Introduction
Greetings, hello, and welcome to my build for the Secret Origins event! Behold the Techmarine, an augmented master of technology inspired by a variety of characters, settings, and gaming universes. Of course given the name I can’t not throw some homage to the wonderful world of Warhammer 40k and their grim-dark future of genetically enhanced superhuman space marines. Also of note are the obvious influences of Blizzard’s Starcraft, the Matrix, Star Wars, and even Robocop. But the Techmarine takes things in a bit different route. Rather than going for physical superiority through the use of augmentations and cybernetics, my build focuses on cybernetics that affect neural, circulatory, pulmonary, and other support systems of the human body. Why not physical? Well we have power armor for that! Just how and why this carved up, half organic, half engineered master of science came into being is exactly the subject of this build and why I felt this concept was perfect for this event! So without further ado, I give you: the Techmarine!
Backstory
In the fall of 2067, nineteen year old Oliver Wyrd was one of the most brilliant young minds of his age. While he should have been in class at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, or interning for the famous Robert House of RobCo, Oliver was a hacker, a criminal, some might 
even say a terrorist. By day, he was just Oliver, a low level grunt on the assembly line at the General Atomics factory in south Boston programming Ms. Nanny robots for the company while living in a tiny studio apartment in downtown Boston. But by night he was no longer the scrawny, small Oliver, he was simply Wyrd, computer hacker. With the power of his stolen and personally augmented RobCo Pip-boy, Wyrd worked for hire for those who knew how to contact him. Hacking into bank accounts, stealing corporate secrets, nothing stored or tracked electronically was beyond his grasp.
When not on a job, Wyrd passed his time messing those those he felt were corrupt, bloated bureaucratic assholes. Mostly this meant screwing with big companies like Poseidon Energy, his own employer General Atomics, and even Nuka-Cola. But as time went on, Wyrd got bolder and bolder, eventually even messing with the US government. After hacking into a broadcast of the Galaxy News Radio and replacing the news broadcast with a recording of the chinese national anthem he quickly found himself with the muzzle of a 10mm pistol in his face with a black suited agent of the DIA at the other.
Taken into custody and charged with treason, espionage, and domestic terrorism, just to name a few, Wyrd was given an ultimatum. Work for the US government and be subjected to whatever job they demanded of him, or be sent to a work camp prison where only one thing would see him freed: death. It should be no surprise that Oliver Wyrd chose the former option.
It did not take long for Oliver to be assigned to what would later be called Project Wyrd. Named after Oliver himself, the project was crafted in conjunction with scientists from the CIT, US military backers, and several miscellaneous civilian contractors. One of the government’s ideas to “beat the reds”, Project Wyrd was designed to implant a human test subject with various, and progressively more complicated and unstable prototype cybernetic implants. These new implants were at the forefront of the very best technology being developed using new circuit based robotics rather than the traditional vacuum tube based tech. These devices could be implanted under the skin of the individual and designed to impact a variety of things from hormone production to facilitating enhanced neural connections. Oliver, or as he was simply referred to as: Wyrd, was the subject of each and every implant the eggheads at the CIT came up with.
Adrenal implants to dull pain and increase physical capabilities, neural implants designed to increase reflexes and response time to a fraction of a normal human, cerebral implants designed to give Wyrd access to computer databases full of files of information far beyond those even a normal person might use in a pip-boy. A variety of sensory implants were grafted into Wyrd’s cranium enhancing his sense of sight, hearing, even smell and taste. Implants designed to release stored reservoirs of chemicals and stimulate internal organs to release their own enzymes to quickly repair damaged tissues and stimulate cellular regeneration. Still others were even more controversial and unstable. Further cerebral implants were designed to release hormones to combat what were viewed as negative mental effects such a sleep deprivation, stress, and fear. The results were semi-successful at best as the the side effects were even more traumatic. When Wyrd did sleep he was plagued by terrible night terrors coupled with bouts of psychotic rage and emotionless outbursts of violence.
To his government handlers though, Wyrd was perfectly functional and an asset for their war in Alaska. Within two years he was deployed to the front line, given whatever was the best current mark of power armor, and sent on a variety of dangerous and highly illegal black ops missions. 
