Summary:
- Fallout has a total of 5 vaults as of writing.
- Vault 24 is the most absurd vault of all.
- Keep reading to find out what secret each Vault in the Fallout series houses.
In a landscape crowded with video game adaptations, Amazon Prime’s Fallout series is the cream of the crop, thanks to its exceptional world-building. The barren land of Wasteland is brought to life by its factions and vaults. Bethesda has masterfully crafted vaults as a storytelling device to tell different people’s stories. And as is the case with people, each vault has its secret, so we have prepared a breakdown of every vault in Fallout’s TV series.
Table of Contents
1. Vault 33
- Location: Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California
- Purpose: Link Vault 31, 32, and 33 to breed a Vault-Tec–loyal population to control the wasteland
Vault 33 is what you may call the titular vault of the Fallout series. The main cast (Ella Purnell’s Lucy, Kyle MacLachlan’s Moises Arias’ Norm, and Overseer Hank) resides in this vault. Everything seems to be going well for Vault 33; everything’s clean, orderly, and stable. On the surface, everything appears perfect.
However, we find out that Vault 33 is part of Vault-Tec’s long-running social experiment, built to test obedience over generations. Its true purpose is to work in coordination with Vaults 32 and 31 to create a tripartite system where marriage, childbirth, and cultivation are shared across the vaults.
Vault-Tec’s deeper goal, however, is more sinister. They intend to bring in people they think are genetically superior to make sure the “best” people populate the surface. The overarching idea is that the inhabitants of Vault 33 will one day reclaim the surface world and “fix” it, fulfilling Vault-Tec’s hidden agenda, while also keeping everyone compliant.
2. Vault 32
- Location: Los Angeles, California
- Purpose: Link Vault 31, 32, and 33 to breed a Vault-Tec–loyal population to control the wasteland
Vault 32 is the dark flip side of 33, and this is where we see the reality of Vault-Tec. When Vault 33 is attacked by raiders led by Lee Moldaver, it’s believed that those same raiders had previously destroyed Vault 32, but the truth is even more disturbing. The people posing as Vault 32 residents during the wedding were, in fact, survivors and remnants who had escaped after the vault’s internal collapse.
Later, Norm and Chet find out that Vault 32 had fallen long before the events of the series even began. The residents of Vault 32 found out Vault-Tec’s secret quite early on. This triggered chaos across the vault, prompting everyone to resort to cannibalism, as seen by the partially eaten bodies, while others starved to death as resources ran out. Many ultimately chose to take their own lives.
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3. Vault 31
- Location: Los Angeles, California
- Purpose: Link Vault 31, 32, and 33 to breed a Vault-Tec–loyal population to control the wasteland
As we get to the final vault of the tripartite system, things get even more dire as we see an even more sinister part of Vault-Tec. It is revealed that the “genetically superior” population can’t be left to themselves. In a big twist, we find out that the overseers are actually part of Vault-Tec.
Before the Great War began, various high-ranking members of Vault-Tec were cryogenically frozen. Bud Askins, however, put his brain in a kind of robot roomba. This allowed Askins to live forever and unfreeze his employees every time a new overseer was required. This unveiled Vault-Tec’s biggest conspiracies and made Lucy’s father, Hank, one of the key villains of the story.
4. Vault 4
- Location: Los Angeles, California
- Purpose: Vault created exclusively for scientists to research human beings
Vault 4 is sort of a bonus vault that Lucy and Maximus just sort of drop into, quite literally. Everything seems to be going well at first, as the duo is greeted with warm smiles and accommodation. However, they soon learn that they are stuck in a contaminated area. We later discover that Vault 4 was designed by 80 scientific minds to conduct research on creating radioactive-resistant human beings.
As Lucy and Maximus meet other members of the vault, they find out that all of them have absurd looks, like having ears on their heads or the overseer being a literal Cyclops. What remains of the vault are the experiments that take control, along with the remaining members like the cyclops Overseer Benjamin.
5. Vault 24
- Location: Mojave Desert, Nevada (Mojave Wasteland)
- Purpose: Used as a facility to experiment with brain-computer interface chips
Fallout Season 2 Episode 1 follows Lucy and the Ghoul trying to find Hank MacLean, Lucy’s father. Hank is revealed to be a former Vault-Tec employee who ends up betraying his family as he reveals he was the one who nuked Shady Sands. The duo’s search for Hank leads them to Vault 24. As Lucy and the Ghoul enter the vault, they see the entire vault littered with dead bodies wearing communist outfits.
However, it is later revealed that these people had a brain chip inserted in their heads, which can hack people’s brains. RobCo Industries is shown to be the creator of this chip. Vault 24 is where this chip was housed and being experimented on American citizens who are so averse to the idea of communism.
