#randommunisrandom

Most people no longer care about Shimmer in terms of trying to get rid of because it’s become such an accepted part of life. Before anyone says anything, YES there are people that want it gone. Most of those people are people that used to be addicts, or grew up around addicts, or have had lots of bad experiences with it, or grew up in a part of Zaun that was too poor to see any of the benefits and just the bad things, or have a personal grudge. Yes the Firelights exist, and yes they can/do recruit. For a lot of people though they’ve seen Shimmer become a major part of Zaun life, and culture over the past 7-10 years and they just can’t be bothered to care. Some of them it’s because they are too busy trying to live their life, and get along with their own business. Some of them it’s because a family member has a prosthetic that relies on shimmer and chem-tech to function. Some of them Shimmer helped keep someone alive through a sickness until they regained their strength. There’s a multitude of reasons. With that said no Shimmer is not purely a good thing. There are issues, there are addicts, there is crime and murder because of it. It is simply not purely a bad thing either, and has became a regularly accepted part of life in most parts of Zaun.

There are chem-barons, and gangs and they all have their territories and various ways of money. However not everyone is part of a gang. A decent amount of people are just, for lack of a better way to put it, civilians getting on with their life. Yes they live within the territory of one gang/chem-baron or another, but they don’t claim any kind of membership. A lot of those people are on the out skirts of crime, but not directly involved. Some times they have to worry about a gang fight in the middle of the street, or paying protection money, or getting mugged in an alleyway or whatever but they try to just mind their business. Most of the time so long as they are respectful, don’t interfere with things, pay what they are asked to, and mind their business they are more or less left alone. Why? Because the gangs don’t produce daily goods, food, clothing, and the like. They need the “normal” people, and they understand that after a certain point… well let’s put it like this. It’s one thing to take down a couple of cows or whatever else. It’s another thing to stand in front of a herd of animals that have decided to panic and start charging in a particular direction to trample you. Plus the “normal” people spend money with them. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, and the like. Are any of those things actually illegal in Zaun? No. However the gangs/etc control it because they want to and that’s one thing that will get a person killed. Trying to move in on their businesses. Also loan sharking, and the like. Pay. Your. Debts. Other wise you will get a visit you do NOT want. Just because the gangs “generally” don’t mess with civilians does NOT mean it’s safe to ignore them, or to think you can take advantage of them.

Continuing on from the chem-barons, and gangs. Most people don’t know what the chem-barons actually do besides from general descriptions. There’s stories about the mistress of the brothels Margot. The buzzing slickjaw Finn whose people have a tendency to be violent. The shadowed figure in the Last Drop Silco who everyone knows not to disrespect and who brought Shimmer to the front of things. However most people don’t know specifics, and once again don’t really care unless they are actually involved with a business that connects them to the chem-barons. As a note, the person Vi gets information from at the brothel, Babette I believe, had information because she runs the brothel and is connected to the chem-barons and gangs because of that. She’s involved in that life, and Sevika visits that brothel, and so yes that still makes sense.

This is starting to get long and I don’t want to go too much deeper into things, but let’s touch on certain notes.

Jinx was used surprisingly precisely. Silco had specific targets in mind, most of them were either involved in the criminal aspect of his life or had interfered to an unaccepted extent in other aspects. Jinx got sent to handle them because she was very good at it, and she wanted to be of help. He didn’t always share the reasons with Jinx, but there was always a reason that made sense to him (I’m not saying it was a good or healthy reason) for sending her. She was also his ace in the hole, and one of the reasons people that know who he really is and what he is capable of are afraid of him. Sevika gets sent as a warning, and is relatively reasonable although she’s entirely capable of killing you. Silco, depending on why he is there and his mood can be reasoned with as well. When Jinx shows up however you are going to die, and probably not just you but also the people around you. Jinx is there to make an example of you, and remind people of the monsters in their midst and that Zaun push come to shove is not a safe place.

Silco is not personally involved in street level distribution of Shimmer. He controls large shipments, and top level stuff. Those shipments get handed to other chem-barons, and other people who are important/large enough to handle relatively large quantities. He does also claim sole access to Piltover for the purpose of delivering and selling Shimmer to dealers up there. He’s not actually the only one taking shimmer up there because there’s always multiple routes up, but he’s the one that pushes the most up there.

With Silco taking over Zaun’s population has actually started to increase (which yes has it’s good points and it’s bad points) because he’s deliberately cultivated certain relationships, and with the money from shimmer has dry good food stuffs shipped in such as rice that’s stable and easy to transport in bulk. The effect of that has started to become more evident in the last 3-4 years with more infants being born, and also surviving their first couple of years as well as less people ending up on the streets starving to death. This is both because he does truly want Zaun to be better, and also because if you want a decent revolution you need a population that can actually fight.

Final notes. Singed is not the only doctor.

Zaun has it's own tradition of folk lore and home medicine remedies.