Fallout Season 1 — I’m Glad They Nuked Shady Sands (And I’m Tired of Pretending I’m Not)

I have to get something off my chest. It’s a big deal, and I don’t think you’ll like it much. It is on the level of saying that Mido-Chlorians don’t bother you or that Keanu just isn’t that good of an actor. Yeah, we’re getting into the real hot takes. And this one is even timely:

I’m actually glad that Amazon Prime’s Fallout show nuked Shady Sands. By the end of this, you will be, too.

Let’s get the housekeeping out of the way: Shady Sands is kinda a big deal in Fallout. Way back in ’97, with the launch of Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game (side note: please bring back that subtitle), it was the very first settlement most players encountered after leaving Vault 13. It was essentially the first place that Fallout went.

In the first game, set in 2161, it was a small, struggling farming community, in desperate need of the Vault Dwellers’ (canonical) help. By the time of Fallout 2, set in 2241, it has become an absolute powerhouse, having become the capital of the since-formed New California Republic, a country whose ultimate goal is to try to reshape something resembling democracy out of the wastes. When we next visit the West Coast in Fallout: New Vegas, this country’s territory has expanded whose size has, if anything, begun to hurt it as its forces are stretched thin and its bureaucracy grows deeper.

All from the same seat of power as we saw when it was a tiny farming community, back in Fallout 1. It is safe to say, then, that Shady Sands was the core of old-war ideals and of progress for the wasteland in the form of the NCR — for better and worse. And so, with a return to its region of California in the show, many fans were excited to see what became of the beloved city in the 155 years since we last saw it.

Well… It’s a crater.

In case people are only halfway through the show and find this article because they got to Episode 5 and saw their favorite symbol of bureaucratic democracy blasted to dust, I won’t say who did it, or why. But, regardless, Shady Sands was nuked. Blown to bits. Gone entirely.

This has led many fans to bemoan the choice, to put it lightly. People all over the internt expressed frustration about what that means for the fan-favorite NCR, confusion about how the timeline stacks up and whether Fallout: New Vegas (best game in the franchise) is still canon, and irritation at how unceremonious the reveal was. Needless to say, there is a lot of criticism surrounding this choice, and that’s not even mentioning the chalkboard. Despite generally positive reviews from fans and newcomers alike, Prime’s Season 1 of Fallout has been met with incredible distaste for nuking Shady Sands, and for seemingly cripple the NCR along with it.

And I’m here to say that it all makes perfect sense, was a fantastic idea, and, frankly, that I would’ve done the same. I’m glad they nuked Shady Sands.

None of this is rooted in distaste for Fallout‘s old lore or “newcomer bias” where I don’t understand how important the location was, or the importance of the NCR. On the contrary, not only am I a lifelong fan who vastly prefers West Coast Fallout titles (specifically 1, 2, and New Vegas), but I am a fan of the NCR specifically. I have their patches on my jackets, and a poster of the two-headed bear on my wall. Honestly, that doesn’t get in the way of me being happy they nuked the capital of the NCR: it makes it better.

Because, you see, Fallout is not a universe of stagnation. There is one thing that doesn’t change (don’t say the line), but everything else needs to be in flux at all times for that to make sense. Change, and the chaos that comes from that, is what makes Fallout fantastic. Not to mention the feel of living in a lawless Wasteland, teetering on the edge of a new precipice at all times.

And you know what the NCR doesn’t do? For all its flaws, the NCR certainly doesn’t make things more chaotic. It orders things, sometimes even to the point of hurting the people who get in the way of that order. It is bureaucratic, official, democratic. The NCR is the old world, trying to reverse entropy and bring back what was. And it was succeeding, growing in size and power with every passing year.

And that’s great; I love that for them. If I lived in the wasteland, I sure as hell would want the NCR to succeed. But I don’t live in the wasteland: I just watch it on TV and play it on PC. And another 15 years of NCR control and domination after we saw them last — and in a show set on their home turf no less — wouldn’t have worked. It would’ve been too stable, too secure. Fallout isn’t a series about bureaucracy and military police and stable trade (and, when it is, it’s struggling, like in New Vegas). It is a series about the post-apocalypse, quite simply, and there has to be a certain amount of lawless wasteland to make that work.

If nuking Shady Sands is what is needed to get the show (and presumably future Fallout games) to feel like Fallout, then hand me the button, Tenpenny, because the NCR was getting a bit too big for their britches.

As much as I love the NCR, they represented too much progress, too much stability. This has its own issues — very fascinating moral quandaries and logistical hurdles that would be worthwhile to think about, in fact — but it was also not very Fallout. For a show, where you are introducing the appeal of Fallout to a whole new audience and trying to reclaim old fans, having a big mass-industrially-capable nation resembling pre-War America be in control of California wouldn’t really hit the mark.

