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Forums: Index > Wiki discussion > New California

Hey editors. Recently, I've run across the New California page, originally going as the Core Region. I knew of this page before, but its recent name change has caused me to notice some issues.

Naming[]

Ok, so we got the Fallout endings as one source for New California, and a questionable source in the NCR history holodisk, so I will leave that be. My question is, where does the name Core Region come from? I got one admin vaguely remembering a dialogue line from Fallout 2 (which I cannot find), but other than that I (and others) have seen and found nothing either in game or from devs. Is it a name the wiki made up or just very well hidden?

Where IS New California??[]

As far as I can tell, there are three theories of where New California is:

  1. New California is the maps of Fallout and Fallout 2
  2. New California is the region controlled by the New California Republic
  3. New California is just California with a "new" name

If you look at the New California page, even it is unclear where it is. This paragraph alone contradicts itself on its location:

Transcript

A small portion of New California appears in Fallout: New Vegas, from the California-Nevada state line to the edge of the map, encompassing the region near Nipton and covers the Mojave Outpost. The Mojave Outpost, however, is not part of New California or the Mojave Wasteland, but rather a boundary or border between the two wastes.

Mojave Outpost is directly west of Nipton, so this paragraph is literally stating: "The Mojave Outpost is part of the New California, but is not part of it." Basically, it seems this entire page is speculation.

Comments[]

So, anyone have any thoughts? Thank you Paladin117>>iff bored; 02:56, January 30, 2014 (UTC)

I'm all but convinced it's a fictional term non-existent from our beloved fictional world. I've played both Fo1 and Fo2 pretty extensively and have never ran into the term 'Core Region' once. New California on the other hand? A few times. Until a citation outlining the name directly comes up, I think the jury's out on this one. Enclavesymbol 03:19, January 30, 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that the term is an invention of this very website. Something was needed to differentiate the main content from Fallout 1/2; calling it "california" wasn't exactly true as it includes bits of other states from a legacy perspective, and not all is confirmed in game to be NCR yet, so "Core region" was invented as a result. Agent c (talk) 03:23, January 30, 2014 (UTC)

Likely coined to clear up the three contending theories for what "New California" entails.

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────I'm not certain on any one of the theories proposed but after reading the ending slides and holodisk I am confident that "New California" does not pertain to the land holdings by NCR party because the holodisk uses the term "New California Relations Advisery Panel" and the ending slides that refer to "New California" are independent of NCR ending slides and therefore the term is invoked disjoint from NCR.

As for the "new" simply being added to the name somewhere down the line, it still raises some thoughts. When the 13 commonwealths were made to divide up the 50 states California was cut in half (the crippling thought just occurred to me that I am unaware of a citation for the creation of these commonwealths or that California was separated by them) and the word "new" was added for one of the two split parts. That, or the "new" came in-use after the war to denote its resettlement by the survivors. Without any citation I'm aware of for this, I am not confident in this theory either.

Last one's not much better because it still doesn't clarify a start and end of the territory. "It's the name given to the overall/main setting of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 as it is referred to in-game through (the sources listed in this forum and those identifying the main setting being the same in Fallout 2 as well as 1)." I couldn't find its usage in Fallout 2 but given that the game-world is almost identical I think we can safely say it is.

Honestly, I'm not sure which one it is. I'm the most confident in that it's the setting for Fallout 1 and 2, but beyond that I don't know what it encompasses in later titles. I know our stance on speculation is "No" but this is a cloudy subject that I feel might be best to have cleared up with these three theories being stated on the page for the readers' benefit. I would argue the uncertainty it entails is arguably more beneficial to readers than psuedo-certainty or just basic information that might not be saying it all.

The only thing I find incontestable is that it's the name of the general region in Fallout 1 and 2. Everything else, I feel, is in need of discussion. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 23:45, January 30, 2014 (UTC)

I always thought 'New California' just simply meant that it's California, but well, new and re-established in the post-apocalyptic society. Same thing as to why Las Vegas is now 'New Vegas'. I've never come across the term 'Core Region' when playing the first two games however, it seems to be a term that has popped out of thin air. I understand it refers to all the areas from the first two games, but what a random name, this 'Core Region'!

