Vault-Tec Started the Great War? | Myth & Lore

[Music] welcome Adams children to this week's sermon which is something I've been wanting to do for some time now given how long the Fallout games have been around and how expansive the lore has become there have been a number of myths that have pervaded the fandom and today I wanted to talk about one in particular namely the alleged vault tech atomic bomb that we see in Fallout 3's Megaton settlement I want to see where this myth comes from how it developed and what it means for us now that the Fallout TV show has implicated vault tech in the Great War so crank up the RADS while we Channel our inner Nick Valentine and investigate this controversial little gift from Adam the settlement of Megaton and Fallout is an interesting settlement for so many reasons and many of them have to do with that Holy Relic in the center and unexploded but still active atomic bomb the bomb is likely what gave Megaton its name it is worshiped by Adam's flock and is Central to a quest where you the lone Wanderer from Vault 101 decide between disarming the bomb to keep the town of Megaton safe or detonating it to appease some rich a-hole in a highrise the bomb is interesting in its own right however for a number of reasons it sits at the center of a large crater that was occupied by early survivors and that eventually was constructed and fortified to become the modern town of Megaton the design of the bomb is spoton for the American World War II era Mark iiiii atomic bomb which was the same design as the fat man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki during World War II as well so what is an old American designed atomic bomb doing just miles outside of Washington DC in a large crater well obviously it was put there by Adam but that won't be enough for you non-believers so let's take a closer look one small detail about the bomb in particular has started various fan theories rumors and so-called lore that many fans still believe to this day and it is this mysterious symbol this symbol may be small but it is placed rather conspicuously so that it is easy to see when interacting with the bomb or with his irradiated Confessor Cromwell if you think this symbol looks suspiciously familiar you are in good company because for nearly 16 years people have been claiming that this is the vault tech symbol and since it is seen on a live American bomb sitting in a crater just outside of Washington DC proper 200 years after the Great War the only reasonable explanation if it is indeed a vault tech bomb is that they had an arsenal of nuclear weapons and that they apparently dropped them on American soil the possibility that voltech could have been involved or implicated in the Great War or perhaps even the one who kicked off The Great War is such a tantalizing Prospect after all they are about as corrupt as any entity could be with a little to no regard for human life as evidenced by the vault experiments that range from morally dubious to just downright Psychopathic in nature this combined with bethesda's obvious attempts to obscure who is to blame for actually pushing the big red button laid fertile ground for a myth that would take some interesting twists and turns with the recent Revelations made in the Fallout TV show indicating that voltech was willing to do such a dastardly deed new life has been breathed into this myth so it is time we take a good hard look at what's true what's not why this myth is so pervasive and what the new lore from the TV show means for this myth and the series as a whole starting with the easiest and most straightforward part of this myth the mysterious symbol is in fact not the VTech symbol although they have a similar color and overall shape placing them side by side makes it pretty obvious that they are not the same the similarities are certainly there a small circle surrounded by a larger circle with wings for lack of a better term but there are differences in the wing portions as well as in the inner shape of the big circle the mysterious symbol is not seen anywhere else in the entire series except for on identical bombs in a storage at Fort Constantine and on a bomb called the one in Fallout New Vegas which is just reusing the Megaton bomb asset and is only seen when one has chosen the wild Wasteland perk it is not not used on any other objects nor is it associated with any other companies or groups including voltech and any of its subsidiaries like future Tech in some ways it does remind me of military aircraft Insignia but that wouldn't make any sense to have on a bomb it is understandable that the weathered symbol could be mistaken for the voltech symbol especially if you don't have the actual voltech symbol side by side to compare it with with how close it is though most people can't shake the feeling that it is somehow associated with voltech but it's important to State outright that associating the bomb with voltech is complete conjecture which is perfectly fine I enjoy and encourage Theory crafting but we have to be sure not to pass off head Cannon as well established fact and lore so if the symbol is obviously not the voltech symbol did we all just collectively hallucinate when exploring Megaton is this fallout's Mandela effect fact while many have mistaken it for the vault tech symbol myself included the story is more complicated than that putting on the rubber glove of research and plunging elbow deep into the depths of Google I found the earliest definite mention of the symbol in February of 2009 in a discussion post on the now defunct Fallout wiki known as The Vault mere months after the release of Fallout 3 people were speculating about who this mysterious symbol belonged to and postulated that figuring out who this belonged to may tell us who was responsible or partially responsible for dropping bombs during Earth's Atomic baptism this first post speculates that vault tech and The Enclave could be suspects but they do not go the extra step of connecting the symbol to VTech that logical leap wouldn't happen from my research until 7 months later in October 2009 when a discussion page on the ncpedia Fallout wiki had a post from someone claiming that the mysterious symbol on the Megaton bomb was a voltech symbol and wondered what these implications could be now there were people quick to respond clarifying that it was in fact not the voltech symbol so very early on we had people mistaking it