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GM: Vulcan
Players: Joseph
Synopsis: JOseph talks to Pouring Tap about politics.
Date: January 29, 2070
THe Crazyhorse Bar and Grill. It's near enough to the down town core that the commuters who ride Mass-trans can stop off in a friendly environement and have a steak and a brew. Of course… its also close enough that the commuters who ride mass-trans can stop in for a steak and a brew.. and stare at all the injuns. It's a blessing and a curse. It means money always flows, but it means sometimes, so does a little blood.
And bloods hard to get out of synthwood.
It's quiet, this time of day. The lunch crowd is gone, the dinner crowds not here. The juke plays a song by Donnie Jinkens, a currently-popular country artist who's soulful explorations of the life of the rancher are now, oddly, suited to Native Americans and not cowboys. It's a little on its head, but it seems to work well enough.
Pouring Tap stands at the bar, stereotypically drying a glass with a towel in one hand, ensuring theres enough clean glassware for the dinner crowd in a few hours.
Opening the door is a man who has taken a beer in here a time or two, who's come to sort of get reacquainted with a history, a family and a lineage he thought he had left long ago. The day he left his family and went to work for Fuchi before it folded, is the day that he said goodbye to the reproachful stares and the somewhat hurt or pity look a person would give someone with a disability. Its not his fault he had no gift for magic, and a bit of a talent for a brawl.
Walking into the bar, he heads straight for the barkeep, and slides a few. "Tap tonight." There is a bit of a smile that makes his face seemed slightly more wrinkled than it is, and puts the cash money down.
Pouring Tap grunts, moving over to the tap to pour whatever is on tap, the universal signal for 'I don't care so long as its alcoholic and cheap'. The Bartender draws it down, keeping the head under control with the ability of an expert. "New in town?" he asks curiously, setting the frothy beer in front of Joseph. "Or just new to this place?"
"A bit of both, and neither. Wandered in a few years ago. Just…" He then looks around at the people inside the bar, and grunts softly. "Let's just say I never really measured up in the family." Joseph then smiles slightly. "Don't really know the name my dad used before moving to Michigan, but I am called Jack." He then looks around. "Been meaning to head down here, just sort of lost my way."
The man behind the counter ohs softly. "One of -those-." He says with a knowing nod. "Let me guess. Raised by a nice family trying to be anglo in anglo-land, then you find your own stones, want your own manhood, so you strike out for the ancestral homelands and find out that, guess what, we don't ride horses, paint our faces or throw paleolithic projectiles anymore?" He asks with a grin.
Joseph chuckles softly at the irony in the man's voice. "Hardly. My dad's full. He lived in the nation some time back. But he's a Dog Shaman, and you know how they are. Loyal to a fault. So, when he fell for my mom, she went back home, and he went with her. Took a different name, and well…" He just shrugs once more. "So, what do the Sioux do these days?"
"Thats an aweful broad question." Says the old man with the salt and pepper ponytail. He glances around the bar, and seeing no one in need of service, settles on his elbows on the bar. "YOu got maybe somethin more… uh… answerable?"
Joseph gives a bit of a bark of a laugh, short and abrupt, and then shakes his head. "Not really. Was thinking maybe of heading down there, seeing what its all really about. Came in to see what sort of things are going on in the Nation. Whats life really like, that sort of thing. When you don't know what to ask, its better to ask what you do know what to ask, and work your way from there."
Pouring Tap gestures off to the side, north by north east.. "It's actually sort of up that way. We're at the south end of the Sioux Nation now." He shrugs then. "I mean, You really gotta be more concise in whatcha want. Politically? Mary Cat Dancign is still running the Sioux Sector, she's about as old as dirt and twice as crusty… the Nation as a whole continues to try to keep the White man at bay, but I think mostly, we're coming to the understanding that theres not going to be any UCAS invasion. I mean, its been 43 years with no major war. It's causing a bit of a crisis of conscious, I guess?"
Joseph smiles a little at that. "Politically is nice, socially, or economically. Politics keeps me from accidentally stepping on important toes. Soically keeps me from getting stepped on by everyone else, and economically lets me know who or what place to avoid from getting a bit of a beating." He takes the tap glass and begins to drink it slowly, a bit of a time.
"Well, economically, we're strong. I mean, we're not the PCC and we're not the Salish, but we're right next to the UCAS and we get, and this is the kicker here, and the reason for peace… a lot of trade from them. We ship them meat and grain, they ship us money and manufactured goods. It's… it's weird, Back when the NAN was founded, it was all about blood. For the Utes, it still is. And you can see how good thats going for them. We're comign to grips with our nationhood, not just our ethnicity."
