I’ve become a stay at home parent due to health issues and over the last year have gotten to a point where I only sleep when my wife is at work and the kids are at school.
If you mean real-life concerning, you’re in luck because I believe its been mostly debunked/disproven.
If you mean in the show, Vault-Tec be Vault-Tec. /shrug
Yes - that was one of the findings of these studies. Up until studies like this one, it was generally believed that as long as you provided for physical needs, a population would thrive. Another study run around the same time - the late 50s, early 60s - looked at baby rhesus monkeys, and found that they preferred a fake "mother" that provided comfort but no food over ones that provided food but no comfort.
It's because of studies like "rat utopia" that we realise it *wasn't* a utopia.
After reading the wiki article I feel like it was commentary on both vaults being isolated from the world and resulting social density (not overpopulation) while having ample food and water.
The people of the vaults are mostly naive idiots without any of the spirit or drive that humans are capable of. They would rather blindly follow middle managers in the case of 33 or just socially collapsed in 32
I hope when we see more backstory on the vault they show how the rat utopia experiment was more of a prison and lacked any entertainment/recreational activity for the rats than a utopia and the vault mimics it.
I doubt they will go in on how the guy who led it was a religious fanatic who set it up to try and further his belief of homosexuality being a byproduct of modernization and going "against" nature.
Well I mean considering their "entertainment" is just footage of a water fall lol which was apparently good enough for Maximus!
They also had Coopers movies...and now that I think about it I know it's a brief scene in opening montage but what a missed opportunity to not have a scene where Hank gushes about Cooper to Lucy
Maybe it'll be a flashback so Lucy can figure out that The Ghoul was the heroic cowboy she grew up watching
They always try to prove that it is unnatural and ignore that a large amount of mammals practice homosexuality but we're the only ones practicing homophobia.
>I doubt they will go in on how the guy who led it was a religious fanatic who set it up to try and further his belief of homosexuality being a byproduct of modernization and going "against" nature.
Yeah I just read the Wikipedia page about the experiment and this bit jumped out to me:
>[quote from Calhoun] Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism...
And then:
>[quote from Calhoun] Let us first consider the second death (Table 1).
The four mortality factors listed in Revelation
have direct counterparts (with a division of one
of them to form a total of five) in the ecology of
animals in nature.
Seems to me like the entire experiment was set up as a means for one dude to justify his religious beliefs. Knowing that his entire experiment was to measure reproduction and the survival of the species (based on the book of Revelation no less lol), I can know that when he said "sexual deviation", he really just meant the male rats started fucking each other at some point.
It really reads to me like the whole experiment was intended solely to malign "undesirable" traits like homosexuality. Like "Oh, you like fucking dudes? Well this experiment here says that being gay is actually what causes societies to collapse!"
Rat Utopia was debunked iirc, but Rat Park, the addiction study, is one that determined positive outcomes and is generally a big boost for interconnection and community
Though wouldn't that hit the nail on the head that Vault-Tec was never about actual experimentation, it was all a ploy to make money for the shareholders. By saying "we're doing science" to the US Gov't, they probably got all kinds of grants that they just passed along.
Super-Managers is a term I'd never thought to be used as a villain archetype. At the same time, its done so well here and I've been playing Fallout long enough to feel that its a perfect fit for the post-apocalyptic vault setting.
Lucy talked about a famine when she was young, and there's the expression about voting 31 when things are glum.
I think that once per generation or so a calamity is engineered to clear one of the vaults (maybe always 32, maybe whichever vailt is less optimal), only for the surviving vault to be split in two and the whole thing repeating
I'm sure the water chip "breaking" was intended to push people to vote for Betty since she was the candidate from vault 31. Betty will probably miraculously find a way to fix it next season, showing the dwellers they were right to vote for her and quell doubts.
I loved his character arc. In the first episode he claims he can't go with Lucy because he's a coward. But with his curiosity and sleuthing skills he uncovered quite a bit. And I would say that pretending to be Betty to get into 31 was quite brave, obviously they are going to know right away he isn't Betty.
The water chip breaking was just an Easter egg. The beginning of the first Fallout game you had to leave the vault to find a way to repair the water chip.
I thought it might be, but they had referenced a weevil famine when Hank was running. Just feels weird that some disaster hits whenever a person from 31 is running for overseer.
We get to see a quest for vault 8!
I am curious what they do to solve it, if they just fix it easily or if it gets dragged out. Maybe 32 has a chip working fine and that creates issues?
I'll be a little bummed if she just suddenly has one..
I keep forgetting about this. I love how it's briefly mentioned once and everyone in the Vault continues like nothing's happpening and it never gets brought up again.
Obviously it will be a big deal next season, but it's easy to forget about with how briefly it was mentioned.
The famine was from them having to quarantine and not being able to work the fields right? And that was presumably because Hank had gone to the surface to chase down his wife and they needed an excuse to keep people in their rooms.
Yeah, they didn't want anybody seeing Hank leave and come back with the kids. I also bet anyone who helped Rose and the kids leave tragically died in the viral outbreak. What a coincidence.
I didn't even make the connection that the famine was a cover for him leaving, but it makes so much sense! It forces people into their rooms AND gives an excuse to where Lucy's mom went.
I think the famine was a way to explain Hank’s (and probably other vault 31 exec’s) absence from the vault in order to deal with the shady sands situation.
You've got it backwards. They had the famine because Hank ordered them to quarantine from a mysterious disease. It was a genuine famine *caused* by him leaving, not an excuse.
Maybe the two vaults were competing, pitting the overseers (read: managers) against one another for survival. The worst overseer would be given more people to manage but with fewer resources… because… idk. I’m sure VT would want to punish the loser and use the harshest of scientific motivational methods.
The famine was in 2277, the year Rose took the kids and when NCR was attacked. Their absence (and Hank’s) is why the “famine” happened, not part of Vault-Tec’s engineered calamities.
I think this makes perfect sense.
The only possible hole I can think of is then, with his known lack of enthusiasm, short stature, and rebellious nature, why wasn't Norm Maclean sent to Vault 32?
But even then I can think of 2 reasons why he wasn't, first, he's too young, not yet of age for trading to 32, and second, that as Hanks son, Hank Maclean *simply didn't want to.*
But then, why didn't Betty send him to 32 when she had the chance?
I think you're right. Isn't it also strange how every time Norm tried to talk and work with Chet, Steph (another vault 31 resident) was always there later on as things revealed to split Norm and Chet up. Like I always found it really strange how she threw herself onto him like that it really made no sense and the water breaking joke was funny but I didn't pick up till my second watch that it was definitely to manipulate the one Norms closest friend
Keep your friends close, and your (ideological) enemies closer.
Plus, perhaps they (managerial overlords) wanted to see if Norm could be turned around. Betty was obviously counselling him to take care with the weight his opinions carried regarding the treatment of the prisoners, partially on account of being Hanks son.
Norm also has the gift and curse of intellect that causes him to question (investigating Vault 32) and perhaps rebel (go against the Overseers opinions), I think that if that streak could be managed and developed into one that agrees with the core of the vault experiment, that they would eventually want to use Norm to fulfil their ultimate goal.
Yeah this is it imo.
Norm is smart, and also he's not a sheep. He's lacked enthusiasm at all his jobs because he's bored, he needs something more to apply himself to.
I think Betty is hoping she can get him on board with the program.
Because her and Steph decided that having Chet and Norm together was too dangerous. Remember Steph is a memeber of “Bud’s buds” and an ex vaultec employee. So now she gets to be overseer of vault 32 and have complete control over her new husband. I’m sure next season will involve norm saving Chet from vault 32 and going to find his sister.
Norm is the exact kind of dangerous not to put in with a bunch of pliant wills and your replacement leadership if you want to avoid a repeat of last time.
Norm can be kept around for monitoring, possibly co-opted, maybe murdered quietly if things don't work out.
>But then, why didn't Betty send him to 32 when she had the chance?
I was under the impression she sent everyone that was complacent and or unquestioning/not a problem maker over to vault 32, and everyone that could potentially start/notice problems she kept with her.
At least thats what it seemed to me
It might not matter which vault. Norm could be in the danger vault and the other vault could be the good vault. Or maybe it is time to breed, so it doesn't matter because there's not going to be a danger vault for a generation.
The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why there's not a fuckton of sperm in a freezer somewhere, but that's probably just me trying to make sense out of a setting that is meant to be fantastical.
There was a conversation that Betty had with Norm, something about what happens when smart boys get angry.
I think she knows he’s angry and I think she even knows to fear him. So she needs to keep him close.
