The discovery of the atomic bomb in the 1940s has given humanity a question the FALLOUT
series has strived to answer. If ever there would come a day when mankind possessed the
capacity to destroy himself, what would come of us? Some predict that this is where our
story will end, but what if it was only another bloody chapter of human history? You've experienced
the FALLOUT series in your own way, but want to learn more about its story. Well- to get
to the heart of the story- you have to go back to the beginning...
On October 23rd 2077 the nightmares became all too real when the Great War commenced.
Blinding light ignited the sky, and people ducked and took cover as they had been taught,
cowering under whatever they could, hoping that if they kept their eyes closed and remained
still that the merciless flames would pass them by. They hid beneath desks at school,
under cars on the street, and behind desks at work. Perhaps a few were in their beds
when the flash appeared on the horizon and -- perhaps they drew their blankets over
their head like children, hoping that the searing pain was just a bad dream.
The ballyhooed tactic of Duck and Cover proved ineffective against armies that no longer
cared about winning. Mutually self-assured destruction was the goal, and the American
and Chinese exceeded it in spades. Hundreds of millions of people lost their lives within
minutes, and billions more died over the days to come as radioactive fallout settled over
entire continents. The fallout muddied the oceans, clouded the sky, and sunk deep into
the soil.
Those who happened to be in the right place at the moment the bombs fell managed to survive.
These "lucky" few formed the primitive tribal societies that struggled for survival
in the years immediately following the war.
Hidden from those tribal bands were another group of survivors. Those who had been selected
for Project Safehouse. One hundred thousand people fortunate enough to have been offered
shelter inside impregnable survival shelters called Vaults, created by the Vault-tec corporation.
The first vaults opened again a few years after the war and their inhabitants slowly
spread throughout the wasteland. By now tales of the Vaults have spread from coast to coast,
although not many people alive today have actually been inside one.
At the height of pre-war civilization, the government and a few powerful corporations
knew that an apocalypse was brewing, so they used their finest technology to create vast
subterranean bunkers that could withstand a nuclear blast, a meteor impact, global flooding
or other likely disasters. The general public wasn't entirely convinced that their end was
nigh, otherwise there would have been a greater demand for Vaults. When the war started there
were only about a hundred of them, scattered across America, and many held less than the
thousand people they were intended to hold.
Those who were smart enough or lucky enough to be inside one when the end came were protected
from the devastation by airtight steel doors, thick walls of concrete, and over 200 feet
of soil. The fine engineers at Vaul-tec designed their bunkers to run independently for ten
years and even more. Geo-thermal power, hydroponic farms for growing food, and a water purification
system so efficient Vault residents could fool themselves into thinking they weren't
drinking their own urine.
The designers made the Vaults as homey as possible despite the steel clad walls. The
cafeterias were designed to look a little like roadside diners, and vault dwellers could
close their eyes and imagine that they were eating a plate of Blamco mac & cheese.
Shiny new medical robots tended to those who suffered from mundane illnesses and injuries,
while on the surface world billions died of radiation sickness, burns, starvation and
violence. Housing wasn't as spacious as on the surface, but there was plenty of room
for several hundred people, and the vaults that held a full thousand or more could work
out fair ways to share their bunks for a while.
Each vault was run by a leader called the Overseer who ran the underground community
from a command center deep inside the complex. The Overseers were, usually, selected for
their exceptional leadership skills.
The Vaults were comfortable enough, but after ten years the radiation had gone down in most
parts of the country, and the Vault Dwellers expected to head back up into the sunlight
and begin rebuilding their flawed societies. Vault-tec had prepared them for anything that
might await on the surface. The vaults had all the research material that they would
need to rebuild America, including the entire library of Congress on holodisk, plus a hundred
and one recipes on how to cook rats.
Those who have walked the wasteland know that the world isn't a kind place. Sometimes people
think of the pre-war days as a golden age. A time when people were better to each other.
But there wouldn't have been an apocalypse if that were true.
No- people were cruel and callous to each other even back then, and the folks who ran
Vault-tec were no exception.
We've all heard of Vault City, a paradise built by the people who emerged from Vault
8, using a pre-war device called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. They represent what
the world could have been like if only Project Safehouse had been on the up and up. Unfortunately,
Vault-tec had some ulterior motives, and vaults like Vault 8 were rare.
