Community:An In Depth Discussion and Dissection Regarding The Founding of Communities in The Post-War World, The Implication of Their Creations, and What it Means to You. By Professors Black Devil and Rubbinmahbelly./Capital Wasteland

=Capital Wasteland= The region of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania surrounding the city of Washington, D.C., known as the Capital Wasteland, is home to a number of diverse communities. Surprisingly, many of the major settlements within the Capital Wasteland are relatively new, only forming in the last several generations.

Andale
The small town of Andale started out as a pre-war neighborhood with four families in the state of Virginia. These families survived in personal bomb shelters until they ran out of food, at which point they resorted to cannibalism to survive. Since then the town has remained insular, staying a "small town and proud." This I learned as one of the town patriarchs, one Jack Smith, was attempting to "have me for dinner". I should have been wary of his vague wording at the time, but live and learn. Thankfully I managed to escape my predicament by utilizing an escape method I learned reading old Silver Shroud comic books. Who knew dislocating one's own thumbs could be so useful. But back to the point, since the town was founded an indeterminate amount of time before the war, and there is an unbroken chain of residents from before the war to modern day (2277), it is likely to be the oldest still inhabited settlement in the Capital Wasteland.

Republic of Dave
The Republic of Dave, previously known as the Nation of Tom, previously known as the New Republic of Stevie-Ray, previously known as Billsylvania, previously known as the Republic of Stevie-Ray, previously known as the Kingdom of Larry, is a small settlement located in the northern Capital Wasteland near the Maryland/Pennsylvania border. If one ever finds themselves in the neighborhood, take the museum tour. The lovely young resident who runs the museum explained to me in detail much of the history of the nation, and the rest I pieced together from documents in nearby government buildings.

The Republic originated in the years before the Great War as a compound created by American citizens who felt the government had become corrupt, and that they would need to work together to take back the country for the people. The compound that would one day go on to become the Republic of Dave is but one several remote locations created by this antigovernmental movement. As it was founded shortly before the bombs fell, it is a pre-war settlement, but it is unlikely to be older than the established town of Andale. There is similarities between the pre-war anti government movement that gave rise to the Republic, and the Free States of nearby Appalachia, with both being anti-government organizations who established off the grid strongholds in remote regions of the American east coast, but any connection between the two groups, if one exists at all, is unknown.

Little Lamplight
Little Lamplight is one of the most mysterious towns within the Capital Wasteland, beat out only by the lost (and also cave based) city of Rockopolis. This strange cave town of children is one of the more odd locales in the Capital Wasteland, a region known for it's oddities. Being a "mungo" I was unable to enter the town proper, (a somewhat aggravating turn of events seeing as I had braved the Super Mutant hellscape that is the Irradiated Western Plains to get there). Instead I had to make due with asking the gate guard on duty what little they knew of the town's history, as well as an outgoing teenager who was on their way to "Big Town". Through this, I managed to piece together a short history of the cave city inhabited entirely by juveniles.

The cave system that would go on to become Little Lamplight was once a pre-war tourist destination known by the name "Lamplight Caverns." Any traveler in the Capital Wasteland is likely familiar with the billboards which bear the caverns' mole mascot. On the day of the Great War 200 years ago, a school trip from Early Dawn Elementary School would arrive at the caverns early in the morning. One wonders how early they had to leave the school which is situated on the GNR building plaza to arrive at the caverns before the bombs fell that morning... Especially considering the note I read from one of the teacher chaperone, one miss Carrie Delaney, said that the students were preparing to leave at the time the bombs dropped. I can only assume the students had arrived the day before and spent the night in the caverns.

Regardless, over the course of the next month every adult would leave to find help, and never return. The official founding of the city of Little Lamplight occurred on January 27th, 2078, when a young boy Jason Grant was named the town's first mayor. The holotape this I learned this from was dated January 26, 2077, however it refers to the events of the war as having taken place 3 months prior. So unless this child was a time traveler, I must assume they made a mistake when dating their holotape. An understandable mistake for a child to make. Regardless, the children had already been referring to the town as "Little Lamplight" by this time. This I believe to be one of, if not the first Post-War settlement in the Capital Wasteland still in operation as of 2277.