This post contains spoilers for the Fallout show on Prime Video.
Can’t have Vault-Tec without vaults! And, like your standard, everyday vault, these vaults are full of secrets. And also a whole bunch of human beings, mutants, and sometimes an errant corpse (or 50) every now and again. Fallout on Prime Video gives us a whole new glimpse at Bethesda’s universe, giving us a detailed look at Vault Dweller life before and after the apocalypse. Like the people who inhabit them, each vault is a little bit (or a lotta bit) different from the last. Let’s take a look at the locked up little homesteads we’re introduced to in Fallout Season 1!
Vault 33
Objectively the most important vault in Season 1 of Fallout, Vault 33 is where we spend the majority of our time. At least, so far as the vaults are concerned. Home to the MacLean family (consisting of Ella Purnell’s Lucy, Kyle MacLachlan’s Overseer Hank, and Moises Arias’ Norm) as well as a whole host of home-grown farm folk, Vault 33’s primary crop is corn and its appearance takes after the Nebraskan countryside. All of its occupants also have a strange affinity for jello cake.
This vault has been relatively free of hardship throughout its 200+ year run, but it did suffer a brief famine that resulted in quite a few casualties, including Lucy and Norm’s mother. At least so they think…
Vault 32
You know what they say! When you’re tired of bangin’ your cousin, look no further than Vault 32. (Surely someone must have said this…) Of course, mind the raiders. Even if the death of the vault wasn’t even said raiders’ fault.
Vault 32 is a picture of what happens when famine goes wrong. While at first it’s believed that Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) ravaged the vault, Norm and Chet (Dave Register) discover later in the season that the vault fell long before being opened to the outside world. In it, they find half eaten corpses, as well as a whole host of apparent suicide cases as the Vaulties tried to find whatever way they could to stave off the hunger.
Obviously, all of this was covered up by the Overseers.
Vault 31
The picture of what happens when “home grown” is taken a little bit too far. Sure, they don’t necessarily grow the folks, but they do dethaw them whenever Vault 33 requires a new overseer. Turns out, Vault 31 was the key to Vault-Tec’s evil plan. Or at least the human part of it. Before bringing about the apocalypse — twice — the high-ranking members of Vault-Tec cryogenically froze themselves, with the exception of Michael Asper’s Bud Askins who, instead, put his brain in a little robot dude so he could live on forever and unfreeze his counterparts whenever a new Overseer was required.
Vault 4
Ah, the ever-curious Vault 4. Midway through the Fallout series, we learn that this was the home of the scientists. In an ad for Vault-Tec, Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard praises the scientists, calling the small family the “real heroes.” Unfortunately, it appears that ethics didn’t come standard with their scientific curiosities. After decades of terrible experiments, the mutants created by the scientists rose up and overtook Vault 4, eventually opening it up to the wasteland and accepting Shady Sands survivors into their midst. Their Overseer may be a tad racist against surface dwellers, but Vault 4 is where Lucy learns to understand her own prejudices as well!
