#vault 111

the institute was originally a vault, where the experiment was to see if they could save humanity by uploading human life onto computers.

The institute’s technology started off VERY similar to the securitrons we see in FNV. Very big computers, limited movement, barely human looking.

Robert House actually funded this particular vault before the bombs. Because he knew that the bombs were gonna drop in advance, the ORIGINAL plan was to fly him to Massachusetts right before the end…but he gave his ticket to someone else (Jane, most likely. But she may or may not have actually gotten into the vault considering she probably wasn’t listed).

Obviously the first people to get into these vaults were rich folks. They had a secure place in the vault, where all they’d be required to do is “have a little X-ray.” Then they could sit back, relax, and “leave the rest to the egg-heads.”

Lower class people were promised a chance at a spot in the vault…if they did a little experiment for vault tech.

These people were told that the brain scans were needed to further cancer research. A good cause. Yada yada. If they did it, after giving all medical documentation, identification, and a minor waver fee, they could put their name in a lottery for a chance to get into the vault for free.

One of these volunteers was Nick Valentine.

Their names were documented, but there was no lottery. All of them were killed by the bombs.

Their information was instead uploaded to a drive to run tests. That way the scientists wouldn’t risk damaging the copies of the rich folks they wanted to preserve.

Bombs drop, volunteers die, rich people are rushed to safety, and the experiments can begin as normal.

Well—mostly normal. A lot of that tech—MOST of that tech—belonged to Mr. House. The overseer and the scientists were under the impression that they’d have his input at their disposal. Their ETERNAL disposal. But…for some reason…he never showed up.

Those scientists were left to the wolves.

Why would House fund this vault if he was just gonna dip anyway? So that Vault-Tech and the other donors wouldn’t get suspicious of the kind of technology he was making pre-war.

“Huh? Oh yeah I’m making these robots for YOU GUYS. Totally. 100%. Don’t worry about it, here’s 10,000 dollars, go buy Susie a pony.

It’s a stretch but it’s headcanon land it’s fine.

While House is running New Vegas, this vault is left to run the experiment to the best of their abilities.

Initially, for those first couple years, the vault’s goal was just to see if they could make a computer that could process the human brain without crashing.

That took a few years.

Problem was, they lost a lot of good data in the process. Most of the volunteer scans got corrupted, with the exception of a few people Nick Valentine. They only had a few brains left to spare, and they didn’t want those to get corrupted too. So there was a bit of a hiccup there.

Given that Mr. House wasn’t there, the Overseer and had a lot of freedom as to what direction the experiment was gonna go in. House was presumed dead. It’s not like they’d need to pay him back if things went wrong.

So they started running tests on the rich dwellers.

Before they’d run a test, they’d call a dweller for a backup scan. Just in case the original got corrupted.

That was MUCH easier than using the limited data they had from the lower class volunteers from before the bombs dropped. This way, they had an infinite supply of data AND it guaranteed that the best of the best would be preserved.

The next step was to make a body for the computers to move around in. That started off really clunky, barely functioning. They started off with each individual body part. Fingers, eyes, mouth, arms, etc etc. It was a really slow process.

That’s when the original dwellers started dying off.

When that happened, the vault had 2 options.

They could either continue the experiments as normal with the new generation of dwellers—dwellers who had known nothing outside the vault—and risk corrupting the original data of the vault dwellers from before the war.

…or they could open up the vault and take in some scrap.

They went with the latter. Which is when the kidnappings started. They’d send robots (which would later be known as first generation synths) to the surface to grab surfacedwellers and bring them down to the vault.

It’s important to note two things.

1: these robots didn’t have any brains uploaded to them. They had very simple AI protocol to grab humans, defend themselves if necessary, and return to home base. The entire reason the vault was taking in Surfacedwellers was to secure the safety of the original dweller’s data. They weren’t gonna throw that away by sending those dwellers up into God-knows-what to find God-knows-who.

