>>537833557
When I think more about FNV lore, I think, realistically, the big area I circled in red should have been core of the New Vegas state area, composed of proto Boomers (just various survivors that would take Nelis guns and settle around lake Mead for farming) and then the Strip, with House revealing himself earlier (than he did in game lore, and not to NCR but to proto Boomers) to leverage his robot and built up casinos (and more importantly his tech know how) in alliance to proto Boomers, maybe repair the Dam early. Other, smaller, areas could have smaller farming and husbandry communities where there are water sources for it.
New Vegas at large would still largely be ruins only used for scavenging old tech and then lay abandoned, because there is nothing else actually to do there, you need water and soil for farming and survival, after all, while actual core would shift towards the lake.
But that would completely change the narrative of the game. NCR and Legion, if they exist in this timeline, would meet already build up state, one that might be already expanding beyond Mojave at that point, anyway.