Fallout: Florida , The Sunshine State's Post-Apocalyptic Wastes Options

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Well, I never thought I'd be posting in this particular subforum before now. But with all these ideas bouncing in my head of what post-Great War Florida would look like in the Fallout universe, I have taken to jotting them down and (hopefully) making a cohesive guide to it. I don't really write fiction, so I don't think I'll be writing actual stories like you all do, but I suppose we'll see. For the time being, it's really going to be a guide of sorts, somewhat like a wiki or what textbooks would say.

This will obviously attempt to adhere to Fallout canon as much as possible. I chose Florida as the setting not only because it is my home state (though that is definitely the biggest reason) but because, from what I can tell, so little about the Southeastern United States is talked about in Fallout lore, giving me a lot more room to operate in. And, of course, it's the state I know best and would love to see the most as a setting for a Fallout game.

So here's the plan for all this:
[*] I'm going to break up each section of the guide into its own post to separate it sufficiently. This one will be the introduction to the setting.
[*] I may include some incomplete information on here for several reasons. For one, it'll be an easy repository to refer to just in case the Word doc I am using has something go screwy or that my computer messes up or whatever. Two, it can be a little taste of what's to come. Three, I just want to get down as much content as comes to me.
[*] The tentative list of sections to have here include, but are not limited to (and not necessarily in this order):

[*] General overview of the setting and how I am breaking up the parts of Florida
[*] The Bestiary
[*] The Timeline
[*] The Factions
[*] Profiles of each of the regions I am making

Some of the stuff you see will definitely be subject to change if needed to make it cohesive. I'll try to document what I change to make it clear.

And most of all, I hope you all like it and I'd like to hear whatever feedback you have. Presenting and communicating information is one of the things I enjoy most, although I'm more used to doing so for real-life content (particularly political science).

First section of the guide coming up!

The Setting - Basic Overview

While not experiencing the same level of nuclear barrage as places such as Southern California, New York, and D.C., Florida was plunged into nuclear fire just like virtually everywhere else in the world. This was especially true of the Tampa Bay Area, Orlando and its surrounding areas, and South Florida, centers of great economic and political importance in Pre-War America. Being the 3rd-most populous state in the country, the Great War extinguished far more lives than average here and left plenty more to pick up the pieces in the post-apocalyptic, anarchic wastes. The exceptional biological, geographical, and human diversity of Florida led to a far more varied impact on the former Sunshine State when the bombs fell.

Nevertheless, many settlements started to crop up in the decades just after the Great War, even in those once-densely populated cities and metropolitan areas. In time, former towns and cities were beginning to be resurrected and reclaiming their old names, and brand-new ones started to form. But post-War Florida--and the rest of what used to be the country's Gulf Commonwealth, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi--was still highly fractured. In the 22nd century, the first of many ambitious attempts was made to reunite this once-thriving landscape. While extraordinarily difficult at first, a string of successes in reunification gave birth to the Gulf Coast Union, a nation similar in concept to the future New California Republic (NCR). The so-called Great Reunification--a somewhat hyperbolic title, at least currently--started extending through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and even some of southwestern Georgia, though it has yet to reclaim the whole of any of these former states.

The process is far from completed, however, and many other factions both big and small struggle with the Gulf Coast Union for dominance in the former Southeastern United States. Many of the conflicts take place in what used to be the Sunshine State. The Gulf Coast Union was successful in claiming virtually all of Northern Florida and has made inroads into the Central Florida wastes. Major and minor powers violently feuding with each other and with the Gulf Coast Union have made the GCU's grip on these lands somewhat tenuous, preventing any attempts at expanding into South Florida.

As of this guide, it is currently the year 2130, over a half-century since the world was irrevocably changed. To most easily understand the lands that were once called Florida, it is best to divide the area into ten distinct regions--even if the divisions are a bit crude, arbitrary, or too convenient. Each have their own set of conflicts being waged, major and minor players vying for power, and civilizations trying to carve out a life in these harsh wastes. Welcome to the Sunshine State's post-apocalyptic wastes.

