The Cloud King Project

Researched, designed and built by the Apollo Combine, The Cloud King Project is the technological achievement of the century. Built within a cloak of absolute secrecy, the Cloud King Project effectively turned the failed endeavour of the Sunshade into a reality... albeit at a much smaller scale.   Visitors and newcomers to Neo Vegas will be able to immediately identify the eight black obelisks rising up around the skyline of Neo Vegas, forming the perimeter of the Cloud King's influence. Within the depths of Apollo's top-secret facility inside Mount Charleston, geo-engineers and climatologists work around the clock to influence and control the weather in Neo Vegas's immediate vicinity. Thanks to their incredible technological achievements, Neo Vegas can experience rain, cooling breezes and cloud cover on command. With enough energy and effort, they can even generate snow.   Exactly how the Cloud King is able to pull off these incredible, city-saving feats remains shrouded in mystery. Building the Cloud King required the labours of thousands of employees, but Apollo took the extra step of implanting every labourer who was involved on Cloud King with experimental memory-editing implants, allowing them to selectively edit the memories of their workforce (this practice was, to the best of public knowledge, not enforced on CEOs or other higher-ups.) While the medical and ethical ramifications of the Lethe implants and their long-lasting consequences remains to be fully seen, it appears to have been highly effective at keeping Apollo's secrets safe. To date, no other corporation has been able to replicate the success of Cloud King, though many have tried and failed. Those who have devoted billions of credits and countless lives towards the costly ambition of climate regulation were met with bitter defeat... and looked to Neo Vegas with covetous intent. This would lead to the Nevada Annexation War, as well as contribute to the collapse of the American Midwest as city-states failed to counteract the rapidly advancing effects of climate change.