Cheyenne Mountain

During the 20th century, the American military created a facility underneath Cheyenne Mountain, one mountain in a range of many on the western side of the United States. These ranges extended from Canada, far to the north past the United States border, down into the southeast of the country.

NORAD
Before the Great War, Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center was host to four commands: North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), United States Strategic Command (USSACCOM), and Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). Throughout the Cold War, Cheyenne Mountain was considered a primary target in all first-strike and second-strike scenarios. Although the mountain was designed to withstand multiple direct hits from nuclear weapons, projections were universally pessimistic as to the survival of the installation.

According to Fallout 2 NORAD computer stations were offline (at least in 2241 when checked by Chosen One from Poseidon Oil Powerplant No 12). Whether this represents a communications interruption or the wholesale destruction of NORAD is never made explicitly clear, but given the target status of NORAD it is highly likely that the facility was at unoperable status.

Vault 0


Vault 0 (Vault Zero), unlike most Vaults involved in the Vault Experiment, was not an experiment in human behavior. It was constructed by expanding and reinforcing the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado and was by far the largest of the underground Vaults (by volume). If the interiors were so designed, Vault 0 could easily support a population of well over 100,000 people. Many of the areas that comprise the massive interior layout of Vault 0 were originally designed to be the size of (and were often compared to) aircraft hangars, warehouses and factories; these zones were for the construction of various machines that were ostensibly designed to serve the Vault Dwellers and the Enclave.

Crater
By 2253, a huge section of the mountains became a great radioactive smoking crater, giving birth to a large population of glowing ghouls. Coupled with attacks on Denver and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Boulder became the center of a triangle of hellish death.