Hey everyone,

I was thinking a bit earlier about the Enclave numbers presented in FO3, compared to the end of FO2, and I think I may have come up with a plausible explanation to address the drastic rise in the Enclave population between the two games, that involves only In Game Cannon.

In order to understand where I am coming from, there needs to be a basic understanding of two groups in the FO universe: The Enclave and the Vaults. As we all know, The Enclave hates all non-humans, and would never recruit from the wasteland. This is why it is hard to explain the number of soldiers the Enclave had in FO3: Pure blooded humans do not appear to be common in the wasteland and most of the Enclave died on the Oil Rig. But there is another group of pure humans that we all know of: The Vaults.

The Vault dwellers in every game have shared a distrust and hate for all outsiders; close-humans, Mutants, and ghouls. FO1 showed that Vault 13 distrusted the outside world (and thought it to be overrun by the master's army), Fallout 2's "Vault City" showed the vault dwellers using the wastelanders as slaves. And FO3 showed Vault 101 was unwilling to let its general population to move outside.

This is where my idea comes into play. What if the Enclave recruited from the Vaults? As we know from FO2, the Enclave knew the vaults locations. They also knew the passcodes to get into the vaults (as seen in FO3's quest "trouble on the Home Front"). The Vaults, being the only bastions of pure human left in the world, would be the only place for the Enclave group traveling East to replenish their population count. This would also be plausible because the two groups shared a common mistrust of the outside world and wastelanders (and both still believed in America, as we can see in the V13 posters during FO2's intro, and Vault 101's flags throughout the vault). This idea would also explain the transmission from the Enclave in the overseer's computer during "Trouble on the Home Front" quest in FO3, that I mentioned earlier, where the Enclave was trying to get access to Vault 101. (correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Enclave say that they would take them somewhere safe in the transmission they sent them?).

The only reason I could see someone disagreeing, is because they murdered the Vault Dwellers in FO2's intro. But that would only be because they didn't need the manpower then and only wanted to test the inoculation/FEV. With the Oil Rig gone, they would be more than happy to take in more pure humans. It would be the only way for them to survive.

Also, this idea would only apply to unopened vaults. Vault City would have been exposed to the FEV and the people unusable. Vault 13 and Vault 101 type vaults would be the type that would be looked for.

So, if this idea does prove to hold merit, it would explain 2-3 things: Enclave Numbers in FO3, Why the Enclave seemed to travel towards Chicago between FO2 and 3, and why the Devs seem to be lining them up in a future game (Chicago and ED-E).


Cheers,
Mk II

Given the treatment of the V13 dwellers, I don't think they see Vault Inhabitants as possible recruits - remeber they were "Designed to fail". There also cant be that many vaults realistically unopened.

Yes. As I said, They would be looking for a lot of manpower, and the Vaults would be the only place for them to get it. I also said that this idea would only apply to V13/V101 style vaults.

Edit: I also said why the Fallout 2 treatment of the vault dwellers would not be as important after the destruction of the Oil Rig.

Cheers,
Mk II

Well actually you could put down Vault 13 to typical Enclave gung-ho; Richardson sincerly compliments your sacrifice for the - as in the US and not as in "Your an illegal alien on Enclave territory" - nation when he thinks that you are from Vault 13; i.e. the Enclave in Fallout 2 considers them people.

It's a perfectly logical idea to suppose that they would have tried to repatriate Vault Dwellers, however I think that your being a little selective with your examples; Vault 21 had no problem going into the outside world - evevn though through coercion Sarah still says something about here "tearing up the strip".

The Vault theory is nothting new and it is total crap.

All the Vaults were opened but for Vault 13 and then Bethesda went a ripped off that and made Vault 101.

There are no more unopened Vaults. The Enclave would not have forseen their getting their asses handed to them so many times and then have one final back up plan of having a bunch of vaults so they can restock their gene pool. That is not what the Vaults were for. Vault 13 was for prolonged isolation, that is why it was meant to stay closed fo 200 years. It was to be the only one to stay closed for that long. Vault 101 ripped that off. So why have two vaults to study prolonged isolation when you have a bunch more that pretty would do the samething?

Enclave numbers in Fallout 3 can't be put down to anything other then Bethesda wanted to make sure we had lots of baddies to shoot.

