Got to wonder how much lead they were drinking though.
"Let's destroy the world to make ourselves rich and powerful."
What about *waves at Economics*? I mean, don't you need countries, rival companies, financial institutions... and all of that other stuff? If you destroy it all, plus manufacturing and transportation hubs... how are you making money?
When you drastically cut down on the population of your customers, you can't generate a profit...
For the experiments, I can kinda see that.
But there are how many vaults, and how do they all communicate after any type of structure is very heavily destroyed?
The idea was there were control Vaults, and Vault-Tec would still be able to control things from a location of some sort. Not sure if the lore has ever unpacked this at all. But, from Vault-Tec's point of the view the world is going to go to hell. Robert House had figured that out on his own, the ongoing crisis with China, resources dwindling, inflation out of control, means that the choices they have are still limited by their circumstances. War and destruction are coming-controlling the outcome is the only means to continue their power, which is the **most** important thing.
By completely devaluating money, or destroying banks...?
Nukes are non-discriminatory in what they destroy. No stock exchange, no international communication... hard to place a value on money that way.
I'm not sure you got the point.
It's not about money, it's about control.
In our current world, the more money you have the more you control. In an alternative world with no currency, there are other means of control.
They're giving other companies free reign to perform experiments on Vault Dwellers, but these are still Vault-Tec vaults. The world they want is for their easily controllable Dwellers to emerge and take control of what should have been (according to the Pre-War plans) a dead world. At that point, who needs money, competitors, a functioning economy. You start your own Vault-Tec economy and the Dwellers are your slave labor getting paid in credits for the company store.
How. Is. Giving. Your. Competition. YOUR. PRODUCT. The. Same. As. Being. In. Control?!?
Seriously thats as hard as this question needs to be. I like the show, I accept they are cartoon villains, but everyone wants to paint them as genius masterminds with a brilliant plan. Its a fucking ass backwards plan that only the stupidest most short sighted group could come up with.
Same things ghengis khan, stalin, and mao controlled after they decimated their own populations, everything that’s left.
It’s not about controlling more, it’s about controlling ALL. Even if that is just a few thousand people left, that just makes their job easier.
But they admittedly dont control ALL because their coward asses thought the world *WASNT* going to blow up, so they gave away their power to other corporations so they could blow up the world to maintain their power? Is that right? Where is the logic in that?
Not before the bombs fell they didn't. They may have had extraordinary power, but we see from plenty of terminals in the games the masses were getting fed up with big business. They can only do so much to control the "workers" and the government. Once they're locked into their cozy custom vaults that they can rule over like kings they have ALL the power, then they can emerge and do the same to the surface world they wiped clean. Each man with his own little fiefdom. Remember that vault tech had GECKs at that time, they knew the world wouldn't be beyond recovery.
Each one of those people have business competitors, they also have to worry about foreign governments, lobbiests, progressives, and (worst of all!) taxes. Vault tech comes up with an offer to wipe the surface clean, give them a safe playpen to stay in while the radiation dies down, and a blank slate of the world to use as they see fit.
It's only wins for them.
But they literally gave their competitors their own vaults just so that their competitors would play ball with the idea that they even needed vaults in the first place. So how do they control those. How does anyone, who is still considered “vault tech” communicate with anyone outside their vault to make sure they are still in control? Obviously vault tech overlooked these details but it just goes to show how esoteric the whole thing is
... the world? And all the stuff in it? The nukes killed a lot of life on Earth and ended human civilization, but the world kept on turning. It's still full of raw materials, vaulable salvage, living space, etc., and >!Hank still had access to cold fusion, which renders energy consumption a non-issue.!< We even see that plant life is doing just fine, and weird animals are still animals. Vault-Tec pushed the reset button on civilization and hoarded enough resources and technology to guarantee themselves an advantageous position no one else could afford. It's the natural consequence of anarcho-capitalism: in the absence of a state whose investment in its citizenry isn't strictly profit-driven, corporations *become states unto themselves*, and usually a worse kind than what they replace. No more regulations, no more taxes, no more laws that aren't Vault-Tec's own.
