This is a question that's now bugging me. Tarislar was formed when the Elves from Seattle, who attempted to flee through the Salish-Sidhe Nation to Tir Tairngire, were blocked from doing so; stuck in the south of Puyallup, they had to survive somehow.

In Seattle 2072, the map for Puyallup shows Tarislar as being unambigiously located between Silver Lake and Hart's Lake, explicitly labeled so on the map of the district, and stated to be there in text. Here it is.

The problem I have is that that stretch of Washington state is complete wilderness as of 2009 (IE, that image,) and somehow I doubt the Awakening and the eruption of Mt. Rainer and all that did much to encourage development in the area between now and the Night of Rage.


So what exactly did they move into? Or is Tarislar constructed from whole cloth, being first nothing more than a tent city as the refugees attempted to negotiate passage with the Sovereign Tribal Council, and then they wound up constructing shelter from the woods in the area, which then gave way to intentional construction when they realized they weren't going anywhere, any time soon?

Between 2039 and 2072, what will have changed? What does Tarislar look like?

It's a very nice slum.

EDIT: As long as you're an elf.

I believe that you have the core of it... it started as a tent city for refugees, which grew a bit as bad weather forced them to upgrade the place, and after a few years, construction broke out. Natural wood for the first wwave (Log cabins and the like) which gave way to more modern techniques as some support filtered in (Some Tir of rank were sympathetic to the cause, and while unable to overrule the Prince's rule and open the borders, they were able to gather supplies and ship 'em in via Portland --> Seattle. In time, Seattle itself snaked that-a-way, and these days it's a poor "village" for lack of a better term, a small town that's on the edges of Seattle but absorbed into teh greater metro area, since all the non-Salish land there is ceeded to Seattle, proper. They're one of the poorest, if not *the* poorest, section of the city, but without the 'crumbling inner city' feel of Redmond. Several Tir citizens fled that country during, or after, the revolution, and settled down with a grumble. It's not a happy place, but it's probably in better shape than most.

Intersting question, though! Hmm...

If they managed to actually get enough money coming in to hire KE to patrol the place, they can't be doing that poorly. I mean, that's better than 99% of the rest of all the Barrens, which are only "patrolled" as part of an extension of the Metroplex contract, and which basically means that if an outright land war breaks out in them, KE will roll in in force and put it down, but anything else is on their own.


Which makes me wonder what they do for money there, what the place is like (since there's no existing utilities to repair.) I know the hospital has an illegal tap to the main Gaeatronics trunk which Gaeatronics lets slide, but I imagine the rest of it would be like, solar panels for their power, they might have managed to get septic systems installed...

It's an interesting question. I imagine for resources they used the woods in the area that they cut down at first, which lasted round about until they had actual construction going on, and someone said "Hey, wait a minute, we're elves. What are we doing clear-cutting."

Hrm...

I'll have to write it up, I suspect. I'll share my writings when they're done.

I've also mentioned (In my games at least, this is not even "Freelancer Official") that the Tir Princes that were kicked out when Democracy broke out in the country have settled there in Seattle.

I mean, it makes sense. It's the closest area that's full of "Elven Pride" and Sperethrial-speaking population.

EDIT: IIRC, they even were able to either afford a security company to provide law, or just have The Ancients Go-Gang do it.

They did hire Knight Errant. The Ancients did it for a while. I figure the Ancients - yes, the whole Ancients organization - originally formed to protect Tarislar, but grew into a huge go-gang and eventually the community they formed to protect got tired of them selling brainbenders in the community and hired KE to kick them mostly out - IE, to the point where they and the Laésa aren't basically running the show anymore.


In Seattle 2072, it's mentioned that the Ancients and Laésa both hate all those Tir Princes, largely because a lot of them were exiled from Tir Tairngire before they themselves got kicked out. I have the exiled Tir aristocracy trying to make good with one of the Mafia families, out of desperate need for allies who don't have personal grudges against them. (The Ancients had my group send the Donna a message (along with a brutalized enforcer) that this will not be tolerated, and she would be wise to turn them out on their pointed ears.)

There's a bit of a write up of Tarislar in Lone Wolf by Findley. He suggests that the area was developed in the early 21st century and was starting to boom until Mt. Rainier erupted forming Hells Kitchen. Then the businesses starting leaving and the place fell into disrepair. The elves that came through the area took to squatting in buildings, but he does also mention tent cities and hastily constructed shacks covering land that used to be golf courses for the business people that abandoned the district. I think this may be one that you'll need to chalk up to "things happened differently in the SR dimension".

I dunno, now I kind of like the idea of Tarislar, crap as it is, being the only genuinely newly-advented neighborhood in Seattle, even if it was invented out of whole cloth as a desperation measure.

I think it's a cool idea too. That's the joy of RPing - if you don't like something, change it.

I've been waiting, for a long time, for a book "Views of Seattle" that would give visual references for different places in Seattle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlIm-riMN6Q





-k

Okay, so...

I wrote up my vision of Tarislar (in brief) here: A Brief History of Tarislar.

Nobody? Nobody had a read at that? Or had anything to say?

That's why in my SR3 days when I would play or GM, it was always great to do some runnin' in the barrens... You can bring out the big guns and odds are you won't have any... Outside interference.

That's pretty much how I see most of the Barrens - unless you start a seriously major explosions-and-cannonfire pitched battle - not a skirmish, mind you, but out-and-out warfare - nobody's going to come, quite likely because nobody will even know it's going on before you're gone.

Tarislar's a small chunk of the Barrens, after all, just a small chunk; a town at best. The rest of Puyallup is pretty much wide open.

In the canon, the Ancients was originally formed by outcasts from Tir Tairngire, which doesn't fit with your story.
But I guess you could have people in Tarislar hoping for a helping hand from the Tir, receiving nothing and growing angry at them, making it the perfect place for the Ancients to recruit and use as a HQ.