Enclave

The Enclave is an organization that claims to be the direct continuation of the pre-War United States government. It is composed mostly of the descendants of government officials and military officers with ties to powerful corporations who retreated to a Poseidon Energy Oil Rig when the Great War started. They generally consider most people born outside the Enclave to be mutants worthy of eradication.

Overview
The Enclave takes pride in being one of the last bastions of pure strain humanity left, aside from the unopened Vaults. Because of the effects of radiation and Forced Evolutionary Virus on the people of the Wasteland, members of the Enclave generally do not consider them to be human anymore, even if they look no less human than they do. They, as well as other mutated creatures, like super mutants and ghouls, are considered to be subhumans that are at best to be used as slaves, and at worst eradicated so that "true humanity" could take their place as the real nation of America.

The Enclave's government and armed forces structures mirror that of the Pre-War United States government and U.S. Army. The government is headed by the president. The Enclave's scientists continue to do research on armor (e.g. the Advanced Power Armor) and weapons after the War and thus have even fancier toys than the Brotherhood of Steel, who only have U.S. Military standard issue from when the Great War broke out. The Enclave also has access to one of the last supplies of fossil fuel in the world and the advanced Vertibird helicopters.

Origins
One of the few old world organizations to survive the Great War, the Enclave was once the shadow government of the United States. Members of the Enclave were hardliners who both embraced the idea of a nuclear war and knew that the common man could not survive it. They believed that as long as the "important people" of the United States survived, they could regroup quickly and wipe out communism once and for all. Though not technically part of the Enclave, many powerful corporations benefited from the Enclave’s actions and their research facilities were protected during the firestorm of 2077.

In 2073, as the global race to exploit the handful of remaining natural resources reached its fevered peak, the United States managed to stake a claim on the world's last known supply of crude oil, buried thousands of feet beneath the Pacific Ocean. Poseidon Oil, a major U.S. energy concern, was contracted to build an oil rig and extract the oil. Before long, the oil ran dry and the oil rig was abandoned by Poseidon.

Come 2077, with total nuclear war rapidly arriving at America's doorstep, the President of the United States and a number of other United States government officials left their posts to take refuge in a number of secret locations around the world. Among them was the Poseidon Oil Rig. Here, the President himself set up a secret base from which the U.S.A. could continue to exist and wage war on China, with the eventual goal of retaking the continental United States.

The Vault Experiment Program
The Vaults were funded by the U.S. government and, accordingly, the government had control over them. Ostensibly, they were intended to allow a selection of privileged United States citizens to survive the Great War. Secretly, however, a large part of the Vault Project had a far more sinister goal. The U.S. government's real plan to survive a nuclear war was simply to find another planet to live on after blowing up this one. A spacecraft designed to ferry the human race to another planet was either under construction or ready to go before the War. The plan was for the government to flee to the Oil Rig, wait out the War and then pack up the populations of the Vaults to go into space. However, the spacecraft was likely destroyed, disabled or rendered inaccessible by the nuclear bombs, so the Enclave had to abandon that plan and focus on retaking the continental United States.

Any voyage to space would have been very difficult and fraught with unforeseeable complications. Thus, to test the aptitude of the average American person to travel to another planet, several of the Vaults were designed to have some sort of critical flaw. Vault 12, in Bakersfield (better known as the Necropolis), had a faulty Vault door that wouldn't close all the way, allowing dangerous radiation to leak in, leading to the creation of California's ghoul population. Vault 15, which is a few miles east of Vault 13, was built normally (the rockslide that buried its control centre was accidental), but it was populated with a diverse mix of races and peoples to see what sort of tensions arise when varied backgrounds are packed into a small environment. Vault 13, the home of the Vault Dweller in Fallout, was intended to stay shut for a full 200 years to test the effects of long term isolation (the troubles with the water chip forced the Overseer to improvise, potentially ruining the experiment as much of the Vault's population left to found Arroyo). The types and purposes of the experiments go on. Vault 8 (which is the Vault that Vault City was built around) was a control group, a Vault intended to exist normally to serve as a reference point for the other Vaults.

In order to monitor the populations being experimented upon, the Enclave's Oil Rig possessed a great deal of equipment that allowed them to observe and control the Vaults. For example, the Enclave sent the all clear signal to Vault 8 shortly after the War, prompting them to leave their Vault and build their City. These monitoring tools also let the Enclave see that the population of Vault 13 was largely intact. Thus, they traveled in force to Vault 13 and sent a command to the Vault's computers to open the Vault door. After taking care of some mild resistance, the Enclave troops rounded up the residents of Vault 13 and shipped them off to the Oil Rig in vertibirds to take part in the Chemical Corps' FEV experiments.

The Enclave's plan
For a long time after the Great War, the Enclave sat quietly in its Oil Rig, consolidating its forces and working on gaining a technological edge over anyone on the mainland. Eventually, though, when they felt it would be safe, they decided it was time to move out and start working towards the rebirth of America. Using their rather impressive Vertibirds, the Enclave sent out scouting parties all over California, the closest state to the Oil Rig.

