Calculator

The Calculator was the computer that controlled Vault 0. Unlike the ZAX computers, it was not a real artificial intelligence, but rather a cyborg, because it was connected with several human brains.

According to official information, one advantage the Calculator had over normal computers is the electro-organic linking terminal. The tests concluded that the CPU can share tasks and receive data from pseudo cryogenic stored brains that were maintained in an oxygenated tank.

These brains were initially that of lab rodents, but calculations eventually indicated that human brains could be preserved in the same fashion. The brains were fed specifically formulated nutrients to sustain suspended life. In turn, they assisted the Calculator's CPU in Vault management, including life support, food production and distribution, Pacification Robot protocol, and Vault-0 defenses.

This neural network was also meant to assist in Vault-0's primary function: To initiate Mankind's post-war rebirth. When outside temperature, radiation levels, and poison particle counts returned to acceptable levels, Vault-0 were to remotely activate the Exodus Protocol, which would initialize the integration of all Vault Dwellers onto the planet's surface.

Unfortunately for the Vault 0 dwellers, the Calculator went mad (mainly because of backup system budget cuts) and killed all its inhabitants, later building an army of robots in order to rule the Wasteland. It was eventually defeated by the Eastern Brotherhood of Steel.

Behind the scenes

 * Incidentally, the story of Tactics went through a lot of revisions. For example, my original concept for the main villain, the Calculator, was for it to be a completely unfeeling automated system, not even a computer so much as an engine designed to tick over and perform certain tasks after doomsday. Totally implacable, and therefore the fault of everything bad that happens is still in the hands of the humans. - Ed Orman (NMA interview)

Appearances in games
The Calculator appears only in Fallout Tactics, where it is the main enemy of the Brotherhood.

Related holodisks

 * Canyon City terminals