Mayor McDonough

[OH1972]

Question contains spoiler

Spoiler

So, I was at the institute and read about the mayor being a synth replacement - now, it seems that I cannot act on that without certain other requirements being met? Kinda weird that I can't even talk with the mayor about it?!

 

[AWP3RATOR]

Answer contains a mild spoiler

 

Spoiler

An opportunity to act on that information will present itself later in the game's storyline.  The player will have an opportunity to confront the Mayor directly relating to this information.

 

[Dallas-Arbiter]

31 minutes ago, OH1972 said:

Question contains spoiler

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So, I was at the institute and read about the mayor being a synth replacement - now, it seems that I cannot act on that without certain other requirements being met? Kinda weird that I can't even talk with the mayor about it?!

 

Spoiler

To give slightly more of a spoiler, it will happen a few days after you blow up the institute. Just wait a few days before going back to Diamond City, when you do go back, the quest to confront McDonough will start.

 

[OH1972]

Spoiler

Yeah, I understand that, but I think it's odd that you cannot confront the Mayor rightaway - and even if it's to have him declare you have no evidence whatsoever. My inclination to advance the storyline that far is rather low, as I think the endgame is rather forced...

 

[AWP3RATOR]

Spoiler

Or... you could complete 1 round of Political Leanings - Talk to Ayo in Synth Retention.  He'll inform you of the same information you learned from the terminal and send you on a fetch quest to obtain a report from the Mayor himself.  After completing 1 round of Political Leanings, the player will "know" of the Mayor's double life.  If, upon becoming banished from the institute from this point forward, the player travels to DC, the McDonough showdown will start.

 

Basically - you need to have decided to be an enemy of the institute and know about McDonough's status for the quest to begin.  Being friend's with the institute and talking with McDonough will not initiate the dialogue or quest start.

 

There are several other scenarios that require the player to be enemies with the Institute as well.  They allow the player to effectively role-play an anti-Institute stance, but will not start if the player is friendly with the faction.

 

Spoilers aside - I found no mods here, on Nexus, or otherwise - that deal with this scenario.

[Jazzman]

It isn't necessary to side against the Institute to understand what's really up with John "Hancock" McDonough's brother Major McDonough, a couple of times playing Ayo's "errand girl/boy" in his role as Zimmer's deputy (killed by the FO3 protagonist some ten years before in Rivet City) will do nicely.

 

Spoiler

There are a few serious flaws in the plot tho. Not only should Hancock after some 260 years as a ghoul inevitably have known that his brother is a synth, both brothers apparently don't care much about the strange status of the respective other, instead they remarkably take it as given. Moreover, the major of Diamond City more than once complains about the unwillingness of the Institute to grant him asylum, a retirement, simply "for being too old". That merely means that as a human he didn't get exchanged for a synth by the Institute at some point after the development of the Synth-3 version but was turned into a pre-Institute Synth already before the day the bombs fell and not perhaps some two hundred years after which is biologically impossible as we all know. So, it looks as if the synthesized major is made in the USA of old. Food for thought. No other variant makes sense... if there's anything that makes any sense at all.

 

[Dallas-Arbiter]

On 2/17/2018 at 3:00 AM, Jazzman said:

It isn't necessary to side against the Institute to understand what's really up with John "Hancock" McDonough's brother Major McDonough, a couple of times playing Ayo's "errand girl/boy" in his role as Zimmer's deputy (killed by the FO3 protagonist some ten years before in Rivet City) will do nicely.

 

  Hide contents

There are a few serious flaws in the plot tho. Not only should Hancock after some 260 years as a ghoul inevitably have known that his brother is a synth, both brothers apparently don't care much about the strange status of the respective other, instead they remarkably take it as given. Moreover, the major of Diamond City more than once complains about the unwillingness of the Institute to grant him asylum, a retirement, simply "for being too old". That merely means that as a human he didn't get exchanged for a synth by the Institute at some point after the development of the Synth-3 version but was turned into a pre-Institute Synth already before the day the bombs fell and not perhaps some two hundred years after which is biologically impossible as we all know. So, it looks as if the synthesized major is made in the USA of old. Food for thought. No other variant makes sense... if there's anything that makes any sense at all.