Now now old sport let's be constructive. I often like to say the Autumn's actual uprising was due to Beth wanting a gun-fight in Raven Rock - and it was given that Autumn doesn't know you have the FEV at the last quest - but that doesn't explain anything so we have to make do with what we get. I could say your MWBoS is based on an non-proven ending but I don't do I

My theory is based on an unproven ending and I know that. It also doen't go against established lore. It is in game evidence of a possible out come in which I based my idea on.

The Vault theory is crap and based on no in game evidence other then Vault dwellers hate outsiders as well. Vault weren't meant as an Enclave gene pool back up plan incase of nuclear explosions killing most of the people. Vaults weren't meant to stay closed for more then a couple decades. The longest being Vault 13 and Vault 101 and they didn't stay closed the whole time. So why would any of these fail safe gene vaults stay closed forever? Why would the Enclave have Vault 13 and Vault 101 when they have these other fail safe vaults? They could use them to study prolonged isolation.

We don't know about most of the 122 vaults there are. So I don't know how you can say there are not any unopened vaults... we know like less than 50 of them :/

Styles, re watch Richardson's speech about vault 13. "In scientific parlance, a control group". That is what he says Vault 13 is. Have you ever done a science experiment? You always make sure to have a a large number of controlled groups to base your conclusions off of (to contrast with your actual experiment). The fact we have seen 2 in 3 games is a testament to that fact.

So you argument is that Bethesda is just unoriginal. That's not a argument. Its just your opinion.

Well to be fair they never say that Vault 101 is a control group and Amata says that there was some experiment going on but I can't remember what she said exactly.

FO3's the "trouble on the home front" quest. Look at the overseer's terminal and read the transmission and reaction. Thats in game evidence...

EDIT: And we only know of 41 vaults, styles. That includes cut content and non cannon vaults. So what are you talking about "They are all opened".

Cheers,
Mk II

Yeah but they also kill Amata in a random encounter after she tells them of the Vault's location and in the Overseers report he says that they are exchanging amnesty for data; I think that it's pointless and just more highlighting of how 'evil' the Enclave but that's Bethesda, black and white.

Maybe they did't believe that she was really a Vault Dweller :/

Similar to the way the Vault City First Citizen was suspicious about the Chosen one.

IIRC the Intro to FO1 describes it as the last.

I would say that's a little too much optimism old sport; yeah it svcks that the Enclave are so black-and-white evil but all we can do is soldier on. It doesn't even make any sense that surely the Enclave must already know the location of Vault 101 anyway surely?

17 of the Vaults were control groups. As in they worked as advertised and opened. The rest were for experiments. I don't see the Enclave sitting around a table before the war saying. "We need a back up to our back up. What if the oil rig gets nuked by some tribal, we may need to have a bunch of Vaults to rebuild are stock." I would sooner believe cloning was the reason. They had the Gary Vault and all the troops in Fallout 3 were pretty much the same people with no individual personalities. The people in the Vaults were lab rats nothing more.

The Vaults would have long opened by now. Even if Vault 13 was meant to be a control Vault and not apart of the expariment it still played the role of prolonged issolation. Not meant to open for 200 years. The Overseer will not let people out (until the chip breaks). Vault 101 never meant to open and overseer will not let people out. Same damn thing. Only thing we get that says Vault 13 is a control Vault is Richardson but I don't think he meant it the same way as the other 17 control vaults. Still I guess that last bit is my opinion.

Still Having a bunch of Vaults never meant to open just so the Enclave can have future troops incase something really bad happens like the leadership and most of the Enclave get nuked. The people would have left the Vaults long before the Events of Fallout 2 and therefore not pure anymore. Enclave could have used them to set up bases all across the nation if their intent was to someday turn them into soldiers, so why not sooner then later? There is no eveidence of other bases built by the Enclave other then Navarro till after Fallout 2.

For better or for worse though, Fallout 3 proved that wrong.

Personally I don't really have a feeling towards the vault theory one way or the other. We need to find something to explain the numbers besides "well Bethesda screwed up" though. Its not that far-fetched really, one un-opened vault could account for nearly all the numbers.

It is far fetched to think there would sill be large numbers of Vaults sitting around full of future Enclave troops just sitting around for over a hundred years waiting for "Plan B" aka the crap hit the fan. The people would have left the Vaults. The people would have reacted the same way as Vault 13 and 101 as in " I want the [censored] out of here!" Then for the Enclave to find these Vaults and train them to be soldiers. It is far fetched in the extreme.

