Enclave The Enclave is a secretive political , scientific , and militaristic organization that is descended directly from members of the pre - War United States government , and claims to be the legally - sanctioned , while also styling themselves and their overall demeanor as such . The Enclave is comprised of ( mostly ) ancestral descendants of top - ranking officials of the government ( most notably , the last standing president of the United States before the Great War , according to the " Fallout Bible s " ) , and elite members of various branches of the United States ' military , as well as a few others such as those who had considerable ties and / or sway with powerful corporations that worked closely with the U . S government that retreated to the Poseidon Energy Oil Rig . Overview . The Enclave takes pride in being the last known concentrated bastion of pure , unmutated humanity , aside from the unopened vault s , and being the most technologically advanced faction in the wasteland . As a result of such an attitude , the Enclave are incredibly isolationist , never taking in recruits from the outside , this faces them with an even graver shortage of manpower than the Brotherhood . However what they lack in numbers , they make up for it with their formidable technology . Because of the effects of radiation and the Forced Evolutionary Virus on the people of the wasteland , most members of the Enclave generally do not consider them to be completely human anymore , often attacking them on sight . Wastelanders , as well as other mutated creatures like the various generations of super mutant s and ghoul s , are considered by the Enclave to be abominations that are , at best , to be used as conscripted assets or slaves , and at worst , eradicated so that " true humanity " could take its place as the " real " nation of America . The government is headed by a President , and , according to the speeches made on Enclave Radio , there is some form of Congress . The Enclave ' s scientists continue to research upon improvements in the very latest in armor ( e . g . the advanced power armor ) and advanced prototype weapon technologies after the war and are better equipped and trained than any other known organization in the entire Wasteland . The Enclave had also managed to gain access to one of the last known supplies of fossil fuel in the post - nuclear world , which is used to supply fuel for their Vertibird transports . Background . Origins . One of the very few old world organizations to survive the Great War , the Enclave finds its roots in various branches of the pre - War American government and military . Its founding members embraced the inevitability of nuclear war ; they believed that the majority of the nation could not and would not survive it , and that as long as the ' important people ' of the United States survived , they could regroup quickly when worse came to worst , ultimately wipe out communism once and for all , and restore and rebuild the country . Though not a part of the Enclave , many influential corporations ( most infamously , the Vault - Tec Corporation ) lobbied for the benefits that they hoped would result from government - sanctioned war contracts . Based in many of the Enclave ' s research facilities , most were either protected and preserved , or partially grazed and excommunicated during the nuclear firestorm of 2077 . In 2073 , as the global race to exploit the handful of remaining natural resources reached its most fevered peak , the United States managed to stake a claim on the entire world ' s last known supply of crude oil , buried thousands of feet beneath the Pacific Ocean . Poseidon Oil , which in the years leading to the war became the world ' s leading monopoly on remaining oil reserves , was contracted to build an oil rig and quickly extract the invaluably precious oil . Finally and relatively early in the fateful year of 2077 , with the nation ultimately headed directly for nuclear devastation , the President of the United States and various other members of the continuity of government fell back to multiple secretive , heavily fortified locations all around the continent . Many members of the Enclave retreated to these remote locations in other parts of the world , but when the bombs began to drop , they lost communications with the main group that was to be headquartered at the Poseidon Oil Rig in the Pacific Ocean , from which the United States would continue to exist and wage war on China , with the eventual goal of retaking and restoring the continental United States , and wiping out communism forever . As the world burnt in nuclear hellfire and the United States with it , its President , and the Enclave , remnants of the now pre - War American government , assumed the positions they had predicted : as the last known organized fragment still representing their nation . The Vault Experiment . The vault s were funded by the U . S . government and , accordingly , the government had control over them . Ostensibly , they were intended to allow a selection of privileged United States citizens to survive the Great War . Secretly , however , a large part of the Vault Project had a far more sinister goal . The U . S . government ' s real plan to survive a nuclear war was simply to find another planet to live on after blowing up Earth . A spacecraft designed to ferry the human race to another planet was either under construction or ready to go before the War . The plan was for the government to flee to the oil rig , and then leave in a spaceship for another planet . Any voyage to space or recolonization of Earth would have been very difficult and