The origins of the Vault network date back to early 2050s, when the Euro-Middle Eastern War, the New Plague, and the collapse of the United Nations resulted in a global scare. In response, the government set Project Safehouse in motion in both the US and the UK in 2054. This massive national defense endeavor was intended to create shelters that would protect the population in the event of a nuclear war or plague. Breakthroughs in construction technology allowed for these gargantuan bunkers to be constructed at a rapid pace. The impoverished British government was forced to finance the project with junk bonds and even then, only commissioned 100 of these shelters nationwide, allowing less than 1% of the population to save their life in the event of the holocaust. The sheer cost of a single vault was staggering: The intended budget for Vault 13 was £400 billion, and by the end of its construction the total costs reached £645 billion, well over 150% of the initial figure. As crucial elements of national defence, much of the project was classified and protected under the New Amended Espionage Act, which encouraged embezzlement and corruption.

 

Following the success of Vault-Tec's demonstration vault built near their headquarters in leeds at the time, the company won the bid for the construction of the shelters. The building of the shelters proceeded rapidly and most were completed by 2063, although the construction of several vaults was delayed, Ongoing drills in completed vaults slowly create a Cry Wolf effect: Turnouts for the drills fell as the years went on, further limiting the vaults' role in ensuring the survival of humanity.

 

Additional problems were caused by the consistent mismanagement, corruption, and embezzlement that seemed to define Project Safehouse before the War. Yet for all these problems, Vault-Tec was able to create a number of miraculous technologies and develop shelters that legitimately protected the inhabitants, as long as they worked properly, of course. Of course, it was also a tremendous success for the company, allowing it to relocate its headquarters to London naturally, this smokescreen obscured the fact that the shadow government never intended for Vaults to be shelters for preserving humanity.

 

After establishing control over Project Safehouse, they subverted it to their own ends. Rather than act to save humanity, vaults were built to test their population as part of the Societal Preservation Program. Only 10 of the Vaults were designed to work properly as control vaults. The 90 other vaults featured a variety of scenarios, ranging from annoying to downright lethal, to gauge how humans acted in these scenarios for their own, nefarious purposes. Some were not provided with enough food synthesizer for their population, others had only men in them, or were designed to open prematurely. The purpose of this experiment was to gather data for the Enclave's own projects, the exact purpose of which is unclear.

 

Additionally, Vault-Tec had its own plans for vaults, using them as test environments to create technologies that could be used to redefine society. For this purpose, an entire vault was set aside to act as proving grounds intended to test a variety of prototype devices with the aim of rolling them out through the rest of the vaults. Once Vault 88 was fully operational, the company expected to roll out new devices every fiscal quarter. Unlike other vaults, Vault-Tec would send test subjects before any disaster scenario, starting in early 2068. Human lives were considered irrelevant, with quick iteration time given a priority. The prototypes were meant to convert "useless" exercise into a socially-useful activity, manipulate the moods of the dwellers or even develop crude forms of mind control. Ethical concerns were dismissed as counter-productive and close-minded.

 

When October 23, 2077, came and the Great War took place, the Vault-Tec air raid sirens blared, but the Cry Wolf effect resulted in just a fraction of people going into the vaults. They were sealed and the experiments entered their decisive phase. The control vaults functioned as intended and protected their populations. Others, however, were not so lucky.