Black Bear National Forest Map image - Fallout: New California mod for Fallout: New Vegas

The San Bernardino Mountains, 2277CE.

Renamed The "Black Bear National Forest" not long before the Great War, the San Bernardino Valley and accompanying mountains became home to a vast National Forest Service experiment tied to Vault-Tec's G.E.C.K. Programme. They were testing the regenerative powers of the device on forests that had been devastated by decades of logging, fires, mine runoff, and development.

Part of the mountain and Mojave/Cajun Pass were sold to Athens-Tec in huge parcels, as the Uranium Mine grew its operations and thousands of workers flooded the area to live closer to the mine. The towns of Athens and Union City were formed along the highways leading to the mine. Athens became a small city in its own right, with a highschool, grocery, multiple office buildings, and several suburbs. Union City became a more impoverished, service sector town supplying the highway gas stations and bars with labour, and is packed in the distant hills along Highway 138, far from Athens.

All that remains of the town of Big Bear Lake is packed tightly in the mountain pass, by a now dry lake bed. Union City rose from the ashes as drifters meandered in from the ruins of San Bernardino, settling in the old trailer parks and building improvised shelter. Athens slowly awoke decades later as the Survivalists rose from the Mine, searching for a terrestrial base of power.

The survivors from the Athen-Tec mine later invaded Union City and instituted a slave colony there to stage raids and farm the chapped land. Under this harsh regime, the city prospered, but the people grew tired and threw off the Survivalist rule, sending the raiders back to their mine in the north just 4 years ago, with the help of the NCR.

Vault 18 is is high up in the mountains to the East. Fort Daggerpoint, an old military base, is to the south east.