TV Stow Spoiler Warning

Firstly, the end goal seems set in stone: breed the perfect super manager using prime genetic stock from Vault tec middle management.

We also know how 33 is run, and there’s nothing there that would warrant what happened in vault 32’s rebellion, mass murder and collective suicide. Lucie’s marriage implies a history of swapping non vault 31 breeders between 32 and 33.

A breeding experiment requires extensive data on the characteristics you’re trying to select for, a means to select breeding partners, and a means of eliminating non-desirables people from the breeding pool.

I suspect 33 was the prime breeding pool, the vault where the people with the most desirable managerial traits were kept and partnered up.

I suspect 32 is where the undesirables were kept and sent from 33. Possibly even sterilising the “worst” of the bunch. The marriage would make sense if Moldaver (posing as vault 32’s overseer) convinced betty that someone of good breeding stock had been born and needed to be transferred.

Also, looking at the personalities of the characters selected to repopulate 32, pretty much all of the most meek willed characters are selected, because they are bad management material and will contribute negatively to the gene pool.

Finally, this kind of selection would put dissidents in 32, the kind of people more likely to figure out whats going on, realise they are are being controlled, possibly some of the “worst” even being sterilised, resulting in a rebellion.

Got any ideas on how it could be worse? Remember, Vault tec are sinister af.

Edit at 6k upvotes:

some people seem to have completely missed the below dialogue between norm and bud. I’m not arguing that this is a breeding program, this is a breeding program, that is set in stone by bud himself.
I’m talking about the method of the experiment, what are they doing in the pursuit of breeding a super-manager that would cause 32 to revolt in the way it did.

(people who breed show mice kill the mice with undesirable traits)

i leave you with this section of transcript from episode 8:

[Norm]”So what’s Vault 32 and 33? Just people to be controlled?”

[bud Roomba]”What? No! When you put it like that, it sounds downright morally questionable.

They’re our breeding pool, the ultimate expression of HR R&D.

Genetically selected to breed with my Buds to create a class of super managers.”