The Ten Regions and Their Counties

County Map
Here's how some coasts in Florida got their nicknames, though not all are explicitly mentioned here

Though these broken-up zones are somewhat crude and arbitrary, it'll be easiest to understand post-apocalyptic Florida this way. However, major conflicts in one region can definitely spill over into another.

1) Panhandle (13): Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Holmes, Washington, Bay, Jackson, Calhoun, Gulf, Liberty, Franklin, Gadsden
2) Big Bend (8): Leon, Wakulla, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor, Lafayette, Dixie, Levy
3) North Central Florida (8): Hamilton, Suwannee, Columbia, Baker, Union, Bradford, Alachua, Gilchrist
4) The First Coast (6): Nassau, Duval, Clay, St. Johns, Putnam, Flagler
5) The Space and Treasure Coasts (7): Volusia, Seminole, Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, Okeechobee
6) Central Florida (8): Marion, Sumter, Lake, Orange, Polk, Osceola, Hardee, Highlands
7) The Tampa Bay Area (6): Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee
8) The Gold Coast (3): Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade
9) Southwest Florida (7.5): Sarasota, De Soto, Charlotte, Glades, Lee, Hendry, Collier, Monroe (mainland only)
10) The Keys (0.5): Monroe (Keys only)


Just a quick side-note: The Panhandle West/East dichotomy is one I totally made up for my own purposes. They are, as far as I know, not referred to as such in real life. It is just the Panhandle, and the real-world Panhandle doesn't necessarily include all of the counties in Big Bend.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Jun 9 2020, 01:30 AM

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

@Cheshire - Thank you. I will certainly try to update as much as I can.

@SubRosa - Thank you. I didn't really think about it, but yeah, this could be a nice introduction to an actual Fallout game. Have something different than someone coming from a Vault, although I suppose Fallout has already done that multiple times (2, NV, and I think Tactics, for example).

@Renee - Thank you. Yeah, I'm trying to include little things to flesh out the characters but not too much to drag it on. As for Mariah, maybe there is something subconscious but I just really like the name. There is the goofy reference to the minor character of the same name in The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard (which I've posted before, but I'll put it here again because it is...certainly something), but that had no bearing on my choice of that name.

---------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 2: Old Wounds

Mariah, Valentina, and Jacob made their way over to the GCU station, just a bit down the block from the bar. It was a pre-War police station for Pensacola, making it a convenient location to convert for the GCU’s purposes. The sun was starting to set, and the station was getting less busy, but there were still plenty of GCU officers inside.

As the three of them entered the station, Commander Bertrand was talking to another GCU officer, who handed him several papers. “Well done, officer,” Bertrand told him. “You may return to your post.” Then he noticed the three of them approaching. Valentina and Jacob saluted their superior. “Ah, there you all there. Some of the others found some intel on the Dissidents from their bodies. Only problem is it seems to be in code. Figures…” Bertrand scoffed. “We’ll get the codebreakers on it after the interrogation.”

“Have you found anything else out? Motives? What they were looking for? Where they are holed up?” Mariah asked eagerly.

“Not yet. But that’s why we have the prisoner in there. We’ll make him talk.” Bertrand gestured toward the Dissident, the one captured from the caravan raid, sitting in the interrogation room behind him. “They’ve been more active in these parts as of late. We’re far from their land, which is up in the north of pre-War Alabama. So why a bunch of them are out here is anyone’s guess, but they must think there is something important here that we have. They’ll also have to have some sort of base set up that they are launching their operations from.”

Bertrand continued. “We’ve been able to fend them off no problem before, but they have been getting the jump lately, so we’re increasing patrols in the area. We have to be careful about overextending though, because our numbers are strained. The GCU’s got problems in other places besides here.” Bertrand was referring to the fact that the Panhandle of Florida was not the only place that the GCU was fighting with local groups in. It was not even the only place in Florida that there was trouble. To the east of Pensacola was Tallahassee (the pre-War capital of Florida), Gainesville, and Jacksonville, each with their own set of issues. But there was also a lot of trouble brewing over in Baton Rouge and near New Orleans in Louisiana. Then Bertrand asked, “Before we interrogate the prisoner, though, I need to know what Mariah saw or heard. Mariah, is there anything you can tell us? Anything you know can help us out here.”

