United States

The history of the Fallout world diverged from ours shortly after World War II. In that world, the Cold War never ended, and it stopped being cold. Nonetheless, the United States remained one of the major superpowers.

The commonwealths
Prior to the Great War, the United States had an intermediate level of government between the state and federal powers. In the early 21st century, the nation was divided into thirteen commonwealths. It was believed that such divisions would help create legislation broad enough to affect states with common concerns, but narrow enough to leave dissimilar states alone. In reality, it created even more strife, as commonwealths typically did everything they could to promote their own interests at the expense of other commonwealths. The United States flag was changed as well. The new flag depicted 13 stars in a circle and one in the middle. The middle star probably represented the unity of the nation. The thirteen commonwealths were:




 * Columbia - Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia
 * East Central – Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee
 * Eastern – West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York
 * Four States – Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
 * Gulf – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida
 * Midwest – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan
 * New England – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut
 * North – Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota
 * Northwest – Northern California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska
 * Plains – Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma
 * Southeast – Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina
 * Southwest – Southern California, Nevada, Hawaii
 * Texas – Texas, Arkansas

It is unknown whether there were any changes to that after the annexation of Canada.

The Enclave
At some point in the 21st century, the Enclave, a shadow government of the United States, was formed. 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 Energy, 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 leave 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. From now on, the remnant of the government started to openly call itself the Enclave.

Appearances in games
All Fallout games so far take place in the territory of the former United States.

Behind the scenes
The initial idea of dividing the country into thirteen zones came from Leonard Boyarsky during the development of Fallout. In Fallout Bible 8 Tim Cain reported that Leon said he used that flag because it looked cool and he didn't want to use a standard US flag with 50 stars. Eventually he planned to make up something about 13 super-states or something, but he never did. According to J. E. Sawyer, Tramell Isaac, who rendered the intro cinematic for Fallout said that they just took the old colonial flag and added a new star in the middle. It was further elaborated upon by J. E. Sawyer, who broke up the US into zones.

Number of stars
There was much misunderstanding about the number of stars on the flag and the corresponding zones, because not all of them are actually visible in the only available picture depicting it. Chris Avellone erroneously stated that there are 13 of them in Fallout Bible 8. He was "corrected" by Red, who sent him the picture with the location of 11 stars marked. Until J. E. Sawyer ultimately clarified the issue in 2005, it was belived to be the correct version.

The United States of the Fallout Timeline, at least since the formation of the Commonwealths seems to use the highly obscure Cowpens Flag, used in the battle of Cowpens, South Carolina in 1781 and one of the major victories of the young nation:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/438/cowpenslm0.gif

The only difference is a much enlarged middle star. However, due to the fact that the whole flag has never been seen, and more importantly, would literally be interpreted as having only 11 stars there is room for some debate. This author holds that the meaning of the "Commonwealth Flag" is abrogated by merely 13 stars. It needs 14 stars, the outside ring of 13 stars for each of the Commonwealths, harkening back to the legendary Betsy Ross design, while the fourteenth star, copiously larger than the rest, symbolizes the unending Union of the States under the Federal Republic. That way, the symbols of old are used to justify the actions of the new:

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8843/usaflagprewarzn7.png