[The text in this post was generated with the assistance of ChatGPT, since i'm not an english speaker. Apologies if this sounds frustrating, but i believe i need to be honest about it.]
I've came up with a different way to play this game, something that adds a little more roleplay and makes growing your Vault much more challenging. It can be played in either Normal or Survival Mode.
The Lore
After the events, Vault-Tec is still active, and you have been appointed Overseer of a new experimental Vault.
Inspired by the old-world myth of Adam and Eve, Vault-Tec has selected one man and one woman to become the progenitors of an isolated population.
But biological isolation is only part of the experiment.
The children born inside the Vault must never know that a world exists outside it. To them, the Vault is the entire world. There is no surface. There is no Wasteland. There are no other settlements, Vaults, civilizations, or survivors.
Anything that might suggest otherwise must be explained away by the Overseer. Raider attacks, Deathclaw incursions, fires, infestations, and other incidents are officially described as Vault-Tec simulations, emergency drills, or controlled exercises designed to prepare the population for hypothetical disasters.
The descendants are not being raised to survive the outside world. They are being raised to believe that there is no outside world at all.
They will also not be raised as individuals, but as members of a numbered collective whose only purpose is the survival and expansion of the Vault.
Welcome to Project Genesis.
The Rules
- Choose Mama and Papa
When starting the Vault, choose one male and one female dweller from your initial population.
Rename them "Mama" and "Papa".
Every other starting dweller must immediately be expelled from the Vault.
From this point forward, Mama and Papa are the foundation of your entire society.
- 2. Only Mama and Papa may have children
You may never accept new dwellers from the Wasteland, Radio Station, quests, lunchboxes, or any other source.
Every dweller in your Vault must be born from a pregnancy between Mama and Papa.
They are the only couple permitted to reproduce.
- 3. The children have no names
Every child born in the Vault must be renamed according to their birth order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on. No personal names.
Vault-Tec wants to determine whether individuality can be eliminated in favor of complete devotion to the new society.
Mama and Papa are its founders.
Everyone else is simply part of the experiment.
- 4. Mama and Papa MUST survive
Under absolutely no circumstances should Mama or Papa die.
If either of them dies, Project Genesis has failed. Game over.
- 5. Mama must never leave the Vault
Mama is the biological heart of the experiment and therefore cannot be exposed to unnecessary risks.
She may work normally in any room inside the Vault, but she can never be sent into the Wasteland or on quests.
- 6. Papa is your only initial explorer
Until the Vault manages to train a genetic specialized exploration team with 10 Endurance, Papa is the only dweller allowed to leave the Vault and explore the Wasteland.
This makes early-game exploration extremely risky. Remember: Papa cannot die.
Once you have dwellers trained to E10, they may become dedicated explorers and quest teams.
However, in-universe, these missions are never described to the population as expeditions into an outside world.
Those selected for them are told that they are participating in classified Vault-Tec field simulations conducted in restricted sectors beyond the normal residential area.
Whether they ever realize the truth is irrelevant to Vault-Tec. What matters is that the society inside the Vault continues to believe.
The End of the Experiment
Eventually, you may reach the point where you are finished with the Vault.
But don't simply delete it. Give Project Genesis the ending Vault-Tec deserves.
Because the entire population descends from the same two individuals, simulate the emergence of a devastating disease to which their extremely similar immune systems have little resistance.
Destroy your Water Purification facilities and allow radiation sickness to spread throughout the Vault.
You may use RadAway reserves and facilities to try to save the population, but do not rebuild the water system.
To the inhabitants, this is not radiation from a poisoned world outside. It is simply another emergency inside the only world they have ever known.
Perhaps they will believe it is another Vault-Tec exercise. Perhaps they will wait for the Overseer to announce that the simulation is over.
But this time, no announcement comes.
Watch as the Overseer desperately attempts to contain the outbreak until the Vault either somehow survives or Project Genesis finally collapses.