Joseph nods softly at that. "Sometimes the guy you do biz with is the guy you'd love to geek in some back alley. Fact of life for those trying to survive." His face grows a bit somber. "So, there's no trouble or anything? Or rather, no trouble for those who might be…um…" He then shrugs slightly. "How the people feel about body mods?" He then chuckles and points to his eyes. "Its not like I can hide it."
Pouring Tap steps back from the bar, gesturing down to his cyberleg. "Shit happens. Warriors adapt, chikala shunke."
"I'm not going to tell you that the elders are all pro cyberware, for cyberwares sake, but you're not gonna run in to flack if you're not putting a sattilite dish in your ear."
Joseph frowns as if thinking about the last part, and tilts his head. "Small buffalo dog? Don't think I have heard that saying before. Whats it mean?" HE then nods softly. "Yeah, used to work for Fuchi before they folded, did sec work. How'd you…" He then smiles slightly. "No weapon mods, except for a smartlink. Mainly I was the 'Counterweather and counterobscurement' specialist. Which basically is corp speak for adverse conditions. If you throw smoke, I was to fight blinded. Dark? Got the sight mods to see, or hear. Noisy or quiet."
"Little dog." He says then, realizing the little dog has less grasp of the language than he might like. "And good for you. You're a regular ninja. As for my leg? Land mine on the UCAS border in 36."
Joseph winces slightly at that. "NInja? Hardly, just something they need at the time." He then smirks slightly. "But you can see why it would not be good if I walked into say…Cheyenne, and the cops started to hassle me for having cybereyes, or something. Heard the Ute may be really fired up about that kind of stuff."
"No telling with the flat-faces." He says, referencing a common ethnic trait of the desert peoples. "Hard to say. Hard to say. Me, I'd steer clear of em for now though. They got blood in their noses and they are starting to get… big int heir briches.":
Joseph tilts his head to the side with a confused look on his face, and sets the glass down. "Don't think that I am getting what you are saying. Whats up with the cops up in Cheyenne? Or is the Ute to which you refer?"
"CHeyanne's same as it ever was. And yeah, its the Ute I'm talking about."
Joseph nods softly at that, and smiles a little. "Glad to hear it. Whats up with them? Thought they were just grumbling about the white man, making noise." He picks up the glass enough to take a sip and then sits it back down slowly, so as to not interrupt the talk.
Pouring tap shrugs. "Hard to say. We had some hard choices to make after the Dance, you know. We had our land back, but what do we do with it now? It's sort of like… a dog that chases a car, barking its ever living head off. What do you think that dogs gonna do when it finally gets a mouthful of bumper?"
Joseph just sighs at that one. "Ain't that hard to figure out, he's going to get his teeth ripped out, or before someone's dinner by nightfall. And yeah, would imagine that our ancestors did have a few hard ones." He then scratches his chin. "Been up to the Ute nation then?"
Pouring Tap nods then. "Well, in this case… it was how we approached it. There was a lot of angles to take." He says, pouring Joe a fresh one. "The PCC went all corporate. Issuing shares and such. Sure, they kicked the Anglo out, but they let the important ones stay. The Salish Shide let any metahumans stay, and adopted Pink-skin tribes, taking a very liberal attitude. And both those nations have flourished. You remember what the Ute did to the Anglo in the Ute Nation?"
Joseph snorts a little at that. "Yeah, gave every white-man nightmares, and some of us who aren't white pause too." He then nods his head and smiles in gratitude, "Thanks." He sips it a little more. "So, they never really softened on their stance to butcher every pink-skin?"
"Well, they didn't butcher em. Just deported them like bad eggs." He shrugs… "Sent some to California, sent some to Seattle, sent some to Denver… the ones who didn't want to or couldn't leave, they bottled up on little reservations like had been given to us. Which is to say, not much and not good." He shrugs then. "But… that very understandable reaction, to do as was done? It… it only works when you're the one with overwhelming numbers and an educated population. The Ute Nation has like 3 million people in it. Less so 40 years ago. But in driving out the anglo, they drove out teachers, doctors, lawyers… okay, maybe that one wasn't so bad… but you see where I'm going with this?"
Joseph nods softly at that. "They don't have anyone skilled enough remaining to run the stuff they need run, or do the things they need doing. So, did they revert back to more um…" He scratches his neck and looking away, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I suppose natural would be best to descibe it."
Pouring Tap shrugs. "I call it poverty. The corps don't invest, the money doesn't come, the people get bitter and angry, thety vent it on the white man. Tell you what. 40 years on, two generations on their feet later… our problems are -our own-. Not the white mans."
Joseph nods a bit more somberly at that. "Yeah, been a few times in the sprawl, and a whole nation like that ain't my idea of a good time. So, they don't want the corps in, and that I can understand, don't want the white man in. And let me guess…none of them want to leave the country to get the education required?"
