The New Mojave Desert

The Lost Americas

Table of Contents

History

Government

Commerce

Races

Culture

Special Locations

Organizations

Settlements

People

Timeline

Dotted across the plains of the New Mojave are frontier towns with a Wild West aesthetic. Saloons, brothels, cyberdoc barbers, general stores and gunsmiths huddle around charging stations providing services to weary travelers and cattle herds, and mining towns for raw metals and natural gas are more pronounced than on All-Gobi. Black-clad gunslingers, trappers and pelt-seekers, cattle rustlers, bandit clans and bunker prospectors make up some of the more troublesome populace, while sheriffs and their deputies travel around their territory's jurisdiction in a somewhat futile attempt to corral them. The All-Gobi culture has established a beachhead most prevalent in J.A.V, Hentai Island and The Ronin Expedition, while the chivalric sensibilities of the 'Bacco Houses have taken on a surfer dude vibe in recent centuries. Bandit gangs and Kaiju are more common in the New Mojave, but mutants and Beastmen have taken a back seat.

History of the New Mojave Desert

The New Mojave's history is firmly rooted in the border disputes of the north american nations. The climate conflicts, and the great relocation that followed them, may have played out mostly in the All-Gobi, but the New Mojave's early migratory conflicts were legendary. In time, the simple press of people from the south, the need to migrate north, and the vast resources required to throw at the bunker project spearheaded by the primary 3 governments of what would become the New Mojave forced a total breakdown in borders, and the mass migration into the territories then known as the Yukon.

The governments of the lands that would become the All-Gobi kicked off the Genewars shortly into the birth of the first megacorporations. They had invested in bunker network projects, but not on the same scale as the far less numerous nations of New Mojave, who also had more of a tabula rasa to deal with. The far north of the New Mojave had barely any inbuilt infrastructure, where as the All-Gobi's lands had, by and large, been regularly inhabited by sessile, city-building civilizations for the last several centuries, with some parts of it having been inhabited by non-nomadic cultures for almost all of human history. Without this level of built up infrastructure and historical detritus interfering with bunker construction, the nations of the New Mojave could break ground and rapidly expand the underground network to a much greater degree than those of All-Gobi.

This all consuming focus on the bunker project, the clear cutting of the yukon taiga forests, and the rapid exploitation of above ground resources meant that New Mojave's desertification expanded quite rapidly compared to that of All Gobi. The lack of mountains to act as rain catchers also created this, leading to surface rivers drying up much faster. The New Mojave governments had considered that the geography of their continent made attempts at terraforming foolhardy at best, and sold the surface areas enmass to the megacorporations willing to take contracts and provide resources for the bunker project. The Governments took as many citizens as they could underground with them, and avoided the Genewars entirely, abandoning the surface world. Having sold every citizen that they were not bringing with them underground up the river to seal themselves away.

Unfortunately, this would prove to be their undoing. The bunker projects were well designed, but simply not well designed enough. Rogue A.I., cabin fever, spreading disease, the collapse of resource networks and radiation leaks from nuclear reactors built by the lowest bidders all conspired to cause a collapse of systems. Key communication systems were not properly hardened, their mechanisms not built to spec by greedy corporations that had cut corners when dealing with a customer too desperate and strapped for time to check the work. As communication systems between various portions of the bunker network broke down, the people of the underground nations began to balkanize, key resources were not transported, and civil strife and war broke out. The radiation leaks, rogue A.I., and genetic experiments by desperate survivors or mad scientists further exacerbated the situation, until the sane people of the underground were forced to break the surface seals and escape to the surface. The lucky ones emerged in one of the corporate territories that would become Ur-Um. The unlucky ones opened the doors far further south, into blazing heat and choking, CO2 clouded air.

Administration and Structure of the New Mojave Desert

The New Mojave Desert has no real formal governing system among the peoples not in the corporate territories. Every bandit gang is in it for themselves, and the only unity shown among them is in the honoring of specific neutral territories and in fighting back deep desert Kaiju. Where the gangs and neutral settlements of All-Gobi have found themselves being united under a single iron fist, the traditional seat of 'power' in the New Mojave has been the deep desert settlement found in the Hammerfields, which has been on the wane, as the resources that gave them preeminence among the New Mojave Jerboan clans have steadily begun to run out after 400 years of consumption, the depredations of glowbelly bugs, and bunker-network conflicts.

Commerce of the New Mojave Desert

Commerce in the New Mojave relies far less on land based carrying trade than the New-Gobi, since the strategic location of the Duty Free Ports helps keep pirates down to a tolerable level for sea bound trade. Instead, the commerce of the territory is mostly defined by the vast photosynthetic lizard herds that move across Ur-Um territory. Gangs seek to hunt them down not just so that they can steal the food resources (as well as other resources that are produced from lizard bodies), but so that they can change the brands and sell them instead. With few exceptions, Bandit Gangs are often legitimate lizard ranchers as well, poaching from rival groups to expand their own herds.

Prominent Races of the New Mojave Desert

Humans by far make up the predominant race of the New Mojave, the lack of extensive genetic therapies outside of J.A.V. territory leading to a significant skewing in the population. Jerboans make up the next largest population, with the majority of Gangs in the new world being found in the vast, flat deserts of the New Mojave. Mutants are relatively rare on this continent, due in part to the lack of extensive Forced Biodiversity Birthing Facilities compared to the All-Gobi, but also because the far more extensive bunker network enables mutants to stay underground, rather than being forced above ground by population pressures.

Culture of the New Mojave Desert

The New Mojave is far more culturally united in some ways than the All-Gobi. It drew on far fewer Old World nations and cultures than the All-Gobi did, and so the cultural linkages are significantly deeper rooted than the superficial and cosmetic level. A survivor and frontiersman attitude of rugged individualism pervades almost all areas of the territory, with a slightly xenophobic view towards anyone not part of your own community. A focus on practical skills, plain speaking, and 'hard work' as a virtue, even if it gets you nowhere in life, and what could be called a 'prosperity gospel' belief in the righteousness of those who have money and resources pervades most parts of this territory. Only J.A.V., sealed within it's tropical, mountainous, erotic jungles, differs significantly in this respect. A distrust for megacity dwellers pervades almost all of the population in this territory, with even people of Sarajevo Seven Holdings and Nazzdack holding a paradoxical distrust of their own fellow 'cityslickers' beyond their own neighborhoods and spires (In J.A.V. this manifests as a belief that the people of Pettan and Opai are vanilla 'kink shamers' by the members of rural kink communes).

Special Locations of the New Mojave Desert

List of Special Locations Types

Organizations of the New Mojave Desert

List of Organizations

Settlements of the New Mojave Desert

New Mojave Settlements are famous for their 'wild west' and 'cowboy' vibes. These saloon towns built around watering holes and crossroads of ranching and trading routes.

People of the New Mojave Desert

List of Major Figures

Events of the New Mojave Desert

List of Historic Events

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