Vault 11 terminal entries (2024)

Dear Fellow Vault Dweller:

Congratulations! Your dedication to the democratic process is the bedrock upon which the continued stability of Vault 11 is based. Now, to help you make your decision for this year's election, the Coalition of Vault 11 Voting Blocs has put together this handy Dweller's Official Guide to Obtaining Overseers Democratically, or D.O. G.O.O.D., that contains a summary of the leading candidates for Overseer as well as their statements, key positions, and most importantly, endorsem*nts.

Sincerely,

Roy Gottlieb
Chairman, Coalition of Vault 11 Voting Blocs
President, Justice Bloc

Candidate: Henry Glover
Endorsem*nts: Utilitarian Bloc, Divine Will Bloc, Allied Service Workers Bloc
I'm a devoted husband and father of six beautiful children. My oldest, Sam, was on the honor roll this quarter, and I couldn't be prouder of him. My youngest, Henry Jr., just said his first word, and it was "Da-da." We've got this bond already and he's still just a baby. Friends, when you go to the polls this election, I want you to think of your own children. Then I want you to think of Sam and Henry Jr. Picture their faces. Nate Stone should be overseer, not me.

Candidate: Donna Haley
Endorsem*nts: Human Dignity Bloc, United Vault Technicians Bloc
I'm aware of the rumors circulating about me. I want everyone to know that they are vicious lies being spread by the other candidates in a desperate smear campaign. I have never in my life done anything so depraved, let alone four such things. But even if I had, that still wouldn't mean you should vote for me. Consider the fact that I am grossly underqualified for the position, and that both of my opponents are far more deserving. I know nothing about governance. You would be hard pressed to find a worse candidate than me. I can promise you my administration would be a disaster.

Candidate: Nathan Stone
Endorsem*nts: Justice Bloc
This is ridiculous. I shouldn't even be a candidate. And I wouldn't be if it weren't for all the dirty backroom politics going on around here. It's sickening. You should all be ashamed.

Fellow Citizens,

Due to the tragic events of the past few days, the Coalition of Vault 11 Voting Blocs has unanimously decided to postpone the election for overseer pending further investigation into the murders. Your security team wishes you to know that they are working tirelessly day and night to find the perpetrator, and are already following up on a number of promising leads. God willing, if the killer is apprehended swiftly, we may have found a promising new candidate for overseer.

Sincerely,
Terry Hart
President, Human Dignity Bloc

Effective immediately, the traditional selection process for overseer is hereby ended. In lieu of a yearly election, a citizen will be chosen one month prior to the start of his or her term with our mainframe's random number generator, ensuring complete impartiality and fairness.

Katherine Stone
Overseer

Excerpt from the deposition of the defendant Katherine Stone by Vault Attorney Gerard Miles

Q. Okay, let's pick up where we left off, Kate.
A. Katherine.
Q. Sorry, right. Katherine. I keep forgetting.
A. My husband calls me Kate.
Q. You were telling us of a discussion you allegedly had with Roy Gottlieb of the Justice Bloc.
A. Not allegedly. Had. We've been through this.
Q. It's still just your word against his, Ms. Stone. But please, the discussion.
A. [Sighs] He said my husband's name had come up in their meetings.
Q. The candidate endorsem*nt meetings?
A. Yes. They were going to endorse him. He wouldn't say why, but I know my husband had a regular poker game with some of them, and he'd been on a winning streak lately.
Q. And according to you, what did Mr. Gottlieb offer?
A. He said he could sway his bloc. Prevent the endorsem*nt. But only if I...
Q. Only if you what, Katherine?
A. Only if I...
Q. Only if you performed sexual favors.
A. Yes.
Q. Was this just for Mr. Gottlieb?
A. No. All the bloc leadership. Their friends.
Q. And you agreed.
A. What else could I do? They had a majority.
Q. How long did this go on before the endorsem*nts came out?
A. I don't know. A month, maybe.
Q. And when they came out, and your husband was endorsed despite your supposed agreement, was that when you decided to kill members of the bloc?
A. Yes. I thought, their majority is pretty slim. If I thinned things out a little, especially in the leadership, someone else might get elected.
Q. Assuming you weren't caught.
A. No, Mr. Miles. I expected to be caught. That was my best chance. Now they'll elect me.
Q. A confessed murderer? You think voters would be willing to risk putting you in charge?
A. They have to pick somebody and live with their reasons.
Q. Yes, but-
A. Wait and see.

Effective immediately, the traditional selection process for overseer is hereby ended. In lieu of a yearly election, a citizen will be chosen one month prior to the start of his or her term with our mainframe's random number generator, ensuring complete impartiality and fairness.

Katherine Stone
Overseer

Good afternoon. Each year it is the appointed task of the ombudsman not only to officiate the election, but to chronicle it in hopes that after the last overseer has finished his term and walked to his death in the chamber beneath his office, and the vault has become still, that one day some excavator from humanity or perhaps some yet-unknown race of super beings might find our records and incorporate them into historical canon.

But lately it's occurred to me that that's not really why. I think the real reason we do it is because we want to believe that somewhere in the archives there's an answer to all of this, or perhaps there will be one when the historical records are completed and the whole story is told. We want it to make sense. To understand why the vault's mainframe will kill us if we do not offer one of our own as a yearly sacrifice. To fully comprehend why we continue to have these elections despite the unfettered corruption that has plagued it for what must be decades by now. There was a simpler time when elections meant shaking hands and kissing babies. But now with the rise of the voting blocs and this infestation of bribery, drug trafficking, smuggling, and God knows what else, we want to know why.

Well I've been through the archives, and I can tell you you won't find the answer there. You'll find an account of the first overseer, who entered the vault as the only citizen aware of the sacrifices that would have to take place. But he didn't have the answers either. If he did, surely he would've foreseen the citizens' anger when he broke the news. Surely he would've guessed that they would want to choose a sacrifice democratically, in the way that we citizens are accustomed to washing our hands of terrible deeds, and that his name would be at the top of the polls, and that the simultaneous vacancy of overseer and martyr would forever fuse the two positions here in Vault 11. But he didn't. He had the answers no more than any of us, and the records state that after the citizens discovered that the sacrificial chamber's password was his wife Betty's first name, and its door was unsealed so he could be offered as the first sacrifice, he walked down into that room crying like a child.

I can only wonder if there are no answers to be found, and we are just going along with this because we don't see another choice. Nevertheless, I still hold onto hope that we can find one. I urge you all to take the journey I took - to remember that it wasn't so long ago that we were ruled by our civility and our dignity, and that those were times when we didn't have to be quite so ashamed. Thank you.