What they found there scared them considerably: mutancy was rampant. The Enclave scouting parties arrived in California after the Master's defeat, and so saw super mutants and ghouls littering the land and the destruction and ravages they caused. When this was reported to the higher ups at the Enclave, it was decided that all the mutants would have to go. It occurred to the Enclave that those who had lived out in the open on the mainland for over a hundred years since the end of the War must have been contaminated or compromised somehow by radiation... or worse (indeed, most people living in the wasteland were inoculated with an airborne mutation of FEV immunizing them to the full effects of the real serum). These mutants too, then, would have to be destroyed before true humanity, true America, could once again lay claim to the mainland.

Reconnaissance and exploration of California continued: the Enclave didn't have any means of carrying out their genocidal ambitions short of destroying the world all over again with nuclear weapons. Eventually, Enclave troops stumbled across the old abandoned Mariposa Military Base, where research on the Forced Evolutionary Virus had been done before the Great War. FEV was what created the super mutants that most threatened the Enclave, and it would eventually come to be the Enclave's solution to these same mutants.

The Enclave excavated the Military Base, largely using slave labor gathered from the nearby mining town of Redding, eventually finding the Vats deep inside the lower levels of the base. Though they had been buried in rock and forgotten for decades, the Vats still contained that old familiar green bubbling gunk, Forced Evolutionary Virus. The Enclave gathered samples to be sent back to the Oil Rig for further analysis. Before long, though, the slave miners, some being fully exposed to raw FEV, others likely falling into the Vats accidentally, began to mutate into a second generation of super mutants. The mutant slaves soon overthrew their guards. Seizing their weapons, hardware left behind by the first Mutant Army or anything lying around, the super mutants stormed the upper levels and quickly overran the troops in the base. Panicked and retreating, the Enclave troopers on the upper levels fled the base and used explosives to seal the entrance, trapping the second generation mutants inside the base.

The final solution
Still, even though things went badly at Mariposa, the Enclave still had the samples of FEV they needed. Back at the Oil Rig, the United States Chemical Corps began work on the serum immediately. They found that it would be possible to make from FEV an incredibly potent and lethal toxin. But, in order for research to progress, they would need test subjects. They needed two test groups: one of clean, pure humans and another composed of the 'mutants' that lived all over the mainland, suffering radiation and FEV exposure for decades that, to the Enclave, made them unclean. The unclean sample was easily obtained by kidnapping the entire population of Arroyo.

The clean group would be more difficult to obtain though. The Enclave wouldn't allow the Chemical Corps to use people living on the Oil Rig (presumably because they were all too important to the Enclave's various projects). So, they had to look elsewhere. Once again, the mainland provided the needed stock. The stock source turns out to be the residents of Vault 13, the 'Control Group', as President Richardson puts it.

Before long, the Chemical Corps developed their supertoxin. It was found to be 100% lethal to tainted humans. Just as the Enclave was preparing to launch the poison into the jet stream to kill the entire population of the mainland, a tribal known as the Chosen One arrived at the Oil Rig on the Poseidon Oil tanker that had sat in San Francisco for years. The Chosen One freed the survivors of both the Vault 13 population as well as the Arroyo tribals and started a self destruct sequence in the Oil Rig that destroyed the entirety of the Enclave's headquarters, saving the world from horrible death at the hands of the mutant FEV.

The Enclave's president at the time of the Oil Rig's destruction was Dick Richardson, the son of a previous president, and his vice-president was Daniel Bird.

Aftermath
On the West Coast, The apparent destruction of the Enclave erased all trace of President Richardson from history. Now the title of "President" is used there simply as boogeyman is used to frighten children.

However, the destruction of the Oil Rig did not cause all of Enclave to be destroyed, as Navarro and other, smaller outposts were able to survive, and some personnel might have evacuated safely from the Oil Rig in Vertibirds.

Raven Rock
The remaining Enclave forces, led by Colonel Augustus Autumn, were ordered to relocate to the East Coast of the United States, to the Raven Rock base, by a new president who was apparently next in the chain of succession - John Henry Eden. Before destruction of the Oil Rig, Eden was a presidential advisor to US Presidents governing the Enclave. However, unbeknownst to everyone except for Autumn himself, Eden was actually not human, but an advanced artificial intelligence. In 2277, Autumn rebelled against Eden and revealed his true identity to the rest of the Enclave.

Enclave facilities


See also: Categorised Enclave appearance article.

Oil Rig
The Poseidon Energy Oil Rig off the coast of California served as the base for the post- Great War American government and the Enclave. The government was relocated to the rig as soon as the bombs fell and it served as the Enclave headquarters until its destruction by a tribal known as the "Chosen One".

Navarro


Navarro is a quite large outpost recently constructed by the Enclave on the coast of the mainland. It is a retrofitted oil refinery that served mainly as a refueling stop for vertibirds carrying out missions in California as well as a general base of operations outside the Oil Rig. Navarro figures prominently in Fallout 2, with many plot critical elements being found here. Navarro perimeter is patrolled by Enclave Control Company light teams, that are independent from Navarro Base Commander.

