Feral

Ferals are inhabitants of Nuclearth who blame the terrible war that brought about the world's current state primarily on technological progress, and who therefore eschew all technology, living as animals in the wilderness in protest and protection against the supposed evils of progress. Ferals use no constructions more basic than holes in the ground to sleep in; they make no tools and wear no clothing. (They do, however, continue to use human language, so they don't actually behave entirely like animals... apparently language, being an abstract construct, doesn't count as manufactured.)

Ferals are found throughout Nuclearth, among every civilization; it's not clear whether the feral philosophy spread from some now unidentifiable central point of origin, or whether many people independently had the same ideas.

Relations

Although ferals have a lifestyle unique among Nuclearth's humans, they still may occasionally come into contact with other people. This is seldom due to their own choice, but rather from others happening upon them in their wilderness lairs—though there are some ferals who do seek out other people with hostile intentions.

Ferals and civilization

Although ferals disdain civilization, they are not necessarily proactively hostile to it. Most ferals are content to avoid cities and civilized people, believing they are misguided and working toward their own destruction, but not themselves hastening that destruction. However, there are some ferals who take things further, believing that the world will only be safe when all of civilization and technology is forever forsaken, and actively working toward that end, sabotaging and tearing down any manmade objects and devices they can find. In the popular imagination, all ferals are often painted with the brushes of these few, and ferals are widely (though not universally) seen as some sort of deranged bogeymen.

Official attitudes toward the ferals vary. In most places, they are tolerated and more or less ignored unless they cause trouble, but a few leaders—mostly in Europe and South America—have declared them illegal, and have orders for them to be captured and forcibly integrated with society, or killed. This has had the result of ferals in these areas becoming more desperate and more devious, and hence more dangerous; many South American ferals can defend themselves with powerful psionic abilities.

Ferals and salvage-men

Although ferals are often confused with salvage-men, the two are quite distinct. Salvage-men do avoid the preapocalyptic cities and technologies, but they engage in some limited manufacture of their own, making clothing and pottery and similar goods; even those few salvage-man tribes who, like the ferals, go naked, still generally do create tools and construct shelters. Nevertheless, most ferals seem to be slightly more favorably disposed toward salvage-men than toward civilized people; the salvage-men may still have some sort of rudimentary technology, but at least they don't take it to the same extremes. For their part, most salvage-men are tolerant of ferals, although they don't necessarily agree with their worldview. There have been some instances of salvage-men joining the ferals, but it isn't particularly common.

Mutants

Ferals' attitudes toward mutants vary. On the one hand, mutations are not, themselves, technological in nature; on the other hand, they are certainly technological in origin, being caused by the fallout from the war. Some ferals therefore loathe mutants for their origins and what they represent, and, if they find it unrealistic to destroy all mutant organisms they come across, at least do not eat their meat or greenery, and avoid contact with mutant humans. Others, however, see no problem with associating freely with mutants, and may even count mutants among their own ranks.

Those ferals who are accepting of mutants tend also to be fairly accepting of the psionic abilities that mutants often possess. In fact, such feral tribes often sport a rather high percentage of mutant members themselves, some of them possibly with formidable powers.

Joining

The ferals do not actively recruit, but they are well enough known that occasionally someone who has heard of them and sympathizes with their viewpoint decides to seek them out and join them. Most feral tribes ask little of their initiates; as long as one doesn't seem obviously insincere about one's intent, all one has to do is agree to forsake all technology and artifacts and to live according to the feral lifestyle, and one will be welcomed into their ranks. The new feral must, however, arrive without any manufactured good on his person, including clothing; someone who shows up at a feral encampment fully clothed will be at best brusquely turned away (though he may still be accepted if he shows up later sans such accouterments).

There are a few feral groups that do demand more of their new members, requiring them to go through some sort of induction ceremony, or somehow prove their good faith. These, however, are the rare exceptions, and are usually those who have been burned in the past by spies or saboteurs joining them under false pretenses.

Ex-ferals

Just as some people from the civilized world choose to join the ferals, some ferals decide to give up their lifestyle and join civilization. Perhaps they find that they miss too many of their friends in the cities, or perhaps they miss some of the comforts and conveniences that civilization brings. This is not usually a decision that other ferals will look fondly on; there have been some cases of ferals trying to leave their lifestyle and being killed by their fellows. Reactions usually aren't quite that extreme, but are still rarely anything but unfriendly. In any case, the longer the former feral has been outside of civilization, the harder he will find it to reintegrate himself, but it has been done.

Matters are particularly difficult for children brought up among the ferals who choose to join civilization. This very rarely happens, not least because such native ferals generally don't know what they're missing; the ferals don't talk about the cities and technology, and Still, sometimes native ferals do find out about those things from new members who aren't quite as reticent as they should be, or from civilized people the ferals encounter—such people will be strongly discouraged from talking too much about their ways, especially in front of the children, but it's inevitable that some will leak out... at the very least, the native ferals are likely to notice they're wearing clothes. In any case, the other ferals aren't quite as hostile toward such feral children who choose to leave them as they are toward those who joined the ferals later in life and then backed out; at least the children aren't betraying a past decision. Still, the native feral trying to join civilization will have a very hard time of it, having no past experience with civilized life and no idea what is expected of him.