Fallout Let's DISCUSS the Vault Experiments again!

[SwiftCrack]

Lore-wise, the vaults make perfect sense. The 1950s/60s were full of insane government experiments and I think the alternate-history timeline builds on that. Hell, Dr. Strangelove kinda parodies the vault idea, and it works because it's totally believable that a circa 1950s government would, under duress, come up with such a bizarre plan. If anything, the notion of a vault system is more sane than some of the actual, real-life shit world governments have thought up.

Excellent post.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I would like to know what real-life shit governments thought up in the 1950s or 1960s. And no, a psychological test run in a university does not qualify, unless mission/funding came from the government.

 

[Ignatius Reilly]

Heh heh. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_69

 

[laclongquan]

A point not mentioned nearly enough:

Vault citizens are not nobody. To get a Vault membership effectiively mean permanent/safe housing, permanent food allocation slots, etc for as long as the Vault exist. From that standpoint, a person has to pay through the nose for that privilege. Can you estimate how much does that worth in 50s' society? in today's price range?

In Fallout setting, the inhabitants of vault is not even middle income. They must have at least lower-upper income, or specialized skills, to get accepted.

Experiment on them is ... quite reckless, especially if it's widespread as later mentions. Because it's too big, it will leak, and it will have powerful impact.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

^It's not like it matters much if you're expecting nuclear world war that will turn society up on its head. What are they gonna do, take it to their lawyers?

 

[SwiftCrack]

I would like to know what real-life shit governments thought up in the 1950s or 1960s. And no, a psychological test run in a university does not qualify, unless mission/funding came from the government.

Just a small U.S.A. selection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra (Most people only know this one due to the involuntary ingestion of LSD by American citizens by the government's hand, but it expands way further than that, this is pretty much the all-encompassing moniker for various different experiments)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens#Role_in_biowarfare_testing ('Harmless' biological agent released over San Francisco in the 50's without consent, this continued for like a decade over other cities too)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Buzz, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Itch and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Drop_Kick (releasing mosquitoes upon towns, to see how fast diseases would spread (yellow/dengue fever), they claim the ones they released were all virus-free but there were outbreaks of non-fatal diseases)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/attack-killer-mosquitoes-0

Here is the actual government document that was (partly) declassified about the entomological experiments.

Now some of this shit is borderline conspiracy theory, but it gives you an idea of the inspirational ground for the vault experiments.

 

[Sykar]

Just a small U.S.A. selection:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra (Most people only know this one due to the involuntary ingestion of LSD by American citizens by the government's hand, but it expands way further than that, this is pretty much the all-encompassing moniker for various different experiments)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens#Role_in_biowarfare_testing ('Harmless' biological agent released over San Francisco in the 50's without consent, this continued for like a decade over other cities too)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Buzz, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Itch and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Drop_Kick (releasing mosquitoes upon towns, to see how fast diseases would spread (yellow/dengue fever), they claim the ones they released were all virus-free but there were outbreaks of non-fatal diseases)

Now some of this shit is borderline conspiracy theory, but it gives you an idea of the inspirational ground for the vault experiments.

 

[laclongquan]

^It's not like it matters much if you're expecting nuclear world war that will turn society up on its head. What are they gonna do, take it to their lawyers?

Vault Overseers who are designated by the goverment or suspected of being a gov boi might be terminated with no prejudice. We are talking about a series of very closed society here, known threats will not be tolerated.

This kind of behaviours is known in submarine service. Annoying or unpopular crewmembers will get harrassed. And so many accidents can happen on a closed environment.

ninja edited: Plus, when the effect of being observed is known it ruins the sample data.

 

[Sykar]

Vault Overseers who are designated by the goverment or suspected of being a gov boi might be terminated with no prejudice. We are talking about a series of very closed society here, known threats will not be tolerated.

This kind of behaviours is known in submarine service. Annoying or unpopular crewmembers will get harrassed. And so many accidents can happen on a closed environment.

Nuclear warheads really care about that.

 

[Fenris 2.0]

heh, it's 5:00 in the morning, I'm drunk like a howitzer and at the moment I think this vaults are a good idea to decide the future of germany...

- one full of west germans
- one full of east germans
- one fulll of muslim imigrants
- one full of nazis
- one full of commies
- one full of christians
- one full of atheists
- one full of liberals
...
- a controlgroup like our actual population


in 150 years or so, we might know the best form of society...


Edit:
This might even be a great postapocalyptic setting... when you could influence the war between new prussia and the vegan peoples union :D


Yet another Edit:

AUSFALL - Heroic Survival Roleplaying Adventures in post-apocalyptic Germany ?
(that's gratuitous german - no one would use the word Ausfall for Fallout ^^)

 

[GarfunkeL]

But AUSFALL sounds cool to non-German speakers so it's a perfect choice.

 

[Sigourn]

The shit is retarded. One of the things that made me hate FO2 and FO extended fiction. In the original FO I always had the impression that the Vaults failed because in the end there was no real plan. It was just something to sell to the panicked mobs.

This is why I like Fallout's lore so much: Vault-Tec was simply portrayed as the greedy assholes they were. Sell a bunch of malfunctioning Vaults in exchange for money. What's the worst that can happen? If the world comes to an end, it's not like we are going to have any use for money anymore. And if nuclear war doesn't come to happen, no one is harmed and we get to enjoy our spoils.

It's also worth mentioning that the reason Vaults were so important in Fallout 1 was because (dun dun dun) that's where you had to look for a water chip. Unless your game revolves around going into Vaults looking for more McGuffins (like that one BoS quest in New Vegas), there's no reason to keep revisiting Vaults at all. They are just worldbuilding, background dressing, not something to make a big deal out of.

If devs are in desperate need for some "cool dungeon" Vaults, at least go with something that makes sense. Vault 22 is a perfect example: they were developing an honest to God experiment that went wrong. This is the main difference between a sensical Vault and a "lol what if we made citizens kill each other", the latter of which hardly serves a purpose in a post-nuclear wasteland, and is just the Milgram experiment dialed up to 11 because fuck it.

 

[Ol' Willy]

It's ironic how Black Isle threw in vault experiments just as out of nowhere "cool thing" to unnecessarily spice up the setting, but Shittesda exploited the idea to the fullest, reaching most ridiculous heights (or, shall I say "lows"?).

 

[JarlFrank]

Are the vault experiments even canon?

Only Fallout 1, made by the original Troika of Tim, Leonard and Jason is canon. Fallout 2 is already a fanfic