The Divide

The Divide is a common term for a stretch of devastated land in the northwestern Mojave Wasteland, in the Amargosa Valley, on top of the Nevada/California border. It is the setting of Lonesome Road.

Background
An isolated town located on the California/Nevada border, Hopeville and its bigger brother, Ashton, were established in the late 21st century. Beneath the towns lay an extensive network of nuclear missile silos built under the auspices of the Commonwealth Defense Administration Ballistic Defense Division. The complex was established in a geologically unstable region, where minor earthquakes were quite common. Military authorities downplayed these problems, confident in the safety of American engineering. Another problem was caused by the fact that the Army used Hopeville as proving grounds for Big MT's weather control research, using the denizens of the regions as guinea pigs.

By 2077, the region had a large community of political dissidents, including local hippies, who protested the ongoing Sino-American War and the military at construction camps across both Hopeville and Ashton. In an example of "white-hot rage of capitalist justice," the Political Office arranged to have them rounded up and sent to Big MT as test subjects for the company's latest projects, aided by troops from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment under the command of General Wellesley, military liaison to Big MT.

During the Great War, the nuclear missiles stored in the missile silos were never launched, remaining safely in their berths for the next two centuries. 

The first Divide
Although Hopeville and Ashton were abandoned after the War, a small community would inhabit the storm-covered lands. With the harsh weather unleashed on it constantly from the Big MT, those who inhabited the ruins of the Old World in Hopeville and Ashton drew strength and inspiration from the ancient symbols and technology that surrounded them. In the 23rd century, the settlement flourished thanks to a single courier who was willing to brave the seasons and storms to deliver packages to the community. Whatever the reason, the courier braved that hard road repeatedly, giving them hope and a connection to civilization.

This community eventually proclaimed itself the Divide, taking name not from the monstrous gash in the earth that would eventually appear there, but its role both as a divide and a bridge between the east and west, the New California Republic and the Mojave Wasteland. The community had a chance to become something akin to a second Shady Sands, founding something better than either the NCR or the Legion. The Courier: "This road leads nowhere. There's nothing in the Divide." Ulysses: "Many in the Mojave think the Divide's nothing but canyon and storm. Wasn't always. There was life, a town, farther West... not talking about an Old World town like Hopeville... more recent. Something you saw in your lifetime. It had the name "the Divide," too. But rather than cracks in the earth, it was a road from the West into the Mojave, a supply line. Took a Courier to make that road. You. Back then, you saw the road with eyes facing East. This time... the Divide's in the other direction. And if your eyes try to make sense of it when you reach it... home's not what it was." The Courier: "If you blame me for what happened here at the Divide - why do you care?" Ulysses: "The community that was once here... and the package you brought... both had markings of the Divide. Markings of America. You've seen the marks, the symbol. As early as the Hopeville silo, maybe. Carried it etched on your weapons. The Divide, its buildings, its people, were built around those same markings, surrounded them here... ...markings like the flag on my back. When I followed your road to the Divide those years ago, I saw the symbol I wore all around me. An Old World symbol. Strong, to survive here - its people, strong. Outlast the Bear, outlast the Bull. Promise of something better. Caesar was right to want it dead. NCR was right to want to rake their claws in it. Seeing it... changed me, just as seeing Hoover Dam changed Caesar and the NCR. Seeing it end changed me, too." (Ulysses' dialogue) The nation that would stir to life here had a chance of bridging the gap between the East and the West, between Caesar's tribes and the republic. Something greater than either, that could unify the two flags into a single banner.

Before that could happen, however, the New California Republic moved in, following the trail blazed by the Courier. The Divide would become a major secondary route into the Mojave, reducing the traffic on the Long 15 to the core lands of the republic. Both the Army and the merchant houses of the republic benefited from the new route established through the storm-wracked region. Naturally, two lifelines leading into the Mojave were a serious problem for Caesar's strategy, as it gave the NCR a logistical advantage despite the intense campaign of sabotage in the period leading up to the First Battle of Hoover Dam. In the months leading up to the battle, Caesar dispatched a group of frumentarii and assassins to cut the supply line and deny the road to the republic, building on the destruction of New Canaan and raids on caravans out west.

The second Divide
However, it was the Courier that established the land trail to the Divide who would play the pivotal role. As legionaries and NCR troops executed the plans of their masters, the Courier delivered a single package from the faraway Navarro, recovered by the republic and sent to the Divide. The NCR believed the people who lived among the silos and Old World symbols could help them make sense of the item recovered in the Enclave's former base. What they didn't realize was that the package would seal the Divide's doom. After the Courier delivered it, the citizens of the Divide opened it up and the device suddenly activated, linking with the launch computers hidden in the dormant silos and sending launch codes and overrides. Warheads started exploding beneath the ground, triggering a massive earthquake that ripped the land open, twisting Ashton, Hopeville and the military facilities above and beneath. It became an expanse of cracked, blighted landscape, while the sand and ash from the devastation was caught by the artificial storms, turning already savage weather into one, monstrous dust storm that could skin a man alive.