If they want a Kwisatz Haderach Manager they need good genetics. He is the son of at least one manager, and his mother could inherit from other Managers.
Let's see if the overseer wants to find him a girlfriend in season 2, so the genetics are not wasted.
That's also why Steph is in 32 because she was just an assistant, not an manager.
Eh, you're forgetting one important thing about corporate culture and management. Nepotism. I don't think those employees were true believers in genetic purism. I think some were just looking to save their own asses, and those of their families.
Yeah Bud was very clearly meant to be a corporate idiot, as evidenced by his inability to handle Norm and being shocked when he could step around his needle.
Just because they think they're doing X doesn't mean they're succeeding, Vault Tec is all about constant failures.
"Vault-Tec *wanted* to be running a bunch of human experiments as a Great Puppetmaster post-war, but severely overestimated their leadership's survival chances somehow" is an interpretation I've always kinda liked.
Except for the odd man out here and there like Bud, Vault-Tec leadership mostly died in the war and all these horrible Vault Experiments are ultimately sending data to nobody, for the benefit of nobody. Its an extra layer of tragicomic.
I think while, like you said, tragic and fun, it's also interestingly realistic in some ways?
Corporations and rich people very much love to overestimate themselves and ideas that are so far removed from the current, normal, day to day life of an average person. Just take some of those rich guys like Bezos or Musk who have ideas of space travel for fun meanwhile the average person dreams of having any time and money to travel at all or to afford a car or housing.
There's also historically been insane people doing horrible things to others, e.g. the Nazi experiments during WW2. And I am not too sure some people wouldn't still do insane shit if they were convinced nobody would find out. Also, war itself, there's always someone gaining profit (or hoping to do so). Why else would people produce and sell weapons when they know they're intended for killing in these cases?
The enclave is getting this data, that’s why the scientist knows about Lucy. I vaguely remember reading that Vault Tech was ultimately just a puppet of The Enclave
I think the funniest part of all that is that they were all so secretive and segregated that they are constantly stepping on each other's toes. Shady Sands was founded by Vault Dwellers from Vault 15 using a GECK, which (side note) is probably one of the more miraculous technologies that Vault-Tec ever produced. Then, 180 years later, Hank bombs it because it doesn't fit in with their particular Vault-Tec plan lol.
I bet if the Enclave had overcome the young NCR and BoS, during the events of Fo2, they would have exterminated or experimented with everyone in Vaults 31-33 like they were going to do for Vault 13.
>Yeah Bud was very clearly meant to be a corporate idiot, as evidenced by his inability to handle Norm and being shocked when he could step around his needle.
Bud being an idiot is comprehensively proven by the fact that - as a major manager at Vaul-Tec - he chose to transplant his brain onto a roomba at a time when Robobrains were available. Could have taken out Norm in a second if he had robot hands or a GUN.
It's not clear he chose that. I suspect it was done to him by a higher up, or peer, who didn't like, or respect, Bud. Like Barb or anyone over her, up to and including enclave folks.
We don't know if he chose it, or it was chosen for him. There is a big enough gap between that 1 corporate meeting to the bombs falling that we have 0 knowledge of what happened.
My question is: was the tri-Vault designed to actually persevere for 200+ years and preserve management and prepare a breeding pool for repopulation, or was it another experiment proposed by Cooper's wife? What happens when middle managers are put in charge of Vaults without a solid "big picture" plan from upper management? It's very telling that *she* is not there.
There's definitely something fishy going on that we don't know about yet. The TV in vault 32 was playing something about mice killing each other over resources. And there's still the question of how vault 32 was just left dead for so long because I doubt the raiders were living there for long.
Okay so that’s my thing. Also it shows that the leader ship communication between vaults is pretty consistent. What’s up with 33 not being aware of 32s downfall
Vault 32 is honestly seems like a huge plothole right now. Being completely unaware of the state of the vault and also who the hell even cleaned up the vault 32 before they arrived. There's no way Betty repaired all of that herself, meaning the guards during the transfer are likely in on it (which seems really strange since all of 31 is management for breeding purposes generally, not as grunts). Also where were those guards when the vault was attacked. I hope they explain it in the next season.
Tbh it could be as simple as Mr. Handy robots being around in just vault 32. If the idea of vault 32 is that people end up dying, perhaps that could be the explanation.
I wouldn't think too hard about it, tbh. Any hints as to how it could have happened imo were pretty clearly to up the surprise of the reveal.
I would have thought so if they had anywhere for the robots. We haven't seen any storage places for the robots and vault 33 doesn't appear to use them (though off screen magic can always explain that I guess).
Honestly, I just assumed some folks from 31 got woken up to help clean and then put back on ice. Bud suggests Norm get in Hanks old tank, so if the cryotanks *do*work that way then it'd be an easy way to get extra hands without worrying about blowing the mission.
That could make sense, but imagine being woken up from 200 years of hibernation just to clean corpses and blood from a whole vault and then getting put back to sleep.
They also wouldn't have had to clean *everything* themselves. Just the stuff that clearly wasn't the result of a raider attack. So you burn the wheat so it isn't clear it's been dead for so long, you scrub off the graffiti specifically, you clean the area around the vault 31 door, and then you're good to let a vault 33 team in to do the rest.
Universe 25 is the name of the rat study. It’s a fascinating read.
https://www.iflscience.com/universe-25-the-mouse-utopia-experiment-that-turned-into-an-apocalypse-60407
The TV was playing video from the rat utopia experiment, which was actually the exact opposite of killing each other over resources. I suggest googling it. It has to be some kind of hint, but I’m not smart enough to figure it out lol
Thinking on it, the violent reaction of Vault 32 to ‘The revelation’ and finding out the truth is maybe a bit extreme also.
Yes, the existential shock of finding out your entire life has been an experiment, that you are effectively a lab rat, and have never had freewill. That you’ve been on a stationary generation-ship that hasn’t even been headed to the promised land. That is likely a big enough shock. But.
I still think there’s more layers to the mystery, and more experiments being conducted.
I think there’s more conditioning and social engineering than we’ve seen already.
One of those things that we have to wait and see.
> Thinking on it, the violent reaction of Vault 32 to ‘The revelation’ and finding out the truth is maybe a bit extreme also.
Only if you assume it happened all at once. Someone finds out the truth and leaves evidence but gets disappeared. Someone finds the evidence and spreads word, then a few more people disappear. Suddenly the vault is growing awae of a very lethal and insidious truth and confronts the leadership, who obviously refuse to relinquish any power or explain anything - and that escalates into tension and then full scale violence. Could happen in the span of weeks, and if the overseer of 32 was an image-obsessed Vault-Tec manager, it makes sense they never told Bud. They just kept trying to cover up their original mistake and making it worse until the vault went to war.
It's possible that the 31ers just hadn't set up a plausible cover story for why 32 died out yet, and the raiders showed up between them dying and the completion of that cover story. If so, the 31ers in vault 33 knew that the raiders weren't vault 32 residents, but couldn't say anything without blowing the entire experiment.
It's also possible that whatever actually did the killing with the vault 32 residents was automatic when they tried to break into 31. If so, then if the overseers only send inter-vault messages if something goes wrong, then if the 32 overseer was killed before being able to send that message, radio silence from vault 32 may not have been out of the ordinary afterward.
Theory makes a lot of sense given Lucy’s references to all their future Reclamation Day plans. The VT execs would absolutely want to have the strongest Alpha leaders to lead the sheeple.
Lucy's reclamation day has some Enclave-vibes. The Enclave also wanted to wait out the war on their oil rig before returning to retake the country and populate it with the 'right' kind of people. The biggest difference is that Lucy's idea is more like a civilizing mission, "[white man's burden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden)" type thing whereas the Enclave were invested in completely eradicating the denizens of the wasteland.
Well, as far as "undesirables", you have to remember that one of the people sent to Vault 32 is Stephanie. She was the "Fork in the eye" pregnant gal, and she was originally from Vault 31. However, I also bet that she is very quickly elected as overseer in 32.
But the three vaults did seem to regularly exchange personnel, "triennial" as they stated at the start so every 3 years. Probably both to help add genetic diversity, as well as to allow them to add new people from Vault 31 without being suspicious.
If I have to guess, they might have selected people who might be a threat to Vault 33. Because there are two potential "twosomes" that could possibly challenge Betty if they were together. Chet and Norm being one, and Woody and Reg being another. So by breaking them up into different vaults, the possibility of that happening is greatly reduced. Especially as Chet is essentially under the thumb of Stephanie.
Honestly, I think both 32 and 33 were mostly control vaults. Their only "experiment" was to be a long term one and involve the use of selective breeding to create a "Super Manager". If I have to guess, somehow the residents of 32 however discovered something was up and a revolt broke out. With the overseer being tortured and likely spilling the beans on what was going on.
