Design your own Vault experiment!

[GrizzlerBorno]

Everyone gets a single 25c coin and the only food source is a vending machine.

That is just fucking evil......you Win!

OT: I can't believe no one has said:
2 weeks after the Vault closes, the overseer and his lackeys spreads a rumor among the populace that all the Vaults, INCLUDING this one, were actually designed to conduct social experiments. The catch being that there is NO social experiment for that vault. But people don't know that.....

Second Idea (inspired from a certain TV show, cookie for reference): A small vault (of 20 people) is set up to monitor 5 other experiment vaults in the state. They are instructed to write down everything they monitor from all the evil experiments and send them through a vacuum tube system to a "Vault-tec bunker for detailed analysis).
The vacuum tube leads to nowhere (dumping all the notes in a landfill). and the observation vault itself is under observation to see if they crack from watching the sick experiments, but being more powerful than the other vaults.

Third Idea: 2 weeks after the vault closes, it is announced that the door has jammed and can never be opened. THEN, it is announce that the vault will self-destruct in one year....

Last Idea, I swear: 200,000,000 books/ 100,000 holotapes/ 1000 video games (non-canon)/ 1 (wo)man (NOT the overseer; there is NO overseer, the vault is run by robots). If the dweller manages to read, watch and play every single object in the vault (and maybe give a test to prove it), he/she will be set free.


Okay THIS is the last idea: A MASSIVE cylindrical vault with it's own fully functional forest. The ceiling is so high up (and painted in such a way) that it is indistinguishable from a real sky. If you are standing in the middle of the cylinder you can't see the edges without traveling in any direction for a month.

A heterosexual married couple is given forced amnesia (somehow) and stranded at the exact centre of the vault. Can they be the new Adam and Eve? sub-experiment: Does a marriage/relationship survive amnesia?

 

[Captain Pirate]

Vault 41 - A recreation of ancient Sparta: Children are trained practically from birth in hand-to-hand military combat, and all that Spartan jazz. Oh, and they are expertly trained in the operation and respect for firearms. No wild-shooters here; they'll be trained to only shoot when they need to, and never miss. When the vault opens after 200 years, these guys'll dominate everything. Fuck Caesar's Legion, these are the real hard-arses.

Vault 90 - A vault where, before the Nucleur holcaust, around 40 people were brought in as children. They were then raised entirely naturally; no language or anything. Entirely feral people, so to speak.
When the new people arrive, all of the people above 16 will be killed, hopefulyl leaving about 60 teenagers/children.
The experiment is to see how quickly the children degenerate into savages, and how successful they bring up their own children and live their new lives using pretty much nothing but instinct.

The vault will have the original metal frame, but it will be covered in dirt and rock and grass, making man0made tunnels, fields, etc. Also, it will be much larger, at least 4-5 times as big as any other vault. Wide, open expanses make up a good 2/3rds of it, the other areas are designed as dens for the people.
The vault comes complete with a fake day/night cycle, which, just to add confusion, happens at a different time to our current days. For instance, if it's 1 o'clock, lunchtime, now, for these savages it would be midnight. At our nidmight, they would be up and hunting for lunch.

Which brings me to my next point; hunting.
The 'native' creatures of the vault are common, relatively small wild animals. Foxes, frogs, domestic cats and dogs (Which as a side experiment would be also raised in an entirely natural enviroment; bringing a feral side to the pets we so often see house-trained), rabbits, even some birds like Owls and sparrows. A few snakes here and there.
However, a small section of the vault (About 1/15th) would be set up as the den of some mountain lions. These would hopefully hunt the humans as well, and would be interesting to see if the people either a) Co-existed, simply avoiding the mountain lions, though a few would be killed every now and then, or b) worked together to over-hunt the lions, making the feral humans the top of the food chain.

SRed-Scale vault: Angry/Passionate/Lively music (punk, metal, even hard jazz, gangsta rap, some pop), their videos would all be contact sports and action films, and their education would be history and glory of warmongering civilizations along with economic theory, biology, medicine.

I think this is a really good idea for a vault, on it's own.
It'd be cool seeing how a people brought up on aggresive music, action movies and the history of war would turn out.

 

[Of-the-Lion]

A vault full of monkeys and typewriters.

Thank goodness that the great works of Shakespeare will be preserved through the nuclear holocaust.

