Has it been addressed somewhere in the books where all of the Native Americans came from at the beginning of the 21st Century to take over that much geography? There simply aren't enough of them left in the US to make this seem feasable. Not trying to be insensitive, but I can't help but wonder about this. Granted, this shouldn't be the thing about this game that I put too much skepticism into when we so easily accept dragons, magic, and machine guns that go crazy after 3 rounds have been fired through them (3rd Edition beef).

They didn't take the territory with an army, they took it with a magical ritual. The Amerind shaman Daniel Coleman, alias Howling Coyote, and his followers began the Great Ghost Dance sometime in 2017. On August 17th of that year, at 10:32AM, the Dance culminated in the simultaneous eruptions of Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams. It was the magical equivalent of a nuclear alpha strike. The Treaty of Denver, which recognized the sovereignty of the Native American Nations, was signed the next year, in 2018.

Yeah, that part is covered in each of the rulebooks. My meaning is that the books now suggest that there are a great number of them (at least enough to have a Native American Nation). There are currently about 4 million Native Americans in the US (New York has 8 million people in it for comparison). The question is really about the quantity of Native Americans. Is all of the NAN empty except for the small population boom that would have happened afterwards (maybe even doubled in that time)? I can deal with the idea that everybody else (non-NA) left the land because their government waved them over the the new UCAS borders, but I am having trouble with the idea of how these few Native Americans can hold the borders.

This was topic our gaming group actually discussed, we considered it and decided after review some material and concluded mostly they absorbed the existing population of those territories. 1990 Census pop statistics show there are a little over 1 million Native Americans, however if you expand that to folks who are only part Native American many more people join that category. So its a little of the fact that many don't really care who the national gov is, and a little of many more who have partial Native American ancestry join the fold. Most of that land has the low population density, so with the shift it really didn't change a whole lot.

Also... Magical fertility rituals *g*. But yeah, i too guess they have taken in a lot people.

Maybe all of those people who say they are 1/8 Cherokee all awakened themselves into pure indians when the rest of us turned into Orks, Elves, and Trolls. Eh?

That was our theory basically. With many body mods being a 15 min procedure that could be accomplished in most local malls it wouldn't be hard to get the look etc.

One thing they made a point of was that the Indians had very low rates of VITAS (which killed 25% and then 10% of the population), as they were isolated from it by the internment camps. That'd bring it up some... and another thing can be seen in real life. People with even a small amount of native american background can claim tribal membership. This happens a lot with tribes that have casino money coming in. One can imagine the same thing would be done in the aftermath of the NANs forming. They'd probably also offer to "adopt" people with needed skills into the tribes for the good of the newfound nations. Doubtless there was no shortage of applicants. Everyone loves a winner, after all.

Where do all the NAN come from?

In a world where Metahumanity exists as the new hate filled, fear The Other racist outlet ... and shamans and spiritual warriors are real, being a NAN is a lot less about if your parents are cousins. Heck, even if it is, you would be surprised how many people can trace their genetic heritage to some NAN ancestry ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCQUsNY0w4 ) That aside, being NAN today and especially in Shadowrun, IMHO, is about the formation of a conventional, modern local tradition. So when you even use the term NAN, you are being far more general than may be fair, since the SSC that surrounds Seattle is a very different nation than say the PCC that is bordered with Atzlan and has absorbed the failed Ute Nation, which failed in part due to its own racist actions of having a narrow view on who could be a citizen of their nation. When you look at some of the notes in the wiki, you will notice that some NAN member states were even early adopters of so called "pink skin" tribes and metahumanity tribes, especially the SSC. So I see the population as largely unchanged but the culture and where their centralized government resides changed to something more local and magical in the balkanized world of SR. With the shoe on the other foot, local governments may have found the opportunity to in addition to the local populations having a higher percentage of the people other neighbouring nations were at the time rejecting due to their lower total population numbers to begin with (how do some of the western states/Canadian provinces populations stack against the population of the earthquaked New York, since you are using that comparison), they probably had the opportunity to facilitate conditions for a population boom for a people that had before been living in some of the poorest conditions that can be found in North America in terms of water, housing, employment, and general infrastructure quality. Many NAN families have many children but the children had low survival rates before due to poor living conditions for them and their parents, now turn that around where tax dollars are being spent on their infrastructure to improve their quality of life, how do you think things are going to go? Good times after plenty of hardship, how about living life to its fullest with plenty of good fucking - which would include anyone of any other ethnicity, thus essentially adopting those people as well into the local NAN culture. Must not forget those who may not have any NAN genetic heritage but will gladly tap that NAN ass in marriage, especially since those NAN have basicly just won and everybody loves a winner.

