History Main / FalloutShelterFail

* Homemade nuclear shelters would not survive a nuclear explosion. Even if they were distant enough to avoid being caught in the initial blast, the fallout would likely kill the occupants anyway. Much like covering under a desk, their purpose was to protect against the shockwave and help keep the populace calm.

* The ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' fanfic "The Way Is Shut" delves a little deeper into the fate of North Korea when investigators uncover tunnel entrances in the DMZ. One of the sealed vault doors they encounter is leaking stagnant black water contaminated with chunks of decomposed flesh, which indicates two very nasty things: first, the pumps that would normally keep the UndergroundCity dry are either inoperable or unmanned, meaning that the complex is probably flooded. Second, several corpses are ''rotting'' on the other side of the door, some of them zombies, some of them humans. [[NothingIsScarier Nobody knows exactly what happened]], but [[RoomFullOfZombies the implications]] aren't good. [[spoiler: None of the doors are opened, but the investigator fears they may not need to: North Korean construction efforts are notoriously shoddy, and with water building up pressure, [[LeakingCanOfEvil it's only a matter of time before whatever's on the other side of the doors is released]].]]

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* The protagonist of ''Literature/ThePostman'' mentions finding fallout shelters whose owners didn't make it every so often, and hoping that the prior occupants stocked up on more non-perishable food than useless stuff like gold.

* Homemade nuclear shelters would not survive a nuclear explosion. Even if they were distant enough to avoid being caught in the initial blast, the fallout would likely kill the occupants anyway. Much like covering under a desk, their purpose was to help keep the populace calm.

* VideoGame/ChronoTrigger: The desperate people of the future send a man out of the shelter and through a KillerRobot-infested dome-city to find food (they have a machine that can supply their needs, but you still feel hungry after using it); by the time he gets there, it turns out the crates weren't airtight and the food went rotten. He died there, but when the PCs find him, he is clutching a seed - which they bring back to the people in the first dome: they decide to try caring for the seed.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Narrowly averted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E14BartsComet Bart's Comet]]". When a comet is headed on a collision course for Springfield, the whole town crowds into the Flanders' bunker though Ned states they'll likely die of suffocation before the comet hits and there's no food for all of them but he allows it because [[GoodSamaritan he just can't refuse to help]]. Indeed, it's very comically crowded and filled to the breaking point. Eventually everyone leaves to face their demise together, but luckily the comet burns up in the atmosphere and is reduced to a small rock, which bounces off the bunker - causing the whole thing to ''[[EpicFail instantly crumble on impact]]''.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/untitled_386.jpg]]

* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' has one strip in a bomb shelter where a woman is berating her husband for stockpiling a wall of canned food... and no can opener.
-->How many times did I say it, Harold? "Make sure that bomb shelter's got a can opener - ain't much good without a can opener," I said.

* In ''VideoGame/{Stellaris}}'', after you colonize a Tomb World, you have a chance to find large underground vaults. Then, you can start a Special Project to open them and find out what happens. There are three possible outcomes that are equally likely:

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': Featured in "[[Recap/DuckTales2017S2E13RaidersOfTheDoomsdayVault Raiders of the Doomsday Vault]]" Professor Ludwig Von Drake built the titular doomsday vault to house every type of seed and plant imaginable, so they could be used to restart the world in the event of the end of civilisation by disaster. However, despite preparing for a variety of fantastic doomsday scenarios (including Werewolves and "hyper intelligent hairless apes") he didn't take global warming into account, thus in the present the Vault is in serious danger of breaking down due to the ice melting.

** With a nuclear war with China inevitable, the U.S. government contracted the Vault-Tec Corporation to build a series of underground shelters to protect chosen members of the population until it was safe to begin repopulating the planet... or at least, that was the cover story. The unfortunate reality was that the overwhelming majority of the vaults weren't meant to save anyone: most of them were actually research facilities where the population were used as guinea pigs for whatever Vault-Tec and the government wanted to study in preparation for [[TheElitesJumpShip an exodus]] to colonize space. Hallucinogenic gasses were pumped into the ventilation, psychological experiments turned neighbour against neighbour, sonic weaponry was tested on musicians, recovering drug addicts were forced back into their old habits, residents were dosed with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, and a single inhabitant was locked in a vault with no company except for a box of puppets. The ones that ''weren't'' were merely [[NoControlGroup the control group]]. Consequently, of the two hundred plus vaults constructed by the company, the ones that were successfully opened and emptied without nightmarish results can be counted on one hand. Plus, even if the inhabitants didn't end up suffering terribly, a few vaults ended up failing anyway due to hardware failure, supply shortages or sheer bad luck. A few examples can be found below:

Invoked on ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant''. After a nuclear strike is accidentally called on the town, Kent Mansley, [[spoiler:who called said attack]], suggests going to a nearby shelter, but General Rogard tells him point blank that there is no way to survive a direct hit from a nuke. [[spoiler: Fortunately, they are all saved by the Giant's HeroicSacrifice.]]

