In 2285 the Mojave Territorial Council Congress authorized the Mojave Territory Parks Department, the formation of the Mojave National Park and the development of a series of Ranger Stations around the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Ranger Station, about 14 miles from the remnants of Edwards AFB, is the primary training center and home to the Mojave Ranger School.

The Mojave Ranger School trains Mojave Territory Park Rangers while also providing basic military training for the WCA troopers in the Mojave Campaign. In many cases WCA troopers have been deployed to the Mojave with as little as 2 weeks training.

The Ranger Basic Course covers basic weapons certifications, first aid, map/compass navigation, patrolling and the field skills needed in the Mojave.

The Park Ranger Technology Course gives Park Rangers the terminology and basic concepts of park and settlement management. The Ranger LEO Course covers Wasteland Martial Law and law enforcement and security issues in the Mojave.

The village of Vista de Nada is a small collection of shops, cabins and bunkers at The Mojave Ranger Station managed by wasteland crafters and family and friends of the Rangers. Vista de Nada and the Mojave Ranger Station are tourist and caravan stops on the trade routes between New Vegas, LA and Fort Fresno.

The Mojave in 2290

In 2290 the Mojave and surrounding deserts are called ‘the wastelands’ by residents and refugees, but the area has a large amount of mining, exploration and settlement . The Mojave is also the center of an ongoing war between a collapsing democracy to the west and the red hordes massing east of the remnants of Las Vegas.

Barstow is the largest city in the area with 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, depending on the military forces in the area, and Vegas to the east has a similar-sized population. Barstow is the capitol city for the newly-forming Mojave Territorial Council, a hastily-formed but generally well-received group of Mojave residents who are attempting to restore civil order after the previous state government collapsed.

The Mojave Desert hasn’t changed that much in the 200 years since The War but the world has. The human populations continue to rise and fall along the Mojave trade routes in isolated settlements with farmers, craftspeople and a variety of cultures.

Media recovered from before The War describes a world that changed drastically in the late 1800’s due to the return of magic and the arrival of species such as orcs, trolls, ghosts and demons.

The Mojave Territorial Park System

In 2267 the West Coast Alliance (WCA) annexed the Mojave Desert and offered WCA settlers land grants and homesteads to move into the area and develop WCA farms, industries and resources. Barstow became the capitol city and the center of the WCA Mojave Campaign. The Mojave already had about 100,000 residents, not all of whom embraced the WCA as enthusiastically as the WCA had expected.

The red hordes to the east were steadily encroaching across the desert and rapidly overwhelmed the caravan guards and militia that accompanied the WCA supply convoys. As a loosely-formed group of individual factions, the WCA didn’t have a standing army and hurriedly established units of mercenaries, convicts and conscripts into 4 battalions of WCA troopers. By 2280 the Mojave battalions were filled with untrained troopers, many of whom had less than 2 weeks training.

In desperation and unable to fund and raise an army, the WCA created the Mojave Park Service and the Mojave Rangers, and declared a 54,000 square-mile area the Mojave National Park. The Council authorized a ranger station as a basic training center, near the town of Mojave where several trade routes intersect. The idea was to train wasteland residents in Park Ranger technology and settlement building and then support the development of new ranger stations throughout the wastelands.

It would have worked.