War.
War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire on its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But war never changes.
The end of the world occurred pretty much as we predicted, too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around. In the 21st century, war was once again waged over what little resources could be found, but this time, the spoils of war were also it's weapons, petroleum and uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada and the European Commonwealth would dissolve away into quarrelling, bickering nation states bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth. In the year 2077, the world once again knew the pain of a great scale war, each country blindly making use of their now full nuclear capabilities. A great cleansing. An atomic spark struck by human hands quickly raged out of control. Spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies, continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans and in two short hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. The details are trivial and pointless. The reasons, as always, purely human ones. Humanity was almost extinguished. Their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the Earth. A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years.
There was hope, however. A slim hope. Prior to the war, the fear was very real. Governments across the globe began their own individual projects designed to ensure that their people would survive. The three economic super powers in the world at the time worked together in an attempt to save the human race. Together they managed to dig a total of twenty underground bunkers, rightfully referred to as the Vaults, into mountains and deep underground. These three nations did not think of the reality that in the event of a nuclear war, there would be no allies. Each Vault was designed to house three thousand people in the beginning, with enough room to produce adequate farmland. Standard in each Vault were the two greatest technological advancements in human history. One was the radical new water purification process. The system could filter the entire radiated water on the Earth and purify it safe for human and animal use. It was all thanks to a revolutionary piece of technology, simply named a water chip. Without the chip, the water would eliminate the entire populace of the vault in a matter of weeks. Fortunately, each Vault was to have a considerable amount.
The second piece was one that bordered on the impossible. A work of technological art and mystery, a piece that would mock the idea of God, or one that would ignite His wrath. A small briefcase sized device that is meant to be hidden away in the Vault, never to see any light until the time the vault was to open. The epitome of pre-war technology, and the culmination of all mankind could ever think and hope to achieve. It was known as The Garden of Eden Creation Kit.
The name of the inventor has been lost in the sands of time. Not even the wisest of the vault dwellers knew of his existence. Before the war, all information about the invention was destroyed. Documents, tests, blueprints, all burned, or shredded in what the government dubbed The Reset. With all the information destroyed, all hope of recreating the technology was lost. For the good of the people, said the leaders of the world. If anyone were to build the Garden again, wars would erupt over whom it belongs too. After being used once, the case would erase itself from the planet, never to be analysed, never to be taken apart. The view of the inside could make the great great great grandparents of the ones who use it nostalgic about the times when TV's and radios were not yet common. Small, round, bubble screens and what resembled a radar screen decorated the inside. Cathode ray tubes could be seen as though they were littered about or there just for show. Rabbit-ear antennas, flickering lights, electric currents, all semblative of technology long lost. No one knew how, or why it worked, but in times of great strife and suffering without it, no one would care.
The small silver case held the future of the people behind its three-number combination lock.
It was meant to be standard in every vault, to be kept away from every inhabitant, in both sight and mind until the time came to begin the outside world again. The only person allowed to know of its existence was the head of the vault, The Overseer. After the citizens stepped passed the four-foot thick steel door, they would use to the Garden of Eden Creation Kit to instantaneously build their new houses, and their new community would thrive in the once barren wasteland. The idea was that most of the Vaults would be disassembled, and parts would be used for a variety of different things, they were designed that way, while the G.E.C.K. would do most of the work, people still needed to work hard to make the whole project to succeed. It was meant to be simple, it was meant not to fail, humanity was going to be redeemed for it's past crimes and sins, for all the wars, for all the death, for everything. But many things do not go according to plan.
Actually living in the Vaults was not something that could be planned on paper. Despite the large size of the Vaults themselves, the people could not help but feel cramped inside. So many people close to each other at all times. Claustrophobia was a death sentence; agoraphobia was a daily occurrence. Community living was a must-have; communism became a safe and effective way of government. People needed each other to simply be able to wake up alive. Detention cells existed, yet amazingly were seldom used. People were capable of anything if the need was there. Despite all this however, some vaults were destined never to make it.
One Vault, Vault-4, was destroyed from the inside out 27 months after the great door closed. Due to the massive explosion of electromagnetic pulses set off by each atomic bomb fired, all communication that existed between the Vaults was cut off indefinitely. The first thing that could go wrong, did. The people of Vault-4 experienced a massive outbreak of cabin fever. The current overseer, Michael Thielmann, was unable to control the citizens; he was eventually overthrown in a chaotic riot. He was hung, disembowelled, decapitated and vaporised. Soon after, rapes, thefts and murders broke out uncontrollably. Children were killed at birth if the mother managed to survive. Another mouth, another problem, they thought. The little police force that existed did all it could. Detention cells became overcrowded. The small amount of weapons supplied only to the overseer and his own group of police would go missing. The police, known as The Order, became subjects of mockery and contempt. Mob mentality lead to the deaths of all members of The Order even those that were corrupt. All food was consumed, and without the overseer to regulate the water filtration process, the water supply ran out. Acts of cannibalism were witnessed from time to time; soon it became a norm. The people reverted back to the savage primitive creatures that all the technology would suggest were extinct. 152 days after the death of the Overseer, the entire vault became a derelict. When it was found and explored, the bodies still littered the floor, decomposition was low, and the stench was unbearable. All the technology was destroyed in savage uproars. One body was found with a screwdriver still clenched in its hand, both eyes were gouged out, fingers were missing, teeth were gone, and a message was carved in the wall behind the freakish corpse. "The mAndNEss WiLl endEd...thE HelLs are BeGUn". Vault-4 had failed
Dug deep under the Australian Outback was Vault-18, which, due to a technical error, was not able to close the great vault door. The inhabitants were instantaneously incinerated when a misguided nuclear warhead landed 65 meters away from the opening.
