Vault 92

Vault 92 is a Vault-Tec Vault located in the Capital Wasteland in 2277. The world's best musicians were invited to Vault 92 with the promise to "preserve musical talent" during the Great War. In reality, this Vault was geared specifically for experimenting with white noise generators that implanted subliminal messages into the minds of its resident population. It is located northwest of the deathclaw-infested ruins of Old Olney.

Background
The construction of Vault 92 started in May 2062 and finished six years later, in 2068. Designed to hold 245 occupants for a projected duration of 100 years, the Vault was outfitted with a General Atomics International nuclear power reactor and a Brainpower 7 computer control system. To cater to the musicians selected for inclusion in the dweller ranks, the Vault was provided with a supply of sound equipment, musical instruments, and recording gear to facilitate the protection of the musical legacy of mankind and the United States.

The Vault also had a second, secret mission. Once the Vault was sealed on October 23, 2077, Overseer Richard Rubin began implementing Vault-Tec Confidential Plan WNMSCE (White Noise Mind Suggestion Combat Experimentation), an experiment designed to test the validity of implanting combat suggestions in human subjects through the use of modulated ultra low frequency white noise. The first limited tests carried out on isolated musicians in the sound booths were a success, with the dwellers remaining oblivious, save for the occasional odd pitch and other minor discrepancies on sound equipment. Relationships flourished, particularly the romance between violinist Hilda Egglebrecht and Parker Livingsteen, supervisor of the recording studios.

The success of the field tests encouraged Rubin to proceed with the outlined experiment. Together with Professor John Malleus and Section 4, the Overseer extended the reach of the White Noise. The emitters were wired into loudspeakers throughout the Vault, ostensibly inside soundproof recording studios, where white noise was overlaid with music playback. To ensure full exposure, Rubin blocked the distribution of personal sound players and headphones, to ensure that the musicians listen to music inside recording studios, with the white noise broadcast. He also had the white noise piped into living quarters, keeping the professor out of the loop.

Professor Malleus was oblivious to the true scope of the project. He congratulated his team when these first large scale tests revealed that 33% of subjects that lapsed into a trance-like state under the effects of white noise allowed the team to implement subtle, minor tics to verify the effectiveness of the suggestion. The effectiveness was close to 100%, with less than a 1% margin of error.

However, the success was only temporary. Soon, the first problems manifested, as one of the musicians (designated Subject V920717) went insane, murdering three other dwellers in a bloody rage, forcing the security team to put him down. He was only killed after receiving nearly twenty-three gunshot wounds. With no previous history of violence or mental instability, Professor Malleus began to question the effects of the white noise signal. To the Overseer, however, the loss of life was negligible and the behavior of the musician proof of the project's importance. The man offered increased strength, tenacity, and unflinching obedience to orders from authority. The experiments continued and the body was scheduled for an autopsy to identify the source of the problem. What no one knew is that the white noise signal was causing neurological changes inside the brains of the subjects, resulting in dizziness, nausea, and the gradual loss of higher cognition and motor control, sometimes leading to psychosis. To make things worse, the entire Vault was turning out to be a death trap. The location selected by Vault Tec lay dangerously close to underground water sources, causing gradual deterioration throughout the Vault. Corrosion spread through the pipes and installations, causing leaks and other damage. However, the worst damage was taking place in the lower levels, where the wall deterioration resulted in stress fractures and crumbling of concrete walls. Although the technical team reinforced the walls to the best of their ability, a more permanent solution was nowhere in sight.

The deterioration proved to be the least pressing problem: Within a month, another twelve incidents happened: Ten dwellers succumbed to the white noise signal's adverse effects, with seven fatalities; men torn limb from limb by once respected representatives of the musical profession. Malleus pleaded with the Overseer to abandon the project and salvage the situation. The Vault, isolated from the devastated outside world, was on its own. Rubin ignored the professor's pleas, dismissing the deaths as a necessary sacrifice. However, to prevent the spread of "insanity" through the Vault, he implemented a command phrase in the signal: Sanity is not statistical. It was meant to provide the guards with an easy pacification method against citizens afflicted with white noise.

However, this was not enough to prevent the situation from degenerating further. As 30% of the Vault's population (close to 70 people) was estimated by Malleus to be clinically insane and with 35 dead, the professor deemed the entire experiment a failure. He believed the white noise inadvertently resulted in the degeneration of humans into mindless brutes. The solution was as desperate as it was daring; Malleus proposed abandoning the Vault completely, as the situation became untenable and outright dangerous for the rest of the inhabitants. However, before they would go, the professor needed to learn the truth.