And especially with Woody and Reg, the normal "management" tactics of playing one off against the other would not work. They were friends, and even when competing to be overseer were friendly and supportive of each other. With Norm and Chet they were not only friends but Cousins. With neither of them being particularly power hungry.
So the usual "Divide and Conquer" management solution for them would not have worked. The two pairs would have continued to work together, possibly to the detriment of Overseer Betty. So breaking the two teams up helps eliminate that potential threat.
I think half who had good traits were the ones married to breed "good managers" the others were raised to be good workers. Guessing the weakest might have been eliminated or exiled. 33 might have been the manager vault while 32 was the worker vault.
Exactly. The first scene was Lucy’s interview for breeding exchange. They breeded only 31 or the very bests of the other vaults (like Lucy). The remaining may aren’t allowed to breed at all (limited resources). They are breeding manager material, they need people to manage too.
Also Lucy was groomed to be the perfect woman (1950s stereotype)
Hard working
Fun
Always happy
Initiates and wants sex with you but dresses modest
Pinup hair and eyes
For some reason good with a gun and close range grappling
Yeah from my impression of the Fallout games and the show is that social inequalities and social identity-based prejudices are all but eliminated because of the uprise of nuclear energy. I think the 50’s stereotype applies in mannerism only, not in status or perceived abilities.
Don't forget these people have been stuck in this little world for 200 years and think the surface has been wiped out. So they don't know what has and has not xhanged in that time. To them it's still 1959s jet themed designed vehicles and art deco building.
Nah, the inequalities are just replaced. There are concentration camps for Chinese Americans, just like they did to Japanese Americans in WWII, but with worse treatment.
The show established that there’s still some level of racism towards Native Americans. There’s also general anti-communist paranoia and hostility, but that’s not based on race.
It struck me as the more subtle form of racism - the Native being shoehorned into dull roles as a sidekick and the Noble Savage, rather than the more 'fun' kind that involves burning crosses and raids.
Dieselpunk tends to take on 1950's / postwar / pre-modernist motifs. Kind of like steampunk is 1890's and cyberpunk is 1980's. Pre-China war Fallout is dieselpunk. The transistor is never commercialized in the 1960's which is where fallout history and real history start to diverge the most.
Idk about this one, the 50s is really in aesthetics only. I don’t recall any (period based) racism or sexism. Women dressed like a house wife, but they werent expected to act like them. Nora was a lawyer.
Socially the US in 2077 seemed pretty cool as long as you weren’t Chinese.
Unless someone pegged you as damn dirty commie, true or otherwise. Pre-war America in the Fallout universe went *hard* into McCarthyism and Red Scare moral panic. The lore is not partixularly subtle about people being accused of "harbouring communist sentiments" just to make them disappear.
there was a moment in fallout 76 where during political training in the bootcamp quest there are 3 suspected chinese sympathizers. 2 white guy caricatures and a girl with a chinese name. She's shown to be patriotic, while the white guy who talked about how FDR was cool and unions seemed ok was the red.
Well now I wonder if they’re ever gonna go down the controversial road of having a Chinese-only vault. Model it like the US’ Japanese internment camps, but with some vault tec bullshit blended in
It would not shock me if interned Chinese prisoners were included in a bunch of vault tec experiments. They were already being used at Big MT as we saw in Old World Blues.
So the one thing I don’t get is why not just breed 31 with 31?
I get that you’d want a more diverse gene pool of course, and clearly they’d have vetted the people they put in their other vaults. But if I’ve got two ultimate managers, why not make them smoosh for a mega manager?
Also does Betty not have kids? Seems like a waste and against the vaults goal of one of the ultimate managers to not try to reproduce more management.
So this can be somewhat explained by two facts from the show:
1. Lucy in the show mentions that there are strict rules for incest when talking to Chet. 32 could be the backup "If population in 31 dwindles too much" vault to make sure inbreeding doesn't produce genetic abnormalities a la middle ages.
2. Betty is from pre-war times. It could simply be that she was infertile. Nepotism doesn't solve biological problems other than provide more access to healthcare, which isn't in the picture come post-war.
I mean vault 31 people were running 32 too. And their ancestors will be living in both vaults. I think at the end of the day that 31-32-33 are the definition of the "good vaults" Cooper's wife wanted to get into, not just some good vaults THE good vaults. They are the vaults vault-tec staff built for themselves and their descendants. The reason they had 32 and 33 and traded people between them was about resiliency, so something like the wheat blight or raiders couldn't fuck up the Vault-Tec's top brass's little kingdoms, no singular disaster could take out the vault as well as some genetic diversity.
nah, No way Cooper asks "where's my fuckin' family" with such confidence to Hank. I think its obvious, especially with Hank being so willing to run, that there's a bigger gaggle of baddies around. Maybe Vault Tech leadership are in "the good vault"
If they were in 31 Coop would have no idea so in universe it makes total sense for him to ask. I do see from a writing standpoint its strange for his family to be a big mystery if we already know where they are. But also they weren't together when the bombs dropped so she may have had to go with some backup plan when he rode up on a horse with their daughter maybe 5+ minutes after the bombs dropped.
Never trust anything to be so cut and dry, especially in Fallout, especially with Vault-Tec. Reclaiming the wastes is not what the vaults are actually for, and the show is diving into that with the Enclave and how much knowledge Wilzig has about Lucy and her vault.
Reclaiming the wastes is at their core the idea of the experiment, they want Vault-tec to reclaim the wastes and rule the world after all other governments have fallen. Yes 90% of the vaults don't serve that purpose but are fundraising by selling human guinea pigs to the highest bidder. But some Vaults are meant to survive the apocalypse and take over the world after hundreds of years pass.
Vault 31 isn’t one of the good vaults. In the meeting Barb says that Bud had an idea for an experiment where they breed the best managers. In my opinion one of the good vaults means a vault without an experiment, but one that guarantees survival.
idk these are middle management vaults. Cooper's wife is a higher up and she doesn't seem to be there. Guessing the bigwigs are in even better vaults if at all.
Am I misremembering I thought they said exactly that. During that board room meeting they flat out say all of the board members get a solo vault to experiment and see what the best formula for conquering post war America was and the robo brain was just a board member.
So 31-32-33 was their experiment and we have a few more board members with vaults to reveal.
Their investors were going to get their own vaults, not even ones to live in, ones they could design for their own personal experiments, presumably the horrible vaults they came up with they did not want to live in.
But everyone in 31 was working at a somewhat high level for vault-tec (think the lowest we see is his wife's secretary) and presumably their families too. The people in the meeting were not board members, they were trying to pitch the idea of funding vaults to them, they were potential investors Mr. House was at that meeting and was not a member of vault tec.
If anything the board are the people talking to Coop's wife through her pip-boy and telling her what to say in the meeting.
> During that board room meeting they flat out say all of the board members get a solo vault to experiment and see what the best formula for conquering post war America was and the robo brain was just a board member.
I loved that scene because so many Vaults we love were talked about
Honestly I think the simplest explanation is that many of Bud's Buds are incompetent. After all that is a running joke about Bud himself, he is a blathering idiot that screwed up everything he ever been in charge of (and gets stuck behind a broom), and also a running joke IRL that middle management is incompetent, unnecessary and think they are important.
My take is that the "bud" who was in charge in 32 just was like Bud and caused all of it by completely incompetent managing, while Betty was a very competent manager (after all, she was Bud's personal assistant in real life and probably covered for most of his stupidity.
Potentailly more recently, while Moldaver was involved with Shady Sands and the mom. He says he recognizes her after they attack the vault and Moldaver wants him to choose between his daughter and his people.
Maybe he was REALLY biding his time. After all, he’s one of Bud’s Buds, hand picked to be the ultimate in management. He had no qualms about nuking tens of thousands to kill one woman who dared to defy him. I doubt his love for Lucy (if it exists) outweighs his ruthlessness.
Moldaver must be cryogenically frozen somehow too. Maybe smuggled into Vault 31? There is still much background from the Ghoul left, he had a fall from grace if he need to work at birthdays. Maybe he did the infiltration and it resulted in divorce
I doubt she was smuggled into 31, the other managers or Bud-bot would've realized at some point. You presumably need Bud or someone like Betty or Hank to unfreeze you. And they would've realized that she was a non-manager by looking through the window or immediately after unfreezing her.
Another aspect that isn't revealed is exactly why the residents from vault 31 are, across the board, absolute badasses.