for a VTech symbol but we also had people who recognized that the symbols were definitely not the same no more posts would be made about the mysterious symbol for years afterward that is until we had one interesting development before the 2024 Fallout TV show was even a twinkle in Todd Howard's eye and even before Fallout was a twinkle in bethesda's eye there was some effort on the part of interplay fallout's original publisher to try and adapt the world of Fallout into a movie now this is not a deep dive into that story but it has relevance to our investigation The Fallout film treatment which had been worked on before Fallout 2 had been released in 1998 had been put together by a man known as Brent fredman a movie and video game writer and producer who was attempting to adapt Fallout to the big screen there is a lot in the treatment but the relevant bit is a surprising Revelation at least for the time which was that neither China nor the us would have been responsible for firing the first shot it was Han and we all know it sorry the film treatment says that the first nukes were launched by the quote creator of the vaults end quote in order to have his prophecy of world Annihilation fulfilled the treatment doesn't directly state but it does imply that it was the president or CEO or founder or whatever of voltech that instigated the war how interesting why it has relevance at this point in the research however is because the film treatment although it was created in the '90s was hit hidden away until 2011 when the Creator finally released it to the public and US fans got to see it for the first time as it was made publicly accessible on the Vault Fallout wiki only months after this information was made public and the idea of vault tech potentially being an Armageddon starting monster was able to start percolating through the fandom the number of posts suggesting voltech was the instigator of the war started to increase after the treatments release in 2011 there was a speculative edit on the wiki that suggested that the bomb belonged to voltech and that they had perhaps meant to drop it on or near Vault 101 however this edit didn't last long and was removed a minute later but this marks the beginning of such speculation a few months later but still in 2011 the wiki would undergo the most impactful and definitely the longest lasting change yet at the very top of the page in the article description in the very first sentence that you would read if you looked up the Megaton bomb it was described as a vault tech industries c23 Megaton nuclear weapon if you look this up and all you did was read the top description Heck if all you did was read the first sentence of the article you would come away thinking that the bomb was indeed made by voltech I mean it even has an official model number and it's even sourced look at the hyperlink following the hyperlink goes to this texture file for the bomb where we can see where the c23 part came from since it's right here near the bottom of the texture file but where did the vault tech part come from nothing at all on the texture file indicates that it is related to vault tech at all except for our little mystery symbol seriously that is it no new information except for the symbol that people keep confusing for voltech and all this possibly influenced by the released film treatment the crazy thing is this bold assertion would last unchanged for nearly 4 years to be fair though in 2012 in the article's discussion page someone asked why it is even considered a vault tech industry's bomb but no one would ever give an answer because there wasn't one it is after this that we start to see discussion about the Megaton bomb being from vault tech brought up with regularity like this post in 2013 my favorite part about this post is that no one challenges the claim that the bomb is from voltech and therefore could have possibly started the war but down below another post saying that China probably started the war is being challenged by people internet internet never changes posts Through The Years reference the Megaton bomb belonging to voltech and the wiki article is usually the main piece of evidence people use to float the theory that voltech could be the one who instigated the Great War it is not just people posting in various online forums though video on YouTube were uncritically passing off this information contributing to this widespread misunderstanding finally in May 2015 4 years after the Megaton bomb was said to be made by voltech an edit was made that removed that part of the description and just like that the bomb was no longer Vex the belief was pretty pervasive at this point though as people would edit and re-edit the wiki article referring to the symbol AS one that appears to be vault tech symbol possibly the vault tech logo and finally a symbol that is similar to the voltech logo finally in 2021 any and all assertions Illusions and mentions of voltech were removed from the Megaton bomb Wiki article for good they were finally able to rid themselves of a popular and pervasive theory that is based off of mistaken identity but voltech association with the bomb and therefore also the Great War had taken root in many people's minds a mixture of the film treatment naming voltech as the ones who started the Great War authoritative sources like the wiki and other lore sites and YouTube channels propagating the myth and lastly and probably most importantly the mysterious symbol itself does have a passing resemblance to the vault tech logo that more than anything in my estimation drives the constant online discussions which are still happening to this day but it is certainly interesting to see how the discuss SS increased in frequency online and would routinely go unchallenged once things like the film treatment was released and the ncpedia wiki uncritically and prominently had it in their Megaton bomb article posts are still being made online and it's spoken of as though it's a fact in Discord servers the world over including my very own indeed the most recent posts about vault tech dropping the bomb are only weeks old where people are still mistaking the mysterious symbol for the voltech one at least though there is now a substantial and growing Army of fans that know better and are quick to set the record straight now in what has to be one of the greatest Fallout ironies of recent times after years of fighting back against the myth