The Vault Experiment Program

[Tycell]

You bring up some good points, but I think we are missing the main one here;

Why would anyone bother to perform such experiments? The physiological ones can be done in a lab enviroment, the phychological ones can be done on a smaller scale or indeed predicted by phychologist, all of the experiments would be utterly useless in the new world.

Why would anyone give two fucks about "what happened if..."? The world has been decimated, nearly all forms of life exstinguished or mutated into an unatural state. Who really gives a damn if one guy in a vault full of women gets laid a lot?

I have always belived the Overseers' have some other perpose than just running the vault, I have always though that even when I was first playing through F1.

Notice how in F2, in the open vault (AKA Vault City) you can still find its old overseer (or at least I belive thats who he is) walking around on the command level singing away, perhaps he is waiting for a signal? Or perhaps he is up to somthing when no one is around. Perhaps the PipBoy transmits data back to the overseer, he then hands it on to somone else, his superiors perhaps?

I have always belived the Vault Overseers had some underlining perpose that we never got to see... Perhaps they will expand on that in F3? HAving all the vaults as some grand experiment however, seems very very stupid to me. Fair enough if it was only a few of them, but remember what the president said in F2 "Vault 13 was the control Vault." Hence implying that ALL the other vaults other than 13 were experiments, and that Vault 13 was infact the only proper vault. Having one proper shelter while just using all the others as large guinepig cages seems very silly to me, dont know about the rest of you.

One thing I would like to see in F3 is perhaps Vaults located in other countries, like perhaps russian vaults, chinese or even English Vaults. That would be good I think.

 

[Sander]

You bring up some good points, but I think we are missing the main one here;

Why would anyone bother to perform such experiments? The physiological ones can be done in a lab enviroment, the phychological ones can be done on a smaller scale or indeed predicted by phychologist, all of the experiments would be utterly useless in the new world.

Why would anyone give two fucks about "what happened if..."? The world has been decimated, nearly all forms of life exstinguished or mutated into an unatural state. Who really gives a damn if one guy in a vault full of women gets laid a lot?

I have to say that Vault 69 is nothing more than a silly teenage sexual fantasy, but then again, I'm not even sure whether Tim Cain wrote it.
But besides that, many of the experiments can be seen as experiments that will lead to a much better understanding of group mentality and interaction. And as should be obvious, this can be very, very useful for the people in charge, a la 1984.

I have always belived the Overseers' have some other perpose than just running the vault, I have always though that even when I was first playing through F1.

Notice how in F2, in the open vault (AKA Vault City) you can still find its old overseer (or at least I belive thats who he is) walking around on the command level singing away, perhaps he is waiting for a signal? Or perhaps he is up to somthing when no one is around. Perhaps the PipBoy transmits data back to the overseer, he then hands it on to somone else, his superiors perhaps?

Quite unlikely in this specific case, since the man would have to be several hundreds of years old, since Vault city opened quite shortly after the bombs dropped.

I have always belived the Vault Overseers had some underlining perpose that we never got to see... Perhaps they will expand on that in F3? HAving all the vaults as some grand experiment however, seems very very stupid to me. Fair enough if it was only a few of them, but remember what the president said in F2 "Vault 13 was the control Vault." Hence implying that ALL the other vaults other than 13 were experiments, and that Vault 13 was infact the only proper vault. Having one proper shelter while just using all the others as large guinepig cages seems very silly to me, dont know about the rest of you.

Well, Fallout 2 is rather rife in problematic canon, especially when it comes to the endgame, really.
But that the president said Vault 13 was the control vault doesn't mean that all the other vaults are experiments at all, really.

One thing I would like to see in F3 is perhaps Vaults located in other countries, like perhaps russian vaults, chinese or even English Vaults. That would be good I think.

The problem there would be the loss of the fifties sci-fi theme Fallout revolves around when placed outside of the US.

 

[Ghoullove]

What about the existence of an overall command VAULT HQ? It could be located near Washington D.C. or somewhere along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. that is still exerting some form of influence over the other Vaults.


Edit: Whose to say that Vault 13 is indeed the master vault. What does the President know.

 

[Working]

Let's look at the impetus for the whole 'Fallout' thing: fantasy world mechanics from that golden sci-fi film period of the 1950's. Anyone remember that John Goodman flick "Matinee"? How they were all freaked about Cuba and eventually trapped in that fallout shelter?

