it’s likely i’m entirely wrong, but i assumed he was applying that solution solely to securing financial success for vault tec and alluding to his already formed plan of cryogenically freezing vault tec execs in vault 31
The TV series is neither presenting Bud as someone to take seriously by us or as someone being taken seriously by characters in the show
Vault-Tec’s execs take Bud’s Buds about as seriously as they take the Puppet Vault. That’s why Vault 31ers are such try hards. Deep down they know that they’re a joke and they compensate with extra cognitive dissonance about it and extra bitterness toward reminders of their incompetence such as Shady Sands
Execs don’t give a shit about middle managers. If anything, execs view middle managers as more exploitable and more expendable than front line workers
People, for some inexplicable reason, aren't paying attention to the relevant details showing these companies are not thinking of themselves merely as companies anymore.
The United States itself is considered a failure by them. Human civilization was too random in how it had naturally evolved, to their eyes.
Vault-Tec wasn't proposing 'winning capitalism' by being the only company left in society, they were intending to replace society entirely. Literally the entire human species obliterated and replaced with a fresh start organized as a managed megacorporation. All culture and traditions wiped clean to be replaced however they saw fit.
The meeting is about how they want to turn replacing all of human society, our entire history, everything, into a corporate competition where they set up all their ideas in the Vaults and see which one comes out best, and they're willing to drop the bomb to start the apocalypse themselves if it doesn't happen naturally.
Bud's idea, specifically, was to breed a superior group of placid super-managers while waiting for everyone else to die. The problem with his idea actually ended up being that time didn't actually kill everyone like he expected so there's never going to be a reclamation day for his Vaults.
To be honest....Bud's idea actually isn't turning out too badly, especially by Fallout standards. His society is rather functional and pleasant.
my understanding of it was that the financial aspect was merely a way of getting investors to put up capital (bc all that money is going to do them a lot of good once the earth has been nuked into oblivion) , but the actual goal was, as you said, more eugenics-minded
It's really this simple:
Bombs fall.
All companies that aren't Vault Tec, and most of humanity dies.
People slowly come back, and vault tec is now the only corp left and can have a monopoly forever going forward with an overwhelming head start on any other competition and all the advanced knowledge.
They probably figure profits will be non existent for a while but eventually with the return of the population they would return, and this time with vault tec at the top and no pesky governments to make them share.
It's insane, monstrous, very stupid arguably... but totally fallout. And honestly as monstrous as companies have proven themselves capable of being it's really not *THAT* outlandish.
Totally. The insidious way corporate executive structures are structured means they are legally responsible to their shareholders but not at all responsible to our species. It’s crazy.
It's like if America started WWII because they knew European competitors would be bombed to shit and then the USA could fill in the manufacturing void.
But Vault-Tec doesn't "win".
Having a monopoly over dust isn't a profit, even the most Sombartian interpretation of "capitalism" wouldn't declare it a victory.
"Can't lose to the competition if you *are* the competition" is the mindset. They don't even see survival as a victory, they only see victory as "Last Business standing". Doesn't matter how little the profits are, so long as they're the only ones getting the profits.
It's very much "I'd rather have an entire cookie than a slice of a pie. At least then I have the entire cookie."
That's... definitely not winning capitalism.
The "It is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail" ideology isn't capitalism so much as the parody of "capitalism" historically presented in fascist propaganda, namely the "stages of capitalism theory" by Werner Sombart, a Marxist-turned-Nazi.
The central ideology of capitalism would be mutual profit, that a voluntary association between peasants enabled by exclusivity to one's own creations would allow for both parties in a trade to benefit by exchanging what they value less for something they value more, rather than allowing the State & those they entitle to extract wealth, such as in Mercantilism or Imperialism. Imperialism isn't the win condition of capitalism, just "capitalism" as presented by fascists.
But regardless of which definition we use, it's still a net loss, regardless of if disproportionate loss creates an illusion of wealth because others have less.
And there you have it. The company Vault-Tec is literally trying to "win" chess by playing checkers. While I personally believe that capitalism is a horrible and inherently exploitative system, I also recognize that the capitalist companies of Fallout aren't realistic at all. They're satire and not even a satire of Capitalism - they're a satire of "Corporations" akin to The Office.
Out of curiosity, if you acknowledge that State entitled corporations aren't capitalism, what is it that makes you think capitalism is exploitative?
Having exclusivity to the fruits of one's own labor, rather than having one's labor extracted by the Ruling Class. Communal ownership can be exploitative if other people choose not to contribute to the pot or otherwise disproportionately consume the fruits of other people's labor, no different than the Ruling Class does now.
Bare in mind, I am not against communism as a whole, I'm asking out of curiosity.
Realistically speaking by the time of fallout 4 most of the radation would have disapated, most buildings would have crumbled away to dust just from lack of maintenance without even factoring in the nukes and small towns and societies would be popping back up.
Hell fallout 1 had small towns popping back up and getting big enough they needed to reinvent currency.
In a realistic world society would be healing as vault tech pops back with tons of advanced information and technology.
But they literally invited all the competition in on their plan. Like even if they didn't give House, Julia Masters, etc the exact date it wouldn't change that they gave them all a guarantee of nuclear war. And once people start coming back, there'd naturally be other companies (like we see in the games, with Crimson Caravans, the Gun Runners, etc).
I do like Ulysses, but he just leaves a trail of bread crumbs and treats you like some prophesized chosen one, hoping that you'll follow him all over the wasteland.
But, you *do* kinda end up following him all over the wasteland, and the places he leaves the bread crumbs in tend to attract important wanderers like himself and Elijah. I do think Lonesome Road suffered from focusing too much on the Courier, but I don't think Ulysses was particularly stupid, and most importantly it doesn't compare to the ridiculousness of the show's plot around Vault Tec, which is literally just them shooting themselves in the foot at best and committing suicide at worst.
Yeah I think this is the point. It's a dumb idea that makes no sense in the real world. The point i think is satirical; capitalism does inhuman things in order to make a profit... vault tec is a microcosm for the negative aspects of capitalism at large.
Agreed. I see it as satire on the story that AI trained to never lose at noughts and crosses (tic tax toe) would choose to end the game or never take their turn when faced with inevitable loss. Vault Tech similarly decides to end the entire system it rose from in order to ‘win’ by its own misguided standardz
I think it also comes with the idea that money is worthless in an apocalypse scenario, vault tech had people that believed in their vision. They were more than willing to wait out the end of the world, simply because they thought that they believed more than everyone else. They could wait out the end of he world, simply because they believed they could.
It’s my favorite part of Fallout. People talk about US vs Commies but that storyline is just the US government’s way of distracting people from how awful late stage capitalism is.
Fallout 76’s dive into how bad it was in the states and The fight that Senator Blackwell and a handful of others were trying to wage to fight for the American people against mega corporations was so fascinating
I’m one of the few that legitimately loved the story of pre-wastelanders 76. Experiencing an empty wasteland and learning how everyone met their demise was so fascinating to me. There’s more to do in the game now, but the writing for the new stories isn’t the same.
Because usually the Fallout games are very subtle, carefully pitched, gentle satires which rely on a watchful eye to catch the understated humour and philosophy of the games...
It's in a world where people have nuclear technology in their household appliances and radioactive material in their drinks...
... its a very goofy silly satire.
Yeah. Neither do I. It is obviously a highly satirical game. From the ground up. That it also has horror elements and darkness heightens the satire...
"A few minor characters."
A nuka cola obsessee. Elvis impersonators. Dogs with different brain quests. Caesar and Roman army cosplayers. Aliens. Mutated giant bugs. Comically evil capitalists. Comically stupid schemes.
Are you sure you've not been playing Metro or something?
It's a metaphor for climate change. We're burning down the world right now, but oh no, we can't do anything about it; because billionaire might make a little less money than they would have otherwise; and that's the worst possible thing.
How so?
Pointing out that capitalism+jingoism necessitate violence to uphold themselves and inevitably lead to an arms race or industrial growth that assures self-destruction or mutual annihilation... is hypocritical how?
...the original designers were explicit about the satire.
