Zion Canyon

Zion Canyon is the location in Utah in 2281. It serves as the game world for the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts.

Background
Formerly the site of the Zion National Park, north of the Mojave, Zion Canyon was spared from most of the worst horrors of the Great War, but nonetheless suffered from the fallout, becoming irradiated and losing much of its plant and animal life. However, within only a few years, the radiation had started to fall and the adapted survivors had begun to repopulate, and so Zion remains a pristine 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 sought refuge in the park’s caves only a few days after the war, benefitting from its quick environmental recovery but slowly losing his mind from lonesomeness and feelings of guilt over the loss of his family, and had been living there for years 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 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 direct 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 the 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, wants 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.
 * Zion National Park is approximately 180 miles from Las Vegas, making the 14 day journey duration plausible.