WW3: PNW Session 1 Notes
The Pacific Northwest Campaign officially started on March 5th, 2022 when you arrived in Redding, CA. Assume that this information was passed along via transmission from the first-in team.
Thanks to maintenance issues with the two UH-60’s available in Redding, the Dragoon squad was forced to reconsider transportation otions. The only available compromise was to split the squad into two teams - a “first-in team” of Sgt. Copley, Costas, Espinoza, Boyd, and Vandergriff, followed by a “training team” of Sgt. Korilov, Davies, Thompson, and anyone else coming along. Rather than a military transport, the team was flown to the operations area aboard a commandeered bush plane - a Cessna Centurion, spray painted in military colors, with a middle aged pilot who refused to give his name. The plane was cramped and overloaded, but the pilot managed to deposit the first-in team safely at an abandoned airstrip in the Cascades near Mt. Rainier. The team followed the minimal instructions provided, and contacted the liasion team, which consisted of the following individuals:
1) NERCC Agent Thomas Canapo, who is nominally in charge of the mission
2) Chief John Farmer, representing the Yakama Reservation Tribal Police
3) Deputy Melanie Tinasco, representing the Yakima County Sheriff’s Department
The Dragoon team was escorted to a small farm in Harrah, WA. This farm has been set aside for the team’s sole use. It is isolated enough to ensure some privacy, but still close enough to the Harrah PD that they can walk to Chief Farmer’s office in minutes. The region apparently has ample food, limited running municipal water, and limited but available power supplied by a nearby hydroelectric dam.
The mission was clarified considerably by speaking to the local contacts. The Mountain Confederacy (herein referred to as MC) is attempting to expand influence through the Columbia River Basin, to reach the agricultural areas and ports of the Pacific Coast. NERCC wants to place a buffer/client state between the MC’s and the ocean. Such a state already exists in Yakima County, so the Dragoons’s job is to train the Yakama Nation’s military up enough to defend itself ongoing attacks from MC-sponsored paramilitaries, and to make a conventional invasion by the MC too costly to undertake. The MC’s representative to the Yakama Nation is named Ernie Daugherty, but the PC’s have not encountered him. The MC’s are also attempting to make the Yakama Nation into a client state, so the PC’s will be actively opposed even through diplomatic means.
The following relevant facts (relayed to the PC’s by Agent Canapo) should be taken into consideration:
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REGIONAL HISTORY - After the nuclear strikes of 2020, the Yakima area was overwhelmed by a flood of refugees from the Sea-Tac metroplex. The Yakama reservation closed itself off in 2020, just in time to avoid being swamped by refugees. A large number of Native-American refugees from the Sea-Tac area were allowed in, but the rest were kept out of the reservation by the Yakama Tribal Police and local militias. These refugees quickly consumed all of the local resources in the Naches River farming communities, and then the camps themselves became breeding grounds for crime and disease. The city of Yakima eventually collapsed, and the extraordinarily harsh winter of 2020-2021 killed off most of the survivors. By spring of 2021, Yakima had only a few thousand residents, and the fields along I-82 between Yakima and Tieton were covered with bones. The Yakama have taken to referring to that bleak winter as the “Winter of Crows”, and will often refuse to speak of it to outsiders. In 2021, the Yakama Nation unofficially annexed the entire region up to Tieton and Naches. To the south, the Yakama Nation annexed the farming communities along I-82, all the way down to Prosser and Whitstran. Most of the large local Hispanic community moved to the nearby towns of Pasco and Kennewick, where they remain. Local Anglo farmers largely remained in place, and are a source of considerable friction.
Yakima County is now under the control of the “Yakama Nation”, formerly the Yakama Reservation. Following the disruptions of 2020, the Yakama Indians extended control from the reservation itself to include all of Yakima County, from Tieton to Benton City, along the Yakima River… essentially reclaiming land ceded to the US government in 1855. They then extended an invitation to any and all people and families with Native American ancestry and cultural ties to emigrate to the region - families from all over the PacNW arrive weekly, and are immediately integrated by the Yakama Nation. Control of the Yakama Nation remains in the hands of the pre-war reservation administration, the Yakama Tribal Council. Law enforcement is divided between the Yakama Tribal Police (YPD), and the Yakima County Sheriff’s Department (YCSD). Total population of the Yakama Nation is estimated at +/- 50,000.
1) Yakama Tribal Council - All tribal members over 18 years of age are automatically voting members of a general council, the basic governmental unit of the tribe. In addition, representatives of each of the confederated 14 tribes and bands comprise the Yakama Tribal Council, the body that carries out the will of the general council. Directly reporting to the tribal council are standing committees that deal with cultural resources, education, farming, grazing, health, housing, irrigation, recreation, roads, security, timber, and wildlife management. The current chairman of the YTC is Wendell Puckett, a local businessman and land owner who helped organize the defense of the Reservation.
2) Yakama Tribal Police/Consolidated Local Police is the police force that reports directly to the Tribal Council. It handles security in the various small towns along I-82, as well as on the Yakama Reservation proper. The current chief of police is Freeman Metcalfe, brother-in-law to Wendell Puckett. There are approximately 150 officers, most of whom are Yakama. They are generally armed with shotguns, pistols, and a few older assault rifles. YTPD officers are generally well-regarded by the Yakama, and support greater autonomy and independence. Relatively few have any combat experience, though a few have served in the military. If there is a standing militia in the Yakama Nation, the Tribal Police most likely qualify. More than a few are postwar recruits, so the quality is a bit uneven. There is internal tension between the newcomers and the older career officers. New policemen tend to be a little rougher, a little less professional, and a little more nationalistic. This is especially true of the non-Yakama members, who tend to overcompensate for not being natives to the area.
3) Yakima County Sheriff’s Department was originally much larger than the YTPD, there are now only about 70 deputies on the YCSD – they bore the brunt of the collapse of order in the region. The highest ranking officer is Sheriff Reggie Hamm, a half-Yakama local man from Toppenish. Deputies are well equipped with AR-15’s, shotguns, and pistols of various types. There is a small six man team of deputies with SWAT training and CID gear – they have experience against Meth labs, but not actual combat. Most deputies are Anglo (with Yakama ties), though about 25% are Yakama. Most officers of the YCSD still see themselves as Americans, though there is little love of NERCC, and some sympathize with the Mountain Confederacy.