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I pray for the safety of all good people who come to Zion, even Gentiles, but we can't expect God to do all the work.Joshua Graham, Honest Hearts

Zion Canyon, formerly Zion National Park, is a location in the former state of Utah. It serves as the setting for the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts.[1]

Background[]

Located north of the Mojave, Zion Canyon was spared from most of the worst horrors of the Great War, but nonetheless suffered from the fallout, becoming irradiated and losing much of its plant and animal life.[2] However, within only a few years, the radiation had started to fall and the adapted survivors had begun to repopulate, and so Zion remains a pristine wilderness. In the immediate aftermath of the war, only one man is known to have inhabited Zion: a survivalist by the name of Randall Clark. He had sought refuge in the park’s caves only a few days after the War, benefitting from its quick environmental recovery but slowly losing his mind from lonesomeness and feelings of guilt over the loss of his family, and had been living there for years when a group of Mexicans came to the area, calling it "paradise." Clark watched the Mexicans, never making contact but subtly aiding them when they needed it. In 2096, a group of Vault 22 dwellers infected with Beauveria mordicana arrived in the area, killing and eating the Mexicans, with Clark unable to rescue them. Clark killed most of the Vault 22 dwellers or waited for them to die of their infection, but befriended a vault dweller named Sylvie, who was caught in a bear trap, and ended up having a child with her. She died during childbirth and the child was stillborn.

In 2108, feral ghouls arrived in the area, but Clark was able to kill them all before they became a problem. Fifteen years later, a group of children arrived in the area, in the same location where the Mexicans had encamped all those years ago. Clark, now an old man, watched over the children as he did with the Mexicans, making sure that no harm came to them but never making direct contact with them. To the children, he was "the Father in the Cave," a purveyor of gifts and dispenser of wisdom. Deciding against breaking their faith, Clark chose to die at the Red Gate where his body would unlikely be found, leaving behind Survival caches in caves which are full of traps. The children became the Sorrows, a peaceful tribe that embodied innocence, lived in peace for years, never venturing into the caves, and treating all pre-War buildings and tech as taboo.

The peace was not to last. Recently, missionaries from New Canaan in the north have arrived in the region, attempting to convert the locals to Mormonism. That in itself would not have been a threat to the peace, but the White Legs, a hostile group with who the Mormon Church is embroiled in a conflict, have followed the surviving Mormons down to Zion, where the Sorrows now face extinction. Daniel and Joshua Graham, ridden with guilt over their part in the Sorrows' current predicament, have vowed to protect the tribe by any means. Daniel wants to evacuate the Sorrows to the Grand Staircase, where they cannot be followed by the White Legs and thus abandoning their traditional home. But Graham, with his Dead Horses, wants to teach the Sorrows the art of warfare so that they may either drive the White Legs out of Zion or eliminate them for good and secure the region for future generations. Either option will require the tribe to sacrifice a fundamental part of their identity, but a decision must be made nonetheless.[3]

In 2281, the Happy Trails Caravan Company led an expedition from the Mojave Wasteland's Northern passage in the hopes of re-establishing contact with New Canaan. The caravan was ambushed and all but the Courier slaughtered in the ensuing fray. A battle for the fate of Zion is looming, for better or worse the Courier's actions will forever change the once serene landscape and the lives of the tribes that dwell there.[4][5][6]

Locations[]

Caves[]

Inhabitants[]

Notable loot[]

Related quests[]

Notes[]

  • Zion Canyon was the first location in the Fallout series to feature rain.
  • Dead Horses and White Legs tribal members constantly sneak around the whole canyon, with the White Legs usually accompanied by their own tribal White Legs mongrels.
  • Traveling between Zion and the Mojave Wasteland takes fourteen in-game days, both on the initial journey and subsequent trips after completing the add-on's questline. While this time elapses on the Pip-Boy's calendar, time-dependent events, such as plants respawning and Sierra Madre chips accumulating at the abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker, do not progress.
  • High-level weapons are abundant in Zion Canyon; in contrast, good armor is not in abundance. This makes the maintenance of medium and heavy armor difficult, although Joshua Graham has a Repair skill of 100 and can repair weapons and armor.
  • Near the Zion Ranger station and general store, there is a wrecked version of the airplane that one would find at Camp McCarran. However, it is not accessible, due to it being on top of one of Zion's mesas.
  • Zion Canyon is one of the few non-irradiated locations found in the Fallout series. All the rivers and free-flowing waters are clean and do not inflict rads when drinking, and there are no radioactive areas. The sole source of radiation in the canyon comes from eating pre-War packaged food.
  • Road signs, trail marking posts, and rusted park rangers' pickup trucks all remain in Zion Canyon.

Appearances[]

Zion Canyon appears only in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts.

Behind the scenes[]

  • This area's real-world equivalent is a favorite holiday destination of Fallout: New Vegas lead designer Joshua Sawyer.[Non-game 1]
  • Zion National Park is approximately 180 miles from Las Vegas, making a 14-day trek on foot, as the expedition does during the add-on's story, plausible.
  • The name Zion is derived from the Mormon use of the term, which the park's name was changed to in 1918 when the acting director of the newly created National Park Service visited the canyon and proposed changing its name from Mukuntuweap.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. The Courier: "Why do you need a map of Grand Staircase?"
    Daniel: "Grand Staircase is farther east, deeper into the Colorado Plateau. The White Legs were able to reach us here, but it's only because Zion is close to the Long 15. They can't pursue us east of here. It's too wild."
    (Daniel's dialogue)
  2. Joshua Graham: "There are only so many ways you could have entered Zion from the south. You descended by routes that you cannot safely ascend to return to the Mojave."
    (Joshua Graham's dialogue)
  3. Joshua Graham: "There may yet be time to save Zion from those who are too ignorant to understand what they have come to destroy."
    (Joshua Graham's dialogue)
  4. Events of Honest Hearts
  5. Joshua Graham: "We warned you at Syracuse, and you persisted. You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion."
    (Joshua Graham's dialogue)
  6. Joshua Graham: "Still, thanks to your help and the grace of God, the White Legs won't be troubling Zion anymore."
    (Joshua Graham's dialogue)

Non-game

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