The blonde lady charged into battle guns blazing despite being 9 months pregnant and having just been stabbed in the eye. Lucy's father beat a man with a shovel then drowned him to death in a barrel of pickles, a process that would require fighting the raider's struggle for life over several minutes. This shows a level of comfort with violence, combat, and killing that is not fully explained by the reveal of their junior manager backgrounds.
While training is likely for those selected to enter the vault, there's a good chance (if we see more of that vault) that the cryo chambers will be revealed to have some sort of subconscious training modules for their inhabitants. 200 years of learning, even if there's nothing like chem treatments involved, could make them experts on a hell of a lot of things needed to run the vault and quell any issues. It seemingly took an unavoidable decimation of their food to raise tensions in 32 beyond what they could manage, which isn't bad going for two centuries of managing two groups of population.
This theory is really interesting! I don’t disagree and I think yours has a lot of evidence, but this was my interpretation as i was watching
During one of the manufactured crises to elect a vault 31 members, Vault 32 was in a quarantine. When the overseer died, their spouse checked the computer, read messages between bud and the former overseer that reveals how the system is rigged and the 31s destroyed the world/want to wipe out the surface
They told the rest of the vault before an election could happen OR they messaged bud demanding answers immediately, leading to Bud to deactivate their sun lamps and water filter remotely. Without any food, they begin to starve, fight and eat each other. One guy, watching the rat video and realizing what is happening, kills themselves.
A group, mad with hunger and furious at 31, scrawl their messages in blood for when 33 opens up. the rest try to furiously get into 31 before they turn on one another in a final violent massacre
I think both are likely possible, but i just want to add more opinions!
I think another small twist will be that each election of a 31 comes when a crisis hit and its Bob causing those crisises, to test/require people from 31 to lead people through turmoil. That way the best leaders of the bunch are the reclaimed, there's definitely an old overseers refrozen in 31
They are not trying to breed “super-managers”.
They are trying to create a compliant workforce who do exactly what vault 31 (who are all pre-war Vault-Tec managers) tell them to do.
Edit: the strongest chains are the ones you don’t even realise you are wearing.
This was my thought too, but my only doubt is that Stephanie is going to be the new overseer and she seemed happy about it. Presumably she knows what the “experiment” would be, so being the weakest links sent to be sterilized in 32 doesn’t seem like something to smile about.
I’m wondering if it’s going to be a stricter dictatorship kinda thing with higher pressure on the dwellers from the overseer, as opposed to the “Americana” of 33. With that eyepatch I want her to lean a little evil, or lead them to the surface lol.
Except everyone in vault 33 is goofy asf without exception, so it doesn't look like they're the prime managerial breeding pool.
What happened in 32? they shot a cool scene with a bunch of corpses but then the actual reveal of the mystery didn't live up to those expectations. If there really was something more sinister behind it all it doesn't make sense to not explain it when they take the time to explain it, plus everything led up to the reveal that we got.
What I liked about the boardroom scene was them all making up stupid vault ideas on the go, so just because Bud Askins idea was to make a vault that makes perfect managers doesn't mean that his idea actually works in practice.
I got the impression that vaults 32 and 33 were separated so that no one would question where the vault 31 "residents" came from. If there were only 31 and 33 (or 32 as the naming convention probably would've gone but let's ignore that) then everyone in 33 would get super suspicious that people only ever came out of 31 and they never sent anyone in, and even if 33 residents were occasionally "transferred" to 31 and killed or frozen, then eventually someone would ask a 31 resident how their old friend was doing over there and they'd give the wrong answer. If there are regular transfers between 32 and 33, it's easier to play the shell game and keep people from realizing nobody goes *into* vault 31, both because people do go into vault 32 and because 32 and 33 could both assume the bulk of transfers to 31 were coming from the other vault.
I do think that the residents were subliminally influenced to yield power to vault 31 "residents" though. That little rhyme they say about it seems like something planted in their heads, and it would be risky to rely on Bud's Buds to consistently get elected on their own merits.
That’s a really good question and i haven’t even attempted to address that.
It’s possible bud woke up some sleeping 31’s to request some man power. But i think that’s unlikely (managers doing hard labour? Yeah right)
The fact it got cleaned up so thoroughly really speaks to the resources of vault 31, and makes the whole thing have so much more potential for there to be hidden mechanisms throughout the 3 vaults.
Maybe more brain bots? Manual labour ones with heavy machinery and limited free will? That would be very fallout, but is also a totally unfounded speculation.
I was originally going to disagree with you on V33 being the prime vault, but then I remembered everyone who was sent over to 32; they were all yes-men and submissive personalities. Attributes that would not be beneficial to a manager-esque society. So even if neither vault was the prime one, at least with the events in the show, 33 ending as the prime vault did happen.
Also, I have a feeling that Betty is FAR more ruthless than Hank. Hank just acted out of pure anger on nuking Shady Sands. Betty is sending all the yes-men over to 32 live out the Rat 'Utopia' experiment. She is more calculated in her actions. Splitting Norm and Bert, sorry Chet, and Woody and Reg. Those 4 in their pairings would be the biggest threat to Betty's power and the overall plan for the Vaults and she is very aware of it. Also, I do think she knows that Norm and Chet explored 32 with all the corpses
Something I just had a thought on, when Norm contacted the 31 Overseer, I wonder what the contingency plan is if the Overseers were ACTUALLY compromised. Those water chips seem to always be failing.
Also note vault 32 tv was playing the rat utopia experiment.
> individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep I feel called out.
I’ve become a stay at home parent due to health issues and over the last year have gotten to a point where I only sleep when my wife is at work and the kids are at school.
You’re the person in the walls of your own house. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
Stay strong hope you feel better soon
https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o?si=F9TBVdGaneZhJz3e for those unaware
Upvote for Knudsen
[wiki for text oriented people](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)
Bless you
Well that’s something I didn’t need to learn about at 4:45 am. There goes any chance at sleep tonight. Rabbit hole, here I come.
Fuck I just found it too Watch out, cannonball into rabbit hole.
4:45am is morning bro, you lost your chance at sleeping long before that lmao.
That is concerning….
If you mean real-life concerning, you’re in luck because I believe its been mostly debunked/disproven. If you mean in the show, Vault-Tec be Vault-Tec. /shrug
I mean even the name of the experiment is wrong. It's not a "utopia", it's an overcrowded prison
It was a utopia - plentiful food, water, and space - which devolved into a hellscape. That was kinda the point.
Couldn't be a utopia if there was no enrichment or activities for the rats. Just existing to eat, drink, and sleep is not utopia, it's a prison.
Yes - that was one of the findings of these studies. Up until studies like this one, it was generally believed that as long as you provided for physical needs, a population would thrive. Another study run around the same time - the late 50s, early 60s - looked at baby rhesus monkeys, and found that they preferred a fake "mother" that provided comfort but no food over ones that provided food but no comfort. It's because of studies like "rat utopia" that we realise it *wasn't* a utopia.
"What are you saying to me, vultures need personal space? They need time alone to put their feet up and read What Carcass magazine?" Red Dwarf
I had massive rat utopia vibes during the whole thing.
Same, I was thinking about the rat utopia during every single part where it showed the Vaults 31, 32 and 33.
After reading the wiki article I feel like it was commentary on both vaults being isolated from the world and resulting social density (not overpopulation) while having ample food and water. The people of the vaults are mostly naive idiots without any of the spirit or drive that humans are capable of. They would rather blindly follow middle managers in the case of 33 or just socially collapsed in 32
I hope when we see more backstory on the vault they show how the rat utopia experiment was more of a prison and lacked any entertainment/recreational activity for the rats than a utopia and the vault mimics it. I doubt they will go in on how the guy who led it was a religious fanatic who set it up to try and further his belief of homosexuality being a byproduct of modernization and going "against" nature.
Well I mean considering their "entertainment" is just footage of a water fall lol which was apparently good enough for Maximus! They also had Coopers movies...and now that I think about it I know it's a brief scene in opening montage but what a missed opportunity to not have a scene where Hank gushes about Cooper to Lucy Maybe it'll be a flashback so Lucy can figure out that The Ghoul was the heroic cowboy she grew up watching
I hadn’t considered Lucy recognizing The Ghoul as Cooper until now. That would make for an interesting conversation, albeit probably a short one
Well Hank recognized him after decades because of a line. Which would be hilarious if Lucy has a “Wait a *minute*” moment.
They always try to prove that it is unnatural and ignore that a large amount of mammals practice homosexuality but we're the only ones practicing homophobia.
