Editing Degenesis (section)

===Scrappers===
The Chroniclers can be thought of as the first salvage collectors, but they were driven by their ideology and their love of the Stream. When the Chroniclers turned their back on the idea of doing dirty work and rewarded anyone that brought them the remnants of the old world with handfuls of drafts, they invented a whole new profession; the scrapper. The scrapper's dream is that they will find an intact piece of rare Bygone technology that will make them richer than their wildest dreams. The reality is that they usually just end up with sleighs filled with copper wiring, waste plastic and corrugated iron.

Still, the hope of a big find is enough to keep most scrappers digging through the rubble of ruined cities. These scavengers live lonely, solitary lives, as the acquisition of salvage is a rather competitive business. Still, they communicate with one another and help each other in their own way. They communicate with each other through basic symbols carved into walls of dilapidated buildings, to declare they've already been looted and that there's nothing left to be found. They have other symbols as well, for different sorts of danger, for the locations of watering holes and good foraging sites and other such things. Almost always, these runes are accompanied by the signature of the scrapper that carved them. Most of these looters never encounter each other but through this system of runes, they look out for each other and engage in competition with each other. Conversations, rivalries and even friendships can be formed this way.

The closest thing to a unified group of European scrappers is the Cartel, a 'union' led by a rather shrewd dwarf called Bosch in Western Borca. Part thugs and part appraisers, they 'offer' to negotiate the sales of finds on the behalf of scrappers, in exchange for a cut of the find's value. If a scrapper refuses, they often end up with broken ribs and worse, have their finds confiscated.

On the other hand, African scrappers do not associated with the Chroniclers, do not lead isolated lives and do not have to worry about the Cartel's influence. Instead, they work for the Neolibyans and venture into Europe in bands. They work in unison, dismantling ruins and collecting salvage far faster than any European loner could hope to. More importantly, they keep each other sane and productive; it's easy for an African to lose sight of their purpose so far away from their home and their culture, in the heart of a foreign land.

While the Chroniclers use scrappers to gather technology that will help them rebuild the Stream, the Neolibyans are much less ambitious and far more pragmatic when it comes to their intentions. Even before the Eshaton, Africa's infrastructure was woeful, even on the Northern coast. After it, it was abysmal. Yet they possessed a sense of unity that the Europeans lacked and so they streamed across the Mediterranean, looting the ruins of Franka, Purgare and Hybrispania before the Europeans were ever able to really get their claws in them. Through Bygone technology stolen from Europe, they have created an empire for themselves that spans the Northern coast of Africa, complete with an impressive infrastructure to support it. By looting more still from the corpse of Europe, they are able to expand even further.

Consider the European and African scrappers polar opposites. One does it for wealth, the other does it for the prosperity for their nature. One operates alone, the other goes in packs. The only thing that unites the two groups is that they're after the same thing, the Bygone tech hidden in ruins that were abandoned after the Eshaton. Each scrapper has their own technique. Some just haul back mountains of scrap, others use a little ingenuity to bash it all together into something that their employers might find more valuable. In the end, they're all in it for the big find.