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In general, a ranger is a keeper, guardian, or soldier that ranges over a region to protect the area or enforce law. See park ranger.
The mystique of the ranger has been harnessed for military, sports and governmental uses as well as appearing elsewhere in fiction. The Ranger program, for example, was a series of NASA unmanned space missions.
As used in J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction, a ranger is a guardian of the land who travels within the wilderness. This fictional motif was revisited by various fantasy roleplaying games.
See: Wiktionary - entry on 'ranger'.