Not to mention that the show (and the games as well to be fair) has consistently shown average Vault Dwellers (especially 2 centuries after the War) to be pretty dumb
Communal living and fed propaganda not just their entire lives, but their parents and grand parents generation as well.
Frankly I'm surprised hiw many vaults that open up to the wasteland dont get wiped out out due to their immune systens getting compromised. It would certainly be as suitable an ending as getting merc'd by raiders or wiped out by their own vault experiments.
On the immune system thing, its because theyre actually 100 years more advanced than youd think in the area of medicine and a lot of their pharmacology is legitimately magically effective.
Docs literally cure addiction with a one time pill. Medicine is magic in fallout. Stimpaks a magic goo that fixes everything? Actual drugs that slow time???
It's not just that the show makes it pretty clear the vault dwellers in 32/33 are intentionally breed and raised to be perfect subordinates to the managers.
Some of the smartest people I know are really dumb. I like to say some people are so smart that theyāre stupid. Itās like being smart in one way sucks it up from other places in their brain lol
Can you imagine how little media awareness that would grant?
Almost certainly not. None of us can. We've been consuming media constantly our entire lives, endlessly.
These are the people who would stick their face right up to "leathery objects, eggs or something" because they have never seen Alien or anything remotely related to it - and who can blame them? How could they see it coming?
While there is a networked computer system, storage is still magnetic tape and large platters. They have vinyl records, holotapes, and physical books. Imagine how limited that library is. No wonder it feels.like such a sheltered culture.
Hey the flashbacks in Season One heavily hinted at a new HUAC-style problem in Hollywood - I was impressed they actually went there. So most of Pre-War US Media had that sort of selection before the bombs fell.
Yeah these are sheltered people who expect the best in others. A society where there no lies. Hell you can see something similar today where people will defend cops for doing shitty things because its the "rules". The vault dwellers live in a black and white society and the oversear has more colors in her palette than black and white.
To add on to this, the entire point of Vault 32 and 33 is (was?) to create loyal, unquestioning worker drones for Bud's Buds new world order. They're probably all on the same level as a kindergartner when it comes to media literacy and critical thinking by design. Worker drones need to be naive and complacent. When they're not, Vault 32 happens.
These people have trouble with turning left instead of right... they are drones who've never had to (or been allowed to) think before.
Just because all their stuff is bright and clean doesn't mean they have all the mental capacity of the old world (who all seemed pretty stepford-brainwashed too). They're basically mentally stunted children cosplaying the old civilization.
There is a reason wastelanders always see vault dwellers as hopelessly clueless.
I just watched Severance and in this instance he's basically literally an innie, no outside world experience, inherently trusting of his superior, and by the book.
Everyone in that vault other than Betty, Steph, and Hank aren't supposed to be smart or independent thinkers, they've been bred and raised to be Middle managers. It's a culture built on centuries of conditioning to be unquestioning bureaucrats and perfect office drones for a dead corporation.
Which is also why they dont know how ro engineer a replacement or a new solution for the water chip. Not enough challenge and not thinking for thenselves. Hell the inbred support group is probably their first real taste of rebellion.
Tbh nobody irl is gonna figure that out unless they're specifically trained to know how to engineer something like that. Vault-tec should've just included a water chip manufacturing manual
What ive taken from it all, especially reg being a PhD in event planning.... is that maybe every generation the kids get a degree or whatever in a different niche thing like event planning with the hopes that over all the years they breed q lime of managers who naturally have all these skills cause "its in there blood"
I think it's very apt for set of Vaults made to bring a new generation of "elite" managers into the world has created people who can't get it around their heads what their lefts and rights are when switching Vaults
Davey has probably been making the same turns on a daily basis for decades.
If only married couples get their own apartment he may have inherited his parentās apartment when they passed, so it could have been literally his entire life.
Leer Leary appears to be in his 60s (or rather, heās the spitting image of my mid-60s uncle but with better hair), so potentially Davey has been making two left and a right for six-plus decades.