To ensure his compliance, Wyrd was fitted in a small explosive device buried deep within his brain which could and would be detonated if he ever tried to go outside of his mission parameters. For his part though, Wyrd found he rathered enjoyed his missions and what his life had become. Sure the night terrors and psychotic raged sucked but he like the challenges of his missions, the thrill of combat…..he even found out he rather morbidly enjoyed killing….
In addition to his covert missions that struck at the hearts of various strategic resources and assets of the Chinese forces, Wyrd also became an expert power armor mechanic and robotics expert. When not on a mission, he would spend virtually all of his time tinkering with his power armor suits, or programing and upgrading sentry bots, Mr. Gutsy's, protectrons, assaultrons, and whatever other robots he could get his hands on.
So great was his success that eventually, after some ten years of service Wyrd was given increased clearance to return to a semi-civilian lifestyle. Of course he would be required to have a handler even in this life and he was assigned a young female from one of the civilian contractor companies named Nora. Herself an insular person they quickly found they had much in common personality wise and the two ultimate crossed professional boundaries. Marriage, and even a child came of their relationship. Luckily 
for the two, as long was Wyrd followed his directives and completed each assigned mission as requested and without issue he was allowed to keep his civilian freedoms.
Despite the war moving towards increasingly closer fronts to mainland China, Wyrd stayed busy with more and more foreign missions with the government keeping extremely close tabs on him, even going as far as to demand he register with the Vault-Tec vault program. It was for this purpose that he was sent home on leave, staying in one of the government owned residences he was assigned to live at with Nora, and their infant son Shaun, waiting to rendezvous with the Vault-tec rep he had been told would meet with him and Nora before his next assignment….
Gameplay and Roleplay
Alright before perks and stats let's dive right into the gameplay and roleplay of this character as it seems like a good continuation from the backstory. Picking up where we as players would, we will find our young Oliver Wyrd freed from his icy prison and unleashed into a very different Commonwealth. Now our time in the cryo tube was not without lasting negative effects. The ice, frost, and cold did a number on our cybernetic implants and most are either damaged, or completely broken and non functional. It will take some time to repair them and likely even longer to source the parts necessary for Oliver to perform his own surgical procedures. For the more complex implants he will 
likely need to find someone with enough intelligence and scientific knowhow to assist in these endeavors. For ingame mechanics this effectively is the rationale behind leveling. As the build grows and levels, finds new locations, gets better and better loot and salvage, along with meeting some…..sciency peoples, we will unlock our higher level and higher functioning implants. In this way our implants are represented by our perks, as well as some other ingame abilities such as the magazine perks, especially ones like the Massachusetts Surgical Journal and the Total Hack magazine holotapes. These last ones are particularly perfect for this character given his use and skill with robots.
This seems like a good segway into a discussion about our factions, major quests, DLCs, etc. Now your chosen faction will of course be the Minutemen with all their illustrious technology…. just kidding… Institute! Wyrd is everything the Institute represents and more, and will make a fine director, perhaps even better than Father. From a roleplay standpoint he likely represents a treasure trove for Institute scientists to research his pre-war implants and utilize the technology to make some serious improvements to their Gen 1, Gen 2, and maybe even Gen 3 synths. Pretty cool huh? How is that for a good reason to be named Director huh Higgs and Loken? I thought so……
Now then beyond doing the main game quest, embracing everything it is to literally be ‘Mankind Redefined’, you will absolutely want to do the Automotron DLC. This gives us our horde of robots and will unlock one of our two perfect settlement home options: The Mechanist’s Lair. 
Run through the DLC, unlock your robot parts and get to work making your swiss army knife of a robot army. Going to do some outdoor areas in the Commonwealth? Bring your big tanky sentry bot. Using a more stealthy approach. get your assaultron, etc. Be sure to mod our robot followers like Ada, Codsworth, and pre-synth Curie (optional if you ever want to finish her quest but I personally like the idea of romancing her with our equally socially inept Techmarine). Your other great settlement option is Vault 88 from the Vault-Tec mini DLC. This location is a perfect place for any Institute character to make their own vault, perform experiments, research technology, and develop new and interesting weapons, armor, and in the case of our character: implants.
