So I finally did Vault 81's story quest, where you learn of their experiment.

Man, I find myself torn. On one hand, typical Vault-Tec shenanigans. On the other hand...unlike a lot of their experiments this one actually had a potential benefit to Humanity as a whole. More...it succeeded, but due to the initial Overseer's decision, no one knew about it until the bulk of the cure samples had expired.

More, it seems the lead scientist agreed with the Overseer's hesitation on Human trials - and they ended up not being needed in the end. Well done Bethesda.

Yeah, I thought so too. It justified Vault-Tec's pragmatism and somewhat nullified their caricature as cackling evil scientists and executives. They're still criminal [censored]s if you sum up all the bad they've done, but at least now, with tangible results, we can see why they were criminal [censored]s.

Plus, there's the fact the Overseer sabotaged the phone notifications and doomed the bulk of the Science Staff. I mean, yeah she kept the dwellers from being used as test subjects and there's nothing saying that if she'd gone along with the experiment that one of these viruses would have gotten completely out of control...but she still doomed a large portion of people earmarked for survival (and a lot of young people, given her terminal) due to moral objections.

I mean, she very likely saved the lives of her dwellers. But she did it by killing others (at least indirectly). Was it justified, knowing what we know that the experiment ultimately succeeded?