How plausible are the Vaults from the "Fallout" games?

Factual Questions
1

For those of you not familiar with the Fallout series of computer RPGs, they’re set in a retro-future US after a massive Nuclear War in the late 21st Century. Think of a cross between “Mad Max”, “The Postman”, and 1950s “World Of Tomorrow!”-type stuff and you’ve got some idea what’s it’s like.

One of the major elements of the games (especially the first and third ones) is the concept of a “Vault”, which is basically a massive (think Cheyenne Mountain-size) underground Nuclear Fallout Shelter, in which people (the in-game numbers suggest between 200 and 1,000 or so) go about their lives and wait for the background radiation to retreat to “safe” levels, before coming out and rebuilding society.

I should probably mention the Vaults are designed to operate for extended periods of time- between 20 years and “indefinitely”, and the Vault your character starts out from in Fallout 3 has been operating for over 200 years.

Naturally, it’s science-fiction, so there’s a lot of hand-waving about many things, but it’s revealed power to the Vaults comes from both geothermal and atomic power plants, the can recycle and purify their own water*, and they appear to have very limited nanotechnological capabilties (eg to create new clothes, medicines, and spare parts), along with some sort of hyrdoponic system for growing food.

So, assuming slightly more advanced levels of technology than we have now (say, 2060s), and a budget that would pay for pretty much every Public Works project ever, would actually it be possible to build a completely self-sufficient Fallout Shelter/Vault that would function for centuries, as seen in the Fallout games?

Let’s also assume, for the purposes of this, that these “Vaults” are intended to function properly (ie, act as long-term Fallout Shelters), and aren’t being used for sociological or “Mad/Evil Super-Science” experiments or anything untoward.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that it could certainly be done, but there would be a limit to how long they could remain sealed until people went mad from a form of “Cabin Fever”. I certainly can’t see a multi-generational aspect to the design working that well, but I’d be interested to hear what other people (especially Fallout fans!) think…

*Until someone breaks the Water Chip :wink:

2

Sure it can be done. To a large extent, the Biosphere project has already done it and without a huge budget or hypothetical technologies. Biosphere isn’t as long-lived as the Vaults are, but if you have a source of energy and a way to perfectly recycle materials, there’s no reason you can’t go indefinitely. Perfect recycling would be the biggest challenge, but in a sealed environment with some nifty nanotech that can sort atoms, it would be possible.

As far as cabin fever goes… I don’t see it as an insurmountable problem. Heck, your average modern adult goes from enclosed spaces in their house to enclosed spaces in their car to enclosed spaces in their office, without ever needing to have actual sky overhead. Convicts may spend decades in prison. People are pretty adaptable and kids are even more so.

I think reproduction could be your biggest problem over the long run. Strict population control would be necessary, and you’d have a relatively small gene pool. 200 people for 200 years would be a lot of inbreeding.

3

I thought the Biosphere experiments were considered failures? Though I suppose the attitudes that tend to arise from a “We’re here because we’re doing some stupid experiments” scenario would be somewhat different from a “We’re here because the rest of the world is glowing green. We may be the last humans alive”-type situation.

4

The one thing to remember about the Fallout series is that the technology worked on the scientific principles of “How the public thought it would in the 50’s”. Nuclear power has it’s limit, after all.

5

I believe (and I get this impression from some of the in-game flavor literature of Vault 15, as well as other flavor such as the various films) that the Vaults were privately owned, and that people and families BOUGHT places in the Vaults, before they were actually needed. Some people, after all, bought and/or built fallout shelters in the 50s. Vaults were built by a company and places were sold to individuals and families. Vaults were not intended for everyone, just the Right People, that is, the people who had the money and foresight to buy a place in them. So, gummint money probably wasn’t involved at all.

6

One of the character bios in the first game, and “colour” information you come across in the third game, suggest that several of the Vaults were basically allocated on a “open to the first X number of people who can get inside”, whilst others were “invitation only” (Vault 92, for example) and still others were… well, Fallout 3 sort of reveals Vault-Tec’s motives may not have been as altruistic or financially based as one might think. Most (all?) of the Vaults were all privately built and run by Vault-Tec, who was a Government Contractor, so I’d say there was some Government money involved somewhere along the line.

At any rate, let’s pretend for the purposes of this exercise that the Government is building this Vault and it has an unlimited budget, OK? :slight_smile:

7

That’s what I came in to discuss.

