Okay the oddest element of the Fallout Lore at this point that I have difficulty reconciling with the events of the game (Enclave, etc..), is what exactly Vault Tech was up to. They were doing all these wild experiments, and the US Goverment/Enclave (as per Fallout 2) apparently knew about them, but didn't seem to have much overall interest in the results of the actual experiments.

I haven't finished Fallout 3 yet (because the ending was spoiled for me, and I figured I'd wait until I'm either really bored, or the post-ending expansion comes out) so there might be some info on this before the ending, but it definatly appears that Vault Tech intended for there to be a nuclear war, and had intended to be able to somehow gather and make use of the information at some point

Also given the existance of man-portable terraforming devices I'm sort of wondering if Vault Tech somehow started the War figuring it would be worth the cost, and they could "Fix" things afterwards. Yet looking at their HQ and such it doesn't seem things exactly went according to plan.

When evaluating world events this is another point to consider, I started a seperate thread simply to see what the thoughts of others are on the subject.

The Enclave were the ones who planned these experiments. Before the War, they were the shadow group within the government, military and corporations (which included Vault-Tec and Poseidon Energy) that was actually running the country.

For more information, see:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault#True_purpose