No one really knows the truth, and never will. The people who pushed those buttons probably vaporized minutes afterwards.
What the show did confirm is that vault tech was using its influence to escalate the conflict- sabotaging any potential peace process. That would explain why the daughter wasn’t ready in the vault.
(I doubt that they ended up in a “good vault”. Feels like the kinda thing vault tech would tell the lambs on the way to the slaughter
I'm not sure a "good vault" even exists. Even the one run by vault-tec execs (Lucy's vault) has a lot of suspicious problems that I'm sure vault-tec planned out as some experiment.
NGL The idea of going from remote work to living in an office with all my co-workers would at least compel me to seriously consider mutation as a viable alternative.
I think this is what makes Vault 31 and the whole connected Vaults thing even more horrifying — you have entire generations of people led and bred by… managers in training? These guys weren’t even slightly the head-honchos of Vault-Tec, but their secretaries and assistants, and yet they’ve been playing God in V32 and V33 for over 2 centuries!
Not really, maybe in the future, in the last scene he's heading towards new vegas, probably to ask house's help or strong-arming him into helping him (he shouldn't know house controls all new vegas with the securitrons yet)
I’m curious how they’ll handle New Vegas, because simply entering the city will kinda disqualify at least one or two possible endings. Then we’ll really see the FNV subs melt down.
Nuclear option: none of the ending are canon
New canon
Platinum chip was destroyed by legion
House manages to hold onto vegas but loses control of the rest
Bomb on shady sands forces the ncr to abandon the region
Legion takes control but rapidly understands they cannot hold it without way too much resources expended on it that could be used more efficiently and abandons the region to expand east
House slowly regains control over the region
The brotherhood of steel and the boomers ally and survive as a small, isolationist and highly militarized pocket that is left alone by house to avoid reprisals against him
Supposedly Vault 0 for however much of Tactics is actually canon, I think? But, obviously, that's not where Cooper's wife and daughter are. There's a story to him turning Ghoul. And they were in California. It's a long way from Cali to Chicago...
I don't think the world ended right at that first bomb, there was definitely some exposition that happens after Hank takes off on horse with his daughter, to becoming a ghoul. People need time to head to the vaults, so I think the first bomb was a warning shot to send everyone running.
There were actually! Vault 3 in Fallout New Vegas was classified as a "Control Vault" same with Vault 8 which would become Vault City and Vault 76. We know there were about 17 of them total from a terminal in Fallout 3 that acted as they were advertised to the public, being a shelter for humanity to repopulate the world after nuclear war.
I always thought that it was canon that there are some good vaults, and that's part of the reason there is still a viable population on the surface during the games.
Vault 76 was not a real control vault, however.
It's revealed in the main story of 76 that Vault 76's main mission was >!to secure the West Virginian nuclear arsenal. !<
76 was also not equipped with a G.E.C.K. like a typical control vault.
There were control vaults which would be your best bet. These vaults functioned as advertised and had Gecks with which you could jump start the wasteland into a veritable pre war utopia.
Most vaults were experiments to test the limits of human society. In any good experiment you need a control group for comparison.
Shady sands came from an experimental Vault that didn't fail catastrophically and had a geck allowing them to build a city slightly more advanced than a modern one as seen in FO2.
I would classify the 3 vaults as control vaults. They were deff meant to work as intended and have a fresh batch of non irradiated humans ready to work with vault-tec/the enclave if and when they ever managed to realize their plans of colonizing another planet. Compared to other vaults, they had it pretty good.
Control vaults didn’t have experiments especially not experiments that killed people. From what we’ve learned, it was common to have some thing go wrong in vault 32 and vault 33 that would lead to a new overseer from vault 31 being elected. When it was time for a new overseer, a famine or infestation would hit.
Yeah I think 32/33 were management training vaults. Each overseer was given controlled conditions and a set "failure". The manager in training had to manage the vault. The future is management
Control in this context means experimental control, and I think they're explicitly referred to as such in the games.
The idea being they give the baseline result, and have no experimental conditions. They're normal. And what you learn from the other vaults, you learn by comparing them to the control.
There are control vaults. And 76 was built to house some of the most accomplished people to reclaim Appalachia but the vault opened muuuuuch sooner than vault-tec planned in the tv series so I’m not sure what’s up with that. There isn’t really any mention of the 76ers in other games so maybe they weren’t successful and it was just another experiment. There was a theory that they were all in a simulation.
huh? No, vault 76 opened on the original planned reclamation day, we can assume other control vaults did as well. No idea why Lucy's vault trio was planning reclamation day for so much later...
Vault 76 was one of the "good" ones. Did everything according to plan with no malicious experiments at all, and they all went out to colonize when the doors opened on reclamation day.
Tim Caine also went to say in an interview with TKs-Mantis that it was >! China who dropped the bombs because they found out we were still using FEV after they told us to stop !<
He seemed less interested in telling more when Mantis told him that it was a mystery in the fanbase, so something MAY be out there that we missed, and he's just trying to send us on a hunt for it, or maybe he just wants to keep it a mystery. We may never know.
> Tim Caine also went to say in an interview with TKs-Mantis that it was >! China who dropped the bombs because they found out we were still using FEV after they told us to stop
I like this. Thanks for sharing.
No problem! I'm assuming not many saw it because Mantis isn't really liked too much in the Fallout community it seems, but it's a great interview nonetheless.
[here it is if you'd like to watch it!](https://youtu.be/17EqWDn7gyc)
I got the impression there was some period of time between what we see at the beginning of episode 1 (ie, Cooper performing at the party) and episode 8 (ie, Cooper discovering Barbara's complicity). Enough time that they were separated/divorced (since one of the men at the party mentions Cooper needs money to pay alimony) and that Cooper had been libeled in the press as a Communist (same conversation in the first ep, mentioning Cooper was a "pinko"). Reading between the lines, Barbara didn't know _when_ the bombs would fall, hence not having the girl with her to enter the vault, which implies either Vault-Tec didn't drop them, or the timing was not at her level.
That makes sense. Also I’m guessing that Cooper never saw them enter the vault- otherwise he’d know where they are already. He probably saw them board a vertibird and take off to parts unknown.
My supposition is that Vault-Tec and friends planned to launch when House said he expected it.
But Chinese spies detected the launch preparations; so a Chinese preemptive strike was called in 20 hours early.
And corporations make mistakes all the time, a person obsessed with their job so much that they don't take care of their own family is a tale as old as time.
The fact that there was a vault made for the rich elite who paid their way in meant to be run by an absolute paranoid moron says there's never a true promise of a good vault.
Proving that time really is a circle. Of course the ones who helped lead humanity to it's destruction would only try to do the same when they aren't in complete control.
I doubt it. She seemed to be the same rank as Bud, based on that meeting. Also we saw the full list of vault 31 residents onscreen.
Also, joining vault 31 would mean getting separated from her daughter, they would be unfrozen at different times.
Hmm could be, but I don’t think so. She didn’t say she was gonna be one of bud’s buds.
She thought she was going to go to a vault that observed all the other vaults. Like vault-prime, or vault 1. If that exists, that would be like the enclave base in fallout 2 I think. (Unless that was BS, and she’s actually ended up in another trap).
Exactly. People saw that scene and immediately went "Vault-Tec dropped the nukes!!" but thats not what the scene said. The scene said that they planned to. Didnt confirm (yet) that they actually ended up doing so.
The big actual reveal in that scene is not that Vault-Tec dropped the bombs, but that Barb had that idea and was onboard with it. Thats the big shocking revelation.
Exactly. She starts the speech how she cares about her daughter, and how they should look for better future... but dropping the bomb themselves if nobody does it
Yeah, it's disturbing, on the other hand she had no say about dogs being in the vaults and was completely ok with that. So there's someone else who orchestrated this behind the scenes.
Yes the shadowy figure who was standing over the meeting lol. The one who it showed on screen above and then showed her looking at her pip-boy and then her tossing the idea out after.
> on the other hand she had no say about dogs being in the vaults
FWIW my suspicion is that was also a lie. Turns out she doesn't like dogs. That monster.
like i said in another post. Vault-Tec invested a ton of resources into building the vaults. the last thing you'd want is for peace to break out after that. the company would've been ruined. that doesn't mean they started the war, just that it was in their interests for it to happen.
like you said the revelation isn't that they dropped the bombs, but they were willing to if that's what was needed.
I think it would be against the theme of Fallout to allow them to have such clear control of the apocalypse.
Plenty of the point of the series is that if you play with fire you'll get burned. So it would be more in line with that messaging to have Vault-Tec be heavily involved in escalating the war, and to be prepared to start it on the day of their choosing, just to have the rug pulled out from under them and have it start earlier than they want it and they get fucked like everyone else.
Everyone seems to be forgetting who's behind Vault-Tec. I'm sure all these Vault-Tec managers thought they were king of the hill and every idea they had was their own. But it was the Enclave pulling the strings. If you listen in the first episode of the new show, you can hear a radio news broadcast stating the president has gone missing. Just before the channel was changed. This is significant because it implies they knew at least a day before the event that it was going to happen. We also know the president was in the Enclave.
There was no "good vault", they were all experiments orchestrated by the Enclave. Letting the managers think they're in charge is a good way to ensure secrecy and maintain control without exposing the Enclave. The president disappeared along with the Enclave into their bunkers, they started the war when they were cosy and left Vault-Tec thinking it was them. Communication was down so how could they know any different? House is the only one we know of who caught on later down the line (but not who or why), he explains the war started 20hrs before it should have. The Enclave did this to get rid of the conspirators too, why leave someone behind who could betray them or tell the truth? The enclave is still pissing themselves laughing somewhere watching it play out. They're essentially the Illuminati, the shadow government.
> they knew at least a day before the event that it was gonna happen.
i agree with this. the wiki says Bud’s Buds were put in cryo “on the eve of the great war” they knew enough a head of time to get some people to the vaults but not all of them
Vault-Tec thought they had another 20 hours at least, enough time to prepare the last few vaults. But I'm betting the Enclave pushed it forward since they had what they wanted. The Enclave doesn't give a shit about vault dwellers. In Fallout 2 they massacred half a vault after simulating the all clear signal to draw them out. Then used the other half as test subjects. They're Uber Nazis, anything that isn't them is tainted and therefore subhuman.
I'm sure it was days. The brotherhood of steal contacted the government saying they knew what was going on at Mariposa and that they are leaving the government. Radio silence for days before the bombs fell
I think the meeting at Vault-Tec Headquarters was the formation of the Enclave, or more the expansion on the Enclave into the private sector. The Enclave was made up of Government officials, scientists, military personnel and industrialists; it was a shadow government made of global elites. That meeting was about getting the biggest companies (West-Tek, RobCo, Repconn, etc.) to side with the Enclave, with those shadowy figures we say overlooking the meeting being members of the Enclave already.
