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]

Part 2: Big Bend

Chapter 15: Capital Issues

Chapter 15.1

Mariah and Valentina displayed shocked looks on their faces when Langston revealed himself. Callahan was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed with one eyebrow raised up at the surprise. But Waller’s expression was still unamused and irritated. If anything, his eyebrows furrowed even more. He still had one forearm resting on one leg and the opposite hand pushing down on the other leg.

“I apologize for the subterfuge,” Langston continued. “I am not fond of run-arounds. I do not normally act or talk like I have been. But I hope you will understand—"

“So you’re the son of a b---- we’ve been looking for?” Waller said, cutting off Langston. “Do you realize how much trouble you have been causing?” Mariah’s heart sank at how quickly the situation was turning sour.

“I can imagine, but I can explain why I am here,” Langston said, trying to be somewhat diplomatic.

“Oh, you better,” Waller quickly retorted. “You have 15 seconds to explain why I shouldn’t just haul you off to a cell for all of this nonsense.”

“It’s going to take a lot longer than that, but I can tell you all about what exactly is going on in Tallahassee—Old Tallahassee, as you call it—and why it needs to be stopped. I’ll even inform you all about who the Old Guard and Enclave are. Things I know are causing this GCU of yours trouble and that you know little about.” Langston’s raspy voice became sterner.

Waller sat up in his chair, mouth clenched shut as his anger simmered. While the antagonism didn’t relent, he leaned back in his chair and gave Langston a chance to air what he had to say. “Fine. I hope you have some useful intel. For your sake.”

“I do. Trust me, I’m on your side here. I do not have any love for the Old Guard, Enclave, or ‘Governor’ Davidson’s regime. Not in the slightest.”

“’Governor’ Davidson?” Mariah asked.

“Right, sorry. I have to remember that none of you have any idea what occurs in that city.” Langston took a deep breath and cleared his throat. It was clear a long-winded explanation of the entire situation was coming. “Within the past few years, a large migration of people—mostly ghouls, but there were some regular humans—from elsewhere in Florida and further north into Georgia started to file into the old city. The man who headed up this exodus is named Ezra Davidson, who I was just referring to. He was already a ghoul long before then, and both he and I were alive well before the Bombs. He used anti-ghoul sentiments to his advantage, preying upon their feelings of being outcasts. And he did the same thing with the humans that came to his fold. Humans who felt thrown away by other societies, uncared for, or had nowhere else to go.

“Davidson was a state senator from around these parts, so he knew this area incredibly well. To clarify, in the Pre-War U.S., there was a federal government, a regional ‘Commonwealth’ government, and a state government along with various local governments. He was a state-level official, and he had gubernatorial ambitions. He felt downright entitled to it. The Great War torched any sort of chance he may have had, but he had deluded himself into thinking that he was going to usher in a golden age of sorts for the state of Florida, and he was one of many officials who advocated for seceding from the United States. Various political disputes with the federal government led to similar . . . uprisings elsewhere in the country, such as the Free States in Appalachia where West Virginia used to be. But there was nothing to the scale of what Floridian officials were doing. And those officials were the forerunners of what is now called the Old Guard.”

“And how exactly do you know all this?” Callahan questioned Langston, still on the fence about trusting him. “How are you privy to what the Old Guard is about?”

“It’s an awful lot to just conjure out of thin air, don’t you think?” Langston responded with a subtle amount of irritation in his voice. “I know a lot of things about the Old Guard because I was one of the Old Guard.” Silence fell across the room at his admission. Waller was glaring at Langston. “Emphasis on the word ‘was,’ Sergeant,” Langston said, directed at Waller. “I bought into all that bull---- a long time ago. But that was over 50 years ago. The Old World is gone and so is my old self. There’s no reason to hold onto those grudges anymore, and I saw both the federal and state governments for who they really were, eventually. They share blame for many problems in this state.”

“What caused you to leave?” Waller asked. He had relaxed slightly from a moment ago, though he was still tense. “And if the Old Guard want to get into Old Tally, why wouldn’t this Ezra Davidson let them in? Is he on the outs with them too?”

