Sole Survivor



The Sole Survivor is the player character and main protagonist in Fallout 4. Depending on the player's gender selection, the Sole Survivor is either the husband or wife in a pre-War family and has a son, Shaun.

Background
Depending on player choice, the Sole Survivor is either a male retired Army veteran or a female graduate from law school.

According to pre-war records of the Lookout at the USS Constitution, the husband served in the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment, while the wife was a lawyer. At some point during the Sino-American War, the Sole Survivor married and had a son, named Shaun and bought a robotic butler named Codsworth. On October 23rd, 2077, the Sole Survivor was preparing for an event at the Veteran's Hall when a Vault-Tec representative approached the family and approved them for the papers that allowed them access into Vault 111. Only a few moments later, it was announced by a newsreader that nuclear detonations were being reported, forcing the Survivor and their family to rush to Vault 111. They were then trapped in cryogenic stasis under the pretense of being "decontaminated." The Sole Survivor is kept in this state from 2077 to 2287.

In 2227, the Sole Survivor and their spouse are reawakened by two seen unknown individuals and one off-screen, who open the spouse's cryogenic tube with the intent of kidnapping Shaun. Though conscious, the Sole Survivor is trapped in their tube and are powerless to do anything but watch their spouse being shot and their child abducted. The Sole Survivor is re-frozen, awakening in 2287 and escaping the cryogenic tube. Learning that they are the sole survivor of Vault 111, the Sole Survivor emerges from the Vault and vows to avenge their spouse's death and locate Shaun.

Story
The player character heads home to Sanctuary Hills, now ruined from the bomb blast, where they meet a distraught Codsworth, revealing to the Survivor that over 210 years have passed since they were frozen in the Vault, also telling the player character to go to Concord for help. On their way there. the Survivor meets a stray dog, later revealed to be named Dogmeat. The Sole Survivor then meets Preston Garvey - one of the last of the Commonwealth Minutemen - and assists him in protecting settlers from a group of raiders and eventually a Deathclaw. After helping Garvey and his group, the player is instructed to go to Diamond City, a settlement based in Fenway Park where they meet Piper Wright, the City's reporter, who tells the player character to seek out Nick Valentine, revealed to have been missing two weeks prior to the Sole Survivor's arrival in Diamond City. After finding Valentine - revealed to be a synth - they learn the identity and location of their spouse's killer, a man named Conrad Kellogg, who reveals that Shaun is in The Institute, a secretive organization feared by the people of the Commonwealth, that is based below the ruins of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology. The player then retrieves a cybernetic implant from the brain of Kellogg, and after consultation with Nick and Piper, they head to Goodneighbor where they encounter John Hancock for the first time and get help from Doctor Amari - a scientist skilled in neuroscience - who can assist the Sole Survivor in viewing the dead mercenary's memories. During their hunt for Kellogg, the Survivor witnesses the Brotherhood of Steel also arriving in full force with The Prydwen, their mobile airship HQ. After viewing Kellogg's memories, the player is then tasked to go to the Glowing Sea - the ground zero of the nuclear blast shown early in the game - to find Brian Virgil, an ex-Institute scientist to get help in infiltrating the shadowy organization. Brian Virgil, now mutated into a Super Mutant by FEV exposure, mentions that the player must kill an Institute Courser - one of the most advanced creations designed to be stronger, faster and smarter than average human beings - and get its chip, as the Institute is underground, thus the only method for travelling to and from is teleportation. Afterwards, the player proceeds to find The Railroad, an organization named for the historical Underground Railroad, since only one of its member-Tinker Tom can decode the chip and get the frequency code. The player then heads back to Brian Virgil, who gives the player character a blueprint of a device that hijacks the frequency of the Institute's Molecular Relay. After retrieving the blueprints, the player must seeks assistance from one of three other factions: the Minutemen, the Railroad, or the Brotherhood of Steel. Once the device is built, the player infiltrates the Institute to find their son. After finding a child synth based on a young Shaun, it is revealed that the real Shaun was kidnapped in 2227, sixty years prior to their release from cryogenic sleep, and is now an old man, named Father, and the leader of the Institute. The player from then faces a choice that will greatly affect the Commonwealth and its people. They can side with Shaun and help the Institute with their takeover of the Commonwealth by destroying the Railroad and the Brotherhood of Steel (The Minutemen will then ally with the Institute after passing a few speech checks). They can also side against Shaun by assisting one of the other three factions; they can assist the Railroad in destroying the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel in order to free and protect the synths; they can assist the Brotherhood of Steel in destroying the Institute and the Railroad in order to exterminate the synths or; they can assist the Minutemen in destroying the Institute (and the Brotherhood of Steel if the player is their enemy) in order to protect the Commonwealth.

Appearances
The Sole Survivor appears only in Fallout 4