

When the Vault is finally opened, the truth of its existence is fully revealed. The Lance leader, Commandant Steele takes the key down the Descent, battling Guardians the whole way, and eventually opens the Vault. Once the location of the Vault is uncovered and the key is assembled, the Atlas corporation uses its private military, the Crimson Lance, to seize the key and declare all contents of the Vault to be the property of Atlas. It was then that she realized she had a form of psychosis preventing her from leaving her camp at the archaeological site, so she remained there and sent out a call for Vault hunters to help her retrieve the key pieces and open the Vault. She recovered one of the Vault Key fragments, but ultimately lost it to bandits through a misjudged attempt to hide it. Through her research, Tannis discovered that the Vault could be opened at a specific date that came every two hundred years by using a special key comprised of three puzzle-like fragments.

Tannis gradually lost her sanity thanks to the rigours of life on Pandora, while also becoming completely obsessed with finding the Vault as her team were systematically killed by the local fauna. Those who could not afford to leave stayed behind, but the legends of the Vault remained.Īn archaeologist named Patricia Tannis, funded by the Dahl Corporation, was sent with a team to Pandora several years before the game begins to research the Vault and find out if it existed, where it was, what was in it, and how to open it. Those who had once sought the legendary riches of the Vault found themselves under attack and with little to no further evidence of the Vault's existence they began to flee the planet. Even as the search continued and eventually waned, seasonal change on Pandora brought Summer upon the human inhabitants, and with it a new threat as the indigenous life awoke from hibernation and began to feed. These legends, combined with the Atlas discovery, led to a "Gold Rush" of people heading to Pandora to settle in and look for the Vault. According to Marcus, the Pandoran Vault would give the finder advanced alien technology, fame, power, and women. Popular myths and legends held that the Vault must contain something amazing. After the Atlas corporation found a cache of alien weaponry on Promethea, legends began to emerge about vaults on other worlds. The Vault is an enigmatic place that is drenched in myth and folklore. The Vault logo, also used as the Borderlands logo.