The vaults were designed to only hold a maximum of five thousand people. Vault-16 failed to keep its population in check. Their numbers grew much to large to hold. Eventually, their supplies were extinguished, and the people starved to death peacefully.
Each vault was meant to be sealed for at least a calculated three hundred years. Enough time for most radiation from the new bombs to subside. The amount of radiation in the water was calculated and analysed as it went through the filtration process, to determine when it would be safe to leave. The Vault door was supposed to be unable to be opened before the pre- determined amount of time had passed. No one in the vault had the power to override the system, not even the Overseer. However, due to many errors in the programming of the vault computers, some doors opened much to soon. Vault-6, which was dug under the great city of Los Angeles, was one of them. 7 years after the end of the Final War, the great door of Vault-11 opened. It was the first vault to open and it was much to early. The inhabitants emerged thinking that the world was safe. Unfortunately, without anyone even knowing it, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, never arrived to the Vault in the first place, no one knew what it was, or that they needed it. The inhabitants of Vault-6 had to build their city the hard way.
Without realising, the immense radiation decayed their body tissue in a short amount of time. Less than five years after their arrival from the safety of the vaults, they had lost large portions of their skin and muscle tissue. Their bodies begin to have a sickening green complexion and large portions of muscle tissue were visible. Some even began to glow in the dark, and years later they would be confused as wandering spirits. Their bodies looked as though they were dead and buried for years. Their skin literally would hang from their bones and a small nudge could rip the tissue off. Genders were erased, reproduction was impossible. Either sterility or just the fact that the organs required fell off years ago. Through freakish circumstances and against previous biological laws, they survived, in a sense. Despite their appearance, which was never an issue since everyone had the problem, they were a happy people.
Their condition brought them unnatural long life. Their lifespan was virtually impossible to determine. They became immune to all forms of disease; rather they would spread the disease. The people of this vault lived peacefully for years, living in the skeletal remains of the city of Los Angeles. They called themselves a new race of humans, the Ghouls, and they were more peaceful than any other human could imagine. They renamed their city Necropolis, City of the Dead, and lived there for many years undisturbed. Until a man named Set changed all of that.
The people of Vault-12 truly have the most tragic story. 78 years after the end of the Great War, their vault opened. It was the second one to do so. Upon emerging from the safe steel housing, they made use of their Garden of Eden Creation Kit, and their city flourished. Their community grew and grew and their use of sophisticated technology grew with it. Soon they became the great city of New Chicago (located in southern Europe). Their great community took 7 months to fully develop with the help of the G.E.C.K. But unknown to them, the radiation was still deadly in their area. Their bodies remained the same as their brains began to mutate a new form of communication with the body. Their perceptions reached those of Total Awareness. All senses were heightened greatly. Not long after the mutation began could they now see so clearly that they could now see over the horizons. Vision was never an issue and became so astronomically strong that measuring it became impossible.
They could hear a pin drop from ten meters away while in the middle of a conversation and could smell everything around them, even the white stone that made their buildings. The brain never reached a state of telepathy, though it could pick up on brain waves from other citizens. Their knowledge and ability evolved into something so much beyond human. Learning was finished after one lesson; logical thinking was child's play to every inhabitant. And science advanced faster than ever conceived. They even began a way of recreating the Garden of Eden Creation kit. From entirely new parts, for the one that they us had disappeared when the city sprung to life after its use.
But also, they could now be totally aware of what their body was doing. They could now feel blood rushing through veins, foods being digested, hairs growing, cells dividing, and dying. These processes were non-stop, and the feeling was similar to that of a constant stream of scalding water being poured over the body. The pain was not enough to kill them; many became insane as a means of coping with the feelings they now possessed. Sleep became impossible and many became wrapped in delusions. Their screams echoed throughout the city they built and maintained. Their hearing made every breath of someone else rip their eardrums apart, so they thought. Eventually, suicide became the only escape for the people. Nearly the entire city ended their lives to stop the hell of living with the conditions. Those who didn't disappeared into the wastelands in agonising pain. Their city remained a haunted and perfectly preserved place forever and rumours of the ghosts of the wandering townspeople in the wastelands became common. Soon, their ghosts were seen throughout the wastelands of what was left of the Earth for years to come, even by the Ghouls.
There wasn't another Vault opening for over two hundred years later. Between the years 2286 and 2396, all but four of the remaining vaults opened.
In the south eastern United States was Vault-20. The people in there survived, but by the time the vault doors opened, they had little left. Their people emerged from the cold steel halls they called their home to find themselves hidden in a cave. They left the Vault behind and travelled west for days, until they came to the ruins of a city. The name of city was lost in time, but the skeletal remains of buildings remained. Hungry, thirsty, sore, dirty, sick and tired, they made efforts to rebuild the city without the Creation Kit, which was destroyed accidentally years before, which no one remembered. It soon became the largest human city in the country. They called it the Hub. People were sent out to find more city remains so that they could build more cities with the remains. The scouts soon came across survivors from Vault-19 and 12. Together they built 2 new cities, they named them The Boneyard and Junktown.