A few last miscellaneous tips and roleplay options in no particular order: Remember your power armor in combat, physically without your armor you are a toothpick full of wires, microchips, and processors. As such don’t be afraid to use your robots to maximum effect. You are not a frontline soldier and despite this being a power armor build you are more of a mid range character hiding letting your minions fight for you as you direct, supervise, and use your intelligence for combat tactics and situational awareness. You have tools at your disposal like the awareness perks so you can enter combat knowing some of the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies. As you might have guessed, the Techmarine loves his high tech weapons and armor. In addition to spending a lot of time working on his implants and trying to regain his damaged capabilities, he spends the rest of his time tinkering with weapons and power armor. Always keep your crafting skills up to date and keep your weapons, preferably energy or plasma automatic rifles in tip-top shape. 
The Tesla rifle is also a terrific weapon for this build and will be an early pick up with the Automotron DLC.
The Techmarine is also a curious collector of all sorts of interesting junk, items, and generally anything he can carry home. Embrace this and packrat whatever tech you can home to be cannibalized in your Mechanist’s Lair or Vault 88 tech-lab and feed your burning obsession with crafting your arms, armor, robots, etc. Likewise the Techmarine would be fascinated by synths and would be very interested in researching and understanding these marvels of technology. Lastly, embrace your role as director of the institute to the fullest extent of your imagination. Perhaps you take it upon yourself to go out and track down new tech that will help the Advanced Systems department. Or helping the SRB by going to this rumored colony of synths in Far Harbor and bringing this Institute property home where it belongs. Or maybe you track down various unique and rare creatures like glowing deathclaws or deathskull radscorpions and bring back the meat and parts to the Bioscience division. Let your imagination wander and again, embrace your role!
Stats:
Alright now then, our sweet cybernetic Techmarine needs some hefty stats befitting his incredible intelligence and mental fortitude:
Strength- Here we start at a nice three strength, allowing us to increase to four when we pick up our bobblehead. This unlocks our crafting perks for our power armor and our robots.
Perception- Our brainy Techmarine is augmented with a variety of implants that enhance or influence his perception skills. Start with five points with the sixth unlocking night person, a perfect representation of his cerebral and sensory implants.
Endurance- Wyrd is a tiny guy! Just look at these pictures! There is a reason he needs his power armor to be in combat. No points here, no bobblehead necessary. Grab some X-01 power armor and forget about it.
Charisma- If there is one skill stat the Techmarine is worse at than endurance, it is charisma. With the social skills of a guy whose best friends are robots and computer programs it is a wonder the man was able to find a woman willing to marry him and have a child with him. No points, move on.
Intelligence- No points here! Just kidding, yeah eight points starting, plus the S.P.E.C.I.A.L book in Sanctuary, plus the bobblehead gives us a fat ten points for our final stat. Many of our perks come out of this tree and this greatly reflects the mental nature of our character and his ability to learn from his experiences and advance quickly as he fixes and enhances his cybernetics (level ups).
Agility- Enhancements to his nervous system and other agility and dexterity related body systems gives Wyrd a base level four, with the ability to pick up the bobblehead for a perceived fifth level of skill in agility and giving him the great implant-esque perk of Action Boy.
Luck- Our final stat, a mighty six points in luck, plus the bobblehead nets us a well above average luck of seven giving us some great critical based perks reflecting the power of his cerebral and optical augments.
P
erks:
Alright well this build is organized very differently from what I usually do….so now that we are almost at the end let's look at the Techmarine’s perks! Now then you should definitely understand by now that our perks and experienced mechanics are representative of our Techmarine’s cybernetic implants. With that in mind I will organize our perks into categories representing implant types.
Sensory Implants: Awareness, Locksmith, and Night Person (Night Vision)
A series of implants that enhance the Techmarine’s sensory perception. Mostly these revolve around optical enhancements in the case of awareness taking in detailed analysis of enemy combatants and enhanced night vision through night person. As well as things like enhanced hearing that can be focused and sharpened to the point of aiding things like lock picking and other delicate, fine motor work.
