Halloweener Heist: Once again, I come bearing gifts. Info and a job. Listen in. The job involves the Halloweeners, and I’ll give you what I know about them so you don’t end up on the inside of a lit pumpkin before you’re done with my run. Click below to listen to Halloweener Heist or go to future Ares Subsidiary iTunes, or various other podcast apps on your commlinks and Subscribe!
Alas Omae, I’m still working through a backlog of commitments in the CFS to take the job despite the generous fee. So you’ll have to roast those ‘weeners without me. Someday I’d like to hear the backstory about that jacket if it’s ever for public release.
I can back up what Opti says here. Don’t try any kind of drek with Jack. He is very bad news and you do not want to get involved with him. Also never get into a position where you owe him anything, especially a favor. You WILL regret it.
I would also go out on a limb to say that the Halloweeners are far more established than anyone realizes. There is more than meets the eye with these guys. These are not the Halloweeners I knew back in the 50s and early 60s. They are very different. Like they actually have an agenda for once.
Anyone else find it funny that many of the old gangs are going above and beyond being psychos and street thugs? Or like in the case of the Ancients they are showing that their gang look is a mask hiding something far more organized, and dedicated. Makes you think.
Doc,
Not really. Evolving upward is a natural course of action for street gangs. First they’re just juveniles running amok. But even then there’s the need to protect the group from other gangs, garner food for members who don’t have their own homes, and getting some scratch to pay for life’s little luxuries. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist gang leader to figure out he or she can leverage their power to garner more money and more protection with a little constructive application of terror. That’s the next stage. With the desire for protection eventually brings the gang to higher degrees of civic mindedness. Sure, the local stores pay protection and stay mum around the cops if they know what’s good for them. But pretty quick a wise gang leader understands the difference between fleecing the sheep and slaughtering them. And that these are his sheep. Gangers grow to value keeping the right balance of terror and love in the hearts of the locals to keep them from squealing to the cops when the gang looks weak. So comes a desire for the gang to identify itself with the community and seek reciprocal sentiments. Plus as gangs age, so does the membership. What seemed cool to a 15 year old kid gang leader doesn’t cut it with his 35+ year old successor. So rules, rituals, hierarchies and values all change to become more staid. Provided the gang can garner enough money, influence, and power, it’s the final stage before franchising itself to seek real, international power.
I believe if you leave a gang alone long enough it will eventually become a full fledged nation with courts, laws, police and armies. But this never happens because there are competing gangs and, more importantly, bigger critters up the food chain like nations, big time organized crime, and corps. A gang can only grow so big before one of those puts it in its place. Or in the case of large scale organized crime, offers the gang’s best talent a seat at their big table – or some other offer they can’t refuse.
The Ancients, however, are just the Tir’s yappy dogs.