Junktown was built on an old abandoned junkyard. The walls were built out of old cars and it soon became a fully operational settlement. These people tried to make use of their Creation Kits, but were saddened to find that it would not work properly. The Kits managed to created a small towns barely able to house the few thousands of them. But they managed to build their towns and live with very little is any radiation damage. The rest of the vaults all over the world managed to create their cities and live a normal human life again.
Higher up, in the northern United States, near the non-existent Canadian Border was Vault-9. Most likely the most successful example of how the Vaults were meant to work. The door opened when it was supposed to, the water filtration worked flawlessly. They had an oversupply of water chips and three G.E.C.K.s, one of which was used to prop up a leg of a table. The people worked as a community, crime was not even a word. Children were educated by the community, and the robots, in a very efficient and effective manor. In the year 2375, the alarm sounded. Only one inhabitant knew what the siren was. A Vault meeting as called in the Overseer's chamber. The room was crowded as all 4, 678 people were present, and confusion was in the air. Sitting in his high control chair, where all the workings of the Vault are monitored by the one man, the Overseer looked to his citizens. He was a burly, tall, black man named Robert Jenkins, who inherited his position from his father, and his father before him and so on. He had a worried look on his face as he peered into the crowd. He knew what the siren meant, but was afraid of what would happen. He swallowed hard, took a breath and explained to the people that the war was over, long over. That the outside was safe, and it was time to go. And they did. All equipped with their sun goggles to protect their eyes from the natural light, they stood in an organised manor behind the Great Vault Door. The gears moved for the first time in over two hundred years. The outside was bright, the people were scared, but the will was there. With the Garden of Eden Creation Kit clenched in the hand of Robert Jenkins, the people left their home and ventured to the outside. They built their city, they managed their people, they had succeeded. And they knew it.
The city was named Vault City, and it quickly became an arrogant, selfish town of bureaucrats and politicians. Their technology made them self-righteous. They began mocking the waste dwellers they would see on scouting missions. Unlike some the other Vaults, Vaut-9 had a Creation Kit, and refused to give the people living in the remains of buildings the extras that were rightfully theirs. After a series of long-winded speeches and paperwork, the order went out by the senate to go out and capture people from the wastes and use them as slaves. Slavery became common in Vault City. Any able bodies person would do, women, children, any inferior human from the desert. As the population grew, so did the laws. Anything that needed to be done required a full paperwork submission and six to eight weeks of waiting. Eventually the city became a divided state. The cultural elite and noblemen of the city were given the title of Citizens, and lived in the inner city, surrounded by peers and their slaves, who had no rights but were dressed to fit in. Coloured patches were used to show their status as a low-level inhabitant, and they were not acknowledged as people. The citizens had the freedom to travel the wastes as they pleased; though it was ill advised. As well as the ability t enter the Vault computers for information. The rest of the town that was still fairly technologically advanced was the outer city. This is where the middle classmen lived. They were not important enough to own slaves, and had fewer rights than the citizens of the inner city. These were the merchants and working class. These people had the right to take a citizenship test, which is, by all means, impossible to pass. Outside the stone gate were the rest of the inhabitants. Lived in shacks and tents. Not allowed to enter the city unless they were recruited as a slave. They were the outsiders, and the ones that the citizens did not need to please. Then, what the Citizens thought was the worst thing that could happen, happened. A small band of travelling ghouls found an old nuclear reactor plant less than a day's travel northeast from Vault City. The ghouls were blessed with the knowledge of how to repair and operate the power plant with the knowledge they had retained from the teachings inside the vault. In less than a month, the plant was operational, though not at full capacity. The result was nuclear leakage that found its way to an underground spring, directly linked to the Vault City outside. The ghouls themselves were immune to the radiation given off by the plant, their bodies had taken all they could and the little bit more was nothing to them. Though Vault City had the means to filter the water to make it safe, they found the presence of the ghouls to be a disturbing annoyance. The reactor town was named Gecko.
Deep in a vault in the western coast of the United States, who's number was lost, was a great evil. One that would threaten the humans and ghouls of the new world.
As for the wastes themselves, that was a new issue. Vegetation and animal life had changed. Plants were mutated in ways that could not be imagined. Animals changed in unimaginable ways. An unknown species of lizard mutated into a much higher form. They became the rulers on the wastes, they were known as the Deathclaws. Giant creatures that were over 7 feel tall would wander in packs, walking on their hind legs and dragging behind them what made them famous. Their arms and hands had grown to great and powerful size. A single swing from their sharper than razors claw could rip through flesh, bone and most metals like paper. For the most part, they stayed away from the cities, but caravans that would travel from town to town were in constant danger. These beasts could see perfectly in the day, and even better in the night. Their massive hides were covered with a thick, armour like skin that could take bullet after bullet without being pierced. Their heads adorned fierce looking horns made of their steel-like bones, and the one weakness on their bodies, their eyes, were no bigger than an average human's. They were the stuff of nightmares and hunting them became a game that lead to the deaths of countless hunters. In terms of brain capacity, the Deathclaws had the potential to be the smartest animals in history.
One Vault that was one of the last to open during The Big Move (in which most other vaults built their cities) had troubled times ahead of it. Vault- 15 was in the middle-eastern United States; it was one link in a chain of four Vaults that stretched across the country. Like many others, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit was not inside the vault, due to a shipping error and lost documentation from the past, the population had shrunk from its beginnings. Only five hundred people were there to see the Vault door open. The people migrated west for 3 days until finally settling on a small flat patch of desert land. With bits and pieces salvaged from the Vault and a little ingenuity, they built a small shantytown with small, barely manageable farmlands. It was a simple city that they called home. They called it Shady Sands.
