I'm sure that this has already been debated to death here, but I've always been curious about the post-war state of the World outside of the US. We know from NPCs like Tenpenny that there are survivors from the European Commonwealth, and that some form of trans-Atlantic travel still exists. Is it possible that other countries had their own vault/shelter programs, or is it unique to the United States due to their perceived technological superiority?

Well, the vaults were conceived by the United States government as a way to conduct secret experiments on its inhabitants. I'm sure other countries had fallout shelters to protect their citizens, not experiment on them.

Don't think they do. But they probably have some kind of other programs similar to Vaults, like bunkers and stuff.

I don't think so, another country that could possibly have Vaults is Russia but i guess those would be the Moscow Metro.


And they wouldn't do that for fallout because of the Metro Books and Games.

tehuitzaldebamf wrote:

Well, the vaults were conceived by the United States government as a way to conduct secret experiments on its inhabitants. I'm sure other countries had fallout shelters to protect their citizens, not experiment on them.

Even if some of the Vaults served experimental purposes, they still protected the inhabitants from the nuclear fallout as advertised (except for that one vault that was intentionally designed to not close all the way.) There were also quite a few control vaults that were not a part of any experiments.

As for other countries, I do not doubt that they built fall out shelters, but I think that the Vaults are on another level. I was amazed when I first started delving into Fallout lore to find out that Vault costed hundred of billions of the dollars to create. I guess what I'm really asking is if other countries had programs as vast and ambitious as the Vault Tec program.

To elaborate on the other comments before me, No I don't believe other countries have Vaults. In fact I know they don't have Vault Tech vaults simply because Vault Tec is an American Corporation. Heres some explanation for you as well to give you some background Info

Code:

Vault-Tec Corporation was a corporation contracted by the United States government before the Great War to design and produce the vault system, a vast network of complex bomb shelters.

Vault-Tec designed and constructed advanced technologies. It was a major military contractor before the Great War, and as such, developed highly experimental, advanced and secret technologies. In time, Vault-Tec became so thoroughly integrated with top-secret military research done by the Pentagon that it had practically become a department of the U.S. government. The company still remained in private hands, but, because of its strong connection to the American government the principal personnel of Vault-Tec - its executives, top scientists, engineers, and so on - had to be aware of the true purpose of the vaults and Project Safehouse.

Regardless of the American government's directives, Vault-Tec's high-ranking personnel had no intention of submitting to a lottery and living underground with a bunch of human cattle in the intentionally defective vault facilities that they had constructed. Vault-Tec instead created their own private emergency shelter facility for their top employees and their families, removed from the larger vault network, and kept secret from the U.S. government. This facility is now known as the Secret Vault.

Vault-Tec Logo
A rusty Vault-Tec logo
Vault-Tec did not stop there. This secret, private installation was used to research new, more advanced technologies that would benefit mankind in the midst of post-nuclear environment. This initiative included some extensive research with the "Forced Evolutionary Virus" (FEV), the results of which, unlike the government-controlled research on the virus' uses at Vault 87, was also kept secret from the government. It is known that the FEV stored in the Secret Vault was highly modified in an attempt to achieve its original goals and also avoid sterility among those subjects infected and mutated by it. However, this modification proved unsuccessful.

Other Vault-Tec projects that were intended for the corporation's own use included the development of their own robotic systems, a special biological weapons program (the results of which were probably the creation of a unique race of radroaches and a variation of the deathclaw), advanced biomedical research on the effects of rapid cell regeneration, and even an attempt to create a model of power armor to be used by Vault-Tec personnel.

So in a sense their is no vaults in other countires, however they may of had some other type of protection from the Nuclear Attacks. However this is perhaps the main reason Fallout isn't set in another country as Vault Tec plays a major role in the background lore throughout the series.

But of course other countries had their own Fallout Shelters.

Sources: Vault Tec

MiGCAP wrote:

tehuitzaldebamf wrote:

Well, the vaults were conceived by the United States government as a way to conduct secret experiments on its inhabitants. I'm sure other countries had fallout shelters to protect their citizens, not experiment on them.

Even if some of the Vaults served experimental purposes, they still protected the inhabitants from the nuclear fallout as advertised (except for that one vault that was intentionally designed to not close all the way.) There were also quite a few control vaults that were not a part of any experiments.

As for other countries, I do not doubt that they built fall out shelters, but I think that the Vaults are on another level. I was amazed when I first started delving into Fallout lore to find out that Vault costed hundred of billions of the dollars to create. I guess what I'm really asking is if other countries had programs as vast and ambitious as the Vault Tec program.

