Prologue
War. War never changes. Each war humanity has fought has gotten worse and worse. The inventions have gotten better and faster. The spear. The sword. The musket. The cannon. The machine-gun. The submarine. The atomic bomb. The hydrogen bomb and the ICBM. Each forms the basis of a method to kill more people faster. The defenses got better too. The shield. Suits of armor. Bulletproof vests. Trenches. Anti-submarine warfare. But the nuclear bombs were different. They were a weapon that was difficult to defend against. How could you protect yourself from a blast that generates enough heat to vaporize matter on the spot? The answer lay not in defense but in attack. If we have nukes and they have nukes they won't hit us because we'll hit them. Back and forth the debate raged. And for decades the world existed in an uneasy peace between the United States and the Soviet Union. To protect themselves civilians built underground homes called fallout shelters. These, however, were near useless against a nuclear blast. A company known as Vaults Inc. created their own underground fallout shelters, only theirs were deep underground and very vast. These were known as the Vaults. Each Vault could sustain a large number of people for a very long time. Vaults Inc. was commissioned to construct twelve different Vaults all over the world. Four in the continental United States, three in Russia, one in India, one in England, two in Canada and one in Alaska. These vast underground communities were constructed in total secret; even Vaults Inc. existence was kept a closely guarded secret. Then the Cold War ended and the Vaults were no longer needed. They were closed up and their existence was forgotten. Nobody had any need for them anymore. They couldn't have been more wrong.
War. War never changes. Each war humanity has fought has gotten worse and worse. The inventions have gotten better and faster. The spear. The sword. The musket. The cannon. The machine-gun. The submarine. The atomic bomb. The hydrogen bomb and the ICBM. Each forms the basis of a method to kill more people faster. The defenses got better too. The shield. Suits of armor. Bulletproof vests. Trenches. Anti-submarine warfare. But the nuclear bombs were different. They were a weapon that was difficult to defend against. How could you protect yourself from a blast that generates enough heat to vaporize matter on the spot? The answer lay not in defense but in attack. If we have nukes and they have nukes they won't hit us because we'll hit them. Back and forth the debate raged. And for decades the world existed in an uneasy peace between the United States and the Soviet Union. To protect themselves civilians built underground homes called fallout shelters. These, however, were near useless against a nuclear blast. A company known as Vaults Inc. created their own underground fallout shelters, only theirs were deep underground and very vast. These were known as the Vaults. Each Vault could sustain a large number of people for a very long time. Vaults Inc. was commissioned to construct twelve different Vaults all over the world. Four in the continental United States, three in Russia, one in India, one in England, two in Canada and one in Alaska. These vast underground communities were constructed in total secret; even Vaults Inc. existence was kept a closely guarded secret. Then the Cold War ended and the Vaults were no longer needed. They were closed up and their existence was forgotten. Nobody had any need for them anymore. They couldn't have been more wrong.