On the surface, Fallout is a series about the apocalypse and how everyone survives thereafter. But, if you ask me, the real story thatFallouttells is the perils of late-stage capitalism, and how the big corporations are going to be the death of us. Yes, that’s right. Today, my little Vault dwellers, we are talking about Vault-Tec and the many terrible experiments they unwittingly ran in their Vaults across the USA.
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Now, granted, we haven’t seen all the Vaults in the Fallout Universe, so goodness knows what the future holds. But what we have seen is some pretty bleak stuff, and it has me wondering which of the many Fallout Vaults are the scariest, most disturbing experiments of all. So, let’s break the rules, open the Vault door, and see what horrors await us inside.
Fallout: New Vegas
When you first encounter Vault 22 while roaming the Mojave Wasteland inFallout New Vegas, you might mistake it for the utopia within the wastes that Oasis was inFallout 3. But if you know Vault-Tec, you know that nothing good ever happens in a Vault of theirs. That holds true with the overgrown mess that is Vault 22 —the Vault wherethe plants are alive and hellbent on killing you.
This all happened due to a pest control fungus called Beauveria Mordicana.This was shipped to Vault 22 to assist scientists in their pursuit of ending world hunger. But as it turned out, this fungus wasn’t just able to infect and kill plants.It was also able to slowly infect, kill, and take over the motor functions of humans too.Basically, if you have ever seen theCordyceps Fungizombify an insect, this is that but turned up to eleven. So, naturally, the Vault 22 scientists succumbed to the fate of becoming botanical zombies, and if you visit, the Spore Carriers will try to do the same to you.
Fallout (Prime Series)
Next, we have a Vault featured in the recent Fallout TV adaption. Alongside the connected Vaults 31, 32 and 33, the show also features Vault 4. On the surface, it’s actually a very chill and hospitable place to live when Lucy and Maximus arrive. They take in wastelanders, provide them with a place to stay, and there isn’t the usual evil overseer running things.
It’s a pretty sweet gig, but it wasn’t always that way. You see,this Vault was initially filled with genetic scientists tasked with playing god by experimenting on unwilling subjects. This inevitably led to a horrifying conclusion, as the mutated subjects revolted, and the scientists were killed by their own creations.But thankfully, history is not likely to repeat itself, as the Vault dwellers acknowledge their history in a bid to ensure they never let it repeat itself. But one look at the Gulpers that the early residents would become shows you just how horrific it would have been to be locked in there when the bombs fell.
If you’re a parent and you’re looking for a Vault-Tec Vault to keep your children safe when the bombs fall, just know that Vault 75 isnotthe answer to your prayers. Vault 75, located directly underneath Malden Elementary School, was a Vault that focused on families with young children and provided a subsidized fee for any family that wanted to spend their apocalypse inside. However, this Vault that seemed like a beacon of hope for the future was actually a cruel and sinister means of creating superhumans.
Funded by Dr. Braun, who we will hear more about later,this Vault would take in the families and immediately kill the children’s parents (unbeknownst to the children). Then the scientists within would use hormone treatments, selective breeding practices, and organ harvesting to create the ultimate humans.Thankfully, a former subject promoted to the role of scientist led a rebellion, and the Vault was opened, ending the torturous pursuit of genetic purity. So by the time you arrive here inFallout 4, the Vault is instead filled with Gunners using it as a base of operations. But the fact that this Vaulteven existed at allis demented.
We all know that due to the morally bankrupt and money-hungry nature of Vault-Tec execs, anything going on inside the Vaults is going to fall far short of altruism. But it’s fair to say that, in most cases, it tends to be slightly better than staying outside and facing the nuclear fallout head-on. However, in the case of Vault 12, the difference between inside and outside was pretty minute.
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The experiment of Vault 12 was to see how residents would fare when exposed to deadly amounts of radiation while living in a confined living space.So, to accomplish that, they just didn’t make the Vault airtight, and all that lovely radiation made its way in there. The real horror was that in this radiated pressure cooker, the Vault residents wouldn’t die, but would instead become Ghouls. Some residents retained their sanity and became civilized ghouls, whereas most others turned feral or into Glowing Ones. Those that did survive would turn the Vault into the underground city of Necropolis, but sadly, this wasn’t the underground Ghoul utopia you might have hoped. Another cruel trick from Vault-Tec, but hey, at least this story ends with some survivors.
