Here is the lowdown on two, well three, of the more interesting Puyallup tribes I’ve stumbled across:

The Mechanicals

Fre∑dom

• I dug this out of the archive, it’s a few years old now but gives some background to the Mechanicals as they were. There’s one around here for the Fre∑dom tribe too, I’ll see if I can dig it out… 2XL

Jackpoint Discussion on Urban Tribes (appeared in the 2072 IC thread):

JackPoint Report: Seattle Culture

h2.Tribes
Tribes, groups of people banding together behind a common meme, are a common occurrence in modern society. A tribe can range from a half dozen kids staking out the basement of an abandoned building to ‘honour’ their favourite trideo-star, to a worldwide organisation with thousands of members, and resources to rival a mid-sized corporation. Tribes can have widely varying monetary, technological, magical, matrix, personnel, political, and other resources available to them.

Even saying that a tribe is a group of people is too limiting. With the public acknowledgment that technomancers, and other matrix denizens exist, there are tribes that have AI’s and Free sprites as members, as well as other sentients.

• AI’s are people too. Puck.
• Oh, pleeeze. Clockwork.
• New forum rule: Only real people are allowed to post. Available specimens of Hobgoblins do not fit my definition of people. Someone want to remove the time bomb? Sticks.
• Maybe the Mechanicals can recycle him. They are into obsolete tech. Snopes.
• Slot off. Clockwork.
• Children. [waves admonishing finger]. Stop bating the Clock. Stop making it so easy. FastJack.

The only consistent commonality for all tribes, is that it usually has some central theme or concept to act as a focus. That focus can be quite general, of very specific, common or quite esoteric.

Tribes can be extremely insular, with any non-tribe member automatically being an enemy, or a resource to be ruthlessly exploited. They can also be very open and inviting, actively recruiting anyone they can get to listen.

• Too right <us> <all>. Traveler Jones.

Urban Tribes
A group that gets classed as an urban tribe is typically limited in scope to a single sprawl. There are exceptions. Like the Stillwater collective

• Discount the capabilities of a group, just because it is classed as an urban tribe at your own risk. Plan 9

Seattle chamber of commerce information
The Mechanicals urban tribe is a group that works out of the Puyallup district. Their main operation is based less than 5 km south of Puyallup City on intercity 161.

• They have converted and renovated several empty industrial buildings around 43rd ave SE. No one seems quite sure when they started. Seems to be about 2060. At the time, those building were nothing more than squatter hangouts. By 2062 though, they had a solid presence, and were successfully defending the space. Not that there was initially much pressure on them. The space they were defending was of no special interest to other groups. It was easier to go somewhere else just as good, than to contest the tribes’ claim to the area. That has been changing slowly. The improvements that have been made, including significant rooftop farming, have been attracting covetous eyes from other groups, including various local gangs. Sunshine.
• Not mentioning that they are less than a km from the barrens. On 2 sides. Almost in typical commlink direct signal range. Kay St. Irregular.
• They initially moved in as squatters, quietly displacing existing residents, then made improvements, starting with defences to discourage poaching. They have been careful to keep the ‘value’ of the improvements less than the ‘cost’ to take the space over. Riser.
• The Mechanicals leader is a Rat Shaman. That could help account for their success in keeping their gains. Dr Spin.
• Spindle’s a canny bastard. He’s got his totem’s desire to run and hide in the face of conflict but he wouldn’t have held on to any measure of power without an understanding of how to motivate others to do things for him. He’s a consummate politician, in the worst use of that word. Winterhawk
• Could also be the leaked information that the whole place is mined. If someone really pushed hard enough to oust them, BLAMM! No useful resources to take over. They’d rather run than fight but they are prepared to defend what’s theirs. Glitch
• Smarter opponents will know that it takes skill to keep that operation running. They do not need to mine it. Even if the whole tribe just walked off, someone moving in would not get much benefit without the skill walking away with the tribe. Those facilities are built from a patched together jumble of mismatched equipment. It would fall apart without their TLC. It would as likely eat a stranger, as provide any liquid assets, or much in the way of ongoing benefits. They are good enough to keep out the idiots, and most of the ‘smart’ individuals. Cerberus
• Which is just another way to mine it. DangerSensei
• Yeah! Better to continue to trade for what they are willing to offer, so have something next month or year too. Reality Czech.