Brandon Fox (talk) 23:51, February 5, 2014 (UTC)

Reviving[]

I know this forum didn't get very far, but I would now like to suggest what I think should be done. I think we should create a page (or pages) for the regions of Fallout and Fallout 2, similar to the Capital Wasteland and Mojave Wasteland pages, and turn the New California page into a redirect to either it or the Southwest Commonwealth. This new page(s) should be written from scratch, not copied from New California, because of the rampant speculation on that page. What this page(s) would be called, I don't know. Maybe we could finally make Fallout map and Fallout 2 map pages and add the info to them, instead of redirecting to the World map page. Anyone have any thoughts? Paladin117>>iff bored; 21:39, March 19, 2014 (UTC)

Question: as far as the term itself, how thoroughly has the investigation gone? Are we merely asking the community, and making a decision based on what they do or do not know? Or has anyone actually attempted to revive the source of this information? Because I do not really support a decision made off of general ignorance of any given situation. What I suggest is finding the user(s) that confirmed and added that term, and asking them directly. If they are anonymous or can no longer be contacted at this point in time, I would ask the veteran users that were around at that time and allowed the term to stay. After these possibilities have been investigated, then I would say make a decision from there. ForGaroux Some Assembly Required! 21:43, March 19, 2014 (UTC)

The source for Core Region is JE Sawyer's RPG, which we have no real copy of besides an inaccurate wiki. The source for New California is the Fallout endings and maybe the NCR history holodisk. However, those only give us the name, without actually saying what New California is, one of my main problems with the page. Paladin117>>iff bored; 21:47, March 19, 2014 (UTC)
I am looking it up myself, but just for the sake of everyone reading, has JSawyer's RPG been officially sanctioned by Interplay/Black Isle Studios? If it has, then I would recommend the 'Core Region' being a proper term worthy of note on Nukapedia. If it was not, then I absolutely support any changes as you see fit to make. ForGaroux Some Assembly Required! 21:50, March 19, 2014 (UTC)
As far as I know, JE's rpg was never official, being maintained on a wiki he created. It seems to be similar to his mod, but I'm no expert. Paladin117>>iff bored; 01:57, March 25, 2014 (UTC)

Confusing and speculative is a complete understatement if you ask me. I think we should look at comparable instances in the Fallout world and see what we can gather. I also think that we need to discount 'California' in our real-world definition. If the NCR was instead named the 'Republic of Karelia', we would refer to the territory it controls as 'Karelia' by common English convention. Just because the borders of the NCR have expanded past modern-day California doesn't mean we should call it something else. Expanding on that point, we can also look to the Fallout endings. In the endings, the Desert Raiders, Followers, and Brotherhood all mention their various roles in 'New California'. It is implied by these slides that 'New California' is referring to the old-world borders of the state of California. This can be further inferred by the fact that the NCR is in it's infancy at the conclusion of Fallout, controlling little territory other than Shady Sands proper. Following the events of Fallout, things change. The official name for the NCR is "New California Republic" and that page actually refers to the government of, and territory controlled by, as "New California", based on the previously mentioned endings. A comparable to this government is the Republic of Dave. It is part of the Capital Wasteland, but the territory itself is considered to be part of the Republic. The Capital Wasteland is so named because of it's anarchistic state, and there is no real rule of government or claim to significant territory. As the NCR controls much of the region of what is now California, it's somewhat inappropriate to give the area a 'wasteland' name (i.e. Mojave Wasteland, etc.) as it's not really a waste anymore - it's generally more civilized. Our wiki establishes the 'wasteland' or 'wastes' as 'the majority of the world's post-nuclear environment in the Fallout universe. Because we don't have a defined name for the wasteland in most of California proper, it's name should remain just that - wasteland - until such a time when a canon game defines it as something else. As for Core Region, to me that term refers to the game map of the original Fallout, not the full expanse of territory that the NCR. Add to that it's origin in Sawyer's RPG, it's canon status is questionable at best and we can't even verify it exists in the game as we don't have access to it. In my opinion, that means it shouldn't be included at all until the information can be verified.

