The Vaults: A Story

[Stronbollia]

Ok So I am thinking about making a story called the vaults but I am not sure exactly what to do with it. Heres the storyline I've come up with so far

"The year is 2020 and the scientific community initiates the neurological mapping project or NPJ whose main goal is to map out the entire brain and its processes using supercomputers much like the human genome project. This project leads to leaps and bounds in understanding of the human brain and by 2045 the human race knows everything about the consciousness and dreams. In 2050 a man using this knowledge by the name of Adam Winchester designs a machine that gives the user unlimited time in a dream reality. Pretty soon this product becomes extremely popular and everyone is using it, and even connecting to each others dreams to create mental playgrounds. Then in 2073 a nuclear disaster happens when an arms race accelerates between the US and China. This creates a inhospitable world where very few people survive. Hating reality, the remaining survivors of the world retreat underground designing a system called "The Vaults". Inside the vaults they design a dream reality thats sole purpose is to mimic pre-nuclear Earth, a paradise in a sense. The entire human race plugs in and soon forgets about the real world, living in the dream world for the rest of there lives. Then one day in 2193 after 120 years of working beautifully the system crashes and the offspring awake to find themselves in a strange world unknown to them"

Alright so thats what I have got so far. Now I am thinking of a couple possible ways I could continue the story after they wake up. One is, long ago there was a certain section of humanity that wanted to deal with reality instead of escaping into a dream-network and so by spending 120 years in a world without law and order, these humans have become savages and so a threat to the offspring. My second idea is, when they wake up and come out of the vaults, they come onto the surface to discover a world full of monsters due to the fact that radiation from the arms race between China and the US radiated the life on the surface. My 3rd and final idea is they scan the radio waves once they get out of the vault and discover a signal and so decide to follow where it tells them too, but on the way to safety, there are many dangers on the road ahead for them. Those are my ideas and I was wondering which one do you think I should use or do you maybe have a totally better alternative storyline I could maybe write about?

[Dorlania]

it seems wayyyyyyyyyyy to muc like Fallout

[Stronbollia]

I have never played the game fallout, Sorry. Whats it about?

[Labyrnna]

It reminds me of Lifelight on Veelox.

On the topic, though, perhaps elaborate a bit how it crashed, other than having a mysterious crash?

it seems wayyyyyyyyyyy to muc like Fallout

Once he said nuclear war between us and China, yeah.

[Dorlania]

I have never played the game fallout, Sorry. Whats it about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(video_game)

[Dorlania]

It reminds me of Lifelight on Veelox.

On the topic, though, perhaps elaborate a bit how it crashed, other than having a mysterious crash?

it seems wayyyyyyyyyyy to muc like Fallout

Once he said nuclear war between us and China, yeah.

the first part was fine

the fifth sentence and later ones reminds me alot about FO

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I have never played the game fallout, Sorry. Whats it about?

Almost exactly what you just posted. Like 80% of what you got there. Minus all the brains/dreams stuff.

In a nutshell: humanity never moves on from '50s culture, so there are robots and nuclear power everywhere, but computers are incredibly primitive, ICBMs are cutting edge in 2077, and everyone still likes Cole Porter. Soviet Union falls, US and China get into an arms race that eventually ends in an actual nuclear apocalypse in 2077. thankfully, some of the US population is saved in gigantic underground Vaults, the vast majority of which are designed not as fallout shelters but as elaborate sociological experiments. Over time, survivors from the Vaults emerge decades later into the nuclear wasteland and try to rebuild civilization, or just kill and steal. Meanwhile, the US government remnants are still around, part of the the US military has formed some techno-religious order called the Brotherhood of Steel, and so on.

[Stronbollia]

Damn I swear to god I have never played fallout and my storyline is kind of like it in a way. The nuclear war between china and US takes place during the same decade, and you start off in this place called "The Vaults" in the game, fuuuuucccccckkkkk -_-

[Stronbollia]

Although unlike in fallout, the people awake from a system crash and have no idea where they are. I think I could just change the reason why people plugged in and I could have a good storyline. Maybe instead of nuclear war, the government systematically plugged the entire population in so they could better control them?

[Labyrnna]

Although unlike in fallout, the people awake from a system crash and have no idea where they are. I think I could just change the reason why people plugged in and I could have a good storyline. Maybe instead of nuclear war, the government systematically plugged the entire population in so they could better control them?

In that case, though, would this be the American government or a world government of sorts? And if it were the American government, what would give them this wide-spreading power? A revolt or otherwise?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Although unlike in fallout, the people awake from a system crash and have no idea where they are. I think I could just change the reason why people plugged in and I could have a good storyline. Maybe instead of nuclear war, the government systematically plugged the entire population in so they could better control them?

Maybe. Change a few other details too - timeframe, cause of the apocalypse, substitute something instead of "vault"...

[Typhlochactas]

Sounds like Vault 112.

[Multiflow]

<blinks> This is very similar to some of the ones I have been working on.

Until the malfunction, the system was self-maintained? This is the variation I play with. Actually might as well give more of my setup. Feel free to steal as necessary, as I am not a writer.

This plays into a lot of things, I seem to be decent at starting the world building, but not so much the story.

A collapsing civilization, goes into the machine, but there is a goal. That goal being to find way to fix the problems that lead to the downfall. There are monitors that watch from the outside, and connect on occasion. Since time is of little meaning inside the machine, many generations / iterations have played out, though no solution is found, every attempt leads to the same outcome. Eventually hope is lost. The monitors continue to maintain the system, just to make time to 'play' in the machine, in the areas considered dream by the sleepers.

One of the trends, is that most of the iteration all run to something like the machine being created and most people escaping reality to join it. Others, society collapses before it. Basically a list of the bad things that people predict that we will do to ourselves, or have almost done to ourselves is the usual outcome. The closest they can get for an answer is just ways of slowing the decline, ways of extending the end date of the machine.

Eventually one of the monitors stumbles upon the original purpose, and goes digging. He hears echoes in the system, hints that there may be an answer, but as it a discarded idea, has become taboo, he is on his own. The answer seems to be in a semi-restrictive area, a place like the old world before the machine, a place few monitors go as it is, "No fun." It is in the main system where the sleepers are, in a normal world where monitors have little ability beyond just monitoring.

One of the elements I was thinking of using is having some it happen in the world of the machine, which is basically all an enclosed space. Had some wacky ideas for that setup. Others in the different story dreams, but most happening in the old world.

I have trimmed out some of my ... more weird renditions. Like I said very similar to yours.

Actually, I should point out that both story types are really played in most cases, it is more the surrounding pieces that make the story in these cases. Let's just say that I am going to focus on the sociological and technological trends in my setup.