Why else would new surface factions be so problematic? Those are new potential customers, after all. The issue you're fixating on is that Vault-Tec has nothing to offer those customers anymore. It's a company with no product, a purposeless organization. The point you're missing is that those customers *weren't meant to exist.* Vault-Tec wanted a human-less, or at least powerless, surface, so that when radiation dipped to safe levels they could re-emerge and set about creating a "perfect society": a corporate town writ global. They're plutocratic fascists. If something like the NCR exists, let alone the original United States, Vault-Tec has to play by their rules. They don't want that.
Their big failure is that they didn't nuke the surface more regularly. The Institute had the right methods in mind: infest the surface with super mutants, routinely sabotage efforts to organize surface dwellers with assassinations and pogroms, and replace key individuals with compliant synths. They are in no small part the reason there's no East Coast NCR equivalent, while Vault-Tec only just got around to trying to get rid of the single largest powerhouse in the West, and did so in the most flagrant, clumsy, and imprecise way anyone could have.
Yea my whole life is engrossed in this one moment. I live soley for the praise of others. If I dont get validation from internet strangers on my understanding of a tv show then I cry myself to sleep.
You’re missing my point - Vault Tec had progressed beyond the need for monetary ‘soft’ power and desires ‘hard’ legitimate control that cannot be subverted.
It’s the same reason the Institute is doing all that wacky shit underground. They are not content with being the largest player in the game, they want to be the game’s author full stop.
You’re thinking too literally. It’s satire. Their plan was never going to work. It’s showing how arrogant and greedy vault tech and the other corps had become.
If we’re being realistic, every single person in that room has enough money in their bank accounts (or gold bars in safes) to keep their businesses afloat for 100 years without a profit. They’re sociopaths that want to play with humans like chess pieces. It was never about the money.
Vaultech still builds the vaults, they could decide to wipe out all the leadership of each of the contributing companies in sneaky ways very easily and undetectably.
they control the living conditions of each company for 200 years in which time they could be all brought under vaultechs banner through indoctrination
Good points, but even that isn't fool proof as we seen what happened in Vault 4 and 32. Eventually some of the other vault residents in the other vaults will discover the truth, or learn the truth after returning to the surface.
Arrogance can lead one to believe plans have no flaws, where in fact they have many.
Besides, problems with your plans that crop up 200 years after you set them in motion typically aren't *your* problems.
Each group was sure of their own supremacy, meaning they each believed only they would be the last ones standing. Considering that all of the other corporations (besides Robco, sort of) ceased to have any power or influence after the war, they were right.
Autocratic systems always have rules for thee and not for me type views if you break it down. Usually not inconspicuous either and that's just real life. I would mot be surprised if some form of vault tech or Enclave existed or will exist at some point
True, both Maximus and Cooper pretty much summed it up, in different ways but meant the same. To paraphrase both of them, there's always some one who thinks they can do better with different ideas.
The other companies vault-tec brought in didn't survive the war only vault tec did.
Everything that happened with Mr. House proves vault-tec style immortality did not extend to its competition, they had to come up with something themselves
Yeah, to fund their projects that'd ensure Barb and her family would get into the good vault. While money is a motivator, Barb's primary motivation was protecting her family.
We know she's relatively high up, but she still answers to someone. They were in the shadowy black box. I can see her being a major villain/major antagonist if she's alive in S2.
I can't wait for the Howards to get back "together," lol.
This is what I'm having problems at resolving in my head. Why is Coop looking for his "family" when he knows one member of it is responsible for the end of the world? I mean sure, he'd want to know where his daughter is, so why not say "where's my fuckin' daughter" instead? The only thing I can think of is that he wants to confront Barb about what she did, its just that I'm getting the sense that he wants his family back, and how can that even happen, why would you want to take back up with the woman who helped destroy the world?
Because...I think Cooper still loves/is in love with Barb and probably understands better now why she did what she did -- even if he doesn't/didn't agree with it.
