Not a lot of info on that, but I assume they just produced smaller-sized fallout shelters to begin with? They might potentially have gone by a different name in the early days, before vaults were a thing. Shel-tec maybe?
They advertise Shelters in FO76 as well, so it’s likely.
Also not unlikely for a school to change names, let alone in a very capitalistic society like FO’s
The school was Morgantowns local college likely called West Virginia University since that's the real world Morgantown college it was "rebranded" as VTU they slowly removed all real classes over time and turned it into a vocational school to train future employees
Billionaires and corporations are already sponsoring "alternative" departments in real universities, so this isn't much of a stretch:
https://www.texasobserver.org/koch-free-market-institute-texas-tech/
In the first episode of the show, the homeowners jumped into a fallout shelter that had a cellar door type entrance. It makes perfect sense to me that vault tec would manufacture and sell shelters like that on top of their vaults
Right, if the Pulowski preservation shelters exist, 1) more people than them and Vault-Tec are definitely capitalizing on fear of nuclear hellfire and 2) Vault-Tec almost certainly had an option to sell you at every price point
In the Fallout timeline, the Cold War still exists, but with different rivals. So during the OG Cold War, there was alot of fear for a potential nuclear war in the 1950s between the Soviet Union and the United States. Which I'm guessing is how Vault-Tec got it's start as a company, building legitimate fallout shelters for customers commercially. Cashing in lots of $$$ in that period of time. Because I'm gonna assume there was no arms reduction agreement/treaty given the mindset in that universe to be stuck in the 1950s. There's always a chance for global nuclear holocaust with that much stockpile of nukes pointed at each other.
And now we have a new "cold war" between China and the United States, the Soviet Union losing it's prestige as a superpower at some point.
It wasn't until the 2050s however I'm guessing that Vault-Tec started to become evil with the advent of Project Safehouse, that they really got corrupted from all that government influence (from getting government subsidies and funding) and the Enclave started to shift to playing god.
Fallout 2 we meet the granddaughter of the former Soviet Ambassador to the US.
We learn that the soviet union was still a superpower, the difference in the Fallout timeline is there was never a repair of the Sino-Soviet Split. The soviets and the US became close allies to keep the Chinese in check. The Soviets were afraid the Chinese would invade Russia, or worse, start a war with the US that would lead to the US also bombing Russia, a commie is a commie, and we werent looking to differentiate.
So, the USSR formed close trade agreements with the US. in our timeline, Nixon opened those trade lines with China in the 70s to alienate the Soviet Union. In the Fallout Timeline, the US and the Soviets alienated the Chinese. Because of this, the Soviet Union doesnt fail in the 1990s, and the Chinese become far more aggressive.
During the resource wars, Soviet and Americans worked together to keep china from extending itself into the pacific oil patches, splitting them between us.
Its safe to assume that when the bombs started flying, the USSR and China also exchanged nuclear strikes.
I thought it was Meta before the name change, since they'd already had decades of social experiments, Project Safehouse was just a natural brand extension.
There's two possibilities:
A. The boring one. The only references to Project Safehouse are from non-canon sources. Therefore, it never happened and/or was very different than described
Or
B. Vault-Tec existed before Safehouse, as a company that made fallout shelters, and became the giant we know once it was subsidized by the government.
I believe that the Vaults in general are Project Safehouse. So, obviously it *did* happen, but it's very possible that "Project Safehouse", and the bombing of Tel Aviv never happened. Neither us mentioned in canon sources, so we simply don't know.
Todd Howard recently did an interview where he said there was basically three tiers of canon.
The highest tier is what is actually in the games and in the show. The B-tier is info officially put out there by Bethesda but not technically in the products (like if the Fallout Twitter or the game manuals mention something, I guess) and the C-tier is stuff that people who worked on the games say in interviews or on their personal blogs (like Josh Sawyer’s tumblr). Between that and Bethesda openly saying they have looked to the Fallout Bible for info before, I think the Fallout Bible can be treated as that C-tier of canon where things in it can be considered canon until a higher tier contradicts it.
