
Welcome home! A better future, underground. That’s what Vault-Tec promised the American people in the 2070’s. Are Vault-Tec the real villains? It looks like it/ Vault-Tec Corporation are at the heart of the Fallout series. Despite their cheerful mascot and promises of safety and security, there’s a dark secret. Or ten. By the time the bombs fell, they were one of the most powerful corporations in America.
***SPOILER WARNING: There are spoilers for the Fallout show on Amazon Prime***
Project Safehouse
The 2050’s saw the beginning of mankinds downfall. War between Europe and the Middle East, a New Plague and the collapse of the United Nations all led to the decision to launch Project Safehouse. This was a government contract to create shelters for the population in the event of a nuclear war.
Vault-Tec built a demonstration Vault near their HQ in Los Angeles, which won them the contract. At least 122 Vaults were commissioned, which would save less than 0.1% of the population. Issues with funding, embezzlement and corruption delayed construction but a huge merchandise line and marketing campaign allowed Vault-Tec to expand across the US.

The company built an exhibit at the Museum of Technology in Washington DC. They also sponsored an attraction at Nuka-World, called ‘Among the Stars’ to demonstrate how their modular construction and technology would allow colonising other planets. Vault-Tec’s scientists developed a lot of new life-support technology.
The show on Amazon Prime gives us some insight into their marketing campaign. Cooper Howard, a famous Hollywood actor and Anchorage veteran was asked to star in adverts. His wife, Barb, was one of Vault-Tec’s executives. However, the company faced accusations of fear-mongering. Eventually, Barb slipped and told her husband they would go into ‘one of the good Vaults’, confirming that not all of them would be nice and safe.
The Vaults Never Meant To Save Anyone
We know this from the games and the TV show. Only about 17 of the 122 public Vaults were ‘control Vaults’ that worked as expected. The majority of them were experiments on an unaware population. I’ll discuss each Vault we know about in detail in future posts but here’s a couple of examples.
Vault 106, in the Capital Wasteland, had psychoactive drugs pumped into the air filtration system. Just to see what would happen. Chaos was the answer. Vault 12 in Bakersfield, California, had a blast door that did not seal properly. All the residents became ghouls after years of chronic radiation exposure. Vault 75 in Malden, Massachusetts, was built underneath a school and designed to create super-soldiers from a population of genetically modified children.
In Vault 4, located under Hawthorne Medical Laboratories in California, they researched the effects of radiation on DNA. The scientists had free reign in their research and lured wastelanders in to create hybrids with radiation resistant aquatic species. The giant axolotl gulper in the show with human fingers lining its mouth is a result of this. Eventually the test subjects rebelled and took over the Vault, but many residents have visible mutations.
What Do Vault-Tec Want?
We can find plenty of evidence that Vault-Tec saw themselves as the future of humanity. While their networks were accessible to the Enclave and CIT, Overseers were instructed to only accept orders from Vault-Tec. Not even government or military personnel.
The show confirmed this, when we learned that Vault-Tec’s junior executives are alive and well in Vault 31. They were Overseers of 32 and 33, woken up in turn to step into these roles. 32 and 33 made for a sustainable breeding population for Reclamation Day when Vault-Tec would return to the surface and recolonise.
But first, they need to wipe the surface clean. Rose MacLean discovered that people were living on the surface and left with her children. They found Shady Sands, a growing community as capital of the NCR. Hank MacLean followed her, taking his children back to the Vault and nuking Shady Sands. This is confirmed to have happened sometime after 2281 by the producers.
Hank even talks about how they need to get rid of the factions and have everyone as part of one single faction. Vault-Tec. Supposedly this will prevent war and conflict, yet they company has no issues killing thousands of people to make this happen. We see this time and again in the games when exploring the Vaults and offices.
So are Vault-Tec the real villains?
It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it? I will continue this discussion next week when we’ll talk about some corporate corruption and speculate on where Vault-Tec are now and what they might be up to. If you can’t wait that long and want to see more, I have a video covering this subject on my YouTube Channel. The first part covers Vault-Tec’s Regional HQ, Vault 111 and the exhibit at Nuka-World. You can find it here.
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