Neural Implants: Night Person (Intelligence), Hacker, Robotics Expert, Better Criticals, Critical Banker, and Nuclear Physicist
Likely the biggest package of implants, the Techmarine has a variety of chips, implants, and other cybernetics wired into his cranium. These enhance his brain power, computing speed, and situational analysis far beyond the average person. Interface connections set into his epidermis, or skin for you non Institute types, allow him to interface on whole new level with things like computers, terminals, his own pip-boy, and even things like his power armor. In this way the Techmarine can access new levels of diagnostics, and other information, as well as hack into virtually any electronic device or creation. Lastly, his enhanced brain power allows him to take in vast amounts of sensory data and calculate precise shots to pinpoint weaknesses and therefore terrifying combat potential. 
Pulmonary/Circulatory/Nervous Implants: Medic and Action Boy
Multiple implants that span multiple systems of the human body they tie into specifically keeping the Techmarine moving faster, longer, and without the diminished results of things like pain and damage. By dumping large amounts of adrenaline and other hormones and chemicals into the bloodstream the Techmarine can reach short bursts of enhanced stamina and stamina recovery, as well as ignore even large damaging events and with the added outside additions of things like stimpacks, can heal at an artificially accelerated rate.
Combat Implants: Commando
This implant is literally a computer implanted directly into the Techmarine’s brain. It effectively function as a reservoir of knowledge such as combat tactics, weapon training, armor proficiency, and other relevant information that would aid a soldier on the battlefield. Over time the Techmarine can repair corrupted files and restore information aiding his offensive skills.
Crafting: Armorer, Blacksmith, Gun Nut, Scrapper, and Science!
While these are not implant perks per se, they are very much in keeping with our character’s growth and experience as he evolves in the Commonwealth and adapts to this new world called the Wasteland that he finds himself in. Adapting his old skills to use new scrap, new tech, or just trying to make sense of a variety of sources 
and options available where nothing is quite the way he once would have known it prewar. As he grows and develops and works with more skills and items his crafting perks represent his raw intellect showing through.
Gear
Pretty short and sweet here. Get yourself some energy weapons, automatic for your commando perk. Righteous Authority is a nice early game option for you and an easy pick up. But for the truly high tech you will absolutely want a good plasma rifle. Farm for a legendary or just keep your fingers crossed something decent drops for you. By the time you get to the institute you can buy the Experiment 18-A rifle from the synth merchant. This gun, or other maximum modified plasma rifles will easily get you to your end game and then some.
Armor wise you will want the very best power armor. This means X-01 and until then just whatever you can find. I felt the T-51 set was a nice look when playing early but it is not hard to pick 
yourself up some X-01 by mid game and keep modifying and building that. While the helmet for the X-01 is pretty cool and unique I wanted to do something even more unique and interesting and matched the space helmet from Nuka-World with no actual power armor helmet. The look reminded me of Starcraft and other sci-fi settings and really make me feel like this was some creation of the Techmarine designed to give him vast readouts and information screens in a huge field of view from the more limited eye’d screens of the standard power armor variants. I also of course went with Insitute paint to show off the character’s allegiance and just fit well with the personality and the type of clothing I saw him wearing which leads us to…..
For under your armor you will want something simple, light, and in keeping with the scientific vibe, but still remembering that you are basically an escaped government lab rat. All that considered I really like the synth uniform which is also one of my favorite clothing items in the game anyway. Lab coats and such can be nice 
for a roleplay outfit within your settlement lab, or the Institute itself, but I would not wear it out into the Commonwealth under your power armor.
Conclusion
And that I do believe about wraps it up! I am happy to have managed to find some time to get this build done for the event and it was an absolute joy to draw on a more sci-fi look, feel, and related backstory for this character. It has also been a lot of fun getting into “clean” character with the nice white Institute elements which are a big contrast from my many recent raider builds. Overall I hope you enjoyed the read and I encourage all of you to check out the other wonderful event builds for the Secret Origins event! Thank you for the view and post any questions or comments below! Cheers!