I get that one. If you lived in what is essentially a big house and could never leave, you would completely explore and memorize every inch by the time you were able to talk, probably operate on autopilot by the time youāre an adult. Then you get moved into an identical house but everything is mirrored, it would take years to unlearn the conditioning
Yeah. The overseers are all Vault Tec management too. Easy to see that they'd instill a sense of unquestioning loyalty into the vaulties, breeding that yes-man mentality of their pre-war subordinates. This is probably the first time dude spoke up against authority in his entire life lol
He's biggest concern during the raider attack was telling the 2 people to get the jello cake out of the main room, not that they're under attack and to go hide.
He was raised in a worry-free environment and doesn't know what to do when something happens that he's not use to or told how to react.
This. Her mother [and her sibling(s)] likely had DNA from a previous overseer. Hank was likely matched with her on purpose.
Hank was awoken maybe, 30 years ago? He looks to have aged about that much from where we saw him in 2077.
Their mother was the culmination of at least 180+ years of the program running.
Ronnie mentions there are phases to this experiment. Was Hank becoming overseer at the time he didāapart of this?
Perhaps, Lucy, Norm and Chet are the first successful batch of āsuper managersā. Though Iād wager it was their mother that wouldāve been the signifier of a change.
Unfortunately, Bud isnāt using boredom, restlessness and a desire to leave the Vault as indicators of a successful batch. Itās why they struggled with Norm so much, and had to lock down the Vault when their mom left. Theyād rather punish this behaviorāwhich proves itās not a metric theyāve considered for the kind of super managerās they desire.
Bud definitely thought time would do a lot of his heavy lifting for him, not considering the breakthrough would come with the first dweller unable to mindlessly follow. Heād hoped he could have a succinct business people like Hank (and himself in his own mind)ānot actualizing his own ruthlessness, pettiness and lack of empathy as traits desired. Hilariously, thatās why Bud is a roomba now and Hank isnāt.
Everyone saying this is how dumb the average Vault dweller is as a result of no true life experience, meanwhile in 81 everyone seems fully competent and comprehending of risks outside of their insular community. I think this is just a result of managementās breeding experiment.
Yeah, the Vaults we see are certainly still taking part in the experiments, while Vault 81 just stopped it and focused on doing their best. Pretty big difference there
Itās funny watching him in Fallout being an obedient sheep unaware of the danger heās in, vs seeing him in Severance where heās willing to risk his own life to take down the oppressive system.
It's too early to tell overall, but at least currently he seems to be a metaphor for the folks who witness their leaders doing wrong, but is so faithful to/brainwashed by the system that he also believes that the only way he can fix things is by working within the system and following the "proper channels". For some reason it reminded me of this meme I saw a while back that said something along the lines of "if you sit down for a game of chess and your opponent punches you in the face, you're not going to prevail by getting better at chess".
I adore the portrayal of most vault dwellers as naive, coddled idiots. Even Lucy doing some of the dumbest things every episode feels is accurate to how vault dwellers.
Is it really that shocking? Most Vaults don't want people who are too independent because it makes it harder to conduct their experiments. Lucy and Norm are different seemingly because their parents taught them critical thinking
He's a sheltered vault dweller with poor social skills. They're all like this. He's not dumb so much as he is clueless. Same way Lucy is bright but hilariously, deeply naive.
Gotta remember that majority of everyone in that vault were raised to have optimistic naive mindsets. And dosnt think steph wont get rid of him if he dosn't stop snooping. He was smart he would have kept his mouth shut about what he heard.
Ya'll laugh, but it's accurate symbolism for the bad cops/officers shitshow we have going on. People trying to do the correct thing, but the system is rigged so.... war never changes.
Honestly kinda seemed like he said that in front of Chet intentionally to let Chet know something finicky is going on in the vault. Maybe Iām just giving the guy more credit than he deserves, but him saying that ultimately is helpful for what Iām sure is gonna be a storyline of Chet questioning whatās happening in the vault and eventually digging up what the vaultās experiment actually is.