2: this didn’t happen TOO often. Partially because the vault wasn’t sure if they’d even find people on the surface, and partially because they didn’t really NEED to do it that often. They’d keep their prisoners locked up tight, where they could scan their brains anytime something goes wrong. These prisoners would be fed, watered, bathed, and “taken care of” until the day they died.

The latter actually worked out great, at first, because Surfacedwellers didn’t really think much of the random disappearances of their friends. “Oh, Jimmy’s gone? Must’ve been a raider or something. Shit happens, it’s the commonwealth, get good.”

This is also the main reason The Institute treats synths as less than human, despite in-game occurrences where some members treat them as human.

It’s not out of some moral placement of “are robots people?” (Aside from the fact that the first-generation synths were basically just humanoid protectrons)

It’s classism. They view these synths as less than human because they view Surfacedwellers as less than human.

As for the next generation of dwellers? Well, the Institute’s scientists age too. They’ll need replacements.

Instead of being raised as a pure society, these kids are brought up to believe that it’s their duty to preserve their parents in a secure and immortal body. They are raised as scientists. So then they raise their kids as scientists. And the cycle continues.

By this point the vault has gone completely rogue. Breaking all kinds of protocols that were originally intended to be followed to the T. But now, the vault has its own agenda.

(Meanwhile, Mr. House has been exposed to germs and is getting critical damage from being shot in the balls by a brain damaged courier).

(Sorry I thought that was necessary. Anyway-).

So, the vault abandons whatever number I have yet to dub it and adopts the title: The Institute.

The kidnappings continue, and the project officially devolves into creating “Synths.”

Oh yeah the FEV…uh…I should probably mention them before I get into gen 2 synths.

Genuinely I don’t know enough about the FEV project to develop any fix-it-fic headcanons. But it seemed too important to leave out completely so uh…idk. So far the FEV feels SUPER random and like the writers just needed an excuse to have a runaway mutant scientist in a society of people who hate Surfacedwellers. I initially thought Virgil was a mutant cause he’d been living in the Glowing Sea for god knows how long. But I’m wrong apparently. So idk.

I might just pretend that the FEV experiments were trying to CURE mutation, rather than just…sending mutants up to the surface to see what happens. But idk. I wanna know more about that project before solidifying it in my headcanon land.

Anyway Gen 2 synths!

Those of you who have played the Far Harbor DLC know that this is VERY important to Nick Valentine’s backstory!

This is the part where you find out these headcanons started because I have a crush on the detective toaster

The Institute had developed bodies that they believed could process personalities. So they started working on DiMA and Nick.

Just like normal, DiMA was left to develop his own personality…

While Nick…Nick was used as a test subject for the remaining lower-class volunteers from before the war.

Things play out between Nick and DiMA generally the same way they do in-canon. DiMA helps Nick escape, he doesn’t know that he’s a synth, they have a falling out (pun intended) and Nick gets left in the dumpster.

The Institute wasn’t…pleased. But the experiments did work. They did figure out that a synth could develop its own personality, and they had finally concluded that personalities could be uploaded into these mechanically complex bodies.

All they needed were HUMAN bodies.

And thus, the Gen 3 synth projects started.

Hundreds of years of research were almost worth it. They just needed more test subjects.

This is when they began kidnapping more people, and making themselves slightly more known.

Somewhere along the line they developed a teleporters to make the kidnappings easier. Idk when. This is headcanon land. But it happened. I don’t really have a fix for this.

Actually yeah I do: the way you get in right before destroying the institute was the original entrance. Vault door and everything. But they got rid of the vault door after they created a new mode of transportation. Like the final way of saying “we aren’t a vault anymore. We’re something else.”

But they couldn’t create a synthetic body that wasn’t heavily irradiated. The goal was to preserve the original dwellers. But if they were trapped in irradiated bodies…well that just wouldn’t do. They needed a control group.

Then they found vault 111 in some old records.

And the rest is history.

Vague and inconsistent history, but history nonetheless.