"It's hard to point at a nation of millions, Little Dog, and say 'they'. Thats not accurate. I mean, Boulder university here in Denver is very good, but it's supported by the money the Ute Sector makes off dealing with Denver. There's BYU in Salt Lake City, but thats run by the anglos in the slack-ass. I mean, just look at the Slack Ass. They are wealthy, they are educated and they are secure; an island of 'normal' in a sea of poverty. wHy is that? It's because they embraced everyone, looked to the future and invested in themselves."
Joseph frowns and nods thoughtfully, then blinks at the name. "Little Dog?" He then chuckles. "Somehow, entirely appropriate." He then mulls over the words of the barkeep. "Yeah, so what seems to be the rest of the Ute's problem? Clearly its not the Ute nation as a whole. So, why are most of its citizens so poor?"
"Thats simple." A pause. "They're unemployed, or employed at sustenance level. It's not like, when you look at most of Utah and Nevada, that you think: BAM! Prime land here! Trees and streams and good farmland. Cause, wow, it's not. You think: Serene natural beauty from the Canyon to Kiabiab, to Zion, to the Salt Flats and so forth. The really productive centers of the Ute Nation are near Reno and Carson City, which is entirely across the nation from Provo and the SLC valley, and are again, entirely across the nation from Las Vegas. Theres really -nothing- in between."
Joseph nods softly at that, pondering. "Desert?" He then shakes his head. "And since they don't have the majority of people to run the tech, they can't fund the industry to take the place of the farming and other jobs. What about service? Of course…they don't allow the white man in, or rather, anyone. So, thats out. Wow, a bit of a pickle. Either they have to soften their stance, or educate a majority of the people, for free."
"With what money?" he asks then, sipping his own beer. "That shit costs money. And with no real resources, the Ute Nation has existed a lot on its lack of need for a military, it's low population density and financial assistance from its richer neighbors."
Joseph nods softly. "Raise taxes on those that do have money? About the only option, I think. Only one that won't have them needing a larger army. There could be…quick solutions. But it won't do much good against the long term problem."
Pouring tap eyes Joseph. "LEt me.. uh… ask you a question. Do you know who runs a nation, any nation?"
Joseph frowns slightly at the question. "Not really. Figure the guy in charge at least says he does, and gets all the blame if something goes wrong. Other than that, pretty clueless. Not dealt with government types."
Pouring Tap shakes his head. "No. It's the people who have power. That power, in the old days used to come from having many buffalo pelts, from a big family, from a strong bow arm." HE says quietly… "Now… all of that is in money and fame. The wealthy… the well known, they run a nation. ANd neither of them want to be taxed more… and even if they allow it, they are -wealthy enough- to hide their money. The only people taxes really hit effectively are those who they hurt the most."
Joseph frowns as he seems to ponder that. "So, no government stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Even to better their own country. Well, thats a bit of a pickle, then. There's no way but to slowly build up the people who have the skills."
"Right." Says Pouring tap then. "but the Ute nation hasn't ever -addressed- its own issues in a rational discourse. It's always the Anglo keeping them down, not their own failures. It's not that they lack this or that, its that the white man steals it. If only the white man would leave them alone…"
Joseph snorts even harder at that and sips his beer lightly. "Don't think any white man, except the corps, would even bother with them now. So, how could they be keeping them down?"
"Because its easier to blame the bitch who just walked out than to think maybe you drove her off. Easier to blame than repair."
Joseph nods somberly at that, and then looks down at his beer. "I suppose. Me? I am a fighter, have been for most of my life. And for me, its easier to get the job done than to worry about what someone did to me seconds ago, let alone years ago."
Pouring tap nods slowly, thinking that over. "You ever been to the Ute Nation?"
Joseph just shakes his head. "Not really, Been to UCAS, CAS, Japan, a few places in Europe, but never the Nan states." He picks up the beer to sip it lightly once more.
Pouring tap runs a hand down his grizzeled chin, glancing around the room for a moment. "YOu looking for work?"
Joseph frowns slightly, turning his head from one side to the other. "Maybe, depends on the work, and the pay." He then looks back at the guy.
The older man shrugs. "I know a guy. He's looking for people who are deniable, who can do some work in the area."
Joseph chuckles softly at that. "Well, I can deny with the rest of them. Not done too much in this area, so my name might not be around, but I am willing to at least give the guy a listen."
He nods then. "Stick around town for aw hile. And give me some references I can run down."
Joseph scribbles out his name, his 'work' phone number, matrix email account, and a few names he can get a hold of. "There, that should do it. Of course, being deniable, I will deny this took place if the wrong people ask." He says with a bit of a wink.
The older man chuckles with a grin. "Yeah. I hear ya."
Joseph nods softly at that and returns the chuckle. "Thanks. I will definitely be back in to talk sometime." He then turns to head out of the building.
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