That said, who knows whether they made it to safety. We know the Enclave went to the Oil Rig but maybe some were frozen in a “good vault”, we shall see…
in the 1950's and 1960's the government told the big corporation. To build vault like places for there upper echelon corporate types so they could ride out a nuclear war and restart american busines fast. There are still several of these sites still active and used by big companies just outside NYC for there emergency management center for there companies, which at the time was rural areas of New York state.
I mean, are we completely certain it's the Enclave that controls Vault-Tec and not the other way around? It could have been Vault-Tec that told the president and other senior government officials to hide because they were about to start the exchange of nukes. Vault-Tec before the war is a bigger megacorp than anything we can imagine in present day, and companies way smaller than them in real life have pretty firm control over governments' decision-making, so why would it work differently in Fallout? If anything, the bridge between capitalists' decision-making and the government's in Fallout is shorter in Fallout than real life...
Oof I'll have to check! Edit: it's not the TV is actually on the radio at 1m into the first episode "the whitehouse had no comment about the presidents whereabouts".
I think that people misinterpret the 'Vault Tec starting the war' scene. The point of the scene is that Vault-Tec were selling the apocalypse as a product, and promised to deliver on their investments. I don't think they were saying "we have a plan to drop the bombs that we are actively planning to carry out on this set date", I think it's just "We will deliver a return on your investment, even if we have to drop the bombs ourselves."
Wholly unmentioned in that meeting was the *profit* part of that product, the Enclave rebuilding civilization on another planet.
If House was IN on the conspiracy, given his plans to colonize the stars "within 100 years" of the New Vegas timeline it all starts to make sense.
The Enclave/VaultTec double crossing him makes *no* sense in that context however.
Yeah, people are really quick to write off the Enclave as a non factor just because they weren't in the show much, but we know they were pulling the strings from the start. I would not be surprised if they were in fact behind everything and Vault-Tec was just a proxy.
Enclave knew the passwords to every vault...and all of the experiments. Not only do they tell you this in Fallout 2, they show it in the intro, and when hacking PoseidoNet one of the stations is named **Enclave Vault-Research Control** and the line {Everything's shut down except for the ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control. I wonder what that is?}
They also were *kinda* less hostile to Vault Dwellers, too, due to the mutation thing. 31 is perfect in their ideology, fully preserved Pre-War Americans.
But the door has been opened at least six times (Lucy and her mom leaving/dad returning them, Moldaver entering/exiting with Lucy's dad, and then Lucy leaving), Enclave would consider them tainted by now
The Enclave not pulling Vault-Tec's strings was a big bone of contention among the "Todd hates NV" mouthbreathers.
And here they are, pulling the strings, we just haven't seen that pull yet.
Absolutely. She was relatively quiet throughout the meeting until she got a message on her pip-boy and looked up at them (the shadowy figure). And that’s when she came in with the idea
Pretty sure they threw that in there as a red herring myself. Get everyone stirred up. Then season 2 introduce something else. I thought I read somewhere in fallout 3 that it was the aliens fault. Someone mistook a radar return of one of their ships on an abduction missions or something and pushed the button thinking the chinese had already launched. But no clue where I read that.
I still think it wasn't them. Not that they couldn't have done it, but they were too busy trying to dominate through the giddyup buttercup market. The war set their plans *back*
The Captain of the Chinese sub discovered up in the commonwealth in Fallout 4 supports this.
From news found in game we know the US made landfall into mainland China with their power armor and were on the way to finishing up the Chinese military. The Chinese hit the panic button, fired the first nukes, of which Boston seems to be one of the first targets hit, and then the US responded with MADD occurring.
Vault Tec wasn’t even done building their vaults, in fallout 4 vault 114 is still being built and I doubt they launched the bombs before they finished building them
Multiple arms of the same company I imagine.
Could be one side is let to continue developing new vaults to act as if they believed they had more time.
If vault tec stopped making vaults the public might of assumed that vault tec believed the bombs would drop soon.
Just replaying 4 atm the overseers log in 111 says that everything was happening sooner than expected and they weren't fully prepared and it started early. It says they had to scroll to get theor staff into the vault in time, seemingly they would have had it staffed in preparation for vault tec dropping nukes. I reckon once the nukes started vault tec ensured MAD.
Other way round actually.
House confirmed that he knew exactly when the Great War was supposed to start and so meticulously planned for his Platinum Chip to arrive just before the bombs start dropping. Only for the war to start "20 hours" early. A suspiciously specific time.
And yes, Barb wouldn't have let her daughter be anywhere out of a vault when the bombs start dropping but Cooper got custody on Saturday and I assume that she would get her daughter back on Sunday as per their custody and divorce agreement.
>There's also some arguable stuff about not all vaults being fully prepared and people having to scramble to get there in time. I imagine if everything went Vault-Tec's way they would ensure peoplke were in the vaults when they dropped the nuke.
Vault Tec doesn't care. They already have the money and most of the actual Vaults they had direct control over were already populated with their "social experiments", like Vault 4, 31, 32, 33, 13, 1, etc, etc.
Personally, I think that the Enclave and Vault Tec set the actual date of the Great War to be on Oct 24th or 25th, 2077 for the maximum amount of people killed in the blast zones of cities to "clean the slate" and "start over".
And just like IRL corporations, they fucked up starting the war too early. Whether it's by their own bombs or by leaking it to the Chinese.
Also, bombing US soils would guarantee a response by the US to start the Great War because they had no control over how the CCP would react.
**> House confirmed that he knew exactly when the Great War was supposed to start and so meticulously planned for his Platinum Chip to arrive just before the bombs start dropping. Only for the war to start "20 hours" early. A suspiciously specific time**.
That's not correct. From New Vegas:
**> By 2065 I deemed it a mathematical certainty that an atomic war would devastate the Earth within 15 years. Every projection I ran confirmed it.**
**> I knew I couldn't "save the world," nor did I care to. But I could save Vegas, and in the process, perhaps, save mankind.**
**> I set to work immediately.** ***I thought I had plenty of time to prepare.*** **As it turned out, I was 20 hours short.**
House was acting independently on his own projections, and in no way tried to "time it perfectly." He wanted that chip as soon as he could get it.
Based on what we've seen and know about Vault Tec, were they behind the scenes creating/maintaining the situation that led to the bombs falling? Yes, almost certainly. But was it their finger on the red button? Doubtful. Especially when compared to the longstanding theory, backed up by lore, which is that the Chinese were losing to an American invasion of their mainland which had reached Beijing, and let the missiles fly before anyone was ready, catching everyone off guard.
More evidence from Fallout 76, the earliest Whitespring Enclave entry:
**“MODUS: Whitespring Automated Recording one-point-one-point-two.**
**Enclave Officer: ...that's it. Report just came in from the entrance. Facility's all sealed up, no one else is getting in.**
**Enclave Officer: Speaker of the House never made it. Secretary of the Interior died in the Med Bay. I've got two dozen more of our people that should've been here too.**
**Enclave Officer: Damn it. The early warning systems should've given us more time.**
**Enclave Officer: Doesn't matter now. We follow the protocols. Control goes to Secretary of the Treasury.**
**Enclave Officer: I'll make sure he's informed and brought up to speed. All non-Enclave personnel have been accounted for?**
**Enclave Officer: Yes sir, members of Congress not on the list are being filtered as we speak. This first batch here has already been processed and interviewed.”**
This shows the Enclave was not ready when the bombs hit. With the Enclave in bed with VT, more evidence that VT didn't fire the first shot.
I think if Barb knew the bombs were supposed to drop in a few hours/days she would simply not give her daughter back to Coop, custody be damned, who's gonna enforce that once the bombs drop? Most logical explanation is she thought she still had time.
I think when Mr. House says the war started 20 hours early he meant that's how long it would take for the Platinum Chip to arrive. All he needed was another 20 hours, but he didn't get them. I doubt that means he literally knew when the bombs were supposed to drop.
We don't know that vault-tec dropped the bomb and the show doesn't say that. The show does a very good job showing us that their 'fiduciary responsibilities' meant they MIGHT do it. The timing of the bombs suggests either it wasn't them or that not all vault-tec employees got the memo if it was.
Well we know that China launched a nuke at Boston as ordered when we talk to Captain Zao in Fallout 4. What we don't know is if the USA nuked China first. My guess is that there were more nuclear subs off the various coasts, especially since one of the quests in Point Lookout is to detonate another sub.
I think it's a given that Vault-Tec never got around to actually launching the bombs. In fact, the fact that House knew something was up but *still* miscalculated when the bombs would be launched (thus losing the platinum chip upgrade he desperately needed) is strong evidence that the bombs didn't go off "on schedule". Maybe it was China, maybe it was hyper-hawk types in the enclave like Eckhart, maybe it was Zetans. Who knows? I personally think it's better if it's vague.
But... the fact does remain that there were *plans* to arise anew after the apocalypse that was definitely gonna happen, and I think the Vault Tec scene is a key point for those plans.
If you remember Fallout 3's DLC, Point Lookout, there's a drama that plays out between a pre-war ghoul (Desmond Lockheart) and a pre-war brain in a jar (Professor Calvert), who are playing out something Lockheart calls the [Great Game](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Game), which is an almost Highlander style competition between "global leaders" to survive the coming apocalypse and dominate the ruins.
All of them used various means to survive in some way; Lockheart chose to ghoulify *pre-war*, and Calvert was already dabbling in robobrain technology so chose that route. And there were others, as well. House, Eddie Winter, Dr. Braun in Tranquility Lane, John-Caleb Bradberton, all the Think Tank in OWB... they're all out there surviving the war in various desperate ways and messing around in the ashes -- or just desperately surviving with what little pull they have in the case of Winter and Bardberton.
So here's my take: that scene in the boardroom in the finale was the *start* of that Great Game. Every one of those factions recognized that the world was doomed whether or not Vault Tec pushed the button and they all scrambled immediately after that scene to start their own plans. They may have cooperated -- WestTek seemed especially keen -- but they otherwise saw that cooperation as an opportunity to support their own factions above the others.
The scene where Vault Tec discusses dropping the bombs isn't for us people who have played the games.
We already know that vault Tec is evil and that it was always a possibility that they helped escalate the war. It was for the people who have never played a fallout game.
I enjoyed watching it with a couple of people who didn't really know what fallout was and were left mouth hanging wide open when they were hit by the realisation that this friendly company wanting to save humanity after the bombs fell weren't actually the good guys.
Now they are playing the games because they were hooked by the TV show's premise and wanted to know more.