Say, after the US came out relatively as a victor in WWII, didn't you have a population boom?

Edit: Too funny, Knight Saber and I were typing up posts saying similar things at the same time. LOL

There were 4.3 million at the 2000 census. These statistics actually reflect anyone who claims any degree of Native American ancestry, including the 120,000 in Alaska. But the numbers just don't work.

For example, the largest two two tribes in the the US are the Cherokee and the Navajo, accounting for 1.2 million people. These tribes don't exist in SR. The Cherokee Nation is in Oklahoma, part of the UCAS. The 267,000 residents (310,000 total people, including those outside the Rez) of the Navajo nation were apparently killed by the 10,000 people who claim some degree of association with the Ute tribe, or the 73,000 people who claim to have membership in the 21 different squabbling tribes that collectively are the "Pueblo", as they don't seem to exist in SR.

The 173,000 Choctaws (3rd largest) live in Oklahoma and Mississippi.

The Chippewa tribe is the 5th largest tribe and it's 160,000 members live mostly in Wisconsin and Minnesota, which is also part of the UCAS.

The Apache tribes (6th largest - with 105,000) mostly live in Oklahoma and Texas.

The 90,000 Iroquois (7th largest) mostly live in Northern New York, though also Wisconsin, Oklahoma, North Carolina.

The 74,000 Creek (8th) live in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

The Lumbee tribe is the 10th largest and their 60,000 members live in South Carolina.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Out of the 10 largest tribes, Only the 167,000 Sioux and the 73,000 "pueblo" live in the NAN.

So yeah, where the hell did all the Indians come from is a perfectly reasonable question and the answer is that virtually everything SR has written about the NAN has no relationship to reality. Don't even try to make it make any sense.

Well in theory... when the NA's took back half the country with the mystical ghost dance.. the ones living out side the area flocked TO the area's ceded to the Native Americans and helped to populate them Kzt.

If there was a brand new nation with most of the houses and infrastructure just sitting there waiting for you to move into your mansion or what ever, and all you had to do was move halfway across the country. You'd move. I'm sure the people that you're listing off in Mississippi and Wisconsin and Florida and all hauled and moved to the NAN REALLY fast. Most especially considering the persecution in the lands they were in and the hate that would rain down on them there.

Where did they get the population, or money to build all these new houses with? I mean seriously? If I was told I had to give up my entire country because of terrorist threats about magical nuclear bombs, you can bet I'd leave all the infrastructure behind as ashes. The soil poisoned, and the rivers glowing.

They didn't build new houses.

They took over the houses of the people that got kicked out.




-k

and I have a hard time believing that the infrastructure was left intact.

Yeah, it's amazing what an "accidental" bullet does to an oil-filled couple of hundred thousand volt transformer. You know that the high voltage transformers used in substations are all custom designed, made outside the US and have a lead time over over a year?

And I'm sure the power company techs wouldn't accidentally turn off the cooling water to the generators and then find the automatic thermal shutoffs failed when they left town. Nor would a series of concrete truck accidentally fill the storm and sanitary sewers with metal fiber reinforced high strength concrete. Or the gas company accidentally put extremely high pressure gas into the gas mains and fill every building with gas. Or....

