Silath's Journal: Day 32 - November 19, 2281

We rested and napped for 5 hours, the entered Vault 11. At the entrance Veronica found an audio log among four rotting skeletons. The log was just several people (presumeably the four skeletons) arguing for a minute. It seemed they had entered a suicide pact. Gunshots rang out and the log ended.
The only inhabitants of the vault were mantis', rats, and skeletons. Something terrible had happened here. It was nothing like I imagined. Everything was rusting, rotting, peeling paint and burned out lights. Several of the hallways were collapsed and impassible.

There were a few terminals, and I pieced together what had happened at this vault. It seems they elected an overseer, who, at the end of their term (I'm not sure how long a term was) that overseer had to be sacrificed, or the vault would kill every one of it's inhabitants. There was evidence of some sort of battle; it seemed the different 'voting blocs' of the vault had finally come to arms.
The final overseer had issued a new decree; from after her term and sacrifice, all further overseers would be chosen by the random number generator of the vault's mainframe.

I could not understand. The vaults had been built to safeguard people, to allow humanity to survive the inevetible nuclear apocolypse. Why would the builders of the vault do this? Was it some sort of sick experiment? One of perhaps only dozens of safe havens left on earth and THEY PLAYED MIND GAMES.
What the fuck was wrong with these people? This was nightmare fuel. I just couldn't wrap my head around. They were playing with the goddamn fate of humanity! What. The. FUCK.

Veronica merely shook her head sadly. She said this was not the first time she'd heard of something like this; the brotherhood had records of many vaults being used to perform 'social experiments'. It seems that they had been designed to find the flaws of humanity, so that a repeat of the nuclear apocolypse would never happen.
Why is it that every asshole with power thinks they can fix people? That they can somehow engineer a better humanity. Every time they try, it just leads to horrific atrocities. It left me filled with rage. I just wanted to find the goddamn components and get out of that maze.

I stumbled across the password to the overseers terminal, and my curiosity just had to be slaked. I used it on the terminal and unlocked the 'Sacrificial Chamber.' It led to a long tunnel, filled with soft light, as a voice told me to 'Head towards the light', a door at the end opened, filled with brilliant, blinding light.
I was compelled forward. For better or worse the blinding light just ended up being a bunch of floodlight sets. Imagine the dissapoint the overseer would have felt? The tunnel led to a comfortable room, with a plush chair and a projector.
The voice urged me to sit, and then a slideshow started. The voice encouraged me to think about the good times in my life, and to be glad of my 'sacrifice for the greater good'. What a load of crock. It's always the same, just an excuse to persecute individuals without pissing off everyone else.

After that, the walls slid back and revealed several robots and laser turrets. Veronica and I took them out fairly easily. The door behind us had locked as soon as we entered, but behind the false walls was another door.
This one led to the vaults mainframe, which I promptly accessed. A simple command unlocked the door, setting us free, but there were also two audio logs. One of them was the haggard, tired voice of a man.

He claimed there were only five of them left (Five? There were only four corpses at the entrance...) and that they refused to play this insane game any longer. They refused to sacrifice any more people, no matter what the consequences may be.
The second recording broke my heart. It was the same voice that had played on the intercom in the sacrificial chamber. It commended the vault citizens for their refusal to sacrifice anyone. It said that they would not be exterminated, but it fact rewarded. It said the controls to open the vault door would be unlocked, and the citizens would be free to go.
It said that "Your comittment to human life is a shining example to us all."
No wonder they chose to kill themselves.

The entire thing had left me shaken, Veronica much less so than I. She dragged me out of the room and told me to snap out of it. We continued hunting for any of the components we needed, but I felt numb. For some reason, the events that had occured at this vault really hit me.
We wandered the tunnels for hours, frequently getting lost. At last we finally located a differential pressure controller, but neither of the other required components. It seemed we would have to move on the the next vault.

I cannot tell you how glad I was to see daylight once again. I dreaded heading to the next vault, would be perfectly happy in fact if we never saw one again. Veronica offered to go inside while I waited, but I told I would be alright.
The walk to Vault 3, to the northwest a little outside of New Vegas, refreshed me somewhat. We walked in silence, but I was able to clear my head pretty well. When we reached Vault 3, it was surrounded by raiders, and the battle pushed thoughts of Vault 11 out of my head.

The vault itself had been taken over by a band of raiders calling themselves 'The fiends'. An apt name, I suppose. At the entrance I was challenged by a fiend wearing a gas mask, I simply told her I was there to deliver some chems. She fell for it easily and told me to find Motorhead, their leader.
Vault 3 proved to be in much better condition than Vault 11, despite the fact raiders had torn it up a bit and painted graffiti all over the walls. Still, it was a lot more like I had imagined a vault to be.
We found Motorhead easily enough, deep down in a maintanence are. I noticed the reverse pulse cleaner on a shelf behind him, but no HEPA filters. I had a feeling, based on past experience, the only place in the entire wasteland we would find HEPA filters was the final vault.
We could have just taken the pulse cleaner and left. Instead, I put some buckshot into Motorheads skull. We had a chance to clean out these fuckers, the fiends, once and for all. I wasn't going to pass that up.

Veronica and I mowed down the fiends, their 5mm automatics and 20 gauge shotgun unable to pierce our armor. Actually it was kind of pathetic. It gave me some perspective on why the BoS so often behaved with such arrogance; it was easy to win battles when you were sheathed in slabs of steel and ceramic plate.
We did find a few prisoners the fiends had captured for some unknown purpose, and set them free. They quickly made thier way out. I also found a very nice, sexy dress while we were clearing bedrooms; when I gave it to Veronica she was ecstatic, and insisted that she teach me some close-combat manuevers to reciprocate the gift.

By the time we had checked and double checked each room and hallway, ensuring there were no surviving fiends, it was getting pretty late. Veronica and I made our way to the overseers office (which had remained locked, untouched by the fiends) and I hacked the terminal to unlock the door. We each settled into opposite sides of the pristine (though dusty and musty) bed and prepared for sleep.
I slipped out for a moment to record this and have a cigarete. I've decided to give myself a shot of Med-x as well. There were quite a few of them laying around, since the fiends are huge druggies. Heh... but I just want to enjoy the overseers room. I want to pretend that things are... nice. And I want to forget about Vault 11.