 

[Captain Pirate]

Have stickler security and very tight leader then fill the vault with anarchists.

Vault 806: The vault is filled with literature about a ferocious animal called a Kitten which preys on people and tries to descieve them with cuteness.
After a few generations, when the kitten becomes known by the dwellers as a monster, an event will start where one vault dweller will be removed every week and the sound of screaming and purring played as if the dweller was being maulled.
Then a group of kittens will be released into the vault every few weeks after the imhabitants learn to be petrified of them.
The inhabitants will be given blunt objects, such as lead pipes, to protect themselves from the kittens.
The purpose of this vault is to see if people can be taught to fear something which is harmless, and to see if this resorts in a mainly fight or flight reaction when exposed to it.

Ok, I've already posted, but I just had to say that I think these are some of the most awesome vault ideas.
That anarchy one would be awesome. Obviously, eventualy they'd overthrow the leadership, but what then? How can they function with no form of formal leadership whatsoever... what would they resort to?

And I love the psychology behind the 'Kitten' one. I guess one person would eventually kill them, but before that... would be cool to watch them running in genuine terror of a small, cute, cuddly kitten.

 

[Gudrests]

As anyone who's played a Fallout game can tell you, some of the Vault-Tec sociological experiments are pretty twisted. Insanity-causing things like white noise being broadcast constantly, limiting survival supplies, uneven numbers of females to males, etc, etc.

If you were tasked with coming up with a Vault of your own, what would the experiment and it's effects be? What question are you trying to answer about the human condition with your gross overuse of godlike science power? Be creative.

Me? I'd have no holotapes or books or anything for entertainment but video games. First person shooters, to be precise. The only beverages available would be Bawls and Mountain Dew: Code Red. The only food, chips and Taco Bell. I'd want to see if they formed clans, both within the game and in the Vault, and how it affected their relationships with one another. I'd also hope to see the effects of close proximity to behavior through the headset, and beyond.

I'm pretty sure "Campers must die" and "Noobtubers are shot on sight" would be scrawled on the walls in blood in the first week.

Can I live with you?!?!?!?!?!!!?!....excpet RPG's and MMO's and RTS's and other games of that nature where What I do gives me points perminantly ...plese

 

[Detective Paul]

Vault 109:500 inhabitants are placed in the vault perfectly divided to 250:heterosexual women 250:heterosexual men Every time someone is impregnated protectotrons kill the father then after the child is born they kill the mother. After this the child will be given to another family. This is to see if the child will ever find out that their true mother and father are dead,or accept their fake parents as the real ones.Oh and the murdering shall be disguised as accidents.

 

[Of-the-Lion]

SRed-Scale vault: Angry/Passionate/Lively music (punk, metal, even hard jazz, gangsta rap, some pop), their videos would all be contact sports and action films, and their education would be history and glory of warmongering civilizations along with economic theory, biology, medicine.

I think this is a really good idea for a vault, on it's own.
It'd be cool seeing how a people brought up on aggresive music, action movies and the history of war would turn out.

And in contrast: A vault that emphasizes hippie culture and non-violence stocked with Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan music, as well as books on Buddhism, as well as copies of Abbey Hoffman's "Steal this Book". The overseer is Timothy O'Leary.

 

[spartandude]

Vault 1337 - No Gods or Kings. Only Man. and watch as society crumbles. HAH! Take that Ayn Rand!

 

[Draconicfeline]

Vault 1337 - No Gods or Kings. Only Man. and watch as society crumbles. HAH! Take that Ayn Rand!

Rapture Vault?
Awesome.

hmm..

Vault X (I can't come up with a number!): a vault where engineering is focused upon completely almost to the exclusion of any other subject in education. Equipment works sub-par, and it is obvious that it is such. Other services are controlled by robots, such as food and medicine, and these are also somewhat sub-par.
Materials are abundant, and there is a cave that can be used to mine other resources. Upgrades are possible to all equipment, and the tools can be easily modified with other technology.
The goal: to see what sort of techno society results and what technology they end up with.

Vault X2: The vault is not lit by any electronic lighting. Instead, a slimy living membrane is coating the walls and gives off a soft luminescence. Also, food consists of buds from this membrane, but it must be taken care of carefully to prevent it from dying off.
This can be done by careful management of water and the growth of other plants, whose seeds are present in the vault and can be fed to the thing, or by sacrificing other vault dwellers.
The goal: so see what sort of society results, and also to see what happens if the plant crop fails and they are all out of seeds...