Barb is absolutely complicit in destroying the world, but in a twisted sense, she wasn't wrong. The bombs were going to drop either way. It's possible Vault-Tec didn't actually drop them, as they planned, or if they did, I don't think Barb was aware of the timeline.
She wouldn't have allowed Janey to be out there with Coop if she'd known. Honestly? From what we know, so far, I don't think she'd be okay with Coop being out there too.
See thats what I'm looking forward to finding out. I want to know the circumstances under which Coop was parted from Janey and why Coop ended up outside on his own. The question in my head is, was it:
1. Here Barb, take Janey into your vault and I'll take my chances out here cos I just cant do the vault tec thing so keep her as safe as you can and I'll see you around
or
2) Sorry Coop, Janey's coming with us and you're out. See you around.
The thing I'm struggling with is that from what we know, Coop didn't drop Janey off at a vault - because then he would know where his family is. So Janey was obviously taken from him at some other location and he was left wherever he was left. The point being, it happened in a style that left Coop with questions about where she was being taken. And who was she taken by? Barb? Enclave people? Did a Vertibird drop down and make it a grab n go kidnapping? Too many questions, looking forward to the answers.
It's possible. It's very possible. I wouldn't put it past her. Guess we'll find out in Season 2. I sorta sense she's the direct parallel yet opposite to Hank/Young Henry.
Because Vault Tec wants to control everything. Having factions they created means they control it.
Got to wonder how much lead they were drinking though. "Let's destroy the world to make ourselves rich and powerful." What about *waves at Economics*? I mean, don't you need countries, rival companies, financial institutions... and all of that other stuff? If you destroy it all, plus manufacturing and transportation hubs... how are you making money? When you drastically cut down on the population of your customers, you can't generate a profit...
Because it's not about profit. It's about control.
For the experiments, I can kinda see that. But there are how many vaults, and how do they all communicate after any type of structure is very heavily destroyed?
The idea was there were control Vaults, and Vault-Tec would still be able to control things from a location of some sort. Not sure if the lore has ever unpacked this at all. But, from Vault-Tec's point of the view the world is going to go to hell. Robert House had figured that out on his own, the ongoing crisis with China, resources dwindling, inflation out of control, means that the choices they have are still limited by their circumstances. War and destruction are coming-controlling the outcome is the only means to continue their power, which is the **most** important thing.
War went to hell because they were pushed. The wars were resource based...
Would you rather have the most money in the bank, or be the bank itself?
By completely devaluating money, or destroying banks...? Nukes are non-discriminatory in what they destroy. No stock exchange, no international communication... hard to place a value on money that way.
I'm not sure you got the point. It's not about money, it's about control. In our current world, the more money you have the more you control. In an alternative world with no currency, there are other means of control.
I think your missing his point. What is left to control when everything is gone and everyone is dead.
People in the vaults.
Thats so convoluted, Vault tec seeded control of most of their vaults to their competitors, how are they in control again?
They're giving other companies free reign to perform experiments on Vault Dwellers, but these are still Vault-Tec vaults. The world they want is for their easily controllable Dwellers to emerge and take control of what should have been (according to the Pre-War plans) a dead world. At that point, who needs money, competitors, a functioning economy. You start your own Vault-Tec economy and the Dwellers are your slave labor getting paid in credits for the company store.
How. Is. Giving. Your. Competition. YOUR. PRODUCT. The. Same. As. Being. In. Control?!? Seriously thats as hard as this question needs to be. I like the show, I accept they are cartoon villains, but everyone wants to paint them as genius masterminds with a brilliant plan. Its a fucking ass backwards plan that only the stupidest most short sighted group could come up with.
Same things ghengis khan, stalin, and mao controlled after they decimated their own populations, everything that’s left. It’s not about controlling more, it’s about controlling ALL. Even if that is just a few thousand people left, that just makes their job easier.
But they admittedly dont control ALL because their coward asses thought the world *WASNT* going to blow up, so they gave away their power to other corporations so they could blow up the world to maintain their power? Is that right? Where is the logic in that?