Most communications were destroyed with the initial launching of the fist atom bombs of the war, but three Vaults managed to remain in contact with each other because of their close proximity to each other. Vaults 3, 16 and 18 housed some of the greatest technological and political minds of the century. Divided amongst these vaults were the lost weapons data that helped spawn the war. Even some remnants of information regarding the Garden of Eden Creation Kits were present. Over the two centuries of Vault living, they were in constant communication with each other. Overseer to Overseer, citizen to citizen, and when at last it came to open the vault doors, they were united at last. Their sharing of information, and the G.E.C.K.s they were issued were combined to form a new, greater city. But rather then simply find a city, they planned to raise another government. Off the Eastern Shore of the country, they found a large oilrig that had managed to survive the blasts. The technology was preserved well, and with the use of the Creation Kits, the oilrig became close to a metropolis of a station. The weapons technology they had newly developed lead to the most sophisticated weapons in history. They raised an army of super soldiers, clad in giant suits of nearly indestructible armour. They were trained in basic and advanced combat, and their goal was to reinstate the former United States government. They were a ruthless regime of soldiers and politicians, bent on running every town and village in the country. They elected presidents, sent expeditionary forces in advanced flying machines they called Helibirds, which would only confuse the wastelanders if they ever had a chance to see them.
Nearly right in the middle of the Bible Belt of the United States was Vault- 13. One of four others that remained closed long after the others opened. Fifty years after The Big Move (in which most other vaults built their cities), Four members were summoned to the Overseer's chamber, to discuss a serious problem. The year was 2398; the overseer from Vault-13 had just witnessed something very disturbing. With a calm and cool manor, he called four people, the four most outstanding member in the Vault. One was Max Stone, a giant of a man, the strongest in the vault. If one of the automatic doors would not open or closed, they would call upon stone to fix the problem, and he did it with ease. He was respected and admired, but being dropped on his head by a nursing robot meant that he was not the smartest, most likely the dumbest, person in the Vault. He was summoned to the Vault Overseer's chamber. Natalya Kesperov was the great, great, great granddaughter of a very successful russian diplomat. The sayings of him were that he had a silver tongue and great knowledge of all things political. The speculation was that Natalya had inherited the old smooth talker's way with words and people. She was often the one called for settling neighbourly disputes and was chief justice of the courts, which were barely used in the peaceful, steel home. She was also one of the most beautiful, and had every eligible man thrown at her. She was summoned to the Vault Overseer's chamber.
Albert Scythe. The kind of man you hate to know. Scythe was big on deception, and was one of the few people in the vault who felt that stealing was a victimless crime. Everyone in the Vault knew him; most of them would not enjoy that part. Bored with his usual antics, and the knowledge that everyone in the Vault knew that if something was missing, he was the one that had it. Busy picking the lock of a neighbour's footlocker, he barely heard the call for his name to come and see the Overseer. The three of them headed the chamber, filled with computers wall to wall. A high ceiling needed just to hold them all. The room was in the lowest chamber of the Vault, and normally only those with a scribe status had access to it. The archives were across the hall, where the scribes spent their time peering into the flickering screen, trying to piece together history, economics, world issues and various studies from the pre-war era to be filtered, censored and served to the children of the Vault. Stone, Kesperov and Scythe walked through the automatic door and found the fifth member of this gathering. Mostly they tried to remember, or at least piece together who it was, but could not put a name to a face. Without hesitation, the grey bearded Overseer put out his fist where four straws protruded from the top of the ball. Without an explanation, and as soon as the door behind them closed on it's own accord, he said: "Pick one." They did so. The three famous and infamous members of the crew drew straws of equal length, while the nameless fourth found the shorter. The Overseer nodded and dismissed the other three with a request: "Tell no one of what transpired here." And they left through the door. As for the winner of the draw, the Overseer gave his simple order. "Meet me tonight at three in the morning at the Vault door, I'll explain then, and don't tell anyone anything. Now please leave."
Thirteen hours later, the winner sneaked to the door where the old man in charge was waiting. He swallowed hard and greeted his guest.
"Ah, you're here, good. I'm going to skip the chitchat. We've got a problem, a big one. It seems our water filtration chip has given up the ghost. Without this chip, the water reserve will not filter out the radiation and we're all dead. We have a standard supply that we can use for now, but we need that water chip if we want to live. I...I've had to make a choice. Our archives speak of other Vaults in the country, they might have extra chips that we can use. Look, I need you to go out there and find us another chip. The only other vault data in our archives is that of Vault- 15, it's about a five day walk east of here, you should start there. We have 150 days until we run out of water, and....and I don't want anyone else to know about it. That's why there's all this secrecy, but our future is in your hand." He grabbed a very large lever and with all his strength, he pulled it back. A red siren light rotated above, but no alarm was to follow. A giant gear shaped door move out from its position, and rolled out of the way, revealing a dark passage that has never been seen by anyone else in the Vault.
"Look, just be safe, OK?" were the last words the hero would hear from the overseer for many days. After taking a few steps out of the new 8- foot high hole where a steel door has stood for over two centuries, the door closed to secure itself once again. The figure became of shadow in the dark damp cave. Squeaking was heard all around, but out of the corner of the Vault Dweller's eye was an amazing sight, that no one inside could possibly imagine ever seeing.
Sunlight.
War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire on its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But war never changes.