“Yes, both Ezra and I left them. There had already been rifts forming between him and many of the other officials about the direction of the organization, and his ambitions of being the head government official of Florida still burned vigorously. A great, bloody schism ensued, and he took many of his loyalists with him. I had originally been on his side, but it took me some time to finally wake up and realize just how insane he was. The first chance I got after that is when I departed.”

“And how did Davidson take that?” Valentina chimed in. She was interested in the story beyond just this investigation.

“Not well,” Langston said, scoffing at the non-present Davidson. “He is not a man who takes any sort of slight, real and perceived, without responding to it. And if I were a lower rung on the ladder, Ezra would have had no qualms about having me killed. But he could not do that because he needs me. So, when he found me again, he essentially conscripted me into his service.”

“And what is it he needs you for?” Waller asked, surprisingly with little spite this time. “I guess you’re a scientist of some sort based on your lab coat. What is it that you do?”

“Ezra is a crazy son of a b----, but he is still a brilliant man. Yet he cannot do everything on his own. He’s particularly talented with all things robotics, and that is also one of my strong suits. Ezra was heavily involved in creating Pre-War automatons in this region, especially for Tallahassee, and he is attempting to resurrect many of these projects. That is far too much work for any one person, so he needs me for a lot of it. And he is trying to uncover all sorts of secrets still buried deep in Tallahassee, which he needs me for to have any hope of succeeding. Davidson truly believes that he can rebuild this area—this state—to what it once was and to even greater heights. It is never going to be what he idealized anymore, but it is a lost cause that he cannot accept. But,” Langston pointed his index finger upward for emphasis, “He is still a dangerous man that can shape much of Florida to what he wants it to be if he gets the chance. And that is something that directly impacts this GCU of yours.”

“And what kind of secrets are we talking about?”

“There are a lot of things that you would not believe, even with all the other crazy things you have seen in the wasteland. Secret biological experiments performed by the Old Guard, attempts at sabotage by the Enclave, weapons schematics, and plenty more projects of which many records have been destroyed or lost. The passage of time has contributed significantly to that. Many of these are things even I do not fully know about. Yet there is perhaps one matter that is most important to him . . .” Langston said, pausing for dramatic effect. “. . . a Vault.” Everyone in the room perked up when he said the word.

“A Vault? As in a Vault-Tec Vault?” Mariah said, making no attempt to hide her intrigue. She had heard plenty about them in her travels, but she had never set her eyes upon one for herself.

“Indeed.” Langston nodded. “Vault 100, to be specific. It is . . . one of the few things he wants of which I am not sure why. But there is evidently something in it that he wants.”

“So, when Mariah and I were trying to find some information on the Old Guard and Enclave on our own, we found a lot of sources that talked about the state and federal governments being at each other’s throats, including national companies busting into the economy down here.” Valentina asked. “But it didn’t seem like Vault-Tec had any sort of issue like that. Did they not have any sort of competition or resistance to their presence in Florida?”

“No.” Langston shook his head. “Vault-Tec was immune to the disputes between the state and national stages. There was no one else like them. There were certainly some small-scale companies that made some personal bunkers for Floridians, and sometimes people made their own bunkers. Yet they were nothing remotely comparable to the capabilities and resources of Vault-Tec. Despite the political climate, everyone still wanted and needed the services of that corporation.”

“So, there is a Vault here!” Mariah said excitedly. “I have always wanted to see one! Where is it?” Waller was not pleased at her enthusiasm, but Mariah was too focused on possibly seeing a Vault to notice.

“Therein lies the issue: We don’t know. It has been over half-a-century since that happened and the information has been evasive. And that’s why Ezra needs me. But there is still a lot he can do on his own, and that spells immediate trouble for all of us. All of these refugees coming into the city? Most of them are from what you call ‘Old’ Tallahassee. Despite your treatment of us, people would rather take their chances here than in that prison of a city. It was billed as a haven for the outcast ghouls and humans that came there, but many found out the truth. It was all a farce, even though Davidson is also a ghoul and a pariah in his own right. He has his own plans.”

“I don’t take kindly to your characterization of how we operate, Langston.” Waller said, getting annoyed again. “We do not single out people here. We are here to keep the peace, and many of these expats here have disturbed that. And we stop the longer-residing citizens as soon as they get out of line, too.”