Enclave are cocky people. They would not have had such a plan. If anything it would have involved Raven Rock and cloning. The Vaults in the past games were a sign of "before time" they were myths and legends to the wastelanders. We only see a few Vaults before Fallout 3 and they were very far apart. Fallout 3 screwed up on many things and one of them being a large number of Vaults in a small space with people still in them after 200 years.

Bethesda didn't care that Fallout 3 takes place 200 years after the great war. Bethesda didn't care much for lore/canon set in Fallout. So yeah I believe it is very likely they said "hey lets have alot of Enclave spawns to shoot." From my time here on the forum and since New Vegas came out it seems a there is a numebr of people that only give a crap about killing and looting spawns. That is what I put the numbers down to, Bethesda making sure we have enough things to pointlessly blast away. After all Fallout 3 turned Fallout more into a FPS; not that adding alot of spawns breaks canon in any way. My point is the drastic shift from Pure RPG to FPS with some RPG elements.

Yeah I know Fallout New Vegas is guilty of having alot of Vaults as well. I guess that is the way Fallout is going but IMO it takes way the "before time" feel and a sense of myth and legend. Because they are so damn common.

All what would be required would be just 1. The rest could stay empty.




Well I agree that is what happened. What I mean though is that we need to find a lore reason on our own. Putting "and thus there were many Enclave in the CW and it was all the game developers fault" into the lore doesn't sound great. There was probably 500 or so total Enclave in the CW during the events of Fallout 3, so I think with a combination of ideas we could come up with a reasoning.



I agree here too. At this rate, we're going to run out of Vaults and they will become a stale aspect of the series.

I still don't buy there would even be one, unless that Vault was full of people that did not care about seing the sky again ever. They would have opened it. Vaults 101 and Vault 13 show people would open the Vaults.

Just to show I am not an angry old dinosaur I have an idea that may make you guys happy.

Location Military Base located somewhere in Idaho (why? why not?) that was a site of an early Enclave experiment.

Experiment:

The Biorestorative Properties & Cryogenics. Enclave were messing around with early ideas before they settled on The Oil Rig. To find away to save their ass in the event of a nuclear war. Early tests proved worrying. Test subjects died of Post-Cryogenic Syndrome. The research into fixing the problem was on going. Before the Enclave abandoned the project for the Oil Rig they have 1000 hand picked men and women from the united states military and low level Enclave memebers put into Cryogenic Suspension. The base did not have a ZAX super computer or any special way to survive a nuclear war other then being deep underground in an early "Fallout Bunker."

Enclave did however set up robots to keep things running and enough power to last almost indefinite amount of time. The Enclave being heartless when it comes to human life put the project on the far back burner and set to work with the Enclave Oil Rig. Nuclear War happens and the base in Idaho already long forgotten sits damaged but still running.

Enclave at Navarro after the Rig blew up went through all their old files and came across project "Cold Sleep" and decided it was worth the trip. After a couple weeks of excavating they came across their long lost brothers. By then the Enclave solved the problem of Post-Cryogenic Syndrome.

I prefer your other idea, Bethesda wanted more targets.

I do as well lol

You may be getting the wrong idea from me Styles, and its probably my fault.

Personally I don't care either way what happenes with the vault theory, i'm not trying to promote it really, i just think that we shouldn't completely shut it down though, its good to keep options open.

My personal theory is that Navarro had more personel than previously thought, and they were combined with a few survivors from the Rig to march eastwards.

I'm not sure I like your base theory there, but that's really only because I don't like the idea of cyrogenic sleep. Too much sci-fi for my tastes really (I hate that Bethesda used in in MZ).

I am not a big fan of my base theory myself but I was using info from Fallout 2. I try not to think about Mothership Zeta.

"My personal theory is that Navarro had more personel than previously thought, and they were combined with a few survivors from the Rig to march eastwards." That combined with Fallout 3 being more of a FPS more then RPG and Bethesda's style of making games "demanded" the need for alot of spawning baddies to kill and loot.

I still don't think Navarro had thousands or anything like that but maybe there were some scouting units and patrols out in the field. That could add another hundred to the numbers of Navarro and the few lucky people that made it off the Rig.

people also have children. so any numbers at the end of F2 that may have made it could have bred the numbers back up, at least some.


i just still find it hard to belive that all of the enclave would only have the rig as a base, with no other contigency.

Well believe it, the ENCLAVE Oil Rig was the contingency. You find the Vault's stupid too right? This is just like that.