Ashton was a pre-War city in the former American Southwest within the area of the Divide and is a location in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Lonesome Road.
Background[]
Main article: Background of the Divide
Prior to the Great War, along with its neighbor of Hopeville, Ashton was home to several Army-owned nuclear missile bases with silos housing them. On October 23, 2077, along with the rest of the world, it burned in nuclear fire. Although the Ashton area was a major part of the ballistic defense matrix, the missiles raining down on the city apparently struck it by surprise, as the ICBMs never left their silos and remained there for the next 200 years.
Close to two centuries later, a small but growing community emerged near the ruins of Ashton and Hopeville. Though small at first, a single courier was willing to travel the hard road to and from the community and the more prosperous territory in the west, New California.[1] Naming themselves the Divide, it was a community of hardy folk, gradually building a new future using the symbols of the Old World as their foundation.[2] To some, the Divide was a new nation in the making, slowly stirring to life and developing new ideals from the ashes of the Old World they were left with.[3]
In the region also known as the Divide, the community's location along a sparse, but active trade route served as a connection to the communities of the Mojave Wasteland to the east, and the wealth of the New California Republic to the west as travelers from the latter began to traverse it, establishing a new supply line to the region as a means to bolster their military occupation of the Hoover Dam in the former.[4] This drew the attention of Caesar's Legion, who attempted to cut the new connection despite their recent loss to the NCR in the First Battle of Hoover Dam.[5]
Despite the support it gave to the NCR's expansion, any skirmishes with enemies of the republic did not destroy the settlement, however. Instead, it was the work of the same courier that breathed new life into it that led to its destruction. When the Courier returned to the Divide again, they were on a job to carry a package recovered from Navarro by order of the NCR after their offensive against the Enclave garrison there. Unbeknownst to both the Courier and the NCR, the package contained the activated ICBM launch codes,[6][Non-game 1] and when it was brought back to its origin point, it sent a signal to the dormant nuclear missiles, causing them to begin detonating one after another, splitting the earth, cracking and twisting the landscape, and causing massive earthquakes.
After the destruction of the Divide, all but a single missile silo were destroyed until the Courier's return in 2281, where they were forced to activate the launch of the final missile to pass through the sealed bunker, resulting in the creation of the Courier's Mile when it detonated over a portion of Hopeville.[7] Hopeville and Ashton were left as massive metal graveyards composed by the skeletons of buildings and makeshift camps inhabited by the marked men, ghoulified former members of both the NCR Army and Caesar's Legion forced to survive the brutal living within the Divide. Many ruined elevated highways have collapsed and numerous cars litter the area.
Locations[]
Appearances[]
Ashton appears only in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Lonesome Road.
Behind the scenes[]
The in-game Ashton is based on the real-world city of the same name, once serving as a water stop on the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, located in Nye County near Death Valley and the California/Nevada state line. The rail lines were taken up in 1943 for World War II and officially become defunct when the company and town was abandoned in 1946.
References[]
- ↑ Ulysses: "Never would have known the Divide had it not been for you. The road you made with your tracks, again and again. You were the only one willing to make the journey to and from here... a hard road. Kept the land before the Divide alive through seasons, storms......can't have been just a job. Was something more to you. Don't feel for a place that hard unless it's home."
(Ulysses' dialogue) - ↑ The Courier: "This road leads nowhere. There's nothing in the Divide."
Ulysses: "Many in the Mojave think the Divide's nothing but canyon and storm. Wasn't always. There was life, a town, farther West... not talking about an Old World town like Hopeville... more recent. Something you saw in your lifetime. It had the name "the Divide," too. But rather than cracks in the earth, it was a road from the West into the Mojave, a supply line. Took a Courier to make that road. You. Back then, you saw the road with eyes facing East. This time... the Divide's in the other direction. And if your eyes try to make sense of it when you reach it... home's not what it was."
The Courier: "If you blame me for what happened here at the Divide - why do you care?"
Ulysses: "The community that was once here... and the package you brought... both had markings of the Divide. Markings of America. You've seen the marks, the symbol. As early as the Hopeville silo, maybe. Carried it etched on your weapons. The Divide, its buildings, its people, were built around those same markings, surrounded them here... ...markings like the flag on my back. When I followed your road to the Divide those years ago, I saw the symbol I wore all around me. An Old World symbol. Strong, to survive here - its people, strong. Outlast the Bear, outlast the Bull. Promise of something better. Caesar was right to want it dead. NCR was right to want to rake their claws in it. Seeing it... changed me, just as seeing Hoover Dam changed Caesar and the NCR. Seeing it end changed me, too."
(Ulysses' dialogue) - ↑ The Courier: "So you believed in this place. What it once was."
Ulysses: "There was hope here, another chance. A new nation, stirring to life. A place I could have set my flag. Not the America of old. But something larger than the tribes of the East, something larger than the houses of the West. Something better. The Divide... could have bridged both, like Hoover Dam. Now like the Dam, it's too covered in blood to see what it could have been. You gave life to this place. I followed your road here, saw the Divide. You led me here, so that I could see. Then, you brought it to an end."
(Ulysses' dialogue) - ↑ The Courier: "[Legion] The Legion would want to cut this road off if it had been a supply line to Hoover Dam."
Ulysses: "The Dam. That Old World Wall."
(Ulysses' dialogue) - ↑ The Courier: "[NCR] NCR would have needed this supply line open to reinforce the Mojave - and Hoover Dam."
Ulysses: "The Dam. That Old World Wall."
(Ulysses' dialogue) - ↑ The Courier: "What happened here?"
Ulysses: "You delivered a package. Had markings that matched those in the Divide. Not all... but enough. Military markings, from some place the Bear had savaged in the West. Maybe seeing those markings on it reminded you of home... made you carry it."
(Ulysses' dialogue) - ↑ Events of Lonesome Road
Non-game
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