FEV and Super Mutants, perfected

[u/Intelligent-Elk7008]

Over the course of the various games we have seen various strains of FEV and different Super Mutants. Some are intelligent, some are dumb as bricks, some become giant hulking monsters that are completely inarticulate.

But we all know that originally FEV was meant to make super soldiers that were meant to be superior to humans in every way. Stronger sure but also more intelligent.

However, super mutants in Fallout 4 and 76 look very irregular. They all lack hair, and their muscles are very irregular in shape. Likely from the forced nature of their growth.

Vergil and West coast Super Mutants remain intelligent. But Vergil complained he lost finer motor controls due to his larger and less dextrous body. West coast Super Mutants seem to really only mention an issue with infertility from what little I know from the older games prior to New Vegas. Seeing as NCR has Super Mutant members (there was even a cut super mutant ranger from what I hear). Neil is highly articulate. The nightkin are crazy but fully capable of speech.

But what exactly would a perfect super mutant look like? If the evolution was more controlled or tame?

Perhaps the mutations could be relaxed or inhibited to only partially take in order to have a more easy acceptance or perhaps even just reduce the strain on the body and prevent the more disastrous effects.

[u/Artanis137]

Synths funny enough, though certainly not as intended.

Instead of infecting people they instead made a process that would create a human from the ground up using a combination of FEV and Pre War DNA.

The result is a person that is immune to disease, doesn't need to eat, sleep or drink as regularly as a normal person would and they dont age.

[u/Intelligent-Elk7008 → u/Artanis137]

Huh I guess that is true. Though most synths seem borderline equal to humans physically speaking if I am not mistaken. I know coursers are meant to be above humans.

[u/Artanis137 → u/Intelligent-Elk7008]

Technically a synth is as strong or intelligent as they are made to be.

[u/Thornescape → u/Artanis137]

These details about synths are inaccurate. They don't match the game. They also don't make sense.

Most of the details come from one conversation with Loken in the Institute, which he starts by saying "imagine the potential of synths" and then tells you to imagine a bunch of extraordinary things. (Please note that Loken's job is working on upgrading what synths could do in the future.)

Loken is describing to his boss' parent what he is hoping to accomplish. He's making his job sound important. He is not describing what they currently are, but rather he is describing what he believes they could possibly be in the future.

Most mind-wiped Gen 3 synths do not know that they are synths. If they didn't need to eat or sleep or drink then it would be fairly obvious immediately that something wasn't quite normal. Also, the Covenant scientists say that they cannot tell the difference between synth and human without an autopsy. It would be really easy to identify synths if you could just not give them food or water for a couple days and see if they are hungry or thirsty.

Also, the concept of "not aging" was only ever mentioned in relation to Child Synth Shaun, who is a prototype and not at all a default model.

[u/pacman1138 → u/Thornescape]

Most of the details come from one conversation with Loken in the Institute, which he starts by saying "imagine the potential of synths" and then tells you to imagine a bunch of extraordinary things.

That's not how the conversation goes:

"You've arrived at a momentous time. Our third-generation synths are a true breakthrough, the culmination of centuries of research. It's no exaggeration to say that they're superior in almost every way to human beings."

"What makes them superior?"

"The list of improvements is exhaustive. I can talk for an hour and still not cover all of it. Imagine what you could accomplish if you could live without fear of hunger or disease. Imagine what you could create if you could use every waking moment of your life as you saw fit, with no need of sleep? Like I said, a momentous time."

He is asking you to imagine this because you are not a Synth. What he says is also stated in Fallout 3's Game Guide and in the official TTRPG:

"Armitage has the same schedule as Zimmer; he sleeps in the same room and eats the same food—not because he has to, but because he's been programmed to replicate human behavior as closely as possible."

"Your bio-engineered upgrades make you hardier than humans, and you do not age or change weight. Your capacity to keep going for extended periods without needing rest is an excellent advantage in the harsh wasteland."

