Folk Nation

The Folk Nation are a Nomad pack and member of the Seven Nations featured in Cyberpunk 2020.

Cyberpunk 2020
The Folk Nation is another late entry into the Nomad society. A nascent black culture based on pre-Collapse gang structures, they have come a long way from their old Chicago roots. In the mid-'90s, the Folk Nation (as it has been called from the very beginning) was one of the most powerful gangs in the world. They had long superseded the Bloods and the Crips for dominance of middle America. Some say their structure was so close because they formed as a response to the other violent gangs in the eighties and nineties. Some say they were just another gang. No one knows for sure, but they are still here now.

Originating in the Chicago area, the Folk Nation had a very strong sense of family and unity from the very beginning. Many of the people who became involved with them were cast out from their more traditional family structures. When referring to the Folk as a nascent "black" culture, we are speaking more of the sociological sense. The Folk adopted the common urban dialect of English that was favored in the black community at the time. They affected all elements of that urban culture including music, fashion, views on drug use and habits, child-rearing, and community.

It was disconcerting to people, at the time, to see people descended from other ethnic cultures casting off their native cultures in favor of this new way. To the members, it just seemed a good way to be. They had made a conscious decision, somewhere in their lives, to leave the cultures they felt had abandoned them, and try something different.

By the beginning of the Collapse, the Folk Nation controlled over fifty-thousand active members. There were easily another fifty-thousand affiliates and hangers-on. As the worst of the Collapse descended, the Folk wisely kept to themselves. They dug in and chose to fight only those baffles necessary for their survival. Although elements of the Folk had engaged in widespread criminal activity, as things got worse they simply made surviving martial law - and helping others survive it - their overriding concern. A large black-market distribution network was run from their headquarters in Chicago. The Folk evacuated their members out of dust-bowl areas like Oklahoma City, and took all the others they could transport as well.

In return, they asked only for favors and help - they under- stood that people had nothing to give them but promises. Through that network of favors owed they were able to survive fate's worst blow: the Chicago Bioplague of 2012. The Folk Nation was decapitated by that tragedy. Most of the upper leadership was in Chicago, and once the crisis began, the Army let no one out. Out of the ashes of that disaster came Cool and the rebirth of the Folk Nation as a nomad group. Cool was a leader in the Kansas City area. He had done some fairly large scale transportation and smuggling operations in the past, and saw in transport the ability to survive. In his opinion, remaining in one place was to tempt fate to strike the Folk Nation again with a different cataclysm. Urging other surviving leaders to get on the move, he sent emissaries to some of the other nomad groups to look for work, finding it in places like Balsam, NC, and Stateline, CA. Continuing to rebuild the country after the destruction of Chicago, Cool feels strongly about the nomad community as a whole and has accepted many of the Long Walk refugees, especially those originally from the Midwest. This cemented his reputation among many nomads, and caused others to send work his way as thanks.

The Folk are primarily interested in transportation as a business. There is a large nautical element within the Folk, since they had previously done a good deal of business on the Great Lakes. They became a major nation because of their strong allegiance to the concept of family and responsibility. As a result, the illegal businesses that the Folk used to run are closed now. Still, some state governments are moving against their grey-market dealings as well, such as the sale of medical supplies.

From the beginning, the Folk have been strong supporters of any plans to rebuild Chicago. They feel the Chicago area would be an excellent base for a nationwide transportation network. Many of them are also tired of moving and want to settle somewhere; a second compelling reason for support of the Chicago project. Not only can they base a legitimate business there, the nation can also appropriate housing and real estate for their families. This makes the Folk Nation the only nomad nation that would prefer to return to being statics.