 

Your understanding of the lore, and the actual established lore doesn't jive. What you think are plot holes are NOT plot holes:

 

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/John_Hancock

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mayor_McDonough

 

 

 

[Jazzman]

3 hours ago, Dallas-Arbiter said:

Your understanding of the lore, and the actual established lore doesn't jive. What you think are plot holes are NOT plot holes:

 

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/John_Hancock

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mayor_McDonough

 

 

 

Well, only a black hole could be bigger that these plot holes. Tell us how a middle-age person, ghoulified for some 210 years can have a living brother in good shape that has never seen a cryo tank from the inside! The latter got synthesized 210 years or more before the prot enters the stage or the whole kinship falls apart like a house of cards. It is as simple as that. Guess you know already that the living specimen plus a comprehensive surveillance report is required to create the profile of a synth (with limited personal memory from the period of surveillance before replacement). So better trust in your mind, not in 'established' nonsense for the little kids.

 

Besides, I have already explained why the Institute rejects McDonough as one of its products and just takes him as a useful idiot, as well as why Hancock hasn't killed him in the last 210 years. The idea that the Institute isn't necessarily the first organization that has cloned and replaced people is (perhaps even understandably) miles above Hancock's head.

 

Keep in mind that 'poking the eagle a bit' is a well-known feature in the Anglo-American SF/Dystopian scene, it didn't start with Matrix and didn't end with Avatar...

[ercramer69]

44 minutes ago, Jazzman said:

Well, only a black hole could be bigger that these plot holes. Tell us how a middle-age person, ghoulified for some 210 years can have a living brother in good shape that has never seen a cryo tank from the inside! The latter got synthesized 210 years or more before the prot enters the stage or the whole kinship falls apart like a house of cards. It is as simple as that. So trust in your mind, not in 'established' bullshit for the five-year old

According to those two sources, Hancock's page has "He became a ghoul sometime after 2282" and McDonugh's page has "In 2282, McDonough was voted into office by fear-mongering residents opposing the ghoul residents in the city"

 

Since the Sole Survivor gets out of Vault 111 in 2287 the two most likely aren't as old as you were thinking.

[Jazzman]

31 minutes ago, ercramer69 said:

According to those two sources, Hancock's page has "He became a ghoul sometime after 2282" and McDonugh's page has "In 2282, McDonough was voted into office by fear-mongering residents opposing the ghoul residents in the city"

 

Since the Sole Survivor gets out of Vault 111 in 2287 the two most likely aren't as old as you were thinking.

Ghoulification is exclusively the direct result of a Nuclear War, and here the one in 2077 is meant. It's no infection, ey! Those who weren't hidden in a vault or didn't get ghoulified by chance ended up as shadows on pieces of a former wall, if ever. The proof is in the pudding, only ghouls have pre-war memories like the FO4 prot. Gosh, thought you guys have played these games or at least one of them already.

[ercramer69]

5 minutes ago, Jazzman said:

Ghoulification is exclusively the direct result of a Nuclear War, and here the one in 2077 is meant. Those who were't hidden in a vault or didn't get ghoulified by chance ended up as shadows on pieces of a former wall, if ever. The proof is in the pudding, only ghouls have pre-war memories. Gosh, thought you have played these games already.

But if you listen to Hancock talking about him and his brother, he says he wasn't a ghoul when McDonough was elected mayor.  And since there is no way DC was DC in 2077...

[Jazzman]

2 hours ago, ercramer69 said:

But if you listen to Hancock talking about him and his brother, he says he wasn't a ghoul when McDonough was elected mayor.  And since there is no way DC was DC in 2077...

True dat. This is quite obviously a temporary, for silly kowtow to Chris Taylor's authoritative demand after FA:Tactics that both high radiation dose over a longer period of time and a FEV injection would have caused ghoulification. Somebody should have told that the ghoulified boy in the refrigerator, for example. Whatever, that not too bright for contradictory proposal got abandoned again somewhat later by Chris Avellone in his Fallout Bible. The guys quite obviously play that infamous one-step-forward, two-steps-back then turn-around and clap-your-hands game which is everything but convincing.