The lore doesn't go into much description about other countries as much as their focus on the United States. I tried looking up other countries such as China and Russia, but I couldnt find much information. Maybe Pulowski Preservation Shelters were in other countries because their business was horrible, they could have branched out to other nations that needed the protection.

Teh Hamburger wrote:

To elaborate on the other comments before me, No I don't believe other countries have Vaults. In fact I know they don't have Vault Tech vaults simply because Vault Tec is an American Corporation. Heres some explanation for you as well to give you some background Info

Code:

Vault-Tec Corporation was a corporation contracted by the United States government before the Great War to design and produce the vault system, a vast network of complex bomb shelters.

Vault-Tec designed and constructed advanced technologies. It was a major military contractor before the Great War, and as such, developed highly experimental, advanced and secret technologies. In time, Vault-Tec became so thoroughly integrated with top-secret military research done by the Pentagon that it had practically become a department of the U.S. government. The company still remained in private hands, but, because of its strong connection to the American government the principal personnel of Vault-Tec - its executives, top scientists, engineers, and so on - had to be aware of the true purpose of the vaults and Project Safehouse.

Regardless of the American government's directives, Vault-Tec's high-ranking personnel had no intention of submitting to a lottery and living underground with a bunch of human cattle in the intentionally defective vault facilities that they had constructed. Vault-Tec instead created their own private emergency shelter facility for their top employees and their families, removed from the larger vault network, and kept secret from the U.S. government. This facility is now known as the Secret Vault.

Vault-Tec Logo
A rusty Vault-Tec logo
Vault-Tec did not stop there. This secret, private installation was used to research new, more advanced technologies that would benefit mankind in the midst of post-nuclear environment. This initiative included some extensive research with the "Forced Evolutionary Virus" (FEV), the results of which, unlike the government-controlled research on the virus' uses at Vault 87, was also kept secret from the government. It is known that the FEV stored in the Secret Vault was highly modified in an attempt to achieve its original goals and also avoid sterility among those subjects infected and mutated by it. However, this modification proved unsuccessful.

Other Vault-Tec projects that were intended for the corporation's own use included the development of their own robotic systems, a special biological weapons program (the results of which were probably the creation of a unique race of radroaches and a variation of the deathclaw), advanced biomedical research on the effects of rapid cell regeneration, and even an attempt to create a model of power armor to be used by Vault-Tec personnel.

So in a sense their is no vaults in other countires, however they may of had some other type of protection from the Nuclear Attacks. However this is perhaps the main reason Fallout isn't set in another country as Vault Tec plays a major role in the background lore throughout the series.

But of course other countries had their own Fallout Shelters.

But there is a possibility that another super power like China or Russia might have possessed a similar corporation to Vault Tec. We know that the US was more technologically advanced than other nations before the Great War, so was the technology used to create the Vault Tec Vaults out of reach for other nations? Or is it possible that some countries possessed the resource and understanding to create similar shelters that could last for decades?

It is unfortunate that there isn't a lot of knowledge about other countries. It would be nice if the institute in Fall Out 4 had some sort of information about the state of the rest of the world, maybe they will.

MiGCAP wrote:

Teh Hamburger wrote:

To elaborate on the other comments before me, No I don't believe other countries have Vaults. In fact I know they don't have Vault Tech vaults simply because Vault Tec is an American Corporation. Heres some explanation for you as well to give you some background Info

Code:

Vault-Tec Corporation was a corporation contracted by the United States government before the Great War to design and produce the vault system, a vast network of complex bomb shelters.

Vault-Tec designed and constructed advanced technologies. It was a major military contractor before the Great War, and as such, developed highly experimental, advanced and secret technologies. In time, Vault-Tec became so thoroughly integrated with top-secret military research done by the Pentagon that it had practically become a department of the U.S. government. The company still remained in private hands, but, because of its strong connection to the American government the principal personnel of Vault-Tec - its executives, top scientists, engineers, and so on - had to be aware of the true purpose of the vaults and Project Safehouse.

Regardless of the American government's directives, Vault-Tec's high-ranking personnel had no intention of submitting to a lottery and living underground with a bunch of human cattle in the intentionally defective vault facilities that they had constructed. Vault-Tec instead created their own private emergency shelter facility for their top employees and their families, removed from the larger vault network, and kept secret from the U.S. government. This facility is now known as the Secret Vault.