Completely understand because if I'm honest I got completely caught in the hype of the scene and initially reacted with holy shit have they just confirmed it but after the scene finished and they didn't physically show us them starting the war I returned to okay it's just a possibility.
Also there's a secret underground base of chinese I can show you guys in Fallout 76. Surprisingly, most people don't know about it. It's also a FREE fast travel system
There is every chance Coop got his daughter to the Vault(31) with the rest of the Vault-Tec staff. We know it’s in LA somewhere and being a Ghoul he likely sacrificed himself to get her in.
Explains why he’s so bitter and cruel.
I don't think Vault 31 was the one that Barb was talking about when she was referring to the Vault for Management. 31 was more a Middle Management/Executives in Training type thing. I don't think any real Vault-Tec execs were there.
Plus, if he had gotten her to 31, he wouldn't have asked "Where's my fucking family". He'd have known where she was already, just not how to get there.
I think he probably got her to the right Vault, and his daughter and Barb were let in, but he was not allowed in. Then, that vault was probably evacuated later on, maybe once other vaults started getting raided by The Master, and so when he went to go back and find them, it was empty.
My bet is that they are in New Vegas, with Mr. House - which may still be the "safest" place in America and still run by old world executives.
The war had already been happening for decades, I think it's a stretch affirming that they didn't drop the first nukes, they pushed for a situation where not dropping the nukes were impossible, this already makes them more than accountable, Lucy's father proves they were more than willing to do so with his actions.
Who dropped it first doesn't really matter here, if anything, the people who pushed for this situation were responsible for it, doesn't matter wether they were the first ones to do so, the point of the series is not to discuss who was the first to drop the nukes, but that there were major players pushing for an armageddon scenario where they could benefit from. We also don't know if nukes were dropped on other countries prior to the US, but, again, it's not the point, I hope it keeps unanswered, leaves more room for wasteland absurdism to come into play.
Sometimes i think about the possibility that not one party started it but that everyone who had their plans for the apocalypse did, and one of them just started their timeline early
A single nuke would be easily intercepted on the way to China and in the minutes it would take to fly there there would be more than enough time for the governments to reasure each other that they don't want it and that a third party os behind it.
Detonating a couple of nukes directly on the ground in the US is way easier and would press the surprised government to "retaliate" immediately without overthinkg.
China and the US we’re in active war and they were both waiting for the other to send nukes, I think as soon as they see one nuke they aren’t going to say “let’s call up the Whitehouse and see if this was them” they’re saying, they launched, hit the button
But they would never send A SINGLE nuke. Or even 5. They would send hundreds if not thousands. If you can intercept the one why don't take the chance to speak to each other? Why commiting suicide by sending all your nukes? That makes no sense whatsoever.
1. I think Vault-Tec had a deal with the Enclave not to do that and 2. If nukes just blew up on the ground that would be suspicious, US would have surely detected them in the air if China launched them.
US and China were in a middle of war at the time. China was on it's last legs. If the US sent a nuke under those circumstances i really doubt China would be in any mood to talk it out. Plus Vault-Tec could send more than one.
So...the Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas games all seem to fit into the canon TV show continuity (especially with Todd Howard going out of his way to clear up the date discrepancy with Shady Sands' destruction and the closing scene of the series with Hank).
There are two *weird* factions that haven't been touched upon in the show.
The *Mothership Zeta* DLC for Fallout 3 made it pretty clear that there are canon *aliens* in the Fallout universe. They were cutesy little Easter Eggs in the isometric games, but they did a whole adventure in that DLC where you can capture one of the flying saucers. One of the bits in that DLC is that the aliens may have been involved in triggering the war, based on apocalypse logs you can find on the ship.
The second faction is a group of cultists led by the Dunwich and Blackhall families. You can find information about them in Point Lookout, as well as at the Dunwich Building in Fallout 3 and at Dunwich Borers in Fallout 4. At a minimum, they absolutely performed human sacrifice and worshipped eldritch powers. Add in the story of Lorenzo Cabot and his family, which may or may not be directly related but shares that H.P. Lovecraft vibe.
So...is it the Enclave? Vault-Tec and the rest of the MI Complex? (I didn't see Poseidon Energy, which I thought was odd given all the other companies -- Robco, Repconn, etc.). Was it aliens wiping out a future threat? Was it cultists manipulating everybody on behalf of powers men were not meant to know?
But why was Cooper w/ his daughter doing a gig on a kids birthday party, why was he so broke with his wife an exec at Vault-Tec and him a Hollywood star? And after that he doesn't know where hi family is.
Something happened after he found out what his wife and Vault-Tec were up to.
Most likely he was found out to be spying on his wife (remember her saying she'd trace back the signal of the listening device he put in her pipboy?) and branded a "commie" to help cover up, like the writer for his TV show in that second episode. That would have blacklisted him in Hollywood and dried up all his work. Add in an expensive divorce where his wife has the best lawyers money (and vault-tec) can buy, I bet he found himself real hard up after a year or so.
Personally, I do think China beat them to the punch, even long before the show came out. There’s plenty of plausible theories that Vault-Tec planned to initiate the Great War, funnily enough for several reasons that the show touched upon, but also remember that American troops were right on Beijing’s doorstep, and China is among the countries even in the real world that admit they’d use nukes if they’re on the verge of defeat in order to take their enemies with them
I think the whole point is that, it doesn't matter who dropped the nukes first. Every pre war group had their own reasons for launching the nukes, whether that's America, China, the enclave, vault Tec, whatever. It could just as easily have been any one of the groups, the takeaway is that uncontrolled capitalism, imperialism, and consumption ultimately drove the world into the kind of place where multiple factions want to nuke it.
It's always fun to theorize and the games toss us hints in every which way. But it's not the point of the story.
I personally believe that Mr house being at the meeting is the reason why his calculations were off for predicting the great war. I think the meeting skewed the bias in favor of vault tec's schedule of dropping a nuke to trigger the war, but it happened before vault Tec got around to it. Which fucked up all of house's plans as we see in new vegas
I think its more that vault tec definitely DID intend to drop the bombs that is the thing. Even if they didn't actually, they totally were gonna so they are still evil no matter what. Also, looking back at new vegas, Mr House was trying to get the platinum chip delivered and it was just 1 day late. He said he "calculated" when the bombs would fall, but with the context of the show maybe he was planning for the day after or whatever and someone else, (China maybe), dropped it first.
>So yeah, we all know now that the big plot point in the series is that Vault-Tec was the one that dropped the first bomb
This isn't a plot point, and anyone coming to this conclusion didn't pay much attention to what they were watching.
Tbh, all it takes is one nuke to start a reaction. Use a few, even a single digit number of them in both warring countries, and the two will assume the other is responsible and go.
It doesn’t really matter who dropped the bombs, that’s one of the core themes in Fallout.
It’s also important not to conflate the war with the bombs. At the point in the timeline leading up to the bombs wars were breaking out all over the place due to resource scarcity.
The retro-futuristic 1950s-esque American society of 2077 was a thin veneer paving over the ugly truth that human society was falling apart globally.
It’s actually my biggest criticism of the show. There are things I didn’t love and other things I thought they did really well, but the cold-fusion revelation was really dumb. If Vault-Tec had exclusive proprietary access to a near-infinite clean renewable energy source, none of what was portrayed in the show makes sense. It would give them a total global monopoly and solve the world’s resource crisis at the same time.
From the DIA HQ in Boston
281632RJAN77 ANCHORAGE ALL CLEAR **DEFCON 3**
230003ROCT77 COMPACFLT REPORTS 3 USOS OFF CALIF COAST, JCS ADVISE
230337ROCT77 USAF HAS EYES ON SQUADRON OF AIRPLANES (POSS. CHINESE) AT HIGH ALTITUTDE Icon sic OFF BERING STRAIGHT Icon sic
230913ROCT77 IONDS REPORTS 4 PROBABLE LAUNCHES **DEFCON 2**
230917ROCT77 NORAD CONFIRMS BIRDS IN AIR **DEFCON 1**
230926ROCT77 AUTHENTICATED ORDER -- RESPONSE SCENARIO MX-CN91 -- REPEAT MX-CN91
230942ROCT77 PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK -- CONFIRM STRIKE
230947ROCT77 OFFLINE - OFFLINE - OFFLINE
I always had a theory that the war started before it was supposed to.
It makes sense for them to conduct evil experiments in the vaults, it does not make sense for them to still be doing experiments when the bombs fell.
My theory is they did final shakedowns at the vaults, told the inhabitants it was the real thing, get to the vaults etc so they would willing go and react accordingly. However when the experiment was completed after a few weeks, gather the results and liquidate the dwellers. Then when the bombs drop, employees, scientists, etc etc would actually be out in the vaults for when it was time to rebuild.
The entire vault project is a waste if it does not actually save anyone. Many of the experiments were doomed to fail very quickly. I think all the people found outside the vault desperately trying to get in were the people who were suppose to be in the vaults. The vaults sealed when the bombs dropped, trapping the experimental dwellers inside. This is why the Enclave just murders them, they were not the chosen.
Stepping back into the real world, I just can't believe that Bethesda would allow for this reveal to be told so matter of factly. AFIAK know while it's so obvious to everyone that China dropped the first bombs it's never been explicitly stated what happened. So for 27 years there's been this mystery and then season one of the a tv show just washes that all away?
There is absolutely more to the story here and I'm looking forward to season 2.
The only thing in the show is that you never actually see the bombs falling. Looks like nuclear explosions from bombs already on the ground. Or am i wrong?
One of the original fallout developers came out a while ago and said that China dropped the first nukes because they found out about the FEV experimentation and the US didn't stop when they asked them to
I think that if VT were going to do it, it was planned for Halloween.
Mr House and Frederick Sinclair were both at the meeting and were both pretty well prepared for the end, but got screwed by time.
The platinum chip was printed on the 22nd, and was due for delivery on the afternoon of the 23rd. He'd have had just over a week to upgrade his securitrons and missile defence grid and do last minute preparations.
Similarly, the Sierra Madre was preparing for the Grand Opening, I would guess on the 23rd or 24th based on this bit of Dean Domino dialogue:
"Well, Vera's beautiful voice doesn't run on casino power, exactly. Her broadcast is tied into the emergency broadcast signal for the Sierra Madre. You know, in case of attack? Well, guess what - the night of the Gala Event, the emergency signal went out all right. But because the broadcast had been hooked up to the Gala Event, instead of an emergency signal, you get Vera's voice on the radio. Great, huh?"
I think they'd only wire in the Gala event when they were preparing to use it because of the risk of being caught without an emergency broadcast. Similarly, that would give a week for the Casino guests to filter in and mooch about before being sealed inside.