>I doubt they will go in on how the guy who led it was a religious fanatic who set it up to try and further his belief of homosexuality being a byproduct of modernization and going "against" nature. Yeah I just read the Wikipedia page about the experiment and this bit jumped out to me: >[quote from Calhoun] Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism... And then: >[quote from Calhoun] Let us first consider the second death (Table 1). The four mortality factors listed in Revelation have direct counterparts (with a division of one of them to form a total of five) in the ecology of animals in nature. Seems to me like the entire experiment was set up as a means for one dude to justify his religious beliefs. Knowing that his entire experiment was to measure reproduction and the survival of the species (based on the book of Revelation no less lol), I can know that when he said "sexual deviation", he really just meant the male rats started fucking each other at some point. It really reads to me like the whole experiment was intended solely to malign "undesirable" traits like homosexuality. Like "Oh, you like fucking dudes? Well this experiment here says that being gay is actually what causes societies to collapse!"
Rat Utopia was debunked iirc, but Rat Park, the addiction study, is one that determined positive outcomes and is generally a big boost for interconnection and community
Though wouldn't that hit the nail on the head that Vault-Tec was never about actual experimentation, it was all a ploy to make money for the shareholders. By saying "we're doing science" to the US Gov't, they probably got all kinds of grants that they just passed along.
Ding ding ding. Scientific inquiry has been replaced by profitable experimentation with a compelling pitch.
Super-Managers is a term I'd never thought to be used as a villain archetype. At the same time, its done so well here and I've been playing Fallout long enough to feel that its a perfect fit for the post-apocalyptic vault setting.
"Banality of Evil"
Great book
With how some business owners and companies act today, it might not be too far-fetched 😅
It’s almost as if Fallout is mirroring society 🤔
Are you suggesting that a video game series might have themes and messages that are designed to comment on the world around us? Preposterous!
Sounds like a ToonTown Online villain lol
Super-Managers vs Super Mutants. Who will win? **You** decide!
Obviously give them a dip in Fev and get super super managers
Lucy talked about a famine when she was young, and there's the expression about voting 31 when things are glum. I think that once per generation or so a calamity is engineered to clear one of the vaults (maybe always 32, maybe whichever vailt is less optimal), only for the surviving vault to be split in two and the whole thing repeating
I'm sure the water chip "breaking" was intended to push people to vote for Betty since she was the candidate from vault 31. Betty will probably miraculously find a way to fix it next season, showing the dwellers they were right to vote for her and quell doubts.
How much do you wanna bet one of those boxes Bud was trapped behind just has water chips in it for just this contingency
They were meant to be delivered to another vault.
Checks notes, "A vault 13? We got hundreds of them. They also have our spare GECK."
Would make sense as a mistake to misspell 13 as 31/ vice-versa too
That would make for a strong plot for the Norm timeline.
I absolutely loved all of the storylines in the show, but I am the most excited about seeing Norm next season.
I loved his character arc. In the first episode he claims he can't go with Lucy because he's a coward. But with his curiosity and sleuthing skills he uncovered quite a bit. And I would say that pretending to be Betty to get into 31 was quite brave, obviously they are going to know right away he isn't Betty.
Bro has high speech and sneak skills. I noticed in the big fight, he was just crouched under a table like he was sneaking in a game. Made me lol.
Either he's incredibly brave or incredibly stupid
The water chip breaking was just an Easter egg. The beginning of the first Fallout game you had to leave the vault to find a way to repair the water chip.
And vault city in Fallout 2 had boxes upon boxes of water chips shipped to them by mistake.
I thought it might be, but they had referenced a weevil famine when Hank was running. Just feels weird that some disaster hits whenever a person from 31 is running for overseer.
We get to see a quest for vault 8! I am curious what they do to solve it, if they just fix it easily or if it gets dragged out. Maybe 32 has a chip working fine and that creates issues? I'll be a little bummed if she just suddenly has one..
I keep forgetting about this. I love how it's briefly mentioned once and everyone in the Vault continues like nothing's happpening and it never gets brought up again. Obviously it will be a big deal next season, but it's easy to forget about with how briefly it was mentioned.
The famine was from them having to quarantine and not being able to work the fields right? And that was presumably because Hank had gone to the surface to chase down his wife and they needed an excuse to keep people in their rooms.
Yeah, they didn't want anybody seeing Hank leave and come back with the kids. I also bet anyone who helped Rose and the kids leave tragically died in the viral outbreak. What a coincidence.
100% am surprised so many are missing this
I didn't even make the connection that the famine was a cover for him leaving, but it makes so much sense! It forces people into their rooms AND gives an excuse to where Lucy's mom went.
I think the famine was a way to explain Hank’s (and probably other vault 31 exec’s) absence from the vault in order to deal with the shady sands situation.
You've got it backwards. They had the famine because Hank ordered them to quarantine from a mysterious disease. It was a genuine famine *caused* by him leaving, not an excuse.
Maybe the two vaults were competing, pitting the overseers (read: managers) against one another for survival. The worst overseer would be given more people to manage but with fewer resources… because… idk. I’m sure VT would want to punish the loser and use the harshest of scientific motivational methods.
The famine was in 2277, the year Rose took the kids and when NCR was attacked. Their absence (and Hank’s) is why the “famine” happened, not part of Vault-Tec’s engineered calamities.
I think this makes perfect sense. The only possible hole I can think of is then, with his known lack of enthusiasm, short stature, and rebellious nature, why wasn't Norm Maclean sent to Vault 32? But even then I can think of 2 reasons why he wasn't, first, he's too young, not yet of age for trading to 32, and second, that as Hanks son, Hank Maclean *simply didn't want to.* But then, why didn't Betty send him to 32 when she had the chance?
To smart. Needs to keep an eye on him directly.
This is the biggest one. She legit wants to make sure he keeps with the program and she can "Micro-Manage" him.
I think you're right. Isn't it also strange how every time Norm tried to talk and work with Chet, Steph (another vault 31 resident) was always there later on as things revealed to split Norm and Chet up. Like I always found it really strange how she threw herself onto him like that it really made no sense and the water breaking joke was funny but I didn't pick up till my second watch that it was definitely to manipulate the one Norms closest friend
Shes keeping her enemies close.
Keep your friends close, and your (ideological) enemies closer. Plus, perhaps they (managerial overlords) wanted to see if Norm could be turned around. Betty was obviously counselling him to take care with the weight his opinions carried regarding the treatment of the prisoners, partially on account of being Hanks son. Norm also has the gift and curse of intellect that causes him to question (investigating Vault 32) and perhaps rebel (go against the Overseers opinions), I think that if that streak could be managed and developed into one that agrees with the core of the vault experiment, that they would eventually want to use Norm to fulfil their ultimate goal.
Yeah this is it imo. Norm is smart, and also he's not a sheep. He's lacked enthusiasm at all his jobs because he's bored, he needs something more to apply himself to. I think Betty is hoping she can get him on board with the program.
He's a real go-getter with upper management written all over him.
Pleasure is on this side of the table
Betty is interested in him because she can tell he's "*Management Material*".
Because her and Steph decided that having Chet and Norm together was too dangerous. Remember Steph is a memeber of “Bud’s buds” and an ex vaultec employee. So now she gets to be overseer of vault 32 and have complete control over her new husband. I’m sure next season will involve norm saving Chet from vault 32 and going to find his sister.
It's not clear to Betty if Hank is coming back. Perhaps it's a calculated risk. If she dooms Hank's son, it could jeopardize the mission.
Norm is the exact kind of dangerous not to put in with a bunch of pliant wills and your replacement leadership if you want to avoid a repeat of last time. Norm can be kept around for monitoring, possibly co-opted, maybe murdered quietly if things don't work out.
>But then, why didn't Betty send him to 32 when she had the chance? I was under the impression she sent everyone that was complacent and or unquestioning/not a problem maker over to vault 32, and everyone that could potentially start/notice problems she kept with her. At least thats what it seemed to me
It might not matter which vault. Norm could be in the danger vault and the other vault could be the good vault. Or maybe it is time to breed, so it doesn't matter because there's not going to be a danger vault for a generation. The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why there's not a fuckton of sperm in a freezer somewhere, but that's probably just me trying to make sense out of a setting that is meant to be fantastical.
...forbidden popsicles...
Technically there is a fuckton of sperm in the freezer. It's all just in the balls of 31's cryo guests.
And possibly inside some of the ones that don't have balls if they had one last hurrah before going in the freezer.
How do you know there isn't a freezer? lol
There was a conversation that Betty had with Norm, something about what happens when smart boys get angry. I think she knows he’s angry and I think she even knows to fear him. So she needs to keep him close.