Thatās the thing about being in control, you control the education of the system it leaves them more vulnerable to be controlled since they donāt know more than you let them know. Hell by Vault Tech standards, itās probably a word only reserved for a select few so no one picks up on the experiment being conducted
Back around the early 2000s, I was in some online roleplaying fallout group, and I created a faction based on corporate structure (since I was just starting to work in it at the time). They were basically travelling insurance salesmen that were also a raider gang. I thought the idea of a pre-war insurance company banking on the ultimate end of the world to be too funny.
I treated the leaders like the cast of Better Off Ted.
You know, matching blazers.
Anyway - that's how I'm seeing Norm's new group.
(Also theory - Norm's group is totally the mind-controlled corporate types working for Hank in the season trailer)
I do like that Bud's Buds is basically full of assistants, new hires, and interns. Sort of a group of wannabe middle managers.
For all their flaws, Dane (wish Maximus would listen to him more), that NCR lady, Norm as was mentioned, Hank is fairly smart all things consiered as well. Betty is smart as well, just struggling for being surrounded by idiots
The only person in the Vault the viewer can respect with any modicum of decent is Norm. The entire Vault storyline exists as a vehicle to make incest jokes and jokes about being naive. That's pretty much the entire Vault's purpose. They didn't think there was enough people being naive in the Vault storyline- which is mind-boggling to me, because there is no one the viewer can respect in the Vault already- and so they created a second sub-plot with Bud's Buds, to really double down and triple down on naivety jokes.
What is he supposed to do?
He doesnt have your knowledge of media or understanding of science fiction.
Nothing in his experience has prepared him for a situation like this.
Smart people can do pretty dumb things sometimes. It's amazing how people forget that.
Not to mention that the show (and the games as well to be fair) has consistently shown average Vault Dwellers (especially 2 centuries after the War) to be pretty dumb
I mean they have 0 world experience. Their entire lives have been lived ina communal living community.
Dudes never even seen the sky, much less developed an idea of what corruption looks like.
Communal living and fed propaganda not just their entire lives, but their parents and grand parents generation as well.
Frankly I'm surprised hiw many vaults that open up to the wasteland dont get wiped out out due to their immune systens getting compromised. It would certainly be as suitable an ending as getting merc'd by raiders or wiped out by their own vault experiments.
On the immune system thing, its because theyre actually 100 years more advanced than youd think in the area of medicine and a lot of their pharmacology is legitimately magically effective.
Docs literally cure addiction with a one time pill. Medicine is magic in fallout. Stimpaks a magic goo that fixes everything? Actual drugs that slow time???
No the drugs that slow tike increase your brain activity to a point it appears slow. Only your pip boy can stop time.
Also radiated human tissue can be unirradiated with simple injections.
They are quite literally sheltered
Yeah they're in a fallout Shelter
\say that again gif**
It's not just that the show makes it pretty clear the vault dwellers in 32/33 are intentionally breed and raised to be perfect subordinates to the managers.
Some of the smartest people I know are really dumb. I like to say some people are so smart that theyāre stupid. Itās like being smart in one way sucks it up from other places in their brain lol
Book smarts vs street smarts
Gotta find that balance
Being smart never stopped anyone from being stupid
Yep, like how one of the guys who cracked the helix code (James Watson) claimed black people were genetically wired to be stupider than white people.
[deleted]
They did credit her and cited her work in their famous papers.Ā
He watched about 15 movies though.
Can you imagine how little media awareness that would grant?
Almost certainly not. None of us can. We've been consuming media constantly our entire lives, endlessly.
These are the people who would stick their face right up to "leathery objects, eggs or something" because they have never seen Alien or anything remotely related to it - and who can blame them? How could they see it coming?
Its essentially unthinkable to modern people.