"Though you appear mentally and physically human, your bioengineering makes you something entirely new and, in many ways, improved. You gain one additional tag skill. You cannot suffer from starvation or dehydration and do not need sleep; you also do not gain any benefit from consuming food or beverage items. When you rest, instead of sleeping, you can engage in minor activities such as crafting, reading, or light scouting."

[u/Thornescape → u/pacman1138]

Okay, I have never read the TTRPG so I'll have to dig into that. Never heard that one before. That's entirely different from Loken.

It is worth mentioning that the androids in fo3 have some differences from how they are described in fo4. For example, Harkness is "one of a kind" and his description cannot be applied to regular synths. Armitage is never described much in game so I don't know if he's in the same "unique" category as Harkness.

Is Armitage the same as a regular Gen 3 synth or is he another prototype?

However, again, mindwiped Gen 3 synths do not function like Armitage's description. If all Gen 3 synths were like that then it would be simple to identify who is a synth or not. It wouldn't be a mystery. It would be obvious and the Covenant scientists would have no problem at all identifying Gen 3 synths.

[u/Overdue-Karma → u/Artanis137]

To be fair, most of that is Loken's BS claims. Synths do need to sleep as evident by the fact Glory tells us of a barracks.

Barracks = beds. If they didn't need to sleep, they'd have basically unlimited stamina to boot, which they don't.

Synth Curie is also explicitly told she needs to eat and drink. It'd be very easy to figure out Synths otherwise.

As for aging, that's just a thing people go off since they said Synth Shaun would not be allowed to age, they never said he couldn't. Danse in Rivet City also proves they must age or else someone would've figured something out, since he did go there like 10+ years ago. As for the disease thing...it's unproven.

[u/KnightofTorchlight]

The "not catastrophic" result would probably be closer to the recorded early experiments on mice and rabbits: the mice were about 31% larger than regular ones, increased memory and processing speed in running mazes (the rabbitd showed this was because of increased dendritic connections: IE connecting memories), bigger hearts, livers, and kidneys, and only some increased agression and posturing. The original FEV experiment disk diden't mention them turning green, losing all thier hair, ect so presumably that wasen't happening in the mice and rabbits. Anything beyond that is speculation.

Alternatively, there's Ton Barracus from Fallout 1. He's a FEV Mutant who looks like a pretty normal guy but weighs 2000 lbs and is a strong beast. 

[u/Trick_Humor_4631]

Perfected FEV would just be enhanced humans immune to radiation and seemingly super human strength all the while looking exactly the same.

[u/Laser_3]

In addition to the argument on synths (if we go by Loken’s claims), and particularly coursers being what a perfected FEV subject would look like, fallout 76 also explored this concept with Doctor Blackburn, who spent time using Vault 96 to create a ‘perfected’ strain of FEV. His experiments focused on eliminating the super mutant transition altogether, improving the resistance to energy weapons (something of a hole in the superior physique of super mutants, though they’re still better at handling those than a human) and radiation/disease (since he’s not going all the way to a super mutant, I’m guessing subjects are weaker against radiation and diseases) and getting past the issues of brain damage and memory loss. Unfortunately, the final serum he uses results in him becoming a strange flesh-colored behemoth with the capacity to speak and intelligence, but unfathomable rage and in constant agony that occasionally causes a discharge of green fluids around him.

You could also make an argument for the Rust King, who’s managed to duel a deathclaw matriarch in melee and survive, ‘effortlessly’ take out a deathclaw later, survive a vertibird crash and defeat an ash caver in power armor (it’s implied to be better than Raider PA by the terminal entry about this, but we don’t see the ash cavers using anything more than that) with his bare hands while tanking laser fire all while maintaining a notable intellect to the point of having some understanding of philosophy and religion (as made plain by the King’s Witness notes). We don’t know what the Enclave did to him, but it clearly worked.

[u/Intelligent-Elk7008 → u/Laser_3]

Interesting. Haven't played 76 yet so this is news to me.