Thelas Nation

The Thelas Nation are one of the largest Nomad groups in North America, and a member of the Seven Nations.

History
Marine Nomads, sea nomads, and water nomads are all names the government has ignored. Because such people are seen as lawless, they are lumped together by the government and called pirates. It is a term which, to some degree, they have come to enjoy.

The pirates derived their culture from fishermen and the coastal inhabitants of the Caribbean and the southern seaboard. When they were being plagued by waterborne gangs (or worse, government forces), and the central authorities could not or would not protect them, many loaded their families into boats and took to life on the water. It seemed to make sense: boats were difficult to locate for government agents and gang members alike, and finding work was easier because you could bring your whole home to wherever it was. Other cultural influences included so-called "boat-people" of many different persuasions, who were refused emigration and had no choice but life on the sea; as well as the former drug smugglers who now had many high-quality boats and nothing to do with them.

The label of pirates was originally applied because some nomad captains refused to register their ships and boats to any home-port or nation. Under old international law, this makes such a vessel a pirate which can be stopped, boarded, and confiscated by any navy. At one time, the navies of the world were strong enough to prevent such unregistered shipping, now they are relatively powerless. America had one of the largest navies, and even a Coast Guard at one time, but they have never had the manpower or the resources to scan all the waterways in North America. Controlling even the Mississippi Delta region is practically impossible.

Thus, once these pirate nomads got started, the idea spread rapidly. More and more discontented people along navigable waters took to the nearest boats, hoping to hook up with other waterborne wanderers. Soon they numbered in the thousands; and were present all along the Mississippi, Missouri, Saint Lawrence, and Columbia rivers, as well as the Great Lakes and all the coastal areas of the North American continent. Since the Collapse, many of these pirates have even co-opted a number of former drilling platforms and formed mobile marine cities, moving from place to place to build coastal projects like New Galveston and Tampa on the Gulf Of Mexico. Today, nobody knows just how many of these nomads there are. Theirs is the most mobile of major nomad lifestyles - the aerial nomads are perhaps more mobile, but they number a mere few hundred.

The typical sea nomad is a crewman on a small, versatile ship with both motor and sail. The crew of a nomad ship is very close-knit, coeducational and egalitarian. They have a captain, but he only takes unquestioned command in times of emergency. At other times, the quartermaster is the actual boss of the ship. Most other officers are either specialists (i.e., the navigator, the medtech, the engineering techies) or are "in reserve" in case the person they're understudying dies or leaves the ship. This, combined with the fact that many of these pirates are families, can make the command structure quite confusing to outsiders.



Sea nomads work at a variety of jobs both for hire or for personal gain. These pursuits range from marine farming and other aquaculture, to smuggling, legitimate cargo hauling, refugee transport, and broadcasting. Certainly broadcasting was not a field that pirates had sought but it became one of their most profitable sidelines. Some media concerns hire off-shore transmitters for legal, grey market or even illegal programming. Continuing this noble tradition, places like Del Rio, Texas (which is actually in north Mexico) have been broadcasting news and entertainment not subject to government or corporate control for years. Most of this broadcasting is from international waters, but pirate trans- missions can originate from almost anywhere in the nomad community. This is an effective way to break local and government monopolies on information; any retaliation falls on expendable dinghies, and further action by the targeted government usually involves it in disagreements with other governments and corps at least as strong as they are. The nomads themselves like this work; it requires minimal manpower and can often be done in tandem with other activities, and best of all, it appeals to their anti-authoritarian nature.

Some sea nomads do practice traditional piracy. Targeting vulnerable freighters, they learn what cargo the ship is carrying via shore-based connections, and mass to attack at a point where their target ship is forced to slow down. Disabling the ship's communications with a well-aimed anti-aircraft or anti-tank rocket they swarm and board before the opposing crewmen can stop them. When the ship is looted (at least of the particular cargo the nomads wanted), it is let go. Unless they meet unusually fierce resistance, nomads will not kill the crew of pirated ships, preferring to let them go to spread the word that non- resistance pays. The freighter crews themselves understand this, and do not usually wish to give their lives for a cargo they don't even own. The nomads then dispose of their loot ashore, often through the offices of the same corporation that set them on the scent of a rival's shipment.

Most of these "pirates', however, are actually subsistence level fishermen who feel they have no choice but to steal anything that they can sell to help make ends meet for the most part (excepting the waterborne Raffen Shiv), they stay away from slave trading and kidnapping. Media portrayals to the contrary, a pirate action normally does not involve boarding actions and never includes swinging onto the decks from mysteriously~suspended ropes. Pirating involves stealing small cargoes, or parts of large cargoes, from poorly guarded ships in the night It also involves smuggling, blockade running, and other forms of tariff evasion.