I was going to post this in another thread discussing the logic, or lack thereof of the Current Canon Explanation of the vault Behavioral project, but these figures seemed interesting enough to warrant their own thread. Basically using canon sources where possible, and real world figures a google search away this is a breakdown of the scale of Project Safehouse, and highlights in my mind at least, why the vaults can never, from a in-game historical perspective have been intended to save the American people.

Please let me know if you spot a mistake in the caluclations, or know of a better canon figure to use.

There are 122 vaults, with an "normal" designed capactiy of 1000 inhabitants. Thats 122,000 people saved at maximum capacity.

Wikipedia gives 308 Million people living in the USA today. Lets be ultra-conservative and assume that the US population at the great war is the same as it is in the real world today (that for some reason or another the US's population in Fallout's world before the bomb grew a lot slower than in the real world). On that figure, 0.03% of the population can fit in them ( *Much* Better chances getting a spot in a lifeboat on the Titanic).

Vault 13 we know how much cost to build: $645,000,000,000 (645 Thousand Million, or 645 Short (American) Billion). Assuming that this figure is similar across all vaults, thats $78,690,000,000,000 total cost of building the vaults. The total costs is almost Seventy Nine Thousand Billion Dollars. Each Inhabitant's survival costs 645 Million Dollars!

Fair enough, these figures do not include inflation. There is only one thing I can think of that has a Pre-war price established in canon, that has a comparable product available today - The Family Car. We know a Chryslus Corvega had a list price of $199,999.

Granted, this comparison isn't ideal - In a war economy, the materials to build the car are likely to be more expensive and scarce as more and more resources are pushed into building the tools of war. Add to this many Chryslus plants being drafted in to make military vehicles and other equipment means that stocks are going to be scarce, pushing up the price of the car even more in respomse to demand - given that the average family's gasoline car is at that point useless except as scrap, I can see an Nuclear car being particularly desirable! However, on the side that maybe this is a reasonable figure, the stuff that goes into making a vault, the electronics, metals, etc, are probably also in demand by the military, as are the factories that make those things.

In any case, its the only number I can think of that we can compare, and gives us a conservatively high inflation rate.

I've just had a quick look online, and a ford dealer in Manhattan puts the list price of a Ford Taurus at about $37,170 (I'm happy to consider other figures if folks think they're fairer). That puts an inflation rate between our world and Fallout's at the time the bombs dropped at about a factor of 5 (a shy over 538% to be exact).

Based on this number, each vault costs about $120 Billion in todays money. Fourteen thousand six hundred and forty billion US Dollars for the whole project. The US Department of Defense's annual budget in 2009 is $651 Billion. These figures at face value say the US Department of Defence today could fund about 5 vaults a year if it spent nothing on anything else, no troops, no civil servants, no ships, no guns, ammo, etc... Project Safehouse from start to end has the same cost as defence budget over 24 years.

Is saving about 0.03% of the population worth that much money? Would a politician (President, Senator, etc) who is making a decision to save the american people going to think that the vault project is good value for money? At 1000 people per vault, 5 vaults per year, it would take 61,600 years to safely house the 308 million in vaults, if I've got my figures right.

Unless there's another reason to do it, The vaults as safe houses simply do not make sense.

well that's because thier not safe houses. Thier experiments on social programs. Thats why it's like that. Also Inflation was high because in fallout 2 I think thiers a comercil for a car that costs 2 million. And the population was at 400,000,000 at that time.

I know that they were experiments, which is the point of my post. There have been a few topics recently suggesting that the experiments didn't make sense.

The commercial for the Corvega is in the start of Fallout 1 - $199,999.99 (about 200 thousand, not 2 million)

ohh sorry but still America was rich in money thanks to the war effort. I mean yeah all resources were gone but they had an easy power source (fission). The war gave people jobs and almost everyone had a car.

It seemed like a great place other then nukes hanging over our heads.

I imagine there were smaller surface shelters which would have sufficed for the rest of the population. The idea of the Vaults as a protective measure, would just be propaganda. The president wouldn't give a damn that they weren't going to save many for the price given. Maybe having the last natural resources on earth enabled the US to aquire large sums of money in favourable trade agreements with select clients, giving them a great deal of surplus for the vault project.

The US was known to have the lasts supply of oil, which they are on record as refusing to share with other countries.

Think about it, the U.S. in prewar FO was in a permanent war economy with no foreign economic competition and writing a HUGE black military budget to fund Vault-Tec/The Enclave.