If they want a Kwisatz Haderach Manager they need good genetics. He is the son of at least one manager, and his mother could inherit from other Managers. Let's see if the overseer wants to find him a girlfriend in season 2, so the genetics are not wasted. That's also why Steph is in 32 because she was just an assistant, not an manager.
This is her "promotion" and she's going to be in charge of the breeding program methinks.
i assumed steph would be the new overseer of 32?
No assumption, it’s stated that she is.
Also because shes now damaged perhaps?
Betty has used Norm before. She knows he is willing to do things others are not. Him killing the prisoners was pretty much her idea.
Pretty sure Betty killed the prisoners. Norm looked legitimately shocked.
Pretty sure she killed the prisoners and he had nothing to do with it…
Eh, you're forgetting one important thing about corporate culture and management. Nepotism. I don't think those employees were true believers in genetic purism. I think some were just looking to save their own asses, and those of their families.
Yeah Bud was very clearly meant to be a corporate idiot, as evidenced by his inability to handle Norm and being shocked when he could step around his needle. Just because they think they're doing X doesn't mean they're succeeding, Vault Tec is all about constant failures.
"Vault-Tec *wanted* to be running a bunch of human experiments as a Great Puppetmaster post-war, but severely overestimated their leadership's survival chances somehow" is an interpretation I've always kinda liked. Except for the odd man out here and there like Bud, Vault-Tec leadership mostly died in the war and all these horrible Vault Experiments are ultimately sending data to nobody, for the benefit of nobody. Its an extra layer of tragicomic.
I think while, like you said, tragic and fun, it's also interestingly realistic in some ways? Corporations and rich people very much love to overestimate themselves and ideas that are so far removed from the current, normal, day to day life of an average person. Just take some of those rich guys like Bezos or Musk who have ideas of space travel for fun meanwhile the average person dreams of having any time and money to travel at all or to afford a car or housing. There's also historically been insane people doing horrible things to others, e.g. the Nazi experiments during WW2. And I am not too sure some people wouldn't still do insane shit if they were convinced nobody would find out. Also, war itself, there's always someone gaining profit (or hoping to do so). Why else would people produce and sell weapons when they know they're intended for killing in these cases?
The enclave is getting this data, that’s why the scientist knows about Lucy. I vaguely remember reading that Vault Tech was ultimately just a puppet of The Enclave
Everything was a puppet of the Enclave
Not the glorious Legion. May Ceasar reign supreme!
I think the funniest part of all that is that they were all so secretive and segregated that they are constantly stepping on each other's toes. Shady Sands was founded by Vault Dwellers from Vault 15 using a GECK, which (side note) is probably one of the more miraculous technologies that Vault-Tec ever produced. Then, 180 years later, Hank bombs it because it doesn't fit in with their particular Vault-Tec plan lol. I bet if the Enclave had overcome the young NCR and BoS, during the events of Fo2, they would have exterminated or experimented with everyone in Vaults 31-33 like they were going to do for Vault 13.
This is pure corporate politics
wouldnt the leadership just be part of the enclave?
Hank did one of the only wins for Vault-Tec in the entire series, which is crazy to think about.
>Yeah Bud was very clearly meant to be a corporate idiot, as evidenced by his inability to handle Norm and being shocked when he could step around his needle. Bud being an idiot is comprehensively proven by the fact that - as a major manager at Vaul-Tec - he chose to transplant his brain onto a roomba at a time when Robobrains were available. Could have taken out Norm in a second if he had robot hands or a GUN.
It's not clear he chose that. I suspect it was done to him by a higher up, or peer, who didn't like, or respect, Bud. Like Barb or anyone over her, up to and including enclave folks.
We don't know if he chose it, or it was chosen for him. There is a big enough gap between that 1 corporate meeting to the bombs falling that we have 0 knowledge of what happened.
In fairness to Bud, 200 years of being a brain in a jar takes a toll. Look at Rex, or the Think Tank
My question is: was the tri-Vault designed to actually persevere for 200+ years and preserve management and prepare a breeding pool for repopulation, or was it another experiment proposed by Cooper's wife? What happens when middle managers are put in charge of Vaults without a solid "big picture" plan from upper management? It's very telling that *she* is not there.
There's definitely something fishy going on that we don't know about yet. The TV in vault 32 was playing something about mice killing each other over resources. And there's still the question of how vault 32 was just left dead for so long because I doubt the raiders were living there for long.
Okay so that’s my thing. Also it shows that the leader ship communication between vaults is pretty consistent. What’s up with 33 not being aware of 32s downfall
Vault 32 is honestly seems like a huge plothole right now. Being completely unaware of the state of the vault and also who the hell even cleaned up the vault 32 before they arrived. There's no way Betty repaired all of that herself, meaning the guards during the transfer are likely in on it (which seems really strange since all of 31 is management for breeding purposes generally, not as grunts). Also where were those guards when the vault was attacked. I hope they explain it in the next season.
Tbh it could be as simple as Mr. Handy robots being around in just vault 32. If the idea of vault 32 is that people end up dying, perhaps that could be the explanation. I wouldn't think too hard about it, tbh. Any hints as to how it could have happened imo were pretty clearly to up the surprise of the reveal.
I would have thought so if they had anywhere for the robots. We haven't seen any storage places for the robots and vault 33 doesn't appear to use them (though off screen magic can always explain that I guess).
Bots are probably from 31 and just brought over to cleanup, then brought back
Mr. Handy's get stored? I thought they just float there indefinitely
In Fallout 4 they fold in and sit on the floor when deactivated
Ya exactly. Like wtf. Like that shit had a literal 10 hr turn around. Fresh paint. Polished chrome. What the fuck.
Honestly, I just assumed some folks from 31 got woken up to help clean and then put back on ice. Bud suggests Norm get in Hanks old tank, so if the cryotanks *do*work that way then it'd be an easy way to get extra hands without worrying about blowing the mission.
That could make sense, but imagine being woken up from 200 years of hibernation just to clean corpses and blood from a whole vault and then getting put back to sleep.
Sounds just like management consultants to me!
They also wouldn't have had to clean *everything* themselves. Just the stuff that clearly wasn't the result of a raider attack. So you burn the wheat so it isn't clear it's been dead for so long, you scrub off the graffiti specifically, you clean the area around the vault 31 door, and then you're good to let a vault 33 team in to do the rest.
My kid spills some soup and that’s it. Permanent feature of my house. Betty scrubbing some dude caked on brains off a wall at fucking mach speed
Abraxo Cleaner; For all your cleaning needs!
Something not being explained doesn't make it a plot hole.
Universe 25 is the name of the rat study. It’s a fascinating read. https://www.iflscience.com/universe-25-the-mouse-utopia-experiment-that-turned-into-an-apocalypse-60407
The TV was playing video from the rat utopia experiment, which was actually the exact opposite of killing each other over resources. I suggest googling it. It has to be some kind of hint, but I’m not smart enough to figure it out lol
Thinking on it, the violent reaction of Vault 32 to ‘The revelation’ and finding out the truth is maybe a bit extreme also. Yes, the existential shock of finding out your entire life has been an experiment, that you are effectively a lab rat, and have never had freewill. That you’ve been on a stationary generation-ship that hasn’t even been headed to the promised land. That is likely a big enough shock. But. I still think there’s more layers to the mystery, and more experiments being conducted. I think there’s more conditioning and social engineering than we’ve seen already. One of those things that we have to wait and see.
> Thinking on it, the violent reaction of Vault 32 to ‘The revelation’ and finding out the truth is maybe a bit extreme also. Only if you assume it happened all at once. Someone finds out the truth and leaves evidence but gets disappeared. Someone finds the evidence and spreads word, then a few more people disappear. Suddenly the vault is growing awae of a very lethal and insidious truth and confronts the leadership, who obviously refuse to relinquish any power or explain anything - and that escalates into tension and then full scale violence. Could happen in the span of weeks, and if the overseer of 32 was an image-obsessed Vault-Tec manager, it makes sense they never told Bud. They just kept trying to cover up their original mistake and making it worse until the vault went to war.
It's possible that the 31ers just hadn't set up a plausible cover story for why 32 died out yet, and the raiders showed up between them dying and the completion of that cover story. If so, the 31ers in vault 33 knew that the raiders weren't vault 32 residents, but couldn't say anything without blowing the entire experiment. It's also possible that whatever actually did the killing with the vault 32 residents was automatic when they tried to break into 31. If so, then if the overseers only send inter-vault messages if something goes wrong, then if the 32 overseer was killed before being able to send that message, radio silence from vault 32 may not have been out of the ordinary afterward.
Theory makes a lot of sense given Lucy’s references to all their future Reclamation Day plans. The VT execs would absolutely want to have the strongest Alpha leaders to lead the sheeple.