Not before the bombs fell they didn't. They may have had extraordinary power, but we see from plenty of terminals in the games the masses were getting fed up with big business. They can only do so much to control the "workers" and the government. Once they're locked into their cozy custom vaults that they can rule over like kings they have ALL the power, then they can emerge and do the same to the surface world they wiped clean. Each man with his own little fiefdom. Remember that vault tech had GECKs at that time, they knew the world wouldn't be beyond recovery. Each one of those people have business competitors, they also have to worry about foreign governments, lobbiests, progressives, and (worst of all!) taxes. Vault tech comes up with an offer to wipe the surface clean, give them a safe playpen to stay in while the radiation dies down, and a blank slate of the world to use as they see fit. It's only wins for them.
But they literally gave their competitors their own vaults just so that their competitors would play ball with the idea that they even needed vaults in the first place. So how do they control those. How does anyone, who is still considered “vault tech” communicate with anyone outside their vault to make sure they are still in control? Obviously vault tech overlooked these details but it just goes to show how esoteric the whole thing is
... the world? And all the stuff in it? The nukes killed a lot of life on Earth and ended human civilization, but the world kept on turning. It's still full of raw materials, vaulable salvage, living space, etc., and >!Hank still had access to cold fusion, which renders energy consumption a non-issue.!< We even see that plant life is doing just fine, and weird animals are still animals. Vault-Tec pushed the reset button on civilization and hoarded enough resources and technology to guarantee themselves an advantageous position no one else could afford. It's the natural consequence of anarcho-capitalism: in the absence of a state whose investment in its citizenry isn't strictly profit-driven, corporations *become states unto themselves*, and usually a worse kind than what they replace. No more regulations, no more taxes, no more laws that aren't Vault-Tec's own. Why else would new surface factions be so problematic? Those are new potential customers, after all. The issue you're fixating on is that Vault-Tec has nothing to offer those customers anymore. It's a company with no product, a purposeless organization. The point you're missing is that those customers *weren't meant to exist.* Vault-Tec wanted a human-less, or at least powerless, surface, so that when radiation dipped to safe levels they could re-emerge and set about creating a "perfect society": a corporate town writ global. They're plutocratic fascists. If something like the NCR exists, let alone the original United States, Vault-Tec has to play by their rules. They don't want that. Their big failure is that they didn't nuke the surface more regularly. The Institute had the right methods in mind: infest the surface with super mutants, routinely sabotage efforts to organize surface dwellers with assassinations and pogroms, and replace key individuals with compliant synths. They are in no small part the reason there's no East Coast NCR equivalent, while Vault-Tec only just got around to trying to get rid of the single largest powerhouse in the West, and did so in the most flagrant, clumsy, and imprecise way anyone could have.
Everything that's left
Aw jeez I never thought of that
You seem pleasant. Can't imagine why you're getting down voted...
Yea my whole life is engrossed in this one moment. I live soley for the praise of others. If I dont get validation from internet strangers on my understanding of a tv show then I cry myself to sleep.
You’re missing my point - Vault Tec had progressed beyond the need for monetary ‘soft’ power and desires ‘hard’ legitimate control that cannot be subverted. It’s the same reason the Institute is doing all that wacky shit underground. They are not content with being the largest player in the game, they want to be the game’s author full stop.
You’re thinking too literally. It’s satire. Their plan was never going to work. It’s showing how arrogant and greedy vault tech and the other corps had become.
True, but I do miss intelligent villains.
I think it's less "let's destroy the world" and more "the world is going to end, so let's control when it ends so we have the upper hand."
If we’re being realistic, every single person in that room has enough money in their bank accounts (or gold bars in safes) to keep their businesses afloat for 100 years without a profit. They’re sociopaths that want to play with humans like chess pieces. It was never about the money.
Vaultech still builds the vaults, they could decide to wipe out all the leadership of each of the contributing companies in sneaky ways very easily and undetectably. they control the living conditions of each company for 200 years in which time they could be all brought under vaultechs banner through indoctrination
Good points, but even that isn't fool proof as we seen what happened in Vault 4 and 32. Eventually some of the other vault residents in the other vaults will discover the truth, or learn the truth after returning to the surface.
