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The ruins of Shady Sands

The Fall of Shady Sands was an event that started in 2277 and ended some time in the 2280s shortly after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, when the city was completely destroyed.[1][Supplementary 1]

Shady Sands was destroyed by a nuclear bomb on the orders of Hank MacLean, a pre-War Vault-Tec employee and overseer of Vault 33, who wanted to erase all factionalism and ensure the world would be remade according to his and Vault-Tec's ideals. This would also hide the truth of the surface world from Vault 32 and 33's inhabitants (after Vault 33's water was discovered to have been partially siphoned).[2]

A remnant force of the New California Republic eventually took shelter in Griffith Observatory.[2] Other survivors found refuge in nearby settlements, Vaults, and even the Brotherhood of Steel.[3][1]

Notes[]

The Fall of Shady Sands occurred in the same year Lucy MacLean claims a plague hit Vault 33 and killed her mother Rose MacLean. There is a chance Hank MacLean used the plague to cover up Rose's disappearance from Vault 33 if she did escape this year, then immediately pursued Rose to retrieve his children.[4]

Behind the scenes[]

Many viewers assumed that the "Fall of Shady Sands" being dated to 2277 on a blackboard in Vault 4 in episode "The Trap", followed by an image of a nuclear explosion, meant that the city was completely destroyed 4 years before the events of Fallout: New Vegas, where it is mentioned as still existing. Todd Howard later clarified in an interview that the nuclear destruction of Shady Sands happened shortly after New Vegas.[Supplementary 1]

“And we talked through it and it was, ‘This would be a pretty impactful story moment that a lot of things anchor on,"' Howard says.

But for anyone confused about how the city could be blown up by the time the show takes place, Howard explains all the details of the timeline should line up. “We’re careful about the timeline,” he says. “There might be a little bit of confusion in some places. But everything that happened in the previous games, including New Vegas, happened. We’re very careful about that.”

“All I can say is we’re threading it tighter there, but the bombs fall just after the events of New Vegas.
IGN

The nature of events that occurred in 2277 and preceded the nuclear destruction remains unclear.

The idea of Shady Sands being destroyed by a nuclear bomb was something first advocated for in the early 2000s by Chris Avellone during the development of Van Buren, Black Isle Studios' canceled Fallout 3.[Supplementary 2]

I did advocate nuking NCR - not to destroy them 100%, but because the idea of a post-apocalyptic world being hit by another apocalypse sounded interesting - and struggling bands of NCR troops-turned-raiders/ronin once the military fell apart felt like a nice touch in the game world. That, and I was getting worried that the Fallout world was starting to get too civilized, and NCR, especially, felt bloated and needed to be shook up a bit.Chris Avellone on Reddit

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 6: "The Trap"
  2. 2.0 2.1 Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 8: "The Beginning"
  3. Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 5: "The Past"
  4. Fallout TV series, Season 1, Episode 4: "The Ghouls"
Supplementary
FNV NCR Flag
Fo2 NCR Seal
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