After nearly 10 years since the release of Fallout 3, Bethesda graced us all with the fourth mainline entry in the Fallout series in 2015. Set years after the events of the last game, Fallout 4 introduced a ton of new features and locations never seen before in the series. The game also featured completely new plot filled with characters for us to love or hate, date, or of course kill.

Among Fallout 4’s new cast is a character named Nick Valentine. Valentine is a synthetic humanoid living in Diamond City. He works as a detective, running his own small agency in the city along with help of his assistant Ellie Perkins. After meeting him, you can work alongside Nick and he’ll become an asset when it comes to hacking into those tricky terminals (so long as they don’t belong to someone else).

While Nick’s job is to uncover some of the mysteries plaguing residents of Diamond City, this prototype android has a few mysteries of his own. As an experiment to determine if synths were capable of thinking on their own, Nick was put through a countless number of tests and trials. These experiments involved having various personalities and memories loaded into him, essentially turning him into another person against his will. If you woke up in the middle of a nuclear wasteland in the body of a robot, you might have a few questions, right?

15 Before He Found His Calling

Although he’s a well-established Detective by the time you meet him in Diamond City, it actually took some time before landing his dream job.

After saving the mayor’s daughter from a group of kidnappers, he was given a home in the city as a reward. Saving a kid from a group of bloodthirsty criminals isn’t enough to get people to stop staring at you and thinking you’re a metal monstrosity though. To help ease the people’s minds, Nick put his robotic parts to use and became the city’s handyman. It wasn’t until he helped solve the mystery of a man’s missing wife that people stopped treating him as Mr.Fix-It and started requesting his services as a private investigator.

14 Self Repair

Although Nick’s true talents are being used as a detective, he did pick up some valuable skills during his time as a repair bot.

Nick Valentine is what’s considered to be a second-generation synth. These androids are built to be sturdier than the previous models and while they’re still lacking in A.I. department, they’re meant to look more like an actual human.

Now, Nick is one good looking robot man but there is something off with his appearance. His right hand is lacking that plastic flesh coating needed to make him look human… ish.

If you happen to give Nick a screw driver, you might catch him using it to work on his skeletal right hand during his idle animation. I’m pretty sure it’ll take more than a screwdriver to really get that fixed though.

13 Nick’s Former Life

Let’s take a moment to remember that the Nick we know exists through the memory of a deceased human. The original Nick Valentine was a police detective from Chicago. He came to Boston with his fiancée Jennifer Lands to lead an operation against an infamous mob boss.

After the operation went awry, leading to the death of his fiancée, Nick was ordered to seek treatment for PTSD at the famous Commonwealth Institute of Technology. Unfortunately, the bombs were dropped during the following weeks and they all ended up dead.

At least their memories were on file!

12 Vengeance Tastes Sweet

Nick Valentine’s fiancée was killed by a man named Edward Winter, the same mafia leader Nick came to Boston to arrest. It’s no surprise that Nick holds a bit of a grudge about that.

A convenient surprise is that Eddie survived the bombs dropping and now lives underground as a ghoul. You can help Nick to find Winter and bring him to justice. What will truly make Nick happy though is if you let him take the shot. You’re fine with doing all the holotape collecting and investigating on your own, right? It’s not like Nick is a detective or anything.

11 Friendship For Favours

For someone who’s all about justice and doing the right thing, you wouldn’t expect Nick’s friendship to be so conditional.

Completing the quest “Long Time Coming” where Nick finally brings Edward Winter to justice is the only way to get a 100 percent affinity rating with Nick. He’s so willing to stand on this rule that without completing the quest, his affinity with you can be capped at 999.00. At least getting maximum affinity with Nick will net the Close to Metal perk.

What a stubborn synth.

10 Estranged Family

Back when Nick was being used as a test product for independent synths, he wasn’t alone.

A second prototype second-generation synth named DIMA was tested alongside Nick. As two similar bots in the same boat, Nick and DIMA formed a brotherly bond over the course of their time in the lab. DIMA eventually gained enough human knowledge to rebel against the institute and break him and his brother out but not before Nick was loaded with his current memories. Nick rightfully freaked out after waking up from a 200-year nap and finding a talking robot so the two were forced to split ways.

Not only can you reunite Nick with his lost brother DIMA who now runs his own peace group, but you can also help them mend their relationship. If you choose not to do that however, it’ll create some awkward moments whenever Nick is greeted by DIMA.

9 A Hero To The People

With the various titles included in his job description, it’s safe to say that Nick has done a lot for Diamond City.

The people of Diamond City are more than happy to show their appreciation too. When you’re wandering around with Nick, townspeople may randomly approach him to thank him for all his hard work. They’ll even go as far offering him gifts. Don’t get too excited though, as Nick will always turn these offers down and nothing will show up in his inventory. You would think that just maybe he could pass along a free stimpak or something to help you out.