Mariah thought for a moment. Then she frowned and shook her head. “No. They just came out of nowhere. I was knocked out of my cart and disoriented for a bit, but I couldn’t really focus on anything until I regained my composure. But these aren’t just some raiders. They must have been looking for something that they thought the caravan had, right?”

Bertrand sighed. “I can only speculate. Let’s go get some information out of the prisoner. Jacob, you come with me inside. Valentina and Mariah, you stay behind the glass and watch. Look for any sorts of cues he may unknowingly give, anything. Mariah, you can see through the glass but he can’t see you. Some sort of pre-War tech that many police stations used. Called them one-way mirrors.”

The four of them went to take their positions. The Dissident prisoner had been sitting there silently, looking down on the floor. When Jacob and Bertrand walked in, the prisoner finally looked up and simply laughed in a low register when he saw them. “And so the GCU dogs have come to squeeze something out me. Bark! Bark! Ha! Loyally serving your corrupt masters.”

“Can it,” Bertrand shot back.

“Can it? You want info out of me and you tell me to shut up? Seems contradictory to me,” the Dissident smiled smugly. “But I suppose no one ever accused GCU personnel of being smart.”

Bertrand dismissed the remark. “You’re going to tell us what we want to know.”

“And why should I tell you anything, lap dog? Why don’t you just…”

“I’ll ask the questions here. Not you. If you are not cooperative, I promise you we have ways to make you talk.”

“Oh yeah? Gonna pull another stunt like the GCU did in Birmingham? Remember that? How the GCU slaughtered some of our people because we were defending our land? We remember quite well.”

“Slaughtered? Defending?” Jacob said incredulously, his face turning red. Steam was practically coming out of his ears with how quickly angered he became. “I’m going to rearrange that face of yours!”

Jacob took a couple of steps toward the Dissident before Bertrand held his arm out. “Officer Jacob, stand down! He’s just trying to get into our heads.”

“Yeah, Officer Jacob. Stand down,” the Dissident said in a deliberately mocking voice. “You know, speaking of names, you never even asked me mine. Is that how you treat all your guests? My name is Gerald. Let’s see you get anything else out of me.” It seemed that this Gerald was full of smart [censored] quips.

“Okay, Gerald,” Bertrand said. “We pulled some information off one of your dead buddies. A coded message. Our codebreakers are going to decipher it soon. But why don’t you spare us the trouble, tell us what we want to know, and we’ll think about going a bit easier on your compatriots.”

Gerald’s playful mood started to dissipate. “What are you going to do to me, huh? I’m a prisoner. I have certain rights. Or maybe it’s different for you dogs. You gonna murder me like the GCU did to our people around Birmingham?”

“Awfully bold of scum like you to accuse us of murder after what you guys did to that caravan.”

“Call it retribution. You guys had it coming,” Gerald brazenly defended his organization’s actions. “You’ll get nothing out of me and nothing out of that scrap of paper you picked up.”

Bertrand pounded the table with a loud thud. For a moment it startled Gerald, but he quickly regained his smug smile. “Enough! Why did you attack the caravan?! You guys clearly wanted something from that caravan and we want to know what it is. Where are you launching raids from?”

Gerald simply disregarded the questions. “The GCU’s time is coming, bootlickers. We know all about the trouble you guys are having throughout your territory. Got too big too quickly. Thought you can take what isn’t yours by force. Like the Brotherhood. We’re here to regain Alabama’s sovereignty. The Alabama Compact threw away our self-determination, as if outsiders should determine what’s best for us. Well, they don’t represent us. YOU don’t represent us.” The Alabama Compact was a post-War nation that sprung up relatively quickly after the bombs fell, an attempt at a rebirth of pre-War Alabama. They eventually joined similar governments from former Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana to form the Gulf Coast Union.