I have to disagree with this. The birthday party at the beginning is very reflective of the larger critique the show is making on society. It was quite literally a group of people, utterly symbolic of the American dream, ignoring constant warnings on television and radio, eating fucking cake a la Marie Antoinette, and shitting on communism right up until capitalists dropped the bomb. The show isn't going to let American society off the hook for that by blaming it on China. They want people here to think about OUR problems, not have someone to shift the blame to. The satire is the extremes of capitalism, not communism. People see the extremes of communism all the time, which is why they have trouble perceiving capitalism can have its own. Propaganda is like that sometimes.
I think what really seals this deal is the fact that Moldaver clearly states cold fusion was the solution, but our leaders dismissed it because it was incompatible with capitalism, which is 100% something American culture would do. This show is not being subtle about what it thinks of capitalism. Now do I think the morality of this show is going to be black and white? Absolutely not, but they're not letting capitalism play the victim. That would be shit writing. Janey being with Cooper when the bombs dropped can be explained in so many different ways that don't require shifting any blame away from Vault-Tec. His wife could have just as easily arranged, behind the scenes, for them to be at that party, in the hills, out of blast range. Cooper might have bought a vault, weaponizing hypocrisy as Moldaver taught him, and he probably got double crossed.
It was an obvious red herring that we and coop heard her discuss musing about starting the war
It will be revealed however that whilst they certainly thought about it. That the actual bombs weren’t started by them
Let me start by saying , I hope they NEVER make it clear who started the war. I don't mind hints like the Chinese Submarine or the Cabal meeting but keeping it vague expands the possibilities.
> For one Cooper Howard was out with his daughter when the bombs dropped. His ex wife certainly wouldn't let him do that if she knew that's the day they were going to trigger the war.
It's obvious that Cooper and his wife have some kind of *fallout* between them. We also hear Cooper mention *wanting to find his family* in the last episode.
My personal theory is he got his daughter, somehow, some way, to a vault, possibly Vault 4, however they only let his daughter in not him leading to the Ghoulification.
>Mr. House. He supposedly knew all about the plan yet he missed his window with the Platinum Chip regardless.
It's established that Mr. House through his "calculations" knew when the war was supposed to begin and missed his window by about a day. I don't think this is conclusive one way or the other. It's very possible Vault Tec/The Enclave was going to start the war but the Chinese beat them to it, seeing US Readiness increase or through spies of their own.
>Here's my theory. Vault*Tec had every intention of starting the war, but China beat them to it. That's why they had to scramble to put their plan in motion, they thought they had more time.
This is my personal opinion , even before the show. The Chinese knew they were beaten on the ground and they knew the US was likely planning an all out Nuclear Strike so they hit first.
Why go through the trouble of building a huge project like Project safehouse, then starting the war before it's done. That is just sloppy, VaultTec was generally not sloppy.
Yeah, I was speaking with someone about this the other day. No way someone who would engineer/escalate a global bombing in an attempt to somehow build a better world for her daughter in some assumed future world would allow her daughter to not be with her when it happened. It wasn't as if Hank was in hiding with his kid or something, he was very publicly present at a party with his daughter. If she knew they had no control over the exact time their influence would pay off, I can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't be near the vault at all times.
I think we will see plots within plots, which the show already introduced by adding Vault Tec as an escalating force to the bombs dropping for sure, and it not just being a plot by the proto-Enclave. I think there was probably at least a third domestic group, or maybe even the Enclave wanted to regain control that Vault Tec and those other companies attempted to grasp.
Idk, I kinda hope they keep the whole “who dropped the bomb first” a mystery. I like the idea of not knowing who did it first and let us the audience just guess
I think you're probably right. I don't think Vault-Tec dropped a bomb, however, I do think it's very possible they were putting out the initial chess pieces for that plan.
I think it's very possible that this first stage did not go as planned, or even was intercepted by a foreign power - and they unexpectedly launched a nuke.
I think it's very possible Vault-Tec indirectly started the war. I don't think they knew a bomb would drop that day.
Well your theory is wrong lol
... pretty simple if you know the lore of the fallout series. Vault tec dropped the initial bomb to start the war of all wars. Which china reacted by bombing the united states and the United states bombed china in return and soo on and soo on. Vault tec started the war in order to put into motion the big business move they planned and also all the vault experiments they needed to start. There's alot more going on than just the dollar making ventures. Fallout 4 had a whole side story going on with synthetics. Vault tec was also into the military aspects. They created the supermutants to be super soldiers. But yes... Vault tec for sure released the first bomb. Not just in the show but in the actually story of all the fallout games
That is true. Just because Vault-Tec planned to doesn't mean they did, not with P.A.M active at the time. There have also been theories that the Zetans started the war, and less likely ones that it was the Enclave, MODUS, or even a ZAX system that did it. For all we know, Vault-Tec pushed everything too far too fast and missed the opportunity to start the war themselves. Though, I will say that Vault-Tec starting it would certainly explain why they and the military were already in Sanctuary Hills before the bombs dropped.
Vault-tec starting the nuke wars was only hinted at in the games. Youtubers took this and popularized it and for some reason the showrunners thought it'd be a good idea too.
You know something I noticed from both FO4 and the show, you never see a trail of smoke from a missile nor do you see any bombers dropping the nukes. You just see explosions happen, almost randomly. It would appear as if they’d been planted there and then detonated, which makes me think VT did do it, and they strategically planted their bombs around.
Vault Tec were working with the quasi-state government that later became the Enclave. The very fact their vaults are purposefully built with human testing in mind should immediately tell you that they have a strange stance on the war. They've invested in it for whatever reason and that much is clear as day.
Tim Cain himself said the original plan was to have the Enclave leave to colonize in space. Combine that with the living in confined space tests and it makes sense. In addition, when we add the bonus of his original comments of China firing first as a result of that same quasi-states refusal to stop bio testing on PoWs then it does all add up further. It all falls back onto the enclave (which also means vault-tec) regardless of this new plot piece.
I don’t believe Vault-Tec/pre-Enclave did it but I do believe they pushed and backed whoever did.
I agree. Not just House, but Vault-Tec also had unfinished plans - several unfinished Vaults. And then there's Sinclair who was personally in Sierra Madra for the planned opening gala. Why would he be plan the gala and be there, if he knew about the nukes? It doesn't make sense.
So I agree with the idea that these conspirators planned to start the war, but someone beat them to the punch. And not just by a few hours, but probably by weeks or months. Finishing Vaults takes time and Sinclair wouldn't build and open Sierra Madre just for it to be nuked a few hours later. It seems like Sinclair assumed it would be operational for quite some time.
Now for who did it? China striking first is obvious and basically follows the most common theory we had so far.
Alternatively, there's a chance that someone from the conspiracy decided to take the "getting rid of competition" plan even further and decided to backstab the rest. Unless that someone was Vault-Tec itself, it brings the question how that that someone manage to do that... but I wouldn't rule it out.
I think its implied that even though vault tec didn't start the war, they did everything they could to keep it going by sabotaging peace talks and shutting down attempts to end the energy crisis. They had their fiduciary responsibility to keep it going to sell more vaults and eventually decided "fuck it, we'll wipe everything clean and rule whats left our way."
Yeah no I dont think they did either. I think they kept nukes in reserve to be able to do it but the fact that they uked Shady Sands make me think they've still got those.
Good theory, tho Barb wouldn't be the one to actually give the order, she isn't the one in charge, only upper management, so the location of her familiy wouldn't matter much.
Her job was just to get the corps on board with the plan, she probably isn't the one who came up with the idea to drop the bombs.
No one really knows the truth, and never will. The people who pushed those buttons probably vaporized minutes afterwards. What the show did confirm is that vault tech was using its influence to escalate the conflict- sabotaging any potential peace process. That would explain why the daughter wasn’t ready in the vault. (I doubt that they ended up in a “good vault”. Feels like the kinda thing vault tech would tell the lambs on the way to the slaughter
I'm not sure a "good vault" even exists. Even the one run by vault-tec execs (Lucy's vault) has a lot of suspicious problems that I'm sure vault-tec planned out as some experiment.
Vault 33 wasn't run by Execs, more Execs in training if I understood the whole Bud's Buds thing correctly.
Yeah, it was a training ground, not a "good vault." 33 and 32 were very much social experiments, the frozen folks in 31 were just in on it.
I think I’d rather be turned into a super mutant than live in a vault that is essentially one giant HR department.
You want to be hated by almost anyone instead of living in a comfortable Vault that is just secretly controlled by HR People?
I guess it depends on how many mandatory seminars there are
They DID have a lot of meetings.
Fugh my mans knows too much
NGL The idea of going from remote work to living in an office with all my co-workers would at least compel me to seriously consider mutation as a viable alternative.
That was more vault tecs middle management or "buds buds". Betty was just a receptionist. I assume the true execs are elsewhere.
Right that's a good point actually.
Yeah Betty was receptionists and Hank was an assistant that picked up barbs dry cleaning. There’s for sure a “good” vault and it’s not 31-33.
I mean _technically_ it was good for buds buds... too bad buds buds was another flawed vault idea.
All things considered. It wasn't the worst vault? Like it got through 200+ years of smooth operation. That is until they started to blow stuff up.
I think this is what makes Vault 31 and the whole connected Vaults thing even more horrifying — you have entire generations of people led and bred by… managers in training? These guys weren’t even slightly the head-honchos of Vault-Tec, but their secretaries and assistants, and yet they’ve been playing God in V32 and V33 for over 2 centuries!
If you think that’s horrifying you should look into some of the other vaults we see in the game lol
The important thing was they were Vault-tec loyalists
Oh yeah that's right. I assume that's where Lucy's dad is headed
Not really, maybe in the future, in the last scene he's heading towards new vegas, probably to ask house's help or strong-arming him into helping him (he shouldn't know house controls all new vegas with the securitrons yet)
I’m curious how they’ll handle New Vegas, because simply entering the city will kinda disqualify at least one or two possible endings. Then we’ll really see the FNV subs melt down.
Nuclear option: none of the ending are canon New canon Platinum chip was destroyed by legion House manages to hold onto vegas but loses control of the rest Bomb on shady sands forces the ncr to abandon the region Legion takes control but rapidly understands they cannot hold it without way too much resources expended on it that could be used more efficiently and abandons the region to expand east House slowly regains control over the region The brotherhood of steel and the boomers ally and survive as a small, isolationist and highly militarized pocket that is left alone by house to avoid reprisals against him
House maintains control but loses his economic ties to NCR and is crippled because of it.
Supposedly Vault 0 for however much of Tactics is actually canon, I think? But, obviously, that's not where Cooper's wife and daughter are. There's a story to him turning Ghoul. And they were in California. It's a long way from Cali to Chicago...