The end of the world occurred pretty much as we predicted, too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around. In the 21st century, war was once again waged over what little resources could be found, but this time, the spoils of war were also it's weapons, petroleum and uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada and the European Commonwealth would dissolve away into quarrelling, bickering nation states bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth. In the year 2077, the world once again knew the pain of a great scale war, each country blindly making use of their now full nuclear capabilities. A great cleansing. An atomic spark struck by human hands quickly raged out of control. Spears of nuclear fire rained from the skies, continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans and in two short hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. The details are trivial and pointless. The reasons, as always, purely human ones. Humanity was almost extinguished. Their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the Earth. A quiet darkness fell across the planet, lasting many years.
There was hope, however. A slim hope. Prior to the war, the fear was very real. Governments across the globe began their own individual projects designed to ensure that their people would survive. The three economic super powers in the world at the time worked together in an attempt to save the human race. Together they managed to dig a total of twenty underground bunkers, rightfully referred to as the Vaults, into mountains and deep underground. These three nations did not think of the reality that in the event of a nuclear war, there would be no allies. Each Vault was designed to house three thousand people in the beginning, with enough room to produce adequate farmland. Standard in each Vault were the two greatest technological advancements in human history. One was the radical new water purification process. The system could filter the entire radiated water on the Earth and purify it safe for human and animal use. It was all thanks to a revolutionary piece of technology, simply named a water chip. Without the chip, the water would eliminate the entire populace of the vault in a matter of weeks. Fortunately, each Vault was to have a considerable amount.
The second piece was one that bordered on the impossible. A work of technological art and mystery, a piece that would mock the idea of God, or one that would ignite His wrath. A small briefcase sized device that is meant to be hidden away in the Vault, never to see any light until the time the vault was to open. The epitome of pre-war technology, and the culmination of all mankind could ever think and hope to achieve. It was known as The Garden of Eden Creation Kit.
The name of the inventor has been lost in the sands of time. Not even the wisest of the vault dwellers knew of his existence. Before the war, all information about the invention was destroyed. Documents, tests, blueprints, all burned, or shredded in what the government dubbed The Reset. With all the information destroyed, all hope of recreating the technology was lost. For the good of the people, said the leaders of the world. If anyone were to build the Garden again, wars would erupt over whom it belongs too. After being used once, the case would erase itself from the planet, never to be analysed, never to be taken apart. The view of the inside could make the great great great grandparents of the ones who use it nostalgic about the times when TV's and radios were not yet common. Small, round, bubble screens and what resembled a radar screen decorated the inside. Cathode ray tubes could be seen as though they were littered about or there just for show. Rabbit-ear antennas, flickering lights, electric currents, all semblative of technology long lost. No one knew how, or why it worked, but in times of great strife and suffering without it, no one would care.
The small silver case held the future of the people behind its three-number combination lock.
It was meant to be standard in every vault, to be kept away from every inhabitant, in both sight and mind until the time came to begin the outside world again. The only person allowed to know of its existence was the head of the vault, The Overseer. After the citizens stepped passed the four-foot thick steel door, they would use to the Garden of Eden Creation Kit to instantaneously build their new houses, and their new community would thrive in the once barren wasteland. The idea was that most of the Vaults would be disassembled, and parts would be used for a variety of different things, they were designed that way, while the G.E.C.K. would do most of the work, people still needed to work hard to make the whole project to succeed. It was meant to be simple, it was meant not to fail, humanity was going to be redeemed for it's past crimes and sins, for all the wars, for all the death, for everything. But many things do not go according to plan.
Actually living in the Vaults was not something that could be planned on paper. Despite the large size of the Vaults themselves, the people could not help but feel cramped inside. So many people close to each other at all times. Claustrophobia was a death sentence; agoraphobia was a daily occurrence. Community living was a must-have; communism became a safe and effective way of government. People needed each other to simply be able to wake up alive. Detention cells existed, yet amazingly were seldom used. People were capable of anything if the need was there. Despite all this however, some vaults were destined never to make it.
One Vault, Vault-4, was destroyed from the inside out 27 months after the great door closed. Due to the massive explosion of electromagnetic pulses set off by each atomic bomb fired, all communication that existed between the Vaults was cut off indefinitely. The first thing that could go wrong, did. The people of Vault-4 experienced a massive outbreak of cabin fever. The current overseer, Michael Thielmann, was unable to control the citizens; he was eventually overthrown in a chaotic riot. He was hung, disembowelled, decapitated and vaporised. Soon after, rapes, thefts and murders broke out uncontrollably. Children were killed at birth if the mother managed to survive. Another mouth, another problem, they thought. The little police force that existed did all it could. Detention cells became overcrowded. The small amount of weapons supplied only to the overseer and his own group of police would go missing. The police, known as The Order, became subjects of mockery and contempt. Mob mentality lead to the deaths of all members of The Order even those that were corrupt. All food was consumed, and without the overseer to regulate the water filtration process, the water supply ran out. Acts of cannibalism were witnessed from time to time; soon it became a norm. The people reverted back to the savage primitive creatures that all the technology would suggest were extinct. 152 days after the death of the Overseer, the entire vault became a derelict. When it was found and explored, the bodies still littered the floor, decomposition was low, and the stench was unbearable. All the technology was destroyed in savage uproars. One body was found with a screwdriver still clenched in its hand, both eyes were gouged out, fingers were missing, teeth were gone, and a message was carved in the wall behind the freakish corpse. "The mAndNEss WiLl endEd...thE HelLs are BeGUn". Vault-4 had failed
Dug deep under the Australian Outback was Vault-18, which, due to a technical error, was not able to close the great vault door. The inhabitants were instantaneously incinerated when a misguided nuclear warhead landed 65 meters away from the opening.
