The vaults in Fallout Shelter are non-Control vaults.
The experiment? The feasibility of administrating a vault from a single handheld multifunction computer device.- Alternatively, as stated in the main page, if a vault can work with a fifth of the normal maximum staff.
The game is a training program given to those students whose GOAT tests showed an aptitude for being selected for Overseer, and the highest score gets the job.
- Or this is a program given to those who question the Overseer too much, giving them a "hands-on" style of simulation where they can see that keeping Dwellers happy isn't really that easy.
- Plausible, given how Bethesda has admitted to the game being a simulation despite being in character as a Vault-Tec representative. Another possibility is that this is a game that dwellers play in their free time in that universe (ie The Fallout Universe's equivalent of The Sims), or a program used to train overseers before the start of the war.
The vaults are a test of the viability of a population of wasteland survivors
In Fallout 3 there is a certain stigma among the Enclave and Vault 101 of "impure" humans, i.e. the ones who have been changed by the irradiated wasteland. Therefore, a new vault was set up to test how much of an effect the wasteland has on humans in an isolated environment, especially over multiple generations. After a few survivors are invited to join this new vault, anyone who finds this new vault is also allowed to join. Hence, why the procedures of opening and closing the vault door are more relaxed compared to most other vaults.The game's vault is designed to test how the right circumstances could create a vault filled with super soldiers from initially normal human inhabitants.
To ensure the vault has an influx of perfectly normal subjects, its procedures for letting in people from the wasteland in are lax. However, the vault door is intentionally very weak, allowing even lowly raiders to break in, and the vault's rooms are all designed in a way that allows for radroaches or molerats to get in easily. Combine this with the fire hazard, and every inhabitant of the vault lives in constant mortal danger. This leads to a heavily armed, battle-hardened population. To top this off, the overseer decides who procreated with whom, creating a eugenics-program where those with the best genes produce offspring, so every new generation will be more capable than the last, while also growing up in a very dangerous environment. Add constant training, a constant influx of guns, ...Fallout Shelter is Pre-War Vault-Tec propaganda
This would explain away several of the inconsistencies between the game's universe and that of the core Fallout series. Why are the Vaults more plentiful, less crowded, and significantly less... "experimental" than the ones visited in the main series? Vault-Tec obviously would want their Vaults to look as appealing as possible to the public. The game's cutesy artstyle is clearly based on that of Vault Boy, and mentions of several in-universe brands feel suspiciously like Product Placement. Even the game's tone is much more optimistic than that of the core series, which fits the idea of Vault-Tec trying to sweep the realities of a Post-War scenario under the rug, much like other Pre-War Vault-Tec material. Similarities to the ACTUAL Wastelands of the games are pure luck on their part (or planned, considering the secret government experiments done to genetically engineer most of those creatures and how the creatures also appear in Vault-Tec training videos).The vaults are spinoffs of a pre-war vault
Building vaults for all of America would have been prohibitively expensive. So there was a pre-war vault where the experiment was to go out into the wastes and build new vaults beyond the original 122. It would explain away any discrepancies such as the reduced capacity or being able to be named the same as canon vaults or for higher numbers.