The US was fighting for its life against a fellow superpower - with all available resoruces going repelling the chineese, building Power armour, tanks, Vertibirds, and Liberty prime, etc.

To protect a mere 5,000 people in vaults , they would have to had a black military budget equivalent to the entire military budget in the real world this year (including all US soldiers. Every Pentagon Employee. All of the current R+D projects currently running. Every single cent the US spends on defense.

There's huge, and then there's implausable. Save 5,000 people or double general defense spending to build things like shields, mechs, power armour, all the other stuff we know the US was developing in Fallout's world.

Just been looking a bit further... Fiscal Year 2007 total taxes collected by the IRS is just over $ 2,691 Billion (This is everything, personal, corporate, etc). The total income taxes of the US government would cover. Approximately Twenty Two and a half vaults could be built with that amount.

Much to big to be hiiden in $500 hammers... Thats not an amount you can hide in black budget.

This is one of the reasons i think its not viable to set up vault experiments that produce little or no useful data!

But you did suggest in another thread it was viable to use them to save people... Which clearly makes less sense.

well, consisdering the people paying to survive in those vaults offset some of the costs and as you put it that the government knew that a nuclear war was immenent, i dont think that there is a price too steep to directly carry on the survival of the yuman race..
But to do experiments that wont teil anything useful or best case that might help to indirectly save the human race no sir, not worth the price tag.

Doesn't mean they weren't selling it to private clients at extortionate amounts. There's more in crude oil than just engine fuel.

Except given that the US is fighting for its life against another superpower, is there really much to spare?


I don't think there is a canon source that says that most folks had a car... Where would those cars be made? Many of the Corvega plants we know were forced into building the tools of war. Energy alone doesnt build a car, things like steel would have been rationed.



With each inhabitants life worth $129 Million in real world US dollars... How much of an offset were you anticipating? Are folks with that level of wealth going to trust their lives to a "public" vault?

The enclave were only interested in saving themselves. The rest of the world could rot as far as they were concerned, putting a price on someone elses life is easy for the selfish, but putting a price on their own?

The difference is, is that a Vault project to save the American people is a benevolent project, the good of the many, not the few.

A project to save the members of a secret society, by that secret society is a different kettle of fish. They used the resources they could control to maximise their own chances of survival - including an unknowing public.

no, the difference is the vaults were set up for those people. and if you did save more people than a few enclave, wouldnt that be more financially sound than attempting
to do something that might help save those few?

i understand that en enclave didnt care for the polulace at large..
but its funny that setting up on an oil rig is a "maximized" chance of survival.
If they had the ability to control what happened in the vaults, surely they could get on the list to get in ensuring their survival.

No man, the real money went into the Preservation pods. All you need is 3 stimpacks and a [censored] load of time. No toilet though... and only room for one. That's where the real future of man kind is.

Preservation pods.


Also, from what I can gather, the science in Fallout is intense. Especially the commonwealth.. I mean, androids? Can't you figure out how to make something immune to the effects of radiation? I mean, super mutants have.

Why would they want to do that? If they were the right kind of people, they'd be in the Enclave, and have a spot reserved in the Enclave Oil Rig facility.

I don't think you quite understand enough.... The Enclave are like Medieval nobility, whereas the normal US citizen is like a pesant to them. Only useful for what they produce or do for them. Not "Real People" in their eyes


Would getting into a vault ensure their survival? The Enclaves plan assumed the world was going to be uninhabitable remember. Being in a vault, experiment or not, was not a good place to be for the long term survival of the species.

I find it very odd you're reluctant to accept the Vault Experiments, yet you're happy with the idea of Congress authorising a project worth the equivalent of 14 Trillion dollars today... Doesnt Congress squabble about amounts a lot lower than that?

really i am quite aware of the enclaves motives.




the very fact that the enclave set up "experiments" in them says they thought they would withstand a war. or did they place all of their eggs in one basket which they thought would fail anyway? remember, according to you the vault experiments are important, and completely necessary..
so either they werent all that important to begin with...
or, the enclave could have used them too.

i hate to break it to you, but an oil tanker in the ocean is part of the world. and since VB was never made, going to space wasnt actually part of their plan-ever. if you read up, the presidents plan was to eventually re-take the CONUS.

Surviving the initial attack is one thing.

Surviving the waiting period is another.