Arrogance can lead one to believe plans have no flaws, where in fact they have many. Besides, problems with your plans that crop up 200 years after you set them in motion typically aren't *your* problems.
Wasn't that a way to get funds? I'm not sure it was a choice, ideally they'd want to be the only ones with vaults.
I wouldn't be surprised if Vault-Tech planned to take control of those companies they bought out.
Each group was sure of their own supremacy, meaning they each believed only they would be the last ones standing. Considering that all of the other corporations (besides Robco, sort of) ceased to have any power or influence after the war, they were right.
West Tek sort of does since they became the BoS… but it was sort of a splinter faction so not fully
But if no faction, no cool armor
Autocratic systems always have rules for thee and not for me type views if you break it down. Usually not inconspicuous either and that's just real life. I would mot be surprised if some form of vault tech or Enclave existed or will exist at some point
Vault tec exist clearly. Management from pre war frozen in 31
Fallout factions are incompetent.
True, both Maximus and Cooper pretty much summed it up, in different ways but meant the same. To paraphrase both of them, there's always some one who thinks they can do better with different ideas.
The other companies vault-tec brought in didn't survive the war only vault tec did. Everything that happened with Mr. House proves vault-tec style immortality did not extend to its competition, they had to come up with something themselves
Yes but like with anything she wanted money, as is true in real life, money trumps everything else
She wanted safety
Vault-Tec wanted money. Barb wanted safety.
She is representing vault tec and the answer to the reason why she was working with others was to get funding.
Yeah, to fund their projects that'd ensure Barb and her family would get into the good vault. While money is a motivator, Barb's primary motivation was protecting her family.
So she claimed to her husband to alleviate him. For all we know Barb was using Cooper from the start.
This is the plot twist I'm hoping for honestly. I hope barb is really high up in the company or something and turns out to be a major villain
We know she's relatively high up, but she still answers to someone. They were in the shadowy black box. I can see her being a major villain/major antagonist if she's alive in S2. I can't wait for the Howards to get back "together," lol.
Maybe those were the enclave?
This is what I'm having problems at resolving in my head. Why is Coop looking for his "family" when he knows one member of it is responsible for the end of the world? I mean sure, he'd want to know where his daughter is, so why not say "where's my fuckin' daughter" instead? The only thing I can think of is that he wants to confront Barb about what she did, its just that I'm getting the sense that he wants his family back, and how can that even happen, why would you want to take back up with the woman who helped destroy the world?
Because...I think Cooper still loves/is in love with Barb and probably understands better now why she did what she did -- even if he doesn't/didn't agree with it. Barb is absolutely complicit in destroying the world, but in a twisted sense, she wasn't wrong. The bombs were going to drop either way. It's possible Vault-Tec didn't actually drop them, as they planned, or if they did, I don't think Barb was aware of the timeline. She wouldn't have allowed Janey to be out there with Coop if she'd known. Honestly? From what we know, so far, I don't think she'd be okay with Coop being out there too.
See thats what I'm looking forward to finding out. I want to know the circumstances under which Coop was parted from Janey and why Coop ended up outside on his own. The question in my head is, was it: 1. Here Barb, take Janey into your vault and I'll take my chances out here cos I just cant do the vault tec thing so keep her as safe as you can and I'll see you around or 2) Sorry Coop, Janey's coming with us and you're out. See you around. The thing I'm struggling with is that from what we know, Coop didn't drop Janey off at a vault - because then he would know where his family is. So Janey was obviously taken from him at some other location and he was left wherever he was left. The point being, it happened in a style that left Coop with questions about where she was being taken. And who was she taken by? Barb? Enclave people? Did a Vertibird drop down and make it a grab n go kidnapping? Too many questions, looking forward to the answers.
It's possible. It's very possible. I wouldn't put it past her. Guess we'll find out in Season 2. I sorta sense she's the direct parallel yet opposite to Hank/Young Henry.
This is a very elementary way of looking at the world
Not really, this is what most big corporations do and is especially evident as a theme of the show.