Mariposa Military Base
Mariposa was a Pre-War US Military base where the Forced Evolutionary Virus research was being done. After the War, it was taken over by the Master who used it to create an army of super mutants. After the Master's defeat and the base's destruction, it was excavated by the Enclave, but abandoned when the mutant slaves rebelled.

Vault 13
After emptying Vault 13 of its inhabitants, the Enclave left behind a pack of intelligent, talking deathclaws to guard the Vault and keep any nosey explorers from finding out what had happened to the vault dwellers and tracing it back to the Enclave. Unfortunately, the deathclaws weren't loyal to the Enclave and helped the Chosen One quite a bit, sealing their eradication by an Enclave assault squad headed by agent Frank Horrigan.

East Coast


In 2277 there is some Enclave presence in the Capital Wasteland area, together with a new President, John Henry Eden. Their main base of operations there is Raven Rock. One of the radio stations active in the area is run by the Enclave and broadcasts presidential speeches, marching band music and patriotic US music such as Yankee Doodle. After they make their presence known to the player, they can be found randomly around the wasteland with equipment set up, including cargo crates with deathclaws fitted with destroyable mind control helmets or wastelanders (mostly ghouls) they execute with heavy weaponry. A computer found in one such encampment reveals their orders are to round up wastelanders, offering them purified water if they will submit to genetic screening (resorting to force if they won't), and detaining and executing them if they have any sign of mutation.

2240s

 * President Dick Richardson
 * Vice-President Daniel Bird
 * Special Agent Frank Horrigan
 * dr. Charles Curling

2270s

 * President John Henry Eden

Relationships with other factions and communities

 * In New Reno, the Enclave was involved in a confidential exchange with the Salvatore family. The terms of the agreement were that the Enclave would provide the Salvatores with powerful energy weapons (laser pistols in fact), giving them an intimidating edge over the other Reno families, in exchange for which the Salvatores gave the Enclave drugs and slaves.
 * July 20 2242 Arroyo village was raided for human comparative sample (theoretically no witnesses left). This event should be correlated with Chosen One's 4th Arroyo dream.
 * In a canyon not far outside of Klamath, a small town in Northern California (former state of Oregon teritory) not far from Arroyo, an Enclave vertibird crashed, killing its crew (Jul 2241). A single Mr. Handy model robot survived the accident but it malfunctioned, leading the simple residents of Klamath to assume the canyon was haunted. Aside from the robot, two unarmed guards corpses and the crashed vertibird itself, a single yellow keycard was found at the crash site.
 * The Enclave use Poseidon net, which is still patched into Poseidon Energy Gecko' reactor systems, allowing them to communicate with users logged onto the nuclear power plant's computer (there are 4 computer stations: two on the oil rig, one in Navarro, one in Gecko).
 * Tanker in San Francisco was disabled and controlled with FOB by Navarro Base Commander.
 * there are some Fallout 2 NPC, who are Enclave deserters, like Dr. Henry in Shady Sands and captain A. Ron Meyers, in charge on the PMV Valdez in San Francisco (former Enclave technician).
 * Miners from Redding saw flying vertibird in south-west direction.

Mainland awareness
Though the Enclave remained enigmatic and elusive, their isolationist policies where also characterized by heavy tech scavenging, research and other mainland interactions fueling their sinister ambitions.
 * Their presence probably was known by Vic, who promised Metzger a radio, that could intercept transmissions from the Enclave and New Reno.
 * Trade interactions appeared, when the Enclave started to trade weapons for chemicals from the Salvatore’s in New Reno, in addition to purchasing slave labor for the excavation of Mariposa from a source in Redding.
 * A crashed vertibird in Klamath also is a sign of Enclave activity in northern California.
 * A great number of San Francisco factions know of the Enclaves presence.
 * AHS-9 reveals comprehensive knowledge about the Enclave and their base of operations.
 * The Shi can see the vertibirds flying overhead and are seeking to replicate the technology along with the Brotherhood of Steel. Both groups are aware of some semblance of the Enclave as a major military presence.
 * The captain of the tanker is an A.W.O.L. Navarro technician and so has intimate knowledge of the Enclave.
 * Lynette in Vault City inquires about the enclaves power armor to the Chosen One after the conclusion of Fallout 2, though it is unknown whether she had any knowledge of the enclave prior to their destruction.
 * New Reno citizens praise the Chosen One for his success over the enclave and claim to have been able to see the explosion from the mainland, it is unknown whether these floating texts are meant to be considered canon as they make open reference to game developers.
 * Dr. Henry in NCR was an Enclave deserter.

Appearances in games
The Enclave appears in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. It might have appeared in Van Buren, Black Isle's cancelled Fallout 3 project, and it certainly played an important part in the game's backstory.

Holodisks

 * Military Base Level 1
 * Military Base Level 2
 * Military Base Level 3
 * Military Base Level 4
 * Military Base Outside
 * State of the Nation
 * The Project
 * Power Plant Operations
 * Word List