Introduction
Greetings, hello, and welcome to my build for the Secret Origins event! Behold the Techmarine, an augmented master of technology inspired by a variety of characters, settings, and gaming universes. Of course given the name I can’t not throw some homage to the wonderful world of Warhammer 40k and their grim-dark future of genetically enhanced superhuman space marines. Also of note are the obvious influences of Blizzard’s Starcraft, the Matrix, Star Wars, and even Robocop. But the Techmarine takes things in a bit different route. Rather than going for physical superiority through the use of augmentations and cybernetics, my build focuses on cybernetics that affect neural, circulatory, pulmonary, and other support systems of the human body. Why not physical? Well we have power armor for that! Just how and why this carved up, half organic, half engineered master of science came into being is exactly the subject of this build and why I felt this concept was perfect for this event! So without further ado, I give you: the Techmarine!
Backstory
In the fall of 2067, nineteen year old Oliver Wyrd was one of the most brilliant young minds of his age. While he should have been in class at the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, or interning for the famous Robert House of RobCo, Oliver was a hacker, a criminal, some might even say a terrorist. By day, he was just Oliver, a low level grunt on the assembly line at the General Atomics factory in south Boston programming Ms. Nanny robots for the company while living in a tiny studio apartment in downtown Boston. But by night he was no longer the scrawny, small Oliver, he was simply Wyrd, computer hacker. With the power of his stolen and personally augmented RobCo Pip-boy, Wyrd worked for hire for those who knew how to contact him. Hacking into bank accounts, stealing corporate secrets, nothing stored or tracked electronically was beyond his grasp.
When not on a job, Wyrd passed his time messing those those he felt were corrupt, bloated bureaucratic assholes. Mostly this meant screwing with big companies like Poseidon Energy, his own employer General Atomics, and even Nuka-Cola. But as time went on, Wyrd got bolder and bolder, eventually even messing with the US government. After hacking into a broadcast of the Galaxy News Radio and replacing the news broadcast with a recording of the chinese national anthem he quickly found himself with the muzzle of a 10mm pistol in his face with a black suited agent of the DIA at the other.
Taken into custody and charged with treason, espionage, and domestic terrorism, just to name a few, Wyrd was given an ultimatum. Work for the US government and be subjected to whatever job they demanded of him, or be sent to a work camp prison where only one thing would see him freed: death. It should be no surprise that Oliver Wyrd chose the former option.
It did not take long for Oliver to be assigned to what would later be called Project Wyrd. Named after Oliver himself, the project was crafted in conjunction with scientists from the CIT, US military backers, and several miscellaneous civilian contractors. One of the government’s ideas to “beat the reds”, Project Wyrd was designed to implant a human test subject with various, and progressively more complicated and unstable prototype cybernetic implants. These new implants were at the forefront of the very best technology being developed using new circuit based robotics rather than the traditional vacuum tube based tech. These devices could be implanted under the skin of the individual and designed to impact a variety of things from hormone production to facilitating enhanced neural connections. Oliver, or as he was simply referred to as: Wyrd, was the subject of each and every implant the eggheads at the CIT came up with.
Adrenal implants to dull pain and increase physical capabilities, neural implants designed to increase reflexes and response time to a fraction of a normal human, cerebral implants designed to give Wyrd access to computer databases full of files of information far beyond those even a normal person might use in a pip-boy. A variety of sensory implants were grafted into Wyrd’s cranium enhancing his sense of sight, hearing, even smell and taste. Implants designed to release stored reservoirs of chemicals and stimulate internal organs to release their own enzymes to quickly repair damaged tissues and stimulate cellular regeneration. Still others were even more controversial and unstable. Further cerebral implants were designed to release hormones to combat what were viewed as negative mental effects such a sleep deprivation, stress, and fear. The results were semi-successful at best as the the side effects were even more traumatic. When Wyrd did sleep he was plagued by terrible night terrors coupled with bouts of psychotic rage and emotionless outbursts of violence.
