now the vaults were a massive social experiment orchestrated by the enclave back before the war when they were a massive power in the U.S. government pulling the strings behind the scenes. they had deemed themselves the only people worthy of salvation if the bombs fell. when they did fall and the vaults closed the twisted experiments began. but like any experiment there had to be multiple controls. now from what we know about the common wealth they have incredibly advanced technology. now when fallout 3 was being made Ive heard there was supposed to be another vault, a control vault, but it was removed because there wasn't a use for it in the game. no what if the common wealth is the community that the vault established when it opened? or if not what if there experiment was they were given far more advanced technology than other vaults. and they were instructed to teach vault dwellers to embrace and study science, math, and technology to an extreme extent. this could explain why they have such advanced technology. maybe this is how the common wealth came to be and how they have the technology that they do. if im wrong please correct me this is just something that i thought of.

P.S. also if they have all of this technology then why haven't been attacked by the enclave? i mean the enclave are looking for vault 101 (random event in the wastes were Amata is being interrogated by the enclave if you choose to destroy the vault if you choose to destroy the vault in "trouble on the home front, im guessing there looking for either info or technology.) so why haven't they attacked the common wealth for there tech? im sure they have heard of it so why is it still not under enclave control? ok now im done.

Well first, the Commonwealth is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And the Institute probably refers to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is not a vault.

oh duh. sorry i completely forgot about the institute part of it. my bad. but do you think that it has been attacked by the enclave? or does anyone know how all of the tech got there? i mean i can believe that a group of wastelanders came across the institute and learned about technology by what was left in the building but were did they get all of the supplies in good enough condition to make androids?

The most logical answer is they were always there, the people and the tech. MIT is a big organisation, more or less purely focused on tech. it surely had some sort of shelter and could finance it itself.. Not all survivors come from a vault - much less an official vault-tek vault. The surviors of the shelter were fairly bright people.

As for the Control Vault. There are multiple interpretations on that. Fallout tactics had "Vault 0", whereas in the "Vault Experiment" Control vaults were vaults such as 101 and 13, like a "Control sample" in an experiment.

There were 17 control vaults where they had (IIRC) 500 inhabitants for twenty years and a G.E.C.K., nothing horrific like being mutated or experimented on happened and presumable went on to make successful post-war settlements.

Vault 8 was one such vault. It went on to become Vault City of Fallout 2.

At least... Intentional Mutations (Vault 8's residents are just about sterrile)

There are also vaults with minor experiments - Like Vault 15 - which was just about a diverse population range (nothing overly crazy).

I'm fairly sure 101 was not a control vault, it was planned to never open, and no one to ever leave. Control vaults were for a specific amount of time, then the people were told to leave and deploy their GECK.

There was a control vault in the capital wasteland, which we can assume was the original heritage of most people living in the wasteland... I forget which number it was, but it was listed on the computer in the Citadel from where you get the information on the GECK.

Ever thought of the idea that the commonwealth supplied the enclave with tech.....

would explain why the enclave did not attack them...

That could be a cool way to go actually... if FO4 takes place in the Commonwealth, as most seem to think it will, we find out late in the main story that the heads of the institute were involved with the enclave.

It could be a nice way to have the enclave mentioned and back again, but in a VERY limited capacity, which is what I would want.

While the Institute is no doubt a reference to MIT that doesn't mean it isn't associated with a Vault-Tec vault. It could have been a mutual relationship and a vault was set aside for the MIT elite, or Vault-Tec may have decided that a vault full of scientists would have been an interesting experiment. It's also possible that the Institute made its own bomb shelter, or even that they tracked down a vault and took it over to get the technology.

As for the Enclave, I'm sure they were aware of the Institute but that doesn't mean they'd had any dealings with them.


Yeah, neither 13 nor 101 were control vaults, although they had similar experiments. 13 was supposed to open after 200 years (instead of the standard 20) and 101 was never supposed to open. In both cases people had to deal with extended confinement.

Yeah, Fallout 3 takes place when V13 should have opened.

:intergalactic: