Sierra Madre

"You've heard of the Sierra Madre Casino. We all have, the legend, the curses. Foolishness about it lying in the middle of the City of the Dead, buried beneath a blood-red cloud. A bright, shining monument luring treasure hunters to their doom."

- Father Elijah

The Sierra Madre is a mythical place in the wastes, with travelers all risking their lives to find it. Only one man truly "found" it and lived. The Courier is lured to the Sierra Madre by a faint radio broadcast advertising the gala grand opening.

Background
The city and the casino were designed and built by one man, Frederick Sinclair, his last venture a few years before the Great War. The Sierra Madre, especially the casino, was intended as a place for guests to reverse their fortunes and "begin again". During its construction until the end, it remained a reclusive area. All conveniences were supplied to the inhabitants by unique vending machines, which provided a number of commercial and non-commercial services, allow the residents to live in self-sufficiency, even when cut off from the world. The goal of the entire enterprise was not only to create a great casino - it was to create the perfect shelter from the nuclear holocaust. Every element of the Madre functions to protect its inhabitants.

In design, Sinclair was drawn to the nostalgic Art Deco era, and this is reflected in the architecture of the villa and of the casino. To make it a perfect opening gala, Sinclair strengthened its frequency emissions, normally reserved for emergency broadcast signals before the war. The kitchens of the Sierra Madre aimed for a 5 star rating, and sought to bring in the best chefs from around world. In order to meet deadlines and budgets, the construction of the Sierra Madre were handled by two different companies, a well performing company for the casino and a cheaper, slacking company for the Villa, creating numerous incidents during the construction of the Villa.

As guardian of his paradise, Sinclair forbade any other food or vending machines beyond the ones he'd installed there and banned any personal contraband like chems, alcohol, and "foreign substances", which created a black market from the workers within. Part of Sierra Madre security's role was to prevent such contraband from entering the Villa area and they are known to have conducted inspections of the Puesta del Sol construction offices and confiscating prohibited items.

Obsessed with security, believed due to his own financial losses in the 2070s, the Sierra Madre was installed with holograms, a futuristic technology purchased on an exclusive contract by Sinclair. The doors of the Sierra Madre were designed to hermetically seal in case of emergency and the speakers were shielded to prevent vandalism.

The Sierra Madre Casino has an automated front desk that would escort guests to their rooms upon arrival and security systems that would stun those entering with foreign substances or contaminated by radiation.

There is also a darker side to the Madre; in return for the technologies supplied by Big MT, Sinclair agreed to have the casino and the villa act as proving grounds for various experimental technologies: the Saturnite alloy, hazmat suits, prototype matter recombinators... Sinclair was oblivious to the fact that previous such deals did not work out too well (as is the case with Hopeville and its disastrous meteorological research project). In the Madre, the catch came in the form of the Cloud, a strange toxin created in the laboratories of the Big MT.

Appearances
Sierra Madre appears only in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on, Dead Money and is mentioned in a terminal in Old World Blues and also is referenced by graffiti in Fallout: New Vegas coming down the stairs in the Abandoned Brotherhood of Steel Bunker.

Behind the scenes

 * The Sierra Madre is a reference to B. Traven's seminal 1927 Western novel, and later 1948 film, directed by John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.