New Canaan

New Canaan was a Mormon town built in the ruins of Ogden in northern Utah.

Background
The town of New Canaan was founded in a ruined section of Ogden, Utah, by the Prophet Judah Black in 2235. The settlers of the town came from the ruins of New Jerusalem in Salt Lake City, the ruined utopia of pre-War Mormon optimism. Some great catastrophe befell New Jerusalem, possibly due to the insistence of its citizens on not dealing with the outside world.

Out of the shattered glass and broken steel of New Jerusalem, Judah led the survivors north. The town they established was far from ideal. They suffered greatly in their efforts to rebuild. The original population of the community was roughly one hundred. In 2253, only a few more than fifty citizens actually live in New Canaan. Judah Black died in 2245. Two years later, Jeremiah Rigdon claimed to have visions from God. While most of the Canaanites believed in Jeremiah, some disputed his revelations, and left.

By 2253, dozens of war refugees, fleeing the NCR-Brotherhood War, had wandered into New Canaan. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of New Jerusalem, Jeremiah Rigdon allowed them to enter, but had difficulty keeping the peace.

By 2281, New Canaan was a prosperous town and a powerful trading influence in the southwest, dominating the trade routes north of New Vegas, imposing heavy taxes on exterior caravan companies wishing to trade, such as the Crimson Caravan, making NCR expansion in the area difficult.

Three months after the First Battle of Hoover Dam, the New Canaanites welcomed the fallen Joshua Graham back into their flock, angering Caesar, who wished to erase Graham from history. To that end, Caesar had the White Legs, a tribe petitioning to be absorbed into the Legion, attack New Canaan with the objective of wiping out the New Canaanites. The town was destroyed, and their leader, Salt-Upon-Wounds had the earth salted so that nothing could grow there.

Roughly thirty survived the sacking, including Graham and Daniel. The survivors regrouped along the Colorado River, with the attitude that towns are just stone and mortar, and that a town's heart is its people, suggesting that the Mormons will attempt to rebuild elsewhere.

Layout
The outskirts border on the Great Salt Lake, Utah, and consist primarily of ruined buildings occupied by squatters and drifters, (like the west end of Klamath in Fallout 2). The main problem in this area is the presence of NCR refugees. Some of them are bad seeds, and dislike the strict rules and regulations of the town. A few of them even stay outside of the crude town walls themselves, having been exiled from the community for immoral behavior. This is actually very troublesome, as Jeremiah Maxwell only distributes free water to people living inside the town itself. The primary features of this map are: the eastern wall and gate, the squatter houses, the guard house, the general store, and the slaughterhouse.

Every day, Jeremiah and several brave Mormons journey out to have supper with the refugees on the exterior. Once a person has been expelled, the only way they are allowed back into Canaan is by submitting to the Mormon baptismal rite.

The town borders on the Great Salt Lake. It is surrounded by concrete and makeshift walls. The Canaanites keep most of their houses and businesses here. The town section is cleaner than the outskirts section, and relatively intact, considering an atomic firestorm once swept through the area. In addition to the modest homes and farms of the Canaanites, the main features of the town are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the New Canaan sheriff's office/jail, and the pump house. Jeremiah Rigdon and two priests are generally found at the church, though all three have homes of their own. One of the most important aspects of the New Canaan community is its racial tolerance. Four ghouls (one glowing) and one super mutant mark the extremes of a very mixed community.

Ogden's Union Station sits unused. If the player gets the trains up and working, he or she can take the train here. A few people live near the train tracks, including most of the super mutant and ghoul members of the Mormon faith. It's a little messier than the town itself, but not as bad as the outskirts.

Appearances
New Canaan does not appear in any of the published games, but was to appear in the canceled Fallout 3 project by Black Isle codenamed Van Buren, and was designed mostly by J.E. Sawyer. In later drafts of design documents, it says that New Canaan was destroyed in riots and Jericho is all that remained of it, but as New Canaan is mentioned occasionally and appears in graffiti in Fallout: New Vegas, this is non-canon. Some of this graffiti may be found in abandoned places that are not marked locations such as old garages or road signs. New Canaan is also mentioned frequently in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts and appears to have been destroyed by the White Legs.

Behind the scenes

 * Canaan was the land believed to have been promised by God to Abraham and his followers in the Bible.
 * According to the location's design document, the design for this town was inspired by The Mission and The Last Temptation of Christ, as well as the opening of The Gunslinger.
 * New Canaan is also the barony of which Gilead is the capital city in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It is the hailing point of the gunslingers. The preferred weapon is the "hard caliber" (speculated to be the .45), though only a revolver. The .45 Colt was made for revolvers in 1872; it is sometimes known as .45LC, the Long Colt. "Hard caliber" refers to the pressing process, where the solid lead is hard cast into shape.