Emerald Wasteland
This article is intended as a reference for the gamemaster and thus contains spoilers for Fallout: Emerald City.
The Emerald Wasteland is the setting of Fallout: Emerald City. The game begins 12 April 2286 (209 years after the Great War and five after the events of Fallout: New Vegas). Industrial civilization is returning to the region and multiple factions are vying to implement their version of the future.
History
Pre-war society
The Great War of 2077
Re-emergence of organized society
Politics
There are two main political centers of gravity within the wasteland, Seattle and Skagit Valley. Despite this, politics also hinges on one key question that looms over everyone: what is to be done regarding the New California Republic? This polity is much larger and better organized than any in the Emerald Wasteland, and to many it appears only a matter of time before they turn their gaze northward. Already some Californian investors are looking to put their capital towards Washington-based ventures. To integrate into the NCR could mean prosperity, but it could also mean exploitation as a far-flung and resource rich peripheral territory. To stand independent of it, though, could mean isolation and conflict with a stronger power, bringing its own brand of ruination. The four major players of the region (whether public knowledge or not) have their own answers to this question.
The Salish Confederation, a group of several towns and tribes spread through Skagit Valley, Whatcom County, and the San Juan Islands, is the oldest polity in the Emerald Wasteland. The 2208 Chuckanut Treaty brought together the fishing-based Lummi tribe of western Whatcom and the San Juans, the coal mining settlements of New Whatcom (once Bellingham) and Glacier, and the two agricultural centers of Skagit City and Cedro Crossing under one 'common charter.' Individual governance is still left to each of the five members but trade and diplomacy is negotiated as a democratic collective. Though prospering, the Salish Confederation is nearing an impasse. Their charter is causing friction when attempting to govern a population that has grown well beyond the founders' horizons. The council structure works slowly amid a quickening pace of events. Tensions between towns are rising as regional challenges mount. If the Confederation is to hold together, let alone thrive in the face of the NCR, something has to change.
Pierrepoint Industries is an industrial concern headquartered in Seattle. The company's president is Caroline Pierrepoint, who believes that the Emerald Wasteland will inevitably fall to the NCR, economically or militarily, should it fail to unite itself as one unitary sovereign state with a robust industrial base. Everything she does is in pursuit of this goal and she can find it within herself to justify any means to get there. With the resources at her disposal and political instability on the horizon Pierrepoint believes now is finally the time to act upon her plans for political dominance. Whether others will agree with her perspectives and cooperate, however, remains an open question.
The New Altruists are an anomaly. What would a shattered, irradiated, mostly pre-electric wasteland want to do with computers? Yet, underneath the wreckage, the veins of a future long forgotten still lie dormant. The New Altruists wish to use them to jumpstart humanity's recovery, nay, acceleration past its atomic detour. They began with a coalition of prewar technoutopians in downtown Seattle who built — with plenty of government and corporate backing — the Denny Triangle Arcology, a hardened and mostly self-sufficient sphere wherein the most advanced computing technology available enabled this idealistic few to live enmeshed within their network. Two hundred years later, their successors have regained enough footing to announce their grand project: bringing humanity once again to a position of dominance over the planet (and eventually the stars) as quickly as possible and by any means necessary. All is for the best in service of humanity's 'species-potential,' and the charismatic Eric Ambler is perfectly willing to cut deals with anyone and everyone. Caveat emptor.
In the deep corners of the Earth dwells the Columbia Division. Before the war, elements of the United States government formed continuity plans that would ensure their survival even as the world outside burned. The Enclave was the ultimate expression of this on the national scale but in the Northwest the defence organizations that administered the occupation of British Columbia came to the fore.
Economy
Pre-war corporations
- Med Tek
- Poseidon Energy
- RobCo
- Vault-Tec
- Yoyodyne
Agriculture
The agricultural heartland of the Emerald Wasteland is in Skagit Valley.
Postwar industry
As settled society has returned to the Emerald Wasteland, so has industry. The Northwest's abundant resources have been a springboard for development.
Trade
Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean more broadly act as a highway for trade. Where other regions see traders struggling through harsh terrain with land-based caravans travelling only at walking pace, one can see trading clippers and steamboats plying the waters of the Emerald Wasteland on a daily basis carrying timber, bituminous coal, and even high-tech manufactured goods from the repurposed Yoyodyne factory in Renton to buyers in the New California Republic further south. The Mosquito Fleet (headquartered in Port Townsend) dominates the short-run steamers that flit around Puget Sound while the clippers, still sail-powered for the sake of efficiency, are used for long journeys.
Currency
The Emerald Wasteland has a few competing currencies fighting for primacy. The most venerable of these is the bottlecap, backed by the water merchants of the Hub in New California. Because of this, and given that water is more abundant in the Northwest than California, the bottlecap is worth only one quarter what it is down south, and even that's a near miracle. Somehow worse off is the NCR's fiat dollar notes (which runs for 25% of a cap when they're not laughed off entirely), but the old gold NCR dollar coins make for good tender anywhere. The most commonly used currency are gold and silver-backed banknotes printed by the Yamasaki Bank in Seattle's old International District, but some even use banknotes from New Whatcom backed in bituminous coal. One of Caroline Pierrepoint's aims is to establish a central standardized currency backed by a gold prospecting push in the far northeast of the state.
Technology
Computing and network technology
Even before the war the Seattle region was a hotbed of computing development.
- Artificial intelligence
- Project SEANCE
- TriNet
Energy
- Fusion power
- Hydroelectric power
Military technology
- Laser and plasma weaponry
- Power armor
- Strategic and tactical nuclear weapons
Culture
The Emerald Wasteland features a great diversity of cultures which, while retaining their identities, have blended together into their own unique formulations. These include but are not limited to the Salish peoples indigenous to the area, Hispanic migrant farmworkers, Sikh immigrants, and more.
Locations by subregion
Southern British Columbia and Vancouver
Whatcom
Skagit Valley
Fidalgo, Whidbey, and San Juan Islands
Snohomish
- Colman Dock
- Tower Coffeehouse
- The Denny Triangle Arcology
- International District
- Yamasaki Bank
- Magnolia
- Pierrepoint Industries headquarters
- The Great Moss
- University of Washington campus
- Pacific Tower
- Renton Landing
- Yoyodyne Renton Factory
- RobCo Northwest campus
- The Space Needle
- Volunteer Park
South Puget Sound
Kitsap and Eastern Olympic Peninsulas
- Bremerton Crater
- Port Townsend
- Vault 25
- Winslow
- Yamasaki Vineyards