In contrast, here’s a cheerful one where hardly anyone survives in the end. Vault 11 was designed as a social experiment not too far removed from the Hunger Games, whereeach year, an AI computer would demand that at least one Vault dweller be sacrificed for the rest to live.So, out of fear and desperation, the group would routinely carry this out year after year, albeit with the aid of elections, power struggles, corrupt politics, coups, and murders, until their numbers dwindled to just five residents.
After all this tragedy, broken by the process of sacrificing their fellow residents, the final five refused to sacrifice anyone else and expected to be killed for their disobedience. But, here’s the kicker — when they did this, the computer congratulated them on their resolve and moral fiber before releasing the Vault door controls and granting them their freedom. This left the few living residents suicidally ashamed of their inhumane behavior. But in the end, they couldn’t decide on a unanimous way forward, whether that be death or to leave the Vault. So, one resident took it into their own hands, killing the others and leaving the Vault as the solo survivor. Truly harrowing stuff.
4Vault 112
I said we were going to talk about Dr Braun again, and here you’ll get to meet him — albeit as a little girl in a virtual simulation — personally when you visit Vault 112. Vault 112 was designed as a virtual playground for Dr Braun to conduct endless experiments on unwitting residents.The residents would be placed in virtual reality under Braun’s control, and he would effectively do whatever he wished to these people who merrily went about their lives in this little pocket suburbia he created.
As it turns out, this is where your father, James, ends up running off to in Fallout 3. You’ll have to rescue him from the simulation by playing along with Braun’s crazy schemes, such as breaking up marriages, beating on the locals, and becoming the famed serial killer the Pint-Sized Slasher. Honestly, it’s one of the coolest Fallout quests ever, and it’s a lot of fun, but to be a resident of this Vault would be a horrific existence.
3Vault 108
I know we are gunning for scary here, and I’ll admit, the whole scenario is pretty silly in all honesty, but stick with me. This Vault was set up as a test to see how residents would deal with stressful situations with no leadership role in place. The overseer elected had terminal cancer, and was estimated to die roughly around the time that the Vault’s power supply would fall into disrepair. From there, it would be down to the residents to come up with a survival plan.
With no clear direction and a functional cloning facility within the Vault,the group thought it best to clone a resident called Gary 54 times, with each clone becoming more and more aggressive towards non-clones than the last.Whythey continued after the first few I’ll never know, but this bone-brained behavior would ultimately seal their collective fate. The Garys would kill all other residents, and when the Lone Wanderer enters this Vault, only the Garys remain. Oh, and did I mention all they can say is “Gary?” Yeah, I said this one was silly — but think for a moment on the prospect of being beaten to death by a gaggle of what are essentially human Pokemon, howling their own, singular name all the while.
Vault 4 isn’t the only disturbing Vault that you’ll bear witness to in the new Fallout TV adaption, as you’ll also get to see inside Vaults 31, 32, and 33, which are the only interconnected Vaults in existence. At least, as far as we know. Now, to be completely transparent, the living conditions in Vault 33 are pretty good, as were those of Vault 32 until the raiders broke in. But it’s 31 that houses the real horror of this Vault trio.
You see, in the biggest, most grotesque play in late-stage capitalism playbook,Vault-Tec assigned Vault 31 as a cryosleep annex containing all the Vault-Tec executives. When needed, they’re reanimated to become overseers of Vaults 32 and 33, with the overarching goal of taking to the wasteland when the time is right and reforming the world in Vault-tec’s image.Just imagine the new world in the hands of the most unbearable LinkedIn users on the planet, saying things like, “Here’s what 2,000 years underground in a Vault taught me about B2B SaaS marketing.” If that isn’t a scary prospect, then I don’t know what is.
Lastly, we have Vault 87, the Vault that the Lone Wanderer will need to travel to if they want to get their hands on the G.E.C.K. This Vault’s experiment certainly contributed to the Super Mutant epidemic within the Wasteland, as their goal was to experiment with the FEV virus, with an aim to document and understand its effects on the human body. However, as is usually the case in these Vault stories, the scientists got what was coming to them.
The residents, turned Super Mutants, escaped their holding cells and flipped the script by infecting the scientists with the FEV virus. They then set about scouting the wasteland and bringing back new humans to infect.This wasn’t the only strain of FEV, of course, as The Enclave planned to use it for mass genocide. The Master also used this in a similar vein to create his own, much more intellectual band of Super Mutants on the West Coast. But, as usual, Vault-Tec’s contribution is the most barbaric and unsettling.