The poor fools who weathered the fallout in Vault-tecs nuclear shelters were the control
groups in horrible experiments. Keep people nice and safe for ten years, then open up
and build a new garden of Eden? That happened a few times out of a hundred vaults. Most
vaults were designed to deliberately malfunction as part of an experiment to see just how far
the human mind could be pushed before it snapped.
Unbeknownst to the vault dwellers, Vault-tec, and some elite factions of the government
had their own shelters far away from the public vaults. These elite wanted to learn how to
rebuild society by observing the inhabitants of the defective vaults. Some of the vaults
were designed so that their inhabitants would be trapped in isolation for generations. Think
ten years locked in a vault is a rough trip? Try eighty, or two hundred. There could even
people still sealed inside hidden vaults that haven't opened yet.
Other vaults had experiments that only a lunatic could conceive. A thousand men with only one
woman. A thousand women with just one man. Or even one man trapped all alone in his own
vault with nothing but a crate of puppets for company. One vault even seemed like it
was designed as a personal playground for a sadistic Vault-tec employee who just wanted
some poor souls to suffer forever in a virtual reality where he was a god in a world of his
own making.
You might be left wondering if the vault dwellers ever figured out what was happening to them.
Did any of them learn that their lives meant nothing to Vault-tec, and that they had become
no more than lab rats in a mad experiment? Maybe the inhabitants thought that their problems
were accidental supply errors. Or maybe they realized what had happened and cursed Vault-tec
with their dying breaths.
Who knows if these experiments turned up any useful information for the sons of whores
who devised them. But all the suffering wasn't for nothing. Many vaults did open, even if
later than expected. Some of the people who emerged went on to do great things for the
wasteland. Parts of what used to be the Capital of this land even has fresh water thanks to
some helpful Vault Dwellers and technology scavenged from the old vaults.
Looters hoping to uncover riches in pre-war supplies should be wary of the Vaults, though.
Project Safehouse has brought some troubles to the wasteland too. The Super Mutants, for
instance, are connected to the corporation behind the vaults. Just remember wanderer,
it isn't worth getting killed by mutants just because you heard about a stash of Fancy Lad
snack cakes inside some old Vault's pantry...
There's a whole city of ghouls who came from one of the vaults. Sometimes you'll meet a
ghoul who claims to have been alive back before the bombs fell. Don't pay them no mind, unless
their wearing a Vault 12 jump suit. In that Vault the door never sealed up all the way.
May it malfunctioned. Maybe it was more of Vaul-tec's shenanigans, but the people inside
got just the right dose of radiation to turn into the very first gouls.
The idea of a piece of the old world sealed fresh is just too romantic an idea for some
people to resist. Of course most wanderers have the sense to stay away from the vaults.
If you really can't help yourself though, there's a city called New Vegas where people
can get a look at the inside of a real live vault without having to worry about mutants,
ghouls or old security bots. Right in the middle of the New Vegas strip is an old vault
that they turned into a hotel so that travelers have some place to sleep while they waste
their caps boozing, gambling and whoring. Tourists can even grab a Vault-tec lunchbox
in mint condition, or a stylish vintage Vault 21 jumpsuit.
We don't know how many vaults are still out there undiscovered. They're hidden well, and
Vault-tec liked keeping their secrets. Maybe a few of these unknown vaults still have people
living inside, the descendants of that first group of survivors. Or maybe there's a thriving
society buried right under our feet that doesn't even wonder what the outside world is like.
Sooner or later though, that door has to open. Even the fine makers of the Vaults couldn't
build a system that will contain humanity forever. And when those vault dwellers take
their first steps out into the bright sunlight and feel the sands of the wasteland beneath
their feet, they'll find the world has changed a lot in two hundred years. It's a big mean
world, and their Overseer is small potatoes compared to some of the factions that run
things now.
There are those who view the vaults as candy-shelled morsels filled with treats. Technology is
nice, but the vaults held something even more precious -- a pure gene pool uncontaminated
by radiation, or exposure to virus-born mutagens. There are plenty of interested parties who
want to get their hands on a fresh supply of pure strain humans who have yet to be exposed
to the harsh wasteland.
But that- is a story for another day.