 

[Wintermute_]

several newborns, at the moment of birth, are taken and isolated at birth in solitary confinement rooms, one child all by their self in one room. the newborns would be nurtured using remote controlled robotic arms and southing music.

But they would never, in the course of their lives, EVER meet another human being. By the time they're 4-5 years old they have to fend for and care for themselves. all the necessary utilities and provisions will be provided via a tube system depositing them around the ample space of the solitary confinement chamber. they would never hear and human speak. they would never socialize. the would go apart from society, never knowing of its existence or of life outside the chamber. the experiment:
Would these children grow up to be human the way we see humans now? when you think, you hear a little voice in your head right? how would this human think, having never had exposure to language? how would they act? how would they function?

Then, after years of isolation, re-introduce them to humanity in a collision of world that would probably cause their little minds to pop with the strain. But it would tell us A LOT about how the human brain functions in relation to environmental conditioning and how social creature behave based on morals learned through interaction, etc, etc...

It would be VERY interesting.

what this guy said, lots of words

 

[Varanfan9]

A vault filled with psychopathic serial killers all supplied with one melee weapon like a knife or machete. Outside the vault there is a trap which sucks travelers into a maze within the vault. I want to see if the killers will kill the people getting sucked into the maze and make it there form of entertainment or accept new members into vault to survive. I also want to see if they will work together or just start a mass killing spree amongst them all.

 

[Draconicfeline]

Oh oh! I have another one!

Vault Angel Beats: a population consisting of teenagers are placed in a vault that is built to simulate a boarding high school and even has a simulated sky, etc.
They are convinced, through false memories and other methods, that they are all dead and this is their purgatory.
They are given the ability to enter the armory at any time, and to create more weapons and ammo from the computer.
The medical system is also very good, and can bring most of them back.

Every so often, one is removed from the vault without the knowledge of the others.
What would happen?

 

[Kaytastrophe]

Vault Experiment 67:
Have a fault full of people and tell half that the vault could only support them for 50 years but that by that time it should be safe to leave the vault and tell the other half that they can't leave the vault for 100 years but supplies should be sufficient. similarly I would tell them that if they don't open the vault before the 50 years they won't have another opportunity to open it and will die. Similarly those who think they can't leave the vault are told that if they open it before 100 years the vault will become contaminated and will not be able to be resealed. Neither party is told in advance what the other groups knows. Each group feels the other will cause them to die.

 

[Realitycrash]

Sorry, have to link this, since noone have done it yet; http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/pennyarcade.html

Nothing you ever come up with will be as hilarious.

 

[Of-the-Lion]

Who'd have thought that such an idea would come from the guy whose avatar has been saving the princess for decades.

 

[Omega07]

My Vault would be similar to that of PurePareidolia, but mine would have no hierarchy, no "relations" to the visions. they would be based on the residents psyche. like one of them might occasionally see his dead wife while the other one would see some horrible monster. to ensure that everybody has their own vision, they will have special contact lenses , that would be attached to their eyes.

these projections would occur only in certain areas, but these areas would be on the way to the mess hall/rooms/medical station etc. there would be no way to avoid them, and they would change their attitude (e.g. on day 4 the "monster" projection just roams around the area, but on day 7 it chases the person who sees it, just to vanish before "mutilating" or "killing" the person)

also the residents are required to write down a full report (or at least as much as they can) on what had happened that day and how did they feel about it. if they don`t do it, they are hurt in some "accident" or just removed from the society.

the visions would appear randomly to people (person A starts seeing stuff in day one, while person B goes on a whole year without seeing anything) so that they would think it`s coming from their mind.

the Vault would be sealed for 1-2 generations (newborns would need to go through a special treatment, during which the contact lenses would be implanted, but the lenses would go active only at age 5-7). the systems would work fine, until everybody has their visions. then they would gradually start to malfunction. they would have everything they might ever need (e.g. a library, games, comics, maybe even a special Vault-park), and the residents would be evenly layered out by gender, age and orientation.

I know that this sounds sick, but i see it as a great opportunity, to see how people react to prolonged stress and fear.