The group performs salvage and recycling operations of technical equipment. They have significant technical skill, refurbishing technological castoffs, exchanging the results with other groups for resources that do not have themselves.

• Not all of their output is strictly [or even close to] legal. They also sell interesting things at the Crime Mall made from the salvage. Rigger X.
• Try scavenged as well as salvaged. My intel says some of that is also ‘re-appropriated’, though they do seem to keep that to a minimum. Would not do to have other groups angry at them for more than existing. Reality Czech.

The material is collected mostly from the E zones of Puyallup and neighbouring districts, with some from Z zones.

• They do a fair amount of work around the Barrens, seemingly pretty good at avoiding active attention from the gangers and such. Netcat.

The operation is effectively a small scale cooperative business operation, leveraging their technical skills to turn end of life equipment into a reasonably comfortable lifestyle.

• Yeah, they’re good at turning gomi into usable tech. In some very creative ways. Pistons.
• That ‘comfortable lifestyle’ is misleading. How well each member lives depends on how much effort they put into helping the tribe, and how much extra time and skill they have to upgrade the individual units. The tribe has not done full apartment renovations throughout. Only the needed facilities are totally a group effort. You can be sure that the shop space used to process the salvage is going to be up to date, but the same cannot be said of basic living units. The members will have a roof over their head, and food to eat, but beyond that, improvements are done on your own time, or based on your usefulness, productivity, and street cred within the tribe. Sunshine.
• Yep, there are ‘fringe’ members and hangers on that are effectively squatters. Glitch.
• Although they work extensively with technology, on a very small scale, they are mostly recovering resources that are already well past the ‘use by’ date. They have to be very efficient with their resources. Their whole tribe is a recycling centre. Their farming operation uses fairly high tech, but they are also trying for organic output. I’ll give them a {grudging} ‘A’ for effort on ecological awareness and support. EcoTope.
• Why Grudging? Haze.
• They do not really care about the environment. Efficiency and minimal waste are just the best way for them to get the most out of the resources. EcoTope.
• That says a bit about them, but what are they like? Haze.
• I was interested in how the operation worked awhile back, and did a bit of research. Here’s my take attachment. 2XL

Mechanicals Inner Workings: posted by 2XL
The Mechanicals are a socially fairly close knit community of technically oriented individualists. They respect technical skill and expect loyalty to the tribe. As a group, they are not particularly aggressive or expansionist, but they ARE extremely protective of their people and facilities. Members are expected to contribute to the general defence and upkeep of the community. Depending on the skill mix, that could be as simple as occasional security patrols, carrying a squealer or lending a hand with physical renovations or planning. They use peer pressure to keep the worst non-conformists in line.

• Peer pressure she says. The power goes off to your pad, suddenly no extra tomatoes from the greenhouse. No one available to fix the broken SPU. Yep, that’s peer pressure. Hard Exit.

So far, as the tribe has grown, they have expanded peacefully one unit and building at a time, convincing any extant residents to relocate.

• Since the area they are claiming is abandoned industrial, with no in place amenities that they do not provide themselves, it is usually not difficult to convince the squatters to look of another crash pad, when the new neighbours become too noisy [or nosy], applying a bit of incentive to move on. The non-tribal hangers-on are normally willing to move a bit further away, to stay in the good graces of their meal ticket, of before they become surrounded by ‘un-friends’. Some of that expansion is from hanger’s on becoming a member, expanding the territory by default. Monkeywrench.

Most members are going to have some sort of technical (electronics, mechanical, armorer and more) skills that directly benefit the tribe.

