The Mojave Desert. A merciless expanse of sand and rock, two hundred years and the end of the world had only made it even more dangerous and befitting of a new title: The Mojave Wasteland. Only the most vicious of creatures made their home here, and even fewer people did the same.
The expanse had once covered four states of pre-war America and two separate commonwealths. 200 years later, in the year 2282 its vastness wasn't claimed by any one entity. But a great amount of it had been claimed, including the oasis of the pre-war world that was the city of New Vegas, by one nation: The New California Republic. The Bear from the West, a democratic federation of states that had just claimed the Mojave as its sixth, with New Vegas its Capital.
Eight years ago, the NCR had moved East, occupying the region and the old-world Hoover Dam over the mighty Colorado River. What could've been an easy annexation was halted by the sudden rise of New Vegas under its mysterious ruler, Mr. House, and its army of security robots. Two powers, both poised to claim the region. Instead, the encounter had led to the New Vegas Treaty-a treaty of mutual benefit. The NCR got the Hoover Dam, and the power it produced. New Vegas became a tourist town, raking in caps by the thousands from NCR soldiers sent to the region to protect the Dam. Settlers and entrepreneurs came with them, the NCR made itself a little presence throughout the wasteland, but New Vegas stayed constantly free. It was not a perfect arrangement to either side, but there was peace.
Then, in 2277, adversity arrived from the East. Caesar's Legion, a violent slave army that sought to subjugate all beneath it, reached the Colorado River and became determined to make Vegas its Capital. The First Battle of Hoover Dam occurred that same year. Thousands died, but at the end of the day, the NCR had held the line. But the Legion had not been defeated.
For more than four years after that, people lived and died in the Mojave. The NCR and Legion gathered their strength on each side of the river, occasionally crossing to fight the other. Settlers came and either survived or died out, falling prey to the Mojave's wildlife or raiders. People made or broke their fortunes on the Vegas Strip. For a time, it seemed like the New California Republic would buckle under the Mojave's hot sun, its administration and military in the region starting to decay.
Then, on January 11th, 2282, the Mojave Wasteland was forever changed. The region had been changing rapidly during the preceding months, but it was on that day that the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam saw the NCR and Legion go to war across the whole region. And at the end of that battle, the NCR stood victorious again, this time with the Legion wholly defeated. After so many years of stagnation, things seemed to change overnight. Suddenly, the NCR Military seemed at its highest point, the Legion's leaders were all dead and whoever was left was fleeing East for Arizona, and the New Vegas Strip was paying taxes to the NCR.
On January 30th, 2282, the Mojave was formally accepted as the 6th State in the New California Republic during a special legislative session called by President Aaron Kimball with minimal resistance. The move added hundreds of square miles, dozens of small towns and villages, and thousands of people to the Republic.
That had been four months ago. People still lived and died in the Mojave, either to the environment or what few criminal elements remained. Fortunes were still made or lost on The Strip. Things in those respects hadn't changed. But others had. Their 'dispute' with prison labor gangs resolved, the NCR had succeeded in reopening the rail lines between California and Nevada. Locomotives came through every few days, carrying cargo, soldiers, and citizens to the outskirts of New Vegas. Those rail lines were the main driving force for change in the region.
Mr. House's Vegas did not expand very far beyond the famous Vegas Strip. As beautiful as it was, there was still unclaimed and dilapidated industrial and residential areas around it. That was where the change was happening. Prospectors, once fearful of the violent chem gang the 'Fiends', started to clean up the ruins directly around Vegas. Dozens of settlers had either repaired or built on what was left to make into their homes. Industrialists had ventured from the West to see about establishing factories and mills, the industries that would in part make the Mojave a self-sustaining state. Only a few had already opened, but many more were being planned.
Other settlers had integrated themselves into the communities already established throughout the region that had been annexed-Freeside, Westside, and a few others. The town of Nipton, massacred late last year, was resettled and booming as a safe medium between Vegas and the core NCR regions. Government surveyors were already carving up and selling stretches of land for farming or ranching. And like the Westward Expansion in 19th Century America, people were coming East for a chance of something they couldn't get back in California.
Almost immediately after the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam, before all the dead had even been buried, the NCR Government had moved to reduce the costly military presence in the region, intending to quickly replace most of it with locally funded civilian law enforcement. There were problems everywhere, and many thought the Mojave had taken up too many resources for too long. NCR Rangers, the most elite of the republic's troops that had been instrumental in both battles at the Dam and pacifying the region as a whole, had been shipped out to other fringes of its territory or vulnerable trade routes. Specialized army units had been recalled. Though the NCR had not even been investing properly in a supply chain of its forces in the region before, it did even less now.
That money, or at least part of it, was going to governance and infrastructure. Surveyors, tax collectors, census takers, and the like. It would be years, likely decades, before the Mojave had paved and maintained roads like the larger cities in California had, but they were still throwing money at it early. They were expanding and repairing the electrical and water grids to include all the new communities, cooperating along the way with the Followers of the Apocalypse. It wasn't going fast enough to be heavily noticed yet, but it was happening. At the very least, it was keeping the communities being annexed from violently opposing. For now.