Nuclear power generators are extraordinarily high maintenance. “A few spare parts” would not cut it; no way in hell a nuclear plant runs for 200 years without numerous total overhauls.

Having enough fuel wouldn’t be much of a challenge, but the maintenance would be.

8

The Vaults were definitely privately rather than federally funded, since they’re all properties of Vault-Tec Inc. Vault Tech may or may not have received subsidies from the DoD though, since the big shady experiment part of the Vaults definitely originated from within the government, or at least the military (which became the Enclave when the big bombs fell).

I don’t recall anything about paying one’s way into the Vaults in the games or the Fallout Bible though - I assumed they were pretty much invite only, firstly to keep the nasty proles out, and secondly to keep with the aforementionned social experiments : Vault Tec wanted specific individuals in specific Vaults. However, since the OP stated that this aspect of the Vaults was not to be considered in this thought experiment, I reckon whoever built the Vaults would probably want either a nominal fee to grant you a spot, or some kind of indentured servitude once inside, in order to recoup the costs of digging the Vaults in the first place.

9

I will assume that the info is as you’ve presented it…I haven’t played the third game, and probably won’t. My fast twitches are no longer fast.

To get back to the OP. I would think that Vaults could be pretty plausible, assuming 1950s future tech. I grew up reading old Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines, and they were full of rosy predictions of the future. Even allowing for what we know now, I think that Vaults are either within our capacity, or almost within our capacity to build. The major problems that I could foresee are a limited genetic pool of both humans and food animals/plants (two headed brahmin aside), running out of water, and incomplete recycling of water and other vital resources. I think that the biggest problem in the short run would be the incomplete recycling, especially of water. People will die of a shortage of water quicker than just about anything else, other than temperature extremes. Either the Vaults will have to have an immense oversupply of water, or they’ll have to have a very efficient water recycling system, or they’ll have to have outside sources of water and some way of removing that “glow in the dark” quality. Most other things can be worked around. Clothing is not absolutely essential, and wearing clothing all the time after clothing and fabric might become a status symbol. I imagine that if there’s plastic sheeting, it will be pressed into service as coverings. Good tinkerers can come up with workarounds for most simple mechanical problems, but if the water chip fails, of course, then someone has to venture outside to find a new one. Assuming that the tech is very reliable and won’t fail, then a big problem that will come up in the long run is the limited gene pool. Unless the Vault makes a point of not taking in families with kids, it’s going to start out with some portion of the population related to each other.

10

OOT : it’s really not much of a problem. First of all, the V.A.T.S. system ensures that if your character is well developped, you will make mincemeat of the opposition without even needing to aim (VATS pauses the game and lets you shoot 1-5 times, very accurately, and you’re less susceptible to damage while shooting), and secondly the game is rather easy - once you’ve found 10+ medpacks, and have those hotkeyed, you pretty much won’t die, ever. Unless you really work at it, like charging a pack of Deathclaws with a rusty knife, or something like that :stuck_out_tongue:

11

Recycling isn’t open-ended. You still need chemical inputs. I suppose it’d be possible, given enough energy and flasks, to synthesize everything you need, but it wouldn’t be easy. I doubt we can just do it with modern tech, though maybe after 10 years of single-mindedly researching these robot chemical factories and robot etc factories you could get a modern standard of living going inside a cave with a couple hundred people. But if all you need is oxygen, water, and lightbulbs (for food), then we could probably do it now. Until the lightbulbs start failing… (and they don’t last 200 years!)

12

Btw, the Soviets have already done the whole city-in-a-mountain-with-a-nuclear-reactor thing. This is a plutonium enrichment plant at Zheleznogorsk in Krasnoyarskiy Krai, Siberia: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/images/zheleznogorsk-Image55.jpg

13

Nuclear power plants today are extraordinarily high maintenance because they are very complex, in order to be as efficient as possible. Give up efficiency, ditch the steam, ditch the condensors, steam generators, pumps, valves, control systems, water chemistry, etc, etc… The first reactor was a pile with no moving parts other than the control rods. Which would make heat. Put a simple stirling engine up top. It would of course be very innefficient and have a low capacity, but it would work for a loooong time with few repairs.