 

[Of-the-Lion]

Vault 0 (<- OMG IM SO KEWL!)

The vault is a large underground dome, filled with foliage and various non-aggressive wildlife. In the center of the vault is an apple tree. One human male baby and one human female baby will be placed in the vault and nursed by the robotic mother machine that Wintermute talked about. They will grow up, living off of the fruit and vegetation and eventually meet each other.
This experiment is titled: Project Eden. It is not an experiment done to prove or disprove the existence of a God, but to see how humans would behave in an entirely "natural" environment.

 

[KevinR1990]

Idea #1: Two Vaults. One of them is populated by evangelical Christian families, and the other is populated by secular atheist/agnostic families. Education and entertainment in the Vaults is tailored to each group. The Christian Vault's entertainment choices are tilted towards Christian movies, music, literature and holodisks, while the school curriculum includes intelligent design, abstinence-only sex education, Bible study, lessons on America's Christian heritage, and mandatory prayer at the start of class. The secular Vault's entertainment options, meanwhile, are likewise tilted towards anti-religious and "subversive" ones in much the same manner, and education focuses heavily on science and mathematics, with other classes heavily secularized (the irreligious deism of many of the Founding Fathers, for example, is covered in history, and there is a comparative religion course).

Now comes the fun part. The two Vaults are located within ten miles of one another, they know of each other's existence, and they have contact with one another in the form of telephones, video and a BBS/Usenet-style system. In addition, the respective Overseers are to be elected democratically every year. The experiment will test how ideological unity and conformity, as well as fear of an "other" culture, can lead to extremism. After 40 years, the Vaults are opened up simultaneously, allowing the residents of each, who have been in (indirect) contact with one another for decades, to finally meet each other.

----

Idea #2: What I'd like to call the "Big Brother Vault". The residents of this Vault are selected like contestants on a reality show -- in addition to the skills needed to run a Vault, the residents are selected for the traits that will create the most dramatic tension (hey, let's throw in a Black Power guy with a Klansman!), as well as for their more photogenic qualities (i.e. more attractive people). Hidden cameras and microphones broadcast the goings-on in this Vault live to all of the other Vaults (including the two mentioned above) on one of the Vault system's internal TV channels. The only people in the Vault who knows of its true intentions are the Overseer and the backstage staff running the show, who all live in a nearby Vault of their own that is connected to the main Vault but kept secret from its residents. Like the residents, the Overseer will also be selected for photogenity -- he or she is, after all, doing double duty as a TV presenter for all the other Vaults.

There are two changes to the "standard" Vault formula for the people living within. First, every week, a resident must enter the Diary Room for three minutes to record their "private" thoughts which, in theory, will only be seen by the Overseer (in reality, they are broadcasted to the other Vaults). Secondly, every month comes eviction night, when the residents of the other Vaults are able to vote via phone who they want kicked out of the Big Brother Vault. The residents, to keep them from finding out what's really happening, are told that the eviction process is controlled entirely by the Overseer (who is exempt from the eviction process, as are all residents under 16) in order to keep them in line and weed out troublemakers. Evicted residents are taken into the backstage Vault, where they are interviewed by the Overseer and then integrated into that Vault's community. The backstage Vault will have only half the standard Vault population at first, in order to accommodate the influx of evicted Big Brother Vault residents.

This Vault is designed not for any scientific purpose, but rather, like the holodisks and books supplied to the residents, it is meant to serve as "bread and circuses" to keep them compliant.

 

[The Funslinger]

1) A vault where everybody is brainwashed to go to sleep at 9:00pm exactly. In the night, one random person is autonomously bound to their bed, and a drip of water drips on their head as a robot comes to ask them questions until dawn. Do this for 50 years and see how it affects them in the long run.

2) Something in the style of the hunger games. Food is given out sparingly, despite being in endless supply, the vault is divided into 12 different sections. Every year every child, aged 12-18 must put his/her name into a lottery. 1 slip per child aged 12 with another added every year. Their parents can have their children's names put in as many extra times as they please in return for a food ration for each extra slip. a male and female is selected from each section, placed into a central arena with a synthetic nature environment, and made to fight to the death until one person remains.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

First vault idea: Every resident in the vault blind since birth. No accomodations in the vault for the blind.

And there are bare-traps and stairs with out railings EVERYWHERE!