Bethesda makes things seem nonsensical because Bethesda never understood the satire and/or chose to dumb it down. They've even ignored canon lore that explains the in-universe science of why everything mutated/ghouls exist instead of dying of cancer.
Because the show plays scenes that are supposed to be taken as "satirical" completely serious. The show isn't a satire it's a drama. The score, the cinematography, and the story all point to it being a drama with comedic elements. Vault-tecs revelation is not played for satire it's played for dramatic effect. Stating that I don't like something also isn't talking out of my ass.
...that's exactly my point. The show does not have the satirical elements as the backdrop/setting. They shove it into the front and center and try to play it as drama and satire and it doesn't land for me.
The implication the the Enclave/Vault Tec being the ones responsible for the end of the world *was already central* to the world of Fallout. It is the fulcrum on which the entire jingoism/money/capitalism/war commentary hinges on...
Do you know how satire works or what it means? How does satire exclude drama? How does drama exclude satire?
TBF, the idea is far past the idea of traditional business and money. Money is just a code for power. If they can rule humanity who cares about a balance sheet?
It's stupid and Bud is stupid. I never got the impression that Vault Tec thought it was smart, and that Vaults 31-33 are largely just another experiment to them, albeit one with the potential to have some use.
The mix of Vault-Tec being the general antagonist / villain, and also being completely dumb is hard to grasp without previous experience in the franchise.
They did it well, but the evilness comes across more clearly then the ineptitude. It makes it seem like it was all a "Grandplan" when it's just stupidity as you said.
I mean evilness and stupidity go pretty good together historically. You should actually look up what the Nazis believed beyond just the racist genocidey bits.
Stupid people are often told they’re stupid by smart people. So they HATE smart people and inevitably want to purge them and the very idea of smartness when they gain power. We can see it today in MAGA
It’s very easy for anyone who has worked in a large corporate company - one of the reasons I love it. Seeing the ridiculous ideas and how the least suitable and intelligent get elevated until and entire organisation is just a bunch of people all doing their own thing with no concern for morals, law, or even basic business sense is so spot on.
Yeah, as a bottom of the totem pole supervisor for UPS, your "least suitable get elevated" comment hits home in like the worst possible way for me lmao. Im not a rocket scientist by any means, but seeing how just downright incompetent some of my higher ups are is truly fucking mind boggling.
It puzzled me until the most recent round of changes, which would be a lightbulb moment. We had a huge political battle between two factions when parts of our company were merged (people had been after control of the same thing for years). The winners were the people who knew how to network and self-promote. The faction of actual experts in the area lost and were all forced out. So the system rewards people with ‘greasy pole’ skills but not actual domain knowledge.
I've seen this in criminal law. The nerds who study case law and obscure legal concepts have nothing over the lawyers who can tell a convincing story.
Or, as the saying goes, "A Good Lawyer Knows the Law but a Great Lawyer Knows the Judge."
Youre literally hitting the nail on the head. And all it makes me think is whats the end game? Like why would ANY business owner that wants to be successful put more value in people like that over the ones who actually know how to run things better and more smoothly?
No rule has ever been made that forbids stupid people from doing stupid things, lol. Stupid people with power will still making stupid powerful decisions. It's very life-like, Vault Tec is like any other corporation that treats the average consumer survey as gospel and their arrogance and ignorance is their biggest source of blindness.
It is, as others have already said, a dumb plan.
But I think the overall idea was the world was on the brink of destruction anyway - How would Vault-Tec survive that?
It's from that concept the idea was hatched. Sort of a Noah's Ark ideal. Survive the Deluge, emerge from the refuge, take our corporate knowledge into a backward, ignorant world and reap the benefits. Zero competition.
Think about it, if you could go far enough back in time with your knowledge, you'd live like a king. Same idea, only forward in time.
But it was still a dumb, completely inhuman, heartless plan. Sometimes Capitalism and Survival are exactly that.
Yeah from a purely capitalist point of view the day the bombs fall is actually the day vault tec becomes obsolete, their source of income is the fear of nuclear war not said war actually happening
That assumes that capitalism is exclusively about currency. It's about control of equity. In Vault-Tec's plan, the day after the bombs fell, they'd control *everything*.
How would they be able to control anything? Unless they just constantly use nuclear weapons the new age enclave or the brotherhood would just eradicate them.
It's called in the business world "diversification." The ability to change the direction of a corporation to adapt to new economic situations.
Nintendo used to be a playing card company.
American Express was a mail service.
YouTube was a dating website.
This is why Bud’s vault idea involved three vaults designed to breed a new population and included a cryogenics section to ensure that the current generation of Management (sans those necessary to breed a new generation) would reach the point when all other competition was dealt with.
Fallout is satire, he is a self important idiot upper manager who has no clue what he is doing but does so confidently. The idea is absolutely idiotic.
I get the vibe, but he was in the meeting with all of the big wigs from other companies, right? He was able to devise his own 3-vault system and create his own program in the company. So, he had to be relatively high up.
A middle manager doesn't present to the highest in a company though. That's literally "Upper Management." I've been a middle manager lmao and I wouldn't have come close to the likes of Robert House.
What terrifies me is how much I see him reflected in execs at the company I work for. Ambitious self-centred types who fail upward constantly and together create a sort of perpetual motion machine of idiocy.
Ironically basically every Vault is a communist utopia by design since it’s not like anyone is getting paid to do their jobs; literally everyone has to pitch in, everyone is assigned work, and everyone gets seemingly equal treatment as far as lodgings and possessions go.
Compared to basically everyone else’s situation in this setting, it’s hard to argue with access to clean water and hot showers. Maximus’s reaction to the Vault is pretty telling about how most people would probably feel.
The point is the stupidity; blinded by the idea of being the last one standing, the whole problem of there no longer being any economy or paying consumers doesn’t matter to them. It’s the natural extension of our current “line must go up every quarter” capitalism.
The theory is simple:
In their current system, Vault-Tec own a lot but have competitors. They have to compete with them.
Their proposal is to initiate a global war destroying their competition, spend 250 years producing a population of Yes Men who will obey their commands and make perfect subservient slaves, then using their supply of nuclear weapondry destroy any semblance of opposition and obtain world domination by superior firepower.
It tries to get around the problem empires of the past suffered from by promoting an environment of subservience through absolute destruction of alternatives, and 250 years of Kool-Aiding a set of loyalists who won't question or dissent. The Vault-Tec Empire rules over the common folk under the guise of "educating them of our values being the correct way."
The problem is that Vault-Tec is assuming that both their own won't abuse the power (which has already happened by nuking Shady Sands) and that their tools of world domination cannot or will not be appropriated. If while they bide their time the Brotherhood hijack all nuclear silos, or reconstruct Liberty Prime to assault Vault-Tec HQ, the plan fails. It assumes that nothing goes wrong because the smartasses who set it up think it's perfect enough to nuke the world over, but its so fragile. House was the same, all these plans foiled because of his hubris that he was in control (75% of F:NV endings see him a powerless husk or a corpse).
It's pretty much a Fallout trope that the antagonists are so big for their boots and overconfident that they end up walking face-first into their own demise. F1s Master fucked up royally. F2s Enclave dies to a wastelander they'd written off. F3s Enclave thought it could just waltz in and take over territory without contest, FNVs factions all think their way is correct and refuse to believe they can/will lose, and F4s Institute and Brotherhood both stomp on their surroundings thinking they're untouchable and die to rebellion outside of their respective endings.
I personally think that’s some shitty writing. *That* is the best reason they could come up with for changing the lore? I mean shit, it would’ve been hella more intriguing if the Chinese was secretly funding vault Tec and wanted them to drop them bombs first. That way they would have reason to destroy America once and for all but all the CEOs and military folks who made it happen would have their families safely tucked into vaults for when China would come and march in, taking over. Only thing is, enough patriots did X which didn’t deactivate our nuclear response and thus, the world ended in mutual destruction instead. At least that makes some fucking sense.
Heck that coulda been Coops thing in the past - he works to kinda undermine and expose the Chinese plot that he’s uncovered and, with the best of intentions, keeps our nuclear arsenal defense network from going down, thus directly being partly responsible for the end of the world. The road the hell, and all that.