“And I do not take kindly to your refusal to be introspective about how your GCU and city guard operates here,” Langston shot back, his raspy voice hitting a lower tone. He was losing patience. “In your attempts to ‘keep the peace,’ your actions have only caused more unrest.”

Waller stood up quickly and jabbed his finger in Langston’s direction. “The city guard is separate from my forces. Any problems you have, you can take it up with the lousy excuse of a mayor that this city has.” It was the first time that Mariah and Valentina heard an explicit opinion of the chief executive of the city come straight from the sergeant’s mouth. “We do our jobs at the GCU. Mayor Treadwell exhibits nothing but incompetence.”

“I am no more thrilled about this situation than you are, sergeant,” Langston said angrily. “I would argue I am even less so. Yet the fact of the matter is that we need each other to resolve the problem that Ezra, the Old Guard, and the Enclave pose. You and your GCU need my allies and I. We need all of you as well. We went to Mariah and Valentina here because we know where their hearts and minds are at. Maybe you and the rest of the GCU leadership could take a damn page out of their playbooks for once.”

“These two young women are very fine agents,” Waller yelled at Langston, pointing to Mariah and Valentina. “But we also know damn well what we are doing! Maybe we’d more trusting of you and your cohorts if you came directly to us instead of operating in the shadows!”

The next few moments were filled with Langston and Waller trying to talk over each other. Mariah couldn’t handle it anymore. “Sergeant! Dr. Langston! Please stop!” Mariah yelled. The two of them stopped talking and looked in her direction. Waller was not pleased at what he saw as insubordination and talking out of turn. “Please, Sergeant Waller,” she continued. “He’s right. We need each other to take these guys out. There are too many of them to take on alone. We need all the allies we can get.” Mariah took a deep breath. “Dr. Langston, what about the Enclave then? I get the whole state versus federal thing, but how do you know about the Enclave specifically?”

Langston nodded his head in her direction. “I knew we could count on you and Ms. Valentina here to understand. If the Old Guard are the remnants of the ‘shadow government’ of Florida, then the Enclave is that of the U.S. in Washington, D.C. Countless attempts at sabotage and subterfuge Pre-War made both sides aware of the other’s existence. Some of those operations would come into the public light, but civilians and even other government officials were not aware of the respective organizations that would become the Enclave and the Old Guard. Relatively few officials and political players in Florida were part of the Old Guard, and the same goes for those in D.C. and the Enclave. But those who were members were the puppet-masters of everything.” Langston stopped what he was going to say next, changing course to a different topic. “A truly in-depth examination of either group would take far too much time that we do not possess. Time is of the essence. I can tell you more when the time comes up, but we need to begin plans of how we are going to defeat Ezra and his minions. They are currently the biggest threat. Then we can formulate how to defeat the Old Guard and the Enclave.”

Waller grudgingly acknowledged that Mariah had been right to ease tensions in the room, though he did not vocalize it. “Okay, Dr. Langston. Then how do we do that? The city seems to be locked down pretty tight, though you apparently escaped with others. I’m sure that we will need to get in there.”

“You are correct,” Langston nodded. “Both you and I will need to gather some allies to fully discuss what must be done. Take this.” Langston handed the sergeant a stack of papers bound together. “This will explain the inner workings of the city, of Ezra, the Old Guard, the Enclave, and more. I was able to smuggle out some of the New State of Florida’s official documents, but I know of a place where I can retrieve more. When you internalize the information, we can formulate a course of action.”

Waller stood there looking at the stack of papers as he took them from Langston, barely acknowledging that he heard him. He addressed Langston again after a moment of silence. “Alright, Langston. We will look this over in the meantime. Meet us at our station tomorrow, early in the afternoon. Make it 2:00 PM. I’m sure we’ll have something figured out then.”

“As you wish.” Langston replied. He turned to Mariah and Valentina. “And I cannot thank the two of you enough for this. When this situation is resolved, I will repay my debt to you in some fashion.”

“It’s what we’re here for,” Valentina said with a bright smile. “We want to end this problem just as much as you do.”

“Although payment wouldn’t hurt,” Mariah said jokingly. Waller conspicuously cleared his throat to indicate that it was time to go that instant. He was still not pleased with the fact that Langston had gone directly to low-ranking agents of the GCU instead of him. Mariah and Valentina got the not-so-subtle hint and followed him out the door.