The vaults were designed to only hold a maximum of five thousand people. Vault-16 failed to keep its population in check. Their numbers grew much to large to hold. Eventually, their supplies were extinguished, and the people starved to death peacefully.
Each vault was meant to be sealed for at least a calculated three hundred years. Enough time for most radiation from the new bombs to subside. The amount of radiation in the water was calculated and analysed as it went through the filtration process, to determine when it would be safe to leave. The Vault door was supposed to be unable to be opened before the pre- determined amount of time had passed. No one in the vault had the power to override the system, not even the Overseer. However, due to many errors in the programming of the vault computers, some doors opened much to soon. Vault-6, which was dug under the great city of Los Angeles, was one of them. 7 years after the end of the Final War, the great door of Vault-11 opened. It was the first vault to open and it was much to early. The inhabitants emerged thinking that the world was safe. Unfortunately, without anyone even knowing it, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, never arrived to the Vault in the first place, no one knew what it was, or that they needed it. The inhabitants of Vault-6 had to build their city the hard way.
Without realising, the immense radiation decayed their body tissue in a short amount of time. Less than five years after their arrival from the safety of the vaults, they had lost large portions of their skin and muscle tissue. Their bodies begin to have a sickening green complexion and large portions of muscle tissue were visible. Some even began to glow in the dark, and years later they would be confused as wandering spirits. Their bodies looked as though they were dead and buried for years. Their skin literally would hang from their bones and a small nudge could rip the tissue off. Genders were erased, reproduction was impossible. Either sterility or just the fact that the organs required fell off years ago. Through freakish circumstances and against previous biological laws, they survived, in a sense. Despite their appearance, which was never an issue since everyone had the problem, they were a happy people.
Their condition brought them unnatural long life. Their lifespan was virtually impossible to determine. They became immune to all forms of disease; rather they would spread the disease. The people of this vault lived peacefully for years, living in the skeletal remains of the city of Los Angeles. They called themselves a new race of humans, the Ghouls, and they were more peaceful than any other human could imagine. They renamed their city Necropolis, City of the Dead, and lived there for many years undisturbed. Until a man named Set changed all of that.
The people of Vault-12 truly have the most tragic story. 78 years after the end of the Great War, their vault opened. It was the second one to do so. Upon emerging from the safe steel housing, they made use of their Garden of Eden Creation Kit, and their city flourished. Their community grew and grew and their use of sophisticated technology grew with it. Soon they became the great city of New Chicago (located in southern Europe). Their great community took 7 months to fully develop with the help of the G.E.C.K. But unknown to them, the radiation was still deadly in their area. Their bodies remained the same as their brains began to mutate a new form of communication with the body. Their perceptions reached those of Total Awareness. All senses were heightened greatly. Not long after the mutation began could they now see so clearly that they could now see over the horizons. Vision was never an issue and became so astronomically strong that measuring it became impossible.
They could hear a pin drop from ten meters away while in the middle of a conversation and could smell everything around them, even the white stone that made their buildings. The brain never reached a state of telepathy, though it could pick up on brain waves from other citizens. Their knowledge and ability evolved into something so much beyond human. Learning was finished after one lesson; logical thinking was child's play to every inhabitant. And science advanced faster than ever conceived. They even began a way of recreating the Garden of Eden Creation kit. From entirely new parts, for the one that they us had disappeared when the city sprung to life after its use.
But also, they could now be totally aware of what their body was doing. They could now feel blood rushing through veins, foods being digested, hairs growing, cells dividing, and dying. These processes were non-stop, and the feeling was similar to that of a constant stream of scalding water being poured over the body. The pain was not enough to kill them; many became insane as a means of coping with the feelings they now possessed. Sleep became impossible and many became wrapped in delusions. Their screams echoed throughout the city they built and maintained. Their hearing made every breath of someone else rip their eardrums apart, so they thought. Eventually, suicide became the only escape for the people. Nearly the entire city ended their lives to stop the hell of living with the conditions. Those who didn't disappeared into the wastelands in agonising pain. Their city remained a haunted and perfectly preserved place forever and rumours of the ghosts of the wandering townspeople in the wastelands became common. Soon, their ghosts were seen throughout the wastelands of what was left of the Earth for years to come, even by the Ghouls.
There wasn't another Vault opening for over two hundred years later. Between the years 2286 and 2396, all but four of the remaining vaults opened.
In the south eastern United States was Vault-20. The people in there survived, but by the time the vault doors opened, they had little left. Their people emerged from the cold steel halls they called their home to find themselves hidden in a cave. They left the Vault behind and travelled west for days, until they came to the ruins of a city. The name of city was lost in time, but the skeletal remains of buildings remained. Hungry, thirsty, sore, dirty, sick and tired, they made efforts to rebuild the city without the Creation Kit, which was destroyed accidentally years before, which no one remembered. It soon became the largest human city in the country. They called it the Hub. People were sent out to find more city remains so that they could build more cities with the remains. The scouts soon came across survivors from Vault-19 and 12. Together they built 2 new cities, they named them The Boneyard and Junktown.
