Vault Tec Good Or Evil

[danconnors]

The impression has been made that Vault Tec was mainly an evil institution. But was it really? In Fallout 1 the vault was stuck with one water chip, while in Fallout 2 a vault was discovered with hundreds. Was this an evil act or simply bureaucratic bungling? In Fallout 3 a vault was locked shut forever. Was this act decided by Vault Tec or was it simply a power grab by the overseer of that vault to keep his family in power forever. In Fallout 4 vault 111 apparently is an evil act, and the gruesome experiments planned for the vault near Diamond City was also clearly an evil act.

However in Fallout 2 there is also a city formed around the remains of a vault that was successful in its operation of carrying forward a semblance of civilization. In addition the population of what was once the United States has grown to at least a few millions. Those millions must have been the descendants of successful vaults, since no one not protected from blast, heat, and radiation could have survived--other than as a ghoul. The number of vaults built was numbered in the triple digits, meaning at least hundreds must have been built.

So, it appears to me that on the whole Vault Tec was not evil, but was consumed with a desire to save as many people as possible from the coming nuclear annihilation. In every human endeavor there are always some evil people who creep into the ranks and work their own evil in secret. Knowing that the coming war would eliminate all chances of the discovery of their evil--and the punishment of it--these people were free to work in secret toward their baleful goals.

[birbo]

Originally posted by thepicgamer:

what has the thread devolved into

everyone's a brainwashed communist

[danconnors]

@ Douglas Grave: No, seriously.....

[danconnors]

@Douglas Grave: In any scientific experiment of the medical type there has to be a control group. That is a group that does NOT receive the medicine being tested. That means that certain people--either those receiving the medicine or those not receiving it--are going to be harmed. If the medicine works those not receiving it will die earlier or be stricken by the disease the medicine is made to protect them from or cure. Normally if the new medicine quickly shows its efficacy the test will be discontinued as soon as possible to minimize the suffering of the control group. But suffering of one sort or another is expected.

In addition many medicines will be tested on animals before humans to lower the danger to humans. This, of course, gets the animal lovers into an apoplectic fury over the "rights" of their furry friends being violated. Well animals have no rights because they aren't humans. Tell that to a tree hugger and watch him explode.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by danconnors:

@Douglas Grave: In any scientific experiment of the medical type there has to be a control group. That is a group that does NOT receive the medicine being tested. That means that certain people--either those receiving the medicine or those not receiving it--are going to be harmed. If the medicine works those not receiving it will die earlier or be stricken by the disease the medicine is made to protect them from or cure. Normally if the new medicine quickly shows its efficacy the test will be discontinued as soon as possible to minimize the suffering of the control group. But suffering of one sort or another is expected.

Which means they're not being helped by an as-yet-unproven treatment, but aren't being harmed by it, and will eventually benefit as you've noted. Morally, that's not evil since there's no intentional harm, especially when random selection removes personal bias.

It's drastically different to experimenting on humans in ways that are directly harmful to them (as Vault-Tec has done), won't directly help them, and only offer the vague potential of a possible gain for any future humans. Morally, that's evil, since harm is being knowingly inflicted.

[Doctor Go-Go]

Christopher Walken strolls in "Why ... yes, yes ... Vault TEC ... is ... VERY EVIL. They ... DO THINGS! VERY EVIL ... things. WHY you ask? ... I ... I do NOT KNOW! Uhhhhh"

[The Cure]

I don't think I've seen anyone post yet about what Enclave's major goal actually was. Vault Tec's experiments were not there to reshape survivors, or run experiments just for the sake of it. Their main purpose was to prepare the Enclave for off world living in a colony on the Moon or perhaps Mars. The Enclave was basically trying to jump ship and leave Earth's inhabitants on their own. So, pretty evil, since Vault Tec by then was just a puppet for the Enclave.

That however is pre Bethesda Fallout lore, from the Fallout Bible and Van Buren.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by The Cure:

Vault Tec's experiments were not there to reshape survivors, or run experiments just for the sake of it. Their main purpose was to prepare the Enclave for off world living in a colony on the Moon or perhaps Mars. The Enclave was basically trying to jump ship and leave Earth's inhabitants on their own.

I got the impression they were aiming to travel to other stars; the vaults being preparation for the kind of colony ships where you'd have people living together for years of interstellar travel, with entire generations being born and dying onboard.

[danconnors]

@Douglas Grave: So our system of traffic lights, parking meters, and towing cars illegally parked is inherently evil, since it brings VAST harm to many otherwise innocent people. Finding their cars "legally" stolen by the city many people have died of heart failure--especially after finding out how much money they will have to pay to get their stolen property back. And the people who write and enforce these "laws" know exactly how their actions will result in hardship and death for the people being acted upon. They are thus all evil people.

[Alucard †]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by The Cure:

Vault Tec's experiments were not there to reshape survivors, or run experiments just for the sake of it. Their main purpose was to prepare the Enclave for off world living in a colony on the Moon or perhaps Mars. The Enclave was basically trying to jump ship and leave Earth's inhabitants on their own.

I got the impression they were aiming to travel to other stars; the vaults being preparation for the kind of colony ships where you'd have people living together for years of interstellar travel, with entire generations being born and dying onboard.

This is starting to sound like Oxygen Not Included became canon in Fallout lore

I wonder if Gravitas was working with Vault Tec to purposely ruin the world to conduct their vault / colony experiments.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by danconnors:

@Douglas Grave: So our system of traffic lights, parking meters, and towing cars illegally parked is inherently evil, since it brings VAST harm to many otherwise innocent people. Finding their cars "legally" stolen by the city many people have died of heart failure--especially after finding out how much money they will have to pay to get their stolen property back. And the people who write and enforce these "laws" know exactly how their actions will result in hardship and death for the people being acted upon. They are thus all evil people.

