Street Urchin

**Key Features** | »Bludgeons (Crowbar, baseball bat, lead pipe, etc)»Smokebomb (homemade)»Dark hooded clothes»Worn-out sneakers»Network tattoos

## Tactical Analysis

* **One jump, ahead of the red line:** Picked from the homeless population, street urchins tend to be street-smart and agile enough to survive in the big city. Able to navigate difficult terrain whether above or below ground, they serve as the human scouts of the Warriors of Truth. When surrounded by cops or enemy soldiers, they can whack 'em with melee weapons like baseball bats or crowbars.

* **One shot ahead of the gun:** Running away from the authorities taught them that the first step to escape the long arm of the law is throwing smokebombs at the cops.

* **Let's not be too hasty:** Fast and acrobatic they can be, street urchins lack military training and have to hide in the shadows to not get killed.

* **Gotta steal to eat:** Street urchins tend to become hardier and more willing to kill the longer they live, looting from dead soldiers' pockets to get by.

## Background

Each major world power has its ways of dealing with homelessness. Ending it ranks high in the Allies' objectives, just behind scientific advancement and bringing freedom to the world and beyond, if possible. To this end, they embarked on housing programs in war-torn areas in Allied member-states, focusing on veterans and those who lost their homes in WWII and WWIII. The Soviets declared the abolition of homelessness, in response to the many orphanages built after WWI and the Russian Civil War, and have constructed communal apartments across the Union to secure their citizens' right to shelter. The Sprawls' solution is to clear homeless camps out to build skyscrapers in their place, then leave the homeless at the mercy of gangsters, or worse, Satyrs.

Regardless of the world's efforts to build affordable homes for everyone, many still do not have the privilege to own a home. In America alone, the past world wars and the current Second American Civil War were disastrous for Americans who lost their homes as collateral damage. The government diverted the funding for mental institutions into the war effort, causing many to shut down and release their patients into the streets, such as the St. Dymphna Mental Health Institute in Marblehead, MA (now known by the Network as the Truth Bastion). Another factor was the rise of alternative lifestyles, such as the hippie movement, where its adherents lived in camps close to nature and shunned modern technology.

Some of the younger homeless have now subscribed to the "tinfoil punk" subculture, thanks to the Network aggressively reaching out to their population. The Advocate believed that a lot of the homeless were disillusioned with the Allied failed promises of social welfare, and needed targets to vent out their justified anger. Unafraid of cops throwing them in jail, they robbed banks and supermarkets to survive and provide for their fellow punks. A few Network tracts and 'Open your Eyes' episodes later, the Warriors of Truth won the tinfoil punk demographic over. While older men, which tended to be veterans with little to no opportunities their way, joined the Conduit and taught clubbers how to fire guns, the street urchins now work as informants for the Network, and sometimes, the Continental Army.

Raised in the streets, street urchins knew the urban jungle better than anyone. These young men and women often leap from building to building parkour-style to spot Allied or Unionist choppers up ahead and lead investigators into research facilities that hid treasure troves of knowledge behind their doors. While most are content with informing on Allied bases' locations, a growing number of urchins began to take a more active role in fighting The Man. Arming themselves with crowbars and baseball bats, they invade Allied politicians' homes to smash their rooms and houses as signs of defiance. Anyone in Continental territory speaking good of the europerialists gets a broken nose for their words, and off-duty peacekeepers get downtime at the emergency room, if not worse. This has led to stricter curfews at loyalist-held territory, and the homeless pushed out of the streets in fear of rebel sympathies. Of course, there are hardliners who want to treat them as armed combatants and criminals warranting lethal force, something the Allies and Unionists began considering after receiving daily reports of riots and beatdowns from radicalized vagrants.

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