Junktown was built on an old abandoned junkyard. The walls were built out of old cars and it soon became a fully operational settlement. These people tried to make use of their Creation Kits, but were saddened to find that it would not work properly. The Kits managed to created a small towns barely able to house the few thousands of them. But they managed to build their towns and live with very little is any radiation damage. The rest of the vaults all over the world managed to create their cities and live a normal human life again.
Higher up, in the northern United States, near the non-existent Canadian Border was Vault-9. Most likely the most successful example of how the Vaults were meant to work. The door opened when it was supposed to, the water filtration worked flawlessly. They had an oversupply of water chips and three G.E.C.K.s, one of which was used to prop up a leg of a table. The people worked as a community, crime was not even a word. Children were educated by the community, and the robots, in a very efficient and effective manor. In the year 2375, the alarm sounded. Only one inhabitant knew what the siren was. A Vault meeting as called in the Overseer's chamber. The room was crowded as all 4, 678 people were present, and confusion was in the air. Sitting in his high control chair, where all the workings of the Vault are monitored by the one man, the Overseer looked to his citizens. He was a burly, tall, black man named Robert Jenkins, who inherited his position from his father, and his father before him and so on. He had a worried look on his face as he peered into the crowd. He knew what the siren meant, but was afraid of what would happen. He swallowed hard, took a breath and explained to the people that the war was over, long over. That the outside was safe, and it was time to go. And they did. All equipped with their sun goggles to protect their eyes from the natural light, they stood in an organised manor behind the Great Vault Door. The gears moved for the first time in over two hundred years. The outside was bright, the people were scared, but the will was there. With the Garden of Eden Creation Kit clenched in the hand of Robert Jenkins, the people left their home and ventured to the outside. They built their city, they managed their people, they had succeeded. And they knew it.
The city was named Vault City, and it quickly became an arrogant, selfish town of bureaucrats and politicians. Their technology made them self-righteous. They began mocking the waste dwellers they would see on scouting missions. Unlike some the other Vaults, Vaut-9 had a Creation Kit, and refused to give the people living in the remains of buildings the extras that were rightfully theirs. After a series of long-winded speeches and paperwork, the order went out by the senate to go out and capture people from the wastes and use them as slaves. Slavery became common in Vault City. Any able bodies person would do, women, children, any inferior human from the desert. As the population grew, so did the laws. Anything that needed to be done required a full paperwork submission and six to eight weeks of waiting. Eventually the city became a divided state. The cultural elite and noblemen of the city were given the title of Citizens, and lived in the inner city, surrounded by peers and their slaves, who had no rights but were dressed to fit in. Coloured patches were used to show their status as a low-level inhabitant, and they were not acknowledged as people. The citizens had the freedom to travel the wastes as they pleased; though it was ill advised. As well as the ability t enter the Vault computers for information. The rest of the town that was still fairly technologically advanced was the outer city. This is where the middle classmen lived. They were not important enough to own slaves, and had fewer rights than the citizens of the inner city. These were the merchants and working class. These people had the right to take a citizenship test, which is, by all means, impossible to pass. Outside the stone gate were the rest of the inhabitants. Lived in shacks and tents. Not allowed to enter the city unless they were recruited as a slave. They were the outsiders, and the ones that the citizens did not need to please. Then, what the Citizens thought was the worst thing that could happen, happened. A small band of travelling ghouls found an old nuclear reactor plant less than a day's travel northeast from Vault City. The ghouls were blessed with the knowledge of how to repair and operate the power plant with the knowledge they had retained from the teachings inside the vault. In less than a month, the plant was operational, though not at full capacity. The result was nuclear leakage that found its way to an underground spring, directly linked to the Vault City outside. The ghouls themselves were immune to the radiation given off by the plant, their bodies had taken all they could and the little bit more was nothing to them. Though Vault City had the means to filter the water to make it safe, they found the presence of the ghouls to be a disturbing annoyance. The reactor town was named Gecko.
Deep in a vault in the western coast of the United States, who's number was lost, was a great evil. One that would threaten the humans and ghouls of the new world.
As for the wastes themselves, that was a new issue. Vegetation and animal life had changed. Plants were mutated in ways that could not be imagined. Animals changed in unimaginable ways. An unknown species of lizard mutated into a much higher form. They became the rulers on the wastes, they were known as the Deathclaws. Giant creatures that were over 7 feel tall would wander in packs, walking on their hind legs and dragging behind them what made them famous. Their arms and hands had grown to great and powerful size. A single swing from their sharper than razors claw could rip through flesh, bone and most metals like paper. For the most part, they stayed away from the cities, but caravans that would travel from town to town were in constant danger. These beasts could see perfectly in the day, and even better in the night. Their massive hides were covered with a thick, armour like skin that could take bullet after bullet without being pierced. Their heads adorned fierce looking horns made of their steel-like bones, and the one weakness on their bodies, their eyes, were no bigger than an average human's. They were the stuff of nightmares and hunting them became a game that lead to the deaths of countless hunters. In terms of brain capacity, the Deathclaws had the potential to be the smartest animals in history.
One Vault that was one of the last to open during The Big Move (in which most other vaults built their cities) had troubled times ahead of it. Vault- 15 was in the middle-eastern United States; it was one link in a chain of four Vaults that stretched across the country. Like many others, the Garden of Eden Creation Kit was not inside the vault, due to a shipping error and lost documentation from the past, the population had shrunk from its beginnings. Only five hundred people were there to see the Vault door open. The people migrated west for 3 days until finally settling on a small flat patch of desert land. With bits and pieces salvaged from the Vault and a little ingenuity, they built a small shantytown with small, barely manageable farmlands. It was a simple city that they called home. They called it Shady Sands.
