Zion Canyon

Zion Canyon is the location where the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts is set. It serves as the add-on's game world.

Background
Formerly the site of the Zion National Park, Zion Canyon was spared from most of the horrors of the Great War and remains an unspoiled wilderness. In the immediate aftermath of the war, only one man is known to have inhabited Zion - a survivalist by the name of Randall Clark. He had been camped out in the park, slowly losing his mind, when a group of Mexicans came to the area, calling it "paradise." Clark watched the Mexicans, never making contact but subtly aiding them when they needed it. In 2096, a group of Vault 22 dwellers infected with Beauveria mordicana arrived in the area, killing and eating the Mexicans, with Clark unable to rescue them. Clark killed most of the Vault 22 dwellers or waited for them to die of their infection, but befriended a vault dweller named Sylvie, who was caught in a bear trap, and ended up having a child with her. She died during childbirth from an overdose of meds and the child was stillborn.

In 2108, feral ghouls arrived in the area, but Clark was able to kill them all before they became a problem. Fifteen years later, a group of children arrived in the area, in the same location where the Mexicans had encamped all those years ago. Clark, now an old man, watched over the children as he did with the Mexicans, making sure that no harm came to them but never making contact with them. To the children, he was "the Father in the Cave," a purveyor of gifts and dispenser of wisdom. Deciding against breaking their faith, Clark chose to die at Red Gate where his body would unlikely be found, leaving behind Survivalist hidden caches in caves which are full of traps. The children became the Sorrows, a peaceful tribe that embodied innocence, lived in peace for years, never venturing into the caves and treating all pre-War buildings and tech as taboo.

The peace was not to last. Recently, missionaries from New Canaan in the north have arrived in the region, attempting to convert the locals to Mormonism. That in itself would not have been a threat to the peace, but the White Legs, a hostile group with whom the Mormon Church is embroiled in a conflict, have followed the surviving Mormons down to Zion, where the Sorrows now face extinction. Daniel and Joshua Graham, ridden with guilt over their part in the Sorrows' current predicament, have vowed to protect the tribe by any means. Daniel wants to evacuate the Sorrows to the Grand Staircase, where they cannot be followed by the White Legs, and thus abandoning their traditional home. But Graham, with his Dead Horses, want to teach the Sorrows the art of warfare so that they may either drive the White Legs out of Zion or eliminate them for good and secure the region for future generations. Either option will require the tribe to sacrifice a fundamental part of their identity, but a decision must be made nonetheless.

In 2281, the Happy Trails Caravan Company (the Courier among them), led an expedition from the Mojave Wasteland's Northern passage in the hopes of re-establishing contact with New Canaan. The caravan was ambushed and all but the Courier slaughtered in the ensuing fray. And it is then that the Courier begins to shape the destinies of those people. For better or worse, the Courier's actions will forever change the once serene landscape of Zion and usher in a new age...

Appearances
Zion Canyon appears only in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts.

Behind the scenes

 * Zion is the Biblical name for Jerusalem and sometimes Israel.
 * This area's real-world equivalent is a favorite holiday destination of Fallout: New Vegas lead designer Joshua Sawyer.
 * In 2000, personal vehicles were banned from most of the park, being replaced with buses. However, ruined cars can be found all over Zion in game. This can easily be explained by the Divergence.