Theoretically/biologically speaking, is post-war human DNA better than pre-war one?

[Anbeegod]

Pre-war human DNA was not negatively mutated by radiation, but the post-war humans are the ones who survived natural selection.

 

Among the post-war humans, those who were weaker are unable to survive the harsh environment of the wasteland, thus died out eventually, whereas the most SPECIAL post-war humans, who were able to survive and adapt to the wasteland, were the only ones remained to breed.

 

In natural selection, only the best individuals/species of a community can survive and breed in an environment. The wastelanders we see nowadays, are the descendants of those who survived, therefore they should have inherited the genes of the tougher survivors.

 

So, theoretically speaking, post-war humans should have better genes than most of the pre-war humans who cannot survive the cruelty of the wasteland, except the few cases like the Sole Survivor and their spouse who are already among the best of pre-war humanity.

 

If this is the case, we have another good reason to mock the Enclave while nuking them.

[oniric1]

just like this, your baby in fallout 4was kidnapping by the institute for this good  dna. the dna of the post-war people is corrupt . not the prewar people. is not dna, is the guts. the survival instinct

[Anbeegod]

The corruption of DNA could be causing troubles on the process of making synths, like the corruption is incompatible with the synth-producing machine or it doesn't work on certain formulas/mechanism, but it doesn't necessarily have to do with the ability of an individual.

 

Natural selection is about both the ability to survive and DNA.

[Slammer64]

Biowarfare as well as chemical and radiological was practiced in the Fallout universe, in the real world, human DNA would be horribly damaged, with falling birthrates due to non-viable fetuses being conceived(lethal mutations), so clean DNA would be at a premium. Found out about a lot of this during NBC(Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) training in the U.S.A.F.

[Mondo80]

Could there be any beneficial mutations as a result of the war?

[pepertje]

As it turns out, a lot of Post-War denizens of the Wastelands have gained the ability to survive multiple bullets to the head. I'd say that's a beneficial side effect.

[Ernest Lemmingway]

That's an element of the story that's never made any sense to me. Why did the Institute need pre-war DNA? If it was just to improve the Synths then Bethesda's writers should be dragged into the street and shot for being so moronic. Applications for gene therapy to repair damage by radiation are far more useful, something that the Institute should be able to do since they've solved the complex issues of matter-energy teleportation. Compared to that, genetic engineering is as hard as reading a Dick and Jane book.

[DocClox]

It's always been part of Fallout lore that the wastelanders are all mutated away from baseline homo sapiens. Originally it was a plot device used to justify why the Master in F1 had so many problems creating smart supermutants. The FEV didn't work right on the wastelanders' mutant DNA but the Vault Dweller was uncontaminated and so would have made a first class second in command for the Master. This was perpetuated in F2 where it was used to justify the Enclave's genocidal ambitions, and again in F3 where it explains why Eden wanted to poison everyone in the Capital Wasteland. In F4 it is the reason the Institute want pre-war DNA[1].

 

Frankly, the whole thing is pretty silly. It's purely a plot device to explain why Evil Masterminds take a special interest in Valut Dwellers and/or want to wipe out all remnants of humanity other than their own faction. In the vast majority of cases mutation does nothing and has no noticeable effects unless you dip the wastelander in question into a vat of FEV. There have occasional instances in earlier games of psionic powers (Mama Murphy may be an example) or other beneficial mutations as a result of this contamination, but since that could also be explained by a largely unmutated population with a few isolated mutations introduced into in the gene pool, I'm sticking my opinion that the whole thing is pretty silly - and not in a fun Fallout sort of way either.

 

That said, silly or not, the everyone's-a-mutant motif is well established in lore now, so I suppose we're stuck with it.

 

[1] Except in F4 we have additional foolishness in that only a baby's DNA will serve the Institute's purposes, except that if it doesn't for some reason then the baby's parent's DNA will do just as well because baby DNA apparently has the special property of purifying parental DNA if anything happens to the child, because that's how magical babies are ... but don't get me started.

[pepertje]

[1] Except in F4 we have additional foolishness in that only a baby's DNA will serve the Institute's purposes, except that if it doesn't for some reason then the baby's parent's DNA will do just as well because baby DNA apparently has the special property of purifying parental DNA if anything happens to the child, because that's how magical babies are ... but don't get me started.

 

They took the baby because it couldn't struggle and could last a lot longer than the parents, in terms of years of possible service. Either that, or it was simply the closest pure human in reach. If the Sole Survivor's spouse hadn't resisted, they would have all been kept alive in case the baby was no longer available due to unforseen events. Kellog literally calls the Sole Survivor the "backup", which means that they only took the baby because it was the easiest/most practical target.

[Guest Mogie56]

A baby can't fight back and given Kellogg's disposition the parents would put up a fight and Kellogg would kill them rather then deal with it in a sane way. His implants although useful also made him temper"mental" and untrustworthy. Given that he had had a Daughter it was more unlikely he would harm the baby, not true of the parents though.

The Institute may be evil shits but their not stupid. But individual opinions of Bethesda has nothing to do with the question asked.

For the sake of the Institute and Synth story Pre-War DNA was uncontaminated by radioactivity and better suited for their purposes, baby DNA or not the baby was the logical target with the least amount of danger of being killed before getting to the Institute.