No, people being kicked out at gun point having everything they own stolen from them would never do petty things like that. ...

To people who can cause their new homes to sink into a pit of lava?

VX nerve gas anyone? Even the NANs need to breath.

VX nerve gas anyone? Even the NANs need to breath.

We've been over this again and again in the NAN Fading topic (dig it up if you like). It basically comes down to this question:

"Do you think it'd be cool if the injuns took back half of America?"

If you chose Yes, then there are lots of ways you can rationalize it; if No, then nothing people say here will convince you.

Besides, the real "wtf" isn't the NAN taking over.. it's the internment camps in the first place.

and basically they decided that Balkanizing the US into a bunch of Native American Nations would be 'cool'
So that's what they did.

yea, this game was not designed by Historians or anthropologists. They didn't even have google to reference back then. The NAN is a unique and interesting part of shadowrun that is pretty far fetched in reality(much like dragons and elves)

I would imagine that tribes like the Cherokee, that weren't represented in Denver, would still choose assimilation into the "Pueblo" tribe over internment camps and racial hatred. Also, my mother claimed 1/8 Cherokee, and she's half Japanese. I'm pretty sure she is 0% Cherokee, but she got in none the less. SO now I am 1/16 Cherokee and you'd never know by looking at me (A problem that is easily fixed in 2070, It's how I imagine the mafia stays so Italian looking too)

If you read the Native American Nations and Shadows of North America soucebooks, the NAN were named after one tribe to honor their role in the war or the Ghost Dance. Each nation host several tribes, including those whose traditional territory was to remain within US border. According to SoNA, there is about 1.4 millions Cherokees, 360,000 Choctaws and 200,000 Creeks in the Sioux Nation.

And hell, consider the book hardwired. It pretty much created the SR rigger. And much of its initial story is about a smuggling run between states in a fractured USA.

For a outsider, USA staying together is at times baffling given the level of complaints about federal interference. One starts to wonder if someone will basically tell the complainers to "put up or shut up" (i think that is the phrase).

As for the population issue, consider the supposed orc birth rate...

Oh, and much of the rural areas have a much more dangerous fauna then it used to have. As for farmland, i wonder how much the corps compensate using skyscraper hydroponics and vat grown replacements. There had already been the resource rush, and i suspect the megas could get the NAN to sign on to the BRA in return for recognition from the corp court. Hell, a balkanized world may aid the megas as it allows them to hide their crazy stuff in the cracks between the borders.

Thinking about it, i wonder if not hardwired have a bigger influence on SR then the mirrorshades trilogy...

Sounds like the real answer would be - "Hey, now that we (the NAN) are taking our land back, but we really aren't trying to be dicks about it, all you people that still live here need to change your ethnic status over to Native American and put on these government issue feathered baseball caps, or move over there and learn to enjoy hockey."

I guess I can buy it. I lived on a reservation in New Mexico as a teenager (My dad taught english there), and found the people to be very inviting, even formerly welcoming him into their Navajo tribe (ceremony and everything), so maybe that is the answer.

The book quite clearly states that people could stay in the territories but would have to accept being a kind of second class citicen. So the Area in question probably has around 150-200 million people in it. Say 1/2 of them leave to to seattle, UCAS etc then about 5% of everywhere else heads to the new territories then you get a population of what 85 million? Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Here is how it happened. SR =/= The real world.

[/thread]

You're going to gas some folks that caused nationwide earthquakes and volcanic eruptions?

Remember at the time, for all that people knew, these guys could make your head explode just by thinking about it. They could be reading your every thought. They might be able to snap their fingers and kill an entire neighborhood. They might be able to turn the VX gas into cute bunnies. It was freaking MAGIC, man, and nobody knew what it was capable of.

In short, they had the Bigger Gun. And they had already demonstrated they were willing to use it.



-k

I guess I should have put InB4NANHaters in my other post.

