The universe of Fallout is crammed with intriguing concepts and lore. The Amazon Prime series explores this world in great detail for the first moment of episode 1.
Adapted from the Bethesda game series of the same name, Fallout takes place in a world rocked by nuclear… well, fallout. Fear of nuclear war created an industry of Vaults, where rich people could buy a spot and wait out the radiation. The television series doesn’t indicate exactly how many Vaults there are, but we can guess there are quite a few.
Two centuries after the first bombs dropped, Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) still lives underground with her family. She is the descendent of one of the elite who could afford to live unground. Hailing from Vault 33, Lucy is raised to believe in the integrity of the Vaults and is committed to performing her duty of procreation to further the human race.
If all goes according to plan, her children will allegedly be the first generation that can go above ground. Of course, this isn’t necessarily the case. The human race has survived above ground without the Vault dwellers saving them. Lucy and her family get a closer look at this in episode 1 when Raiders from the outside world infiltrate their home as dwellers of another Vault.
What happened to Vault 32 in ‘Fallout’?
Vault 32 is one of the many Vaults underground that house and protect humanity from radiation. However, unlike Lucy’s Vaut 33, Vault 32 was not as fortunate. Lucy lives in relative comfort where she is from. Her Vault grows a substantial amount of crops, and she enjoys gymnastics, rifle practice, and a comfortable home life. The only thing missing is furthering the human race. Despite her assets, like healthy reproductive organs, Lucy has not found a marital match. To rectify this, she applies for a marriage with an unknown suitor from Vault 32. Her marriage will come with trade to the neighboring Vault.
Lucy gets approved for this marriage, but not everything is as it seems. Unbeknownst to her, her potential husband is not actually from Vault 32. Sometime before the events of the series, the Vault failed, and the inhabitants started to turn on each other. Because of a lack of resources, they had to resort to murder and cannibalism to survive. That’s when Raiders from the outside world took advantage of the weakness of the Vault.
They infiltrate Vault 32 and impersonate the dwellers to invade Vault 33 during Lucy’s marriage pact. Once this is discovered, it results in a blood bath between the two camps. A small faction of Vault 33 survives, but 32 is a thing of the past. This is just one of many reasons why Vault life is ultimately unsustainable. Concerns of taboos such as cannibalism and incest are an eventuality when only a small portion of humanity is allowed to live. But then again, it wouldn’t be very fun if everything went according to plan.