And in the midst of all this building, the NCR was engaged in diplomacy. One of the many changes that had wracked the Mojave in the lead up to the showdown at Hoover Dam had been a peace treaty between the NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel chapter in the Mojave. The NCR and the wider Brotherhood had been in bloody ideological and conventional war for decades, but things here had, for now at least, been resolved. The Brotherhood was helping the NCR maintain security along the two highways in the Mojave, and in return the NCR was trading back power armor and other technologies they'd taken from the Brotherhood over the course of the war. The arrangement was still holding all this time later.
Not that it was all perfect. There were still raiders. Raiders were pretty much a constant in the world since the bombs dropped. Even the Legion had started to creep back into public eye. No one in the NCR knew if Caesar's line of successors even existed or had taken up his mantle, but the Legion hadn't dissolved into dust as many had hoped. NCR posts on the East side of the Colorado had scuffled with small and very underequipped Legion parties. A few lone scouts had even been seen and shot along I-15 weeks ago. But neither were a big enough problem to hamper the overall security in the new state.
All the better for the NCR, cause the NCR Army in Mojave wasn't actually doing that well even without the drawdowns. Before the battle, there'd been five battalions in the region: 3 assigned to Colonel Hsu in the Mojave and Vegas itself, and 2 assigned to then Colonel Moore defending the Hoover Dam and posts along the Colorado River. Each battalion should've had 500 men, but the actual numbers ended up being much lower because of logistical troubles. Add in the Sharpshooter, Heavy Trooper, Military Police, Ranger and other units assigned to the region, it had been a barely comfortable 3,200 men garrison in the East to stand against Caesar's roughly 8,000 Legionaries gathering across the river.
The Legion hadn't just attacked the Dam-they'd attacked the whole region, crossing the river in multiple spots and attacking NCR positions and independent settlements alike. Camp Golf, Camp Forlorn Hope, Novac, and a force 400 strong had even been marching towards the Mojave Outpost before messengers called them back. There'd been heavy fighting everywhere on that day, and while thousands of legion troops had died, over a thousand NCR troopers had too with many more injured.
Between those losses, the NCR Government's decision to immediately redeploy the majority of the Rangers, and the NCR dismantling half of it's Heavy Trooper Corps to make peace with the Mojave Brotherhood, and the refusal to adequately fund replacement soldiers now that the war was over, the NCR's new state had a very weak garrison. They'd reorganized and transferred personnel, and civilians and settlers in the Mojave had even joined up for what now looked like an only slightly risky job prospect. Brigadier Moore had about 900 troopers stationed at the Dam and along both sides of the Colorado now. Colonel Hsu, still responsible for the Highways, Mojave communities, and the communities around Vegas, only had around 300 men at his disposal now.
The NCR was putting a lot of faith and weight on this truce with the Brotherhood, the Legion fleeing East, and the lack of security issues in the Mojave. It could easily turn to disaster if something unexpected happened. But they honestly didn't think it would, because they had faith in one thing. One person. Even their own soldiers in the Mojave shared their faith and belief everything would turn out all right despite knowing how bleak their situation could be first hand. The Mojave's long-time residents, chafing under all the new changes, nonetheless had faith that they had friends high up and an avenue if things got really hard. Even the Brotherhood had faith in the alliance for the same reason. Virtually the entire West had high hopes for the Mojave's future and faith in one singular person.
The Courier.
Who was the Courier? Even those who looked up to him weren't entirely sure. He'd started out a passing story among the rank and file of the NCR Army, a wanderer who helped out their patrols and outposts. Soon, stories of charitable help by this man began spreading among settlers and residents of the wastes. But then, the Courier had arrived at New Vegas and made himself known throughout the entire Mojave Desert.
First, he walked into the Lucky 38 Casino, the first human in hundreds of years, and spoke to the strip's executive ruler Mr. House, an opportunity no one ever got. Then he'd immediately marched over to the Tops Casino and killed the leader of the Chairmen in front of dozens of witnesses. The rest of the Chairmen had seen and did nothing, and he'd walked out of there free of any consequences. Two legendary feats minutes apart. People heard about his story soon enough: shot twice and left for dead, he'd crawled from the grave just to get revenge with House's consent.
And most had reasonably expected it to end there. It was the kind of story you heard often outside of civilization. It would be just another story caravanners would tell during lunch breaks, soldiers during leave, and gamblers at the card table.
But the Courier had popped up again, weeks later, reviving the legend. NCR MPs spread the rumor that he'd been frequently at the Embassy on the strip to talk to the Ambassador. Gamblers and troops alike reported seeing him going into the Lucky 38 again and again. And patrols all the way to the Mojave Outpost radioed about seeing him. Soon, he was seen frequently at Hoover Dam. And eventually he'd gathered an unconventional posse of companions that traveled with him including robots, ghouls, and super mutants.