I too can buy it too Swing, I currently live on a soon to be formerly a Rez, heck they are writing up a Constitution these days as we have forums on what kind of government we want that acknowledges tradition but in every almost every other sense is based on the British and American models of government with Executive and Legislative Branches.

And as far as us being a relatively tiny village where most of the currently registered under the Indian Act members are actually spread around in other communities on Vancouver Island (makes for an interesting political situation with off-Rez votes deciding what happens to the people in Ittatsoo), the coming implementation of local governance and a certain amount of liquidity in assets as agreed upon in the Treaty (and the Treaty of Denver is far more generous in the fiction than what I witnessed in this decades long process) means that there could very likely be something of a economic boom in the area as they build the community they want to live in. Educated guesses estimate their will be an influx of formerly off-Rez members as they are given requested lots of land. Also being determined is what the requirements for citizenship will be, so will very likely change from the standards used under the Indian Act - as one prominent member of the implementation process put it diplomatically to me "We want people who want to participate, it doesn't matter who your parents are" so I know there are people pulling for very adoptive inclusionary standards and others who are exclusionary based on the standards they have lived under for years with the Indian Act.

Here is a link for anyone interested in IRL goings on in this neck of the woods: http://ufn.ca/index.php?option=com_content...4&Itemid=39

This sort of stuff certainly makes the SR fiction more plausible to me. Especially when I recall people in Aboriginal Studies in college claiming 1/64 NAN blood heritage as part of the discussions my "FBI" wife would tell me about with a laugh "That just means their parents weren't cousins!" She likes to tell me with a chuckle and a wink "That is why I got with you, mumhuknee, there is no way you are my cousin." <3 We made a beautiful daughter together.

Not sure why people get so hung up on the US census numbers that people identify as NAN when the fiction is set in a place with metahumanity as the new race card. You're still caring about blackNwhite while the future is all ToBeOrkOrNotToBeOrk and shit. The Sinsearach elf tribe, Cascade Orks tribe, elven Manitou tribe and various "pinkskin" tribes would like to have a word with you about adopting a cultural tradition being stronger than genetic blood markers and outward indicators.

And the SR NAN member states that did give a big deal about limited ancestral indicators like skin colour have since gone under and were absorbed by their neighbours, what more do you want? The places that kicked whitey out perhaps did have their infrastructure fail but by that same token will you concede that the places that didn't kick out others went on to flourish in comparison to their past on things like lack of potable water to drink, houses that weren't mouldy and paved roads that allow children a better chance at life and a means of supporting that life economically? When you are living in ghetto world and then get internment camps as the cherry on top, almost everything is an improvement when you start implementing your Treaty of Denver, especially if your "whitey" neighbours agreed you about kicking the those damn corrupt UCAS bastards out. The conditions for population booms are there.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5140073_effects-...ion-growth.html

VX nerve gas? Ya'll are Nutz. That's all i have to say.

Chemical guys used to joke about how sticky VX being stickier than snot. It sticks to anything and takes months to break down to the point where being around at tiny amount for a while isn't extremely unhealthy. A little goes a long way.

Best explanation is the fact that Hispanics count as Native Americans, most of the NAN allowed some anglo's to stay so they'd have an economic base. And finally, even those with little indian blood were eligible for citizenship.

It is explained this way in Shadows of North America.

SoNA NAN is largely a crappy attempt at retcon. Actually it's mostly just a crappy attempt at retcon.

If the Hispanics (aka Mexican's) who are still angry enough about the US "stealing" part of Mexico they are going to abandon their homes and head off with the clothes on their back to be ruled by crazies they are pretty angry and determined. Are they likely to voluntarily become servants to a ruling class made up of what Mexicans think of a total inferiors instead of just handing the territory over to Aztlan? Since there are vastly more Hispanics than Indians and even more across the border I don't think this works out like the book says.

As I said in another topic, remember that Shadowrun World is not OUR world as we know it. Is ancient history is totally different in reality to what our was. And there is no reason why his more recent history isn't so.