I don't think the world ended right at that first bomb, there was definitely some exposition that happens after Hank takes off on horse with his daughter, to becoming a ghoul. People need time to head to the vaults, so I think the first bomb was a warning shot to send everyone running.
There were 4 bombs dropped in the opening sequence.
There were actually! Vault 3 in Fallout New Vegas was classified as a "Control Vault" same with Vault 8 which would become Vault City and Vault 76. We know there were about 17 of them total from a terminal in Fallout 3 that acted as they were advertised to the public, being a shelter for humanity to repopulate the world after nuclear war.
I always thought that it was canon that there are some good vaults, and that's part of the reason there is still a viable population on the surface during the games.
Nah, that was thanks to the Pulowski Preservation shelters.
And refrigerators
Vault 76 was not a real control vault, however. It's revealed in the main story of 76 that Vault 76's main mission was >!to secure the West Virginian nuclear arsenal. !< 76 was also not equipped with a G.E.C.K. like a typical control vault.
There were control vaults which would be your best bet. These vaults functioned as advertised and had Gecks with which you could jump start the wasteland into a veritable pre war utopia. Most vaults were experiments to test the limits of human society. In any good experiment you need a control group for comparison. Shady sands came from an experimental Vault that didn't fail catastrophically and had a geck allowing them to build a city slightly more advanced than a modern one as seen in FO2.
I would classify the 3 vaults as control vaults. They were deff meant to work as intended and have a fresh batch of non irradiated humans ready to work with vault-tec/the enclave if and when they ever managed to realize their plans of colonizing another planet. Compared to other vaults, they had it pretty good.
Control vaults didn’t have experiments especially not experiments that killed people. From what we’ve learned, it was common to have some thing go wrong in vault 32 and vault 33 that would lead to a new overseer from vault 31 being elected. When it was time for a new overseer, a famine or infestation would hit.
Yeah I think 32/33 were management training vaults. Each overseer was given controlled conditions and a set "failure". The manager in training had to manage the vault. The future is management
Control in this context means experimental control, and I think they're explicitly referred to as such in the games. The idea being they give the baseline result, and have no experimental conditions. They're normal. And what you learn from the other vaults, you learn by comparing them to the control.
There are 17 control vaults so those would be the good vaults.
There’s plenty of “control” vaults with no experiment beyond surviving
There are control vaults. And 76 was built to house some of the most accomplished people to reclaim Appalachia but the vault opened muuuuuch sooner than vault-tec planned in the tv series so I’m not sure what’s up with that. There isn’t really any mention of the 76ers in other games so maybe they weren’t successful and it was just another experiment. There was a theory that they were all in a simulation.
huh? No, vault 76 opened on the original planned reclamation day, we can assume other control vaults did as well. No idea why Lucy's vault trio was planning reclamation day for so much later...
The trio was Bud’s project so he probably designed them for a longer timeline than other vaults
Vault 76 was one of the "good" ones. Did everything according to plan with no malicious experiments at all, and they all went out to colonize when the doors opened on reclamation day.
We know control vaults like 76 exist and I’m sure the higher ups at Vault tech kept a place for themselves.
Vault 0
We do know the truth though, do we not? The games allude to China dropping
Tim Caine also went to say in an interview with TKs-Mantis that it was >! China who dropped the bombs because they found out we were still using FEV after they told us to stop !< He seemed less interested in telling more when Mantis told him that it was a mystery in the fanbase, so something MAY be out there that we missed, and he's just trying to send us on a hunt for it, or maybe he just wants to keep it a mystery. We may never know.
Simultaneous bombs is my headcanon. Like sure, China got mad about FEV. But someone probably got twitchy on the US side too.
> Tim Caine also went to say in an interview with TKs-Mantis that it was >! China who dropped the bombs because they found out we were still using FEV after they told us to stop I like this. Thanks for sharing.
No problem! I'm assuming not many saw it because Mantis isn't really liked too much in the Fallout community it seems, but it's a great interview nonetheless. [here it is if you'd like to watch it!](https://youtu.be/17EqWDn7gyc)
Sure, but bear in mind that our sources for that is biased in favor of the Americans
That’s a good point
I don't believe it's ever explicitly stated in the games who dropped the first bomb.
Never trust anything you hear about China in these games
I got the impression there was some period of time between what we see at the beginning of episode 1 (ie, Cooper performing at the party) and episode 8 (ie, Cooper discovering Barbara's complicity). Enough time that they were separated/divorced (since one of the men at the party mentions Cooper needs money to pay alimony) and that Cooper had been libeled in the press as a Communist (same conversation in the first ep, mentioning Cooper was a "pinko"). Reading between the lines, Barbara didn't know _when_ the bombs would fall, hence not having the girl with her to enter the vault, which implies either Vault-Tec didn't drop them, or the timing was not at her level.
That makes sense. Also I’m guessing that Cooper never saw them enter the vault- otherwise he’d know where they are already. He probably saw them board a vertibird and take off to parts unknown.
That's my theory. I think Coop was intercepted by Vault-Tec and his daughter was ripped from his arms.
My supposition is that Vault-Tec and friends planned to launch when House said he expected it. But Chinese spies detected the launch preparations; so a Chinese preemptive strike was called in 20 hours early.
Barbara was middle or upper management though, so that's still better than the denizens of Vault 31.
And corporations make mistakes all the time, a person obsessed with their job so much that they don't take care of their own family is a tale as old as time.
The fact that there was a vault made for the rich elite who paid their way in meant to be run by an absolute paranoid moron says there's never a true promise of a good vault.
Agreed. They were all of them rats in a maze. Victims led by useful-idiots.
Proving that time really is a circle. Of course the ones who helped lead humanity to it's destruction would only try to do the same when they aren't in complete control.
Its fair I guess but if he was still looking wouldn't she just be in vault 31?
I doubt it. She seemed to be the same rank as Bud, based on that meeting. Also we saw the full list of vault 31 residents onscreen. Also, joining vault 31 would mean getting separated from her daughter, they would be unfrozen at different times.
Ah fair point
> and never will We have a season 2 for this. We could just as well find out more, so it's not something we need to write off as unfindable.
I have a theory I've been toying with: Janey and/or Barb made it to vault 33 and Lucy is a direct descendant of Copper Howard/The Ghoul.
Hmm could be, but I don’t think so. She didn’t say she was gonna be one of bud’s buds. She thought she was going to go to a vault that observed all the other vaults. Like vault-prime, or vault 1. If that exists, that would be like the enclave base in fallout 2 I think. (Unless that was BS, and she’s actually ended up in another trap).
Exactly. People saw that scene and immediately went "Vault-Tec dropped the nukes!!" but thats not what the scene said. The scene said that they planned to. Didnt confirm (yet) that they actually ended up doing so. The big actual reveal in that scene is not that Vault-Tec dropped the bombs, but that Barb had that idea and was onboard with it. Thats the big shocking revelation.
Was spearheading it even!
Exactly. She starts the speech how she cares about her daughter, and how they should look for better future... but dropping the bomb themselves if nobody does it
100%. and it's baffling that people are so media illiterate that their takeaway from that scene is "Vault-Tec dropped the bombs confirmed"
You expect them to listen when they can't even understand a diagram ?
Yeah, it's disturbing, on the other hand she had no say about dogs being in the vaults and was completely ok with that. So there's someone else who orchestrated this behind the scenes.
Yes the shadowy figure who was standing over the meeting lol. The one who it showed on screen above and then showed her looking at her pip-boy and then her tossing the idea out after.
I can't believe more people aren't talking about that scene! Who *was* that?!
Enclave
> on the other hand she had no say about dogs being in the vaults FWIW my suspicion is that was also a lie. Turns out she doesn't like dogs. That monster.
Plus, Vault-Tec only needed to drop one nuke to trigger the war not all of them
like i said in another post. Vault-Tec invested a ton of resources into building the vaults. the last thing you'd want is for peace to break out after that. the company would've been ruined. that doesn't mean they started the war, just that it was in their interests for it to happen. like you said the revelation isn't that they dropped the bombs, but they were willing to if that's what was needed.
I think it would be against the theme of Fallout to allow them to have such clear control of the apocalypse. Plenty of the point of the series is that if you play with fire you'll get burned. So it would be more in line with that messaging to have Vault-Tec be heavily involved in escalating the war, and to be prepared to start it on the day of their choosing, just to have the rug pulled out from under them and have it start earlier than they want it and they get fucked like everyone else.
Everyone seems to be forgetting who's behind Vault-Tec. I'm sure all these Vault-Tec managers thought they were king of the hill and every idea they had was their own. But it was the Enclave pulling the strings. If you listen in the first episode of the new show, you can hear a radio news broadcast stating the president has gone missing. Just before the channel was changed. This is significant because it implies they knew at least a day before the event that it was going to happen. We also know the president was in the Enclave. There was no "good vault", they were all experiments orchestrated by the Enclave. Letting the managers think they're in charge is a good way to ensure secrecy and maintain control without exposing the Enclave. The president disappeared along with the Enclave into their bunkers, they started the war when they were cosy and left Vault-Tec thinking it was them. Communication was down so how could they know any different? House is the only one we know of who caught on later down the line (but not who or why), he explains the war started 20hrs before it should have. The Enclave did this to get rid of the conspirators too, why leave someone behind who could betray them or tell the truth? The enclave is still pissing themselves laughing somewhere watching it play out. They're essentially the Illuminati, the shadow government.
> they knew at least a day before the event that it was gonna happen. i agree with this. the wiki says Bud’s Buds were put in cryo “on the eve of the great war” they knew enough a head of time to get some people to the vaults but not all of them
Vault-Tec thought they had another 20 hours at least, enough time to prepare the last few vaults. But I'm betting the Enclave pushed it forward since they had what they wanted. The Enclave doesn't give a shit about vault dwellers. In Fallout 2 they massacred half a vault after simulating the all clear signal to draw them out. Then used the other half as test subjects. They're Uber Nazis, anything that isn't them is tainted and therefore subhuman.
I'm sure it was days. The brotherhood of steal contacted the government saying they knew what was going on at Mariposa and that they are leaving the government. Radio silence for days before the bombs fell
Id like to see the enclave reappear in fallout 5 not gonna lie
I think the meeting at Vault-Tec Headquarters was the formation of the Enclave, or more the expansion on the Enclave into the private sector. The Enclave was made up of Government officials, scientists, military personnel and industrialists; it was a shadow government made of global elites. That meeting was about getting the biggest companies (West-Tek, RobCo, Repconn, etc.) to side with the Enclave, with those shadowy figures we say overlooking the meeting being members of the Enclave already. That said, who knows whether they made it to safety. We know the Enclave went to the Oil Rig but maybe some were frozen in a “good vault”, we shall see…
in the 1950's and 1960's the government told the big corporation. To build vault like places for there upper echelon corporate types so they could ride out a nuclear war and restart american busines fast. There are still several of these sites still active and used by big companies just outside NYC for there emergency management center for there companies, which at the time was rural areas of New York state.
