do you think real vaults would work?

Flying Pig · Post by **Flying Pig** » Thu May 23, 2002 6:11 pm

we had this topic down in fallout 2 so i moved it here to get more peopleÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â´s attention

Jimbo san · Post by **Jimbo san** » Thu May 23, 2002 7:10 pm

No. If there was a nuclear war, the planet would be knackered, and there would be clouds of radioactive dust, radioactive rain, massive climate change not to mention the death of eveything on the surface of the planet, either as a direct result of the blast or from nuclear poisoning. Also it would be extremely difficult to survive in a vault, as there would be an extreme shortage of food. Also there is the fact that the Vault sysytem as seen in Fallout is too large to implement widescale. Only the "cream" of society would get to live in one, as they would be too expensive.
Correct me if i'm wrong tho'.

Ghetto Goose · Post by **Ghetto Goose** » Thu May 23, 2002 7:34 pm

theres one falw in you're airtight explanation, they'd never work anyway, because the government would use them for experiments just like in Fo2!

unless someone built their own, but i doubt one person/family has the money or power to dig inside a mountain.

Headroom · Post by **Headroom** » Thu May 23, 2002 7:37 pm

Probably not...

resources become scarce...institutionalised cannibalism...even if the human species survived under those conditions...it would no longer be humanity as we know it...not unless if that's the real face of humanity.

for good sci-fi that explores Vault communities, check out Philip K. Dick's "Penultimate Truth"

talks about human colonies kept underground in separate vaults. and how they were kept in the dark about the war which had already ended, while those above ground lord over those imprisoned below.

Rat Keeng · Post by **Rat Keeng** » Thu May 23, 2002 7:51 pm

Ghetto Goose wrote:the government would use them for experiments just like in Fo2!

You silly goose, they wouldn't do that :roll:

They should put 5 men and 50 women in a Vault filled with vodka and broken condoms. Certainly wouldn't be a bad way to repopulate the human race.

Wolf401 · Post by **Wolf401** » Thu May 23, 2002 10:15 pm

Rat Keeng wrote:They should put 5 men and 50 women in a Vault filled with vodka and broken condoms. Certainly wouldn't be a bad way to repopulate the human race.

It wouldn't but they could die of STD's and of course a percentage of those women would be homosexual.

Anyways vaults wouldn't work because there will also be anarchy after a short amount of time

Follower · Post by **Follower** » Thu May 23, 2002 10:24 pm

Yes, they'll work - may be not so good as it is described in FO, but some people must survive... in theory...

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Fri May 24, 2002 1:16 am

Homo Sapiens is pretty much the same thing as Cockroaches: if there is even a slim chance to survive, they certainly WILL survive!

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Fri May 24, 2002 1:38 am

Of course they'd work they just wouldn't be as widespread as the vault system in the Fallout universe. There are two actual vaults I know of in existence one in DC and the other being NORAD. Both of which have had tonnes of cash poured into them to not function. Too expensive to make a vault system to preserve a huge population of americans. And it's correct to assume that they'd probably underestimate the amount of resources to sustain life inside of them so they'd have to go the cannibal route or get out of the vault. Still if they can make biosphere i'm sure they could do something like the vaults. It would just be expensive to the Nth degree. Though they probably were just as expensive in the fallout universe considering how much steel they must have used and given the fact that it was during war time. Hmm. Issue for Chris A to address next time he decides to take a wack at the Fallout Bible maybe.

I'm off.

Jimbo san · Post by **Jimbo san** » Fri May 24, 2002 3:00 am

Killzig wrote:Still if they can make biosphere i'm sure they could do something like the vaults. It would just be expensive to the Nth degree.

Like the Eden Project in the UK?
A biosphere but VERRRY expensive and took yonks to make.

Ogami Itto · Post by **Ogami Itto** » Fri May 24, 2002 4:09 am

Despite the physical requirments of building a vault (which we could not do now, water chip anyone?) the vaults would fail due to mental strains on the members. Think about it, living underground with a small group of people for 50+ years. Just get one enemy out of the group and your life can become a living hell. Its just unreasonable to expect people to stay together for that long with no breaks.

Cameron Hobson · Post by **Cameron Hobson** » Fri May 24, 2002 10:07 am

Okay... Most of this is from the FOII post, but I'm too freakin lazy to retype it all. It's midnight, I'm not awake, and I won't make much sense if I do.

Water: NASA has just perfected a recycling system that returns almost all of the water that you... Uh... Ya... You drink the same water over and over, without making it taste like... uh... Ick.

Also, you could bring water in from the water table underground. Though it would not be clean from radiation, it could easly be decontaminated, and purified. The technology exists right now.