* In ''Film/TheseFinalHours'', an asteroid will hit in twelve hours and eliminate all life on Earth, so James' second girlfriend Zoe builds a bunker for them and her brother to survive. [[spoiler:James harshly points out that it isn't deep enough and thick enough for them to live, and also states that even if they ''do'' live, there won't be any food left once they run out of rations since the Earth will be completely uninhabitable. Zoe completely breaks down once this realization hits her.]]

* ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'' centers on an underground city named Ember, meant to keep a segment of the populace safe from a nuclear cataclysm for at least 200 years. Two critical circumstances drive the plot: 1) the lockbox containing the exit protocols was passed down to a mayor who died without indicating what the lockbox was for; and 2) the central generator that powers everything is succumbing to age, as blackouts are becoming more more numerous and lengthy. After generations in Ember, its citizens have forgotten an outside world exists. Adapted into the film ''The City Of Ember'' in 2008.

** With a nuclear war with China inevitable, the U.S. government contracted the Vault-Tec Corporation to build a series of underground shelters to protect chosen members of the population until it was safe to begin repopulating the planet... or at least, that was the cover story. The unfortunate reality was that the overwhelming majority of the vaults weren't meant to save anyone: most of them were actually research facilities where the population were used as guinea pigs for whatever Vault-Tec and the government (and their sucessor's the Enclave) wanted to study in preparation for [[TheElitesJumpShip an exodus]] to colonize space. Hallucinogenic gasses were pumped into the ventilation, psychological experiments turned neighbour against neighbour, sonic weaponry was tested on musicians, recovering drug addicts were forced back into their old habits, residents were dosed with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, and a single inhabitant was locked in a vault with no company except for a box of puppets. The ones that ''weren't'' were merely [[NoControlGroup the control group]]. Consequently, of the two hundred plus vaults constructed by the company, the ones that were successfully opened and emptied without nightmarish results can be counted on one hand. Plus, a even if the inhabitants didn't end up suffering terribly, a few vaults ended up failing anyway due to hardware failure, supply shortages or sheer bad luck. A few examples can be found below:

** With a nuclear war with China inevitable, the U.S. government contracted the Vault-Tec Corporation to build a series of underground shelters to protect chosen members of the population until it was safe to begin repopulating the planet... or at least, that was the cover story. The unfortunate reality was that the overwhelming majority of the vaults weren't meant to save anyone: most of them were actually research facilities where the population were used as guinea pigs for whatever Vault-Tec and the Enclave wanted to study. Hallucinogenic gasses were pumped into the ventilation, psychological experiments turned neighbour against neighbour, sonic weaponry was tested on musicians, recovering drug addicts were forced back into their old habits, residents were dosed with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, and a single inhabitant was locked in a vault with no company except for a box of puppets. Consequently, of the two hundred plus vaults constructed by the company, the ones that were successfully opened and emptied without nightmarish results can be counted on one hand. Plus, a even if the inhabitants didn't end up suffering terribly, a few vaults ended up failing anyway due to hardware failure, supply shortages or sheer bad luck. A few examples can be found below:

The key world being "should."

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Narrowly averted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E14BartsComet Bart's Comet]]". When a comet is headed on a collision course for Springfield. The whole town crowds into Flanders' bunker though Ned states they'll like die of suffocation before the comet hits and there's no food for all of them but he allows it cause Ned just can't refuse to help. Indeed it very comically crowded and filled to the breaking point. Eventually everyone leaves to face their demise together. But luckily the comet burns up in the atmosphere and reduced to a small rock, which bounces off the bunker - causing the whole thing to ''[[EpicFail instantly crumble on impact]]''.

* One of the last gambits of the Protheans to survive the Reaper invasion in ''Franchise/MassEffect'' involved building a sheltered stasis vault to store a million of their people until the Reapers finished harvesting all advanced life in the galaxy and left. Unfortunately, the vault was discovered due to Indoctrinated Protheans and all but destroyed before it could be activated, with only a few hundred stasis pods surviving. To make it worse, the systems for automated reawakening were disabled, so only one Prothean lasted long enough to be awoken - and not until the Reapers returned at that.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|2019}}'': Featured in "[[Recap/DuckTalesS2E12RaidersOfTheDoomsdayVault Raiders of the Doomsday Vault]]" Professor Ludwig Von Drake built the titular doomsday vault to house every type of seed and plant imaginable, so they could be used to restart the world in the event of the end of civilisation by disaster. However, despite preparing for a variety of fantastic doomsday scenarios (including Werewolves and "hyper intelligent hairless apes") he didn't take global warming into account, thus in the present the Vault is in serious danger of breaking down due to the ice melting.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_buster Bunker buster]] bombs are specifically designed to avert this.