While there is a networked computer system, storage is still magnetic tape and large platters. They have vinyl records, holotapes, and physical books. Imagine how limited that library is. No wonder it feels.like such a sheltered culture.
Oh look at that I made a pun.
Also their media would have been selected by Vault Tec pretty carefully to ensure no 'rogue ideas' found their way into the mix.
Hey the flashbacks in Season One heavily hinted at a new HUAC-style problem in Hollywood - I was impressed they actually went there. So most of Pre-War US Media had that sort of selection before the bombs fell.
15 carefully curated movies, designed to instill obedience to authority.
Yeah these are sheltered people who expect the best in others. A society where there no lies. Hell you can see something similar today where people will defend cops for doing shitty things because its the "rules". The vault dwellers live in a black and white society and the oversear has more colors in her palette than black and white.
To add on to this, the entire point of Vault 32 and 33 is (was?) to create loyal, unquestioning worker drones for Bud's Buds new world order. They're probably all on the same level as a kindergartner when it comes to media literacy and critical thinking by design. Worker drones need to be naive and complacent. When they're not, Vault 32 happens.
Well I'm sure he's seen at least 15 movies
Well tbf, Norm would probably not do that. And they both grew up in the same vault
Norm takes from his father.
These people have trouble with turning left instead of right... they are drones who've never had to (or been allowed to) think before.
Just because all their stuff is bright and clean doesn't mean they have all the mental capacity of the old world (who all seemed pretty stepford-brainwashed too). They're basically mentally stunted children cosplaying the old civilization.
There is a reason wastelanders always see vault dwellers as hopelessly clueless.
I just watched Severance and in this instance he's basically literally an innie, no outside world experience, inherently trusting of his superior, and by the book.
Everyone in that vault other than Betty, Steph, and Hank aren't supposed to be smart or independent thinkers, they've been bred and raised to be Middle managers. It's a culture built on centuries of conditioning to be unquestioning bureaucrats and perfect office drones for a dead corporation.
Which is also why they dont know how ro engineer a replacement or a new solution for the water chip. Not enough challenge and not thinking for thenselves. Hell the inbred support group is probably their first real taste of rebellion.
Tbh nobody irl is gonna figure that out unless they're specifically trained to know how to engineer something like that. Vault-tec should've just included a water chip manufacturing manual
As a tech writer...
Nobody reads the manual.
(Also the chip probably wasn't tested for 200 years of operation)
If I have to read the manual, thereās a design flaw in the product
If you wite it for milestone VMS software updates then i ha e a bine to pick!
If not then carry on, but do know a few of us have to read them when digging into an issue so its not all wasted
What ive taken from it all, especially reg being a PhD in event planning.... is that maybe every generation the kids get a degree or whatever in a different niche thing like event planning with the hopes that over all the years they breed q lime of managers who naturally have all these skills cause "its in there blood"
Their parents were also cousins too
Lifetime of propaganda
More lifetime of cousin luvin.š
Little of column A, little of column B...
Thereās a support group for that
I think it's very apt for set of Vaults made to bring a new generation of "elite" managers into the world has created people who can't get it around their heads what their lefts and rights are when switching Vaults
I honestly had not made this connection and it just gave me the biggest smile.
Thanks for that.
XD
We laugh but it would be lowkey annoying when you're walking on autopilot.
Davey has probably been making the same turns on a daily basis for decades.
If only married couples get their own apartment he may have inherited his parentās apartment when they passed, so it could have been literally his entire life.
Leer Leary appears to be in his 60s (or rather, heās the spitting image of my mid-60s uncle but with better hair), so potentially Davey has been making two left and a right for six-plus decades.
