Locked In

This chapter examines the Amazon Fallout series as a satirical reconstruction of John Locke's liberal political philosophy. At first glance, the vault appears to realize key Enlightenment ideals: elected leadership, civic deliberation, social equality, and the preservation of life and property. Drawing on Locke's Two Treatises of Government , the chapter explores how the vault's orderly routines, participatory rituals, and emphasis on communal well-being create the impression of a functioning liberal commonwealth beneath the ruins of nuclear war. Yet as the narrative unfolds, these Lockean structures are revealed to be carefully engineered illusions. Elections are manipulated, consent is manufactured, and social roles are regulated by an unseen technocratic authority. Through close analysis of key scenes—ranging from council deliberations to revelations about Vault-Tec's long-term experiments—the chapter argues that Vault 33 functions not as a realization of Enlightenment liberalism but as its parody. The form of Locke's social contract remains intact, while its ethical foundations are undermined, transforming equality into performance and law into behavioral design. By placing seventeenth-century political theory in conversation with contemporary science fiction, the chapter suggests that Fallout offers a philosophical warning about how liberal ideals can be preserved rhetorically while destabilized structurally, revealing the fragility of consent, transparency, and civic trust in technologically managed societies.