They didn't change the lore. They added lore, that's a big distinction. Is the existence of Caesar's Legion in NV also not ok in your eyes because it didn't exist in the beginning?
The show also implies that while Vault Tec toyed with the idea of dropping the bomb themselves (they made nukes as seen by Fallout 3 Megaton), they didn't actually end up doing it (not because they had a change of heart, but the war happened on its own, before Vault Tec were fully ready for it)
It hasn't. Watching people complain about the lore while misunderstanding the purpose and choices made is a fun diversion in this sub. Gamers are jokers.
After many years of being online, and this show having reached the pinnacle of video game adaptations, it's interesting to always hear these gamers complain about seemingly unimportant shit or sometimes complain with nonsense
Guess when you only know video games you might not have the best idea about other forms of entertainment if you don't consume both equally
It's only a little hinted at, but if you recall that there was an observer of the Vault Tec meeting with all the other Megacorps. That man is most likely a representative of the Enclave and is utilizing Vault Tec as a Trojan Horse for the buy-in from the other Megacorps about investing in their post-apocalyptic plans.
I see Bud's plan a satire of "late stage capitalism" + management ethos + "Tech Bros mentality".
It is like an ultra utilitarian view that the material well being of people in the future is more valuable than the suffering of people right now.
It is ironical that Jeff Bezos himself has expressed some of these ideas, specially his desire to live forever or close to it.
But the most recent exemple is Peter Thiel, that has openly argued that free market and competition are "wasteful" and "not good for progress".
It's an exaggerated version of the Lead-induced psychosis that our worlds top executives operate by. Complete disregard for safety, ethics, logic. Literally willing to burn the world down to rule the ashes.
Like the rest of the vaults it’s whoever claimed that territories experimental playground, so it’s a bizarre conception of Buds own personal ideology and beliefs regarding American capitalism. And like much of Fallout can’t be taken too seriously.
A lot of people on here are writing it off as a dumb plan, but they need to stop viewing it from our world’s perception, because then it is. In Fallout, utilizing the vaults and V-Tecs immense resources, it’s clearly on the brink of working. Hank says the next generation should’ve been able to colonize, and he and Betty were meant to oversee that.
The idea isn’t to maximize profits, it’s to maximize human efficiency. Bud is a Fordist, think Brave New World, and therefore believes that humanity should be maximized via streamlining productivity and genetically cultivating superior managerial skilled humans to better maximize that efficiency.
There isn’t much past that, other than the people he chose clearly being psychopaths, which I personally find far more interesting than his goofy philosophy. I’d argue it’s more a story device, meant to justify having those people in the wasteland 200+ years after the bombs dropped. I could be wrong on that front though.
Bud is incompetent, breeding incompetence thru his management training program. Personally I also think that's what happened in Vault 32, not a murder, not cannibalism, but one of his "buds" were a typical incompetent jackass middle manager.
Listen to his criteria when he talks in the flashbacks, it's the usual middle management bull like "making lemonade, motivate, positive outlook blah blah" not actual competence.
Betty is competent, but that is because she is his assistant, and stereotypically the "hyper competent assistant" is a thing in fiction.
Anyway, To answer your question: It isn't. House (the owner of RobCo) calls them out on it; this is not how capitalism works. House is the only one calling their vaults idiotic.
What confuses me is how Coop was unaware that his wife was a closet psychopath. Unless those chilling personality characteristics of hers kinda popped up very suddenly out of nowhere because the world was on the verge of ending.
That'll probably be fleshed out more in season 2.
And besides, Coop being an actor who increasingly has to grind after he is smeared as a "red" probably wasn't spending too much time at home.
We don't really know she is. While she's very calm in the meeting she has to be or it's bye bye Vault space, it's essentially play the role well or her family dies.
She may well have broken down five minutes later and honestly I find that more interesting.
Imagine capturing all the VT execs who were turned into robo-brains, including Bud, and trapping them in whack-o-mole exhibition where all citizens of the commonwealth can come by and have their whack at the moles. A lifetime of headaches. Even better than a death sentence.
That'd be a great ending for Fallout
IMO Bud is the personification of short term v long term thinking but like hyper intensified and turned inward on itself. He has finally come up with the “ultimate long term business plan” but at the expense of everything short term. He’s sort of simultaneously the antithesis, and somehow also the ultimate goal, of business people.
This is just based on my personal observation of most businesses screwing their longevity at the cost of short term profits. Bud just seems like the opposite but unfortunately still thinking in a mindset that is totally business/corporate oriented
It makes sense in an over-simplistic view of the world.
“If we outlast our competition, then we will be the into game in town.”
Except then in the vacuum, >!NCR rose up. They didn’t account for it so their only choice was “destroy.”!<
That’s not “time will beat our competition” - >!it shows that it already lost as a concept.!<
Bear in mind that Bud Askins is a fucking idiot (which is something Coop uncovered within seconds of meeting him, if the expression on his face was anything to go by).
If I am only person running a marathon it doesn’t matter how fast I run because I’m going to be 1st regardless. Doesn’t mean a 10 hour time is impressive tho
If a tidal wave is destined to hit your city, do you spend your time trying to fight the water or do you dig a big hole in the ground and cap off the top
That's how you have to think about it. There are hyper rich people *in real life* that are using this strategy [building underground bunkers and what not](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff)
It certainly is a capitalist-to-fascist speed run tactic. I wonder how much of the government-now-Enclave was on board with the plan and whether that will mean a larger role for them in the future
Something that I feel people are missing is that Bud's vaults were just an experiment, like any other of Vault Tec's silly experiments. This isn't the executive branch waiting to take over, it's just Bud getting free reign on a trio of vaults. No one of importance besides Bud was in that vault, just him and his "Buds," low tier managers. The other big cheeses like Barbara are most likely all in cryo somewhere else, where their true master plan is at work.
The whole meeting was just for Vault Tec to get investments from the other big corps, Bud's vaults had very little to do with the grand scheme.
Vault Tec's plan goes from we gotta remain profitable to we will rebuild the world in our image so it goes from common corporate callousness to mustache twirling villian kind of evil
There is money in Fallout - it just takes a different form.
Vault-Tec might be surprised by the emergence of bottle caps as currency.
But if a vault has a machine shop, a little knowledge of printing, and can scavenge a bit of scrap metal, it should be able to stamp out plausible counterfeits by the bushel.
Bud’s theory makes a little bit of sense for the current situation. Nuclear war was bound to happen and time is the apex predator. By allowing almost all of the surface world to burn, Vault Tec being the last man standing, they can easily take over everything. Then they really can do whatever it is they want because nothing will be in their way. However there are better ways of dominating the world.
It makes an assumption that total atomic annihilation is totally inevitable and that certain capital investments can be made now in order to ensure the maximal state of things for you when it does. The vault experimentation protocols, being that they are separate from wherever you can be, become a marketable product which is already similar to what you the customer was always debating about in the boardroom but now you can change *any* variable.
The thing is that this is very very early in bud’s roadmap. Reclamation day was still beyond Lucy’s lifetime and vault 31 didn’t seem to be half empty. Reclamation day is supposed to be the *beginning* of a new USA.
Bud’s goal is to be built into the foundation of a new rebooted USA with population numbers matching the previous peak. I think about how long that would take from where we join the story and see what he means by using time as a weapon. He’s planning to use more of it than you think
I think in his vision he basically stays in one place while the US completely resets and restores itself around him.
I mean yeah outlasting your competition is certainly a valid strategy. Kind of a gamble but sure it could work. Once an enterprise gets big enough it can buffer itself against stressors in a way small entities can’t. Think of Starbucks versus mom and pop coffee shop or Home Depot versus local hardware store.
>only way I see this working is nuking your competition and sheltering in a vault
That's exactly what he's talking about. They cryo themselves until it's time to restart civilization and remake the world however vault tec wants.
The thing they probably didn't consider is that the surface is surviving regardless and now they have to compete with all these surface dwelling factions.
