The Institute Questline (Fallout 4) - How I Would Change It

Another one for your viewing pleasure. This one is about the Institute, and appears to be much shorter than the other ones. I don't remember why that was the case, but oh well. 2020 vision, I suppose.

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HOW THE INSTITUTE STARTS OFF:

They begin with Gen 1 synths patrolling much of Boston, bottlenecking travel through specific areas and for specific people, with some groups patrolling specific places of interest throughout the Commonwealth. The people in Boston feel constricted by the Institute, despite the organization not directly affecting the settlements in the city themselves.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE INSTITUTE:

The arrival of the Sole Survivor allows their decades-old plan to finally fall into place. The Institute immediately begins using the Sole Survivor to prepare the stage for their grand finale.

WHERE THEY END UP:

They activate their new reactor, establishing a future for the Institute in the process. By expanding upon Virgil’s cure, the Institute has a cure for FEV. By getting that crate from Vault 88, the Institute is able to perfect the G.E.C.K. technology to cleanse radiation on a massive scale. With the research from different vaults, they also have plenty of information on diseases, drugs, genetics and cryogenics for the future.

Institute Act One - Testing The Survivor

1. “Putting In His Two Weeks” quest involves the player acquiring Virgil’s experimental cure from the FEV Lab, but bringing it to someone in the Bioscience division before bringing it back to Virgil. The Bioscience person takes it for a few days, then gives it back to you after successfully reverse-engineering and replicating the serum. Virgil isn’t their enemy, but they also wish to utilize his remaining research. Returning the serum to Virgil allows that vanilla miscellaneous objective to be completed the same as in vanilla, with Virgil reverting to human form.
2. "Conclave of Carnegie" quest involves the player using an Institute holotape on a Prydwen terminal to "learn more about the Brotherhood's numbers", which actually just puts a program in the computer that allows the Institute access to all the Prydwen’s databases, along with the ability to relay synths inside the Prydwen. The player doesn't know that, though.
3. “Price Hike” quest involves the player meeting with a group of Gunners to renew the terms of the deal between the Institute and them, which consisted of the Institute paying the Gunners to keep specific locations that are of importance to the Institute clear of any other groups or forces that may try and take them; what the player isn’t directly told is that the Institute also pays the Gunners to continue their conflict against the Minutemen, and part of the money is for that part of the deal.
4. “How To Cut Diamonds” quest involves the player meeting with Henry Cook in Diamond City, asking him about rumors that an escaped Gen 3 synth resides in Diamond City. This leads into a quest in which the player finds a synth, completing the quest; the player doesn’t yet know that the point of this was to cause rumors to spread and take away the spotlight from Mayor McDonough, who is the real synth. The synth you found was simply put there by the Institute to make people believe the McDonough theory less.

Institute Act Two - Setting The Stage

WARNING: Once you go through with the quest “Theft Protection” for the Institute, you are locked into the Institute questline. No more missions can be done for the Brotherhood, Railroad, Minutemen, or Brotherhood Outcasts after this point.

1. “Theft Protection” quest is the same as “The Battle for Bunker Hill” in vanilla, just with a different name and more people who could appear to try and stop the player.
2. “Mankind - Redefined” quest is the same as vanilla, but with different voice lines (as Father has a different voice actor).
3. “All The Devils Were Here” quest involves the player investigating the Vault-Tec Corporation with the intention of learning about their experiments, gathering any available data, and bringing back anything concrete or interesting that the player finds in relation to their work. This quest is very long, similar to the massive main faction quests to gather allies in New Vegas, and takes the player across the Commonwealth. Main discoveries and data collection include:
1. The disease research (and cure for everything) found in Vault 81
2. The drug research done in Vault 95
3. The genetics data from Vault 75
4. The cryogenics research and data, plus the prototype Cryolator gained from the Overseer’s office of Vault 111
5. Hints of an unfinished vault other than Vault 114 somewhere in the Commonwealth; this hint is gained from the Vault-Tec Regional HQ, and points the player towards the ruins of Quincy to find out the location of this vault
4. “Eighty-Eight Problems” quest involves the player being tasked by the Institute to search Quincy for evidence of this unfinished vault’s existence and location, which leads the player to search nearby Quincy Quarries. They discover Vault 88 beneath the Quarry, and begin the Vault-Tec Workshop questline to rebuild Vault 88. While exploring Vault 88, the player gets information on the purpose of the vault, as well as a long list of information pertaining to it’s experiments. These include:
1. Info on the Power Cycle 1000
2. Info on the soda fountain chemicals
3. Info on the Phoropter
4. Info on the prototype slot machine
5. The player also discovers the location of a heavily reinforced cargo container deep inside the Vault’s construction zone, locked and marked with the logo of the Future-Tec division of Vault-Tec. They then place down an Institute relay marker, provided to them specifically for transporting objects that couldn’t be carried or rebuilt elsewhere. This cargo container actually houses a supply of prototype G.E.C.K.s sent by Stanislaus Braun, with certain caverns and rooms within the vault being planned as staging grounds for testing these improved G.E.C.K.s in a controlled environment. The player doesn’t find out about this, though, until much later in the questline. The Institute already knew the prototype G.E.C.K.s would be in one of Boston’s vaults, they just had you going out and finding the right one.
5. "A House Divided" quest is the same as vanilla, but a main quest
6. “Fever Pitch” quest involves the player helping the Institute test their new experimental cures for FEV on super mutants; this involves the player essentially discovering Strong (or simply bringing him to the Institute) and having the experiment run on him. The new cure works, despite Strong’s much longer tenure as a super mutant compared to Virgil. Strong then becomes a human, and the Institute has developed a reliable cure for at least one strain of FEV.
7. "Pinned" quest is the same as vanilla
8. "Nuclear Family" quest is (mostly) the same as vanilla, but there are differences in dialogue and context, including the fact that it will occur earlier in the Institute questline

