Made up entirely of Full Conversions, Shrapnel is perhaps the most dangerous gang in the Combat Zone, or they would be if they showed any interest in expanding their territory.  Instead, Shrapnel acts more as a group counseling home for borgs in the Zone.  They remain neutral so long as the other gangs keep their violence out of their territory.  Shrapnel operates primarily out of one large apartment building, the vast majority of tenants here are non members who stay for the security and safety.

 

The leader of the gang is named Lazarus, He formed Shrapnel just before Carnival, when he was hired by a group called Rayder investments to protect their new building, which they had foolishly built inside Marsten just before the walls went up, in hopes of being on the ground floor of a gentrification project.  Lazarus and his crew of fellow full conversions were able to protect the building, but they discovered Rayder had left explosives in the building, and were planning on detonating them in effort to claim insurance money from their lost investment.  Lazarus and his crew disarmed the bombs, and after Carnival ended set to work repairing and reinforcing the building.  Renting its room out as well as setting it up as a refuge, a sanctuary for Full Conversions across Night City, a place where they could come without fear of being judged, ostracized, or persecuted by the police.  It was something he had been planning in the background a while, and the Rayder building was the ideal solution.  A gathering of Full Conversions any where else would be under constant police scrutiny.  In short order, many borgs already living in the Zone flocked to the site.

 

For full conversions in the Zone, the options were usually geared in violence.  While many borgs chose to join or lead gangs, the ones who did quickly found themselves the prime targets of all the gangs rivals, who would go to extreme lengths to take them out in order to balance the scales.  Outside of being muscle for gangs, full conversions were usually treated with mistrust, fear, and scorn.  This wasn’t out of pure bigotry, most of the borgs in the Zone were wanted criminals, or on the run because they strayed to close to the edge of Cyberpsychosis.  Cyberpsychosis induced berserker rages are still very common in the Zone, particularly among full conversions.  The disconnect from humanity here, exaggerated by being shunned out of fear, is simply to great, and there are no real options for therapy.

 

 

Shrapnel first and foremost provides a sense of community to the full conversion who join.  Lazarus is a former military combat medic, and has a degree in psychology, specializing in Cybertherapy.  This is not to say that Shrapnel is a metallic hippy community.  Most of the members have police or military backgrounds.  Many members, despite counseling, are still on the edge of Cyberpsychosis. 

 

Originally, Shrapnel was treated with fear and mistrust almost universally in the zone.  But as the gang grew, they began to take an interest in the surrounding community.  As stated before, the territory they claim is officially neutral.  They allow any gang to pass through, on the caveat that they do not allow violence.  If violence does break out, Shrapnel responds to it quickly and violently, with devastatingly final results.  Shrapnel has also has taken it upon themselves to deal with any borgs in the zone who do lapse into Cyberpsychosis induced rages, provided the gangs in control of those areas ask for their help.  The other gangs in the Zone treat Shrapnel with respect and fear, but they do recognize them as a valuable resource as well.  The Digital Renegades have a direct line to Lazarus, and will apprise him of any rogue Borgs or Cyberpsychos who have gone over the edge.

Of all the gangs, Shrapnel is closest to the Walking Dead, a gang sharing a border to the Northwest.  The walking Dead are a mercenary gang, primarily made up of ex-military, who offer some amount of sympathy for Shrapnel, a large portion of them being heavily augmented themselves.  They also are on fairly good terms with Maelstrom, as Lazarus will occasionally enlist Shamans help in providing therapy, and Shrapnel has twice been called in to help restrain members of the Psychos who have escaped.

 

At Lazarus’s insistence, Shrapnel rends to at least attempt to handle any violence that comes up unarmed, and non-lethal.  However if things escalate then they have the armaments to respond to just about any threat overwhelmingly. 

 

While Shrapnel was able to remain unknown outside the Zone for a while, their presence has been noted by the police, and a special unit of C-Swat has been established in Little Odessa just to monitor Shrapnels actions.  Word of this has gotten back to Shrapnel, rumor has it by sympathetic full conversions in the department, and Shrapnel takes great pains not to attract too much attention.