The Overseer refused to act according to the professor's plans. Even as he realized the command phrase ceased to work and he lost control of the situation, he refused to recognize the reality. Instead, he ordered his security force to kill Professor Malleus, in the vain hope that doing so would stop the violence from spreading. Some inhabitants took it upon themselves to organize and secure arms in the face of half the Vault going insane, but alas, it was too little, too late.

As the Vault crumbled around him and violence reached its apex, Malleus learned the truth, from a mortally wounded security guard. He understood that the experiment he helped carry out was always controlled by Overseer Rubin and that the White Noise emitters were hooked up throughout the dorms, rather than just the studios, leading to exposure in sleep. There were no controls or observation, which ended in a situation with half the Vault dead, the other half - lunatic and victim - fighting for dear life. Malleus did not believe Rubin's claims that the experiments were sanctioned by Vault-Tec and believed the Overseer to be insane. He decided to confront the Overseer and make him pay for his crimes.

The Vault deteriorated after the implosion of the project. With its maintenance crews dead, it succumbed to flooding from the underground lake. The once human shelter became a haven for all manner of animals and mutated creatures alike, littered with explosives, weapons, and bodies of its inhabitants.<!-- Old text for reference

The true purpose of Vault 92 was to act as a testing ground for the creation of "super soldiers" by way of "subliminal suggestion." By exposing the citizens of the Vault to white noise that contained hidden subconscious messages, the Vault overseer hoped to create soldiers that could be controlled through a form of hypnosis, thus fulfilling his orders from Vault-Tec. This research was then to be used for a project to create super soldiers who would be completely obedient and fight far more ferociously than normal humans. The Vault's lead researcher Professor Malleus was initially unaware that the overseer intended to use the research team's work to create soldiers, though he was aware the experiments were making the subjects suggestible and modifying their behavior. This is made clear by a series of recordings one can pick up throughout the Vault.

The recordings state that, although the experiment initially showed great promise, the most promising subject began exhibiting extreme, uncontrollable aggression and tore three people apart before the Vault's security team was forced to subdue him. It took 23 gunshots to finally take him down. Professor Malleus is horrified at this and cannot understand why a resident would act in such an extremely aggressive manner (as far as the doctor is concerned, the suggestions are limited to simple and harmless triggers like obsessive fixing of hair or constant ear scratching). A later log on the overseer's terminal shows that he intentionally placed a subliminal message in the resident to trigger a violent outburst, as a measure to see whether the command would be obeyed, how much damage he would do and how much punishment he would be able to survive before Vault security killed him. He expresses particular delight in the 20+ bullets required to stop the subject, stating that a whole army of soldiers implanted in such a fashion would be unstoppable.

This rage soon manifested in other subjects. One computer terminal contains the diary of one of the inhabitants, Zoe Hammerstein, who went mad because of the white noise. The diary shows her writing (specifically her spelling and grammar) degenerate, until her final entry, where she begs her friends for help in a sentence that is barely comprehensible.

Attempts by the Vault overseer to contain the situation (such as by programming code words into the subjects' implants in order to stop them) only worked briefly. Professor Malleus, the expert in charge of the white noise experiment, soon lost hope in the project and attempted several times to convince the overseer, Richard Rubin, to take the situation more seriously and even consider abandoning the Vault in light of the violent and savage behavior of the residents, not realizing what Rubin had done until it was too late. However, it seems that Rubin had Professor Malleus killed, based on evidence from a log on his computer terminal.

More than one-half of the Vault's population (according to Professor Malleus's V92-05 audio log) eventually became violently unstable and began slaughtering the rest of their fellow residents. A note titled "Feedback Loop" explains that the survivors yet untouched by the experiment made one last push for the escape, possibly explaining why the Vault door was left open. The "normal" Vault citizens made an attempt to stave off the crazed group, so there are frag mines scattered around the Vault. The skeletons of the presumed young lovers Hilda Egglebrecht and Parker Livingsteen can be found locked in the recording studio, a place where they once enjoyed accompanying each other greatly, according to notes left by Parker.