To his government handlers though, Wyrd was perfectly functional and an asset for their war in Alaska. Within two years he was deployed to the front line, given whatever was the best current mark of power armor, and sent on a variety of dangerous and highly illegal black ops missions. To ensure his compliance, Wyrd was fitted in a small explosive device buried deep within his brain which could and would be detonated if he ever tried to go outside of his mission parameters. For his part though, Wyrd found he rathered enjoyed his missions and what his life had become. Sure the night terrors and psychotic raged sucked but he like the challenges of his missions, the thrill of combat…..he even found out he rather morbidly enjoyed killing….
In addition to his covert missions that struck at the hearts of various strategic resources and assets of the Chinese forces, Wyrd also became an expert power armor mechanic and robotics expert. When not on a mission, he would spend virtually all of his time tinkering with his power armor suits, or programing and upgrading sentry bots, Mr. Gutsy's, protectrons, assaultrons, and whatever other robots he could get his hands on.
So great was his success that eventually, after some ten years of service Wyrd was given increased clearance to return to a semi-civilian lifestyle. Of course he would be required to have a handler even in this life and he was assigned a young female from one of the civilian contractor companies named Nora. Herself an insular person they quickly found they had much in common personality wise and the two ultimate crossed professional boundaries. Marriage, and even a child came of their relationship. Luckily for the two, as long was Wyrd followed his directives and completed each assigned mission as requested and without issue he was allowed to keep his civilian freedoms.
Despite the war moving towards increasingly closer fronts to mainland China, Wyrd stayed busy with more and more foreign missions with the government keeping extremely close tabs on him, even going as far as to demand he register with the Vault-Tec vault program. It was for this purpose that he was sent home on leave, staying in one of the government owned residences he was assigned to live at with Nora, and their infant son Shaun, waiting to rendezvous with the Vault-tec rep he had been told would meet with him and Nora before his next assignment….
Gameplay and Roleplay
Alright before perks and stats let's dive right into the gameplay and roleplay of this character as it seems like a good continuation from the backstory. Picking up where we as players would, we will find our young Oliver Wyrd freed from his icy prison and unleashed into a very different Commonwealth. Now our time in the cryo tube was not without lasting negative effects. The ice, frost, and cold did a number on our cybernetic implants and most are either damaged, or completely broken and non functional. It will take some time to repair them and likely even longer to source the parts necessary for Oliver to perform his own surgical procedures. For the more complex implants he will likely need to find someone with enough intelligence and scientific knowhow to assist in these endeavors. For ingame mechanics this effectively is the rationale behind leveling. As the build grows and levels, finds new locations, gets better and better loot and salvage, along with meeting some…..sciency peoples, we will unlock our higher level and higher functioning implants. In this way our implants are represented by our perks, as well as some other ingame abilities such as the magazine perks, especially ones like the Massachusetts Surgical Journal and the Total Hack magazine holotapes. These last ones are particularly perfect for this character given his use and skill with robots.
This seems like a good segway into a discussion about our factions, major quests, DLCs, etc. Now your chosen faction will of course be the Minutemen with all their illustrious technology…. just kidding… Institute! Wyrd is everything the Institute represents and more, and will make a fine director, perhaps even better than Father. From a roleplay standpoint he likely represents a treasure trove for Institute scientists to research his pre-war implants and utilize the technology to make some serious improvements to their Gen 1, Gen 2, and maybe even Gen 3 synths. Pretty cool huh? How is that for a good reason to be named Director huh Higgs and Loken? I thought so……
Now then beyond doing the main game quest, embracing everything it is to literally be ‘Mankind Redefined’, you will absolutely want to do the Automotron DLC. This gives us our horde of robots and will unlock one of our two perfect settlement home options: The Mechanist’s Lair. Run through the DLC, unlock your robot parts and get to work making your swiss army knife of a robot army. Going to do some outdoor areas in the Commonwealth? Bring your big tanky sentry bot. Using a more stealthy approach. get your assaultron, etc. Be sure to mod our robot followers like Ada, Codsworth, and pre-synth Curie (optional if you ever want to finish her quest but I personally like the idea of romancing her with our equally socially inept Techmarine). Your other great settlement option is Vault 88 from the Vault-Tec mini DLC. This location is a perfect place for any Institute character to make their own vault, perform experiments, research technology, and develop new and interesting weapons, armor, and in the case of our character: implants.
