Are there scum communities on worlds like Luna or Mars or Titan? Or is part of the Scum identity intrinsically tied to being a part of a nomadic ship-based life?
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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
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Dirtside Scum
Tue, 2016-03-29 13:42
#1
uwtartarus
Dirtside Scum
Tue, 2016-03-29 16:11
#2
GreyBrother
I figure it's just easier to
I figure it's just easier to participate in a lawless lifestyle if you are not bound to any kind of jurisdiction except the one you make up.
Tue, 2016-03-29 16:25
#3
Trappedinwikipedia
There might be similar
There might be similar anarchist groups on the ground, but Scum refers to anarchist, often roaming spacers. They're decended from black-market spacers pre fall and the huge numbers of indentured space workers who found themselves lost in space with their owning company eaten by TITANs.
Tue, 2016-03-29 17:30
#4
uwtartarus
Right, but when they go
Right, but when they go dirtside, do they just meld with local criminal and anarchist groups (and Scum are distinct from Anarchists!), or do they form little scum cultures among the locals? Mostly, are Scum just bodymod-enthusiasts and nigh-criminal autonomists with a personal freedom vibe who are in space, and without being in space, do they still count as Scum?
Scumborn as a background shows that people leave them, and join, but do they stop being Scum when they land?
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Wed, 2016-03-30 01:22
#5
UnitOmega
Well, since Scum are a
Well, since Scum are a faction, I'm not sure you can be very Scum unless you hold your home or heart or whatever in the place where there is a community of Scum, of some-sort. Or at least, it's not real notable that you're Scum unless there are other Scum to Scum with. PCs tend to be exceptions because they often have to be mobile because Firewall, but if you are a Scumborn not living among other Scum, it's rough to be Scum. Their adhocracy, anarchist leanings mean they don't exactly form lasting organizations either.
Since the origin of Scum is the repurposing of a term used to refer to them as dirty rebel vacworkers, and the original Scum are thus based in semi-mobile orbital facilities or ships, this means that to really get into the Scum culture you had to be willing to move around with the guys who are inherently mobile. This probably doesn't mean Scum enclaves inside larger populations don't exist, but they probably don't look much different from the local autonomist or criminal groups from the outside.
Plus, a lot of Scum swarms have almost an extreme hobbism angle to go with their hedonism. If you were part of basically a 24/7 LARP on No Turning Back, and you decide to just go bum around on Mars for some reason, are you really still being Scum? Are you being Scum on Mars, or is your scumminess kind of on hold until you get back to your swarm, who are the people who know you and like what you like, maybe. There are some static Scum outposts out there, like how Phelan's Recourse is described, but I don't think Scum communities are very big in the major Planetary bodies. They'd have a harder time being culturally distinct from generic anarchists or even criminals when being a subset of a much larger population. Is there a functional difference to an outsider, such as a governing body (which Mars, Luna and Venus have), between a neighborhood street gang who really likes cowboy movies, and a marooned Scum shuttle crew who may not have gotten the memo about cultural appropriation and dress like penny-dreadful indians?
Have I used the word "Scum" enough in a single post it has lost all meaning?
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H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog
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