Vault 10
Contents
History
Vault 10 emerged around a deep nuclear war bunker with the same name, located in the Freedom Hall. The Vault 10 was a large, partially underground nuclear mining, industry and research complex, encompassing all stages from uranium mining to production of combat-ready warheads.
After surviving nuclear strike, Vault 10 remained as a closed underground system concerned only about survival, but on the night of September 11 the massive doors have opened, and the first inhabitants, wearing armored environment suits with dark black visors, and armed to the teeth, carefully stuck their guns out of the vault.
Today Vault 10 is a large, progressive nation of hard-working, highly intelligent scientists and engineers, continuing their traditional business: producing top-grade nuclear and conventional weapons for countries who need more weight for their arguments.
Government and economy
Vault 10 consists of the underground facilities and the aboveground society. After surviving massive nuclear destruction which incinerated most of the former populations, Vault 10 is strictly held to the principle of extending underground vaults as the population grows, and regularly training for a fast, efficient total evacuation. The underground facilities, once completed, are considered a part of the Vault and kept ready by small groups of people, ruled by the Coordination Center, the government of Vault 10.
The aboveground economy has passed different stages, starting as a extension of state-owned businesses above. These businesses then spread into large companies, which, with overwhelming support by referendum, declared independence of all aboveground facilities. Coordination Center retained only advisory powers over everything except the Vault itself, with the aboveground society comprised entirely of various corporations. However, the community retains the simple Vault's constitution, which requires a referendum for adding or removing any law, with voting via the electronic network. As a drawback, this has led to a number of flashmob-induced laws, restricting religions and protecting many obscure activities like streaking. The laws are not actually enforced due to the lack of government, but some community-minded volunteer organizations keep an eye on everything, and corporate security forces usually keep their rules in compliance with most important laws. Notable among them is the international Standart Security Corporation, which has a policy of assisting police in protecting the law, which in case of Vault 10 with no police made SSC de-facto law enforcement agency.
Economy of Vault 10 once was developing in all directions, but, however, some industries proved inferior. The civilian cars built in Vault 10 were just unarmed military ones, and, being uncomfortable, lost customers. Soon after that a dedicated study of economics was done, and it was decided to completely abolish all tariffs, allowing only profitable businesses to survive. Vault 10 maintains underground bases sufficient for all basic needs of the inhabitants, but everything else is obtained by whatever means are more economically preferable, export taking most of the GDP and import most of consumption. Modern export economy of Vault 10 is built around weapons trading, aerospace and heavy industries.
The currently largest corporation in Vault 10 is Aerospace Logistics, employing 10% of population, with Symmetriad/VaultTec Consortium rivaling.
Ecology
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Major nuclear strikes and fallout, both from nuclear weapons and from uranium mines and destroyed industries have greatly influenced biosystems on the surface. Dense forests are mixed up with lifeless wastelands, and animals are greatly varied. While most areas are clean from radioactive contamination, every citizen or approved visitor can receive long-term and short-term radiation protection pills, and compact dosimeters are embedded in all coats, vests and jackets produced in Vault 10. One of the most popular pets is a radiation-resistant cat of unique Vault 10 breed.
Art
Vault 10 is strongly supportive of all forms of independent art, while strongly discouraging popular centralized culture. Elaborate graffiti graces every city's streets, interior and exterior of factories, and, if people don't decorate their houses themselves, someone else does it overnight. The official color palette for ships, planes and vehicles is Three-Dimensional Graffiti, drawn by the crew, which has a side-effect of confusing (and sometimes sexually stimulating) the opponents. Independent bands of all sorts are playing in thousands of clubs all over the cities, on the streets, in the underground vaults, and every military ship (due to lack of strictly civilian ones) has a small rock club aboard.
Ideology
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Freedom of speech is held to its highest, and each citizen is entitled to a personal virtual server and yearly five minutes on one of the TV channels. Shows with explicitly insulting racist, ageist, elitist and counterelitist material, like Bigtopians Say the Darndest Things are among the most popular ones, and the public laughs upon everyone not excluding themselves.
The population of Vault 10 is widely recognized as being one of the most cynical in The World. All religious organizations are charged with spreading bogus theories, demanded to pay full taxes, and required to insert disclaimers that their preaches are not based on any facts, and as result there are none of them in Vault 10. People of the Vault have always maintained critical view on religion, but, however, it is not outlawed, and there is a church in Vault 10 - Church's Chicken fast food restaurant.
Since law system of Vault 10 is held as simple as possible, all sorts of morality-related laws have been removed long ago. Some nations have expressed concerns about morality of Vault 10, demanding their citizens to never come close to the borders of Vault 10 [1] or decided to wear "full body condoms"[2]. According to intelligence data, the latter are primitive spacesuits which have cameras and display instead of glass and microphone-headphones system, both of which are remotely controlled and are shut down by the Morality Observing Officer if he notices something inappropriate.
Defense and law enforcement
Defense budget of Vault 10 is 0 caps, which is fully sufficient to deter any nation from considering attack. Instead of centralized army Vault 10 relies on its corporations for defense. As the major export product is fully assembled nuclear missiles of all sorts, a few thousands of them are always waiting for customers in ready-to-fire condition. For other matters the official policy is "Government is not responsible for any use of rented weapons", and the corporations frequently rent weapons to proxy rogue states for 1 cap with condition to be immediately fired upon a specified target.
Internal crime defense relies on citizens themselves. Everyone receives army training, is encouraged to buy personal weapons, and anyone committing a crime can be legally killed on spot or hunted for joy and training. Cameras in public places have been banned, and it is illegal for police officers to directly carry out searches, so focus is on crime prevention and deterrence rather than prosecution. The nation's youth is held blameless for light crimes, and citizens are encouraged to prevent crimes and educate the young ones, which some of them do in very amusing ways, physically exhausting for both.
