  We study tadpole potentials of non-supersymmetric strings, resorting to a
first-order formalism known in the literature as fake supersymmetry. We present
a detailed analysis for vacua with only gravity and the dilaton, displaying the
obstructions that forbid the simplest inclusion of form fluxes. Our focus is on
codimension-one vacua, for which we propose a definition of energy that might
be suitable for stability arguments. Our findings point to the central role of
boundary conditions when supersymmetry is absent or broken.