fraught with unforeseeable complications . Thus , many of the vaults were designed to have some sort of critical flaw in order to test how an average American would be able to deal with various circumstances . Vault 12 in Bakersfield had a faulty vault door that wouldn ' t close all the way , allowing dangerous radiation to leak in , leading to the creation of California ' s ghoul population . Vault 15 was built normally ( the rock slide that buried its control center was accidental ) , but was populated with a diverse mix of races and people to see what sort of tensions arise when varied backgrounds are packed into a small environment . Vault 13 was intended to stay shut for a full 200 years to test the effects of long term isolation . Vault 101 was to be sealed permanently to study the evolution of small communities in complete isolation from the rest of the world . The types and purposes of the experiments go on . Eventually , due to either a change of plans by the Enclave ' s leadership or the spacecraft being destroyed , the Enclave abandoned their initial goal of settling on another planet , and decided to resettle the one they already had , although the vault monitoring and research continued as the Societal Preservation Program . In order to monitor the populations being experimented upon , the Enclave ' s oil rig possessed a great deal of equipment that allowed them to observe and control the vaults . For example , the Enclave sent the all clear signal to Vault 8 shortly after the Great War , prompting them to leave their vault and build their city . These monitoring tools also let the Enclave see that the population of Vault 13 was largely intact , although this wouldn ' t become important until much later . Rise to Power . For a long time after the Great War , the Enclave sat quietly in its oil rig , consolidating its military forces , working on gaining a technological edge over anyone on the mainland . Eventually , and after monitoring background radiation levels for over a century , they decided it was time to disperse into the Wastelands and commence the rebirth of America as overall radiation levels had gradually lowered to points which their newly - developed advanced power armor was designed to filter out . Using their Vertibirds , the Enclave sent out scouting parties all over California , the closest state to the oil rig . Eventually , Enclave troops stumbled across the old abandoned Mariposa Military Base , where research on the Forced Evolutionary Virus had been done before the Great War . The FEV was what had created the super mutants , the biggest threat of all to the Enclave . The Enclave excavated the military base , largely using a workforce of miners gathered from surrounding locales that eventually found the vats deep inside the lower levels of the base . Though they had been buried in rock and forgotten for decades , the vats still contained the virus . The Enclave gathered samples to be sent back to their oil rig for further analysis and study . Before long though , their miners , some being fully exposed to raw FEV , others likely falling into the FEV vats ' accidentally , began to mutate into a second generation of super mutants . The mutant miners soon overthrew their Enclave guards . Seizing their weapons , hardware left behind by the first mutant army , or anything lying around , the super mutants stormed the upper levels and quickly overran the troops in the base . Panicked and retreating , the Enclave troopers on the upper levels fled the base and used explosives to seal the entrance , trapping the second generation mutants inside the base . The Project . Even though things went badly at Mariposa , the Enclave still had the samples of FEV they needed . Back at the oil rig , the United States Chemical Corps began work on the serum immediately . They found that it would be possible to make from FEV an incredibly potent and lethal toxin that only affected mutants . But , in order for research to progress , they would need test subjects . They needed two test groups : one of clean , pure humans and another composed of the " mutants " that lived all over the mainland , suffering radiation and FEV exposure for decades that , to the Enclave , made them unclean . This unclean sample was easily obtained by kidnapping the entire tribal population of Arroyo . The clean group would be more difficult to obtain though . The Enclave wouldn ' t allow the Chemical Corps to use people living on the oil rig so they had to look elsewhere . Thus , they traveled in force to Vault 13 and sent a command to the vault ' s computers to open the vault door . After taking care of some mild resistance , the Enclave troops rounded up the residents of Vault 13 and shipped them off to the oil rig in Vertibirds to take part in the Chemical Corps ' FEV experiments . Fall and Aftermath . Just as the Enclave was preparing to launch the poison into the jet stream to kill off the entire known population of the mainland , a tribal known as the Chosen One arrived at the oil rig on the Poseidon oil tanker that had sat in the San Francisco bay for many years . The Chosen One freed the survivors of both the Vault 13 population as well as the Arroyo tribals and started a self - destruct sequence in the oil rig that destroyed the entirety of the Enclave ' s headquarters , saving the world from horrible death at the hands of the modified FEV . Although the Enclave survived the destruction of their oil rig , all traces of President Richardson were erased from history . Weakened and cut off from much of their leadership , eventually the remainder of Enclave personnel stationed in New California that