A few last miscellaneous tips and roleplay options in no particular order: Remember your power armor in combat, physically without your armor you are a toothpick full of wires, microchips, and processors. As such don’t be afraid to use your robots to maximum effect. You are not a frontline soldier and despite this being a power armor build you are more of a mid range character hiding letting your minions fight for you as you direct, supervise, and use your intelligence for combat tactics and situational awareness. You have tools at your disposal like the awareness perks so you can enter combat knowing some of the strengths and weaknesses of your enemies. As you might have guessed, the Techmarine loves his high tech weapons and armor. In addition to spending a lot of time working on his implants and trying to regain his damaged capabilities, he spends the rest of his time tinkering with weapons and power armor. Always keep your crafting skills up to date and keep your weapons, preferably energy or plasma automatic rifles in tip-top shape. The Tesla rifle is also a terrific weapon for this build and will be an early pick up with the Automotron DLC.
The Techmarine is also a curious collector of all sorts of interesting junk, items, and generally anything he can carry home. Embrace this and packrat whatever tech you can home to be cannibalized in your Mechanist’s Lair or Vault 88 tech-lab and feed your burning obsession with crafting your arms, armor, robots, etc. Likewise the Techmarine would be fascinated by synths and would be very interested in researching and understanding these marvels of technology. Lastly, embrace your role as director of the institute to the fullest extent of your imagination. Perhaps you take it upon yourself to go out and track down new tech that will help the Advanced Systems department. Or helping the SRB by going to this rumored colony of synths in Far Harbor and bringing this Institute property home where it belongs. Or maybe you track down various unique and rare creatures like glowing deathclaws or deathskull radscorpions and bring back the meat and parts to the Bioscience division. Let your imagination wander and again, embrace your role!
Stats:
Alright now then, our sweet cybernetic Techmarine needs some hefty stats befitting his incredible intelligence and mental fortitude:
Strength- Here we start at a nice three strength, allowing us to increase to four when we pick up our bobblehead. This unlocks our crafting perks for our power armor and our robots.
Perception- Our brainy Techmarine is augmented with a variety of implants that enhance or influence his perception skills. Start with five points with the sixth unlocking night person, a perfect representation of his cerebral and sensory implants.
Endurance- Wyrd is a tiny guy! Just look at these pictures! There is a reason he needs his power armor to be in combat. No points here, no bobblehead necessary. Grab some X-01 power armor and forget about it.
Charisma- If there is one skill stat the Techmarine is worse at than endurance, it is charisma. With the social skills of a guy whose best friends are robots and computer programs it is a wonder the man was able to find a woman willing to marry him and have a child with him. No points, move on.
Intelligence- No points here! Just kidding, yeah eight points starting, plus the S.P.E.C.I.A.L book in Sanctuary, plus the bobblehead gives us a fat ten points for our final stat. Many of our perks come out of this tree and this greatly reflects the mental nature of our character and his ability to learn from his experiences and advance quickly as he fixes and enhances his cybernetics (level ups).
Agility- Enhancements to his nervous system and other agility and dexterity related body systems gives Wyrd a base level four, with the ability to pick up the bobblehead for a perceived fifth level of skill in agility and giving him the great implant-esque perk of Action Boy.
Luck- Our final stat, a mighty six points in luck, plus the bobblehead nets us a well above average luck of seven giving us some great critical based perks reflecting the power of his cerebral and optical augments.
Perks:
Alright well this build is organized very differently from what I usually do….so now that we are almost at the end let's look at the Techmarine’s perks! Now then you should definitely understand by now that our perks and experienced mechanics are representative of our Techmarine’s cybernetic implants. With that in mind I will organize our perks into categories representing implant types.
Sensory Implants: Awareness, Locksmith, and Night Person (Night Vision)
A series of implants that enhance the Techmarine’s sensory perception. Mostly these revolve around optical enhancements in the case of awareness taking in detailed analysis of enemy combatants and enhanced night vision through night person. As well as things like enhanced hearing that can be focused and sharpened to the point of aiding things like lock picking and other delicate, fine motor work.
