i JUST noticed that 90% of the vaults in the CW are dead (they have no more SANE people in them, or their occupants are dead)
does anyonw know why?

The vaults were social experiments and many of them failed spectacularly. Also, it's now 200 years after the war so even those vaults that were successful opened up a long time ago.

Yep no Vault cities in washington. Sadly.

wait, they were experiments..?? so they werent meant to save anybody??

Yes and no. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vaults#Known_Vaults

Out of one hundred and twenty-two vaults only seventeen where "safe" a.k.a. control vaults. Vault 101 wasn't one either. That was to see how vault residents reacted to an Overseer with absolute power

Edit: Typos

Yes, the vaults were experiments run by the Enclave.

I love Fallout 3 and the whole Fallout franchise.

However, I thought the whole "The vaults weren't meant to save anybody" bit was poorly thought out.

Of course they were meant to save SOMEBODY! Why would you invest that many millions of dollars just to drive people nuts? Its an experiment? That is like saying "My brother shot himself in the head as an experiment."

Really? What did he learn? How will he be using this data in the future? Have the worms learned from his example?

If the Vaults were an experiment, what did it prove, considering the event they were built to prepare for has already occurred?

I could believe there was one or two test vaults, populated with volunteers ahead of the war in an experiment to see how people would deal with it. Then the war actually kicked off and the test subjects never knew because they had been isolated all the time. This is believable.

But all of them? To what end considering the conductors of the test are dead and there is no need for Vaults now that the war is over and the world is already radiated.
It was the Enclave that did it, right? Great. So, now I suppose they are planning on using this data to build super vaults for a war that will never occur with weapons that no longer exist between nations that are already destroyed.

No. This was a poor attempt at dark irony that only works if you don't think about it at all and follow Penny Arcade's comic strips as Canon history.

The Vaults failed due to shoddy workmanship. I can believe that.

They were poorly built because of corrupt contractors who figured no war was coming so why not line their pockets? Very believable.

Maybe the whole concept was flawed from the beginning, its faults proven tragically by the very war they were built for.

But a Social Experiment executed on the unknowing by the long dead for the amusemant of ghosts and mutants?

Sorry, I just don't buy it.

To me, this is like saying the Life Boats on the Titanic were not meant to save anybody, they were just an experiment by the White Star Shipping line. No they were meant to save people, they were just poorly appointed and utilized. Not evil in motion, just incompetence tragically demonstrated at the cost of others' lives.

The vault inhabitants would survive, and each vault would end up differently, the best expiriment result will win, and rehabitat the lands.
Altough weird, they probably didnt know what to expect, do went for every possible setup for later after the war to let the best 'win'. There was noone planned to see the results, since 'they' are all vaporised in the war.
See it as a little shot in the dark.

Johan

If Black Isle had been able to finish Van Buren we would have found out what the point of the Vaults where. But it is Canon that they are social experiments

Didn't the Secret Vault in Los existing to monitor the whole thing, but the Secret Vault failed because it was also using FEV on animals which turned on it?

I know it's from Brotherhood of Steel, but we have to assume Vault-Tec had some plan for keeping things under control.

Fallout: BoS is non-canon. Devs (Black Isle/Interplay) said it themselves

First of all, its ENTIRELY believable, based on 1950's politics and the known attitude of the US government at that time, that they would recoup their investment in the vaults by conducting military research projects on the CAPTIVE POPULATION of those vaults.

In several of the vaults you can find allusions to 'control groups'. In order for there to be a control group, there must also be an experimental group as well as a controller staff. A group 'in the know', a 'placebo group', and a 'live test group'.

Based on this, it's reasonble to infer that Vault Tek, the US Government, and Dr. Braun and his ilk believed wholeheartedly that they would ride out the nuclear storm and emerge a short time later to reap the benefits of all that research.

To drive this 'short term experiment' point home, notice that the longest written down period of remaining closed for any of the D.C. vaults was just shy of 150 MONTHS...not years...MONTHS. The vault was to open after that period...don't recall which vault though.

