Vaults are a core a part of Fallout’s lore. These nuclear shelters have been designed by Vault-Tec earlier than the nuclear warfare. Unbeknownst to a lot of the public, Vault-Tec had an obsession with experiments that will make Aperture Science blush. To that finish, nearly all of the shelters have been created to conduct scientific experiments on their inhabitants. Right here’s our listing of the ten most horrifying vaults from the Fallout universe.
10. Vault 101 (Fallout 3)
![Fallout 3 cover art](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fallout-3-cover-art.png?resize=640%2C360)
Vault 101 stands out from the others as the one one which wasn’t supposed to open once more. As an alternative, the Overseer could be given full management over a facility that will stay closed indefinitely.
Sadly, because the outdated adage goes, absolute energy corrupts completely. The overseer of Vault 101 through the occasions of Fallout 3, Alphonse Almodovar, grew more and more controlling, ultimately having those that opposed him killed. Following the escape of The Lone Wanderer and their father, James, the inhabitants of Vault 101 be taught that life on the floor is feasible, and rapidly take sides. Almodovar’s faction needed to keep up their isolationist insurance policies. A second faction, led by Almodovar’s daughter Amata, demanded the best to work together with the broader world.
Happily, Vault 101 has a (considerably) completely happy ending. Relying on the participant’s actions, it’s both sealed for one more era, or Amata turns into overseer and opens it for commerce.
9: Vault 19 (Fallout: New Vegas)
![Fallout New Vegas NCR Flag](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fallout-New-Vegas-NCR-Flag.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
It’s no shock that folks are likely to type teams, and this experiment took that to the intense.
Vault 19 was separated into two sectors, Purple and Blue, with restricted contact and separate overseers. Every sector was then subjected to gaslighting and subliminal messaging with the intent of making a way of paranoia by way of non-violent and non-chemical means, similar to high-pitched noises, lights blinking in unusual patterns, and faux acts of sabotage blamed on the opposing sector.
Whereas Vault 19 is occupied by Powder Gangers by the point you uncover it in Fallout: New Vegas, notes discovered inside trace that the experiment was successful, with medical notes indicating that a lot of its inhabitants exhibited excessive ranges of psychosis and aggression. Nonetheless, the true destiny of the previous inhabitants is unknown.
8: Vault 95 (Fallout 4)
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Vault 95 is a Vault which, on the floor, doesn’t appear so dangerous. The inhabitants have been hooked on chems, and given experimental however obligatory therapy by way of the Vault-Tec Rehabilitation Program, with the intent to wean the inhabitants off of their dependencies. The therapy proved profitable, with the Vault dwellers being usually cooperative.
Sadly, as is often the case the place Vault-Tec is concerned, there was a twist. Specifically, a hidden stash of medicine was “found” by a Vault-Tec plant 5 years into this system. This instantly led to the Vault being torn aside by violence. Some Vault dwellers succumbed to their dependancy whereas others tried to stay to this system. Whereas the last word destiny of the inhabitants of Vault 95 is unknown, the vault itself is occupied by a bunch of Gunners by the point of Fallout 4.
7: Vault 108 (Fallout 3)
![Fallout 3 armour](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fallout-3-soldier.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Vault 108 could also be one of many extra comedic vaults, however that doesn’t imply it isn’t horrifying in its personal manner.
This Vault was designed to check the consequences of management conflicts. To this finish, it was designed to fail from the beginning. The overseer of the Vault, Brody Jones, was projected to die after three years, and given duty for nearly each place throughout the facility. The first energy provide was designed to fail after twenty years, whereas the backup energy provide wasn’t highly effective sufficient to energy the whole facility. Even worse, the Vault had no normal technique of leisure, thrice the traditional quantity of weapons, and a cloning machine.
Finally, scientists determined to start out experimenting with cloning, repeatedly cloning an inhabitant named Gary. Every of the clones was hostile to all non-clones, with every successive Gary turning into more and more violent. Regardless, maybe out of pure boredom, they stored going till there have been 54 clones of Gary locked up within the facility, every extra violent than the final.
By the point the Lone Wanderer discovers Vault 108, Garys have overrun the whole facility, forcing them to struggle in the event that they need to uncover what occurred.
6: Vault 87 (Fallout 3)
![Fallout 3 super mutant](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fallout-3-super-mutant-1.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Certainly one of Fallout’s most iconic creations is Tremendous Mutants. These hulking creatures are the results of people being contaminated with the Pressured Evolutionary Virus (FEV), which vastly will increase their measurement, power, and endurance, in addition to granting them immunity to illness and radiation. The price of these advantages is modified intelligence. Whereas pleasant and good Tremendous Mutants exist in all Fallout video games, those who seem in Fallout 3 are virtually invariably hostile and incapable of speech or social cohesion. We now have Vault 87 to thank for that.
Whereas the unique function of Vault 87 is unknown, 2076 noticed the implementation of the Evolutionary Experimentation Program. Vault dwellers have been forcibly contaminated with FEV and reworked into Tremendous Mutants. This system was ultimately deserted, with the topics being terminated – however not earlier than among the newly-created Tremendous Mutants overwhelmed safety forces and escaped.
200 years later, Vault 87 is a wreck inhabited by Tremendous Mutants, who roam the Capital wasteland searching for people they’ll take again to the vault and forcibly infect with FEV. It proves that when once more, Vault-Tec ought to have been cautious what it wished for.
5: Vault 51 (Fallout 76)
![Fallout 76 power armour](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fallout-76-Power-Armour.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Vault 51 didn’t have an overseer when it was sealed. As an alternative, Vault 51 had a supercomputer, ZAX 1.3c. It could choose the very best overseer from among the many Vault’s residents, assisted by Sergeant Robert Baker.
