#institute be like: ummmm... we want this area populated ONLY with our idea of humanity and we will use mutants and raiders to kill you off

[endivinity]

WOUGH okay so the premise all started because of the way I play FO4 on survival which is about as long and arduous as this post. it's ALL in settlement building and most of my mods reflect this. I play that shit like minecraft. I'll chuck some screenshots at the end

the more you think about it, the less plausible it is for a soldier or a lawyer respectively to have ANY idea about the fine tuning of crafting a fusion generator or a water purifier, let alone know how to construct a pre-broken window pane. None of the wood is useable - there's no amount of fantasy that can make me believe a whole bed can be constructed out of two pencils and a pack of cigarettes. Realistically - the resources need to come from somewhere. I've also read critiques about how the commonwealth hasn't progressed for two centuries (which, part of this is because of how Bethesda handles the Fallout franchise vs the established societies in 1 and 2. for the record i LOATHED 3 and am very firmly a new vegas bitch). They're still living in Diamond City surrounded by piles of trash and the rest of the NPC settlements are canonically wiped out or basically considered the dregs (Goodneighbor, the Children of Atom, charitably the Atom Cats; Quincy and University Point, etc). They live off scavenging for trash and components that are somehow still lying around untouched. Most of this is because the game wants you to use this cool mechanic they've introduced and to feel like you're rebuilding the wasteland with your bare hands, and you get your pick of a huge scope of lands to build on, and the appearance of actual civilisation suffers for it. Nobody lives there. Realistically, you're going to build up one or two really good settlements and the rest are barebones or empty.

Jake (probably has a longer name. it's never mentioned) is a civil engineer who has combat training and survival know-how for funsies and by the cusp of the great war her department had enough downsizing that she was taking on the work of coworkers who had been "let go" (executed for thought crimes), so she knows some stuff about blueprinting things other than major city infrastructure, at least enough to delegate or make suggestions. She also stirred the pot and got higher-ups very angry at her and was punitively assigned to marriage and domesticity in Sanctuary Hills. Most importantly, she's not related to the family that have the kid. Nate gets shot and Nora suffocates in cryo.

She enters a world that perplexes her specifically because nothing has progressed for two hundred years, but through very very careful investigation she finds out that something or someone is actively interfering with any attempts to settle and develop. There's an intensive spying network going on and she has to figure out what's safe, who's safe, how the raider groups are able to be raiding year-round without dying of starvation because they're certainly not farming, how to build and manage and educate her new settlements without tripping the local spy network, how to set up trade convoys for lumber and concrete without tripping the local spy network OR instigating the raider gangs that systematically wiped out the convoys in the first place, and how to source parts for this goddamn water purifier schematic while not dying to super-radstorms or a really big wild hog. She customarily fights with a knife (Throatslicer); she's proficient at sniping and occasionally uses a plasma sniper or a gauss rifle.

Deacon is her story companion because of the 'friend' RR sign above the vault. Guy's been spying from the get-go. But because Jake's super paranoid and realistically, he has no way of knowing who you are because you aren't stupid and bald and wearing a pair of signature sunglasses, he loses her the moment she ditches the vault suit at the Abernathys'; half of his part of the story is trying to find out what happened to her, why the institute was involved in the vault at all (and increasingly wild theories about how she's a synth plant), and who this weirdass woman is who's suddenly taking over the trade routes, and talk of new settlements that's kept so hush-hush he can't even crack the secrets with his super believable caravan hand outfit.

Eventually Jake realizes she's in way over her head trying to manage settlements and hunts down the Railroad to ask for help, which... they're very downsized. They're basically a skeleton crew. I have no idea how they suddenly have all those heavies at the battle of bunker hill or the castle or whatever the fuck. So they can't and/or won't help her, and it comes down to Deacon to make an executive decision over what he thinks is going to be longterm better for the wasteland and the synth populations, and when weighing up the options between this cool lady who never shows her face and creeps around spiderman-style to sever a gunner's spinal cord and wants to crack the Institute wide open, or being trapped in a crypt with Carrington and successfully exfiltrating one synth every three months, the decision is obvious

and since you made it this far here's some shots of builds I've worked on. My main base at Egret Tours; Sanctuary Hills after I removed all the shitass housing for funsies; Murkwater Construction with incredibly poor navmeshing; my other main at Dalton Farm. yes my save file hates me