So that leaves the question of how we should deal with the terms we have at hand. Here's my opinion:

  • New California: means two things: in Fallout, the borders of the old-world state of California, and after that game, the expanse of territory controlled (or claimed) by the New California Republic. This area is a political entity and contains part (or all of) the Mojave Wasteland, the undefined wasteland in California, and the Core Region. This is sourced on the NCR page from the Fallout endings. It is also known that the NCR controls both Arroyo and Klamath, indicating they have control of territory up to the present-day borders of Oregon, and are also in control of territory near the Colorado River, indicating they are west of the California-Nevada border. Therefore, they have control of the previous definition of 'New California' and any added territory added can be referred to as 'New California' as per English conventions on the naming of territories and/or republics.
  • Mojave Wasteland: remains the status quo. Based on the old Mojave Desert, this wasteland is in part controlled by the NCR, part by Caesar's Legion, part by New Vegas, with scattered communities and anarchistic regions as well.
  • Core Region: the game map of Fallout. An unverified term, it should be discounted until it is verified and then used only in it's appropriate form. To my knowledge, we will likely never gain access to the RPG, thus I suggest we distance ourselves from use of the term.

That leaves another question. What should we do with the New California page, based on the above? In my opinion, the page should be amended significantly, renamed, disambiguated, or deleted. Each option depends on how (and whether) we want to have a page detailing this content.

  • Amending: In this case, we would amend the New California page to include details based on the definition above. It would be much smaller than it is currently, basically stating the two uses of the term.
  • Renamed: For this we would rename the page to something along the lines of ‘Mojave Wasteland’ or ‘Capital Wasteland’, but since we don’t know the common name for it, we would refer to it as simply ‘Wasteland’ or ‘Wasteland (California)’. In this case, we would need to remove all references to territory outside this area, or territory with a different name (i.e. Mojave) to define it as a distinct area.
  • Disambiguated: Similar to the first option, but we make a disambiguation page, linking it to the NCR page as well as a different ‘New California’ page (i.e. New California (Fallout)), which would detail the area defined in ‘’Fallout’’.
  • Deleted: Self-explanatory, we delete the page, leaving it’s definition up to interpretation.

Overall, I’m in favor of the third option. It gives us the most accurate information that we can gather, and allows people to discern between the two uses of the term. That’s how I see it, although I could be way off base here. This has taken some thought, and this was the conclusion I came to after reading all the source materials Paladin listed.

P.S. On the topic of the ‘’New California Relations Advisery Panel’’, In my opinion that doesn’t prove much. Naming of things in government are extremely arbitrary. For example, the official name of the US is ‘The United States of America’, yet there are numerous instances where agencies and panels are named using the shortened version (i.e. the ‘United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’), so the fact that ‘republic’ is absent from the above doesn’t mean much. I don’t think ti really ties into the region or it’s name at all, as it is arbitrary.

All in all this is just my opinion, and I’m sorry for the long read. Hope it makes sense, and feel free to ask any questions. FollowersApocalypseLogo A Follower  Talk  23:08, March 23, 2014 (UTC)

I agree and I think the best course of action would be the disambiguation page. We can at least confirm that New California is at least part of New California, if not New California as a whole, so creating a "New California (Fallout)" page would make sense and be far more accurate. The only problem left would be, as I mentioned in chat, what would we name the region present in Fallout 2? Paladin117>>iff bored; 01:57, March 25, 2014 (UTC)
I think there are 3 time periods that we need to look at. In Fallout, New California clearly refers to the borders of what we know as California, and by the time of Fallout: New Vegas, it refers to the territory of the NCR, which happens to include the majority (if not all) of the Fallout definition of New California. Fallout 2 is a little more tricky. It says on the games page that at the onset of Fallout 2, the NCR controls the territory in southern California and is in the process of bringing the north under their control. I think by this time the NCR has grown in size enough that it's territory can be appropriately titled 'New California'. The rest, well, is the wasteland. It doesn't have a name, it's just the wasteland. Since we don't have a specific name for it, either it's not really important enough to warrant a page, or if it does, we'd have to call it Wasteland (California) until such a time the wastes are given specific names. It should also be noted that the idea of naming specific 'regions' of the wasteland appears to have started with Bethesda, as we only see terms like Capital Wasteland and Mojave Wasteland in their games. FollowersApocalypseLogo A Follower  Talk  02:42, March 25, 2014 (UTC)
Would it be going too far to have a =New California (Fallout 2)= page? Describing how it then exists in interplay between =New California (Fallout)= and =New California Republic=?- or would that title just be improper? --The Ever Ruler (talk) 01:40, March 26, 2014 (UTC)
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