Aldecaldos: the Nomad Clan of Panam Palmer and Cyberpunk 2077

The Aldecaldos are a nomad nation, a huge extended family of clans who live on the road across North America, and in Cyberpunk 2077 they're the nomads V gets to know through Panam Palmer. They began in Los Angeles in the 1990s as a neighbourhood watch fighting street gangs, then left the city and never went back to settled life. By 2077 one Aldecaldo family is camped in the Badlands east of Night City, looking for work. (Cyberpunk 2077)

How the Aldecaldos were founded#

The clan started with a family tragedy. Juan Aldecaldo lost his son to gang violence in Los Angeles, and he went on live television to blast the police and the media for doing nothing about it. His speech struck a nerve. People rallied to him, and he built an armed "Neighborhood Watch" that took on the gangs running his part of the city. (Neo Tribes; Cyberpunk 2077)

The city didn't thank him. By the time the Watch gave up on LA, it numbered around five thousand people, and they left together as one of the first true nomad groups. The clan's emphasis on family, which Juan made the core of his uprising, still defines them. (Neo Tribes; Cyberpunk 2077)

That's how the game's database tells it. The longer version comes from the tabletop setting, where the collapse of the old United States left millions of people homeless and on the move. Groups like the Aldecaldos organised them into nations of families that ran convoys, worked farms and salvage contracts, and hauled cargo between cities. (Cyberpunk 2020; The World of Cyberpunk 2077)

The Aldecaldos in the tabletop eras#

Nomads were part of Cyberpunk from the start, and the 2020 rulebook made them a full role for players. The Aldecaldos are one of the big named nations in that world, living out of armoured RVs and souped-up cars and moving as a mass of linked families. (Cyberpunk 2020; Neo Tribes)

In Cyberpunk RED, set in 2045, the clan turns up close to Night City. After the 2023 nuclear blast at Arasaka Tower, nomads helped dig out survivors and put up shelters around the ruined city, and by 2045 the Aldecaldos kept a big camp on the city's edge that other nomads used too. (Cyberpunk RED)

The Aldecaldos in Cyberpunk 2077#

By 2077 the Aldecaldos are spread out as a few dozen families constantly on the move across America. The family V meets has come to the Badlands outside Night City under Saul, a careful leader who cares more about keeping his people alive than settling scores. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Panam is the opposite. She clashes with Saul from the moment V meets her and has walked away from the clan once already. Her storyline drags V into the family's business: tracking down the thieves who stole from her, getting Saul back from the Raffen Shiv, stealing a Militech Basilisk hovertank, and standing up to the Wraiths, a nomad gang that preys on others in the Badlands. Along the way V gets to know Mitch, Carol, Bob, Scorpion and the rest of the camp. (Cyberpunk 2077)

The nomads also connect to Johnny Silverhand's past. Santiago, the nomad who rode with Johnny on the 2013 raid on Arasaka Tower to rescue Alt Cunningham, turns up in one of the memories V relives. (Cyberpunk 2077) The tabletop books say where he went next: he and Johnny hid out with the Aldecaldos in Mexico after the raid, and Santiago went on to lead the clan after Juan Aldecaldo died, taking the Aldecaldo name. (Neo Tribes)

The Star: leaving Night City with the Aldecaldos#

The family is V's way out in one ending. If V has done Panam's quests and chooses her at the end of the main story, the Aldecaldos help V storm Arasaka's headquarters. In The Star ending V then leaves Night City with the clan, heading out to search for a way to stop the Relic from killing V. Which ending you get depends on the player's choices, and our endings guide covers each branch. (Cyberpunk 2077)

What nomad life looks like for the Aldecaldos#

The Aldecaldos are not a street gang, and the difference matters to them. They don't wear uniforms or claim city blocks. Members sew patches on their jackets to show their family and clan, and they value freedom and loyalty to their own above almost anything. A common saying among them is that a woman who lives on in the hearts of her family never truly dies. (Cyberpunk 2077)

They make a living on the margins of Night City: hauling goods, scavenging, smuggling for whoever pays, and fixing cars in mobile workshops. They have their own rivalries with other nomads, but their biggest problem is a city that treats them as outsiders. For how they fit beside Night City's gangs, see our guide to Cyberpunk's gangs. (Cyberpunk 2077; The World of Cyberpunk 2077)