that the megat temp bomb is a voltech bomb meaning that it cannot be used as evidence that voltech could be blamed for the Great War The Fallout TV show showed up spoilers for the end of the show and certainly one of the most spoilery bits about it if you have yet to watch it near the climax of the first season the curtain on vault tech is peeled back more than ever before as we get to see Bud asins the senior Junior vice president of voltech and Cooper Howard's wife Barb who occupies some sort of executive position on voltech sitting down at a meeting with leaders and Executives of prominent pre-war companies there is Robert house representing robco Industries a leader from westtech Repcon Aerospace and lastly Big Mountain who is being represented by Frederick Sinclair the mind and money behind the Sierra Madre Casino bud and Barb are presenting these leaders of Industry with a proposition one that has implications and ramifications for centuries to come vault tech sales are down and as a result they are needing investment from wealthy American companies in order to continue to expand and so they offer a very unique opportunity in return for significant investment in voltech each of the companies will get to claim a certain number of vaults where they will get to play out their own ideas for how to create the perfect conditions for Humanity these ideas would be in competition with each other with the best winning out over the others much like how their respective companies outcompeted their rivals in the great game of pre-war capitalism this competition would ensure that the Vault societies that would emerge after nuclear Annihilation would be the best and most capable to reclaim the world several ideas are proposed by many of the leaders and they seem intrigued by this Prospect except Robert house sees a flaw in this plan of managing vaults conducting experiments and being the sole inheritors of the planet the question was simple but absolutely critical to the entire proposal how could he and the others be sure that the war would even happen that the one pivotal event that would cause everyone to rush to the vaults that would give house and the others complete and total control over a captive population and that would well maybe not immediately but over time completely wipe out all other humans or competition on the surface Barb had a simple and direct answer voltech will be the ones to drop the bomb which would guarantee that these companies would get their promised vaults and experiments the compensation for investing in vault tech on the face of it looking at Barb's words that voltech could ensure results by quote dropping the bomb ourselves seems like an outright admission that voltech is behind the Great War that they pushed the button before either China or the US did and by doing so caused a panicked nuclear retaliatory response that ended the world however ever this isn't evidence that vault tech did do it it is merely evidence that voltech had motive to do such a thing regardless a plain-faced reading of Barb's words and a quick glance at a symbol on an American designed atomic bomb just outside of downtown Washington DC has reignited the speculative Firestorm that vault tech either started the Great War by dropping bombs or were dropping bombs and firing off nukes during the nuclear frenzy to achieve their own ends I think it is important to consider several things with this new information so that we don't pass off unexamined information as lore which is exactly what started the whole vault tech Megaton bomb myth in the first place first things first the expression of intent is not the same as the show saying that vault tech actually did it Barb saying that voltech is willing to drop a bomb in order to make good on the deal that they're striking with other large corporations may or may not be true it is certainly true that vault tech could have access to such weapons since they have ties to the enclave and it is certainly possible that they had access in the pre-war and still do have access in the postwar to such weapons since Shady Sands was destroyed by Hank the overseer Vault 33 it is entirely possible though that barb made such a damning statement to appease everyone even if in reality vault tech wouldn't or couldn't actually do it Barb even seemed to be prompted to say this by a mysterious man in the dark in order to regain control of the meeting and get everyone to agree so it is possible that this is just rhetoric there is also the distinct possibility that voltech doesn't have the ability to drop any bombs or trigger a global nuclear response themselves but their influence within government does allow them to bribe officials and derail peace talks between the US and China which eventually does lead to a nuclear war we get bits from Radio broadcasts and random chatter about peace talks and vault tech needing to put pressure on Washington to make sure that these peace talks don't impact sales there are many possibilities and an interview that was conducted with some of the Fallout TV show showrunners proves as much when asked whether vault tech was indeed responsible for launching the nukes the showrunners responded well we have more story to tell I would just not treat anything as definitive because again everything that we see is very subjective that scene occurred but what occurs between then and the actual bombs falling there's more exciting stuff planned between that moment and the last moment I guess I should say it might be definitive it might not be so more information is needed before we can with absolute certainty point to vault tech as the actual bomb droppers let's hold off on asserting that vault tech did it until we get more information lest we have Megaton bomb part two nuclear Baloo on our hands until that time though the best in-game evidence we have supports China being responsible as The Enclave President Dick Richardson claims that the Chinese were the first to launch in Fallout 2 although it is certainly possible that he is being dishonest since he has a very heavy bias there's also been a lot of discussion related to exactly why vault Tech would be interested in causing the end of the world as well before the Fallout TV show expanded the lore on this subject people were postulating that voltech could be at fault due to the Megaton bomb debacle but the potential motive was always kind of a sticking point exactly why would voltech