Vault 13- is it Really the Vault of the Future? And Other Vault Discussion

No, just... no. The Vault Behavioral Project was real. It was canon. Just don't.

Richardson DID NOT state that Vault 13 was meant as a control vault. He called it "in scientific parlance- a control group" to emphasize the role of the inhabitants for the "grand scheme" of the Enclave's genocidal plans, but he SPECIFICALLY expressed that its purpose was to remain isolated "until its subjects were needed", or as was later revealed in the Bible, 200 years. e.g. The specimens (the "pure stock" human occupants of the vault) were VITAL to the Enclave's plans because they needed to be able to test the lethality of FEV Curling-13 on wasteland "mutants" AND pure humans, and naturally they wouldn't want to use it on themselves, because they're the Enclave, they're too important for that, so vault dwellers it is! And, as Richardson laid out plain as day, it was a wonderful "happy accident" that what happened with Vault 13 was a blessing in disguise, because it provided the Enclave with 2 different groups of humans to experiment on, "pure stock" Vault 13 dwellers, and their closely-related "mutant" Arroyo wastelanders, so the relation could make their testing more valuable. But since the purpose of their tests was to kill "mutant" life, they needed pure humans to test the virus' range of virulence. Ergo, Vault 13 acting as "a control group".

You're placing WAY too much scrutiny and emphasis on Vault 13's presence in an ad... it's a GAME INTRO! It advertises Vault 13 because we PLAY a vault 13 dweller! Also, assets were being reused so too many resources weren't necessary in an already massive game, so immediately assuming the intro took place IN Bakersfield is, once more, simply putting too much stock in that intro. You might as well ask why the Mister Handy found in the bottom of Mariposa was so vastly different from the one in the TV ad.

Put your stock in what matters: the game and its story. Not every little nit pick in a single cinematic. Otherwise, we'd all be endlessly bitching about "THE BROTHERHOOD DID *NOT* COME OUT OF A VAULT GOD DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" because of one fuck-up line which could EASILY be spun around and corrected as 1) They made a mistake, and/or 2) Well you could TECHNICALLY call Mariposa a "military vault" if you're using very loose definitions for the term "vault". But then again, the REAL reason is: IT'S A GAME INTRO. Don't put too much emphasis on it.

We already knew there were other control vaults... I can't say I understand why you're illustrating that there are any as though that's a startling revelation. It wasn't terribly special that

 

The whole social experiment stems from Fallout 2 and upward. There is NO mention of vaults being an experiment in Fallout 1, even Vault 15 isn't mentioned as one. However the later games accept the experiments as canon.

 

Not true. Although IN GAME it can be argued that there's no mention in 1, sure, but the same can be said of how you "only" find out from the President at the end of 2. Read a little deeper. The concept was originally conceived by Tim Cain and he was eager to make it part of the story in FO2. You were SUPPOSED to learn about it much earlier, but it kept getting cut. The character of Jacoren (that's the Overseer's name, if you're interested) was designed with keeping the experiment going in mind, exiling the Vault Dweller ENTIRELY because of their exploits either exposing the program or ruining it because, as he put it, "Everyone will want to leave." He wasn't just some neurotic who worried about the outside world, he was fulfilling an obligation that went beyond simply running a community.

The Vault Experiment is evident even in the first game, it just wasn't named or explained. WHY would such a diverse multi-cultural settlement develop out of Vault 15? WHY were all ghouls originating from Vault 12? Part of making a good story- indeed, a cohesive world beyond the story taking place in said world that you experience -is leaving unanswered questions, and many of those questions were answered in FO2, and many more answered afterwards in the Bible. Just because the questions weren't answered by the first game doesn't mean the idea wasn't already there.

By extension, it's POSSIBLE to argue that some of Bethesda's retcons are... feasible. Like the totally different vault layouts being an East Coast thing or an older model thing, or whatever. But they occupy a TINY fraction of what makes any sense in those games, not to mention that's a separate topic altogether. But the point is, the same logic of "it was there, just never explained" extends WELL beyond FO1. It took a HUGE uproar and a series of explanations to settle the debate about what made ghouls. If everyone was a FO1 purist, like you guys seem to be, then everyone would be bitching about radiation making ghouls as depicted in FO2, rather than "FEV makes ghouls, they're what happens when you fail to make a super mutant" as depicted in FO1. It was explained, it just wasn't explained AS OF the first game.

 

It's no strange coincidence that a lot of Ghouls came from Vault 12. There was an accident, not always a government conspiracy!

 

And THAT is a picture-perfect example of a retcon or excusing a head-canon. NOT the Vault Behavioral Program, or FO2 as a whole.

EDIT:

If you don't like my contributions, all I can say to that is, "tough". I'm not here to please you. If you don't like me showing up raining on your parade, then make some sunshine (metaphorically speaking, of course), because complaining about the rain won't accomplish anything. That's how this works. Point begets counterpoint.

 

How? If anything Fallout 2 is more of a retcon, but I'm not going to complain and make several paragraphs worth of argument why the opposition is wrong and how the vaults were always experiments, even if there was no proof in the first game.

 

Patronizing gets you nowhere.

 

Does groveling how great you are work?

 

Vault experiments and the GECK weren't new ideas of the seconds team. There were already some concept from the original dev team before Fo2 and were picked to work on it when the sequel started production. Although, as original dev left early, we don't know how different the execution would have been.

 

Oh the idea existed, but I'm saying it's entirely legitimate to say the vaults weren't experiments in Fallout 1.

 

It's sad how petrified people are of a little self-confidence.

 

In the book The Men Who Stare At Goats, the author interviews someone who was in a unit that was supposed to be experimenting with weird mental powers. They worked out of a run-down old building, and had no budget for basic things like coffee, so had to bring their own. He admitted none of them could really do anything.

Then he suggested that the only reason the program continued was that somewhere else was a "real" program with a "real" lab. If it became public and Congress wanted it closed down, then "the other guys" would have their operation closed, while the real one was untouched.

An authentic bit of unfounded Cold War paranoia? Or someone savvy to how his particular bureaucracy worked?

Why weren't all the Vaults targeted and destroyed in the war? If you know where the entrance is, and you can get a bomb close enough, you could at least damage it. That rule applied to Cheyenne Mountain by about the time it went into operation (1966, I think...it's a matter of warhead accuracy and megatonnage). The experiments angle might make China less likely to bother hitting them, while they work over the real shelters.

 

Yes. And it wasn't public information about the Men Who Stare At Goats, either.

 

Secrets aren't always kept. Especially secrets concerning a large program like Vaults. And, if you leak the true purpose to the enemy, maybe they do what you want, and leave the Vaults alone. China might keep it quiet so they didn't compromise their sources and methods. Think paranoid! It's fun, up to a point.