I'm currently doing a playthrough of Fallout 3 and I noticed something that may or may not have something to do with Fallout 4's protagonist coming out of cryo stasis and Vault 111 opening up. I have no idea if this idea has already been raised, my apologies if it has.

If you access Vault 101's Overseer's computer terminal during or after the quest Trouble on the Homefront, you can find some new entries. By new I mean since you left Vault 101 at the beginning of the game. One is called "External Contact Report". I'll type it out here:

I think this tells us a few things:

1. The Enclave knows about the existence of vaults on the East Coast.

2. The Enclave knows the location of Vault 101, probably of every vault on the East Coast.

3. They have records of entry passwords.

4. They have access to a governmental Vault-Tec frequency that allows them to communicate with the Overseer.

5. They are actively trying to get into the vaults.

Now them trying to access Vault 101 happens in 2277, since the record appears only after you've escaped and returned to the vault. By this date a fully functional vault is a rarity, most vault communities have collapsed by accident or on purpose as part of the Vault-Tec experiments. The only functional vaults at this time (in the DC area) are Vault 101 and Vault 112. Vault 112 is useless to the Enclave, the population there would never be able to exit the loungers alive. But Vault 101's population is intact, and holds the pure breed humans the Enclave wants in their ranks, unaffected by radiation. As far as the Enclave knows, at least.

The same thing could be said for Vault 111. The people there are possibly all cryogenically frozen and among the purest breed of humans in the Wasteland.

So how could they get into Vault 111 when they couldn't access Vault 101? During Trouble on the Homefront Amata will have changed the vault door password to "Amata". If she knows how to change the password, the Overseer must know as well. The Overseer actively tries to keep people out (and in) so it's very likely he has changed the password himself to make sure no one would enter. Thus rendering the Enclave's password records useless. The same thing most likely happened with Vault 112. Dr Braun did not want to be disturbed and he most definitely didn't want the government snooping around his vault. So he probably changed the password as well.

I think this may be different in the case of Vault 111. I think (I'm not sure of course) that everyone in that vault went into stasis after the bombs dropped. I don't think there have been people walking around that vault in the 200 years after the war while the protagonist is in stasis. Now if that is true that could mean they always intended to be rescued. They may have sealed themselves in the vault and put themselves into stasis to wait for the government to come in and wake them up when it was safe to go out. To that end they may have never changed the password, otherwise there would be no way for Vault-Tec or the government to reach them.

Thus the Enclave, freshly relocated to the East Coast, goes by every vault to look for pure-breed humans. They access Vault 111 with their password and wake up the inhabitants. If they have records of the different purpose and experimentation within each vault they could have very well given Vault 101 and Vault 111 priority, seeing as they seem to be two of the few vaults that actually tried to preserve human life. They wasted no time trying to open up Vault 101 after they became active in DC, perhaps they did the same with Vault 111. According to Todd Howard the Fallout 4 protagonist emerges from the vault 200 years after the bombs dropped, the Enclave became active in the DC area in 2077 - exactly 200 years later.

Sounds reasonable? Sounds like I'm mad? Please let me know what you think!

no doubt. it was built by the vault tec, so they know.

Consider if it is at least exactly 200 years that would put 4 at late 2277 and 3 is early 2277, and a indication suggest the east coast enclave only operates in DC, so it is very unlikely its the enclave, either they are broken and scattered, or still busy working DC.

It's not unreasonable but I can't imagine that that's the story that Bethesda would go with. However press releases have indicated that the PC is the sole survivor of the Vault, which would imply that everyone else is dead to me rather than that they all left and didn't wake him up.

Let's hope this isn't the case. There is only so many times the Enclave can be destroyed before it just gets ridiculous. It's starting to become a post apocalyptic version of whack-a-mole.

It's a staple of sci-fi and fantasy. The arch-enemy is never truly dead.

This time leave them in the tomb. I wouldn't mind hearing about their aftermath a bit but no more of them becoming some super force. There has to be cause and effect, NOT stagnation. I wouldn't mind the Enclave exploding into multiple factions after their downfall.

It really isn't in a lot of cases. Perhaps in some more obvious ones like LOTR and Star Wars, but I would never call it a staple and reason to once again lazily write up the Enclave as the antagonist for the third time already, despite being destroyed twice. Thrice in fact, including Broken Steel.

As for the OP, one important thing to take into consideration is the fact that the Enclave have been decimated on just about all fronts in the wasteland. There is no specifics as to whether Fallout 4 taking place exactly 200 years, and even if that were the case, the Enclave would have very little reason to be in Boston during the events of Fallout 3 considering their primary focus was the purifier in the Capital Wasteland. Even more so how few in numbers they were as it is, to spread so thin as to sent some kind of Enclave force to Boston makes very little sense.

Regardless of whenever Fallout 4 takes place, it's unlikely the Enclave would have any presence in Boston.

Hmm, it's viable, but I've grown tired of the Enclave myself. They've gotten their butts kicked royally twice.

