The fucked up thing is that Fallout 4 does kind of try to toy with the idea that there WAS a civilization in The Commonwealth before you woke up in the form of the CPG, which The Institute was even taking an active hand in developing.
But for some reason, when negotiations were floundering (lord only knows how or why you cant ask) The Institute just decided to murder literally everyone and then go hide underground.
I guess Fallout 4 having splashes of society and a tyrannical overlord to fight or join wouldn't have allowed Bethesda to be lazy and make everything a settlement building zone so we got the more retarded Fallout 4 instead.