People are panicky animals. The whole Vault experiment makes a lot of sense. How would you make order out of chaos in the midst of devastation? Likely, you'd want the fittest and most determined of all varying groups within society to survive. And while the various vault experiments suggested there was some interest in how individuals would react to certain depletions of resources, confinement with others of disparate social values, and a number of other conditions, there was likely an underlying desire for the best to survive. The initial selection process for the vaults proved this.

But whatever.

If the model for the Fallout universe is the 1950's vision of a post-nuclear America, then social, political and cultural ideas from the time would be implemented too. There's an Orwellian quality to the title of "overseer". The Vault Experiments seem to harken back to a time when a lot of Americans trusted their government more, and that it had their best interest at heart... even if they didn't.

Note that tribals, among the more socialist aspects of the Fallout universe, are bottom on the totem pole, so to speak. Well, in the '50's, Socialist Communism was seen as the greatest evil in the world, so it would likely be quashed in the wasteland. What the Master proposed in the first Fallout was socialist in tint.

I personally like how everything is "fusion" this or "atomic" that. Could you IMAGINE a freeway car accident with cars packing fusion power cells? It would be fricking horrendous. But then ideas of the '50's didn't bare in mind the reality of things. Jsut the ideal.

A good book to check out is "Past Visions of The American Future". There's some whackedo ut ideas on what was supposed to be by now.

 

[Lumpy]

But besides that, many of the experiments can be seen as experiments that will lead to a much better understanding of group mentality and interaction. And as should be obvious, this can be very, very useful for the people in charge, a la 1984.

In charge of... what? The few hundreds of people in the Oil Rig?
Let's see what the vaults were:
# Vault 8 - A control Vault, intended to open and re-colonize the surface after 10 years. Vault City is the result. Unfortunately.
Reasonable.
# Vault 12 - In order to study the effects of radiation on the selected population, the Vault Door was designed not to close. This is the Necropolis Vault... and the ghouls were the result.
As Tycell said, this could have very well been done in a laboratory.
Quite unlikely.
# Vault 13 - Intended to stay closed for 200 years as a study of prolonged isolation, the broken water chip forced the Overseer to improvise and use the Vault Dweller as a pawn. Later study of the Vault 13 records by the Enclave led them to their current plan to end the war.
Possible.
# Vault 15 - Intended to stay closed for 50 years and include people of radically diverse ideologies. Gathered from what you hear from Aradesh in Fallout 1, he has quite a bit of multicultural flavoring to his speech.
Fair enough.
# Vault 27 - This Vault would be overcrowded deliberately. 2000 people would be assigned to enter, double the total sustainable amount. The location of this Vault is unknown.
Vault 29 - No one in this Vault was over the age of 15 when they entered. Parents were redirected to other Vaults on purpose. Harold is believed to have come from this Vault.
Vault 34 - The armory was overstocked with weapons and ammo and not provided with a lock.
Not impossible, but who gives a fuck?

# Vault 36 - The food extruders were designed to produce only a thin, watery gruel.
Vault 42 - No light bulbs of more than 40 watts were provided.
Vault 53 - Most of the equipment was designed to break down every few months. While repairable, the breakdowns were intended to stress the inhabitants unduly.
Silly.

# Vault 55 - All entertainment tapes were removed.
Vault 56 - All entertainment tapes were removed except those of one particularly bad comic actor. Sociologists predicted failure before Vault 55.
Vault 68 - Of the one thousand people who entered, there was only one woman.
Vault 69 - Of the one thousand people who entered, there was only one man.
Vault 70 - All jumpsuit extruders fail after 6 months. This Vault was located in Salt Lake City, Utah and most of the inhabitants were Mormons.
Vault 106 - Psychoactive drugs were released into the air filtration system 10 days after the Door was sealed.
Fallout 2 LAWL style humour. Completly moronic.

So, we have one vault which was supposed to open in 10 years, one in 200 years, and one which had different people inside. Makes sense. Especially since they didn't know how the outside world was going to be, and opening different vaults at different times was a good idea. Opening all late would have slowed down the reconstruction of society, opening all early would have been too risky. And Vault 12 could have been a good social experiment, without hurting the people inside.