Vault 36

~Vault 36~

Experiment Tagline: Can a large group of extremely diverse people be trained into thinking the exact same way?

Vault 36 was a large vault built below the Bowling Green Fairgrounds. It was touted as the "Vault for Everybody!" as people from all ethnicities, religions, races, genders, sexualities, socio-economic statuses, etc were given acceptance to the vault.

Vault 36 consisted of two levels. The top level was for general vault needs, it contained housing, farms, cafeterias, etc etc. But the bottom floor, was a massive, sprawling ever-shifting maze that housed an extensive team of robots who worked construction to change the layout of the bottom floor of the vault constantly, worked as master chefs cooking food worth killing for, and worked as scientists as they recorded data, administered punishments/rewards, and even designed more experiments.

Residents of the vault were freely given only enough water and food to maintain a status of 'alive', and the food was always either extremely bland or straight up repulsive, and the water always had a strange aftertaste that somehow made you MORE thirsty. Those who ate only what the vault provided on the top floor would always be left thirsty and hungry, and slowly became malnutritioned. Most residents were also given a boring or monotonous job, like performing menial maintenance tasks or processing random, seemingly endless paperwork. A select few, however, were chosen to work more exciting jobs, such as security officers or chefs.

Every resident of the vault was also forced to wear a shock collar at all times, which shocked them whenever they did something that was considered "against the parameters", which a scary, deep voice would yell before what felt like enough electricity to kill a horse was sent coursing through your body. Things that always were always "against the parameters":
--Talking about one's past or interests.
--Outwardly expressing love for a romantic partner, friend, or family member.
--Asking personal questions about the other residents around you.
--Any talk of rebelling or not venturing down into the bottom floor on a daily basis.
--Not venturing to the bottom floor at least once a day and participating to your highest ability in whatever experiment/maze you were put through that day.
--Talking negatively about the Overseer or any of the security measures in place.
--Any talk of 'individuality' or 'freedom'.

Common rewards for venturing down below and fully participating:
--Delicious food and flavorful deserts
--Purified water
--Toys and fun trinkets (which were not allowed to leave the bottom floor)
--Access to Mr., Mrs., and Mx. Pleasure. A set of three robots which… well, I think you can surmise.

If a resident somehow managed to disable their shock collar, there was a small explosive device inside that would immediately detonate, instantly killing the previous wearer of the collar and anyone within standing distance, as little pieces of shrapnel were also tucked inside the bomb. Of course, if that's not enough to deter anyone, there are also numerous turrets installed in secret hidden compartments in the ceilings, walls, and floors of every room on the top floor. If a collar was perceived as off at any moment, all of the turrets in the room would spring out and gun down anyone and everyone who happened to be in the room at that moment.

This, of course, led to The Incident. One day, nearly three years ago now, during peak dinner hours, someone's shock collar malfunctioned, and the system thought it had been disabled. Dozens of turrets emerged and emptied their magazines, killing nearly a quarter of the vault's population in a matter of seconds.

Once a year, every member of the vault would be forced to take "The Personality Quiz", which was an ever-changing test of open-ended, vague questions that could have an infinite number of answers. All of the residents' answers were processed and analyzed, and those who strayed too far from the "perfect answer" were never seen again after the next time they went to the bottom floor, or in extremely rare cases, were chosen as the next Overseer, in which all of the turrets in the Overseer's office turned on and murdered the old one. The Personality Quiz was also used to select who would be allowed to socialize with who, and was how the system selected mates among the population.

The Overseer was mostly forced to remain in their office, having little to no direct contact with the rest of the vault. They still had to wear a shock collar, but they were not subjugated to the experiments of the bottom floor while they held that position, and instead were able to design and propose their own, which the robots on the bottom floor examined and analyzed.

Over time, the objective was to train the residents of the vault to think the same and to erase all sense of individuality.

This system continued on for generations, with the harshness and rigidity of the experiments and shock collars varying depending on the Overseer. However, it all came crashing down recently. The current Overseer was silently planning since they were young on how to bring the vault down. They were able to trick their way into the Overseer position, and then slowly began to corrupt the system by sending an endless stream of all kinds of strange and outlandish experiments to be analyzed by the system. It skewed the program and, for a while, it was causing the residents to be subjugated to even more inhumane and crazy experiments. However eventually it wore it down, and the system went awol. Absolute chaos descended upon the vault and many were killed, including the overseer, but some residents managed to escape and survive to tell the tale of Vault 36.

The main group of vault dwellers that escaped began traveling towards the center of town (unknowingly towards Four Corners), but were cut off by a group of high, traveling raiders. Many more of the vault survivors were killed in the attack, and all others were scattered, sent running in random directions for their lives yet again. Three, however, managed to stick together, and picked up a new friend who happened to be nearby and aided in repelling the raiders. He might be big, green, smelly, and definitely not human, but he seems nice.