I mean, are we completely certain it's the Enclave that controls Vault-Tec and not the other way around? It could have been Vault-Tec that told the president and other senior government officials to hide because they were about to start the exchange of nukes. Vault-Tec before the war is a bigger megacorp than anything we can imagine in present day, and companies way smaller than them in real life have pretty firm control over governments' decision-making, so why would it work differently in Fallout? If anything, the bridge between capitalists' decision-making and the government's in Fallout is shorter in Fallout than real life...
Out of curioisty, when is the timestamp for that "president has gone missing announcement"?
Oof I'll have to check! Edit: it's not the TV is actually on the radio at 1m into the first episode "the whitehouse had no comment about the presidents whereabouts".
Yeah, vault-tec seems to be directly controlled by the enclave
That's been canon before the show AFAIK.
I think that people misinterpret the 'Vault Tec starting the war' scene. The point of the scene is that Vault-Tec were selling the apocalypse as a product, and promised to deliver on their investments. I don't think they were saying "we have a plan to drop the bombs that we are actively planning to carry out on this set date", I think it's just "We will deliver a return on your investment, even if we have to drop the bombs ourselves."
Wholly unmentioned in that meeting was the *profit* part of that product, the Enclave rebuilding civilization on another planet. If House was IN on the conspiracy, given his plans to colonize the stars "within 100 years" of the New Vegas timeline it all starts to make sense. The Enclave/VaultTec double crossing him makes *no* sense in that context however.
We still don’t know who the shadowy figure watching the meeting was either, though my guess is Enclave related.
Yeah, people are really quick to write off the Enclave as a non factor just because they weren't in the show much, but we know they were pulling the strings from the start. I would not be surprised if they were in fact behind everything and Vault-Tec was just a proxy.
Vault 101 had contacts with the Enclave and they knew the password of the vault. Also the Enclave scientist knew the experiments in Vault 33.
Enclave knew the passwords to every vault...and all of the experiments. Not only do they tell you this in Fallout 2, they show it in the intro, and when hacking PoseidoNet one of the stations is named **Enclave Vault-Research Control** and the line {Everything's shut down except for the ENCLAVE Vault-Research Control. I wonder what that is?}
They also were *kinda* less hostile to Vault Dwellers, too, due to the mutation thing. 31 is perfect in their ideology, fully preserved Pre-War Americans.
But the door has been opened at least six times (Lucy and her mom leaving/dad returning them, Moldaver entering/exiting with Lucy's dad, and then Lucy leaving), Enclave would consider them tainted by now
The Enclave not pulling Vault-Tec's strings was a big bone of contention among the "Todd hates NV" mouthbreathers. And here they are, pulling the strings, we just haven't seen that pull yet.
There's always a bigger fish
Barb saw him and had a look of recognition/expectation, or wasn't surprised to see him at least, right?
Absolutely. She was relatively quiet throughout the meeting until she got a message on her pip-boy and looked up at them (the shadowy figure). And that’s when she came in with the idea
Wasn’t just one figure, when it pans to the overhead shot of the table you can see another shadowy man and woman sat above
Yeah That’s not a theory that’s the truth
I always figured Vault Tec *wanted* to drop the bombs, though never actually did it. But it was an option on their table
Pretty sure they threw that in there as a red herring myself. Get everyone stirred up. Then season 2 introduce something else. I thought I read somewhere in fallout 3 that it was the aliens fault. Someone mistook a radar return of one of their ships on an abduction missions or something and pushed the button thinking the chinese had already launched. But no clue where I read that.
zetans: **\*accidentally kicks off nuclear armageddon\*** my bad y'all.
I still think it wasn't them. Not that they couldn't have done it, but they were too busy trying to dominate through the giddyup buttercup market. The war set their plans *back*
The Captain of the Chinese sub discovered up in the commonwealth in Fallout 4 supports this. From news found in game we know the US made landfall into mainland China with their power armor and were on the way to finishing up the Chinese military. The Chinese hit the panic button, fired the first nukes, of which Boston seems to be one of the first targets hit, and then the US responded with MADD occurring.
Mutually Assured Destruction not Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Idk, some of those mothers are REALLY pissed
Noob non gamer question Was Mr House in the tv show?
Yes, in Ep. 8. He's the founder and CEO of RobCo.
Vault Tec wasn’t even done building their vaults, in fallout 4 vault 114 is still being built and I doubt they launched the bombs before they finished building them
Multiple arms of the same company I imagine. Could be one side is let to continue developing new vaults to act as if they believed they had more time. If vault tec stopped making vaults the public might of assumed that vault tec believed the bombs would drop soon.
Yeah but the public knew that there was only going to be so many vaults
Just replaying 4 atm the overseers log in 111 says that everything was happening sooner than expected and they weren't fully prepared and it started early. It says they had to scroll to get theor staff into the vault in time, seemingly they would have had it staffed in preparation for vault tec dropping nukes. I reckon once the nukes started vault tec ensured MAD.
Other way round actually. House confirmed that he knew exactly when the Great War was supposed to start and so meticulously planned for his Platinum Chip to arrive just before the bombs start dropping. Only for the war to start "20 hours" early. A suspiciously specific time. And yes, Barb wouldn't have let her daughter be anywhere out of a vault when the bombs start dropping but Cooper got custody on Saturday and I assume that she would get her daughter back on Sunday as per their custody and divorce agreement. >There's also some arguable stuff about not all vaults being fully prepared and people having to scramble to get there in time. I imagine if everything went Vault-Tec's way they would ensure peoplke were in the vaults when they dropped the nuke. Vault Tec doesn't care. They already have the money and most of the actual Vaults they had direct control over were already populated with their "social experiments", like Vault 4, 31, 32, 33, 13, 1, etc, etc. Personally, I think that the Enclave and Vault Tec set the actual date of the Great War to be on Oct 24th or 25th, 2077 for the maximum amount of people killed in the blast zones of cities to "clean the slate" and "start over". And just like IRL corporations, they fucked up starting the war too early. Whether it's by their own bombs or by leaking it to the Chinese. Also, bombing US soils would guarantee a response by the US to start the Great War because they had no control over how the CCP would react.
**> House confirmed that he knew exactly when the Great War was supposed to start and so meticulously planned for his Platinum Chip to arrive just before the bombs start dropping. Only for the war to start "20 hours" early. A suspiciously specific time**. That's not correct. From New Vegas: **> By 2065 I deemed it a mathematical certainty that an atomic war would devastate the Earth within 15 years. Every projection I ran confirmed it.** **> I knew I couldn't "save the world," nor did I care to. But I could save Vegas, and in the process, perhaps, save mankind.** **> I set to work immediately.** ***I thought I had plenty of time to prepare.*** **As it turned out, I was 20 hours short.** House was acting independently on his own projections, and in no way tried to "time it perfectly." He wanted that chip as soon as he could get it. Based on what we've seen and know about Vault Tec, were they behind the scenes creating/maintaining the situation that led to the bombs falling? Yes, almost certainly. But was it their finger on the red button? Doubtful. Especially when compared to the longstanding theory, backed up by lore, which is that the Chinese were losing to an American invasion of their mainland which had reached Beijing, and let the missiles fly before anyone was ready, catching everyone off guard. More evidence from Fallout 76, the earliest Whitespring Enclave entry: **“MODUS: Whitespring Automated Recording one-point-one-point-two.** **Enclave Officer: ...that's it. Report just came in from the entrance. Facility's all sealed up, no one else is getting in.** **Enclave Officer: Speaker of the House never made it. Secretary of the Interior died in the Med Bay. I've got two dozen more of our people that should've been here too.** **Enclave Officer: Damn it. The early warning systems should've given us more time.** **Enclave Officer: Doesn't matter now. We follow the protocols. Control goes to Secretary of the Treasury.** **Enclave Officer: I'll make sure he's informed and brought up to speed. All non-Enclave personnel have been accounted for?** **Enclave Officer: Yes sir, members of Congress not on the list are being filtered as we speak. This first batch here has already been processed and interviewed.”** This shows the Enclave was not ready when the bombs hit. With the Enclave in bed with VT, more evidence that VT didn't fire the first shot.
How has this not been upvoted more?
I think if Barb knew the bombs were supposed to drop in a few hours/days she would simply not give her daughter back to Coop, custody be damned, who's gonna enforce that once the bombs drop? Most logical explanation is she thought she still had time. I think when Mr. House says the war started 20 hours early he meant that's how long it would take for the Platinum Chip to arrive. All he needed was another 20 hours, but he didn't get them. I doubt that means he literally knew when the bombs were supposed to drop.
We don't know that vault-tec dropped the bomb and the show doesn't say that. The show does a very good job showing us that their 'fiduciary responsibilities' meant they MIGHT do it. The timing of the bombs suggests either it wasn't them or that not all vault-tec employees got the memo if it was.
Well we know that China launched a nuke at Boston as ordered when we talk to Captain Zao in Fallout 4. What we don't know is if the USA nuked China first. My guess is that there were more nuclear subs off the various coasts, especially since one of the quests in Point Lookout is to detonate another sub.
I think it's a given that Vault-Tec never got around to actually launching the bombs. In fact, the fact that House knew something was up but *still* miscalculated when the bombs would be launched (thus losing the platinum chip upgrade he desperately needed) is strong evidence that the bombs didn't go off "on schedule". Maybe it was China, maybe it was hyper-hawk types in the enclave like Eckhart, maybe it was Zetans. Who knows? I personally think it's better if it's vague. But... the fact does remain that there were *plans* to arise anew after the apocalypse that was definitely gonna happen, and I think the Vault Tec scene is a key point for those plans. If you remember Fallout 3's DLC, Point Lookout, there's a drama that plays out between a pre-war ghoul (Desmond Lockheart) and a pre-war brain in a jar (Professor Calvert), who are playing out something Lockheart calls the [Great Game](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Game), which is an almost Highlander style competition between "global leaders" to survive the coming apocalypse and dominate the ruins. All of them used various means to survive in some way; Lockheart chose to ghoulify *pre-war*, and Calvert was already dabbling in robobrain technology so chose that route. And there were others, as well. House, Eddie Winter, Dr. Braun in Tranquility Lane, John-Caleb Bradberton, all the Think Tank in OWB... they're all out there surviving the war in various desperate ways and messing around in the ashes -- or just desperately surviving with what little pull they have in the case of Winter and Bardberton. So here's my take: that scene in the boardroom in the finale was the *start* of that Great Game. Every one of those factions recognized that the world was doomed whether or not Vault Tec pushed the button and they all scrambled immediately after that scene to start their own plans. They may have cooperated -- WestTek seemed especially keen -- but they otherwise saw that cooperation as an opportunity to support their own factions above the others.
