What happened in Fallout’s Vault 32? Here’s our theory

The Fallout TV series adaptation of the popular post-apocalyptic video game series features plenty of callbacks, secrets, and twists. But perhaps one of the most confusing and unconfirmed parts of the series is what happened to Vault 32. The sister vault to protagonist Lucy’s Vault 33 clearly had some issues, but what exactly happened there?

Here’s our thoughts on what happened. Be warned, as there are full spoilers ahead for the first season.

Fallout Vault 32 theories and predictions: Raiders didn’t kill them

First and foremost, it appears the raiders didn’t murder all of the residents of Vault 32 in Fallout. This may seem odd, considering the raiders who attack Vault 33 in the opening episode posed as 32 dwellers. As such, it would seem like the raiders invaded Vault 32, murdered the inhabitants (who are dead, as we see in the series), and took over their lives.

However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, Moldaver seems to confirm this to be true. As such, it appears the Vault dwellers were already dead by the time the raiders invaded Vault 32. To add further evidence to this is the state of the corpses. Some of the bodies are essentially skeletons, which hints they’ve been decomposing for a while. It doesn’t make a ton of sense for the raiders to kill the Vault dwellers and leave all the bodies there to decompose while living there. This is further reinforced by the bloody writing on the walls.

Vault 32 found out the truth

Speaking of the bloody writing on the walls, Lucy’s brother Norm discovers these when he ventures into Vault 32 the first time. Viewers can see messages like “death to management” in the background, seemingly written in blood. This message, and the massacred state of the Vault, indicates someone had a problem with the upper management.

What issue could this be exactly? More than likely, it’s the truth Norm himself finds out later in the series about Vault 31. The upper executives of Vault-Tec froze themselves in Vault 31 to be the all-seeing eyes and controllers of the experiments over Vaults 32 and 33. Considering the many generations Vault 32 sat next to 31, it was only a matter of time before someone found out about the talking brain next door.

Civil war

The truth the dwellers of Vault 32 found out likely led to their imminent demise. From what we gather, it wasn’t raiders or any outside force who caused their deaths, but the actual residents themselves. It seems a civil war of some kind broke out between the resistant Vault dwellers and those loyal to the upper management and Overseer.

This is also seen in the crops, which hint at potential food problems the Vault ran into. This, coupled with the truth about everything happened, likely led to a revolt. The madness led to the countless bodies piled around the place and the death of potentially all of the residents there.

The Vault 32 survivors likely left

The remnants of Vault 32 shows that mostly everyone there died in the war that ensued. There are a couple of bodies glimpsed in the show that look like they killed themselves, but this is unconfirmed. For the most part, it appears nearly all of Vault 32 died. However, there is a chance at least one person survived the civil war there.

It is possible we could see this survivor, or more, appear in Season 2 of the Fallout Prime series. It would be fascinating to see them run into Lucy and interact with her, or worse, return to Vault 32 only to find it inhabited by Vault 33 members. This could lead to the main conflict for Norm and the others still in the Vaults in the second season of the show.

Hank didn’t know about their deaths

Perhaps the most surprising part about the Vault 32 situation is it seems Hank MacLean, Lucy’s father and Vault 33 Overseer, had no idea about their deaths. Despite coming from Vault 31 and knowing the truth about the experiments in these Vaults, he had little communication with Vault 32 outside of the gatherings every three years.

This is seen in how Hank goes along with Moldaver’s ruse, not even realizing her people are raiders at first. We see Vault 32’s Overseer dead at their terminal in their office, so it is possible they were the first casualty in the tragic events. This would’ve prevented the Overseer from being able to contact Vault 33 or 31 about what happened.