“You want to play this game, you waste of oxygen?” Bertrand growled. “Fine, we’ve got a special solitary place for people like you. You spend some time there, and you’ll talk. Believe me.”

Mariah had heard enough and furiously stormed to the interrogation room door. Valentina tried to grab one of her arms but Mariah quickly pulled it away. She burst into the room to confront Gerald herself. “You stupid son of a [censored]! Answer the [censored] questions!”

“Damn it, Mariah!” Bertrand’s temper rose. He and Jacob grabbed Mariah as she was getting ready to pull out her sword and threaten Gerald.

“Whoa-ho! Well, hello there, sweet thing,” Gerald said, struck by Mariah’s beauty. “You know, Commander, you’re really no good at this interrogation thing. Should have sexy women like this doing the questioning. More likely to get me to answer.” Gerald creepily winked at Mariah.

“I’ll cut you up just like I did your friend!” Mariah shot back, facing him while desperately trying to break free from Jacob and Bertrand’s hold on her. They were far too strong for her to even get her hand to grab the sword’s hilt.

It was at this remark that Gerald dropped his sarcastic demeanor completely, getting visibly angry for the first time there. “That was you? Listen, you little [censored]. I’m going to get out of here eventually, and when I find you, we’re going to have some fun. Well, maybe just me. Mark my words.”

“You won’t do a damn thing!” Bertrand bellowed, still trying to push Mariah out the door. “Jacob, see to it that our prisoner gets put in the ‘special box.’”

“What the hell is that?” Gerald asked with some trepidation in his voice. He cleared his throat and regained his composure. “Well, you still won’t get me to talk! The Dissidents are going to bring the death knell to the GCU! And the Brotherhood will get what’s coming to them too! You’ll all pay!” Gerald was still yelling as Bertrand slammed the door.

Mariah had spent some considerable energy trying to break free from Bertrand and Jacob’s grasp and she was already tired from the day’s events. As she was catching her breath, Bertrand addressed her. The patience he had exhibited with her earlier was gone. “What the hell are you thinking, Mariah?!”

“That [censored] wasn’t talking,” Mariah said exasperatedly.

“And you thought that what you did was going to help? I let you stand outside the window there. We rarely let civilians this far into the station, and it’s not normally something we should be doing. But I did it because I figured you could help us and that your actions at the caravan merited that.” Bertrand paused briefly to let go some of the anger. “Look, I know you’re angry. We all are. Every single one of us here wants to end that degenerate’s life. But we can’t let this opportunity go to waste and we certainly can’t have our emotions spill over like yours just did.”

“Yeah, because the GCU is really doing their job well,” Mariah shot back sarcastically.

Bertrand finally had enough after she said that. “This discussion is over. Time to leave the station. Valentina, please see Mariah out.” Valentina gently placed her shoulder on Mariah’s back and gave her a slight nudge toward the station’s entrance. While she was still furious at the unsuccessful interrogation and Bertrand, Mariah didn’t want to cause Valentina trouble, and she obliged.

///////////

Mariah went back to the Blue Angel, exhausted from the day’s events. It was surprisingly quiet inside. The human bartender that was at the bar earlier must have left for the evening, as he was now replaced by a Mr. Handy. Normally used to help clean Pre-War homes, Mariah had seen some Mr. Handy models repurposed for other means like shopkeeping in her travels. She sat down at the bar with a heavy sigh. The song “Crazy” by Patsy Cline, a Pre-War favorite for many Americans and even for some people outside of the U.S., started playing on the radio.

The Mr. Handy floated over to her and cheerfully spoke in the trademark English accent typical of its kind. “Good evening, madam! You look lovely tonight. Can I interest you in a drink?”

“Just a bourbon, please,” Mariah muttered tiredly, handing over a few caps.

“One bourbon for the young lady coming up!”