Neural Implants: Night Person (Intelligence), Hacker, Robotics Expert, Better Criticals, Critical Banker, and Nuclear Physicist
Likely the biggest package of implants, the Techmarine has a variety of chips, implants, and other cybernetics wired into his cranium. These enhance his brain power, computing speed, and situational analysis far beyond the average person. Interface connections set into his epidermis, or skin for you non Institute types, allow him to interface on whole new level with things like computers, terminals, his own pip-boy, and even things like his power armor. In this way the Techmarine can access new levels of diagnostics, and other information, as well as hack into virtually any electronic device or creation. Lastly, his enhanced brain power allows him to take in vast amounts of sensory data and calculate precise shots to pinpoint weaknesses and therefore terrifying combat potential.
Pulmonary/Circulatory/Nervous Implants: Medic and Action Boy
Multiple implants that span multiple systems of the human body they tie into specifically keeping the Techmarine moving faster, longer, and without the diminished results of things like pain and damage. By dumping large amounts of adrenaline and other hormones and chemicals into the bloodstream the Techmarine can reach short bursts of enhanced stamina and stamina recovery, as well as ignore even large damaging events and with the added outside additions of things like stimpacks, can heal at an artificially accelerated rate.
Combat Implants: Commando
This implant is literally a computer implanted directly into the Techmarine’s brain. It effectively function as a reservoir of knowledge such as combat tactics, weapon training, armor proficiency, and other relevant information that would aid a soldier on the battlefield. Over time the Techmarine can repair corrupted files and restore information aiding his offensive skills.
Crafting: Armorer, Blacksmith, Gun Nut, Scrapper, and Science!
While these are not implant perks per se, they are very much in keeping with our character’s growth and experience as he evolves in the Commonwealth and adapts to this new world called the Wasteland that he finds himself in. Adapting his old skills to use new scrap, new tech, or just trying to make sense of a variety of sources and options available where nothing is quite the way he once would have known it prewar. As he grows and develops and works with more skills and items his crafting perks represent his raw intellect showing through.
Gear
Pretty short and sweet here. Get yourself some energy weapons, automatic for your commando perk. Righteous Authority is a nice early game option for you and an easy pick up. But for the truly high tech you will absolutely want a good plasma rifle. Farm for a legendary or just keep your fingers crossed something decent drops for you. By the time you get to the institute you can buy the Experiment 18-A rifle from the synth merchant. This gun, or other maximum modified plasma rifles will easily get you to your end game and then some.
Armor wise you will want the very best power armor. This means X-01 and until then just whatever you can find. I felt the T-51 set was a nice look when playing early but it is not hard to pick yourself up some X-01 by mid game and keep modifying and building that. While the helmet for the X-01 is pretty cool and unique I wanted to do something even more unique and interesting and matched the space helmet from Nuka-World with no actual power armor helmet. The look reminded me of Starcraft and other sci-fi settings and really make me feel like this was some creation of the Techmarine designed to give him vast readouts and information screens in a huge field of view from the more limited eye’d screens of the standard power armor variants. I also of course went with Insitute paint to show off the character’s allegiance and just fit well with the personality and the type of clothing I saw him wearing which leads us to…..
For under your armor you will want something simple, light, and in keeping with the scientific vibe, but still remembering that you are basically an escaped government lab rat. All that considered I really like the synth uniform which is also one of my favorite clothing items in the game anyway. Lab coats and such can be nice for a roleplay outfit within your settlement lab, or the Institute itself, but I would not wear it out into the Commonwealth under your power armor.
Conclusion
And that I do believe about wraps it up! I am happy to have managed to find some time to get this build done for the event and it was an absolute joy to draw on a more sci-fi look, feel, and related backstory for this character. It has also been a lot of fun getting into “clean” character with the nice white Institute elements which are a big contrast from my many recent raider builds. Overall I hope you enjoyed the read and I encourage all of you to check out the other wonderful event builds for the Secret Origins event! Thank you for the view and post any questions or comments below! Cheers!
