Fallout: Colony

[Walpknut]

Well this idea hit me the other day, I was just playing some Fallout 2 and then I got this idea.
The goverment in the Fallout universe planed the Vaults as a experiment to see how isolation could affect different kinds of human societies to prepare for the spacial peregrination. but just testing isolation is not enough to ensure that a spacial peregrination could be successful, they woudl need some sort of space station, testing their tecnology in the creation of an habitable space station, after all yo ucan't just stuff everybody in a rocket and expect them to just remain in their seats, you woudl need a way of producing food and oxygen and a way to keep people busy and avoid them becoming lazy and unproductive.
It's obvious they would need a Space Station of some sort, a Orbital Vault.
SO my idea is: Months before the great war, the USSA launched their Space Vault program, as it was supposed to remain a secret only USSA and goverment personnel and their families were allowed to participate in the experiment, it would need mroe than just a small tripulation to work, they would need a real society, a vault society.
Te experiment was meant to go back 10 years later, but the Great War hit, they coudl only see the nuclear ifnerno that was spreading on earth from their vault, they had lsot contact with the base, they had scape pods, but they were one way trip, no posibility of going back and the earth was egulfed in nuclear inferno, and the resulting radition could last for decades, so they decided to focus all their time in maintaining their food and oxygen supplies, upgrading the equipment further and just wait for the momnt were the earth could be habitable again. They figured they were the only humans left.
so 250 years later, 2327 the radiatio levels should be more tolerabel for humans, and they need to find the shuttle that was meant to take the original vault population back to earth, they coudl continue gettign their food and their oxygen fom thier farms and numerous projects, but no matter how many mainentance they did on the space station it couldn't last forever, and they couldn't just remain in their space station until all of them woudl just end up being meantly retarded incestual space hicks that couldn't take care of their machines.
So they send 10 peopel of varying degrees of experience, race, age and sex back to earth to find the original shutte that would take them back, and this is were the main character comes into play, being a newbie and mostly being cannon fodder to see if the normal vault citizen could survive down there.
So the day of the great fall comes, the ten pods are sent to earth, but somethign happens, all the pods are attacked by some form of anti aereal artillery, of the ten pods only 4 land with their tripulant alive, it seems earth is not devoid of inteligent life, inteligent life that can still use poweful weapons.
SO the Main character sees himself far from his original landing place, and trown into this post-post apocalyptic world, the people in the space vault need him to compelte his mission, wil leh die in this savage world? will he succed in his mission? if he survives woudl he still care about completing it? the player chooses.

As is a Space Vault that has been developing pre war tecnology further, the palyer woudl be given a Transcomm or a commboy, that is well hsi pipboy, only is more advanced and can comunicate directly to the vault, he can ask for tips in his mission, sometimes the tips will eb useful, sometime there woudl be no tips, soemtime they woudl be compeltely wrong and dangerous.
You would start the game with only your jumpsuit that gives you radiation protection but no DT, and basic equipment based on the skills you tagged. Your mission control woudl comunicate with you throug your CommBoy, they would be the ones helping yo uadvance in the main quest, but you could choose wether ignore their requests and compelte the missions your way. There would be new post war cities and comunities, maybe not the NCR, I don't know in wich state it owudl take palce, I am not that informed on USA geography, and were most things like NASA bases are situated, but it would be a good setting.

 

[Atomkilla]

Well, it's a creative idea, but if I may dare to say it, also quite an impossible one...even for Fallout...

The main problem lies in idea's core: space.

Firsto of all, in order for a society to survive in such an isolated enviroment they need some basic stuff for living. Food, water etc. - generally, stuff that can (somehow) survive in the "land" Vault.
But here's the deal.
Human (and many other species from this planet) cannot survive in space. You can have food oxygen, water, proper "shelter" and everything, but you don't have one thing - Earth's gravity.