Which would have meant throwing out a lot of FO1 canon when FO2 was made. The Vaults were no secret, The Enclave was.

An oil rig in the middle of the ocean is a lot further away from major nuclear sites than a vault.

ummmmm so they were just gonna stay on the tanker forever, or were they gonna go back to the mainland eventually?
the answer is yes they would go back to land.

now, whats the difference between 200 years on an oil tanker and in a vault? practically none, save the fact that the vaults were designed to withstand a nuclear war and house people well afterwards....


more like the vaults were canon, the enclave was the inplentation in F2 that changed that canon.. but you say tomato i say tomahto..
.



right, but which one was desigend specifically to withstand a nuclear war? also, it wouldnt matter where you were on the planet, the radiation would get into the atmosphere and come down on the oil tanker. the vaults, designed taking radiation in mind...

again.. if the vault "experiments" were so important, why would they put them in vaults that they didn't think could work? i mean, the control vaults should last indefinately. thats the whole point of them being control vaults.
this is one i would actually like an answer for.

and


You do realise its not an oil *tanker* right? Its not a ship! Its an Oil Rig - a deep sea mining/drilling platform.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Oil_Rig

The Above sea portion is disguised as an oil rig. The facility itself is below the ocean, probably some ways down... We don't actually know a lot about the rig, but we do know its as sealed as a vault, if not more so. The Enclave facility is more than designed to survive a nuclear war!

Its my personal theory that the Enclave facility is actually on the field indicated in this holodisk: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sierra_Depot_GNN_Transcript (although the Holodisk according to the bibles was "Tampered With")


(Come on... If the Enclave were going to hide out on some ship, surely they'd pick somewhere nice like the Caribbean!, and a nicer boat than some stinky oil tanker)


(For someone arguing canon, its an odd mistake to make! A Huge one infact)



The enclave think they're the best and brightest. Big difference.

what does a mis-nomer have to do with canon?
no i didnt believe it was a boat, simple mistake really-in case you havent noticed i make typos and the like...

nice dodge though..

ive phrased it a couple of times and still havent got an answer though..
if the vault experiments were so important why would they trust them to be in vaults that they think will fail?

also, since the rig is largely un-explorable its pretty speculative to say how it may even be better than a vault, as you just did.

I think there has been a dodge here, but it has not been by me. I ignored it the first time as I thought it was an honest typo, but suggesting that the surface radiation would leak in, and the enclave facility was not a purpose built facility makes it clear that you didn't think the enclave facility is what it must be from what we do know about it.


I don't understand your question. The Vaults were intended to fail, this is part of the experiment - to learn how and why they fail, what key indicators point to failure, what potential options there are to stop failure, and how the whole issue maybe avoided in the first place. What Circumstances are going to maximise chances of surival, what need to be put into place pre-launch, what options are there post launch.

In FO2 the Rig has more explorable area than a vault... Map count:

Rig: Foyer/Horrigan Battle room, Detainment Area, Puzzle Room, Presidential Area , Reactor Area, Armoury
Vault: External Area (V13 only, and as its external doesn't really count), Level 1, Level 2, Level 3.

We could ask President Richardson about how well the Enclave facility is sealed:

iif you want to spin your wheels over an admitted mis-nomer, be my guest.



ummm the vaults as "experiments" were designed to fail one specific thing due to design of said "experiment".. not the vaults themselves physically failing. semantics like that will get you no where. See, the whole point of a control wault would be to not have it fail in any way shape or form, otherwise any and all "experimentation" is null and void. So.. either the control vauts (and hypothetically the rest of the vaults if they didnt have encalve "experiment" fail added to them) do their work-protecting inhabitants from the outside apocalypse, or your precious enclave "experiments" have yet another layer of fail added to them.... either way you look at it, your arguments suffer.


wow, i didnt know explorable area equalled total area...

yes we could ask president richardson.. or we could realize that the oil rig is in the middle of the ocean where saltwater would definately corrode any metal on the extirior over the 200+ years that it neesds to be there for the enclave to complete the monitoring of "experiments".. which is probably one of the reasons the original enclave plan was to return to the CONUS eventually-as bad as the rig is, its not quite so permanant.
also, if you still want to talk size of the rig, you could cram as many enclave onto one rig as possible, or if you want to go a hypethetical "screw everyone else, we are the enclave, lords of the world" route, take up residence in 122 vaults, which combined would house a lot more enclave.

have fun with this thrread too.
out