In fact, it did flay people alive. Those who weren't killed by the nuclear detonations or debris let loose by the earthquake were twisted by the radioactive storms, flayed alive and turned into mutants, dead men walking sustained only by the radiation without and the hate within. Regardless of their previous affiliation, the marked men banded together into packs, repairing their armor and weapons with whatever the new Divide provided. There was only one survivor, saved from death or marking by the medical robots of the Divide, which mistook the Stars and Stripes on his back for a U.S. military uniform. He walked out of the Divide, whole on the outside, but broken within.

Despite the loss of the Legion task force, the destruction of the Divide was a strategic victory for the Legion. With the land around Hopeville and Ashton destroyed and the sandstorm wreaking havoc on all who tried to pass through, the NCR lost its secondary supply route and couldn't take California State Route 127 north to get around the mountains anymore. Companies sent through were torn apart before they even reached Nevada soil, with Ranger scouts confirming that the route was impassable. Without it, NCR could not march reinforcements into Nevada fast enough to capitalize on their victory at the First Battle of Hoover Dam, giving Caesar time to retreat to Arizona and prepare his Legion for another confrontation.

The story of the Divide continued, however. The memory of the settlement has vanished from common consciousness, scrubbed by the violent storms that rendered it impossible to brave for all but the hardiest of travelers. One person remembered. Ulysses walked the wastes for four more years, reflecting on the destruction brought upon the fledgling nation by a single courier. Disillusioned with the Legion and the NCR alike, Ulysses decided to make history repeat itself. Unlike the courier, however, he would do so with open eyes. He gathered knowledge and slowly mastered the Divide's many secrets, bringing the nuclear silos back to life as best he could. The arrival of ED-E in the Mojave Wasteland sped the process up greatly, as the Divide's machines remotely scanned the Enclave eyebot and manufactured a new series of robots that accelerated the restoration of the silos. In the process, fragments of the nuclear detonator that the Courier delivered were scavenged and used to manufacture a unique maintenance eyebot at the Hopeville missile silo.

Recognizing this as an auspicious moment, Ulysses sent a single message to the Courier who just cheated death at Goodsprings, inviting them to walk the lonesome road through the Divide and bring the eyebot to him. Then he waited, preparing the nuclear missiles to wipe the slate clean once more, but not before he had a chance for reckoning with the Courier, beneath the storms of the divide and the Old World flag. 

Layout
Located northwest of the Mojave Wasteland, in the Amargosa Valley, the Divide is a region that was once the home of Hopeville, a planned community built around and over a ballistic missile silo complex, and Ashton, a large city that doubled as a major highway junction. However, whatever the Divide was is largely irrelevant, as the nuclear disaster that befell the region at the Courier's hands has turned it into an unrecognizable mess of twisted metal, concrete and dirt, slowly weathered by the massive sandstorm blanketing the entire region.

The nuclear missiles concealed within Ashton's silos were launched by the automatic detonator delivered by the Courier, exploding beneath the ground. The explosions combined with the presence of the Pahrump Valley fault line created a massive canyon stretching east to west, filled with collapsed buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure from Ashton. The highway network was warped and twisted by the combination of factors, with entire fragments of the elevated superhighway breaking off and crushing buildings below.

Hopeville and adjacent southern military facilities escaped much of the devastation, as missile silos were outside the range of the detonator's transmitter. However, they were subjected to the terrifying earthquakes and the subsequent storms, with at least one missile bunker listing nearly fifteen degrees due to the shifting foundations. Structural reinforcement and armor ensured the survival of these installations, complete with power infrastructure.

Related quests

 * The Silo

Appearances
The Divide only appears in the add-on Lonesome Road and as a map in Old World Blues, but the location is mentioned in Fallout: New Vegas and the add-ons: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, and Old World Blues.

Behind the scenes

 * Before the release of Lonesome Road, Chris Avellone's Twitter avatar showed the Divide.
 * The goal of Chris Avellone when setting out to create Lonesome Road was to deliver a Zelazny-style Damnation Alley experience in the Fallout universe.
 * The Divide is geographically similar to that of Amargosa Valley and Death Valley, covering the state line of Nevada and California, respectively, in the Mojave Desert. The real world former town of Ashton, Nevada is located here and notably, the nuclear weapon testing facility National Criticality Experiments Research Center within the Nevada Test Site is located to the northeast.