Most communications were destroyed with the initial launching of the fist atom bombs of the war, but three Vaults managed to remain in contact with each other because of their close proximity to each other. Vaults 3, 16 and 18 housed some of the greatest technological and political minds of the century. Divided amongst these vaults were the lost weapons data that helped spawn the war. Even some remnants of information regarding the Garden of Eden Creation Kits were present. Over the two centuries of Vault living, they were in constant communication with each other. Overseer to Overseer, citizen to citizen, and when at last it came to open the vault doors, they were united at last. Their sharing of information, and the G.E.C.K.s they were issued were combined to form a new, greater city. But rather then simply find a city, they planned to raise another government. Off the Eastern Shore of the country, they found a large oilrig that had managed to survive the blasts. The technology was preserved well, and with the use of the Creation Kits, the oilrig became close to a metropolis of a station. The weapons technology they had newly developed lead to the most sophisticated weapons in history. They raised an army of super soldiers, clad in giant suits of nearly indestructible armour. They were trained in basic and advanced combat, and their goal was to reinstate the former United States government. They were a ruthless regime of soldiers and politicians, bent on running every town and village in the country. They elected presidents, sent expeditionary forces in advanced flying machines they called Helibirds, which would only confuse the wastelanders if they ever had a chance to see them.
Nearly right in the middle of the Bible Belt of the United States was Vault- 13. One of four others that remained closed long after the others opened. Fifty years after The Big Move (in which most other vaults built their cities), Four members were summoned to the Overseer's chamber, to discuss a serious problem. The year was 2398; the overseer from Vault-13 had just witnessed something very disturbing. With a calm and cool manor, he called four people, the four most outstanding member in the Vault. One was Max Stone, a giant of a man, the strongest in the vault. If one of the automatic doors would not open or closed, they would call upon stone to fix the problem, and he did it with ease. He was respected and admired, but being dropped on his head by a nursing robot meant that he was not the smartest, most likely the dumbest, person in the Vault. He was summoned to the Vault Overseer's chamber. Natalya Kesperov was the great, great, great granddaughter of a very successful russian diplomat. The sayings of him were that he had a silver tongue and great knowledge of all things political. The speculation was that Natalya had inherited the old smooth talker's way with words and people. She was often the one called for settling neighbourly disputes and was chief justice of the courts, which were barely used in the peaceful, steel home. She was also one of the most beautiful, and had every eligible man thrown at her. She was summoned to the Vault Overseer's chamber.
Albert Scythe. The kind of man you hate to know. Scythe was big on deception, and was one of the few people in the vault who felt that stealing was a victimless crime. Everyone in the Vault knew him; most of them would not enjoy that part. Bored with his usual antics, and the knowledge that everyone in the Vault knew that if something was missing, he was the one that had it. Busy picking the lock of a neighbour's footlocker, he barely heard the call for his name to come and see the Overseer. The three of them headed the chamber, filled with computers wall to wall. A high ceiling needed just to hold them all. The room was in the lowest chamber of the Vault, and normally only those with a scribe status had access to it. The archives were across the hall, where the scribes spent their time peering into the flickering screen, trying to piece together history, economics, world issues and various studies from the pre-war era to be filtered, censored and served to the children of the Vault. Stone, Kesperov and Scythe walked through the automatic door and found the fifth member of this gathering. Mostly they tried to remember, or at least piece together who it was, but could not put a name to a face. Without hesitation, the grey bearded Overseer put out his fist where four straws protruded from the top of the ball. Without an explanation, and as soon as the door behind them closed on it's own accord, he said: "Pick one." They did so. The three famous and infamous members of the crew drew straws of equal length, while the nameless fourth found the shorter. The Overseer nodded and dismissed the other three with a request: "Tell no one of what transpired here." And they left through the door. As for the winner of the draw, the Overseer gave his simple order. "Meet me tonight at three in the morning at the Vault door, I'll explain then, and don't tell anyone anything. Now please leave."
Thirteen hours later, the winner sneaked to the door where the old man in charge was waiting. He swallowed hard and greeted his guest.
"Ah, you're here, good. I'm going to skip the chitchat. We've got a problem, a big one. It seems our water filtration chip has given up the ghost. Without this chip, the water reserve will not filter out the radiation and we're all dead. We have a standard supply that we can use for now, but we need that water chip if we want to live. I...I've had to make a choice. Our archives speak of other Vaults in the country, they might have extra chips that we can use. Look, I need you to go out there and find us another chip. The only other vault data in our archives is that of Vault- 15, it's about a five day walk east of here, you should start there. We have 150 days until we run out of water, and....and I don't want anyone else to know about it. That's why there's all this secrecy, but our future is in your hand." He grabbed a very large lever and with all his strength, he pulled it back. A red siren light rotated above, but no alarm was to follow. A giant gear shaped door move out from its position, and rolled out of the way, revealing a dark passage that has never been seen by anyone else in the Vault.
"Look, just be safe, OK?" were the last words the hero would hear from the overseer for many days. After taking a few steps out of the new 8- foot high hole where a steel door has stood for over two centuries, the door closed to secure itself once again. The figure became of shadow in the dark damp cave. Squeaking was heard all around, but out of the corner of the Vault Dweller's eye was an amazing sight, that no one inside could possibly imagine ever seeing.
Sunlight.