Daniel Shin

Daniel Shin is a knight of the Brotherhood of Steel and the second-in-command to Paladin Rahmani of the Brotherhood First Expeditionary Force.

Background
Knight Shin has been a driven and dedicated member of the Brotherhood for nearly 20 years. He was recruited from the Mojave Wasteland around 2083, when a Brotherhood force under Knight Connors saved his home town from a raider attack. Shin's uncommon valor during the defense earned him Connors' notice, a place within the Brotherhood's ranks, and a lifelong hatred of raiders and their ilk. His focus and commitment to the Brotherhood have drawn praise from the Council of Elders up to and including High Elder Roger Maxson.

On the Brotherhood's expedition, they came across a town that was being threatened with massacre by Raiders. Rahmani decided to stay and fight the Raiders, while Shin decided to arm ordinary civilians for protection against the Raiders, which violated the Brotherhood's protocol to safeguard them instead of distribute them. The Raiders were able to steal their weapons and slaughtered everyone in the town except for Marcia and Max Leone. Connors would save Shin once again at the cost of his life. Since this incident, Shin has harbored great guilt and vowed to never let his emotions hamper his judgement. This incident would set off a division between Rahmani and Shin, with Shin wanting himself and Rahmani to stand trial with the Council of Elders.

Shin's fierce devotion to the Brotherhood's ideals makes him an effective officer whose performance is exemplary. He is also single-minded with little patience for distractions or disagreements, especially from subordinates or non-members. He is particularly resistant to change and any challenges to the Brotherhood's authority or tenets, which is a point of contention between him and his superior, Paladin Rahmani. However, Shin will give credit where credit is due, appreciating a job well done and saying so, regardless of his personal opinion. Despite his cold exterior, Shin truly cares for the future of humanity, hoping that the Brotherhood can create a safe society going forward. Ultimately though, Shin says those ideals mean nothing if he cannot protect the people who believe in him.

On a day-to-day basis at Fort Atlas, Shin is in charge of the armory and its equipment. He also leads various combat operations, due to the low amount of senior officers at the fort. His occasionally unwelcoming attitude is a result of his steadfast commitment to both his responsibilities and the values of the Brotherhood, stating that his duties "do not include human resources."

Over the course of their reinforcing of Fort Atlas and establishing themselves in the region, Shin and Rahmani came into multiple conflicts of personality through various matters, the most important of which being the resurgence of government rocket launchers and other weaponry, used in the same incident that Shin believes Rahmani should be taken back to Lost Hills and tried for. However, after a super mutant attack on the base, Rahmani shocks and angers Valdez and Shin when she destroys the long-range transmitter, intentionally severing ties with the main body of the Brotherhood of Steel and seeking to form her own, independent Appalachian Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, although the super mutants had caused temporary need of unity from both Rahmani and Shin.

Nevertheless, a year later in 2104, Rahmani and Shin are still at odds over their Brotherhood's primary mission: Protect the people in Appalachia, or secure all manner of pre-War tech to prevent it from causing another apocalypse like the Great War. They soon discover that the super mutant attack on Fort Atlas was not coincidental. Dr. Edgar Blackburn, one of the people who came to Fort Atlas earlier looking for help from the Brotherhood, only to be turned away by Shin, had been kidnapping people from all over Appalachia to use as test subjects in his research to improve the Forced Evolutionary Virus.

Shin, along with initiates Erika Hewsen and Norland, decide to investigate the Uncanny Caverns after hearing the super mutants may be originating from there. Norland ends up being killed after the group separates and Shin blames himself for the death of someone else again. As they venture further into the cavern, Hewsen ends up becoming caught in an explosive trap and Shin tries to rescue her in his power armor, injuring himself. With Hewsen's aid, they eventually return to Fort Atlas.

Later, Rahmani learns that Blackburn was among several of the Blue Ridge's caravans, especially one that holed up in the Harpers Ferry tunnel due to a radstorm. After Blackburn was captured during his work inside Vault 96, Rahmani and Shin take him to the West Tek research center, where his fellow scientists Farha, Jain and Nellie Wright were putting the final touches on the FEV to release into the water and air, which would lead to more people being turned into super mutants once exposed, a worst-case scenario even worse than Huntersville. In a bid to prove their research is for the betterment of humanity in the wasteland, Blackburn willingly volunteers to be exposed to the virus himself, but a miscalculation or malfunction in the process causes Blackburn to be turned into a violent super mutant behemoth, forcing Rahmani and Shin to kill him.

After, Shin erupts at Rahmani, scolding her that something like this was just what the elders wanted to prevent: People trying to play God with science. Though Rahmani agrees with him on that, when they confront Farha, Jain and Nellie, they plead for mercy and ask that their lives be spared, considering that their research is invaluable to the wasteland with the loss of schools and universities because of the Great War and the decay that followed. Though Rahmani wants to spare them because of how valuable human life is nowadays, Shin is adamant that they be slain after seeing firsthand just how dangerous their knowledge is should it fall into the wrong hands if they are allowed to live. In the end, the conflict over Blackburn's associates results in Rahmani and Shin parting ways, unable to reach an agreement, with one either being killed or allowed to return to Maxson, while the other takes command of the Brotherhood to lead them on their new duty to Appalachia.

Quests

 * Forging Trust: Knight Shin represents the first step towards service in the Brotherhood for the Vault 76 dwellers, and asks them to handle several requests from "civilian" visitors at Fort Atlas.
 * Property Rights: After completing their initiation, the dwellers assist Shin in recovering Brotherhood property from the Crater raiders.
 * Over and Out: Shin and Rahmani appear at the end of the quest at the Enclave research facility, where their conflict boils over and the dwellers must choose to side with one of the two.
 * The Best Defense: Immediately after the previous quest, Shin and Rahmani are temporarily united against a common enemy, defending Fort Atlas against a super mutant attack alongside the dwellers.
 * A Knight's Penance: The Vault Dweller, Shin, Norland and Erika Hewsen investigate the Uncanny Caverns after learning the Super Mutants may be originating from within.
 * The Catalyst: Shin becomes involved with the source of the chaos.

Other interactions

 * Shin serves as a secondary narrator, gradually revealing the disastrous events that occurred on the way to Appalachia.
 * If the player sides with Rahmani, Shin can be killed in combat by Rahmani and the Vault Dweller. If he is not attacked, Shin says he will walk across the country back to California by himself in order to tell the elders all the events that have transpired. He disappears from the game's world and it is unknown what becomes of Shin's journey.

Appearances
Daniel Shin appears only in Fallout 76, introduced in the Steel Dawn update and expanded upon in the Steel Reign update.

Behind the scenes

 * Although never mentioned in-game, design director Mark Tucker stated that as a child, Shin grew up in a very rigidly structured household on the West Coast as the only son of a school principal.
 * When asked if Shin's design took inspiration from other Brotherhood characters, quest designer Ellys Tan jokingly said "Shin was inspired by my perception of a hot tsundere Brotherhood knight."
 * For unknown reasons, Shin looks quite a bit older in promotional art with more pronounced nasal folds and thicker upper lips. His in-game model also looks considerably less Asian than his promotional art, as Shin is a Korean family name.