Institute Act Three - Enacting The Plan

1. "End of the Line" quest is the same as vanilla.
2. "Action and Reaction" quest is the same as “Mass Fusion” quest in vanilla, but with a different name.
3. "Airship Down" quest is very different from the vanilla version; involves the player activating the synths found in the Prydwen and the Cambridge Police Station, setting off detonations inside both. These explosions cause the Prydwen to crash down into Boston Airport, killing almost everyone within a few thousand foot radius of the airport, and turn Cambridge Police Station into a smoldering ruin at the same time. The scattered remains of an unfinished Liberty Prime Mk. 2 can be discovered in the wreckage of Boston Airport, mirroring the scene in Fallout 3’s Broken Steel DLC when the original Liberty Prime is blown apart.
4. "Minutes of Future Past" quest involves the player defending the Institute against an onslaught of Brotherhood soldiers.
5. “Make It Official” quest is an altered version of the "Powering Up" quest in vanilla; involves the player making a speech to the entirety of the Institute rather than the entirety of the Commonwealth, before flipping the switch to activate the new reactor and set the final stage of their plan in motion.

Institute Act Four - Epilogue VERSION A (Railroad Bug Never Planted)

The ending slides play, detailing the aftermath of your many choices throughout the game, before allowing you one last moment to see the new future that you’ve made.

1. “Out of Time: Part Two” quest involves the player waking up in Vault 111 after an unknown amount of time spent in cryosleep. The player can’t actually control their character - it’s a guided cutscene - as they listen to an audio recording from the same voice who narrated the intro cutscene, explaining that the entire plot of Fallout 4 was planned by this insanely intelligent strategist. He reveals himself to be the Director who ordered Shaun’s kidnapping, then says some more stuff that I don’t quite have figured out yet, followed by the tape ending and the player leaving Vault 111 again. This time, instead of being faced with a desolate wasteland and a broken Boston skyline, they rise out of the vault to see a massive jungle has grown around most of the Commonwealth. Blue skies, no signs of radiation, tons of foliage, with a massive cluster of towering white obelisks in the distance: a new city built on the ruins of Boston. As the player stares out at the city, the screen cuts to black, followed by the end credits of the game (and end credits of the mod)

Institute Act Four - Epilogue VERSION B (Railroad Bug Planted)

The ending slides play, detailing the aftermath of your many choices throughout the game, before allowing you one last moment to see the new future that you’ve made.

1. “Life is Strange” quest is less of a quest and more of just an epilogue scene from an external camera view. It involves the player’s companions from the game paying their respects at the grave of the Sole Survivor, which is directly ahead of the entrance to Vault 111, overlooking Boston in the same spot that the player did when first exiting the vault. Also gonna be some music playing during this, by the way. Depending on the player’s in-game actions, there can either be every companion present - aside from dead Deacon - or no companions present. Eventually, each companion departs towards their own separate corners of the Commonwealth, leaving only one person behind: the Sole Survivor’s romantic interest. If there was no romantic interest, then Dogmeat will stay behind instead. The camera then does a slow pan up from the grave and the remaining companion to gaze at the morning sun, rising over a new Commonwealth. As the camera pans up to look at the sun, the screen slowly fades to black, leading into the end credits of the game (and the end credits of the mod).

SIDE QUESTS:

1. "Political Leanings" quest is the same as vanilla, but turned into a limited series of side quests rather than a radiant. The quest has certain triggers depending on what’s going on in Diamond City and the Institute at given times
2. "Plugging a Leak" quest is the same as vanilla
3. "Slime Time" quest involves the player helping Rosalind Orman with developing a prototype for her new plasma weapon, as a sort of preview for the Directorate to be impressed by and then approve her project in its entirety.
4. "Cyberpunk 2287" quest involves the player (once again) helping Rosalind Orman 
5. "Building a Better Crop" quest is much simpler than vanilla: you simply persuade, pay, or intimidate Roger Warwick into planting the seeds you bring him, which he doesn't know are experimental and from the Institute, then checking back in every few days or weeks to catch up on the growing progress.
6. “Rings of Saturnite” quest involves the player locating a Cosmic Knife somewhere in the Commonwealth so that the Institute can study and reverse-engineer the alloy used in its manufacture.
7. “Lay Down Some Wisdom” quest involves the player establishing a standardized education system for the children born within the Institute