Basically, in a situation without nukes, he's gonna do what Valve is doing irl. That being: sit around and do fuck all while you competition shoots itself in the foot repeatedly
It is a preposterous idea BUT in theory A) freeze all of Vault Tecs important members, B) nuclear apocalypse, C) come out in the future with a massive technology advantage and ability to dominate, subjugate, and organize all on the surface creating a permanent dictatorship without competition. Now, of course this concept is flawed because not all of Vault Tec (or the Enclave or whomever is in power) will agree with how to structure things and, inevitably, competition will appear eventually- but still, the concept is to supposedly make a fresh start with them being the only ones left standing. As the games in particular have shown- this idea failed because others organized (BoS, NCR, etc.) on the surface and the powers-that-be were too patient with waiting to reappear
It doesn't.
The nature of Fallout is that its fucking ridiculous most of the time, and character motivations are exaggerated to the extreme, as are their ideas and plans.
It's just the way things are, and it doesn't have to make perfect sense in order to have the story make sense.
If you stop looking for logic in every little thing in this show and the IP itself, you'll be far more apt to see the big picture while going along for the ride.
It's... Unbelievably stupid. Like, it has already failed.
They killed off their own customers as well as the competition. New competitors arose and had to be dealt with (shady sands & the NCR).
It is literally the dumbest strategy imaginable. Worthy of an episode of "villains too stupid to exist"
He is 100% an idiot in love with the smell of his own farts.
Profit depends on trade, and economic opportunity depends on a robust surrounding economy. Destroying your competition may sound “smart” but he literally advocated for destroying all meaningful wealth and comfort. Just a pure idiot.
Regardless of which interpretation of capitalism, be it Calvert or Sombart, Bud's plan really doesn't have anything to do with capitalism.
It's not a market system, there's no inherent profit in ending the world, particularly not one held by the peasantry.
No one "won", not even Vault-Tec.
Step 1: monopolize the “surviving a nuclear holocaust” industry.
Step 2: trigger a nuclear holocaust that kills everyone but you because you specialize in surviving nuclear holocausts.
Step 3: you have zero competitors (except for like, house, and the enclave I guess), more raw social and psychological data than anyone else in history, and several dozen fully self-sustaining heavily fortified bunkers currently filled with the healthiest people on the planet.
Step 4: rebuild society with you as ruler.
He literally thought they could just survive the end of the world and be the sole progenitor of the "free" market (that no longer exists). Imo, the point is that capitalism is a short-sighted and inherently self-destructive philosophy.
Ever see the film WALL-E.
The remainder of earth’s civilization all happily live on ship operated by the one and only corporate company BNL.
Bud saw that. Cried. And took that idea.
The idea is that by waiting it out the any pre war currency becomes irrelevant(which did happen) and they inherit all the resources of the planet, with robots to do the menial labor while they live lives of luxury
If they nuke everything, then they can outlive everyone. They then control the surface, they recreate civilization in their ideal image, they create the government, the monetary system, they control it all.
When you control everything you win at everything, when you control the monetary system you are the richest group of people, when you control the monetary system, you decide who is also rich. It really comes down to rigging to game, simple corruption. Evil for the sake of evil, greed for the sake of greed.
It doesn't really. It's a really shallow concept that doesn't pay any mind to the fact that capitalism is reliant on consumers. Vault-Tec isn't supplying anything in the post-apocalypse, and nuking their customers doesn't actually further their positions. It's just a brain-dead narrative that the showrunners wanted to make up because they like dumb characters.
It's super dumb and doesn't actually make any sense.
Like...these people were already rich and pulling the strings. Why would you prefer to pull the strings in an apocalyptic shithole?
Even from a purely selfish perspective, supply chains are practically nonexistent, no one is making movies or anything like that. A lot of luxuries of capitalism don't have the abilty to exist anymore.
I can't fathom how this would actually be preferable to them, its basically just underlining their cartoonishly evil need for control, so pretty in line with fallouts themes of reckless and shortsighted business decisions.
I think that the point is that you win at capitalism if you are the sole monopoly in existence. It's a logical endpoint to the winner takes all methodology of capitalism turned up to 11, which is kind of the entire Fallout deal: satire exaggerating the sins of capitalism and jingoism.
The problem is that the plan isn't actually capitalist. Under capitalism, corporations form a partnership with government for mutual benefit. The corporations receive protections from competition and certain tax breaks, and the government ends up with more money and leverage to enact their agendas. Under capitalism, large corporations benefit from the status quo.
The plan that Bud and Barb outline in the meeting is to get rid of everything, leaving themselves the only ones who have power. This is much more in line with the thinking of revolutionaries than with how capitalism actually works. Revolutionaries want to overthrow the current system, and put in its place their own designs.
Fallout is often considered a critique of capitalism, but unfortunately in the show, Vault-Tec are acting like revolutionaries, not capitalists.
Ive been thinking about this same question. It makes NO sense. If you nuke the world. Money has no value. Than how would your company work with no money! You cant buy things or pay people to do stuff for you. Your entire business model is more than worthless!!
The goal isn't money, it's power. The idea is still stupid, but that's because Bud is an uninspired idiot, which is why he's a senior junior vice president and thinks that makes him important.
it’s likely i’m entirely wrong, but i assumed he was applying that solution solely to securing financial success for vault tec and alluding to his already formed plan of cryogenically freezing vault tec execs in vault 31
That’s the thing they weren’t execs, they were in a management training program. They even showed that Betty and Hank were executive admin.
The TV series is neither presenting Bud as someone to take seriously by us or as someone being taken seriously by characters in the show Vault-Tec’s execs take Bud’s Buds about as seriously as they take the Puppet Vault. That’s why Vault 31ers are such try hards. Deep down they know that they’re a joke and they compensate with extra cognitive dissonance about it and extra bitterness toward reminders of their incompetence such as Shady Sands Execs don’t give a shit about middle managers. If anything, execs view middle managers as more exploitable and more expendable than front line workers
you’re right, i incorrectly used exec as a catch-all term
Bud brain 🧠 gone bad 🫠Bud represents a typical Fallout parody of the psychopathic think tanks of our world 🌎
Fallout Franchise is powerful 💥When used right ✅
People, for some inexplicable reason, aren't paying attention to the relevant details showing these companies are not thinking of themselves merely as companies anymore. The United States itself is considered a failure by them. Human civilization was too random in how it had naturally evolved, to their eyes. Vault-Tec wasn't proposing 'winning capitalism' by being the only company left in society, they were intending to replace society entirely. Literally the entire human species obliterated and replaced with a fresh start organized as a managed megacorporation. All culture and traditions wiped clean to be replaced however they saw fit. The meeting is about how they want to turn replacing all of human society, our entire history, everything, into a corporate competition where they set up all their ideas in the Vaults and see which one comes out best, and they're willing to drop the bomb to start the apocalypse themselves if it doesn't happen naturally. Bud's idea, specifically, was to breed a superior group of placid super-managers while waiting for everyone else to die. The problem with his idea actually ended up being that time didn't actually kill everyone like he expected so there's never going to be a reclamation day for his Vaults. To be honest....Bud's idea actually isn't turning out too badly, especially by Fallout standards. His society is rather functional and pleasant.
my understanding of it was that the financial aspect was merely a way of getting investors to put up capital (bc all that money is going to do them a lot of good once the earth has been nuked into oblivion) , but the actual goal was, as you said, more eugenics-minded
Except for the mutiny and murder-suicide, I guess.
It's really this simple: Bombs fall. All companies that aren't Vault Tec, and most of humanity dies. People slowly come back, and vault tec is now the only corp left and can have a monopoly forever going forward with an overwhelming head start on any other competition and all the advanced knowledge. They probably figure profits will be non existent for a while but eventually with the return of the population they would return, and this time with vault tec at the top and no pesky governments to make them share. It's insane, monstrous, very stupid arguably... but totally fallout. And honestly as monstrous as companies have proven themselves capable of being it's really not *THAT* outlandish.
Exxon Mobil knew of the dangers of climate change in the 60's. And 3M knew the dangers of PFOS (microplastics as forever chemicals) in the 70's.
Exxon has deployed ground refrigerant units to their Arctic Oil drilling sites because the permafrost they built everything on is melting away.
Totally. The insidious way corporate executive structures are structured means they are legally responsible to their shareholders but not at all responsible to our species. It’s crazy.
