Location from Fallout by Interplay / Bethesda
A sealed vault designed to never open, where generations lived under the Overseer's iron control believing the outside world was death — until a father's escape shattered the lie.
The recycled air has a metallic tang that residents don't notice anymore. The hum of the reactor and the ventilation system form a constant white noise that makes silence feel deafening when systems hiccup. Footsteps echo in the corridors. The Overseer's announcements crackle from intercoms at scheduled intervals. Children grow up learning that the vault is the entire world and the door is there to keep death out. There's a birthday party with a Pip-Boy at ten, a job assignment, a life measured in fluorescent-lit corridors. The claustrophobia isn't physical — it's existential.
Standard Vault-Tec layout: curved concrete corridors painted in fading yellow and blue, heavy blast doors with gear-shaped frames, and fluorescent lighting that hums constantly. The atrium features a Vault-Tec propaganda mural and the Overseer's office overlooks the common area from reinforced windows. Classrooms, a diner, living quarters, and a reactor level descend into the bedrock. The main door — a massive gear-shaped slab — has never opened in living memory. Everything is clean but claustrophobic, maintained but aging.
Also known as: Vault 101, The Sealed Vault, Home Vault