Vault-City

Population:
Population density:

Terrain:

Governmental system:

Who currently reigns:

Military:

Police:

Electrical power supply:

Vehicle provision:

Livestock provision:

Average education:

What the law says about:

→ Theft

→ Murder

→ Assault

→ Drugs

→ Gambling
→ Cheating at gambling

→ Prostitution


→ Alcohol

Average prices for:

→ Iguana-on-a-stick
→ Nuka-Cola
→ A good, stomach filling lunch
→ A liter of clear, filtered water
→ A Jet Canister
→ A good room for the night
→ A bath

This city in three words:

ca. 2800 citizens and 3000 'courtyard dwellers' and about 400 – 600 servants (read: slaves)

Inner city: medium
Courtyard: very high

Hills

Two class society with (direct) democracy for real citizens … and a dictatorship of these real citizens over those, that are not.

First Citizen Lynette

The Vault-City Guards are responsible for both the interior and exterior protection.

Geothermal energy generator under the Vault, that is however only used as a backup generator, since it’s repair would be too expensive and complicated.
The backup nuclear reactor of the Vault is the main power source.

Electrical power is available, wood, too, in lesser quantity. No gas far and wide.

There are stables for travelers in the courtyard.
Animals are not permitted in the Inner City.

Inner City: Very high
Courtyard: low

(The first punishment is for a crime committed by an outsider against a citizen, the second one for a crime an outsider committed against another outsider or courtyard dweller)
→ 1.) 1 year of sevitude.
2.) Fine + 7 days of imprisonment
→ 1.) Death sentence or a lifelong term as a servant
2.) 7 years of servitude followed by exile.
→ 1.) 5 years of servitude followed by exile.
2.) 1 year of servitude
→ Possession is only allowed in the courtyard, consumption not at all. The punishment for a citizen caught in a drug crime, is social service and a fine. Outsiders/courtyard dwellers get half a year of servitude.
→ Gambling is legal in VC but hardly done.
→ 1.) 3 years of servitude followed by exile.
2.) 6 months of servitude followed by exile.
→ 1.) Death sentence for the outsider prostitute for endangering public health, exile for the John.
2.) Illegal, but tolerated.
→ In the inner city ABSOLUTELY ILLEGAL, permissible in the courtyard.

First price inner city price, second one courtyard

→ 1.) Illegal for hygiene reasons 2.) 3 $
→ 1.) 12 $ 2.) 4 $
→ 1.) 50 $ 2.) 15 $
→ 1.) 1$ 2.) 25 $
→ 1.) ILLEGAL/400 $ 2.) 20 $
→ 1.) Outsiders are not allowed to sleep in the inner city, citizens have their rooms… 2.) 35 $
→ 1.) 2 $ for citizens, the rest may not bathe in the inner city 2.) 500 $

Eng, Heuchlerisch, Xenophob

History

The history of Vault-City is closely connected to the history of Project Safehouse, the great undertaking of the pre war US government to be prepared for the more and more likely case of a global, total, nuclear, war. The US government of the 2050s gave an until then rather small company, that had been a specialized constructor of small, bank and casino vaults, Vault-Tec, the assignment to build 122 so called Vaults, that would each provide protection for 1000 selected US citizens.
With a population of nearly 350 million and space for only 122.000 people in the Vaults – less than 0.5 percent of the population – it was obvious from the get go, that it wasn’t the purpose of the Vaults to protect the whole population but rather, to repopulate the North American continent.
When the bombs fell on October 23rd 2077 and the warning sirens sounded, the heavy door to the Vaults rolled closed, and with them of course also those of Vault 8, the Vault from which Vault-City should spring.
No Vault was exactly like another. For one thing, due to differing geographical situations the interior structures differed widely, for another the Vaults each had a different ‘scope of recolonization’. Vault 8 for example, had the most doctors, pharmacists – and their equipment. In 2091 the radiation meters sank so low, that the Vault received the ‘All clear’-signal – a signal which receipt was acknowledged in Vault-City but whose sender is completely unknown. It is however widely assumed in Vault-City that it was an automatic signal from Vault-Tec in the surely completely bombed Washington.

The doors opened and the 1000 vault dwellers began with their assigned duty. With help of their compact, survival oriented library and the terraforming tools contained in the Vault-Tec ‘Garden of Eden Creation Kit’ (G.E.C.K.), they quickly built their city in front of the door of Vault 8. Rather
quickly, two problems developed for the city with other survivors of the nuclear holocaust: Raiders wanted to kill them all to conquer the technology in the Vault while many others came peacefully, but begging for help (especially medical help).
The Vault-Overseer, who only stepped back in 2101 and led this phase of leaving the Vault personally, quickly found a solution for both problems: he integrated the beggars as a laborer caste into the developing society of Vault-City and made them build a walled in, easily defended area … and a fenced in, a lot less protected area that bordered on Vault-City, that would later become infamous as the courtyard.

