Fallout 4's Sentinel Site Prescott was Based on a Real Location... Sort Of

Introduction

Fallout 4 really amazes me for the retro 1950s-60s futuristic style that it incorporates into the lore. Much of the history of the era gets carried on into the lore as well, and I am fascinated with the game's stories about the pre-war U.S. military and its constant "neo-Cold War" with communist China, until the world gets destroyed by nuclear weapons in 2077. All games in the Fallout franchise focus on a character and their journey through the apocalyptic wasteland full of strange creatures and factions. Fallout 4 is based around Boston, Massachusetts. The map stretches from Concord to Natick in the west, to Spectacle Island and Quincy in the southeast.

One of the lesser known pieces of lore in Fallout 4 is associated with the Sentinel Site Prescott, a military installation in the shape of a pyramid in the Glowing Sea, a portion of the map covered in radiation where ground zero was. The Fallout Wiki states that Sentinel Site Prescott is a pyramid structure surrounded by irradiated sludge, and it was officially a nuclear munitions disposal facility. However, in reality, it was a missile silo that stockpiled Mark 28 nuclear warheads for the U.S. military, and performed experiments focused on combining them with existing ballistic missiles.

With a seemingly inexhaustible stock of these warheads, the facility performed at least 23 test launches, the final one performed on the eve of the Great War of 2077 where the world was destroyed by nuclear weapons. However, the launch failed to register with the system, locking the hapless staff inside and dooming them to death from thirst and starvation. Many were turned into feral ghouls sealed beneath the ground, once humans but their brains rotted away from excessive radiation exposure.

By 2281, the site had been infiltrated by the Children of Atom, a cult who worships radiation and nuclear annihilation, and were able to activate the launch sequence before being massacred by the feral ghoul inhabitants. Although no missile was present on the launch pad, all blast doors in the facility were closed and locked. Sentinel Site Prescott plays an important role if the player decides to side with the Brotherhood of Steel faction, as the player gets sent there to gain full access to the facility by deactivating the launch sequence or accessing certain terminals, so the Brotherhood can recover the nukes in storage.

The Real Life Sentinel Site

Sentinel Site Prescott is based on a real world missile silo that was proposed under the Sentinel program in the late 1960s. In 1967, the Department of Defense revealed the first 10 locations to receive Sentinel Anti-Ballistic Missile sites designed to protect the U.S. from enemy ICBMs. Boston was the first on the list and throughout 1968, locations were surveyed for the proposed site.

It was finally decided to build the site near Sharpner's Pond at the southeastern tip of North Andover, Massachusetts, near the border with Middleton and not far from New Hampshire. The site was to be named the Sharpner's Pond Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Site. The project eventually received a lot of press, and faced extensive backlash from the local community. In 1969, the project was abandoned along with the entire Sentinel program. President Nixon announced the Safeguard program to replace the Sentinel program, to have missile sites away from populated areas designed to specifically protect U.S. ICBM sites. The Safeguard program was hindered by more heavy opposition and ongoing talks between the U.S. and Soviet Union to reduce the number of missile sites. The Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex in North Dakota is the only completed site, which operated for less than a year, while sites supposed to be built in Montana were abandoned. It had a distinctive pyramid structure with a giant radar that is likely what the Sharpner's Pond ABM site would have looked like, which inspired the Sentinel Site in Fallout 4.

The only completed part of Sharpner's Pond ABM Site is the excavation of the cooling pond, which you can still see on Google Maps. The area became part of Boxford State Forest and the site is connected to the local neighborhoods with a walking path at the end of Sharpner's Pond Road.

Although Sharpner's Pond ABM Site was supposed to be built in North Andover, the Fallout 4 developers decided to place Sentinel Site Prescott in the southern part of Massachusetts in the Glowing Sea. This large military installation may be the reason why ground zero was there and so far southwest of Boston. The Sentinel Site is not far from the north-south highway in the western part of the map, which may be based on I-95. The Glowing Sea extends past the map borders and the game map is massively scaled down, making it hard to place the exact location. The site in the game may be near Westwood or Medfield, Massachusetts.

I think the Fallout 4 developers did a wonderful job incorporating the Sentinel Site into the game and connecting it to the real history of the local region. The divergence of the timelines mostly occurred around the mid-20th century, and big events like the construction of Sentinel ABM sites obviously panned out differently in the Fallout universe. I think it fits the foreboding and mysterious atmosphere of the post-apocalypse, a requiem of a long-gone military and civilization. Imagine stumbling upon such an unnatural structure in the middle of nowhere knowing that there are hidden secrets inside.

Check out Sharpner's Pond ABM Site on Google Maps here.

For a much more in-depth explanation about the history of the Sharpner's Pond ABM Site, you can check out the information provided by Connecticut Cold War History or GlobalSecurity.org (they contain the same information about Sharpner's Pond ABM Site).

More information about the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex in North Dakota can be found at SRMSC.org.

You can check out a map of Fallout 4 locations here. This website also allows you to see locations of valuable loot, but you can filter it to just show you locations of landmarks.