You know what would? Nuking its capital city, withering that nation, and setting viewers off into a lawless wasteland filled with the ruins and remnants of not just one, but two civilizations. Two for the price of one on civilizational collapse!

But it isn’t just wanton destruction I’m after: I also think this creates a more interesting path for the NCR going forward. That’s right, more interesting for the NCR. Because, despite having relatively minimal presence in the wasteland we see in the show, the NCR seems far from gone. Not only does Moldaver have some clear connections to the NCR herself, but the New California Republic clearly has plenty of followers throughout the wastes (and in at least one vault).

And this shouldn’t be surprising: the NCR was a huge, prosperous nation with around 700,000 people living in its borders. That doesn’t all vanish with the capital exploding. But it would fragment what remained, especially in such resource-and-communication-poor circumstances. Not only are the administrative personnel and infrastructure likely completely gone, but a lot of territory they held at the edge of their empire likely left or was reclaimed by opposing factions shortly after. But almost certainly not all of it. The fact is that we simply don’t know what’s out there, but that the repeated use of NCR iconography and hints at NCR plotlines only leads me to believe that they are far from powerless, even if their control base in California has been largely shattered.

I would also like to draw your attention to a single detail to prove this: the Shady Sands sign, which we see as Lucy and Maximus are coming up onto the crater where the city once stood. It reads: “Welcome to Shady Sands, First Capital of the New California Republic.” Hopefully my bold, italicized, underlined text makes it clear what I’m saying.

Why would you label something as a first capital unless there was more than one? Many nations in real life have moved their capital, and some (even today) have two capitals simultaneously, separated precisely for stability and to ensure nothing that happens to one will dissolve a nation. So, while we don’t get a clear picture of what exactly is meant by “First” in this context (getting woefully little information about the current state of the NCR in general), it sure would be an odd detail to include unless there was a second capital that would, presumably, still be the head of the NCR. Personally, my money’s on New Vegas. Either that, or each state of the former NCR’s capital should still be around.

Okay, so, here’s what we have so far: Shady Sands being nuked allows the wasteland to be uncontrolled and hostile — more fitting for a Fallout show, especially one aimed at new fans. And, Shady Sands’ destruction doesn’t even spell the end of the NCR, as indicated both by its sign and general logic, just its weakening. What this leaves us with is a depowered NCR somewhere in the wasteland and a wasteland that has fallen back into anarchy and hopelessness following its downfall.

Now’s the time to remember that this is all a story, and to think like writers. Specifically, I want you to think about Lucy, and how she relates to all this. She is from a vault whose purpose is, eventually, to spring up and reclaim the wastes, to help usher forward a new age of progress and stability to the wastes. However, she comes up into a hostile wasteland that seems intractable to even the lightest of changes, much less the kind of systemic power structures she once dreamed about.

And, what do you know, somewhere in the wastes are a faction of weakened heroes of progress and stability, whose destruction led to the hostility of the wasteland and whose presence was once what enabled massive change in the form of a systemic power structure that could unite the wastes. If only they had a new leader, someone to rally behind, and could find their footing again. Maybe that could be someone who shares their ideals, knows both the wastes and about civilization, and has a deep connection to Shady Sands and the person who destroyed it.

Are you beginning to see some connections?

Everything about this screams that Lucy’s plotline, going forward, can and probably will be closely tied to the NCR, in whatever form she finds it in. Her goals align with theirs, but there is enough discrepency there and in-built dogma from both her and the NCR that it would make for really good dramatic television. That’s without even going into how Maximus, a knight with a faction that opposes the NCR, might react to his crush joining them. Or even the Ghoul, who lived in and loved pre-War America and might just want to see its ideals return.

I mean, come on, it writes itself! Well enough that even Jonathan Nolan can’t make it overly complex in Season 2 (Oh, Westworld, how far ye strayed). It fits. It brings back the NCR, and makes their status important going forward. It allows the wastes to be chaotic, but gives hope and choices — two things Fallout is rife with. And all it took was one little nuclear incident and some light major destabilization of an entire country.

But, well… That’s just describing Fallout, isn’t it?

There is a different discussion to be had about the efficacy of how the Fallout show communicates all this information (that Vault-damned blackboard will live in my mind forever), and there is some sloppiness over just how little is revealed about the NCR’s current state, but in the end everything I’ve laid out above points to nuking Shady Sands not just being “fine”, but being a great idea. One that lets the creators get exactly what they want out of the show, its factions, and its characters, as well as setting up much more interesting games going forward.

So, yeah: even if there are things that could’ve been done better about it, I am really, truly, unapologetically glad that they nuked Shady Sands. The NCR is dead; long live the NCR!