I just got my first ever chance to peruse the Tir Tairngire book, and something struck me. It details the creation of the Sinsearach tribe, which happened when the STC decided not to let in metahumans. However, the Seattle sourcebook, while describing Puyallup, says that a lot of metahumans came to Tarislar and other Puyallup neighborhoods after "the surprise decision" not to let all the metahumans in. Does anyone know what I'm missing here that reconciles these two?

I think: The Salish and other American Indian tribes agree to allow metahumans into the NAN. The elves begin to form the Sinsearach and the Orks the Cascade Crows. At the same time Brightwater is having the metahumans setup in the area that will be Tir Tairngire. Many metahumans are allowed in but it is a slow process. Some are still grouped in refugee camps in what will be Tarislar and other places when Tir declares its independence. The Salish respond by closing the open metahuman policy.

Note that the Sinsearach disagreed with Birghtwater about separation of races, even though many are sympathetic to the cause.

Tir Tairngire had/has racist immigration policies. After the initial rush of Awakened were allowed in, orks, dwarves, trolls and some elven refugees were turned away and settled in the Barrens. This was also to create Tarislar, the small elven community, so that Tir Tairngire could more easily plant their eyes and ears in Seattle.

So you're saying Elven immigrants were turned away from Tir Tairngire so that Tir Tairngire would have a foothold in Seattle? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, from what I've seen of your other posts, you seem to know your canon like the back of your hand, so you're probably right, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to deliberately turn people back so that you can have a foothold in a city where you eventually want a port, because it seems like those people would be REALLY pissed off at you. Imagine if you were an elf and were being turned away from the new Elven "homeland". Even if it were sort of a conspiracy, that seems like it would involve convincing the people you turned away that they would have an acceptable life in Seattle, and you're not going to be able to do that if you're making them live in Puyallup. The Barrens suck (at least for normal people, it's pretty cool if you're a shadowrunner). I guess the rest of the metahumans have a reason to be there if the STC cut its "all metahuman" policy after the secession of the Tir, but I can't really see why there'd be a lot of Elves there that hate the NAN (another thing that doesn't really click with the conspiracy explanation--why are all the people living there disenfranchised, xenophobic elves, wouldn't they want outgoing, successful footholds?)

It's a shame, because Tarislar is, in my opinion, one of most flavorful parts of Puyallup (again, my favorite part of Seattle), and since my game focuses almost exclusively on Puyallup, it would be nice if I could settle this contradiction.

When the Tir clamped down on immigration, those who were trying to get in had no where to go. The nearest place that would take them was Seattle. Squatting in Puyallup was no big deal because few people wanted to live where you still needed to wear a mask to filter out the volcanic ash. It's my impression Tarislar was formed by people with something in common banding together.

Tir Taingire didn't organize Tarislar, but it is an easy place for Tir refugees to go. It is also a good cover for spying etcetera. Tarislar wasn't formed by Tir Taingire any more than the Ancients were. But like Tarislar, the Tir exploits the Ancients for its own purposes.

The Ancients and the Tir had a much closer relationship until the events of Elven Fire, and even then there's probably still a connection. To say the Tir didn't create either Tarislar or the Ancients is...at least partially untrue.

They might have been responsible for the creation of Tarislar, if you stretch the point, but they didn't purposely set out to make the place. They merely take advantage of it.

@CircuitBoyBlue: Nobody made the inhabitants of Tarislar live anywhere. They were simply turned away from TT. Puyallup was just he easiest place for them to go to form their own community. TT didn't convince them of anything, they just took advantage when these people formed an elves-only community in a place where its easy to insert Tir agents without any sort of legal documentation. I'm sure TT has something of a presence in the Elven District downtown, too, but the Puyallup Barrens are just so much easier to insert people into.

As I read it, at first the NAN wlecomed the Metahumans as allies against the pinkskins. but the potentially large number of metas fleeing the nigth of rage, made the NAN affraid the indians would be outnumbered by the metas in their own country and so closed the border, leaving those metas who wanted to flee, trapped.

Why didn't they stay in Salish-Shidhe rather than treck all the way across to Seattle? Or would the Salish still be a bit pissed about the Tir breaking away and not want their cast-offs?

That would be my guess, also having lost half the country to the Tir, I suspect they didn't want to risk losing more of the nation if another enclave got established and then broke away.

Salish-Shide, even with the Cascade Ork and Sinsearch, might have been a tad leery of a bunch of pinkskins--metahuman cityslicker pinkskins at that--running around their wilderness.

Well, thanks everyone; my question's been answered.

I guess I just wasn't thinking that they had STOPPED letting metahumans in. Something about the wording in the Seattle sourcebook about the "surprise decision" just kind of made me think that they hadn't been letting the metas in prior to that, though I suppose it didn't actually say that and I was just reading into it. Thanks for all the input.