am going full theory here.
The color of the FEV scientists was Red. Black was reserved for Lead Scientists. After the incident, when the lab closed down, the remaining scientists were recolored black to cover up the FEV incident. The remaining (stored) red coats got unused. When the FEV research got (kinda?) merged with synths technology, Red was reintroduced for Robotics, but the black coats got reassigned to SRB.
Just a theory on my end, which makes sense to me.
I love the narration it makes me laugh and inspires me too walk around the wasteland making a story out of my adventures lmao
I wish you could used the serum or for it to have a use maybe placing it in strongs inventory does something maybe gives him a perk but Virgil should of had a cool ending ONLY if you side with the brotherhood give him the note from Maddison could you potentially get him to join working with neriah I mean there’s already a super mutant there for him to study and after the main quests are done after the institute he should of had unique dialogue just feels like it makes sense
Virgil's only wearing a blue lab coat because he happened across one in someone's dirty laundry on his way to the teleporter as he was transforming while the Institute was distracted by the diversion he made in the FEV lab
BOOM! Lab coat and how he got outta there mystery solved!
If they're organic then they can't be synthetic - a better word would be "manufactured".
Sort-of like a mobile home is referred to as a “manufactured” house?
While it obviously wouldn't be a cure, the VIM! soda from Far Harbor did cure Erickson of being a "dumb" Super Mutant. Even if it's not a legit cure for FEV, it might serve as a cure of Super Mutant unintelligence and hostility.
also if you are going to run with a shotty, make it a sawed off with the calibrated reciever. It's one of the very best weapons in the game for close quarters as it triple crits, even without any legendary perk. combo blitz for covering distance with a sawed off shotty to deliver close range crits and you make yourself a highly effective, highly mobile killing machine.
It's a shame there isn't the option for Virgil to have some radiant quests afterwards. It would make sense - he needs stuff for his research... and frankly, he direly needs a hazmat suit... or relocate to another settlement - outside the Glowing Sea alltogether...