It is safe to say that the Government, combined with the elite of Vault Tek planned to emerge from their own bunkers, and begin to gather the data and, hopefully, the primed and ready military resources resulting from this enforced research....one vault would provide killers trained to go berserk when exposed to a specific frequency of white noise...another vault would provide the formula for an airborne neuro-toxin that incites mass hysteria, hallucinations and violence in those exposed...another vault would provide almost unstoppable mutated super soldiers modified by the F.E.V. Yet another vault would provide the technology needed to help rapidly replace the decimated forces of the US military, as well as provide an unlimited number of colonists for repopulating the country, all 'bred' from a single genome that had been mapped out and picked for its reliability (Gaaaaaaarrrrryyyyy)....in other words..CLONES.

Other vaults, such as Vault 101 were more in the way of social and psychological experiments meant to delve into interpersonal relations, and to provide a possible uncontaminated source of human genetic material.

Von Braun, being a bit of a renegade, had authority to order 'his' vault any way he saw fit. He most likely proposed that immersing himself and his subordinates in a virtual reality simulation would carry them sanely through the crisis, and probably added that 'virtual' research, based on physical world rules, would be nearly as valid as actual real world research...all of which we know from encountering him would have been lies, but Von Braun, being 'der Wunderkind' of Vault Tek and the darling of the government, would have been believed. In truth, Braun never really intended to leave his new 'perfect world', and only allowed the other scientists 'along for the ride' so he could have people of at least rudimentary intellect (compared to his) to torment and play God with.

NOWHERE in Fallout 3 does any hard-copy documentation (tapes/computer records) give the impression that the vaults were EVER intended to remain shut for 200 years.

P.S. the 'canon' impression of the US government of the fallout 3 world is largely based, in my opinion, on the 'big brother' image from the novel 1984.

Everyone seems to forget that The Enclave had set themselves up on the The Poseidon Energy Oil Rig were they monitored all the Vaults in their experiment. They wanted the Info from the vaults for their top secret plans. Some say they wanted it for the plan to leave Earth. I don't see any evidence of that. At best they wanted it so they could use it to figure out how to rebuild America in some way. Fighting the Chines or anyone else after the Great war is highly unlikely. China was bombed back to the stone age. They were getting their butts kicked before the Great war. The Enclave was not the government but an important part of it.
If you include Vault Zero in the Fallout Universe and I do the rest of the USA government and alot of smart people was sent to Vault Zero a Master Vault that was also ment to keep in contact with the other vaults and bunkers all over America. Vault Zero also had a Army Of Robots to help rebuild America and kill any Mutations, Raider or enemy solders.
There were Bunkers not just vaults. The people that formed the First Brotherhood came from a Military Bunker.
The USA government and the Enclave knew they could only save a very small part of the USA Population. That is Why they came up with the G.E.C.K. and the Vault Experiments. I think in DC there would have been a G.E.C.K somewhere.
I also would think that during the paranoid times before the Great War every home and every building in America would have had their own Fallout shelter. In the 1950's to the end of the Cold War Alot of people and Goverment buildings had built Fallout Shelters all over America, it was a big thing.

As for the FEV the USA gave up on that because it failed. It was for Making people stronger and immune to Chemical and Bio weapons. It failed! They got Super Mutants and that was not at all what they wanted. When Power Armour came out they went with that insted. They gave up on making an army of super mutant freaks because that was going to far. They now had power armour that does what the FEV was supposed to do.The Enclave Hate Mutants why would they want an army of them?

Actully the U.S gov used the FEV to create Deathclaws which they were going to ship over to china to fight them instead of spending more on getting men and power armour over thier. Remeber the U.S did reach China before the bombs hit. They were stuck through and so they needed help. The deathclaws would of been their answer.

There is a difference between Deathclaws and Supermutants, the people of America would not except that. Please see the founding of the Brotherhood of steel on wiki. All the people working on FEV we killed by the people that would later become the brotherhood.

All the people that is before bethesda came up with the East coast new FEV for F3. Don't get me started on that.

Because they were sick experiments by Vault-Tec and the Enclave to see how long-term closed loop survival could fall apart under many circumstances. Luckily 10% of the vaults were controls, so there could be actually be survivors. Read the Fallout wiki, they're great for speculation and actual game canon.

Playing the games also help alot.