Mariah sat there ruminating on the day with bourbon in hand. After all that transpired, she was not sure what to do from here. She wanted to find more on the Dissidents, what they wanted, and where they were based nearby. But after what happened at the station, she figured her chances of being further involved were slim to none. It was probably unlikely to begin with, given that she was not working for the GCU. Perhaps she could have done some mercenary work, though.

After five or ten minutes, Mariah heard a familiar voice call out her name. “Hey, Mariah.” It was Valentina.

Mariah turned around, perking up a bit. “Oh. Hey, Valentina.”

“You can just call me Val if you want. Rolls off the tongue much easier.” Mariah could see Valentina’s eyes were significantly red, indicating that she had been crying a lot. She must have finally had time to mourn her murdered father, Gabriel, now that her work for the day was over. “May I join you?”

“Of course.”

Valentina sat down next to Mariah at the bar with a heavy sigh and ordered a bourbon from the Mr. Handy bartender. After she received the drink and sat for a moment in silence, Valentina spoke up again. “Hey, uh. . . thanks again for telling me about my dad. It may seem like a small gesture, but it meant a lot.”

“Absolutely.” Then she gestured toward Valentina’s drink and chuckled. “Your dad seemed to see a lot of you in me. Judging by your drink choice, I guess he was right.”

“Ha, yeah.” Valentina laughed too, looking down at her bourbon. Then she looked straight forward and spoke somewhat wistfully. “Yep, sounds like him alright. He was very protective of young women in the wasteland. Easy to see why with his life experiences.”

“What happened?” Mariah asked, quickly adding, “Um, if you want to say, that is.”

“Don’t worry. It’s good to let it out sometimes. My dad seemed to trust you. He had a good eye for people, so I trust his judgment.” Valentina paused again then had to clear her throat. “He raised me by himself for quite some time. Mom died while I was still a kid. Raiders attacked our settlement where we were living at the time. And it. . . it wasn’t enough for them to just loot everything, or even to just kill everyone. Typical raiders had to go even further and do even more horrifying things to some of the people there.” It was clear what kinds of things she referred to. They were raiders, after all.

After another pause, Valentina continued. “A few survivors were able to push the raiders out and kill most of them. But the damage was done. Men, women, children—experiencing the horrors of the wasteland firsthand. A few of the raiders escaped but my dad and a handful of survivors tracked them down. And when they found their hideout, they. . . they found women and children imprisoned in cages. The women had barely any clothing on and the children were in tattered rags. My dad and the rest of them butchered the raiders and rescued the prisoners.” She was on the verge of sobbing again.

Mariah stayed silent for a while, but it seemed that Valentina was hoping she would say something. Valentina was having trouble speaking again. “I’m sorry, Val. If it’s any consolation, a lot of that is similar to what I experienced when I was young too.”

Valentina had been looking down holding back her tears, but she turned toward Mariah. “Really?”

Mariah cleared her throat. “Yeah.” She took another swig of her bourbon. “Raiders hit our settlement when I was kid too. Except it was my whole family—mom, dad, brother, and some extended family—gone. Back then, I wasn’t a fighter. Despite all the [censored] that goes on in the wasteland, mom and dad tried their hardest to shield us from it. I was a happy-go-lucky kid. . . until the raiders came. They came to our settlement and. . . razed it all down.” Her voice started to take a defeated tone. “I wish I could have gone and quite literally ripped them all apart. But I didn’t know the first thing about combat. I just ran, like my parents told me to. Still, I feel like I let them down.” Tears started streaming down her face as well. “Guess that’s why I get angry so easily. I wish I had the spine to go after those raiders and make them suffer. But I didn’t. I still feel like I have to atone for it.”

Valentina placed her hand on Mariah’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Mariah. No one would’ve expected you to face down all those raiders by yourself.”

Mariah turned to Valentina and gave a faint smile. “Part of me wants to agree with you. But it’s still a feeling I can’t shake. It’s good in a way, though. Drove me to learn how to fight, how to shoot a gun, and all that. I wouldn’t have been able to help defend the caravan otherwise.”