I mean I moved 6 months ago and still sometimes drive to my old apartmentĀ
I get that one. If you lived in what is essentially a big house and could never leave, you would completely explore and memorize every inch by the time you were able to talk, probably operate on autopilot by the time youāre an adult. Then you get moved into an identical house but everything is mirrored, it would take years to unlearn the conditioning
Some inbreeding and being raised entirely in an environment free of genuine challenges, An Everybody Gets a Trophy cradle-to-grave society
Yeah. The overseers are all Vault Tec management too. Easy to see that they'd instill a sense of unquestioning loyalty into the vaulties, breeding that yes-man mentality of their pre-war subordinates. This is probably the first time dude spoke up against authority in his entire life lol
There's no HR to bring up an ethics complaint :)
He's biggest concern during the raider attack was telling the 2 people to get the jello cake out of the main room, not that they're under attack and to go hide.
He was raised in a worry-free environment and doesn't know what to do when something happens that he's not use to or told how to react.
theyre raised meek and compliant. the only reason lucy and norm are different is because hank is different
Somehow Chet is also a bit different, but that could come from being around Lucy/Norm so much
AND - somehow - their mother was different. Perhaps she was the offspring of one of the former Overseers.
This. Her mother [and her sibling(s)] likely had DNA from a previous overseer. Hank was likely matched with her on purpose.
Hank was awoken maybe, 30 years ago? He looks to have aged about that much from where we saw him in 2077.
Their mother was the culmination of at least 180+ years of the program running.
Ronnie mentions there are phases to this experiment. Was Hank becoming overseer at the time he didāapart of this?
Perhaps, Lucy, Norm and Chet are the first successful batch of āsuper managersā. Though Iād wager it was their mother that wouldāve been the signifier of a change.
Unfortunately, Bud isnāt using boredom, restlessness and a desire to leave the Vault as indicators of a successful batch. Itās why they struggled with Norm so much, and had to lock down the Vault when their mom left. Theyād rather punish this behaviorāwhich proves itās not a metric theyāve considered for the kind of super managerās they desire.
Bud definitely thought time would do a lot of his heavy lifting for him, not considering the breakthrough would come with the first dweller unable to mindlessly follow. Heād hoped he could have a succinct business people like Hank (and himself in his own mind)ānot actualizing his own ruthlessness, pettiness and lack of empathy as traits desired. Hilariously, thatās why Bud is a roomba now and Hank isnāt.
Idiot savant perk
Propaganda, they are kept stupid. They are raised to be complient and to trust their leadsership.
Its all about control.
They're raised to always do the right thing, which might make them compliant super mutants soon.
Would've been the perfect vault for the Master
he's literally brought up on propaganda in a closed environment, what do you want from him?
If he isn't dead soon, I'm going to be shocked.
Because they've been breeding people for middle management.
Vaulties are naive. Simple.
He's a Vaultie.
Dylan G got severed twice.
He's a vault dweller......
Everyone saying this is how dumb the average Vault dweller is as a result of no true life experience, meanwhile in 81 everyone seems fully competent and comprehending of risks outside of their insular community. I think this is just a result of managementās breeding experiment.
Yeah, the Vaults we see are certainly still taking part in the experiments, while Vault 81 just stopped it and focused on doing their best. Pretty big difference there
Like I understand why they did that as like a character choice but that didn't stop me from yelling THIS DUDES A FUCKIN IDIOT at my roommate hahaha
Itās funny watching him in Fallout being an obedient sheep unaware of the danger heās in, vs seeing him in Severance where heās willing to risk his own life to take down the oppressive system.
It's too early to tell overall, but at least currently he seems to be a metaphor for the folks who witness their leaders doing wrong, but is so faithful to/brainwashed by the system that he also believes that the only way he can fix things is by working within the system and following the "proper channels". For some reason it reminded me of this meme I saw a while back that said something along the lines of "if you sit down for a game of chess and your opponent punches you in the face, you're not going to prevail by getting better at chess".
I'm guessing that post was about the leadership of the Democratic Party in the US.
Aye, Captain!
What's funny to me as a watcher of Severance is that his Innie is smarter lmao
He's lawful good to the point of ignorance
Indoctrination is a Hell of a drug.
these people were literally bred and raised to be obedient, rule following nothing people. they donāt know any better
Between Fallout and Severance this actor has āweirdly sheltered dude,ā down!