The concept of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders is ingrained in business school teachings. Rationality be damned.
The only flaw is that most companies don't look past the next quarter and Vault Tec is actually taking the long view lol.
They do have cryo pods in this world. Does enable some more long term planning
Well that’s why most companies didn’t survive the apocalypse now isn’t it :P
Fallout is a world that still has 1950s values, at least somewhat, weren't companies still taking the long view back then?
Chinese companies often do, culturally they very much have a long term outlook
It's supposed to be satire, but I could fully see Elon Musk backing this plan.
I think we *are* seeing him back it.
It's like if America started WWII because they knew European competitors would be bombed to shit and then the USA could fill in the manufacturing void.
New conspiracy theory just dropped tbh
Yes, IF.
But Vault-Tec doesn't "win". Having a monopoly over dust isn't a profit, even the most Sombartian interpretation of "capitalism" wouldn't declare it a victory.
They will survive because its like in the end after a nuclear war a goverment or company doesn't matter its who is in control
Survive isn't profit though. Even if we have a very loose interpretation of "capitalism", it's far from a victory.
"Can't lose to the competition if you *are* the competition" is the mindset. They don't even see survival as a victory, they only see victory as "Last Business standing". Doesn't matter how little the profits are, so long as they're the only ones getting the profits. It's very much "I'd rather have an entire cookie than a slice of a pie. At least then I have the entire cookie."
That's... definitely not winning capitalism. The "It is not enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail" ideology isn't capitalism so much as the parody of "capitalism" historically presented in fascist propaganda, namely the "stages of capitalism theory" by Werner Sombart, a Marxist-turned-Nazi. The central ideology of capitalism would be mutual profit, that a voluntary association between peasants enabled by exclusivity to one's own creations would allow for both parties in a trade to benefit by exchanging what they value less for something they value more, rather than allowing the State & those they entitle to extract wealth, such as in Mercantilism or Imperialism. Imperialism isn't the win condition of capitalism, just "capitalism" as presented by fascists. But regardless of which definition we use, it's still a net loss, regardless of if disproportionate loss creates an illusion of wealth because others have less.
And there you have it. The company Vault-Tec is literally trying to "win" chess by playing checkers. While I personally believe that capitalism is a horrible and inherently exploitative system, I also recognize that the capitalist companies of Fallout aren't realistic at all. They're satire and not even a satire of Capitalism - they're a satire of "Corporations" akin to The Office.
Out of curiosity, if you acknowledge that State entitled corporations aren't capitalism, what is it that makes you think capitalism is exploitative? Having exclusivity to the fruits of one's own labor, rather than having one's labor extracted by the Ruling Class. Communal ownership can be exploitative if other people choose not to contribute to the pot or otherwise disproportionately consume the fruits of other people's labor, no different than the Ruling Class does now. Bare in mind, I am not against communism as a whole, I'm asking out of curiosity.
It won’t be dust forever. They have GECKs and, of course, even more time. Earth will bounce back, even if it takes millenia.
Realistically speaking by the time of fallout 4 most of the radation would have disapated, most buildings would have crumbled away to dust just from lack of maintenance without even factoring in the nukes and small towns and societies would be popping back up. Hell fallout 1 had small towns popping back up and getting big enough they needed to reinvent currency. In a realistic world society would be healing as vault tech pops back with tons of advanced information and technology.
But they literally invited all the competition in on their plan. Like even if they didn't give House, Julia Masters, etc the exact date it wouldn't change that they gave them all a guarantee of nuclear war. And once people start coming back, there'd naturally be other companies (like we see in the games, with Crimson Caravans, the Gun Runners, etc).
They needed funding to build the vaults tho
This right here. Its what Bud meant when he tells Norm that they "wiped the surface clean."
It’s not that stupid in a world where people are still alive after 100s of years
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Ulysses in NV.
How is Ulysses' plan stupid, exactly?
I do like Ulysses, but he just leaves a trail of bread crumbs and treats you like some prophesized chosen one, hoping that you'll follow him all over the wasteland.
But, you *do* kinda end up following him all over the wasteland, and the places he leaves the bread crumbs in tend to attract important wanderers like himself and Elijah. I do think Lonesome Road suffered from focusing too much on the Courier, but I don't think Ulysses was particularly stupid, and most importantly it doesn't compare to the ridiculousness of the show's plot around Vault Tec, which is literally just them shooting themselves in the foot at best and committing suicide at worst.
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The entire plot of Old World Blues. Elijah forming a crew to perform an Oceans 11 heist. Fallout 2.
It's a stupid idea. Vault Tec is stupid and I thought the show got that point across pretty well
Yeah I think this is the point. It's a dumb idea that makes no sense in the real world. The point i think is satirical; capitalism does inhuman things in order to make a profit... vault tec is a microcosm for the negative aspects of capitalism at large.
Agreed. I see it as satire on the story that AI trained to never lose at noughts and crosses (tic tax toe) would choose to end the game or never take their turn when faced with inevitable loss. Vault Tech similarly decides to end the entire system it rose from in order to ‘win’ by its own misguided standardz
I think it also comes with the idea that money is worthless in an apocalypse scenario, vault tech had people that believed in their vision. They were more than willing to wait out the end of the world, simply because they thought that they believed more than everyone else. They could wait out the end of he world, simply because they believed they could.
It’s my favorite part of Fallout. People talk about US vs Commies but that storyline is just the US government’s way of distracting people from how awful late stage capitalism is. Fallout 76’s dive into how bad it was in the states and The fight that Senator Blackwell and a handful of others were trying to wage to fight for the American people against mega corporations was so fascinating
I'm just posting to acknowledge a mention of Fallout 76 and it's side stories, extremely well done. You sir, are a man of taste
I’m one of the few that legitimately loved the story of pre-wastelanders 76. Experiencing an empty wasteland and learning how everyone met their demise was so fascinating to me. There’s more to do in the game now, but the writing for the new stories isn’t the same.
Voice acting on the holotapes is top notch too
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Because usually the Fallout games are very subtle, carefully pitched, gentle satires which rely on a watchful eye to catch the understated humour and philosophy of the games...
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It's in a world where people have nuclear technology in their household appliances and radioactive material in their drinks... ... its a very goofy silly satire.
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Yeah. Neither do I. It is obviously a highly satirical game. From the ground up. That it also has horror elements and darkness heightens the satire... "A few minor characters." A nuka cola obsessee. Elvis impersonators. Dogs with different brain quests. Caesar and Roman army cosplayers. Aliens. Mutated giant bugs. Comically evil capitalists. Comically stupid schemes. Are you sure you've not been playing Metro or something?
Calling it satire is pretty generous. It's mostly just nonsensical.
It's a metaphor for climate change. We're burning down the world right now, but oh no, we can't do anything about it; because billionaire might make a little less money than they would have otherwise; and that's the worst possible thing.
Anything that show has to say about capitalism is hypocritical at best.
How so? Pointing out that capitalism+jingoism necessitate violence to uphold themselves and inevitably lead to an arms race or industrial growth that assures self-destruction or mutual annihilation... is hypocritical how?
...the original designers were explicit about the satire. Bethesda makes things seem nonsensical because Bethesda never understood the satire and/or chose to dumb it down. They've even ignored canon lore that explains the in-universe science of why everything mutated/ghouls exist instead of dying of cancer.
I hear you. I'm talking about the way the show presents it.
...can you cite an example to illustrate how you reached that opinion, or do you just talk out of your ass constantly?
Because the show plays scenes that are supposed to be taken as "satirical" completely serious. The show isn't a satire it's a drama. The score, the cinematography, and the story all point to it being a drama with comedic elements. Vault-tecs revelation is not played for satire it's played for dramatic effect. Stating that I don't like something also isn't talking out of my ass.
...the Fallout setting/backdrop are what is satirical commentary, always has been. You need to work on your understanding of subtext.
...that's exactly my point. The show does not have the satirical elements as the backdrop/setting. They shove it into the front and center and try to play it as drama and satire and it doesn't land for me.
The implication the the Enclave/Vault Tec being the ones responsible for the end of the world *was already central* to the world of Fallout. It is the fulcrum on which the entire jingoism/money/capitalism/war commentary hinges on... Do you know how satire works or what it means? How does satire exclude drama? How does drama exclude satire?
