Riggs was a researcher for General Atomics on an advanced robotics program, namely the robobrain project. McKinney then convinced Gilda Broscoe to fund, who in turn convinced Santiago Avida, although the majority investors were Dr. It was he who secured funding from the ultra-rich, with him securing the first investor, Keith McKinney. Ezra Parker, the key financier, simply pulled the plug, covering up with a story about troubles extracting payments from invited guests. Once the premiere area of the Vault was completed, funding was cut off. This classic bourgeois-worker set up was turned on its head when progress on construction of the second wing of the Vault completely stalled. Any breach of ethics would be judged by the rich and any judgment enacted by the robotic staff. The test group would include 10 ultra-rich people from the local area, with every desire tended to by a robotic staff and placed above all legal restrictions in their interactions with the second group, numbering up to 300 people sequestered in uncomfortable, cramped conditions in the second wing. The Vault would remain sealed until test results could be determined.

These subjects would be taken through the exclusive areas of the Vault on entry, but thereafter confined to the cramped second wing. The original plan called for making the Vault open to the public when the activation notice was sent out (in the event of the Great War) and selected from the local working-class population. It was a clandestine area of the hotel to ensure that individuals drawn to privilege and exclusivity would be present. Buried beneath the Cliff's Edge Hotel, Vault 118 was designed to function as an ultra-elite hotel to attract test subjects of appropriate wealth and status.

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