In our world, there is not such large reservation nor an hybrid horror/human roaming it to teach magic to shamans.

In Shadowrun Wild West perhaps there haven't be a Custer, perhaps the Native Indian doesnt revolt as much or doesnt die as much from pox and other european disease. Perhaps they were a lot more numerous to start with (If you consider the 4th world population I think 6th world one is superior to ours, before Vista(Vitas?)).

Perhaps the Native population deal better than other with major epidemic.

2 other important element :

NAN lands is a lot of nature sanctuary with an actual scarce population, sometimes even nomad. The NAN have integrated a LOT OF metahuman when they started and they racial policy isn't as tight as other.

In our world Native Indians come from the West some 8.000-10.000 years ago, in Shadowrun they come from the East some 4.000-5.000 years ago and probably as a diaspora (or at least part of them do).

Dont use our world stats and history to discuss Shadowrun world, they aren't valid until retconned.

You only notice that now? I swear, the number of "rugged individualists" (or people that like to pretend they are) seems to be higher in cyberpunk related game communities then any other genre of RPG.

I'm almost of a mind that we just can NAN discussion on this board. Like it was mentioned before, all these threads break down to are usually a few points: 1. if you agree with the idea you can justify it, but if you seem to have a hate for it to begin with, you'll always justify your skepticism. 2. Someone is going to blur the line of here and there, probably end up making people wonder if they had a mad on against AmerInds in general. 3. Some Internet Tough Guy is going to go too far and suggest stuff like the VX Nerve gas. 4. Someone will go off on a political tangent and get this locked anyway.

The whole native american aspect with the balkanization made no sense. I just redraw the map. and ignore much of the native american aspect in shadowrun except in Canada.

I'd deploy WMD's against anyone who did so to me, so yes.


Given that the tactics they'd employed already indicate such to NOT be the case. Using things like tornadoes to take down a bunch of fighter planes when during the fan blades of their turbines into cotton candy would have been so much more funny......
I would deploy every conventional force I could. Besides SR magic actually CAN'T do things like the GGD. It was assigned the power of plot, as was howling coyote. There is no spell or spirit ability which would allow you to stroll past a dozen people who were all taking wideburst shots at you. You'd have no dodge pool left, and even one hit on the test would see you eating lead. It was poorly thought out, poorly written, and all in all, a very stupid idea.


Which I can only see resulting in their extermination. When someone actively demonstrates they are a clear and present danger to you.... well, time to whip out the small pox, or any other number of diseases the first nations have been shown to historically have no resistance to.

'Cept the big secret that the Russians and Americans were hiding was that their nukes weren't working. With that card unable to be played, conventional means was pretty much all they had.

(Plus trying to gas/nuke what amounts to a guerilla campaign is somewhat difficult)

As for using biologicals such as VX...y'all know they've been systematically destroying that stuff since the 60's, right? By the time the Ghost Dance hits, the majority of world-wide VX stockpiles would have been destroyed.

I see it as the United Arab Emirates. Theres only 2 and a half million Emirates, but the there are WAY more people in the UAE.

Not to mention that the Native Americans who are alive in 1980 are not any more succeptible to Small Pox than Europeans.

The ones that were, died a hundred years earlier.

Hear hear.

NAN Happened.. and lets just leave it at that.

Although I wish I could figure out how Sioux, Salish-Sidhe, Algonquin Manitou stay in existence as viable 'countries'

Pueblo I understand.
Inuit ... well there's like 40 of them who care

but some of the other countries. How do their economies survive?

Yeah, because using WMDs on your own territory is a brilliant idea. Now instead of losing that land to NAN, you lose it to radiation. You win a gold star.

Not really. Perhaps the 'turn to cotton candy' power doesn't work on inanimate objects, perhaps it doesn't work on things they can't see. Fact is that all of those things mentioned could be done with SR magic, and most of them are in the book.

