The majority of vaults in Fallout have a dark history. A few pursue at least a noble goal – but still end up going wrong. One of these “well-intentioned” stories is Vault 22 from Fallout: New Vegas.
Vaults are an essential part of Fallout. Whether in the Fallout series on Amazon or in the games, they shape the world at least as much as the bombs that have destroyed everything.
Spoiler warning: Anyone who has not seen the Fallout series or played the games will get some light spoilers here.
What are vaults? Officially, these structures are nuclear fallout shelters with walls several meters thick. People were supposed to find refuge in them when the bombs fall. The characteristic, gear-shaped doors then close – temporarily permanently.
Once it is “safe” again in the post-apocalyptic world, the vaults are supposed to reopen, and the residents leave the vault to rebuild and repopulate America. But of course, it wouldn’t be the America from Fallout if there wasn’t a capitalistic thought behind it:
Spaces in the vaults are horrendously expensive. The developers, VaultTec, make a fortune selling the spaces to people. Or to companies. Because this is where the unofficial aspect comes in.
VaultTec “rented” the vaults to other companies in a sort of auction, as shown at the end of the Fallout series. Because of this, experiments were conducted in most vaults, often of a social nature, like in the notorious Vault 69.
Others served research purposes, such as on plants or even directly on humans. For instance, there was a vault where all residents were kept constantly drugged. Everything that should never reach the public, as it violates humanity, was researched somewhere.
This is Vault 22: In one vault, however, research was actually conducted on something intended to help humanity. The experiments of Vault 22 aimed to modify plants so they could feed people in the dystopian future.
The entire vault was populated by scientists studying:
- Fertilizers and fertilization methods
- Better yields of crops
- Resistance of crops against insects, drought, and diseases
How Vault 22 Became a Horror Story
What went wrong? To effectively combat pests, the researchers used a fungus. The fungus was supposed to infest small animals, kill them, and spread itself. It did that, just a bit too well.
The fungus, Beauveria mordicana, infected its hosts and completely took over after about 10-20 days. The animals became mind-controlled zombie fungi, even when they were already dead. The intention of these beings was solely to spread spores.
Eventually, the fungus evolved to the point where even humans became infected, starting with the lead researcher Dr. Harrison Peters, who describes the progression of the infection as follows (via Fallout Wiki):
- Breathing problems as soon as the fungus reaches the lungs
- Chills, fever, and whooping cough follow
- Any form of treatment that aims to destroy the fungus fails and instead kills the host
What happened to Vault 22 then? The fungus took over more and more researchers and repelled every attempt to combat it. Eventually, the survivors had to flee – their fate can be experienced in “Honest Hearts,” an addon for Fallout: New Vegas.
There you will also find the vault itself, in the middle of the Mojave Desert. With the warning sign: “The plants kill!” right at the entrance, the vault is one of the more dangerous ones. There are no living beings left there, but plenty of dead who are still on the move.
If the story sounds familiar: a similar plot runs in The Last of Us, only with the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis – or Cordyceps. Such a fungus also exists in real life and infects small organisms almost exactly as described above. The Last of Us has also helped the Fallout series: This is how The Last of Us helped to create the Fallout series
