I'm referring to this map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?hl=en_US&mid=1DuilfvNcMvhMosMjyZBL6Vgvjp4&ll=34.849875057892035%2C-117.27750776772461&z=8

Maybe it's been too long since I read the lore in game.
I had thought that the Divide, pre-destruction, was the only practical path from the Mojave to the NCR, and it held one or more thriving towns that Ulysses thought could form the next great nation. I thought it was off the long 15, past the Mojave outpost.

But it's in death valley, with no main road going through the area. It's not on the 15, which looks like the best path. How could it have once been the best path to the ncr, when it's not on the 95 or the 15, AND is death valley? I never would have guessed.

Also, the Hub was supposed to have been built by the ruins of a pre-war town that was relatively un-destroyed, but there's nothing there but a military base. Very strange, did the designers make a mistake with that bit of lore?

hi

well fallout world isn't the carbon copy of our world so there small and big differences here and there so yeah no road in the current death valley could mean a road and possibly a military town in the fallout world.

best regards

In my understanding, the divide was built from nothing only by the actions of the Courier.
So there must have been an alternative route.

And I think chief hannon in NV talks about another place down south that was filled with raiders, so it was probably really dangerous.

I'd been discussing the possibility of a new land mod in Death Valley, and I see it's been done, in the Divide. But I'm still skeptical, that is a seriously harsh environment for a real, thriving town. They must have had a geck. It's a shame that a really unusual place like Death Valley would be used like that.
I don't understand why we access the divide in the southwest of the map when it's clearly in the northwest.
Unless that map is wrong, and the divide is in fact on the long 15 and not in death valley, which I'm starting to suspect considering that, well, that's where a road is, and it's also where we access the divide.
I can't find any lore that states that Hopeville was in death valley.

I'd like to say it's accurate, only because the idea that they were both created after the divergence. The divide was in fact two separate settlements, Ashton and Hopeville which both existed pre-war, connected by the Highroad which led from California toward Nevada, it's what made the post-war location so prosperous. The settlement there was built upon trade between the Mojave and NCR, and it's not so much that the Courier themselves built it from the ground up, but that the flow of trade and travellers, one in particular being the courier, allowed the settlement to grow. It's more about the symbolic nature of the courier, and Ulysses' attempt to point out how your actions affect and shape the world around you.

Since they are both fictional towns, there is no map reference in the real world, BUT in Old World Blues there is something very, very interesting related to the possibility that this may be built up in Death Valley. In Big MT, there is a Meteorological Station, where we find a map of the divide. Within the station there is also a controlled experiment shown to be going on between this station and Higg's Village. Simulated Weather. We know that research was going on in the US in regards to terraforming, through Dr Stanislaus Braun's research into the GECK and it's likely, as the US (and possibly the Worlds) leading think tank, the minds of the Big MT facility were working on similar experiments. They conducted experiments in the Sierra Madre, and were clearly involved in some capacity with the area of the Divide. According to Elijah's logs, Ulysses was interested in the facility because of it's relation to the divide. In fact, the results of this experimentation are responsible for the bizarre weather conditions of the divide, such as it's sandstorms, though it's possible these are the result of post war, or post detonation failures with the systems there.

Now, if the Big MT is capable of creating artificial weather conditions, what if they were capable of terraforming an environment of barren desert into land fit for human habitation designed to alleviate overpopulation? I'm not saying this happened over night. Perhaps these towns existed prior to the research, or maybe this particular strand of testing has been generational. It's very possible that Hopeville and Ashton both were constructed quite close to the bombs falling. Cities can be built within a few years, provided the resources and manpower is available, and neither is particularly that large. Not to mention larger, more complicated structures, like Vaults were built in far shorter spans of time than that. The US building missile bases in the area would be the only factor that would really conflict with this IMO, as it would interfere with the experiment, but then again, if it was considered vital to national security then what would a science experiment matter? Particularly one that could be considered a success like this, as it had resulted in two new towns that seemed to be doing respectably well considering the state of the rest of the US in general before the bombs fell.

loneheart9 wrote:

And I think chief hannon in NV talks about another place down south that was filled with raiders, so it was probably really dangerous.

The place Hanlon was talking about was Baja, part of which has been settled by the NCR.

The terraforming theory makes sense, so I guess that could work.  Although the un-terraformed valley had a lot of potential too, I think.
So, if I recall, the entrace to death valleywas in the south-west of the mojave, on the long 15.  I still think that's misplaced, because death valley and the divide is to the northwest of the mojave.  The long 15 would lead on its own straight to Barstow/the hub.
If the path was ncr->hopeville->mojave, then people going to the mojave from the hub and ncr territory would have to inexplicably break off the short (long) 15, and detour northward all the way up to the northwest section of the mojave.  That's a weird route.  There must be like 100 deathclaws sitting on the other side of the gate at the mojave outpost, because that's practically just a skip and a jump to the Hub.

You need to remember that you're looking at the destroyed valley. We enter at an odd angle, overlooking the town from the cliff face. Before the devastation, people would enter and traverse the divide via the High Road, which is visible on the map.



I'm guessing, much like the towns themselves, this road does not exist in real life, at least not in this state. It probably rans straight through the valley toward Vegas. In the image it flows East to West. If that was the case, it would mean traders from the Hub, or Shady Sands could head directly toward Vegas without taking the route around I-15 or Highway 95, which would save them time. Also, since neither of these towns are NCR territory, and there is no Mojave checkpoint, it's possible that caravans using this route were able to avoid the taxes that come with travelling through the outpost. Based on what we hear from traders in game, travel between the outpost and Vegas is pretty slow, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that this pathway into the Mojave would be a preferable avenue for trade, which would also explain why the NCR was so keen to annex the territory in the first place.

And it occurs to me that the path from the south to Vegas is blocked by deathclaws and cazadores on some routes too. Better to come from the north Mojave to Vegas.
I seem to remember the NCR sort of being more cut off without the Divide, but the the Long 15 should reach directly to the Hub, not that far away.
And I still think it's strange that the Divide isn't accessed via the northwest side of the Mojave.