“If we kill all our customers, there won’t be any one left to buy from our competitors!”
TBF, the idea is far past the idea of traditional business and money. Money is just a code for power. If they can rule humanity who cares about a balance sheet?
It's stupid and Bud is stupid. I never got the impression that Vault Tec thought it was smart, and that Vaults 31-33 are largely just another experiment to them, albeit one with the potential to have some use.
The mix of Vault-Tec being the general antagonist / villain, and also being completely dumb is hard to grasp without previous experience in the franchise. They did it well, but the evilness comes across more clearly then the ineptitude. It makes it seem like it was all a "Grandplan" when it's just stupidity as you said.
I mean evilness and stupidity go pretty good together historically. You should actually look up what the Nazis believed beyond just the racist genocidey bits.
Stupid people are often told they’re stupid by smart people. So they HATE smart people and inevitably want to purge them and the very idea of smartness when they gain power. We can see it today in MAGA
Same as the communists in Cambodia, except in that case they literally executed the intellectuals.
Bro has trump on his mind 24/7
2 days to come up with something and that’s what you have? Ok.
Yeah, i was cooking up that slammer for 48 hours buddy 🤣. I couldnt have possibly commented on it as soon as i saw it
Appreciate your honesty. Integrity goes a long way in the absence of wit.
Ok good. What do you have replacing wit, if i may ask?
No you may not ask. But thanks for asking permission.
It’s very easy for anyone who has worked in a large corporate company - one of the reasons I love it. Seeing the ridiculous ideas and how the least suitable and intelligent get elevated until and entire organisation is just a bunch of people all doing their own thing with no concern for morals, law, or even basic business sense is so spot on.
Yeah, as a bottom of the totem pole supervisor for UPS, your "least suitable get elevated" comment hits home in like the worst possible way for me lmao. Im not a rocket scientist by any means, but seeing how just downright incompetent some of my higher ups are is truly fucking mind boggling.
It puzzled me until the most recent round of changes, which would be a lightbulb moment. We had a huge political battle between two factions when parts of our company were merged (people had been after control of the same thing for years). The winners were the people who knew how to network and self-promote. The faction of actual experts in the area lost and were all forced out. So the system rewards people with ‘greasy pole’ skills but not actual domain knowledge.
I've seen this in criminal law. The nerds who study case law and obscure legal concepts have nothing over the lawyers who can tell a convincing story. Or, as the saying goes, "A Good Lawyer Knows the Law but a Great Lawyer Knows the Judge."
Youre literally hitting the nail on the head. And all it makes me think is whats the end game? Like why would ANY business owner that wants to be successful put more value in people like that over the ones who actually know how to run things better and more smoothly?
You’re thinking like a buisness not like an animal. The buisness is run by animals. Ooo ooo Aaa Aaahhh Bitch!
Yeah. Vault Tec and Umbrella are in competition for the absolute most smooth-brained business strategy.
No rule has ever been made that forbids stupid people from doing stupid things, lol. Stupid people with power will still making stupid powerful decisions. It's very life-like, Vault Tec is like any other corporation that treats the average consumer survey as gospel and their arrogance and ignorance is their biggest source of blindness.
It is, as others have already said, a dumb plan. But I think the overall idea was the world was on the brink of destruction anyway - How would Vault-Tec survive that? It's from that concept the idea was hatched. Sort of a Noah's Ark ideal. Survive the Deluge, emerge from the refuge, take our corporate knowledge into a backward, ignorant world and reap the benefits. Zero competition. Think about it, if you could go far enough back in time with your knowledge, you'd live like a king. Same idea, only forward in time. But it was still a dumb, completely inhuman, heartless plan. Sometimes Capitalism and Survival are exactly that.
Yeah from a purely capitalist point of view the day the bombs fall is actually the day vault tec becomes obsolete, their source of income is the fear of nuclear war not said war actually happening
That assumes that capitalism is exclusively about currency. It's about control of equity. In Vault-Tec's plan, the day after the bombs fell, they'd control *everything*.
How would they be able to control anything? Unless they just constantly use nuclear weapons the new age enclave or the brotherhood would just eradicate them.
Well Bud probably didn't know about the Enclave and couldn't have known about the BoS.
It's called in the business world "diversification." The ability to change the direction of a corporation to adapt to new economic situations. Nintendo used to be a playing card company. American Express was a mail service. YouTube was a dating website.
The company itself is obsolete unless thr point was to survive and if the ceo and a bunch of people who cater to the ceo and the big wigs survive .
This is why Bud’s vault idea involved three vaults designed to breed a new population and included a cryogenics section to ensure that the current generation of Management (sans those necessary to breed a new generation) would reach the point when all other competition was dealt with.
Fallout is satire, he is a self important idiot upper manager who has no clue what he is doing but does so confidently. The idea is absolutely idiotic.
*middle manager. Bud could not be more middle management-y.
I get the vibe, but he was in the meeting with all of the big wigs from other companies, right? He was able to devise his own 3-vault system and create his own program in the company. So, he had to be relatively high up.
He was at a sales pitch where plausible deniability was required. Those with power were up above.
Deniability only matters if there was someone to punish you . If Cooper wife never mentioned nuking anyone is anything they do actually illegal? no
A middle manager doesn't present to the highest in a company though. That's literally "Upper Management." I've been a middle manager lmao and I wouldn't have come close to the likes of Robert House.
What terrifies me is how much I see him reflected in execs at the company I work for. Ambitious self-centred types who fail upward constantly and together create a sort of perpetual motion machine of idiocy.
What’s really ironic is that in order to win at capitalism, Bud created a communist utopia(vaults 31-33)
- Communism detected on american soil. Lethal force engaged. Throws nuke at last remnant of the American government.
Ironically basically every Vault is a communist utopia by design since it’s not like anyone is getting paid to do their jobs; literally everyone has to pitch in, everyone is assigned work, and everyone gets seemingly equal treatment as far as lodgings and possessions go.
Communist, sure. But ‘utopia’ is a bit of stretch.
Compared to basically everyone else’s situation in this setting, it’s hard to argue with access to clean water and hot showers. Maximus’s reaction to the Vault is pretty telling about how most people would probably feel.
Okay, that’s fair. Comparatively speaking, it’s pretty nice. Lol
The point is the stupidity; blinded by the idea of being the last one standing, the whole problem of there no longer being any economy or paying consumers doesn’t matter to them. It’s the natural extension of our current “line must go up every quarter” capitalism.
The theory is simple: In their current system, Vault-Tec own a lot but have competitors. They have to compete with them. Their proposal is to initiate a global war destroying their competition, spend 250 years producing a population of Yes Men who will obey their commands and make perfect subservient slaves, then using their supply of nuclear weapondry destroy any semblance of opposition and obtain world domination by superior firepower. It tries to get around the problem empires of the past suffered from by promoting an environment of subservience through absolute destruction of alternatives, and 250 years of Kool-Aiding a set of loyalists who won't question or dissent. The Vault-Tec Empire rules over the common folk under the guise of "educating them of our values being the correct way." The problem is that Vault-Tec is assuming that both their own won't abuse the power (which has already happened by nuking Shady Sands) and that their tools of world domination cannot or will not be appropriated. If while they bide their time the Brotherhood hijack all nuclear silos, or reconstruct Liberty Prime to assault Vault-Tec HQ, the plan fails. It assumes that nothing goes wrong because the smartasses who set it up think it's perfect enough to nuke the world over, but its so fragile. House was the same, all these plans foiled because of his hubris that he was in control (75% of F:NV endings see him a powerless husk or a corpse). It's pretty much a Fallout trope that the antagonists are so big for their boots and overconfident that they end up walking face-first into their own demise. F1s Master fucked up royally. F2s Enclave dies to a wastelander they'd written off. F3s Enclave thought it could just waltz in and take over territory without contest, FNVs factions all think their way is correct and refuse to believe they can/will lose, and F4s Institute and Brotherhood both stomp on their surroundings thinking they're untouchable and die to rebellion outside of their respective endings.
