[grid_roamer]

And the rumor the Authors suggested the VITAS might be Matrix associated......

If the spread of the epidemic can't be controlled another option might be releasing people into the population and tracking everything they do. So is it the Virus or the vector that you have to fight.......

[grid_roamer]

So, vector for VITAS and a Vector plan making the Matrix could be one in the same....

[Tzeentch]

And the rumor the Authors suggested the VITAS might be Matrix associated......

-- I hope that was never seriously suggested.

[Silence]

No, but it's an example of the rumors that were flying around when the first wave hit.  Nobody knew what it was, or what was causing it.

[CanadianWolverine]

Sure is interesting coming back and reading this again all these years later in 2024, especially with how I have seen the responses change over that time to the topic of the uneven distribution of magic and its impact on improving the sovereignty and fortunes of populations targeted for colonialism and genocide.

Even with the addition of fun novels like Blackbird 1, 2, and 3 ... which also featured events from Cutting Black, I keep hoping we might see NAN vol 3 2080s / SONA 2080s with First Nations authors. Why should Marvel/Disney with projects like Prey, Reservation Dogs, What If...? Kohora, and Echo get to have all the fun when I know Shadowrun gave Landback a shot in the 1990s.

[Michael Chandra]

With the new borders, covering the NAN nations would definitely be interesting.

[Beta]

FWIW, Shadows in Focus: Sioux Nation (a 5e pdf only publication), lists the 2075 population of the Sioux Nation at 6 950 000.  Of which 63% human (lower than most areas I think), and 80% living in urban centres (Cheyenne being 2.9 million of that.

Without cutting and pasting too much info, it does also state that 65% declared as part of one of the 20 official tribes forming the Sioux, and 15% declared "official resident", with that latter being made up mostly of people on the anglo reservations and skilled immigrants who haven't applied to become full citizens.  (also 15% declined to reply, which may include a lot of more or less non-tribal types?)

How did the populations get so big?  Probably some hand-wavium for sure, but also that during the purges of natives in the early 2000s they were rounding up not just people with official native status, but anyone who seemed to have native blood or showed too much sympathy.  I suspect it became a bit of a witch hunt.  If you were in one of the internment camps, the NAN was likely to take you.  And as others have said, they knew they needed population (or some people thought that anyway) so they were motivated to find ways to get people admitted who wanted to be there and who supported the new governments.

[Hobbes]

FWIW, Shadows in Focus: Sioux Nation (a 5e pdf only publication), lists the 2075 population of the Sioux Nation at 6 950 000.  Of which 63% human (lower than most areas I think), and 80% living in urban centres (Cheyenne being 2.9 million of that.

O.o   2.9 Million in Cheyenne?   It's like 65k these days.  2.9 Million is more than the modern day Denver metro area.  Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota and a fair bit of Nebraska all moved to Cheyenne?   

I really gotta read the fluff more....

[Beta]

It does seem like a lot.  I assume that the intent was to make it large enough to viably support a shadowrunning scene?

But on the suspension of disbelief side, sure, on the one hand it has about 60 years of being the capital, and that will draw in people.  But on the other hand Ottawa-Gatineau has almost 160 years of being the capital of Canada (national population about 40 million now) and it has about half of that population.  I guess in the Sioux Nation there isn't as much competition from larger cities already existing. 

Or to look at something maybe more comparable, Taiwan had a huge population inflow following the KMT withdrawal to there after losing the Chinese civil war about 80 years ago, and the island population has grown substantially since then too, going from around 7.5 million in 1950 to about 24 million now. So it is a country that had to urbanize quickly and build a lot of housing, etc, even more than the Sioux. The capital, Taipei, is now about 2.6 million but the greater sprawl is about 7.5 million.  So about a third of the population, and about equal to the population of the country 70 years ago. 

So now I'm maybe convincing myself that the Cheyenne numbers are not entirely crazy, assuming:
- There was a lot of immigration into the Sioux Nation (between people with thin claims to tribal blood, people from other NAN countries thinking life would be better in the Sioux nation, metahumans who were accepted, etc.)
- The Sioux government chose to build much of the needed housing in Cheyenne.  Likely either government owned building projects or sweet government contracts to mega-corps or giving sweet concessions to mega-corps to develop certain resources provided they also provided housing for the employees and extended families in Cheyenne
- A lot of high density, cheaper to build, housing.  A lot of apartment blocks or something like that.  Land they have, but there is a cost to every wall so either people likely have to live quite communally or a lot of apartment buildings were built, because there just would not have been the capital to make that many house.