For that you'd have to weigh up the other factors, like the benefits of improving traffic flow and parking to general public safety. The "otherwise innocent" people involved also know they're breaking the established laws, yet few protest them until they're personally affected. You also can't count "death" as part of it, since the stress of dealing with traffic violations is non-fatal in all but the tiniest percentage of cases.

There certainly can be abuse and profiteering involved, but it's far from the only effect.

[The Cure]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Originally posted by The Cure:

Vault Tec's experiments were not there to reshape survivors, or run experiments just for the sake of it. Their main purpose was to prepare the Enclave for off world living in a colony on the Moon or perhaps Mars. The Enclave was basically trying to jump ship and leave Earth's inhabitants on their own.

I got the impression they were aiming to travel to other stars; the vaults being preparation for the kind of colony ships where you'd have people living together for years of interstellar travel, with entire generations being born and dying onboard.

Actually you're right (it's been a while since I read the Fallout Bible or played 2). They were trying to go to another solar system.

Which also jogged my memory, the Enclave's reason for leaving Earth wasn't even because of a nuclear holocaust threat. It was due to the lack of Earth's resources and their plan even predates the Resource wars.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Originally posted by danconnors:

The impression has been made that Vault Tec was mainly an evil institution. But was it really? In Fallout 1 the vault was stuck with one water chip, while in Fallout 2 a vault was discovered with hundreds. Was this an evil act or simply bureaucratic bungling? In Fallout 3 a vault was locked shut forever. Was this act decided by Vault Tec or was it simply a power grab by the overseer of that vault to keep his family in power forever. In Fallout 4 vault 111 apparently is an evil act, and the gruesome experiments planned for the vault near Diamond City was also clearly an evil act.

However in Fallout 2 there is also a city formed around the remains of a vault that was successful in its operation of carrying forward a semblance of civilization. In addition the population of what was once the United States has grown to at least a few millions. Those millions must have been the descendants of successful vaults, since no one not protected from blast, heat, and radiation could have survived--other than as a ghoul. The number of vaults built was numbered in the triple digits, meaning at least hundreds must have been built.

So, it appears to me that on the whole Vault Tec was not evil, but was consumed with a desire to save as many people as possible from the coming nuclear annihilation. In every human endeavor there are always some evil people who creep into the ranks and work their own evil in secret. Knowing that the coming war would eliminate all chances of the discovery of their evil--and the punishment of it--these people were free to work in secret toward their baleful goals.

My head cannon

is vault tech is a huge ass company funded by the government to make vaults incase of a nuclear armagedeon during the cold war.

They were initially small bunkers but then moved onto massive underground small cities or communities. P sure there is a vault tech logo in rock bunker where the enclave come from in 3 somewhere.

As the cold war started to die out because of lack of resources during the resource wars, it was mostly China Vs USA trying to battle for control over the world. One strictly communism the other strictly capitalism. Then a war broke out over Canada at Anchorage and what not for their resources.

They did say that in a scrapped fallout movie script from Bethesda that Vault Tech started the war to protect their interests since lets face it:
-cold war over
-2nd war sorta with China won

USA army offered them some way to pay off their debt if they used the vault for experiments. But the only thing they were missing were volunteers.
so they launched a lone missile to in a way not lose money or go into "more debt" wipe their debt clean. Created a chain reaction with all other countries launching their own missiles persumably China shot 1st thinking it was gonna hit them but it didn't so they got nuked but maybe not alot since some nuke sites were just there not able to be launched. East coast got nuked but the West Coast saved a bit. Middle area we don't know but based on how The Legion controls a big part we can say that the middle area was unaffected as much and maybe launched some of the missile nukes to China and other areas.


Then you see how the vaults were experiments for lab rats all with an objective. So in a sense no Vault Tech isn't the good guys. Maybe at first Vault Tec was but then ♥♥♥♥ went sour for them and they wanted to cash in or rather cash out and use the vaults. Hell we can probably assume that they may have been hostile takeover by the US government since Nuka world has both a vault and Army connections.

[The Inept European]

In modern real world medical ethics in some cases you have to stop a trial if the placebo group has worse outcomes for something serious like cancer. You have to stop and give them the test treatment otherwise it's unethical. That's a pretty extreme definition of ethics we have, that actually is in conflict with doing proper experiments.

The Fallout world never developed medical ethics to the level of the real world. They are in the 1950s as far as that goes. So while Mengele-level stuff has to be kept secret, things that would be illegal in the real world in 2021 or even in 1971 are legal and even maybe ethical in the Fallout prewar world.

When judging Vault Tec as evil or not, that judgement needs to be calibrated against how 'evil' the government was, the legal system, corporate culture in general, society in general. Vault Tec is on a spectrum with these other entities, maybe in the upper end of the range but not uniquely evil as far as I can see.

[The Inept European]

Really not much Vault Tec did is that different from what was being done by universities and private companies IRL on behalf of the US government, Army, CIA etc in the 40s - 60s, which is the time period being parodied.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by The Ex-ept European:

Really not much Vault Tec did is that different from what was being done by universities and private companies IRL on behalf of the US government, Army, CIA etc in the 40s - 60s, which is the time period being parodied.

Some organizations certainly did things that could be called evil, but how frequently was it part of their business?

For comparison, if we want to judge Vault-Tec's general nature, we have to ask what activities they conducted with non-evil intent. The vault experiments were typically harmful by intent, placing the experimental results before the wellbeing of the vault inhabitants. So besides implementing vault experiments, what else did Vault-Tec do as a corporation?