Inbreeding
He allocated all his SPECIAL points to Strength and Endurance.
3 INT
I love that they made him a mixed balding chuddy buddy with no self awareness it's adorable
Mr milchick wont like this one bit
Because funny
I adore the portrayal of most vault dwellers as naive, coddled idiots. Even Lucy doing some of the dumbest things every episode feels is accurate to how vault dwellers.
1 INT
Tudo culpa da Lumon.
Look, man. He's just trying to earn the Waffle Party. He doesn't know that he's not supposed to do this.
He's no Dylan for sure.
Dylan G the GOAT
honestly iām sure they will use him more because aināt he in one of the main characters in severance?
Is it really that shocking? Most Vaults don't want people who are too independent because it makes it harder to conduct their experiments. Lucy and Norm are different seemingly because their parents taught them critical thinking
He probably has the idiot savant perk?
He's a sheltered vault dweller with poor social skills. They're all like this. He's not dumb so much as he is clueless. Same way Lucy is bright but hilariously, deeply naive.
he is doing a 2 INT playthrough man, give him a break.
Gotta remember that majority of everyone in that vault were raised to have optimistic naive mindsets. And dosnt think steph wont get rid of him if he dosn't stop snooping. He was smart he would have kept his mouth shut about what he heard.
Ya'll laugh, but it's accurate symbolism for the bad cops/officers shitshow we have going on. People trying to do the correct thing, but the system is rigged so.... war never changes.
The people who control the message dictate that white men can only be stupid or evil in the Fallout universe.Ā Ā
Honestly kinda seemed like he said that in front of Chet intentionally to let Chet know something finicky is going on in the vault. Maybe Iām just giving the guy more credit than he deserves, but him saying that ultimately is helpful for what Iām sure is gonna be a storyline of Chet questioning whatās happening in the vault and eventually digging up what the vaultās experiment actually is.
Thatās the thing about being in control, you control the education of the system it leaves them more vulnerable to be controlled since they donāt know more than you let them know. Hell by Vault Tech standards, itās probably a word only reserved for a select few so no one picks up on the experiment being conducted
You can ask this same question about any character in this series
That's just how people are in this show
Name one intelligent character in this show so far, except the ghoul and possibly Lucy.
Norm definitely has high inteligence and luck
He clocked the raiders immediately but he was also a coward.
i like norm tho
Oh yeah. His arc is realizing where he is brave and capable.
i can't wait to see how he leads the vault-tec staff XD
Back around the early 2000s, I was in some online roleplaying fallout group, and I created a faction based on corporate structure (since I was just starting to work in it at the time). They were basically travelling insurance salesmen that were also a raider gang. I thought the idea of a pre-war insurance company banking on the ultimate end of the world to be too funny.
I treated the leaders like the cast of Better Off Ted.
You know, matching blazers.
Anyway - that's how I'm seeing Norm's new group.
(Also theory - Norm's group is totally the mind-controlled corporate types working for Hank in the season trailer)
I do like that Bud's Buds is basically full of assistants, new hires, and interns. Sort of a group of wannabe middle managers.
For all their flaws, Dane (wish Maximus would listen to him more), that NCR lady, Norm as was mentioned, Hank is fairly smart all things consiered as well. Betty is smart as well, just struggling for being surrounded by idiots
The only person in the Vault the viewer can respect with any modicum of decent is Norm. The entire Vault storyline exists as a vehicle to make incest jokes and jokes about being naive. That's pretty much the entire Vault's purpose. They didn't think there was enough people being naive in the Vault storyline- which is mind-boggling to me, because there is no one the viewer can respect in the Vault already- and so they created a second sub-plot with Bud's Buds, to really double down and triple down on naivety jokes.
I kinda liked their cousin, especially his point at the end of season 1: "We're all cowards, we're vault dwellers."
His intelligence just matches that of the writers that's all
Because a character is only as smart as their writer. This season is not great.