Power: In New York, the entire transite system is run on a Hydrogen Cell. You fill the tank up with water, the water is forced through a membrain, the oxygen and hydrogen are seperated, and the hydrogen is used fuel. This could also be used as a power source. Also, the only byproduct is steam, from the oxygen.

Entertainment: As seen with the Final Fantasy film, we can now produce high quality imaging in movies without acctually having actors. Therefor, movie production could continue. Also, a Canadian Company has just completed the first stage of work on a holographic entertainment center. Their largest obstical is making the holograms solid... Once that problem is overcome, the holographic arrays could be placed in vaults for enterainment.

Sunlight: There are several different kinds of lightbulbs that can reproduce sunlight to an extreme degree.

Food: There are three possiblities for this. We currently possess the technology to create replication units. The problem is that we can not power it. If cold fusion generators could be achived, then we would be able to power a replicator, therefor being able to produce unlimited amounts of food, water, supplies, ect.

Option number two: Have an entire floor of the vault dedicated to agrocultre, making the entire floor into a food production area.

Option number three: Have the vault built under a biodome. After the atomic boms are launched, have the farmers return to the biodome, which is directly over the vault. The problem with this option is that the biodome might be a prime nuclear target.

Mental conditions: You would no more be paranoid with several thousand people around you then you are in a city. Many people live in one small area of a city their entire lives, never leaving it, ever. They do not go insane, or paranoid. However, should this occure, there would be sufficent medical ablilites inside the vault to hold anyone who has paranoid delusions to the point of violence.

Biological concerns: So your biggest question is, what happens if a deadly diease breaks out? This would not happen in a Vault. Presumibly, before entering the Vault, EVERYTHING would be decontaminated, so that no illness caused by a bioagent, be it a bacteria or a flu bug, could form. A full biosweep is possible, and has been done in the past (The shuttles for example).

As you can see, almost all of this technology exists now, and that which doesn't is easly replaced with something that does exist right now.

Ghetto Goose · Post by **Ghetto Goose** » Fri May 24, 2002 10:13 am

Wolf401 wrote:
Rat Keeng wrote:They should put 5 men and 50 women in a Vault filled with vodka and broken condoms. Certainly wouldn't be a bad way to repopulate the human race.
It wouldn't but they could die of STD's and of course a percentage of those women would be homosexual.

Anyways vaults wouldn't work because there will also be anarchy after a short amount of time

if you read the fallout bible, they did an experiment based on this theory or anarchy. they put a bunch of people of different races, sexes, religious backgrounds, etc and see how it turned out. it ended up being Shady Sands. so either you get everyone dead before the vault opens, or you get a cool little town(and eventually a really big one)...plus Tandi!

Bishop · Post by **Bishop** » Fri May 24, 2002 10:30 am

For mental condition: I think if people are able to survive a world sweeping disaster, they won't mind sticking with the same people for the rest of the time. We can't say we are not limited to a circle of people even now...so it shouldn't be a problem, esp. if the vault can hold more than 50.

Ardemia · Post by **Ardemia** » Fri May 24, 2002 10:41 am

At Mt. Weather, Virginia, there's a huge complex built into the mountain that's meant to help the government survive a nuclear war. It can house 200 people with enough food and water for a month. While not exactly a vault per se, its pretty close.

Ghetto Goose · Post by **Ghetto Goose** » Fri May 24, 2002 11:01 am

month! hahahahahaha!

i'd rather die in a blinding flash than by starvation.

Bishop · Post by **Bishop** » Fri May 24, 2002 12:51 pm

Right, what do we need a vault that can last a month for?

Ardemia · Post by **Ardemia** » Fri May 24, 2002 1:15 pm

well, it contains food for a month on average. I'm pretty sure that if the executive branch was really gonna go there in the event of a nuclear war, they would store more food.

Bishop · Post by **Bishop** » Fri May 24, 2002 1:23 pm

Well in that case, let the executive repopulate the world.

Yossarian · Post by **Yossarian** » Fri May 24, 2002 6:25 pm

While vaults would be theoretically possible, and prohibitive expenses have never stopped a government from wasting its citizens money (National Missile Defense system, anyone - c'mon, it's a steal...), I'm quite sure they would fail in reality.

Something always fails in the long run and you can count on it to be something other than a small, portable waterchip.The inhabitants would would probably have to chose between leaving way too early or starving/ freezing/....

Anyways, the construction of functional vaults for large parts of the population would violate the principle of mutual assured destruction...you know: you shoot first, you die second, which is all what nuclear deterrence is about.