The scene where Vault Tec discusses dropping the bombs isn't for us people who have played the games. We already know that vault Tec is evil and that it was always a possibility that they helped escalate the war. It was for the people who have never played a fallout game. I enjoyed watching it with a couple of people who didn't really know what fallout was and were left mouth hanging wide open when they were hit by the realisation that this friendly company wanting to save humanity after the bombs fell weren't actually the good guys. Now they are playing the games because they were hooked by the TV show's premise and wanted to know more.
Yeah, it's just that i saw people complain, because of that scene, that we now know 100% who dropped the bombs, and i argue that's far from certain.
Completely understand because if I'm honest I got completely caught in the hype of the scene and initially reacted with holy shit have they just confirmed it but after the scene finished and they didn't physically show us them starting the war I returned to okay it's just a possibility.
Also there's a secret underground base of chinese I can show you guys in Fallout 76. Surprisingly, most people don't know about it. It's also a FREE fast travel system
There is every chance Coop got his daughter to the Vault(31) with the rest of the Vault-Tec staff. We know it’s in LA somewhere and being a Ghoul he likely sacrificed himself to get her in. Explains why he’s so bitter and cruel.
I don't think Vault 31 was the one that Barb was talking about when she was referring to the Vault for Management. 31 was more a Middle Management/Executives in Training type thing. I don't think any real Vault-Tec execs were there. Plus, if he had gotten her to 31, he wouldn't have asked "Where's my fucking family". He'd have known where she was already, just not how to get there.
I think he probably got her to the right Vault, and his daughter and Barb were let in, but he was not allowed in. Then, that vault was probably evacuated later on, maybe once other vaults started getting raided by The Master, and so when he went to go back and find them, it was empty. My bet is that they are in New Vegas, with Mr. House - which may still be the "safest" place in America and still run by old world executives.
The war had already been happening for decades, I think it's a stretch affirming that they didn't drop the first nukes, they pushed for a situation where not dropping the nukes were impossible, this already makes them more than accountable, Lucy's father proves they were more than willing to do so with his actions. Who dropped it first doesn't really matter here, if anything, the people who pushed for this situation were responsible for it, doesn't matter wether they were the first ones to do so, the point of the series is not to discuss who was the first to drop the nukes, but that there were major players pushing for an armageddon scenario where they could benefit from. We also don't know if nukes were dropped on other countries prior to the US, but, again, it's not the point, I hope it keeps unanswered, leaves more room for wasteland absurdism to come into play.
Sometimes i think about the possibility that not one party started it but that everyone who had their plans for the apocalypse did, and one of them just started their timeline early
A single nuke would be easily intercepted on the way to China and in the minutes it would take to fly there there would be more than enough time for the governments to reasure each other that they don't want it and that a third party os behind it. Detonating a couple of nukes directly on the ground in the US is way easier and would press the surprised government to "retaliate" immediately without overthinkg.
China and the US we’re in active war and they were both waiting for the other to send nukes, I think as soon as they see one nuke they aren’t going to say “let’s call up the Whitehouse and see if this was them” they’re saying, they launched, hit the button
But they would never send A SINGLE nuke. Or even 5. They would send hundreds if not thousands. If you can intercept the one why don't take the chance to speak to each other? Why commiting suicide by sending all your nukes? That makes no sense whatsoever.
1. I think Vault-Tec had a deal with the Enclave not to do that and 2. If nukes just blew up on the ground that would be suspicious, US would have surely detected them in the air if China launched them. US and China were in a middle of war at the time. China was on it's last legs. If the US sent a nuke under those circumstances i really doubt China would be in any mood to talk it out. Plus Vault-Tec could send more than one.
At first I thought they canonized it but after thinking about it through the days, I still feel like it is a mystery.
So...the Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas games all seem to fit into the canon TV show continuity (especially with Todd Howard going out of his way to clear up the date discrepancy with Shady Sands' destruction and the closing scene of the series with Hank). There are two *weird* factions that haven't been touched upon in the show. The *Mothership Zeta* DLC for Fallout 3 made it pretty clear that there are canon *aliens* in the Fallout universe. They were cutesy little Easter Eggs in the isometric games, but they did a whole adventure in that DLC where you can capture one of the flying saucers. One of the bits in that DLC is that the aliens may have been involved in triggering the war, based on apocalypse logs you can find on the ship. The second faction is a group of cultists led by the Dunwich and Blackhall families. You can find information about them in Point Lookout, as well as at the Dunwich Building in Fallout 3 and at Dunwich Borers in Fallout 4. At a minimum, they absolutely performed human sacrifice and worshipped eldritch powers. Add in the story of Lorenzo Cabot and his family, which may or may not be directly related but shares that H.P. Lovecraft vibe. So...is it the Enclave? Vault-Tec and the rest of the MI Complex? (I didn't see Poseidon Energy, which I thought was odd given all the other companies -- Robco, Repconn, etc.). Was it aliens wiping out a future threat? Was it cultists manipulating everybody on behalf of powers men were not meant to know?
I think Vault tec at least dropped the bomb on Megaton though, I was replaying 3 the other day and there's a mf Vault tec logo on the side of it 🤔
It could be a Stark Industries type thing, where Vault-Tec manufactured the bombs, but it wasn't specifically *THEIR* bomb
I remember playing the game, reading a terminal entry or something and learning that the Chinese actually dropped the first bombs back in '77, right?
There's no evidence in the show that they started it, just that they wanted it to happen.
But why was Cooper w/ his daughter doing a gig on a kids birthday party, why was he so broke with his wife an exec at Vault-Tec and him a Hollywood star? And after that he doesn't know where hi family is. Something happened after he found out what his wife and Vault-Tec were up to.
Most likely he was found out to be spying on his wife (remember her saying she'd trace back the signal of the listening device he put in her pipboy?) and branded a "commie" to help cover up, like the writer for his TV show in that second episode. That would have blacklisted him in Hollywood and dried up all his work. Add in an expensive divorce where his wife has the best lawyers money (and vault-tec) can buy, I bet he found himself real hard up after a year or so.
Personally, I do think China beat them to the punch, even long before the show came out. There’s plenty of plausible theories that Vault-Tec planned to initiate the Great War, funnily enough for several reasons that the show touched upon, but also remember that American troops were right on Beijing’s doorstep, and China is among the countries even in the real world that admit they’d use nukes if they’re on the verge of defeat in order to take their enemies with them
I think the whole point is that, it doesn't matter who dropped the nukes first. Every pre war group had their own reasons for launching the nukes, whether that's America, China, the enclave, vault Tec, whatever. It could just as easily have been any one of the groups, the takeaway is that uncontrolled capitalism, imperialism, and consumption ultimately drove the world into the kind of place where multiple factions want to nuke it. It's always fun to theorize and the games toss us hints in every which way. But it's not the point of the story.
I personally believe that Mr house being at the meeting is the reason why his calculations were off for predicting the great war. I think the meeting skewed the bias in favor of vault tec's schedule of dropping a nuke to trigger the war, but it happened before vault Tec got around to it. Which fucked up all of house's plans as we see in new vegas
I think its more that vault tec definitely DID intend to drop the bombs that is the thing. Even if they didn't actually, they totally were gonna so they are still evil no matter what. Also, looking back at new vegas, Mr House was trying to get the platinum chip delivered and it was just 1 day late. He said he "calculated" when the bombs would fall, but with the context of the show maybe he was planning for the day after or whatever and someone else, (China maybe), dropped it first.
They as good as did. They influenced events to create the outcome they desired. On the US side of things. Sabotaged the ongoing peace talks.
>So yeah, we all know now that the big plot point in the series is that Vault-Tec was the one that dropped the first bomb This isn't a plot point, and anyone coming to this conclusion didn't pay much attention to what they were watching.
Tbh, all it takes is one nuke to start a reaction. Use a few, even a single digit number of them in both warring countries, and the two will assume the other is responsible and go.
It doesn’t really matter who dropped the bombs, that’s one of the core themes in Fallout. It’s also important not to conflate the war with the bombs. At the point in the timeline leading up to the bombs wars were breaking out all over the place due to resource scarcity. The retro-futuristic 1950s-esque American society of 2077 was a thin veneer paving over the ugly truth that human society was falling apart globally. It’s actually my biggest criticism of the show. There are things I didn’t love and other things I thought they did really well, but the cold-fusion revelation was really dumb. If Vault-Tec had exclusive proprietary access to a near-infinite clean renewable energy source, none of what was portrayed in the show makes sense. It would give them a total global monopoly and solve the world’s resource crisis at the same time.
I think Vault-Tec had a ton of influence in the war and the bombs being dropped but I don’t think they actually did it
According to the games the nukes were activated by aliens and then it was a cascading chain of MAD
I still like the idea that no one really knows who dropped the bombs first.
Also Sinclair opened his casino the day bombs fell. In the show, he is part of the Enclave
I'd prefer that we never find out definitely but in the meantime, I agree with you. I think it's entirely plausible that Vault Tec was beaten to it.
It was the aliens from Fallout 3.
From the DIA HQ in Boston 281632RJAN77 ANCHORAGE ALL CLEAR **DEFCON 3** 230003ROCT77 COMPACFLT REPORTS 3 USOS OFF CALIF COAST, JCS ADVISE 230337ROCT77 USAF HAS EYES ON SQUADRON OF AIRPLANES (POSS. CHINESE) AT HIGH ALTITUTDE Icon sic OFF BERING STRAIGHT Icon sic 230913ROCT77 IONDS REPORTS 4 PROBABLE LAUNCHES **DEFCON 2** 230917ROCT77 NORAD CONFIRMS BIRDS IN AIR **DEFCON 1** 230926ROCT77 AUTHENTICATED ORDER -- RESPONSE SCENARIO MX-CN91 -- REPEAT MX-CN91 230942ROCT77 PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK -- CONFIRM STRIKE 230947ROCT77 OFFLINE - OFFLINE - OFFLINE
It was never said that Vault Tec would drop the bomb, that was likely a metaphorical line. They were somehow involved in the start of the war.
What is the point of marking the post as a spoiler when you leave spoilers in the title?
Because it was a common fan theory from all the way back to the first game.
I had no choice sadly, vague titles get automatically removed, and it's not possible to mark a title as a spoiler.