All the while more and more tales about him helping NCR positions, civilian settlers, and Mojave natives alike continued to spread, some too fantastical to believe, but others that were certainly true. He was a diplomat, a trader, a bounty hunter, and anything in between. He killed the leaders of the Fiends, he organized the deals that put food in the troopers' belly's and weapons in their hands, he ran communications and packages all over the desert, and he even formed unlikely deals between the NCR and its former foes.
He had been the man to kill Caesar. He stopped being a legend, he became flesh and blood, interacting constantly with all who would approach him. He became a celebrity everyone recognized. Everyone knew his name, everyone wanted to see him and shake his hand, and everyone wanted to be his friend. Even the NCR politicians back home started to take notice of him.
And at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, he became a hero. The battle had been unexpected and unplanned, a surprise assault that saw Legion soldiers infiltrating the Dam itself. It'd been chaos and confusion, panic and disarray. After weeks of morale higher than it's ever been, for the briefest moment it had become genuine fear.
And then the Courier had arrived, entourage in tow, shooting their way through the infiltrators, out of the Dam, above ground, and even across to Legate Lanius' camp. Along the way, everything the NCR had forged came together to make the battle decisive. They'd breached the camp ahead of the NCR's counter attack and taken Legate Lanius down. People said it had been a one on one battle. And when the NCR had finally reached the camp, they were greeted by the Courier and Lanius' lifeless corpse. He'd killed not one, but two of the leaders of Caesar's Legion and broken it more than the NCR ever could in years. He had won the Mojave and Hoover Dam for them. He continued to walk it today, still making an impact.
But no heroic figure was without their naysayers. Dissenters from popular opinion who sought, motivated by jealousy or earnest feelings of righteousness, to tear down these heroes. There was no small amount of criticism of the Courier either.
Perhaps most damning was those claims he was an Enclave sympathizer, perhaps even a former member. The NCR-Enclave conflict was a generation behind most of the NCR, but a lot of people still remembered, and the victorious NCR had never stopped hunting down Enclave survivors to this day. Hundreds of NCR troopers had witnessed the events on the Dam that fateful day.
The Boomers, another one of the allies the Courier had gained them, had just obliterated a mass of Legion troops about to cross the Dam with their restored plane. But another wave had been fast approaching. The Courier had stood there at the end of the dam with his motley party of followers behind him and a group of veteran NCR Rangers beside him to face them down when a vertibird had suddenly swooped down from the sky. The NCR troops had originally thought maybe the NCR had sent a gunship to help them, but then they'd seen the Enclave soldiers disembark and stand on the Courier's other side. And then all three groups had suddenly pushed forward, cutting a bloody path through the Legion soldiers. No one knew how he'd ever obtained such help, and he'd never answered. His reputation as a diplomat only grew after that.
For NCR veterans, including Brigadier General Moore, he was accused of being a Brotherhood of Steel sympathizer too. The politicians had been quick to seize this opportunity for a peace treaty. But the Army? The soldiers who'd lost friends and family alike in campaigns against the Brotherhood? They were rightfully bitter. The Brotherhood may have helped them defend Hoover Dam, but you could not erase years of a blood feud with one battle. The Courier had lost a lot of fans on that day.
In the Strip and NCR military intelligence, many were skeptical of the working relationship he'd maintained with the Strip's dictator Mr. House.
Everything else seemed minor to those. Some claimed he was an arms dealer, selling the weapons he took from the corpses of raiders and Legionnaires to the undersupplied NCR. Others said he was friendly with ghouls and super mutants. A few had outed him as a kleptomaniac. And a select few even went as far to claim he was not a noble hero, but an excessively violent psychopath who was only encouraged by the blind praise heaped upon him by the NCR and the Mojave's residents.
And these were not lies, or at least had some truth to them. He admitted to recruiting Enclave soldiers to support the NCR. He boasted about being a Paladin in the Brotherhood of Steel and had been seen around the wasteland in power armor regularly. He openly traveled with ghouls and super mutants and helped both. He'd talk at length about the goods he scavenged off the bodies of his enemies. He'd crossed most of the Mojave on a revenge mission. And after he had killed Caesar at his camp, he'd spent two days dragging the corpse back to Camp McCarren just so he could hold it up in front of a crowd of enlisted NCR soldiers and whip them into a frenzied cheer that even the Strip had heard.
So clearly, he was not the almost mythical beacon of good in a lawless place he was trumped up to be. But his deeds spoke for themselves. For all the blood he'd shed, he'd saved lives at the same time and brought peace and happiness to many. He was inconsistent, and his motives for all of his actions to this day had never been admitted to. He was an enigma of a man. But he was tied irrevocably to the Mojave, and its future rested with him.
So even after all this time, when his face and deeds were known, people still asked and wondered: Who really was the Courier? What would he do next? And what would happen to the Bear and Wasteland that depended so heavily on him?