Vault-Tec Logo
A rusty Vault-Tec logo
Vault-Tec did not stop there. This secret, private installation was used to research new, more advanced technologies that would benefit mankind in the midst of post-nuclear environment. This initiative included some extensive research with the "Forced Evolutionary Virus" (FEV), the results of which, unlike the government-controlled research on the virus' uses at Vault 87, was also kept secret from the government. It is known that the FEV stored in the Secret Vault was highly modified in an attempt to achieve its original goals and also avoid sterility among those subjects infected and mutated by it. However, this modification proved unsuccessful.

Other Vault-Tec projects that were intended for the corporation's own use included the development of their own robotic systems, a special biological weapons program (the results of which were probably the creation of a unique race of radroaches and a variation of the deathclaw), advanced biomedical research on the effects of rapid cell regeneration, and even an attempt to create a model of power armor to be used by Vault-Tec personnel.

So in a sense their is no vaults in other countires, however they may of had some other type of protection from the Nuclear Attacks. However this is perhaps the main reason Fallout isn't set in another country as Vault Tec plays a major role in the background lore throughout the series.

But of course other countries had their own Fallout Shelters.

But there is a possibility that another super power like China or Russia might have possessed a similar corporation to Vault Tec. We know that the US was more technologically advanced than other nations before the Great War, so was the technology used to create the Vault Tec Vaults out of reach for other nations? Or is it possible that some countries possessed the resource and understanding to create similar shelters that could last for decades?

It is unfortunate that there isn't a lot of knowledge about other countries. It would be nice if the institute in Fall Out 4 had some sort of information about the state of the rest of the world, maybe they will.

It is possible some of the other super powers of the world did have vault like shelters, however they would be no where near the same scale as the Shelters the United States had. Like you mentioned the US had far superior technology and have learned how to harvest the power of the Atom (With their Nuclear Fuel Cells)before any other country in the world. Thus allowing the US to creative preservatives that could make food last for hundreds of years, and water purification systems that could keep the vaults alive and running for years. So yes it is possible that other countries to have Fallout shelters (Actually its Definite) but their shelters would be no were near as efficient as the US shelters. This would force the residents in other countries to actually venture out in to the waste many years before people in the US had to.

Now the European Commonwealth is lightly touched upon in the lore (They had thought of a game to take place there called Fallout: Resource Wars.) but it is stated that the 2 remaining Super Powers at the beginning of the Great War was the US and China as Russia had already collapsed.  But Ill include information about the European Commonwealth below for those who haven't read it.

Code:

The European Commonwealth is the Fallout universe's equivalent of the real-world European Union, which has integrated into a single state-like entity throughout Europe; this was probably a federal union. It is, however, unknown which European states were members.

In 2052, Europe was heavily dependent on oil imports from the petroleum-rich states of the Middle East and responded with military action to rapidly rising oil prices that were damaging its economy, starting the terrible global conflicts that later historians simply lumped together as the Resource Wars.

The outcome of the conflict suggests that the European Commonwealth possessed a unified military. It is unknown whether the Commonwealth took steps to ensure its survival like the United States did.

When the European Commonwealth-Middle East War came to an end in 2060, the Commonwealth began to dissolve, and many countries withdrew from the Commonwealth.

Also here is more information about Vault development in the US as well which is quite interesting.

Code:

 In 2054, a nuclear exchange in the Middle East prompted the American government to establish Project Safehouse, which was intended to create 122 underground fallout shelters that would save a portion of American society from the ravages of nuclear war or an unstoppable global pandemic.

So in term China more than likely had fallout shelters along with many other countries, but these shelters technically would be incapable of protection for more than 40+ years in the end depending on the amount of people taking shelter in them. Also to the comment earlier about the Pulowski preservation services, it is possible they had services such as these in other countries but judging solely off what is shown in Fallout 3. These shelters where not very 'Effective'

But if you would also like to read up more Ill include my sources:

Fallout: United States
European Commonwealth
Pulowski Preservation Services

Also please excuse my bad grammar.

Edit: Also as someone said earlier, Russia has had Fallout Shelters since the late 1930s and since Fallout followed the same Timeline as American history up until the 1950s more than definitely the Russian Metros which where designed to protect its civilians for upwards of 100 years would be in effect. However we have Metro for that like war1915 mentioned earlier. However in the Fallout story line this can be argued as Russia did collapse before the great war. But this is what makes the lore of fallout so interesting. There is so many different possibilities

im gonna say that yes most likely other countries had some sort of vault programs, maybe not like the ones we all no and so what love ,but some kind of underground shelter