“That’s sort of like my dad. Wanting to dispense justice in the wasteland. He did for a while, but he told me that after a near-death experience he stopped. Said he really started to think about how I would’ve been alone if he was gone. So, dad stopped living the mercenary life pretty quickly. When I grew up, though, I knew that I wanted to protect people after that. Help bring justice and safety to the wasteland. So, when I was old enough, I joined the GCU. My dad wasn’t a fan at first, but he understood eventually. As much as he wanted to keep looking out for me, he saw that I wasn’t a little girl anymore, and he returned to caravan driving. Thought he could at least look after people that way, and his body wouldn’t have held up to the mercenary life. But he always made sure to check up on me periodically. Of course, now…” Valentina paused again.

Although she still wasn’t ready to spill her whole life story, Mariah was relieved that she finally found someone in Valentina that could be some sort of confidant. Something about Valentina immediately gave Mariah the feeling that she was trustworthy. Both of them had a similar trajectory in life, although Valentina seemed to have more of a reverence for (or at least adherence to) a real structure and rules while Mariah was more of a questioner about how things operated. Mariah couldn’t envision herself working for an organization like the GCU, although their basic goals seemed to be the same.

Still, Mariah wanted to change the topic. Something else was on her mind. “Val, the Dissident—Gerald—he mentioned “Birmingham” repeatedly in that interrogation and held it against the GCU. What was that about?”

Valentina was also relieved to change the topic. She took another drink from her bottle of bourbon and emptied it. “Well, I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard some of the others at the station describe it. Commander Bertrand was there, in fact. The way I understand it, Dissidents were violently revolting against the GCU there and claimed it was their land. Bloody fighting broke out and scores of Dissidents and GCU were killed. And as if that wasn’t enough,” she chuckled wryly, “the Brotherhood of Steel joined too. Out of nowhere. They must have thought they could take advantage of both sides weakening each other. There was a huge battle at an old, abandoned military facility that had just been discovered. We drove off the rest of the Dissidents and the Brotherhood, though we took some serious casualties. But Commander Bertrand was honored for his actions there and was promoted to his current post.”

“When did it happen?”

“Sometime in the past couple years. Can’t remember for sure, to be honest.”

“Hmm,” Mariah pondered what she said, but something about the way that Gerald had talked about the incident at Birmingham still bothered her. “Gerald seemed to really believe that it was the GCU and Brotherhood’s fault.”

“Are you taking his side?” Valentina joked. “You know how these types are. They delude themselves into believing that they are on the right side of history and they’ll do anything to justify their actions.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Mariah certainly didn’t believe that the Dissidents were right about…well, anything, certainly not after that day’s events. And those events seemed to finally catch up to Mariah as another wave of tiredness overcame her. The clock on the wall only showed 9:30 PM, but she was exhausted. She yawned. “Thanks for talking, Val. But I got to hit the sack. Where’s a good place to stay in town?”

“Oh, no no no,” Val shook her head and waved her hand. “You don’t need to spend some caps to get a room. You can crash at my place. I don’t have to go into the station until tomorrow afternoon, so I can show you some more around town in the morning.”
“Wow. Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude on…”

“Don’t be silly.” Valentina flashed a bright smile. “It’s been a long day and you’ve done a lot for me today. It’s nice to be able to just let things out sometimes, you know? Besides, you’re new to this area, right? I can show you some of the ropes, places to stock up on supplies, and all that. And I think—no, I KNOW—you can still help us. As long as you are still interested.”

“I sure am. But…I don’t think Bertrand will want my help now after today.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll vouch for you. I’ve known the Commander to be a reasonable man.”

Mariah was not so sure like Valentina. But she really wanted to help, even if only for Valentina’s sake. It was the least she could do for Gabriel. And Mariah wasn’t quick to let a chance at vengeance go. “You’re awesome, Val. Let’s get going then.”

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Aug 2 2020, 05:37 AM