Of course, there's the matter of the Enclave Power armor parts that we saw in the E3 reveal. That's gotta come from somewhere. On one hand, I'm tired of the Enclave. On the other hand, I'd feel a bit disappointed if I just...FOUND...the Enclave Power armor parts just...laying around, on corpses or whatever. Not as satisfying.

However if they were to split up into their own factions, like...Okay, the old ways are toast, we gotta make due or die, boys. Okay, that can make sense. I want to say the Enclave as we know them is dead and gone. What I want to see are ex-Enclave trying to re-adjust and re-assess their motives rather than being genocidal "mutant" killing Nazi wannabes.

One thing that always bothered me is all the Vaults we encounter that have control panels on the OUTSIDE that open up the HUGE gear door with simply the press of a button.... Not what I would call a secure installation.

I believe that they're able to keep them from opening from the inside, otherwise Vault 3 and Vault 101 would have been overrun a long time ago.

As for the others they're abandoned anyway do it's likely they just all died and the vaults are timed to unlock at some point or they simply closed the door behind them.

Guess the Enclave presence could explain that eyebot in the baseball field city

You guys do realize that just because the enclave could be in the game doesn't mean they are the antagonists. The enclave could likely have just gone to the vault in hopes of finding shelter from the B.O.S. who are likely hunting them to the last man woman and child. The enclave may even be done as a not evil faction, like the remnants in fallout new vegas. I personally would like to see a multidimensional enclave in fallout 4.

As for them being the ones to break the vault seal, yeah they could if they wanted to. Vault tec and all their experiments were pretty much part of the enclave.

It actually makes sense. It would be like having a door without a doorknob. It's likely that the vaults we find no longer have a security passcode active. It's like an unlocked door. That's why we couldn't get back into vault 101.

I'm willing to bet that the Enclave has some kind of presence in F4, but they won't be the main antagonist and probably not even a major faction. Perhaps some of them fled north after they were booted from DC, and tried to get into different vaults; maybe they got into vault 111 years before we wake up.

I wouldn't mind seeing former members of the Enclave reduced to small tribal groups struggling to survive and avoid detection by the BOS. Forced to wander, scavenge and raid in order to maintain their advanced power armor and weapons. Their travels could have brought them to Boston and the journey would have eroded them of their cultural identity leaving turning the remnants of the Enclave into the thing they hated most savage tribals. I'd prefer they be a Shadow of their former selves with no major involvement in the plot, they would however be a good way to explain to the Sole Survivor the ultimate fate of the U.S. government.

Hubris. Hubris was the ultimate fate of the U.S. Government.

This was the same in Fallout 2. Technically, had they the network id, they should have been able to login to the PC's pipboy in Fallout 2. https://youtu.be/OZxGATrB5jw?t=2m7sshows them having just called in the "all clear" to the Vault, and we see the inhabitants open the door and emerge.

We'll probably find Enclave stragglers or Ex-Enclave personnel. Maybe a few engineers or scientists who were never frontliners. They could have joined with The Institution or even the Railroad after the disbandment of The Enclave. We might even find Enclave platoons wandering the Commonwealth, unaware that they have been disbanded and ready to fire on the first thing to pop up it's head after what could be weeks or months of radio silence.
That being said, it could be an Ex-Enclave scientist working with The Institute to open Vault 111 with the government codes that he/she has to get to pure-breed humans.
In fact, I would be surprised if there were NO Ex-Enclave working with The Institute, given how scientific they were.

I just re-played Fallout 3 and I'm pretty sure Amata is the password when the old overseer was overseer. To me it sounds like they were lying and never had any passwords. They just wanted the Vaults' tech or to "re-educate" the inhabitants on "the right point of view".

The password to the Overseer's computer terminal was "Amata". It's not the same as the vault door password. In the distress message Amata sends during Trouble on the Homefront she says "I changed the password to my name" and you enter it at the door. I don't think there was a password needed to open the vault from the inside.

But yes, they could be lying. Although Gizmo made a good point that the Enclave also opened an active populated vault in the intro for Fallout 2. Which would suggest they had the means to access it or at least give the all clear and make the inhabitants open it from the inside.

Oh ok, that makes since. And I've never played fallout 2 so I wouldn't know how to argue that

I'd get a kick if Vault 111 was actually opened by Enclave remnants fleeing DC, and they killed almost everyone inside; in a really indirect way, that would make it the Lone Wanderer's fault that we lose everything.

I figure the Enclave would be popping open vaults to either raid them for supplies or a use them as a base of operations, after clearing out the original inhabitants. A cryo-stasis vault wouldn't necessarily be ideal living conditions, so maybe they'd just salvage whatever tech they could (which would end up sabotaging the stasis pods anyway) and only shoot anyone that does interfere.

Enclave or no, something seriously messed up happens inside Vault 111. That's what I'm excited about.

Maybe you get it from MIT? like, if they found one or two enclave guys on an expedition or something, kill them because the enclave guys try to do the same, and take their power armor.