One of the biggest mysteries from season 1 of Fallout is the connection between Vaults 31, 32 and 33. The Three Vaults are separate yet interconnected through passageways. Allegedly, the separation was to contain threats without blocking the Vaults from coming to each other’s aid when needed.
Why were these three vaults designed to be close? The answer is part of a long-term Vault-Tec experiment focused on leadership and social engineering.
The Role of Vault 31 and Bud Askins
Vault 31 is not a traditional shelter vault. It houses Bud Askins’ “Bud’s Buds,” a group of Vault-Tec junior executives preserved in cryogenic storage. Bud believes that management is the key to rebuilding the world after a nuclear holocaust. Several people, including Steph Harper, Betty Pearson and Hank McLean were frozen in cryogenic pods for over 200 years.
Vaults 31, 32, and 33 are arranged so they can exchange residents and resources. This arrangement gives Vault-Tec the ability to place leaders called overseers in Vaults 32 and 33. Every Overseer that has been elected in Vault 33 originated from Vault 31. The vault residents believe they are participating in a fair system, but leadership is preselected.
Bud continues to oversee this process two centuries after the war as a brain preserved in a robotic body. However, the fluids sustaining him are slowly causing his brain to degrade.
What Happened in Vault 32?
This tight structure started to break with Vault 32. Two years before the start of the series, the residents figured out that they were nothing but guinea pigs for Bud’s eugenics project.
Nobody knows how the residents of Vault 32 discovered Bud’s experiments, but the aftermath wasn’t pretty. Overseer Ian Jackson was murdered. Graffiti reading “WE KNOW THE TRUTH” and “DEATH TO MANAGEMENT” was written in blood on the walls. Every dweller living inside Vault 32 either killed themselves or fellow dwellers.
What the Three Vaults Say About Vault-Tec
Vaults 31–32–33 shows how low Vault-Tec will go when it comes to their twisted experiments. The company designed their vaults to test methods of controlling what’s left of the human population.They’re a central part of Fallout’s message about how the rich exert their power over everyone else. The mystery of the Three Vaults is not about hidden tunnels or secret technology. It’s about how easily authority figures can manipulate systems that are supposed to exist to benefit people.