Baker’s preliminary concept was to host an election. Nonetheless, this failed when the candidates voted for themselves. Different democratic means of choosing a frontrunner equally failed, resulting in Baker stating {that a} chief was somebody who stepped up in occasions of disaster. Sadly, ZAX took this assertion to coronary heart and commenced devising social experiments to establish which Vault dweller would make the most effective candidate.
These experiments included forcing contestants in a expertise competitors to place their dwelling quarters on the road, meddling within the lives and affairs of the dwellers, disrupting their sleep schedules, and even engineering a meals disaster and acts of violence, all in its efforts to seek out somebody who would take management and assume the management place the Vault wanted. The Vault devolved into anarchy, and it wasn’t till a single inhabitant, Reuben, remained that ZAX discovered an overseer – and promptly started to punish him for his lack of effectivity.
By the point of Fallout 76, Reuben has efficiently escaped from ZAX’s clutches, and Vault 51 is inhabited by a bunch of Scorched. Whether or not an overseer has been chosen stays to be seen.
4: Vault 92 (Fallout 3)
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On the floor, Vault 92 had a noble mission: to guard mankind’s musical legacy by housing 245 of musicians and offering them with devices, recording tools, and all the things else essential to create music.
Nonetheless, as all the time, Vault-Tec had extra nefarious targets. As soon as the vault was sealed, Vault-Tec Confidential Plan WNMSCE (White Noise Thoughts Suggestion Fight Experimentation) was launched. It utilized low-frequency white noise to implant subliminal messages into the minds of the Vault dwellers, with effectiveness at near 100%.
Sadly, the Vault employees have been unaware that the white noise was inflicting a lot of unfavorable signs similar to dizziness, nausea, and ultimately psychosis. One of many musicians quickly misplaced their thoughts, murdering three of his fellow Vault dwellers and surviving twenty-three gunshots earlier than succumbing to his wounds. Quickly, 30% of the Vault’s inhabitants had been pushed insane, with 35 useless. Predictably, issues solely obtained worse from there, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the Vault – and the deaths of all its inhabitants.
3: Vault 75 (Fallout 4)
![Fallout 4 outside the Memory Den](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fallout-4-Memory-Den.jpg?resize=640%2C359)
Eugenics is a subject that tends to come back up lots in fiction, and it’s by no means an excellent factor. The concept of breeding fascinating traits raises the query of what fascinating means, and what occurs to these with undesirable traits.
Vault 75, positioned beneath a center college in Massachusetts, was open to employees, college students, and their households. The primary act of the safety employees was to execute each grownup. The inhabitants have been then inducted right into a eugenics program that concerned selective breeding, hormone remedies, and genetic modification.
The youngsters have been then raised to concern the surface world – or Uptopland – and educated to outlive, with those who the vault employees deemed inadequate executed after they turned eighteen. Essentially the most distinctive college students weren’t within the clear, both. Essentially the most bodily and mentally gifted have been subjected to harvesting – a course of that concerned natural specimens being saved away. Though notes additionally point out organ theft, so maybe the tallest poppies get minimize, even after the apocalypse.
2: Vault 112 (Fallout 3)
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Vault 112 is among the many smallest vaults, with a capability of simply 85 individuals in digital actuality, amongst them overseer Dr. Stanislaus Braun. In follow, this vault would enable the inhabitants to spend a digital eternity in utopia.
Sadly, Braun’s standing as overseer gave him full management of the simulation and everybody inside it. Over the following two centuries, Braun proceeded to toy together with his captives, solely to ultimately “homicide” them, wipe their reminiscences, and resurrect them in a model new simulation to do it once more. By the point the Lone Wanderer discovers Vault 112, the simulation is titled Tranquility Lane. It’s a quaint fifties suburb the place Braun assumes the function of Betty, a sadistic little lady with an iron grasp over the inhabitants who instructions you to torment and homicide the inhabitants.
Alternatively, you’ll be able to activate the failsafe, during which case a simulated invasion will kill the inhabitants, at the price of them dying in actual life. Sadly, that is the happiest ending accessible, as evidenced by the 300 karma awarded for choosing this feature.
1: Vault 11 (Fallout: New Vegas)
![Fallout New Vegas Skyline](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/New-Vegas-Skyline.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
Located within the Mojave Desert, Vault 11 stands as essentially the most horrifying of the identified Vaults, experimenting on the inhabitants’ willingness to sacrifice people for the great of the group. Yearly, inhabitants have been required to sacrifice considered one of their very own, or the Vault pc would kill everybody. The horrified inhabitants determined that the primary sacrifice could be the overseer, the one particular person amongst them who was initially conscious of the Vault’s function. This started a protracted custom of annual elections, with the Vault Dwellers selecting the following particular person to function overseer and die for the great of the group.
Factions started to type, with every deciding on an overseer primarily based on their very own targets and interesting in smear campaigns, blackmail, and libel to garner the votes they wanted to have their chosen candidate killed. This ended when the final overseer dissolved the election course of, with the place of overseer being chosen at random. This led to 1 faction, the Justice Bloc, participating in an armed coup that resulted within the deaths of all however 5 survivors. The horrors they witnessed led to those survivors refusing to sacrifice one other life… just for the pc to congratulate them for his or her selflessness and unlock the Vault. This led 4 of the survivors to commit suicide out of despair, with one lone survivor escaping into the desert.
What different Vaults are out within the wilderness ready to be found? That’s unsure. On the very least, we all know there are dozens we don’t find out about, however how excessive might that quantity climb? There could possibly be vaults extra horrifying than any of those listed right here, and even some that show to not be so dangerous.
Final week noticed the discharge of the long-awaited Fallout sequence on Amazon Prime. Take a look at what we considered it right here, and what it makes us hope for in Fallout 5.