• Family and community is important to them too. They provide decent education for the kids, and training resources to members. Those that are willing to make the effort to learn anyway. Home schooling, and a lot of virtual classroom stuff, but what isn’t now? Snoops.
• They do emphasize practical skills, not completely matching public curriculum. Just passing through their node, I noticed an upcoming seminar posted “Building a Crossbow from Common Construction materials”. /dev/grrl/.
• Passing through? They are at the south edge of Puyallup, next to the barrens. Where could you have possibly been passing through to? Slamm-O!.
• Privileged Information. /dev/grrl/
• You could reasonably accurately compare them to nomadic hunter/gatherer societies from centuries ago. With modern transportation capabilities, they do not need to move the ‘home lodge’ while gathering the salvage that is the food fuelling them. With the dross being expelled by the larger sprawl, there has been no problem with over hunting, and needing to move to a new range. Some would compare them to old style wind powered pirates with an island base. That would not be accurate. While there are cases where members would have picked up ‘salvage’ through questionable means, in the main they work from discarded and abandoned materials. They do the work themselves, not taking from the effort of someone else. Historian.
• Salvaging from empty buildings is still theft. Somebody still owns it. Wyrm Watcher.
• Pretentions of morality? Practicing for a bar exam? Marcos.
• Maybe owned on paper. Sometimes. Given what the crash did to records, ‘who’ is often unclear. They mostly avoid places where someone with a ‘legitimate’ claim is showing continued interest. In a lot of cases, the ‘owner’ should thank them. Any future ‘official’ interest in their targets is likely to start with a wrecking ball. Mr. Bonds.

Membership is by invitation only.

• A first cut tribal evaluation is done before the initial invite. Whoever proposes a new member will do so internally before the prospective member knows anything about it. The invite may or may not come from the member who proposed the new person. They may never know who initially proposed them. Kat o’ Nine Tales.
  Trial memberships may be offered to those without much in the way of directly useful skills, if someone sees enough potential for the future. There does not seem to be a simple evaluation checklist. 2XL.

Their output is not all ‘pure’ tech either. That CoC ‘business’ report left out the rooftop gardens and greenhouses they maintain. They could be nearly self-sufficient, if they were not using some of the produce as exchange goods.

• And for ‘protection insurance’. Smiling Bandit.
• That farming is pretty hi-tech. Good use of some of that salvage. Turbo Bunny.

They also have a bent for some retro technology styles, some of which shows up in the goods at the Crime Mall.

• That’s for sure. I picked up this crazy looking holo projector from them one time. Totally ancient 2D flat screen look, with moving mechanical linkages, but when activated, holo pops up just fine. Pistons.
• The style is called steampunk. Turbo Bunny.

They present a strong defensive stance to the rest of the world. With the area they control, and limited population to draw from, they do not have the internal resources for full 24×7 armed patrols. They do not have the straight cred to hire a reputable security firm, and are reluctant to rely on outsiders anyway. They do, to a limited extent, use local gangs for street patrols.

• Basically ‘protection’ payments. Icarus.
• It does help cut down on the competing protectors. The devil you know. Black Mamba.
• Or is that keep you friends close? DangerSensei.
• The low population density, is due to all of the shop space they use for processing the salvage, and to build the ‘toys’ found at the Crime Mall. Seems like every other member has some sort of shop. Monkeywrench.

They compensate with some ingenuity. They deliberately and randomly change up their security patrols and other security procedures, making any planned infiltration attempt complex.

• I’ll say. Had a target suspected to be hiding on their turf one time. Did some research to see what a hard extract would take. Found out there could be fixed checkpoints, armed roving patrols, spirits, mages, roving sensor and combat drones, building sensors with spider and patrolling IC. The could be is because it keeps changing. Typically there are only a couple of items active from that at any one time due to the available resources and limited population to pull from. The roving patrol might be a couple of kids with squealers, or it could be heavily cybered combat veterans. The spirit could be a watcher, or major fire spirit with a flaming chip on its shoulder. The spider could be a kid in AR watching the cameras manually, or a professional that would qualify for work at a triple-A. The drones might be a simple repurposed garden weeder, or a heavily customized combat drone. It all depends on just when, and which particular building you are interested in. If your luck holds on the timing, null sweat, but if the lady figures your karma needs some payback, you might wish it was just a corp fire team. Turned out we did not even need to try. One of their ‘concerned citizens’ spotted the gong trying to steal from a greenhouse. They escorted him out [with bruises], leaving a beacon on him inviting any interested parties to collect the little drek. A little reminder for others. Monkeywrench.
• The matrix resources, not part of but available, to the group have recently increased. They are on friendly terms with the Fre∑dom tribe that took over the South Hill mall just north of them earlier this year. Common Interest in tech, but not competing for resources. FastJack.

With the community attitude, bribery is a high risk route in. The guards are protecting their home, friends, family, and more important for some of them, the equipment they use. Even the gangers that do some of the ‘protection’ are reluctant to look the other way. They know there would be consequences in access to the fresh food and tech, if they got caught.