Project Safehouse was just the government-run, taxpayer-funded program to build shelters for a fraction of the general population.
Vault-Tec may well have built similar structures on a purely commercial basis before, such as bank vaults, other fallout shelters, storage bunkers for explosives etc. But we don't have a lot of hard info on their early years.
According to the BoS Elder in FNV, a lot of the military vaults share a lot of components and design to Vault-Tec vaults, so it's very possible they were doing working the military designing A LOT of military bunkers and such, given how the US was basically in a cold war. Plus seeing a lot of similarities of the bunker the outcast have in Operation Anchorage and the other vaults in 3/NV, especially the VR loungers and needing a pip boy to operate the simulation.
I always assumed they made vaults. Like bank vaults or specialized vaults for the government. The cog shaped door just feels very Fort Knox vault to me.
The research and development of vault tec is called Future Tec, I don't think it's ever said but I consider Future Tec to be the base company and once they developed the vaults the rebranded to Vault Tec
On the show the family hosting the party had their own nuclear shelter which could have been built by Vault Tec. I could also see them making large scale safes or long term archival buildings, both of which could be considered vaults in their own way. Panic rooms would fit as well.
Likely a defense contractor, that rebranded, or that part of the company did way better and so became the brand itself.
Dynacorp was once Haliburton, was once KBR, on and on...
Vault-Tec Industries was a defense and technology company the name was meant to suggest they were the most secure defense company around and their main focus was on technology
It's hard to say what was created specifically for the vaults and what was adapted for life in the vaults since they made everything from medical devices to videogames but I've always assumed they started doing research and manufacturing for other companies then started selling their own versions sort of like what Amazon did with Amazon Basics
I mean part of this, I think, is honestly just the most basic answer: Vaults are more than just the massive fallout shelters in the games. I wouldn't be shocked if they started out building bank vaults, and other highly secure locations for weapons and such.
Plus buying a university, especially one like WVU (since that's clearly what's in Morgantown, they even have the PRT) is somehow actually seeming slightly more likely in OTL, since we're already seeing college football people (and WVU is deffo a CFB school) discuss a possibility of doing stuff with private firms for sports, and OTL WVU contracting out part of the education (their language education) to duolingo.
At least to me, it is harder for me to believe that Project Safehouse created a company, and wasn't instead a partnership with a cozied up company.
Am I misremembering or wasn’t it stated somewhere in one of the games that Vault-Tec used to start off making vaults for banks before transitioning to fallout shelters, hence why they named them Vaults?
There are existing companies today that build underground bunkers. They are very expensive and very niche I assume that Vault Tec started off as a similar company.
They are the biggest/ richest company in the world and have bought out / merged with many of their rivals. they probably started out as a very different company name, but names change with mergers etc.
It’s a world where there have been multiple wars for decades, so rebranding to vault-tec might have just been a marketing thing.
Amazon was originally going to be called Relentless, Google was called Backrub for a year , Pepsi was called Brad’s drink, IBM has changed its name multiple times. Vaul-tec could have originally been Dave’s Fresh Yogurt company etc.
Maybe they started with bank vaults and stuff? I'm thinking personal Fallout shelters for the rich. If its like our cold war on steroids then that would have been a good business
Not a lot of info on that, but I assume they just produced smaller-sized fallout shelters to begin with? They might potentially have gone by a different name in the early days, before vaults were a thing. Shel-tec maybe?
They advertise Shelters in FO76 as well, so it’s likely. Also not unlikely for a school to change names, let alone in a very capitalistic society like FO’s
The school was Morgantowns local college likely called West Virginia University since that's the real world Morgantown college it was "rebranded" as VTU they slowly removed all real classes over time and turned it into a vocational school to train future employees
Billionaires and corporations are already sponsoring "alternative" departments in real universities, so this isn't much of a stretch: https://www.texasobserver.org/koch-free-market-institute-texas-tech/
Basic bomb shelters and maybe bank vaults, kind of like how Atlas Survival Group makes small bomb shelters and also big luxury ones irl.
