Today, I have a little something special for you, a bit of analysis on the recent Fallout 4 news and a potential bit of advance theory about the plotline. Normally, I like to take the news and run it through the process, providing a bit of word you may not have heard and combining it with some commentary and perspective. Today is different.

First off, you'll need to acquaint yourself with the Fallout 4 videos once again. This time, you'll want the one where your character encounters Codsworth, the Mr. Handy that's been lurking around your house for about 220 years. Codsworth notes that you are indeed you, but that you've been away for 200 years and suffering from "hunger-induced paranoia." Codsworth then goes off to fetch you a snack.

Immediately, something came to mind for me right there, as I wondered how in the world it never struck Codsworth that a person who'd been away from home for 200 years probably not only shouldn't be walking around any more, but at the very least shouldn't look like he did when he ran away from the house before it was nuked into oblivion by the Chinese. But Codsworth not only recognizes you, he RECOGNIZES you. You've been gone for 200 years, but Codsworth knows you just as readily as if you'd walked in the door.

This brought a question to mind. How does this Mr. Handy recognize a 200 year old human being who still looks like he did the last time said Mr. Handy saw you? We know that Mr. Handy units have visual recognition systems, so you basically still look the same as you did when you left. How do you look the same as you did 200 years ago? There were two ways that I could think of.

What's interesting here is that the Vaults were never designed to save anyone, but were rather designed as the means for various social experiments. Whether it's 10 women / 20 men / one panther or one man / one crate of puppets, the vaults mean social and scientific experiments. So what experiments would make you look like you do now in 200 years? I can think of three.

One, there's cryogenics. What if vault 111 was about freezing its residents and preserving them until a future existed that was rebuilt? Not a bad idea, but there's not a lot to recommend it, except that Mr. House had sort of preserved himself like that. It didn't work out well, but we know one thing: Mr. House was an MIT graduate, and that means he may have a connection to the Institute, which is likely to play a big part in Boston.

Two, there's cloning. We know clones have played a role in Fallout before--just ask Gary. Which one, ha ha--but that's a bit of a long shot here, especially knowing how Gary turned out.

Three--and this is the one I'm putting the nod on--there's cybernetics. What if you are no longer that human that went into Vault 111, but rather an android who looks sufficiently human that it could even fool a Mr. Handy? What if your memories, your experiences and skills, everything that makes you you is currently residing in a body that's wholly manufactured, but sufficiently skillfully that no one can tell you're not human?

We know that the Institute is capable of such things. We know that much from Fallout 3, where Zimmer--an agent of the Institute--sends you to find an android, and (spoiler alert, in case such things are necessary any more) it turns out to be Harkness, head of security for Rivet City. So what if Vault 111 was part of the android experiments that the Institute designed, at least in part? Timing might be an issue here, but it's still possible that the groundwork may have already been laid while the Institute refined in the post-apocalyptic aftermath.

It's an idea, if nothing else, and it does seem to have some basis for support based on the previous Fallout ventures. Naturally, it's no substitute for official word, but it's likely we'll be hearing about it soon enough. Maybe I just called a big part of the Fallout universe. Maybe I'm jumping at shadows. Only official word will tell, and we'll likely get that the closer we get to November and the great Fallout 4 release date.