Fallout: Shady Sands Explained

What is Shady Sands? It sounds like a retirement home, but the only retirement available in the world of Fallout is at the talons of a Deathclaw. Better not to leave The Vault after all, even for the promise of a live-action series, no matter how good Walter Goggins looks in the trailer.

Shady Sands, a place I hope you never have to go …

Granted, there are far worse places to end up in the world of Fallout. Supermutant lairs. Mirelurk swamps. Giant ant hills. 0/5 stars. Despite the peacefully geriatric-sounding name, Shady Sands is anything but. Shady Sands is one of the oldest locations in the Fallout series, tracing its history back to the first game. It is the capital city (and the largest city) of the New California Republic.

Shady Sands was founded by an ancestor of Aradesh, the man who would become the first president of the New California Republic. Arradesh’s great-great-whatever founded the settlement after journeying out of Vault 15. The settlement was built with the help of G.E.C.K. aka the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. This allowed for the creation of crude buildings made from sandcrete (which is exactly what it sounds like) and some primitive agricultural developments. After the settlers built a wall to keep out the wintertime raiders, the little town of Shady Sands was on its way to becoming a major metropolis.

By the year 2161 (when the first Fallout takes place), Shady Sands was flourishing under the leadership of Aradesh. The settlement was completely self-sufficient, complete with irrigated cabbage farms and even some Brahmin herds! The extra resources allowed Shady Sands to trade with other cities, becoming an economic power in the remains of California. Sure, there were attacks from both raiders and radscorpions alike, but thankfully the Vault Dweller (the player character) took care of that problem.

By 2241, the little town of Shady Sands had become a bustling city. When I say “bustling,” I mean with a population of 3000 people, not the millions that lived in cities in the pre-apocalypse eras of yore. The city’s success saw the creation of a new political party, the New California Republic (NCR). Under the leadership of Tandi, Aradesh’s daughter, the NCR grew in size and expanded rapidly. Few of the original sandcrete and adobe buildings from Shady Sands’ halcyon days remained. They’ve all been replaced by state-of-the-art architecture, including the Hall of Congress and the Presidential Mansion. The city of Shady Sands became so successful that it was sometimes called the New California Republic itself. It’s like if the U.S. had a city so powerful that it was just called “America”.

So what’s life like in the NCR? Pretty chill, the end of the world considered. The city’s economic success allows people relatively stable lives and jobs. Order in the city is maintained by a police force, which doubles as a defense force against raiders and beasties that come out of the wastelands beyond. However, like any nation-state, things can get politically ugly pretty fast. While the NCR prefers to do business with surrounding powers through economic means, the government won’t hesitate to incorporate lands into its domain by force. A class system has also begun to emerge in the city, with ranchers and barons that control the city’s vast herds of Brahmin cattle sitting at the top.

A long way from its humble settlement roots, the city formally known as Shady Sands now dwells within the state of Shady. Vault 15 and the neighboring Junktown both fall into Shady’s jurisdiction, as do several other towns and cities. The state also plays a key role in energy distribution throughout New California, as Shady produces energy from the Hoover Dam.

So what is Shady Sands? It’s a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles with a heaping helping of Texas mixed in. It is, by and large, the best living situation for any denizens of the end times. Despite its flirtation with corruption and tyranny, it certainly beats eking out a living in the desert, no matter how cheap the rent is.

(featured image: Bethesda)