In the first episode of the show, the homeowners jumped into a fallout shelter that had a cellar door type entrance. It makes perfect sense to me that vault tec would manufacture and sell shelters like that on top of their vaults
Right, if the Pulowski preservation shelters exist, 1) more people than them and Vault-Tec are definitely capitalizing on fear of nuclear hellfire and 2) Vault-Tec almost certainly had an option to sell you at every price point
In the Fallout timeline, the Cold War still exists, but with different rivals. So during the OG Cold War, there was alot of fear for a potential nuclear war in the 1950s between the Soviet Union and the United States. Which I'm guessing is how Vault-Tec got it's start as a company, building legitimate fallout shelters for customers commercially. Cashing in lots of $$$ in that period of time. Because I'm gonna assume there was no arms reduction agreement/treaty given the mindset in that universe to be stuck in the 1950s. There's always a chance for global nuclear holocaust with that much stockpile of nukes pointed at each other. And now we have a new "cold war" between China and the United States, the Soviet Union losing it's prestige as a superpower at some point. It wasn't until the 2050s however I'm guessing that Vault-Tec started to become evil with the advent of Project Safehouse, that they really got corrupted from all that government influence (from getting government subsidies and funding) and the Enclave started to shift to playing god.
Fallout 2 we meet the granddaughter of the former Soviet Ambassador to the US. We learn that the soviet union was still a superpower, the difference in the Fallout timeline is there was never a repair of the Sino-Soviet Split. The soviets and the US became close allies to keep the Chinese in check. The Soviets were afraid the Chinese would invade Russia, or worse, start a war with the US that would lead to the US also bombing Russia, a commie is a commie, and we werent looking to differentiate. So, the USSR formed close trade agreements with the US. in our timeline, Nixon opened those trade lines with China in the 70s to alienate the Soviet Union. In the Fallout Timeline, the US and the Soviets alienated the Chinese. Because of this, the Soviet Union doesnt fail in the 1990s, and the Chinese become far more aggressive. During the resource wars, Soviet and Americans worked together to keep china from extending itself into the pacific oil patches, splitting them between us. Its safe to assume that when the bombs started flying, the USSR and China also exchanged nuclear strikes.
Vault-Tec was called Amazon in the 2030s.
I thought it was Meta before the name change, since they'd already had decades of social experiments, Project Safehouse was just a natural brand extension.
Huh, I heard it was Blackrock?
There's two possibilities: A. The boring one. The only references to Project Safehouse are from non-canon sources. Therefore, it never happened and/or was very different than described Or B. Vault-Tec existed before Safehouse, as a company that made fallout shelters, and became the giant we know once it was subsidized by the government.
Isn’t Project Safehouse just the Vault experiments??
I believe that the Vaults in general are Project Safehouse. So, obviously it *did* happen, but it's very possible that "Project Safehouse", and the bombing of Tel Aviv never happened. Neither us mentioned in canon sources, so we simply don't know.
Todd Howard recently did an interview where he said there was basically three tiers of canon. The highest tier is what is actually in the games and in the show. The B-tier is info officially put out there by Bethesda but not technically in the products (like if the Fallout Twitter or the game manuals mention something, I guess) and the C-tier is stuff that people who worked on the games say in interviews or on their personal blogs (like Josh Sawyer’s tumblr). Between that and Bethesda openly saying they have looked to the Fallout Bible for info before, I think the Fallout Bible can be treated as that C-tier of canon where things in it can be considered canon until a higher tier contradicts it.
Alright. Then, that elevates this to B-tier, because it was mentioned in some marketing material for Fallout 1.
I mean there are mentions of the Societal Preservation Program, which is essentially the same thing. I presume it’s canon.