It's often underestimated, and people forget about it, but humans cannot survive without one of the most important forces in the universe.
Human organism (and all other beings' organisms) are adapted to Earth's gravity field, and over the course of evoultion, it effected most of our general features - from those physiological to those psychological.
It's a fact that human body cannot live without gravity, and any long term "non-exposure" to our gravity field can be lethal.

And, other thing I note is (though this one is not that "valid"), is the fact that due to the nature of this vault, don't you think that US enemies' espionage efforts wouldn't discover it's existence, and presumably destroy or capture it?
Also, (not officially canon), Enclave tried to make a shelter for them by colonising a new planet, after the destruction of this one. But even Enclave, which practically contorls Vault-Tec and bigger part of US couldn't do it.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Walpknut]

Well they wouldn't be that far into Space, more like in orbit, still I don't think it would solve the problem of gravity, it could be handwaved by saying that they had artificial gravity in the Vault, but artificial gravity would not be an acceptable substitue, the Misionarioes sent to earth again would have lots of trouble with natural gravity, and in the end the space vault would need to form an alliance with the local societies to not fall prey to their disadvantages on earth.
I was counting on sabotage attempts, it could be that various decoy space vaults were launched.
The Enclave point, I was thinking the base that laucnhed the space Vault was so heavily hit by the nukes that they figured it was a lost cause and they toguht that the space vault just fell to typical isolation paranoia and just failed.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Sounds a little like an old concept I once had, also involving a 'space Vault'.
I didn't pursue it as plotwise I could never completely make it sound Fallout-esque.

 

[Walpknut]

So now adding some more things to the above explanation:
Dutch ghost left em thinking, what if a chinesse spy got into the space vault program?
Hsu James, decendant of the spy that boarded the Space Vault. THis spy realized that just sabotaging the Vault woudl be a complete waste, the vault was devoted to scientific and medic development, that kidn of projects would be better in the hands of the People's Republic of China, he was looking for the moment of the lading operation to start so he coudl take control of the shuttle and land it in CHinesses territory, only rpoblem, the war hit, he then realized that not only was the shuttle never gonna come, he was on the brink of suicide when he heard the operation colony, they would send exploring robots to measure the damage done and the lingering dangers, once they made the calculations for the appropiate tiem they should wait to return to earth without radiation poisoning death being a certainity, Hsu well he obviously realized he wouldn't live 250 years, he raised his kids and entrusted them the secret of his mission, he planned to as soon as the mission started for one of his decendants to get into the mission and try and find any trace of chinese remnants and give them the power and tecnology of the Vault, 3 generations of Hsu (under a fake last name) grew in the Vault, the Last of the line was James, he was given the plans by his dad, but James wasn't a blind follower of somethign he didn't even lived, he considered that his grand-grand-grand father plan had potential, but it would need to go beyond wantign to rebuild a failed regime, no he planned to look for any group that ahd survived down i nthe wasteland without adapting the values of the failed goverments that caused the whole situation.
James would be like a Mirror main character, he would go through the game recruiting tribes and societies, building his own faction, you could also go recruiting them but you would mostly have to side with a amjor faction in the end, even if it is just to get your plans done, you could side with James and follow his plan of riding the Vault of any sing of pre war values, that meaning kill all the inhabitants, or side with the other factions that are already in control of the Area (still deciding wich area) and you could actualy in the end asume control of the faction you sided with either by convinving the leaders, or making make some political assassinations and underhanded tactics to get to the leading chair, some factiosn are controled by a board of people so you coudl get your companions to become your associates, etc.
The climax of the game would start the moment you send the recoreing shuttle to start the Vault landing, the factions would fight over it, you woudl be able to have your faction take control of it and get power over the area, and it woudl involve different conditions for thsi to be done, maybe a faction would just step on the Vault dwellers and basicaly turning them into crafting bots, mayeb another faction would be kidner with them but they would be too lenient to actually use the Vault potential to its best, or you coudl just destroy the Vault in different ways and just screw all the factions over.