Only 100. So far. :slight_smile:

14

A Vault wouldn’t have to be completely sealed against the outside, either. You could take in aiir and water, as long as you filtered out all the dust in it. You’d still want to be mostly self-sufficient, but that would make it a lot easier to make up for inefficiencies in your recycling systems.

15

Its completely implausible. Things need maintenance, and thats not going to change anytime soon. Ignoring the handwaving of sci-fi nanotechnology or replicators, things will constantly need to be repaired. Spare parts would take over most of the space, if not much more than half. The food question is unasnwered. People cant drink electricity, so you now have the biosphere problem (doesnt work) and the problem of storing fertilizers and other chemicals you need.

Even with all this planned out, everyone would have to be a high level technician and an expert on whatever equipment they are there to maintain. That means Joe Sixpack or Jane Officeworker cant just waltz in there after a nuclear strike, but years of training and certification. On top of that, there has to be some kind of way to replace knowledge after someone dies. So that means an educational facility.

On top of that the social issues are staggering. Who will run this little government? What are the punishments? What kind of court system (if any)? Can someone leave if they want to? Who makes decisions about the infrastructure? Who is in charge in emergencies? How is population controlled? What is the punishment for having too many kids? How about someone stealing food? How about defense? What weapons? What plans? etc

Lastly, its just a dumb idea. Depending on the strike location and winds you may very well be able to go outside without a suit for a long time or with a suit for longer. Ideally you would be measuring radiation outside and seeing what you can do. You could build a greenhouse outside, scavenge for parts, patroling for threats, collecting resources, collecting water, etc. Staying locked in really is a silly 50s idea. Its all about keeping the family ‘hearth’ safe from the outside influences of liberalism, secularism, etc. I think thats really part of the satire that game was trying to express. These 50s ideas of just running away from the world and burying your head in the sand waiting for the second coming is criticism of the social attitudes of the time.

16

The Overseer, or the First Citizen. Again. No, they can’t, not unless the Overseer or the First Citizen decides that it’s best for the vault community. Overseer/First Citizen again. Again. There are pregnancy cycles, and women don’t get pregnant from regular sex. That’s not a problem. Guards are assigned to watch the food supplies during the daytime, but oddly enough, the supplies are left unguarded at night. There are mechanical turrets that will fire on enemies (and how they determine who’s an enemy and who’s a friend, I don’t know, but they can, and you can change from being considered a friend to being considered an enemy depending on your actions.)

As for training and certification, it’s done with computer learning centers. Vault dwellers can spend their time learning skills by computer, and many courses are available. They probably have a lot of time on their hands, and probably those who aren’t busy learning vital skills are assigned to unclog the sewage system, so there’s an incentive to spend a lot of time honing skills.

17

>As for training and certification, it’s done with computer learning centers. Vault dwellers can spend their time learning skills by computer, and many courses are available.

Where are the replacement hard drives, motherboards, and power supplies going to come from? Whats your backup strategy? Who maintains all this? How is the server room going to cooled? Wheres your replacement freon? Heck, whats your HVAC strategy? etc etc etc etc

I think its just naive to think that stuff just works like this for decades, especially with this level complexity. Everything that “just works” have a cadre of maintainers and an industry devoted to manufacturing replacement parts, from Property Managers to IT guys, things are constantly being repaired, changed, scheduled maintenence, etc.

Short of the magical Star Trek replicator none of this is possible, or at least cannot last past 5-10 years tops. Heck, the replicator is a game changer. Why lock yourself up, replicate a anti-radtion suit thats also a Dune-like still suit and enjoy the outdoors!

18

>from Property Managers to IT guys

Err that should have been, ask anyone from Property managers to IT guy.

Again, the vaults are social satire on the 1950’s conformist suburban expansion away from the multicultural cities. Hence the VR mission that shows you a 1950s idealized Leave it to Beaver world where everyone lived.

19

HorseloverFat, you’re such a beaurocrat. ‘Who does certifications…’

20

But yeah, I agree with you. Either you have a huge robot machine shop, robot chemical factory, robot iron smelter, robot semiconductor foundry, etc. (Or, just maybe, huge empty machine shops, etc, that you man briefly on demand to replenish supplies. The supplies that can be replenished. Presumably you’ll still need stock of certain elements that can’t be recycled back.) Or you give up modern life.

But in Fallout they had nanotech, so obviously that helps everything enormously.