The heavy presence of the mirelurks is explained by a computer terminal in the lower, flooded parts of the Vault. Apparently, shortly before the "crazies" incident, there was an issue with one of the walls in that area, which had cracked because of a body of water nearby. The wall was repaired and given some minor reinforcements, but the chief engineer of the Vault, Carl Maynard, stated in this terminal that the repairs were only temporary and that a serious approach needed to be discussed. Nothing was done due to the mad inhabitants, and the wall there eventually broke, allowing the mirelurks to gain access to the Vault. -->

Layout
This Vault's upper levels are populated by bloatflies and lower levels are home to mirelurks. Depending on the player character's level, this could include mirelurk hunters and even mirelurk kings.

Activating the terminals in the living quarters and selecting "Noise Flush" will instantly kill all of the mirelurks in the area. No experience is given for doing so. This does not affect the mirelurks and bloatflies in other areas. The terminals have Average locks, but can be used without hacking if the entries in the computer terminal in the overseer's office are all read. They tell the password for the terminals. There is a raider farmhouse a short walk west of the Vault entrance.

Vault 92 entrance

 * Pre-War book - On a table in the Vault entrance area, next to Professor Malleus audio log V92-01.
 * Note "Feedback loops" in the atrium, on the floor next to a skeleton in the first hall after the rigged shotgun.
 * Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor - On the second floor, on the bottom level of a shelf behind the counter of the supply shop (Average locked door).

Overseer's office

 * Professor Malleus audio log V92-02 - On the desk in the bedroom in the first section of the area before reaching the actual overseer's office. It's the bedroom with the twin beds pushed together, last on the left if coming from the barricade.
 * Stealth Boy - On the overseer's desk.
 * Professor Malleus audio log V92-03 can be found inside the overseer's office on top of a table on the south wall next to Richard Rubin's terminal and three ammunition boxes.
 * Duck and Cover! and a pre-War book on the west wall bookshelf. It is in the same room as the Stealth Boy and three ammunition boxes.

Sound testing

 * Soil Stradivarius - A pre-War violin (pronounced "swal") on a desk in the recording studio. The door is accessible via a computer.
 * Three pre-War books:
 * One on a shelf in the northern room on the top floor.
 * One on a table in the eastern room of the top floor, next to "Zoe Hammerstein's terminal.”
 * One on a table in a room north of the room near the Soil Stradivarius. It is close to where the Stealth Boy is located, in the room with a Nuka-Cola vending machine.
 * Nikola Tesla and You - On a desk in the studio control room.
 * Professor Malleus audio log V92-06 - On the desk in the studio control room.
 * Professor Malleus audio log V92-05 - On the desk with a broken terminal in the classroom with the running projector.
 * Stealth Boy - To the west of this section behind a locked door (lock difficulty is level-dependent), in a small room with an Average random loot safe.

Living quarters

 * D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine - To the very south of the area, in a room which looks like an operating bay, on a desk next to a computer.
 * Professor Malleus audio log V92-04 - On a table just outside of the room containing the D.C. Journal of Medicine.
 * Nuka-Cola Quantum - Down the stairs near the southeast corner of the top floor, in the first room on the right on a desk next to a computer. It is visible from the hall through a window.
 * Sheet music book - In one of the bathroom stalls, in the furthest right toilet in the male dorms, toward the western side of the top floor.
 * Key code to data storage and note next to Jon Adiglio's body in the male dorm closet. Look below the rigged shotgun next to the Easy locked safe.

Related quests

 * Agatha's Song

Appearances
Vault 92 appears only in Fallout 3.

Behind the scenes

 * The phrase "Sanity is not statistical," is a reference to George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four. This phrase is the codeword used to stop the "crazies," and is found on the overseer's terminal.
 * Gordon Sumner is the name of the musician Sting.
 * Zoe Hammerstein gets her name from Broadway lyricist and songwriter Oscar Hammerstein II. The GNR song "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" is from the Rogers & Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
 * Richard Rubin's name is an homage to music producer Rick Rubin.
 * Zoe Hammerstein's diary mentions that they had played Haydn's Symphony No. 3 in D minor but the symphony was originally written in the keys of G major and G minor.

Bugs

 * Near the entrance to the overseer's office, a cabinet and two tables are blocking the way. This is easy to get around, but care must be taken not to jump into the space between them because the character can get stuck and make it impossible to get out without means of a previous save (on PC, console commands such as can be used).
 * Jumping on top of the dresser between the two beds in the room with two terminals just outside the overseer's office can cause one to become stuck in the ceiling.