High in the Rockies near what was once Denver there was an oasis of civilization in the middle of one of the worst Death Zones on the High Plains. Before the Fall Nederland was an odd little Exurb of Boulder, Colorado - at the head of Boulder canyon on the shore of Barker Reservoir - a reservoir made possible by the improbable Boulder Dam. This canyon was cut into the mighty Rockies by the river, gaining several thousand feet in no time at all. And there at the summit was a concrete edifice jammed in between the canyon walls, a small spillway and barely enough room for a two lane road next to the sheer mountain cliff on the north side.
The primary industry of Nederland at the time was Eldora ski resort, sporting and outdoor survival gear shops, and a few restaurants. In other words, an ideal community engineered to survive the Fall.
But survival came with hard choices. At first Nederlanders let in some of the refugees. They quickly came to realize that the millions in the Denver metroplex simply could not all flee to Nederland - to they did the unthinkable: they collapsed the cliffs and blew the roadway. They set guards atop the dam with orders to open the spillway to deter refugees if necessary. And that they did. Four times, flooding downtown Boulder in the process, creating a choleric bog for trespassers to contend with. The rest of the Alpine roads the left to ranchers on horseback and a few guard to patrol the Peak-to-Peak.
For a hundred years their bastion stood. The regretted what they had done, but it only took a short foray into the Den of Eaters that was Denver to convince them they had made the right choice. All they had to contend with was the occasional wild man on the Peak-to-peak or a flyer/drone from someplace south.
There arose a warlord, one Gaarald Khan, grand leader of the Brotherhood of Denver. This man united the Eater tribes of the Front Range with a particular brand of charismatic terror and mayhem. Soon he had conquered from Ft. Collins in the north to the doorstep of Pueblo in the south. Eventually the Khan’s eyes turned greedily to the outpost on his doorstep. He attacked with war machines and infantry and horse, all to be washed away. It is said he gouged out his own eye his rage was so terrible at the debacle.
Numbers matter though. Eventually the Khans forces worked their way through the pass at Black Hawk, slaughtering that community in the process. The simultaneous invasions from the south and west overwhelmed the defenders of Nederland, their stone walls reduced, her people slaughtered and enslaved.
If there is a silver lining to the story it is this: the war left the forces of the Khan so exhausted that Cheyenne and Pueblo were able to destroy him mere months later. A small consolation to the Nederlanders, they homes destroyed, their dam smashed, their cops burned. No one lives there to this day.