As far as anyone knows, this wasteland is the best damned wasteland in the world. When America and China went head-to-head two hundred years ago, both sides launched everything they had and most people assume that China was blasted back to the Stone Age. The only way to know for sure is to jump in a boat and paddle across the ocean so folks just assume that China, Europe, Canada and the rest of the world got hit at least as bad as America did. People look out at this land and some of them just know in their hearts that it's the garden spot of the whole world. Maybe that's why we can't go more than few decades without someone trying to take over the place.
When humanity was just beginning the struggle to rebuild after the war, there was no sign of the government helping out. People formed tribes lead by the strongest warriors and the smartest scavengers. The chain of command and the line of succession meant nothing to people who needed things done fast. The closest thing to a government that emerged was tribal elders, or the mayors of small villages.
Eventually, in 2189, some of the larger towns in California banded together and formed the New California Republic, but they never claimed to be THE government. With no communications from the pre-War government for over a century, the memory of it faded as new generations replaced the old, convinced the old president and his kind were long dead, but the wasteland ain't so lucky...
Two hundred years ago, in the last days before the Great War, a secret coterie of America's top-ranking political and corporate leaders decided to duck and cover - big time. They scurried right off the continent and hid inside a secret offshore base then cowered there while the rest of the country suffered a nuclear holocaust the government had caused.
There they stayed, safe and hidden for decades, and the group we know today as the Enclave is the result of ten generations of breeding between politicians, military brass, and corporate executives. The direct descendents of the people who caused the apocalypse? Not many people would make up a story like that, so it's probably safe to take them at their word about their ancestors.
Regardless of who their great grandparents were, the Enclave certainly has access to an abundance of pre-war tech and weapons. They hoarded it on a man-made island - a metal city that grew out of the ocean floor. It was once used to refine oil, back when people could pull oil right out of the bottom of the sea. The Poseidon Oil rig was inaccessible to people on the mainland, so no one knew they were out there until they began their plan to rid the wasteland of everyone who didn't fit their definition of a real American.
The Enclave had spent decades learning to improve upon pre-war weaponry- they weren't just collecting artifacts of the old world like the Brotherhood, they were looking toward the future. They had devices more advanced than anything seen in the wasteland, including the Brotherhood. It wasn't just better guns, or the ginchiest armor - The Enclave had a fleet of flying vehicles they called Vertibirds.
Most folk had never even seen a car move unless it was hitched to a team of brahmin, so these Vertibirds gave the Enclave an edge over every other human group in the wasteland. They could send in drop teams to kidnap whole villages at a time to use as test subjects. They could suddenly appear at remote locations, then just as quickly disappear. Most importantly, they could travel to and from their offshore base secure in the knowledge that no one could follow.
Well, almost no one. There was a person back then who seemed to have a knack for getting vehicles up and running again. People who lived in the Den swear up and down that somewhere around 2242 they saw a person in a Vault jumpsuit driving around in an old Chryslus Highwayman - with a big green mutant taking up the entire back seat, and a cyborg dog poking his nose out the window.
That's the sort of tall tale that would be easy to dismiss, but it happened in the same year someone managed to get a ship seaworthy again. They sailed that tanker right out into the ocean to the Enclave's base and took them down.
