Calculator

The Calculator is the nexus of Vault 0, controlling its every aspect, designed to spearhead humanity's reemergence into the post-nuclear America. Designed before the ZAX series entered the field, the Calculator is not an actual artificial intelligence, but a supercomputer using organic human brains for processing power.

Origin
To coordinate the effort and control the functioning of the Vault, the Calculator was created as an advanced supercomputer using an electro-organic terminal to link its central processing unit to brain stored in pseudo-cryonic conditions, fed specifically formulated nutrients to sustain suspended life. This scheme was intended to assist the Calculator in Vault management, including life support, food production and distribution, pacification robot protocol, and Vault 0 defenses. Ultimately, it would also aid in executing the Exodus Protocol when outisde temperatures, radiation levels and poison particle counts returned to normal.

However, these lofty goals were compromised. Before the Great War broke out, the committee responsible for managing the construction of Vault 0 introduced budget cuts (by a 30-3 majority, no less), reducing the sum allocated for computer backup systems from 24 billion dollars to 2.3 billion, to cover pay increases of senior committee members. Additional plans called for a modification of compartments that were designated for backup computer and life support systems into senior vault personnel leisure facilities, including several top quality restaurants with 10,000 square feet of cold storage, seven smoke rooms with piano bars and two subterranean hunting grounds stocked with rare animals purchased from world renowned zoos. The renovation had a projected cost of 12.4 billion dollars. All due to a "dwindling" chance of nuclear war ever taking place.

On October 23rd, 2077, history proved them wrong. As the nuclear devastation reduced the United States of America to ash, the Calculator ended up in what can be best called a slumber. It did not react to the nuclear holocaust, instead silently remaining hidden beneath Cheyenne Mountain, along with its robotic servants and pre-War charges slumbering in cryonic suspension. It slept for over a century.

It all changed in 2196, when a group of super mutants from Gammorin's forces breached Vault 0's perimeter. This action activated the Emergency Pacification Protocol, designed as contingency in the event of substantial foreign military presence on US soil, dangerous mutations or breach in the Vault's defenses. The Calculator promptly introduced the invaders to a behemoth and began executing routines included in the protocol. The awakening of the Calculator also exposed the blunders made by the committee overseeing its construction. The lack of backup computer systems impaired its functioning and damaged the electro-organic linking terminal resulting in 63% of Vault 0's population dead, with a further 15% suffering from severe brain damage, to the point of being unable to care for themselves. Among the dead were First Scientist Napstarsky and Second Scientist Jones, the only people able to repair the damage. Constrained by its inflexible programming and lack of actual intelligence, the Calculator coldly executed the Pacification Protocol, expanding its operations into the Buena Vista nuclear reactor complex and industrial facilities in Canyon City and Great Bend to augment the Vault's own production capabilities.

Menace from the West
Soon, the Chicago region was full of rumors of a Menace from the West, coming to exterminate all life, clashing with raider tribes, settlements and super mutants in its march east of the Rockies. The Calculator discovered a useful ally in a captured Brotherhood of Steel General, Simon Barnaky, who was transformed into a humanoid robobrain and began his service to the Calculator as its adviser and guardian.

Although the Calculator had begun rapid expansion and had attempted to eliminate the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, Vault 0 was breached by Brotherhood forces led by the Warrior. There, the Warrior defeated the robots and Simon Barnaky's new form, and entered the Calculator chamber. The eight brains crucial to the Calculator were destroyed, so the Calculator required a new brain to continue to function. From here on, the Warrior had three choices, which determined the game's ending.
 * Merge with the Calculator, taking control of it and using its resources for the Brotherhood.
 * Allow Simon Barnaky to merge with the Calculator, which would result in a new Brotherhood of Steel and anti-mutant regime.
 * Do nothing, allowing the Calculator to shut down forever, or destroy it entirely.


 * Calculator's robots


 * Calculator's brains

Appearances
The Calculator appears in Fallout Tactics and is mentioned in the Fallout Bible and Fallout: Wasteland Warfare.