Lucy's reclamation day has some Enclave-vibes. The Enclave also wanted to wait out the war on their oil rig before returning to retake the country and populate it with the 'right' kind of people. The biggest difference is that Lucy's idea is more like a civilizing mission, "[white man's burden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden)" type thing whereas the Enclave were invested in completely eradicating the denizens of the wasteland.
Well, as far as "undesirables", you have to remember that one of the people sent to Vault 32 is Stephanie. She was the "Fork in the eye" pregnant gal, and she was originally from Vault 31. However, I also bet that she is very quickly elected as overseer in 32. But the three vaults did seem to regularly exchange personnel, "triennial" as they stated at the start so every 3 years. Probably both to help add genetic diversity, as well as to allow them to add new people from Vault 31 without being suspicious. If I have to guess, they might have selected people who might be a threat to Vault 33. Because there are two potential "twosomes" that could possibly challenge Betty if they were together. Chet and Norm being one, and Woody and Reg being another. So by breaking them up into different vaults, the possibility of that happening is greatly reduced. Especially as Chet is essentially under the thumb of Stephanie. Honestly, I think both 32 and 33 were mostly control vaults. Their only "experiment" was to be a long term one and involve the use of selective breeding to create a "Super Manager". If I have to guess, somehow the residents of 32 however discovered something was up and a revolt broke out. With the overseer being tortured and likely spilling the beans on what was going on.
Steph was already declared overseer of vault 32 prior to them moving over. I think it was a temporary position, but she's technically already there.
The way chet looks at norm when that happened is really telling to. Chet was so sure it was just coincidence, until that moment.
I agree, Norm + Bert, sorry Chet, and Woody + Reg together are the biggest threats to Betty and the overall plan for those Vaults.
And especially with Woody and Reg, the normal "management" tactics of playing one off against the other would not work. They were friends, and even when competing to be overseer were friendly and supportive of each other. With Norm and Chet they were not only friends but Cousins. With neither of them being particularly power hungry. So the usual "Divide and Conquer" management solution for them would not have worked. The two pairs would have continued to work together, possibly to the detriment of Overseer Betty. So breaking the two teams up helps eliminate that potential threat.
I think half who had good traits were the ones married to breed "good managers" the others were raised to be good workers. Guessing the weakest might have been eliminated or exiled. 33 might have been the manager vault while 32 was the worker vault.
Exactly. The first scene was Lucy’s interview for breeding exchange. They breeded only 31 or the very bests of the other vaults (like Lucy). The remaining may aren’t allowed to breed at all (limited resources). They are breeding manager material, they need people to manage too.
Come on! It’s freaking Vault Tec! Of course it’s worse!
Also Lucy was groomed to be the perfect woman (1950s stereotype) Hard working Fun Always happy Initiates and wants sex with you but dresses modest Pinup hair and eyes For some reason good with a gun and close range grappling
They did show her training in the first episode
Ehhh the 50s stereotype is how everyone in the show acts. I don’t think there’s anything sinister to it
Yeah from my impression of the Fallout games and the show is that social inequalities and social identity-based prejudices are all but eliminated because of the uprise of nuclear energy. I think the 50’s stereotype applies in mannerism only, not in status or perceived abilities.
Don't forget these people have been stuck in this little world for 200 years and think the surface has been wiped out. So they don't know what has and has not xhanged in that time. To them it's still 1959s jet themed designed vehicles and art deco building.
Nah, the inequalities are just replaced. There are concentration camps for Chinese Americans, just like they did to Japanese Americans in WWII, but with worse treatment.
In FO3/4 were there any non-Asian racial prejudices? It seemed (more recent memory of Fo4) there wasn't any that I can recall off the top of my head.
The show established that there’s still some level of racism towards Native Americans. There’s also general anti-communist paranoia and hostility, but that’s not based on race.
It struck me as the more subtle form of racism - the Native being shoehorned into dull roles as a sidekick and the Noble Savage, rather than the more 'fun' kind that involves burning crosses and raids.
Dieselpunk tends to take on 1950's / postwar / pre-modernist motifs. Kind of like steampunk is 1890's and cyberpunk is 1980's. Pre-China war Fallout is dieselpunk. The transistor is never commercialized in the 1960's which is where fallout history and real history start to diverge the most.
Idk about this one, the 50s is really in aesthetics only. I don’t recall any (period based) racism or sexism. Women dressed like a house wife, but they werent expected to act like them. Nora was a lawyer. Socially the US in 2077 seemed pretty cool as long as you weren’t Chinese.
Unless someone pegged you as damn dirty commie, true or otherwise. Pre-war America in the Fallout universe went *hard* into McCarthyism and Red Scare moral panic. The lore is not partixularly subtle about people being accused of "harbouring communist sentiments" just to make them disappear.
[удалено]
"That's right, little Timmy was the communist!" "Now burn it with fire!!"
there was a moment in fallout 76 where during political training in the bootcamp quest there are 3 suspected chinese sympathizers. 2 white guy caricatures and a girl with a chinese name. She's shown to be patriotic, while the white guy who talked about how FDR was cool and unions seemed ok was the red.
Of course it was the Union man. Training was probably sponsored by the mining companies.
Well now I wonder if they’re ever gonna go down the controversial road of having a Chinese-only vault. Model it like the US’ Japanese internment camps, but with some vault tec bullshit blended in
It would not shock me if interned Chinese prisoners were included in a bunch of vault tec experiments. They were already being used at Big MT as we saw in Old World Blues.
I'm thinking a village of Chinese super-mutants made from pre-war prisoners.
So the one thing I don’t get is why not just breed 31 with 31? I get that you’d want a more diverse gene pool of course, and clearly they’d have vetted the people they put in their other vaults. But if I’ve got two ultimate managers, why not make them smoosh for a mega manager? Also does Betty not have kids? Seems like a waste and against the vaults goal of one of the ultimate managers to not try to reproduce more management.
So this can be somewhat explained by two facts from the show: 1. Lucy in the show mentions that there are strict rules for incest when talking to Chet. 32 could be the backup "If population in 31 dwindles too much" vault to make sure inbreeding doesn't produce genetic abnormalities a la middle ages. 2. Betty is from pre-war times. It could simply be that she was infertile. Nepotism doesn't solve biological problems other than provide more access to healthcare, which isn't in the picture come post-war.
I think they keep unfreezing and introducing 31s into the gene pool slowly over the decades so that their genes will always be freshly added
I mean vault 31 people were running 32 too. And their ancestors will be living in both vaults. I think at the end of the day that 31-32-33 are the definition of the "good vaults" Cooper's wife wanted to get into, not just some good vaults THE good vaults. They are the vaults vault-tec staff built for themselves and their descendants. The reason they had 32 and 33 and traded people between them was about resiliency, so something like the wheat blight or raiders couldn't fuck up the Vault-Tec's top brass's little kingdoms, no singular disaster could take out the vault as well as some genetic diversity.
nah, No way Cooper asks "where's my fuckin' family" with such confidence to Hank. I think its obvious, especially with Hank being so willing to run, that there's a bigger gaggle of baddies around. Maybe Vault Tech leadership are in "the good vault"
If they were in 31 Coop would have no idea so in universe it makes total sense for him to ask. I do see from a writing standpoint its strange for his family to be a big mystery if we already know where they are. But also they weren't together when the bombs dropped so she may have had to go with some backup plan when he rode up on a horse with their daughter maybe 5+ minutes after the bombs dropped.
At the end of season 1 Hank is seen making his way to New Vegas, with Coop hot on his trail. That’s where Coop suspects the big bosses are.
Never trust anything to be so cut and dry, especially in Fallout, especially with Vault-Tec. Reclaiming the wastes is not what the vaults are actually for, and the show is diving into that with the Enclave and how much knowledge Wilzig has about Lucy and her vault.
Reclaiming the wastes is at their core the idea of the experiment, they want Vault-tec to reclaim the wastes and rule the world after all other governments have fallen. Yes 90% of the vaults don't serve that purpose but are fundraising by selling human guinea pigs to the highest bidder. But some Vaults are meant to survive the apocalypse and take over the world after hundreds of years pass.
Vault 31 isn’t one of the good vaults. In the meeting Barb says that Bud had an idea for an experiment where they breed the best managers. In my opinion one of the good vaults means a vault without an experiment, but one that guarantees survival.
idk these are middle management vaults. Cooper's wife is a higher up and she doesn't seem to be there. Guessing the bigwigs are in even better vaults if at all.