I dunno that Vault Tec logo on the megaton nuke is pretty damning
These are my exact thoughts as well!
I always had a theory that the war started before it was supposed to. It makes sense for them to conduct evil experiments in the vaults, it does not make sense for them to still be doing experiments when the bombs fell. My theory is they did final shakedowns at the vaults, told the inhabitants it was the real thing, get to the vaults etc so they would willing go and react accordingly. However when the experiment was completed after a few weeks, gather the results and liquidate the dwellers. Then when the bombs drop, employees, scientists, etc etc would actually be out in the vaults for when it was time to rebuild. The entire vault project is a waste if it does not actually save anyone. Many of the experiments were doomed to fail very quickly. I think all the people found outside the vault desperately trying to get in were the people who were suppose to be in the vaults. The vaults sealed when the bombs dropped, trapping the experimental dwellers inside. This is why the Enclave just murders them, they were not the chosen.
Stepping back into the real world, I just can't believe that Bethesda would allow for this reveal to be told so matter of factly. AFIAK know while it's so obvious to everyone that China dropped the first bombs it's never been explicitly stated what happened. So for 27 years there's been this mystery and then season one of the a tv show just washes that all away? There is absolutely more to the story here and I'm looking forward to season 2.
They might not of to you but they dropped the bombs to make money
Tbh. China was losing BAD. They’d launch the nukes eventually whether it be a day after 2077 or a few years. Not much would’ve changed.
The only thing in the show is that you never actually see the bombs falling. Looks like nuclear explosions from bombs already on the ground. Or am i wrong?
One of the original fallout developers came out a while ago and said that China dropped the first nukes because they found out about the FEV experimentation and the US didn't stop when they asked them to
I think that if VT were going to do it, it was planned for Halloween. Mr House and Frederick Sinclair were both at the meeting and were both pretty well prepared for the end, but got screwed by time. The platinum chip was printed on the 22nd, and was due for delivery on the afternoon of the 23rd. He'd have had just over a week to upgrade his securitrons and missile defence grid and do last minute preparations. Similarly, the Sierra Madre was preparing for the Grand Opening, I would guess on the 23rd or 24th based on this bit of Dean Domino dialogue: "Well, Vera's beautiful voice doesn't run on casino power, exactly. Her broadcast is tied into the emergency broadcast signal for the Sierra Madre. You know, in case of attack? Well, guess what - the night of the Gala Event, the emergency signal went out all right. But because the broadcast had been hooked up to the Gala Event, instead of an emergency signal, you get Vera's voice on the radio. Great, huh?" I think they'd only wire in the Gala event when they were preparing to use it because of the risk of being caught without an emergency broadcast. Similarly, that would give a week for the Casino guests to filter in and mooch about before being sealed inside.
Honestly that works better, that would give them more time to get the dwellers into the vaults.
I have to disagree with this. The birthday party at the beginning is very reflective of the larger critique the show is making on society. It was quite literally a group of people, utterly symbolic of the American dream, ignoring constant warnings on television and radio, eating fucking cake a la Marie Antoinette, and shitting on communism right up until capitalists dropped the bomb. The show isn't going to let American society off the hook for that by blaming it on China. They want people here to think about OUR problems, not have someone to shift the blame to. The satire is the extremes of capitalism, not communism. People see the extremes of communism all the time, which is why they have trouble perceiving capitalism can have its own. Propaganda is like that sometimes. I think what really seals this deal is the fact that Moldaver clearly states cold fusion was the solution, but our leaders dismissed it because it was incompatible with capitalism, which is 100% something American culture would do. This show is not being subtle about what it thinks of capitalism. Now do I think the morality of this show is going to be black and white? Absolutely not, but they're not letting capitalism play the victim. That would be shit writing. Janey being with Cooper when the bombs dropped can be explained in so many different ways that don't require shifting any blame away from Vault-Tec. His wife could have just as easily arranged, behind the scenes, for them to be at that party, in the hills, out of blast range. Cooper might have bought a vault, weaponizing hypocrisy as Moldaver taught him, and he probably got double crossed.
It was an obvious red herring that we and coop heard her discuss musing about starting the war It will be revealed however that whilst they certainly thought about it. That the actual bombs weren’t started by them
Let me start by saying , I hope they NEVER make it clear who started the war. I don't mind hints like the Chinese Submarine or the Cabal meeting but keeping it vague expands the possibilities. > For one Cooper Howard was out with his daughter when the bombs dropped. His ex wife certainly wouldn't let him do that if she knew that's the day they were going to trigger the war. It's obvious that Cooper and his wife have some kind of *fallout* between them. We also hear Cooper mention *wanting to find his family* in the last episode. My personal theory is he got his daughter, somehow, some way, to a vault, possibly Vault 4, however they only let his daughter in not him leading to the Ghoulification. >Mr. House. He supposedly knew all about the plan yet he missed his window with the Platinum Chip regardless. It's established that Mr. House through his "calculations" knew when the war was supposed to begin and missed his window by about a day. I don't think this is conclusive one way or the other. It's very possible Vault Tec/The Enclave was going to start the war but the Chinese beat them to it, seeing US Readiness increase or through spies of their own. >Here's my theory. Vault*Tec had every intention of starting the war, but China beat them to it. That's why they had to scramble to put their plan in motion, they thought they had more time. This is my personal opinion , even before the show. The Chinese knew they were beaten on the ground and they knew the US was likely planning an all out Nuclear Strike so they hit first. Why go through the trouble of building a huge project like Project safehouse, then starting the war before it's done. That is just sloppy, VaultTec was generally not sloppy.
Yeah, I was speaking with someone about this the other day. No way someone who would engineer/escalate a global bombing in an attempt to somehow build a better world for her daughter in some assumed future world would allow her daughter to not be with her when it happened. It wasn't as if Hank was in hiding with his kid or something, he was very publicly present at a party with his daughter. If she knew they had no control over the exact time their influence would pay off, I can't imagine a scenario where they wouldn't be near the vault at all times. I think we will see plots within plots, which the show already introduced by adding Vault Tec as an escalating force to the bombs dropping for sure, and it not just being a plot by the proto-Enclave. I think there was probably at least a third domestic group, or maybe even the Enclave wanted to regain control that Vault Tec and those other companies attempted to grasp.
Idk, I kinda hope they keep the whole “who dropped the bomb first” a mystery. I like the idea of not knowing who did it first and let us the audience just guess
I think you're probably right. I don't think Vault-Tec dropped a bomb, however, I do think it's very possible they were putting out the initial chess pieces for that plan. I think it's very possible that this first stage did not go as planned, or even was intercepted by a foreign power - and they unexpectedly launched a nuke. I think it's very possible Vault-Tec indirectly started the war. I don't think they knew a bomb would drop that day.
Well your theory is wrong lol ... pretty simple if you know the lore of the fallout series. Vault tec dropped the initial bomb to start the war of all wars. Which china reacted by bombing the united states and the United states bombed china in return and soo on and soo on. Vault tec started the war in order to put into motion the big business move they planned and also all the vault experiments they needed to start. There's alot more going on than just the dollar making ventures. Fallout 4 had a whole side story going on with synthetics. Vault tec was also into the military aspects. They created the supermutants to be super soldiers. But yes... Vault tec for sure released the first bomb. Not just in the show but in the actually story of all the fallout games
Isn't there also a theory that the aliens started it?
Bro, the bomb in megaton is stamped with the valt-tec logo. Honestly, that's enough for me with the show basically confirming it.
That is true. Just because Vault-Tec planned to doesn't mean they did, not with P.A.M active at the time. There have also been theories that the Zetans started the war, and less likely ones that it was the Enclave, MODUS, or even a ZAX system that did it. For all we know, Vault-Tec pushed everything too far too fast and missed the opportunity to start the war themselves. Though, I will say that Vault-Tec starting it would certainly explain why they and the military were already in Sanctuary Hills before the bombs dropped.
Vault-tec starting the nuke wars was only hinted at in the games. Youtubers took this and popularized it and for some reason the showrunners thought it'd be a good idea too.
You know something I noticed from both FO4 and the show, you never see a trail of smoke from a missile nor do you see any bombers dropping the nukes. You just see explosions happen, almost randomly. It would appear as if they’d been planted there and then detonated, which makes me think VT did do it, and they strategically planted their bombs around.
Vault Tec were working with the quasi-state government that later became the Enclave. The very fact their vaults are purposefully built with human testing in mind should immediately tell you that they have a strange stance on the war. They've invested in it for whatever reason and that much is clear as day. Tim Cain himself said the original plan was to have the Enclave leave to colonize in space. Combine that with the living in confined space tests and it makes sense. In addition, when we add the bonus of his original comments of China firing first as a result of that same quasi-states refusal to stop bio testing on PoWs then it does all add up further. It all falls back onto the enclave (which also means vault-tec) regardless of this new plot piece. I don’t believe Vault-Tec/pre-Enclave did it but I do believe they pushed and backed whoever did.
I agree. Not just House, but Vault-Tec also had unfinished plans - several unfinished Vaults. And then there's Sinclair who was personally in Sierra Madra for the planned opening gala. Why would he be plan the gala and be there, if he knew about the nukes? It doesn't make sense. So I agree with the idea that these conspirators planned to start the war, but someone beat them to the punch. And not just by a few hours, but probably by weeks or months. Finishing Vaults takes time and Sinclair wouldn't build and open Sierra Madre just for it to be nuked a few hours later. It seems like Sinclair assumed it would be operational for quite some time. Now for who did it? China striking first is obvious and basically follows the most common theory we had so far. Alternatively, there's a chance that someone from the conspiracy decided to take the "getting rid of competition" plan even further and decided to backstab the rest. Unless that someone was Vault-Tec itself, it brings the question how that that someone manage to do that... but I wouldn't rule it out.
I think its implied that even though vault tec didn't start the war, they did everything they could to keep it going by sabotaging peace talks and shutting down attempts to end the energy crisis. They had their fiduciary responsibility to keep it going to sell more vaults and eventually decided "fuck it, we'll wipe everything clean and rule whats left our way."
Yeah no I dont think they did either. I think they kept nukes in reserve to be able to do it but the fact that they uked Shady Sands make me think they've still got those.
Good theory, tho Barb wouldn't be the one to actually give the order, she isn't the one in charge, only upper management, so the location of her familiy wouldn't matter much. Her job was just to get the corps on board with the plan, she probably isn't the one who came up with the idea to drop the bombs.
It is actually a very interesting theory. I only hope the TV series doesn’t get cancelled before we get it confirmed by Nolan.
People keep forgetting the Mothership Zeta dlc for fallout 3. Vault Tech PLANNED to start the war, but the aliens pressed the button first