 

Still the "ruling" ghoul biology is based on "ghouls (that) were created in the Great War of 2077". And what's more, even after some five years in the Commonwealth I haven't yet seen one of my settlers turning into a ghoul after one of the many radiation storms to prove me wrong, or the companion in my bed, for that matter. Have you ever met a wife or husband that complains about the partner for having woken up in bed next to a... uh... ghoul? Guess not. See, there are some simple things that make sense, and some complicate others of younger date that absolutely don't. They can change the lore at will on a daily base just to feel better or to give voice to an internal power struggle as in EA vs Bioware (ME3 ending), to confuse customers even more and to make things worse... as long as they are totally unable to explain the new paradigms, you can guess the rest.

 

And, oh, I can also give a lore conform explanation for the rejection of the mentioned dialogue with Hancock - all ghouls share the same problem, the one more, the others less and the ferals most: They have mush for brains....

[ercramer69]

2 hours ago, Jazzman said:

True dat. This is quite obviously a temporary, for silly kowtow to Chris Taylor's authoritative demand after FA:Tactics that both high radiation dose over a longer period of time and a FEV injection would have caused ghoulification. Somebody should have told that the ghoulified boy in the refrigerator, for example. Whatever, that not too bright for contradictory proposal got abandoned again somewhat later by Chris Avellone in his Fallout Bible. The guys quite obviously play that infamous one-step-forward, two-steps-back then turn-around and clap-your-hands game which is everything but convincing.

 

Still the "ruling" ghoul biology is based on "ghouls (that) were created in the Great War of 2077". And what's more, even after some five years in the Commonwealth I haven't yet seen one of my settlers turning into a ghoul after one of the many radiation storms to prove me wrong, or the companion in my bed, for that matter. Have you ever met a wife or husband that complains about the partner for having woken up in bed next to a... uh... ghoul? Guess not. See, there are some simple things that make sense, and some complicate others of younger date that absolutely don't. They can change the lore at will on a daily base just to feel better or to give voice to an internal power struggle as in EA vs Bioware (ME3 ending), to confuse customers even more and to make things worse... as long as they are totally unable to explain the new paradigms, you can guess the rest.

 

And, oh, I can also give a lore conform explanation for the rejection of the mentioned dialogue with Hancock - all ghouls share the same problem, the one more, the others less and the ferals most: They have mush for brains....

Oh I agree wholeheartedly, all the other ghouls the main characters have encountered were survivors of the great war, as well as lore is whatever the current writer decides irregardless of everything that has been established previously.

[AWP3RATOR]

6 hours ago, Jazzman said:

Ghoulification is exclusively the direct result of a Nuclear War

I believe in this statement, as a fan of the series.  Hancock was cooler when he was a pre-war ghoul.  But after chatting with him for 5 minutes, he tells the player he was a smooth skin until he took some rad drugs.  This apparently happened sometime in the 5 years between 2282 and the game in 2287.

 

I hear what the game is telling me.... but I just reject it.  Therefore (in my game) Hancock is not in fact John McDonough/Hancock but a synth designed and programmed to think he's a Ghoul.  Consider that after taking the "radioactive drug", he passes out.  The Institute scoops him up, does their cloning/replacement thing - only this time they replace him with a Synth ghoul with appropriate memories, etc.

 

We know, at some time during the save interval the Institute replaced the Mayor.  Is hard it to reach for both brothers?

 

They were working on FEV, who's to say they didn't work on ghoulification or reversing it.

[Jazzman]

Aye, Bethesda has fooled us again, not just story- and lore-wise. Some of us knew it all along. Took me five years as economic hitman in Boston to subscribe to their point of view, the same time Hancock allegedly had spent as ghoul when I and I run into that ugly carnival copy of a historical figure of the Commonwealth. The best thing would have been to leave the fucking cryo tank, declare all loved ones dead, pick up Dogmeat at Red Rocket and hit the damned road in Lone Wanderer fashion til the ammunition runs out, declare victory in local fashion and bite the dust. Yep!

[AWP3RATOR]

Yeah we share the same view on the whole "parent looking for child" trope of a story-line.  At best, it's background noise.  I mean I kinda like the concept of not just 1 but 2 survivors from the Vault - that's cool with me.  How it all plays out is another a conversation (and in many threads here) entirely!