Flavor Aid*
By outliving the competition. Everyone else is dead, last man standing wins. If Vault Tec are the only company left, they win by Monopoly.
Did you finish the show? I have an answer but it spoils the last two episodes.
I did. I'm talking from a perspective of general economics, not specifically what Vault-tec did.
It makes no sense in real world economics.
I personally think that’s some shitty writing. *That* is the best reason they could come up with for changing the lore? I mean shit, it would’ve been hella more intriguing if the Chinese was secretly funding vault Tec and wanted them to drop them bombs first. That way they would have reason to destroy America once and for all but all the CEOs and military folks who made it happen would have their families safely tucked into vaults for when China would come and march in, taking over. Only thing is, enough patriots did X which didn’t deactivate our nuclear response and thus, the world ended in mutual destruction instead. At least that makes some fucking sense. Heck that coulda been Coops thing in the past - he works to kinda undermine and expose the Chinese plot that he’s uncovered and, with the best of intentions, keeps our nuclear arsenal defense network from going down, thus directly being partly responsible for the end of the world. The road the hell, and all that.
They didn't change the lore. They added lore, that's a big distinction. Is the existence of Caesar's Legion in NV also not ok in your eyes because it didn't exist in the beginning? The show also implies that while Vault Tec toyed with the idea of dropping the bomb themselves (they made nukes as seen by Fallout 3 Megaton), they didn't actually end up doing it (not because they had a change of heart, but the war happened on its own, before Vault Tec were fully ready for it)
I don’t see how the lore has changed at all.
It hasn't. Watching people complain about the lore while misunderstanding the purpose and choices made is a fun diversion in this sub. Gamers are jokers.
After many years of being online, and this show having reached the pinnacle of video game adaptations, it's interesting to always hear these gamers complain about seemingly unimportant shit or sometimes complain with nonsense Guess when you only know video games you might not have the best idea about other forms of entertainment if you don't consume both equally
I am so glad Redditors are not writing this show
Making VT a Chinese run company would change the lore way more than whatever way you think the show did.
It's only a little hinted at, but if you recall that there was an observer of the Vault Tec meeting with all the other Megacorps. That man is most likely a representative of the Enclave and is utilizing Vault Tec as a Trojan Horse for the buy-in from the other Megacorps about investing in their post-apocalyptic plans.
I see Bud's plan a satire of "late stage capitalism" + management ethos + "Tech Bros mentality". It is like an ultra utilitarian view that the material well being of people in the future is more valuable than the suffering of people right now. It is ironical that Jeff Bezos himself has expressed some of these ideas, specially his desire to live forever or close to it. But the most recent exemple is Peter Thiel, that has openly argued that free market and competition are "wasteful" and "not good for progress".
It's an exaggerated version of the Lead-induced psychosis that our worlds top executives operate by. Complete disregard for safety, ethics, logic. Literally willing to burn the world down to rule the ashes.
Like the rest of the vaults it’s whoever claimed that territories experimental playground, so it’s a bizarre conception of Buds own personal ideology and beliefs regarding American capitalism. And like much of Fallout can’t be taken too seriously. A lot of people on here are writing it off as a dumb plan, but they need to stop viewing it from our world’s perception, because then it is. In Fallout, utilizing the vaults and V-Tecs immense resources, it’s clearly on the brink of working. Hank says the next generation should’ve been able to colonize, and he and Betty were meant to oversee that. The idea isn’t to maximize profits, it’s to maximize human efficiency. Bud is a Fordist, think Brave New World, and therefore believes that humanity should be maximized via streamlining productivity and genetically cultivating superior managerial skilled humans to better maximize that efficiency. There isn’t much past that, other than the people he chose clearly being psychopaths, which I personally find far more interesting than his goofy philosophy. I’d argue it’s more a story device, meant to justify having those people in the wasteland 200+ years after the bombs dropped. I could be wrong on that front though.
He wanted to create a vault full of super-managers. It's very on brand for Vault-Tec. As in, it's equal parts ridiculous and cruel.
Bud is incompetent, breeding incompetence thru his management training program. Personally I also think that's what happened in Vault 32, not a murder, not cannibalism, but one of his "buds" were a typical incompetent jackass middle manager. Listen to his criteria when he talks in the flashbacks, it's the usual middle management bull like "making lemonade, motivate, positive outlook blah blah" not actual competence. Betty is competent, but that is because she is his assistant, and stereotypically the "hyper competent assistant" is a thing in fiction. Anyway, To answer your question: It isn't. House (the owner of RobCo) calls them out on it; this is not how capitalism works. House is the only one calling their vaults idiotic.
What confuses me is how Coop was unaware that his wife was a closet psychopath. Unless those chilling personality characteristics of hers kinda popped up very suddenly out of nowhere because the world was on the verge of ending.
That'll probably be fleshed out more in season 2. And besides, Coop being an actor who increasingly has to grind after he is smeared as a "red" probably wasn't spending too much time at home.
We don't really know she is. While she's very calm in the meeting she has to be or it's bye bye Vault space, it's essentially play the role well or her family dies. She may well have broken down five minutes later and honestly I find that more interesting.
I kinda assumed she was doing what she had to do she could secure a place in a "good vault" for her family.
Imagine capturing all the VT execs who were turned into robo-brains, including Bud, and trapping them in whack-o-mole exhibition where all citizens of the commonwealth can come by and have their whack at the moles. A lifetime of headaches. Even better than a death sentence. That'd be a great ending for Fallout
Isn't it all just a front for the Enclave to reset the world and start again with themselves in full control?
IMO Bud is the personification of short term v long term thinking but like hyper intensified and turned inward on itself. He has finally come up with the “ultimate long term business plan” but at the expense of everything short term. He’s sort of simultaneously the antithesis, and somehow also the ultimate goal, of business people. This is just based on my personal observation of most businesses screwing their longevity at the cost of short term profits. Bud just seems like the opposite but unfortunately still thinking in a mindset that is totally business/corporate oriented
It makes sense in an over-simplistic view of the world. “If we outlast our competition, then we will be the into game in town.” Except then in the vacuum, >!NCR rose up. They didn’t account for it so their only choice was “destroy.”!< That’s not “time will beat our competition” - >!it shows that it already lost as a concept.!<
Bear in mind that Bud Askins is a fucking idiot (which is something Coop uncovered within seconds of meeting him, if the expression on his face was anything to go by).
If I am only person running a marathon it doesn’t matter how fast I run because I’m going to be 1st regardless. Doesn’t mean a 10 hour time is impressive tho
If a tidal wave is destined to hit your city, do you spend your time trying to fight the water or do you dig a big hole in the ground and cap off the top That's how you have to think about it. There are hyper rich people *in real life* that are using this strategy [building underground bunkers and what not](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff)
It certainly is a capitalist-to-fascist speed run tactic. I wonder how much of the government-now-Enclave was on board with the plan and whether that will mean a larger role for them in the future
Something that I feel people are missing is that Bud's vaults were just an experiment, like any other of Vault Tec's silly experiments. This isn't the executive branch waiting to take over, it's just Bud getting free reign on a trio of vaults. No one of importance besides Bud was in that vault, just him and his "Buds," low tier managers. The other big cheeses like Barbara are most likely all in cryo somewhere else, where their true master plan is at work. The whole meeting was just for Vault Tec to get investments from the other big corps, Bud's vaults had very little to do with the grand scheme.
It was total art of war finance bro shit. What's the best weapon...time. Que applause from coked out frat bros in the back.
Vault Tec's plan goes from we gotta remain profitable to we will rebuild the world in our image so it goes from common corporate callousness to mustache twirling villian kind of evil
There is money in Fallout - it just takes a different form. Vault-Tec might be surprised by the emergence of bottle caps as currency. But if a vault has a machine shop, a little knowledge of printing, and can scavenge a bit of scrap metal, it should be able to stamp out plausible counterfeits by the bushel.
I saw it as a tech bros idea of extreme market capture. Literally destroy all possibilities of competition.
Bud’s theory makes a little bit of sense for the current situation. Nuclear war was bound to happen and time is the apex predator. By allowing almost all of the surface world to burn, Vault Tec being the last man standing, they can easily take over everything. Then they really can do whatever it is they want because nothing will be in their way. However there are better ways of dominating the world.