be interested in instigating the Great War to the point that they would willingly drop the bombs themselves voltech has been shown to have ties to the enclave and during development for Van beran the unreleased Fallout 3 the vaults and their experiments were Justified as being how The Enclave hoped to test improve and prepare Humanity for one day attempting to leave Earth behind and live in space now that was never canonized but it Illustrated one way that voltech could potentially justify kicking off Armageddon the TV show however goes a different route establishing that voltech is a cutthroat corporation that is obsessed with two things one is extracting as much money as it possibly can from shareholders and bigger investors that we see them courting in the scene where Barb talks about dropping the bomb this isn't the end goal however rather it's a means to an end because as Bud Askins or maybe I should say Bud Askins brain put it even though America outsourced its survival to the private sector AKA voltech it would have been insane to keep a failed nation alive since voltech considered the US a failed nation it would be a mistake to pump the rest of their resources into a lost cause rather than extracting every last bit that they could and then make sure they were the dominant ones the ones in charge when the Slate got wiped clean given the tensions between China and the US nuclear war was heavy on everyone's Minds so a nuclear engagement seemed the most likely way for a path to be cleared for voltech stashing away thousands of specifically chosen Americans to survive the Great War and having a number of them be subjected to experiments for the good of the cause would prepare for the final step after some time had passed decades upon decades when the global population had dwindled to near nothing and the RADS had settled the voltech survivors would emerge conditioned to retake the surface and since there is no one else to compete with well to use business language they would have a full Monopoly 100% market share and a total control over Humanity allowing them to not make the same mistakes that led to the downfall of the great nations of the pre-war this Grand Vision of the future one shaped by years of experimentation and preservation in the vaults is how vault tech plans to rule a world made in their image often spoken about in business terms because well they are a business perhaps the business of the pre-war USA and so this is finally the canonical way that the Fallout Series has decided to implicate voltech in the minations and politics that helped fuel nuclear tension on one last note the presence of americanmade bombs and missiles that appear to have been dropped on American soil must be treated with an open mind with all the chaos the electromagnetic pulses and failing communication systems that would have occurred during the Great War having bombs or missiles that failed to completely make it to their targets is not unreasonable there is a Delta 9 rocket that is just outside of Vernon Square in Washington DC and this rocket had been converted from a space exploration role to military use and fitted with nuclear warheads at some point so what is it doing crashed in downtown DC was this purposeful or just merely bad luck the bomb in Megaton is the most notable example of observable us ordinance of course but even its Origins are murky we know from one of the older citizens of Megaton Mana Vargas that the bomb didn't make the crater but she otherwise doesn't indicate where it could have come from except to say that when the Great war occurred planes began to fall out of the sky so could it have come from a crashed airplane we only have speculation but it is a possibility although again I want to stress that we need to properly delineate what is lower and what is theory interestingly the only other place we see the exact same bomb is in Fort Constantine in Fallout 3 where many are seen in a storage area and they are identical with the mystery symbol and everything in New Vegas if one takes the wild Wast lamp perk the exact same bomb will show up near the devil's throat called the one but character and items from that perk are not considered Canon so this is an Easter egg more than anything all of this is to say that there are things we know for certain and there are things that have not been made clear and may never be properly explained and it's okay for those of us invested in the lore to be able to say I don't know not only do I think it is healthy to acknowledge that fact of life but I actually kind of enjoy it it Sparks ideas debate and investigations which keeps us in the games and the world that they have created which as a fan is right where you want to be thank you for coming on this journey that started out with me wondering how and why so many in the fandom thought the Megaton bomb was one of vaultex how that led to speculation around vtech's involvement in igniting the Great War and finally how that was in a sense prophetic of the lore that is now been established with the new Fallout TV series I am interested to hear your thoughts on the matter were you one of the ones like I was that for a long time thought the Megaton bomb was Vex do you think that this erroneous attribution actually led to the Fallout TV show producers working Vault Tech's potential involvement into the show and therefore Fallout Cannon were you confused about Vault Tech's justification and reasoning for what they did in the TV show thank you for making it this far and thanks to my patrons who make it possible for me to crank out content at the pace that I do if you would like to show support you can join one of the fine people on screen on patreon or YouTube get videos a day before they go live a special role in my Discord and more a special welcome to Artemis on patreon and Tucker Jarett Alby Owen Bowser and the love Mummy on YouTube thank you for your support as always a huge thank you to my all to adom tier patrons acred B Arctic snow pup Gardener m sh simp Tessa storm Dy double tapy papy the alt Vault Juan Vader good old Wellshire and Braden Daniel Adam is pleased as always be kind to yourselves and others there are infinite worlds in all of us go forth in Adam's Power and I will see you soon

Channel: RadKing

Views: 68,482

Keywords: Fallout, vaul-tec, radking, fallout great war

Id: _FZhY6tWGjc

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Mon May 20 2024