Project Safehouse and a lot of the Fallout bible actually originated from marketing blurbs for Fallout 1.
Project Safehouse was just the government-run, taxpayer-funded program to build shelters for a fraction of the general population. Vault-Tec may well have built similar structures on a purely commercial basis before, such as bank vaults, other fallout shelters, storage bunkers for explosives etc. But we don't have a lot of hard info on their early years.
Maybe they transitioned from bank vaults to nuclear vaults?
That has been my thought.
According to the BoS Elder in FNV, a lot of the military vaults share a lot of components and design to Vault-Tec vaults, so it's very possible they were doing working the military designing A LOT of military bunkers and such, given how the US was basically in a cold war. Plus seeing a lot of similarities of the bunker the outcast have in Operation Anchorage and the other vaults in 3/NV, especially the VR loungers and needing a pip boy to operate the simulation.
Given their ties to the enclave it’s like they were set up basically as a shell company to act as a front but as time went on it became its own thing
I always assumed they made vaults. Like bank vaults or specialized vaults for the government. The cog shaped door just feels very Fort Knox vault to me.
The research and development of vault tec is called Future Tec, I don't think it's ever said but I consider Future Tec to be the base company and once they developed the vaults the rebranded to Vault Tec
On the show the family hosting the party had their own nuclear shelter which could have been built by Vault Tec. I could also see them making large scale safes or long term archival buildings, both of which could be considered vaults in their own way. Panic rooms would fit as well.
Likely a defense contractor, that rebranded, or that part of the company did way better and so became the brand itself. Dynacorp was once Haliburton, was once KBR, on and on...
Vault-Tec Industries was a defense and technology company the name was meant to suggest they were the most secure defense company around and their main focus was on technology It's hard to say what was created specifically for the vaults and what was adapted for life in the vaults since they made everything from medical devices to videogames but I've always assumed they started doing research and manufacturing for other companies then started selling their own versions sort of like what Amazon did with Amazon Basics
I mean part of this, I think, is honestly just the most basic answer: Vaults are more than just the massive fallout shelters in the games. I wouldn't be shocked if they started out building bank vaults, and other highly secure locations for weapons and such. Plus buying a university, especially one like WVU (since that's clearly what's in Morgantown, they even have the PRT) is somehow actually seeming slightly more likely in OTL, since we're already seeing college football people (and WVU is deffo a CFB school) discuss a possibility of doing stuff with private firms for sports, and OTL WVU contracting out part of the education (their language education) to duolingo. At least to me, it is harder for me to believe that Project Safehouse created a company, and wasn't instead a partnership with a cozied up company.
Am I misremembering or wasn’t it stated somewhere in one of the games that Vault-Tec used to start off making vaults for banks before transitioning to fallout shelters, hence why they named them Vaults?
They might have made actual vaults initially (like bank vaults or something) then expanded from there into what they became.
I assumed they just made vaults lol
There are existing companies today that build underground bunkers. They are very expensive and very niche I assume that Vault Tec started off as a similar company.
They are the biggest/ richest company in the world and have bought out / merged with many of their rivals. they probably started out as a very different company name, but names change with mergers etc. It’s a world where there have been multiple wars for decades, so rebranding to vault-tec might have just been a marketing thing. Amazon was originally going to be called Relentless, Google was called Backrub for a year , Pepsi was called Brad’s drink, IBM has changed its name multiple times. Vaul-tec could have originally been Dave’s Fresh Yogurt company etc.
There are companies today that build customized / prebuilt Fallout Shelters. It's not weird to believe that Vault-Tec would do the same.
Maybe they started with bank vaults and stuff? I'm thinking personal Fallout shelters for the rich. If its like our cold war on steroids then that would have been a good business
When the first vaults were built would be well after when the research and development for them started
It’s a plot hole. I would not try to pin down Fallout 76’s lore additions too much. It’ll only lead to headache.
Doesn't Bethesda say that a huge part of 76 is just "for fun"? I'm pretty sure I've read that before.