[Last Hope] 18 – Gaining Power

Taking a sip of water from a bottle, I leaned back into my chair and looked upon my terminal with a slight smirk. It's been a week since Kellogg started working on the tasks I've given him. In that time, I have leveled up, putting my points directly into robotics, giving me even more knowledge to go off of to improve the Synths under Kellogg's command, as well as the information I needed to make some headway with the droid hidden in my room.

You see, I spent a few days working on constructing an algorithm from the bottom up that had one sole purpose: to be a translator and language decryptor. I still had no idea what kind of language was used to program the droid, but with the algorithm, I was starting to piece things together. 

The progress was excruciatingly slow, but I was guessing that it would take a few years for the algorithm to decrypt the language to an understandable level; that speed could be increased if I had more processing power for the program to use. 

Outside of the head, the rest of the droid's body was fair game, as I spent some of my free time slowly taking it apart to find out how it ticked, but I gained very little regarding learning anything from the droid. I lacked the knowledge needed to make heads or tails of what I was dealing with.

Putting that out of the way for now, I focused back on what I was looking at before me, thousands of thousands of files I could directly access and view because of the backdoor I had set on Father's terminal and the things I have found through just skimming, made me realize just how foolish the institiute was being and how bad of a leader Father truly was.

For one, the F.E.V. program, a secret lab hidden within the institute, was worked by a small team of scientists whose only goal was the experimentation and documentation of the effects of F.E.V. The problem was that, even though this program had been active for decades, nothing new was learned. No progress has been made for literal years, despite the amount of resources poured into the project. 

The bigger problem, outside of that, was that the Supermutants and Mutants created as a byproduct of this pointless research were dumped on the surface, flooding what remained of Boston with hulking green Supermutants stronger and tougher than the average human. I was just happy the Institute didn't make things worse by making these supermutants smarter as well. As they are right now, they are dumb brutes.

I also spent time going over files of more... sensitive research that has been conducted or forbidden by Father since his rise to power as the Director. Things that I didn't even think the institute delved into, such as literal cloning, radiation-based weaponry, terraforming technology, fusion, and fission-powered weaponry, shielding, camouflage, their own versions of power armor, and even something that seemed to be straight out of fiction, an FTL engine.

There was also research into areas such as Cybernetics, genetics, pulse weaponry, holographic technology, and augmented reality. However, most of the research was either dropped or completely blocked by Father or a previous Director.

Going over everything, it was clear that the Institute and its scientists were more focused on the Synths, hydroponics, and laser weaponry research than anything else, devoting most of their manpower and minds to this research rather than to more valuable projects. 

It was all so...wasteful, not to mention idiotic, what the previous Head Directors and Father have done. 

Part of me was tempted to spread this data and research across the Institute, but I knew doing so would lead to a schism or full-on civil war or disaster, so I held back for now. Instead, I decided to send a few...messages to the more important figures of the Institute, the Directors.

[To: Murphy Benet, Head of Robotics. 

Hello, Murphy. I am the Specter, and I have been watching. Watching as you and the other Directors, alongside Father, have poisoned the Institute and everything it stands for, the betterment of Mankind, a Mankind redefined. I have grown weary of the lack of progress towards fixing the problems plaguing the Institute.

Why do you allow for such incompetence to spread like a plague through the Institute? Why is 'Father' still the Head Director, despite his countless flaws and sheer incompetence holding us down? Things need to change if the Institute is to survive beyond phase three, and so, I wish to discuss a proposition with you and your fellow directors. On your terminal, you will find a new application. Open this application a week from now at midnight, and we shall discuss. 

May the wonders of robotics continue ever forward, - The Specter

P.S. I hope you enjoy my gift, included in this email, which is an upgrade to Gen 1 and 2 Synths that will greatly increase their effectiveness and efficiency.]

I sent similar messages to the other directors, including a little gift package that would surely gain their interest.

For Director Biggs of Bioscience, I sent her the data of a prototype algae that could thrive in water with little energy while providing a food source to fish, as well as an update for their terminals that would make their inventorying much easier.

For Director Plourde, I sent her a similar gift, this one being an application for their terminals that was essentially a complex calculator, which would allow them to solve their math equations far faster, with another program that was essentially a 'Spreadsheet Algorithm.'

For Director Zimmer, I sent him software updates that should allow Coursers to blend in far more easily with society, allowing them to be far more effective with infiltration and missions involving avoiding social interactions. In contrast, another part of the update would allow for the Coursers to collect and share data with other Coursers, as I originally programmed for Kellogg's Synths.

Lastly, for Ben, I sent him an update that was an all-around improvement to the Synths under his command, which fixed and improved a lot of the VI of the Synths he used to help maintain the Institute and the concourse while also giving them the ability to learn how to fix things from watching Ben and Allie.

I only hoped that my little gifts included with the emails would keep the Directors quiet and keep the Father out of the loop. As for the week's wait, it was primarily so that I would have enough time to prepare while also giving the Directors more time to think and decide whether they wish to hear my proposal or not.