did not retreat prior were finally shattered by the combined might of the Brotherhood of Steel and the New California Republic . But beforehand , Autumn Senior led the majority of surviving Enclave personnel east , to the ruins of Washington D . C . at Raven Rock , to re - establish the Enclave as the dominant power in their nation ' s former capital . Those who remained ( why Autumn Senior and his subordinates left so few of the remnant personnel behind in New California to begin with , remains an unsolved mystery ) were hunted by the Brotherhood and the NCR , while some tried to integrate themselves into the NCR and met temporarily minimal success , from time to time stories will crop up of an elderly Enclave veteran that was caught integrating being executed or arrested . Return . In D . C . , the ZAX mainframe installed in Raven Rock to ensure continuity of government continued to function until the destruction of the oil rig . When President Richardson was vaporized , ZAX created a persona , John Henry Eden to claim the post and assume authority over the remaining California Enclave forces , in addition to resuming construction of military ordnance to provide for the resource - stricken subordinates . Augustus Autumn was chosen as the commanding officer of the armed forces ( eventually succeeding his father ) . A series of eyebot s were sent to roam the Wasteland , spreading hope and patriotism . Eden could spout his pro - government rhetoric , and promise a return of the pre - War America of legend : a land of white picket fences , baseball , apple pie , and good , old - fashioned American global supremacy . President Eden ’ s secretive plan all along had been to rule over an America of the " pure " , free from any mutation , just as his predecessor had planned before him . He had learned of an extremely ambitious scientific experiment known as Project Purity , and knew the time to strike had come : the Enclave ' s armed forces would " reclaim " the Jefferson Memorial . By controlling the purified water supply , Eden would control the Capital Wasteland , and eventually the rest of the country . What better way to administer a Modified FEV virus , which kills anyone irradiated or mutated in any way , than through a deceptively clean water supply ? Old Tricks . When Project Purity was restarted in 2277 , the Enclave acted at once . Troops under Autumn occupied the Purifier , and established a presence in the wastes , setting up checkpoints and establishing Constituency Enforcement Points , which was resisted by the Brotherhood of Steel . After retrieving a Garden of Eden Creation Kit from Vault 87 , Eden attempted to recruit the individual known as the Lone Wanderer to work as a double agent , participating in the Brotherhood ' s attempted reclamation of Project Purity but infecting the water supply with the modified FEV at the last moment . Eden was opposed by Colonel Autumn , who wanted to make a bid to lead the populace by completing and activating the purifier , thus providing the Enclave with a strong bargaining chip in their bid to unify the wastes under their flag . When the Brotherhood took the Jefferson Memorial , Autumn was defeated by the Lone Wanderer , but it is not known whether he survived . The Lone Wanderer stood poised to finally realize the Enclave ' s original Project to purify the wasteland , but it is unknown to history whether or not they took that action . It is however stated by Deacon in the Commonwealth that he misses the Capital Wasteland , and that you could " actually drink the water there " , which implies the Lone Wanderer activated Project Purity and did not in fact infect the water supply with the FEV . The definitive fate of the entire Enclave itself as a whole , as well as its military division after the unclear events transpiring in the Capital Wasteland remains an unsolved mystery . However , it should be noted that , by 2281 , a group of Enclave elite troopers , known as the Enclave remnants , are in hiding in the Mojave and , by 2287 , the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel has thrived and increased its power exponentially . This would seem to suggest that the Enclave has finally been defeated or , at least , that they no longer have any central command that could provide the remnants with refuge or could challenge the Brotherhood . Supporting this further is Grand Zealot Richter , a former Enclave soldier turned Child of Atom from the " Far Harbor " add - on , who says that the Enclave were once a force to be reckoned with , but it ' s been a long time since then . Enclave Sigma . After the destruction of Raven Rock , the Enclave executed a combination of tactical retreat and all - out ﬂight , and their grip on the Capital Wasteland loosened significantly . Now contending with malcontent soldiers , ragged Enclave camps dot the Wasteland with little communication to and from the others . With the conventional Enclave military experiencing a lack of new recruits and the high command remaining silent , the Enclave would seem to be a doomed force . However , a small inﬂux of specially trained fighters is seeking to fill the manpower losses caused by the Brotherhood of Steel ' s advance . Previously posted to remote and classified locations outside of the Capital Wasteland , only the most elite of Enclave personnel , trained in multiple forms of combat , can earn the right to belong to Sigma . Squad Sigma operates in six - soldier units , which utilize heavy incinerator s and are led by a soldier clad in Hellﬁre Armor . Furthermore , Squad Sigma members are experienced fighters , each member being a hardened veteran of numerous