8 A Bleeding Synth

First-generation synths are completely robotic. They’re a bunch of nuts and bolts built to move like a human, but it doesn’t have any real organs or muscles that humans have. The second-generation synths are basically the same thing but with skin designed to cover up those same nuts and bolts. The jump between iterations is basically putting a skin on your cellphone.

With all this in mind, it brings up the question of why Nick Valentine, a prototype generation-two synth, uses stimpaks to heal himself. How does a liquid medication that heals humans work on him? It doesn’t make sense that a prototype would have real blood when none of the others do. The only possible explanation is that Nick is dumping that content of that syringe and replacing it with oil or whatever it is he’s running on.

Not cool, Nick.

7 Known Far And Wide

Having Nick Valentine around might not get you any free stuff from grateful citizens, but it can help to keep you out of trouble.

A random event can happen in the game where a group of raiders will decide to let you get as close to them as possible before launching a surprise attack. While this would normally be boiled down to your typical wasteland deathmatch, things might end differently if you’re travelling with Nick.

Before attacking, one of the raiders will stop and claim to recognize Nick as the guy that helped him sometime in the past. All the raiders will stop attacking and they’ll mention that they never would’ve attacked if they knew it was him.

Despite having no idea who they are, Nick plays along with the situation. At least you managed to avoid getting killed.

6 Nick Is Well-Read

We don’t know much about Nick’s former life outside of being a part of law enforcement, but we can guess that he was probably a man of culture.

If Nick happens to be around during a part of Far Harbor, he quotes the Bhagavad Gita "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Evidentially, the same quote was used by J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1945 after the first atomic bomb was detonated.

With Nick knowing the Bhagavad Gita, it would be interesting to know more about Nick’s life as a human.

5 The Ace Of Spades

The name Nick Valentine might have more meaning behind it than just sounding cool.

In the early 1900s, American author Dashiell Hammet earned a name for himself through his detective novels. One his most well-known characters was Sam Spade, a hard-boiled detective who stops at nothing to seek justice. That certainly sounds like our buddy Nick but what’s even more convincing is when you think of the spade’s heart-like shape, something notably related to Valentines Day.

Still not convinced? Humphrey Bogart was an actor famed for playing the roles of hard boiled detectives. Guess who happened to play detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon’s movie adaptation? You can’t say the two don’t look awfully similar.

4 Forever Alone

If the whole theory about Valentines and Spades is true, it might explain Nick’s lack of a heart. Well that, and him being a robot.

Nick is unfortunately one of the few companions who cannot be romanced in Fallout 4. There’s no explanation as to why you can’t be with him but it’s a no-go for all you Nick lovers out there. I’ve seen theories that it’s because he’s got a thing going with his assistant, but I don’t buy it.

Maybe there’s only enough room in his metal heart for justice.

3 Tension With The Brotherhood

The Brotherhood of Steel is a largescale group of mutant-hating military soldiers, posted all over America. They tend to be discriminatory against anyone that isn’t human, and they’ll usually make sure to express their feelings.

When it comes to Nick, the Brotherhood will make snide comments whenever they see you walking with him. Most of these comments have to do with the fact that he’s got free will, something they’re not fond of giving to machines. Nick will never hesitate when it comes to a response though, often dishing out some sick burns while commenting on their warped way of thinking.

2 The Case Of The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger is one of Fallout’s many unsolved mysterious. Making their debut in the first Fallout game, the Mysterious Stranger can temporarily appear during battles to help you out. They never speak, and they disappear as soon as they’re done fighting so people can only form theories about their identity.

Nick Valentine is also hard at work on cracking the case. You can find a casefile on the Mysterious Stranger in Nick’s office. The file details everything Nick’s managed to find so far, which honestly isn’t all that much past what a good fashion sense they have.

Still, Nick is the only companion who will comment and question when the Mysterious Stranger makes an appearance, so at least you know he’s trying.

1 Nick: The Living Bomb

Okay, he’s not really a bomb. He did do a decent job at pretending to be one though.

When the Diamond City mayor’s daughter was kidnapped, Nick just happened to stumble into the hideout of the kidnappers. With a little girl’s life on the line and a gun pointed at his head, Nick did the only thing he could do at the time. He started saying the word beep over and over, pretending there was a bomb inside him.

While that plan makes little to no sense, it did have potential. Synths weren’t all that common at the time so there was no telling what they were capable of. If a robot tells you it’s set to explode, it might just be set to explode. Still, Nick is lucky those kidnappers weren’t the “shoot first, run later” kind of thugs, or that would’ve been an embarrassing way to go.