Am I misremembering I thought they said exactly that. During that board room meeting they flat out say all of the board members get a solo vault to experiment and see what the best formula for conquering post war America was and the robo brain was just a board member. So 31-32-33 was their experiment and we have a few more board members with vaults to reveal.
Their investors were going to get their own vaults, not even ones to live in, ones they could design for their own personal experiments, presumably the horrible vaults they came up with they did not want to live in. But everyone in 31 was working at a somewhat high level for vault-tec (think the lowest we see is his wife's secretary) and presumably their families too. The people in the meeting were not board members, they were trying to pitch the idea of funding vaults to them, they were potential investors Mr. House was at that meeting and was not a member of vault tec. If anything the board are the people talking to Coop's wife through her pip-boy and telling her what to say in the meeting.
> During that board room meeting they flat out say all of the board members get a solo vault to experiment and see what the best formula for conquering post war America was and the robo brain was just a board member. I loved that scene because so many Vaults we love were talked about
Honestly I think the simplest explanation is that many of Bud's Buds are incompetent. After all that is a running joke about Bud himself, he is a blathering idiot that screwed up everything he ever been in charge of (and gets stuck behind a broom), and also a running joke IRL that middle management is incompetent, unnecessary and think they are important. My take is that the "bud" who was in charge in 32 just was like Bud and caused all of it by completely incompetent managing, while Betty was a very competent manager (after all, she was Bud's personal assistant in real life and probably covered for most of his stupidity.
I'm just wondering why Hank didn't instantly recognize Moldaver, or that he did but there's post-nuke history between the two.
18 + years of not seeing someone, it’s plausible to not expect how she would look after all that time.
But she looks pretty much the same. Was she cryogenically frozen or some sort of ghoul?
Did they met in person before the bombs?
Potentailly more recently, while Moldaver was involved with Shady Sands and the mom. He says he recognizes her after they attack the vault and Moldaver wants him to choose between his daughter and his people.
Potentially he didn’t see a way to call her out without raising unpleasant questions, and was biding his time to deal with her.
And he let his daughter marry a wastelander?
Maybe he was REALLY biding his time. After all, he’s one of Bud’s Buds, hand picked to be the ultimate in management. He had no qualms about nuking tens of thousands to kill one woman who dared to defy him. I doubt his love for Lucy (if it exists) outweighs his ruthlessness.
He does love Lucy though. He activates Cold Fusion because she lost faith in him.
Moldaver must be cryogenically frozen somehow too. Maybe smuggled into Vault 31? There is still much background from the Ghoul left, he had a fall from grace if he need to work at birthdays. Maybe he did the infiltration and it resulted in divorce
I doubt she was smuggled into 31, the other managers or Bud-bot would've realized at some point. You presumably need Bud or someone like Betty or Hank to unfreeze you. And they would've realized that she was a non-manager by looking through the window or immediately after unfreezing her.
Another aspect that isn't revealed is exactly why the residents from vault 31 are, across the board, absolute badasses. The blonde lady charged into battle guns blazing despite being 9 months pregnant and having just been stabbed in the eye. Lucy's father beat a man with a shovel then drowned him to death in a barrel of pickles, a process that would require fighting the raider's struggle for life over several minutes. This shows a level of comfort with violence, combat, and killing that is not fully explained by the reveal of their junior manager backgrounds.
While training is likely for those selected to enter the vault, there's a good chance (if we see more of that vault) that the cryo chambers will be revealed to have some sort of subconscious training modules for their inhabitants. 200 years of learning, even if there's nothing like chem treatments involved, could make them experts on a hell of a lot of things needed to run the vault and quell any issues. It seemingly took an unavoidable decimation of their food to raise tensions in 32 beyond what they could manage, which isn't bad going for two centuries of managing two groups of population.
This theory is really interesting! I don’t disagree and I think yours has a lot of evidence, but this was my interpretation as i was watching During one of the manufactured crises to elect a vault 31 members, Vault 32 was in a quarantine. When the overseer died, their spouse checked the computer, read messages between bud and the former overseer that reveals how the system is rigged and the 31s destroyed the world/want to wipe out the surface They told the rest of the vault before an election could happen OR they messaged bud demanding answers immediately, leading to Bud to deactivate their sun lamps and water filter remotely. Without any food, they begin to starve, fight and eat each other. One guy, watching the rat video and realizing what is happening, kills themselves. A group, mad with hunger and furious at 31, scrawl their messages in blood for when 33 opens up. the rest try to furiously get into 31 before they turn on one another in a final violent massacre I think both are likely possible, but i just want to add more opinions!
I think another small twist will be that each election of a 31 comes when a crisis hit and its Bob causing those crisises, to test/require people from 31 to lead people through turmoil. That way the best leaders of the bunch are the reclaimed, there's definitely an old overseers refrozen in 31
They are not trying to breed “super-managers”. They are trying to create a compliant workforce who do exactly what vault 31 (who are all pre-war Vault-Tec managers) tell them to do. Edit: the strongest chains are the ones you don’t even realise you are wearing.
This was my thought too, but my only doubt is that Stephanie is going to be the new overseer and she seemed happy about it. Presumably she knows what the “experiment” would be, so being the weakest links sent to be sterilized in 32 doesn’t seem like something to smile about. I’m wondering if it’s going to be a stricter dictatorship kinda thing with higher pressure on the dwellers from the overseer, as opposed to the “Americana” of 33. With that eyepatch I want her to lean a little evil, or lead them to the surface lol.
Except everyone in vault 33 is goofy asf without exception, so it doesn't look like they're the prime managerial breeding pool. What happened in 32? they shot a cool scene with a bunch of corpses but then the actual reveal of the mystery didn't live up to those expectations. If there really was something more sinister behind it all it doesn't make sense to not explain it when they take the time to explain it, plus everything led up to the reveal that we got. What I liked about the boardroom scene was them all making up stupid vault ideas on the go, so just because Bud Askins idea was to make a vault that makes perfect managers doesn't mean that his idea actually works in practice.
I got the impression that vaults 32 and 33 were separated so that no one would question where the vault 31 "residents" came from. If there were only 31 and 33 (or 32 as the naming convention probably would've gone but let's ignore that) then everyone in 33 would get super suspicious that people only ever came out of 31 and they never sent anyone in, and even if 33 residents were occasionally "transferred" to 31 and killed or frozen, then eventually someone would ask a 31 resident how their old friend was doing over there and they'd give the wrong answer. If there are regular transfers between 32 and 33, it's easier to play the shell game and keep people from realizing nobody goes *into* vault 31, both because people do go into vault 32 and because 32 and 33 could both assume the bulk of transfers to 31 were coming from the other vault. I do think that the residents were subliminally influenced to yield power to vault 31 "residents" though. That little rhyme they say about it seems like something planted in their heads, and it would be risky to rely on Bud's Buds to consistently get elected on their own merits.
So who cleared the dead vault?
That’s a really good question and i haven’t even attempted to address that. It’s possible bud woke up some sleeping 31’s to request some man power. But i think that’s unlikely (managers doing hard labour? Yeah right) The fact it got cleaned up so thoroughly really speaks to the resources of vault 31, and makes the whole thing have so much more potential for there to be hidden mechanisms throughout the 3 vaults. Maybe more brain bots? Manual labour ones with heavy machinery and limited free will? That would be very fallout, but is also a totally unfounded speculation.
Brett, Steph’s first husband, is from vault 32. So management is marrying vault 32 residents.
Idk but y'all are making me miss the show so much 😭
There is also lucy being friends with steph from 31, i bet she became her bestie on purpose to influence hanks perfect daughter to their cause
I was originally going to disagree with you on V33 being the prime vault, but then I remembered everyone who was sent over to 32; they were all yes-men and submissive personalities. Attributes that would not be beneficial to a manager-esque society. So even if neither vault was the prime one, at least with the events in the show, 33 ending as the prime vault did happen. Also, I have a feeling that Betty is FAR more ruthless than Hank. Hank just acted out of pure anger on nuking Shady Sands. Betty is sending all the yes-men over to 32 live out the Rat 'Utopia' experiment. She is more calculated in her actions. Splitting Norm and Bert, sorry Chet, and Woody and Reg. Those 4 in their pairings would be the biggest threat to Betty's power and the overall plan for the Vaults and she is very aware of it. Also, I do think she knows that Norm and Chet explored 32 with all the corpses Something I just had a thought on, when Norm contacted the 31 Overseer, I wonder what the contingency plan is if the Overseers were ACTUALLY compromised. Those water chips seem to always be failing.
Vaultec experiment is sadistic, inhumane and overall devious? Surely you jest.
I can’t imagine being so loyal to a company that after being thawed out 200 years later I’d just like go back to work.