As the Vault-Overseer stepped back after ten years to retire in the city and community he had created, a directly elected government (by the first class citizens) took over, the so called Council chaired by the First Citizen.

Governemtal sytem and societal order

The Goverment: The citizens (courtyard dwellers do NOT count as citizens of Vault-City) elect a council of nine citizens that is both the cabinet of the First Citizen as well as something like a parliament. Council members are elected for 9 years and one of those posts is open to election each
year. The First Citizen is elected for 15 years in office, so that he or she can supervise or start even large, long term projects.

Citizenship: Citizenship is either inherited or earned. Both work differently in Vault-City than in other places. Inhert can every child that is born in a controlled pregnancy of a female Vault-City citizen.
To earn the citizenship is theoretically possible. One simply has to enjoy near perfect health, be completely unmutated AND pass a difficult, nearly unsolvable citizenship test, for which no learning materials whatsoever are offered and which necessitates incredible subject knowledge.

Pregnancy cicles: Every 3 years children are born in Vault-City. This birthrate is of course not due to mother nature, but planned.
With the help of the best medical computer systems the doctors of Vault-City choose so called ‘approximately perfect genetic combinations’, that is, the best available combination of genes of the available gene pool (the citizens) are chosen. The chosen women are artificially inseminated.
There are no unwanted pregnancies in Vault-City. Officially this is explained with the deterrence posed by draconical punishments for all unplanned pregnancies. Unofficially there are – among citizens and outsiders – incredibly many, often insane sounding, speculations about this topic.
For example, some accuse the government to lace the drinking water in Vault-City with contraceptives. Furthermore there is the slowly, silently spreading fear that Vault-City citizens have become sterile due to background radiation or any other reason.

Education: Due to the fact, that the only allowed pregnancies require neither pairings nor families or love – so, at least, the official rhetoric – the government of Vault-City shoulders the responsibilities of upbringing and education.
Directly after the birth the children are taken from the mothers. They are schooled by a governmental syllabus – with frequent performance assessments of which the children sometimes know and sometimes don’t – and the children are very thoroughly prepared for their future, special
assignments in Vault-City.

Servants: According to the official vocabulary guidelines of the government of Vault-City there are no slaves anywhere in Vault-City. In fact, it’s been explicitly forbidden to use that word in conversation with outsiders. In actuality the so called servants are de facto slaves of the city. They can be rented by citizens of the city, like one would in a different place, rent a book from a public library. Servants receive no monetary compensation, for Vault-City’s standards only the most rudimentary health care (that is still better than many freemen in the Wasteland have access to) and have neither freedom of expression, freedom of assembly or freedom of movement.

Mutants: “NO MUTANTS ALLOWED”. Where one can find signs on the borders of the NCR and other nations and cities that bid a visitor welcome, the uninformed visitor to Vault-City must believe – if he bases this believe on the signs, that are placed everywhere in front of the city – that this must
be the official motto of Vault-City.
And in fact it’s a well known fact in the Wasteland, that the only super mutants and ghouls that are allowed to approach Vault-City up to the courtyard gate, are those accompanying the Uranium caravans from Broken Hills.

Vault-Uniform: Every citizen of Vault-City wears the same item of clothing: a blue, adorned with a vertical neon-yellow stripe Vault-Tec overall. The only difference to the clothes worn by the ancestors of the citizens of Vault-City in their Vault is, that the neon-yellow “8” on the back is no
tstitched on anymore.

Overview of the districts

Vault 8: Vault 8 is large enough to offer 1000 people space – though by now, nearly no citizen of Vault-City is still living inside it. On the other hand the hospital of the city and the many medical laboratories are still in the Vault and about 400 citizens commute each day between the inner city
and their work in the Vault.

Inner city: The inner city of Vault-City, that is, the area directly in front of the Vault door, is living area, civic center and recreational area all in one. One finds the various ‘Offices of amnesties’ there (in other words: stores), of which many may also do business with outsiders, the taprooms that
certainly won’t sell you any alcohol as well as other administrative buildings, for example the Guard center, the Council Building and the office for Servant Allocation. Furthermore the inner city offers probably the nices park of the Wasteland, that is kept well in shape by servants.

Courtyard: The courtyard is the first area a visitor to Vault-City enters. If one doesn’t know that Vault-City also has a closed off inner city not accessible to everyone, one would surely ask oneself where the myth of the rich Vault-City comes from. The buildings are ramshackle and jury rigged, the people poor and dirty.
The courtyard of Vault-City offers everything that is forbidden in the inner city. One can get a sampling of drugs, real alcohol in the cheap drinking holes, merchants with more reasonable prices than those in the inner city and much more.

Satellite farms: Vault-City is supplied with foodstuffs by a large number of small farms on it’s periphery. The farmers receive protection by the Vault-City Guards in exchange for their food – whether they want it or not.

Pecularities

Currencies: Citizens receive each week so called allocation warrants, depending on rank, that can be traded for services in the inner city. Furthermore the service providers in the inner city also accept NCR dollars from travelers.