Sure it can. There is nothing in the laws of magic that says GGD can't happen, and there is no reason to believe that the single most powerful shaman ever to exist, when backed by hundreds(thousands?) of other mages in a massive ritual couldn't create and cast an 'activate volcanoes' spell and a 'control weather' spell.

As for walking past a dozen people? Sure, why not? Deflection cast at F24? There you go. Maybe throw on an increased reaction spell to pump that up by a dozen or so points. No reason it couldn't work. That or maybe he was having a spirit possess him, giving him immunity to normal weapons which burst fire wouldn't really help with.


Native Americans aren't any more susceptible to small pox than any other group in modern times. Like someone else said, those that weren't resistant to it died a long time ago. Just like the Europeans who weren't resistant to it died a long time ago. And as we saw during WWII, when someone beats the crap out of you in a bigger way than you thought possible in a month or more, and they do it in a few seconds, you don't go "Oh, well, I'm going to fight with my inferior weaponry." you go "Okay, I surrender."

To be fair.. if you're America and someone beats you up in a huge way.. you get pissed off and come out swinging.

Pearl Harbor
9/11

And yes, The European countries went " I surrender" and then every single one of them developed very hardcore resistance groups that took the fighting to the nazis.

It's all very flawed.
It goes on the premise that the Indian Unrest of the 1970's got worse and worse until the US government yanked them out of the reservations and stuffed them into effectively concentration camps. This in turn outrages the Native Americans, and a leader comes along willing to do anything to Free His People..

Then, it sets up some weird weak Federal government that's going to act contrary to how the US Government has acted in the last 100 years.

You've got the GGD, the Volcanoes (which should have shunted us into a minor ice age)
Then the Treaty of Denver.

It's all based on pretty precarious nonsensical crap.

That being said.. it's the ShadowRun setting.. so unless you want to redo the history.. it's what we got.. so just go with it.

Don't forget that hispanics (presumably both white and non-white varieties) were considered "native" thanks to Atzlan being in the first formation of the NAN. That counts for a considerable amount of people west of the Miss.

I'm surprised Azlan didn't ask for California Back.

The Old Mexico wackjobs are still clamoring for getting Texas and California back.

They took San Diego and southern Texas but were stopped from overreaching themselves eventually.

Yeah? While their WMDs are pointed at your face? Before you had time to prepare or even pull the keys to your weapons lockers out of your pocket?

The NAN folks got the drop on the USA. It wasn't merely a matter of "you have weapons, I have weapons, if you use yours I'll use mine."

If someone has a handgun pressed to the back of your head, and yours is still in it's holster, how useful is your handgun?

That's not even addressing how powerful the NAN folks were. Or more relevant, were perceived to be.



Merely because someone did something is not a good indicator of what they CAN'T do.



All that is irrelevant. It does not matter the slightest what magic can or cannot actually do.

It only mattered what people at the time THOUGHT it could do.

Nobody at the time KNEW what magic was capable of or it's limitations. That's my main point. Magic was a complete unknown. You have an enemy now that has already shown they can do things that seem impossible, and you DO NOT know what else they can do.

At the time, as far as the rest of the world knew, Daniel Howling Coyote had just become a god.




Reality =/= Perception.

For all people knew, the NAN folks had become gods and could at any moment cause the world to erupt in fire if anyone pissed them off.

If the governments knew back then, what they found out later about the limitations of magic, yes, they probably would have responded with military force. (though not with WMDs - come on, the "enemy" is mixed in with your own citizens)

But they didn't know.

And that's the point. You don't attack an enemy if you know nothing about their capabilities.




-k

And the other hand, its takes one or two field commanders thinking that way and eight years of counter-insurgency operations, and I'm sure you'll find a bunch of European, African or Asian-descent Americans to claim they have a drop of Amerindian blood or accept honorary membership of the local tribe to boost NAN demographics, rather than staying utterly loyal to the Washington government.