Originally a small village founded by Vault 15 dwellers after the opening of the Vault. After decades of quiet existence, the strange little village surprised its neighbors by developing rapidly towards infrastructure based on pre-War America, culminating in the formation of the mighty New California Republic , [1] with Shady Sands selected as the first capital [2] of the New California Republic NCR in , nine years after the Republic's foundation. It was also the largest known urban center built from scratch without using pre-War ruins as the foundation, boasting a population of over 3, inhabitants by , [4] and nearly 35, by Shady Sands housed the Hall of Congress of the NCR, as well as the president and their office, quartered in the same building.
In , [6] Shady Sands was destroyed by a nuclear bomb on the orders of Hank MacLean , a Vault-Tec executive and overseer of Vault 33 , who wanted to erase all factionalism and ensure the world would be remade according to his and Vault-Tec's ideals. This would also hide the truth of the surface world from Vault 32 and 33's inhabitants after Vault 33's water was discovered to have been partially siphoned.
A handful of survivors found refuge in nearby towns, settlements, Vaults , and even the Brotherhood of Steel , members of whom were known to have been immediately on-site after the nuclear blast. With the executive and legislative wiped out, remnants of the NCR within the region led by the pre-war scientist Lee Moldaver established a new regional headquarters presumably a military headquarters at the Griffith Observatory.
This force was ultimately wiped out by the Brotherhood of Steel when they engaged them at the Battle of Griffith Observatory in , effectively giving them control of the newly restored cold fusion technology.
A map of Shady Sands, crafted on tanned brahmin hide. Shady Sands was founded by an ancestor of Aradesh after they left Vault 15 , [9] in The original inhabitants of Shady Sands left the Vault after some collective disagreement, and formed a peaceful community in the desert. The settlement was jump-started using Vault 15's G.