successful combat operations . Sigma Squads are posted around locations deemed by Enclave high command as imperative to the salvation of the cause . Western Remnants . In the year 2281 on the west coast , a few elderly Enclave survivors make an existence on the fringes of , or near , the borders of NCR territory , keeping their heads down for fear of persecution . Many left for the Mojave Wasteland , where the NCR ' s grip was significantly weaker due to the presence of Caesar ' s Legion . Enclave remnants may have supported the Courier at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam , either desperate for a final shot at glory and to exact revenge on the NCR , or assist them against the Legion . Whether they joined the Courier , and / or the outcome of the battle , remains unknown . Enclave scientists and engineers stationed at Adams Air Force Base sent a reinforced combat - model eyebot , ED - E , to Navarro to be serviced and repaired there , seemingly uninformed of the assault on the outpost . ED - E ' s programming contained a message saying that any repairs needed on the way were to be made by Chicago Enclave personnel , indicating that there are Enclave outposts there . The Illinois license plate bolted to ED - E ' s side is just one more fact that supports the idea that other Enclave outposts or holdings still exist elsewhere within the North American Wasteland . Vault 101 was contacted and told to open as well , although they did not listen . Facilities . West Coast . Control Station ENCLAVE . The Poseidon Energy oil rig , dubbed in Enclave records as Control Station ENCLAVE , lying just beyond the coast of California , served as the base for the post - Great War United States government . They were relocated to the rig after the bombs fell , and it served as their main headquarters until its sabotage by a tribal from Arroyo known as the " Chosen One " . Navarro . Navarro was an old oil refinery that served mainly as a refueling stop for Enclave Vertibirds carrying out missions in or around California , as well as a general go - to base of operations outside of the Oil Rig . The Navarro perimeter is patrolled by Enclave Control Company light teams , that operate independent from Navarro base ' s commanding officer . Mariposa Military Base . Mariposa was a pre - War U . S . military base where the vast majority of the Forced Evolutionary Virus research was being done . After the war , it was taken over by the Master who used it to create an army of super mutants . After the Master ' s defeat and the base ' s destruction at the hands of the Vault Dweller , it was excavated by the Enclave , but abandoned when their newly mutated slaves rebelled against them . East Coast . Raven Rock . Raven Rock was the Enclave ' s main base of operation in 2277 . The Lone Wanderer is captured and taken to Raven Rock and held in an interrogation room by Colonel Augustus Autumn . President Eden asks for the Lone Wanderer to be released so that the Lone Wanderer can be spoken to privately . Upon reaching President Eden , the Lone Wanderer is asked to place the modified FEV in Project Purity . Satellite Relay Station . After the loss of Raven Rock , the Satellite Relay Station was the Enclave ' s main communications installation . The facility was used primarily to coordinate the remainder of Enclave forces following the devastating defeat at the Purifier . During an offensive by the Brotherhood of Steel led by Liberty Prime , the defending forces of the Station contacted the mobile base crawler to call down an orbital strike on the robot ' s position . Liberty Prime was destroyed , but shortly afterward the Station was lost to the Brotherhood . Adams Air Force Base . Adams Air Force Base was the new headquarters of the Enclave after the abandonment of Raven Rock . Located just outside the Capital Wasteland and accessible through the presidential metro , the base facilities housed some of the Enclave ' s VB - 02 Vertibird s and was defended by squads of soldiers and artillery emplacements . The heart of Enclave operations in the area was the mobile base crawler , which featured a satellite communications dish capable of calling down an orbital strike from an unknown orbital weapons platform . Control of Adams AFB was eventually taken from the Enclave by the Lone Wanderer , who handed it to the Brotherhood . It could also have been used to destroy the Citadel , but this outcome is non - canon . The Brotherhood would soon take control of Adams Air Force Base in its entirety , claiming the leftover Vertibirds for itself and using the field to construct The Prydwen . Chicago . An Enclave engineer named Doctor Whitley , responsible for the Duraframe Eyebot Project makes mention in his own logged personal recordings of Enclave outposts located in the former city of Chicago in the Great Midwest Commonwealth . Their current status , however , is unknown . Appearances . The Enclave has a major role in " Fallout 2 " and " Fallout 3 " , and also make a minor appearance in " " and in its " Lonesome Road " . A lost Enclave patrol team would have also appeared in Black Isle ' s canceled " Fallout 3 " . The Enclave is frequently mentioned in " Fallout Bible " . The Enclave and the Brotherhood - Enclave War are mentioned in " Fallout 4 " in a terminal entry on The Prydwen . Grand Zealot Richter , a member of the Children of Atom appearing in the " Far Harbor " add - on , was a member of the Enclave . Behind the scenes . In early development for " Fallout 3 " , Bethesda used a different set of emblems ( seen below ) for the Enclave and its Vertibird fleets that were drawn and by concept artist Adam Adamowicz .