Vault-Tec experiments!
For those of you running your own homebrew settings, what kinds of experiments was/are Vault-Tec running in your vaults?
I have four different vaults in the region I’ve set my game, but I haven’t really decided what was/is going in all of them. I’m pretty sure I’ll have one be a control vault or “good” vault, as Barb put it, in the show.
So share your ideas! Let’s do some experimentation!
I made up a Vault experiment in which the food production systems were meant to fail after a decade, but the vault would have an advanced system of cloning like Vault 108, able to produce large quantities of useless clones with no real cognitive function. This was Vault Techs idea of a long term test on the effects of clone based cannibalism, sort of a soylent green scenario.
I have a Vault in my setting where the overseer is a RoboBrain, who constantly runs RPGs for the inhabitants. The RPGs are meant to emulate the classic “Hero’s Journey”. The hope was that years of gaming in all sorts of hypothetical situations would better prepare the dwellers for Reclamation Day.
The catch is that the Vault Dwellers have been conditioned to see themselves as the heroes of the story. The problem comes in when the NPCS don’t see the dwellers as anything special. Just a bunch of fortunate, pretentious, jerks that had luxury and safety while the world burned.
I know this is pretty basic, but I think it has the potential to get really meta, really fast!
Considering the Vaults with experiments were always intended to be tests relating to hardships / situations one could face in space travel I try to think of things that would be useful to know. Most Fallout 3 and 4 experiments tend to be either very short term, doom to fail on it’s face (everyone dies or similar outcome), logically don’t fit with the og game’s cannon (such as the use of FEV), or provide no real scientific / psychological data. Sure some are funny, but that’s about it. The cryo in vault 111 and the white noise experiment of vault 92 are actually not bad. Though the cryo experiment seems to be largely unnecessary considering the military in FO2 are using biogel and cryo to freeze people. Still not a bad experiment considering Vault Tec doesn’t have access to much of any military tech or data unlike the Robco or West Tek side of things.
One Experiment I made has every person between the ages of 18 and 80* (give or take mental capabilities) solve logic puzzles, mazes, word games, riddles, and other similar problems to earn that days meals / tokens that can be traded for goods and other things. These sorts of puzzles and problems are also naturally part of the vault’s school system. A large section of the floor on the same level of the overseers office (near the vault’s control systems) is full of computers and terminals for the puzzle solving. Each vault dweller’s room also have a computer for room to room communications, games, submitting you own mazes / puzzles, and so on. This isn’t simply learning to survive, but rather also learning TO survive. No one has ever starved, but there have been days folks have gone hungry. Without the voucher they would have to spend tokens for food. Either they didn’t have the amount needed, were unwilling to spend them on food in favor of other goods, and or were just saving / hording them.
In a few sections of the vault for recreation there are pods based of the BattleTech Cockpit Simulator pods the included BattleTech combat and Red Planet racing. These pods have some racing, space salvage / repair, and battle games; using AR and VR (not like the memory den). Have fun and or learn new useful skills like how to repair a broken communication dish in space!
Need to brush up on your marksmanship, but don’t have the tokens for live ammo on the range? Use a simulator and other AR / VR games!!!
The vault I added to my game was just that: a vault to protect people from the war. There was an ulterior motive, as there usually is, which was to see if a resident’s mind could be integrated into the computer running the vault, but keep their personality, memory, et all, and see if anyone noticed.
The idea was to carefully pick the resident that had the best chance of success, a guy called Tommy Wilksop, then fake his death for the experiment. However, there was a spelling mistake on the selective decision, and it ended up being Timmy Wilksop, the guy’s kid, that was chosen. Even so, the child’s mind was fully integrated into the vault’s computer mainframe and the experiment was deemed a complete success, despite some early teething issues.
Those teething problems (messages through terminals from the boy) led to the boy’s parents suspecting their child was still alive (faked his death, remember?) and they demanded answers. In a scuffle, a gun went off and Timmy’s mother caught the bullet. Being inside the cameras throughout the vault, Timmy saw his mother die. In his distress, Timmy got angry and the faculty robots bought into that rage. The resulting battle saw everyone dead. Timmy has been on his own since, for decades, and still has the mind of a ten year old.
When the pcs stumble into the vault, everything is in good condition with plenty of food, water, comfort, etc, until they want to leave. Timmy does not want to be on his own any more and tries to force them to stay. To escape, the pcs have to destroy the vault (either blow up the reactor, or wipe the hard drives with Timmy’s personality on it) or take the computer wizkid out into the surface world with them by downloading him.
Then, The Institute and BoS turned up and wanted the tech. Players have a choice to keep it for themselves (for whatever use that could be), destroy it, or give it up (for whatever consequences it could lead to). My party gave the disc to the BoS, as they had already had bad encounters with some synths.
Oh, I forgot to add that the overseer was a drunk. The night of the selection, he got massively wasted to celebrate the experiment’s ‘chosen one’. The scientist, Dr Pinder, doing the mind transfer was less benevolent. He made it out like it was the overseer’s ‘spelling mistake’, but he wanted the kid to be chosen. If the kid could make it to immortality, so could he. The overseer was distraught when he woke up the next day and realised a kid had been butchered, on his orders, apparently. He couldn’t take it and locked himself in the jail, ordering security robots to never let him out.
With the success of the experiment, Dr Pinder has his own mind transferred into a robobrain, and he still lives in the vault.
The players wander around the vault, being ignored by all the robots, until they get access to the laboratories, and Dr Pinder, where the alarm goes off. They then had to fight their way out. Only way to open the vault was to turn power off or download the kid, both of which would cause the reactor to stop working and overload. Then it’s a race against time, fighting robots all the way, to get out before boom!
I’m contemplating 3 warped vaults…
Idea 1: electropunishment. The elected overseer has no direct ties to VaultTec - but he sets the laws the computer enforces. Everyone is punished by their pip boy when the computer tells it to. No one but the overseer has access to the rules list…
Idea 2: Creche and Vault: children are raised anonymously by Nurse Handy units until age 14, then released into the vault. Parents are not told whose kid is whose, tho’ it’s often obvious. (This is inspired by the mother removal studies on monkeys. They’re not happy.)
Idea 3: overpopulation: Robots literally do all the work. Residents only do art and entertainment, play games, and spend manditory time at the range. The autofarms provide plenty of food, the water is safe and plentiful, … but the rooms are, essentially, open bays, 10x10’, no doors, only curtains, and 4 people per room. All told, resident section has only 50,000 square feet… for roughly 250 residents… exclusive of the weapons firing range… and the computer only lets 5 at a time into the range. No privacy, no private space… (Inspired by the Rat Utopia studies. Also not happy.)