new sosu

i think i came up with a decent idea for a new sole survivor

they could even keep the opening!
in fact, it could be exactly the same, but right at the end of it, the narration trails off and stutters a bit, before a gender-neutral "kch" of frustration is heard and the screen burns away like old film.  the screen fades to show a terminal, with the exact narroration on that was just spoken, but stops abruptly at the end.  sosu is an author.  the default character can be seen vaguely in the screen, then the camera pans around and zooms in on their face.

character creation begins.

sosu just stares blankly forward as you fuck around with their face, and a gender option could just have their form changes and set them up with a new voice like magic.  after all, this is character creation.  you can move around their face and have it be like theyre looking away in thought.  for body shape, they can get up and slowly pace in a cirlce while the player shifts their body type to how they want, then they sit back down and stare blankly at the screen when the player is done.  the player confirms the character and sosu gets up angrily and starts for their kitchen/living room.  what would have been shauns room is their study.

gameplay starts

they walk out of the room, yawning very dramatically and greet codsworth, their robot companion.

"good morning, sir/mum!"  sosu doesnt respond

sosu sits down at the coffee table and codsworth floats close.  "how would you like your coffee this morning?"

		"milky"
"sugary"		"medium"
		"black"

no matter the response, sosu says "my favorite"  codsworth announces that its coming right up.  he brews it as news on tv laments shortages of resources and generally gives the real exposition.  codsworth comes back and sets a coffee matching the color that was selected before them.  he "sits" with them by resting on his arm-things.  he starts up a friendly conversation.

"sir/mum, do you have anything planned for today?"

			"yes"
"sarcastic"		"nothing important"
			"no"

(confirming answers)
codsworth: "oh.  i was going to suggest that you take a nap.  it's, ahem, quite clear that you didnt sleep last night"
(denial answers)
codsworth: "ah, good!  might i suggest settling down for a nap, then?  staying up like this isn't healthy!"

a knock is heard before a prompt can come up for a response.  sosu answers it.

the vault-tec scene plays out as normal, but with codsworth taking the role of the spouse by insisting that sosu register for vault access since its free for one reason or another

vault-tec rep leaves, codsworth calls sosu by name and assures them that its just in case.

just then, the news of the bombs dropping comes on tv.  codsworth ushers sosu out the door and they run for the vault.  codsworth is left behind.

on the platform with them are a handful of other people, one of whom appears to be a single parent with their infant in their arms.  going into the vault is normal and sosu goes to the cryo pod, which happens to be the one across from the single parent.

cut to the baby-stealing scene and, since all the pods were defrosted, sosu sees the event take place and kellogg leans in to look at sosu and scoffs at them, like theyre not good enough for the institute to take.

frozen, unfrozen, sosu gets out and into the open world.  sosu could, from here, invoke the main story of finding that child that was taken, or they could ignore it completely.

there wouldnt be any uncharacteristically callousness at leaving the baby for its own self, since sosu has no direct attatchment to it, but they can decide that they want to find it just for the fact that they cant stand to know they could have helped.