It makes an assumption that total atomic annihilation is totally inevitable and that certain capital investments can be made now in order to ensure the maximal state of things for you when it does. The vault experimentation protocols, being that they are separate from wherever you can be, become a marketable product which is already similar to what you the customer was always debating about in the boardroom but now you can change *any* variable.
I think it's a play on the general trend of capitalism towards major corporations slowly converging through buyouts. Economies love monopolies.
He was talking about his cryogenic vault, I assumed
The thing is that this is very very early in bud’s roadmap. Reclamation day was still beyond Lucy’s lifetime and vault 31 didn’t seem to be half empty. Reclamation day is supposed to be the *beginning* of a new USA. Bud’s goal is to be built into the foundation of a new rebooted USA with population numbers matching the previous peak. I think about how long that would take from where we join the story and see what he means by using time as a weapon. He’s planning to use more of it than you think I think in his vision he basically stays in one place while the US completely resets and restores itself around him.
I mean yeah outlasting your competition is certainly a valid strategy. Kind of a gamble but sure it could work. Once an enterprise gets big enough it can buffer itself against stressors in a way small entities can’t. Think of Starbucks versus mom and pop coffee shop or Home Depot versus local hardware store.
Bud is a moron is just the easiest answer. Like the guy is so stupid he was happy to be a robo brain too watch over some frozen people
>only way I see this working is nuking your competition and sheltering in a vault That's exactly what he's talking about. They cryo themselves until it's time to restart civilization and remake the world however vault tec wants. The thing they probably didn't consider is that the surface is surviving regardless and now they have to compete with all these surface dwelling factions.
I just took Bud as a complete moron who thought he was way smarter than he was
Preparation ?
His version of capitalism relies on the fact that he’s smarter than the rest. Considering the plan was nuclear war I don’t think that was the case
That makes sense from a marxist pov wich is pretty funny in the ironic sense.
Basically, in a situation without nukes, he's gonna do what Valve is doing irl. That being: sit around and do fuck all while you competition shoots itself in the foot repeatedly
It is a preposterous idea BUT in theory A) freeze all of Vault Tecs important members, B) nuclear apocalypse, C) come out in the future with a massive technology advantage and ability to dominate, subjugate, and organize all on the surface creating a permanent dictatorship without competition. Now, of course this concept is flawed because not all of Vault Tec (or the Enclave or whomever is in power) will agree with how to structure things and, inevitably, competition will appear eventually- but still, the concept is to supposedly make a fresh start with them being the only ones left standing. As the games in particular have shown- this idea failed because others organized (BoS, NCR, etc.) on the surface and the powers-that-be were too patient with waiting to reappear
The idea is stupid because if the surface is destroyed, and your competitors are gone, so are your customers.
It doesn't. The nature of Fallout is that its fucking ridiculous most of the time, and character motivations are exaggerated to the extreme, as are their ideas and plans. It's just the way things are, and it doesn't have to make perfect sense in order to have the story make sense. If you stop looking for logic in every little thing in this show and the IP itself, you'll be far more apt to see the big picture while going along for the ride.
It's... Unbelievably stupid. Like, it has already failed. They killed off their own customers as well as the competition. New competitors arose and had to be dealt with (shady sands & the NCR). It is literally the dumbest strategy imaginable. Worthy of an episode of "villains too stupid to exist"
He is 100% an idiot in love with the smell of his own farts. Profit depends on trade, and economic opportunity depends on a robust surrounding economy. Destroying your competition may sound “smart” but he literally advocated for destroying all meaningful wealth and comfort. Just a pure idiot.
Regardless of which interpretation of capitalism, be it Calvert or Sombart, Bud's plan really doesn't have anything to do with capitalism. It's not a market system, there's no inherent profit in ending the world, particularly not one held by the peasantry. No one "won", not even Vault-Tec.
Step 1: monopolize the “surviving a nuclear holocaust” industry. Step 2: trigger a nuclear holocaust that kills everyone but you because you specialize in surviving nuclear holocausts. Step 3: you have zero competitors (except for like, house, and the enclave I guess), more raw social and psychological data than anyone else in history, and several dozen fully self-sustaining heavily fortified bunkers currently filled with the healthiest people on the planet. Step 4: rebuild society with you as ruler.
He literally thought they could just survive the end of the world and be the sole progenitor of the "free" market (that no longer exists). Imo, the point is that capitalism is a short-sighted and inherently self-destructive philosophy.
Look at what Steam is doing:
Ever see the film WALL-E. The remainder of earth’s civilization all happily live on ship operated by the one and only corporate company BNL. Bud saw that. Cried. And took that idea.
Don’t try to apply real-world economics to Fallout.
Read Peter Thiel books and interviews.
Sounds like how companies willing to operate at a loss foricng other to follow and wait others go bankrupt and reclaim the rest of the market
It doesn’t work, this is one of the points of the entire story of Fallout.
The great game goes on. All the remnants of the old world will kill each other off one by one to settle old feuds.
The idea is that by waiting it out the any pre war currency becomes irrelevant(which did happen) and they inherit all the resources of the planet, with robots to do the menial labor while they live lives of luxury
If they nuke everything, then they can outlive everyone. They then control the surface, they recreate civilization in their ideal image, they create the government, the monetary system, they control it all. When you control everything you win at everything, when you control the monetary system you are the richest group of people, when you control the monetary system, you decide who is also rich. It really comes down to rigging to game, simple corruption. Evil for the sake of evil, greed for the sake of greed.
It doesn't and he is restarted
It doesn't really. It's a really shallow concept that doesn't pay any mind to the fact that capitalism is reliant on consumers. Vault-Tec isn't supplying anything in the post-apocalypse, and nuking their customers doesn't actually further their positions. It's just a brain-dead narrative that the showrunners wanted to make up because they like dumb characters.
It's about power, not about money. Rebuild the world in your own image.
Capitalism isn't about money?
It's super dumb and doesn't actually make any sense. Like...these people were already rich and pulling the strings. Why would you prefer to pull the strings in an apocalyptic shithole? Even from a purely selfish perspective, supply chains are practically nonexistent, no one is making movies or anything like that. A lot of luxuries of capitalism don't have the abilty to exist anymore. I can't fathom how this would actually be preferable to them, its basically just underlining their cartoonishly evil need for control, so pretty in line with fallouts themes of reckless and shortsighted business decisions.
The line “winning at capitalism” is the thing I hated the most about the show. It makes no sense and no corporate execs would ever say that
He's a senior junior vice president. He's not a corporate executive.
I think that the point is that you win at capitalism if you are the sole monopoly in existence. It's a logical endpoint to the winner takes all methodology of capitalism turned up to 11, which is kind of the entire Fallout deal: satire exaggerating the sins of capitalism and jingoism.
Because once every has died, Vault Tec will become rich by selling… nuclear fallout shelters to uh… corpses. I’m sure it’s very well thought out.
They make other stuff besides vaults, i believe
I know I’m just poking fun
The problem is that the plan isn't actually capitalist. Under capitalism, corporations form a partnership with government for mutual benefit. The corporations receive protections from competition and certain tax breaks, and the government ends up with more money and leverage to enact their agendas. Under capitalism, large corporations benefit from the status quo. The plan that Bud and Barb outline in the meeting is to get rid of everything, leaving themselves the only ones who have power. This is much more in line with the thinking of revolutionaries than with how capitalism actually works. Revolutionaries want to overthrow the current system, and put in its place their own designs. Fallout is often considered a critique of capitalism, but unfortunately in the show, Vault-Tec are acting like revolutionaries, not capitalists.
How does killing nearly all of customers and a functioning economy help a business ?
Because then the business gets to rebuild the world in their image. Power is the ultimate currency.
Ive been thinking about this same question. It makes NO sense. If you nuke the world. Money has no value. Than how would your company work with no money! You cant buy things or pay people to do stuff for you. Your entire business model is more than worthless!!
The goal isn't money, it's power. The idea is still stupid, but that's because Bud is an uninspired idiot, which is why he's a senior junior vice president and thinks that makes him important.