TheRPGSite

...are those media now sort of goofy and unwatchable/playable/etc.?

I can handle the "alternate future" of Twilight:2000 a hell of a lot more than I can dig on the utter silliness of Cyberpunk 2020's post-industrial mess.  It's kind of like listening to KMFDM - "I can't believe I ever thought this was all that great."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416014...are those media now sort of goofy and unwatchable/playable/etc.?

I thought about this recently, and my personal answer was an unequivocal "Hell no!"

Now Cyberpunk 2020 feels like steampunk, or Barsoom or War of Worlds already did to me. The feel certainly shifted from anticipation to alternate timeline fantasy, but it's still just as exciting to the imagination as it was before. To me at least.

Part of the problem, too, is that cyberpunk as a pure literary genre is now dead.  Like all sci-fi subgenres before it, it has fragmented and scattered and flowed back into the mainstream of sci-fi, so you'll get cyberpunk touches in military SciFi or what-have-you.

Postcyberpunk (to a lesser degree Gibson's "Bridge Trilogy" is an exemplar of this) has a somewhat less gloomy outlook to it - Bonn didn't get nuked, the US is not a collection of warring city states, and I don't plug a fiber optic cable into a hole in my corpus callosum and download a program-as-drug.

It was a bit easier to blow up a few cities with nukes, predict continued Soviet aggression, throw the words "Sony", "Zeiss Optik" and "megabyte" into an otherwise unremarkable Dashell Hammett type story with some vague pseudo-spiritual mumblings, wrap the whole thing in an entirely stolen from Blade Runner narrative and be feted across multiple literary genres in 1985 when it looked like, yes, we were fucked in 30 years.

On the contrary, I think the current world is very cyberpunk, minus the common cybernetics. If you're outside in a city or many large towns, you're on camera. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it was Blackwater doing the street corner guards stuff. Big banks and big corporations tell politicians what to do. The internet is pervasive. iPhones and other wireless devices are better than the cyperpunk stuff in the Gibson books.

Quote from: danbuter;416019On the contrary, I think the current world is very cyberpunk, minus the common cybernetics. If you're outside in a city or many large towns, you're on camera. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it was Blackwater doing the street corner guards stuff. Big banks and big corporations tell politicians what to do. The internet is pervasive. iPhones and other wireless devices are better than the cyperpunk stuff in the Gibson books.

I agree with danbuter here, what's replaced cyberpunk for me is just modern techno spy shit like Burn Notice. Also, like Benny, the 80's cyberpunk just feels like modern fantasy to me now.

Given that there really has been a great surge in development of prosthetic limbs to re-limb wounded veterans of resource wars in backwater hellholes, I think CP is doing just fine.

No just consider many of those stories as "Alternate Histories" or timelines now.

 Perfect case of this: the TV series "Max Headroom:20 Minutes Into The Future".

The show was made in late 1986 to late 1987 and aired on ABC television from March 1987 to May 1988. The last episode made ("Baby Grobags") never aired until a cable showing in September of 1995.

Now, based on a detail in one of the episodes about Bryce Lynch the stories supposedly takes place sometime between the years 2002 and 2005.

The trivia detail: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092402/trivia
In the British pilot movie Lynch was 18, in the American version he was 15 or 16.

The DVDS set just became available this past August.
Whats funny is what once seemed 'futuristic' now seems contemporary or almost-contemporary. Several of the stories just seem like CSI or NCIS-equivalent type action adventure. The surreal part is how different all the computers and monitors used in the show look.


- Ed C.

Wonder what would be today's version of the Tyrell Corporation.

Quote from: ggroy;416038Wonder what would be today's version of the Tyrell Corporation.

I just watched Blade Runner the other day. I was wondering where all of the flying cars are at.

Quote from: PaladinCA;416040I just watched Blade Runner the other day. I was wondering where all of the flying cars are at.

Parked out at Avery Brooks' house, that fucker.

Not really. I think because what cyberpunk was, has evolved a bit. It always had a theme of technological change and rebellion--but humanity and its nature
are now a them of similar media.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, for example is what cyberpunk evolves into, among other similar media.

What is humanity, where is it going, and can it survive in its new state?

Well quite reputable scientists are predicting the technology to download a human brain onto a computer is about 20 years away.

Then again reputable scientists predicted we would all be driving Sinclair C5s.

Quote from: PaladinCA;416040I just watched Blade Runner the other day. I was wondering where all of the flying cars are at.

http://www.moller.com/

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/09/flying-car-production-could-start-within-three-months/1

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flight-international/2010/06/flying-car-a-reality.html

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/28/flying-car-transition-technology-terrafugia.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/30/terrafugia-transition-fly_n_630578.html#s108243

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416018It was a bit easier to blow up a few cities with nukes, predict continued Soviet aggression, throw the words "Sony", "Zeiss Optik" and "megabyte" into an otherwise unremarkable Dashell Hammett type story with some vague pseudo-spiritual mumblings, wrap the whole thing in an entirely stolen from Blade Runner narrative and be feted across multiple literary genres in 1985 when it looked like, yes, we were fucked in 30 years.

Much the way eco-disaster porn is doing now. All futurism quickly becomes retro, because predicting the future, especially through fictional media, is a sucker's game. The fiction changes to reflect the values and fears of the time. Gibson's work is still full of branding and corporate culture and cutting-edge technology, but it's totally different now. Punk went mainstream and sold out. Even the dark future has its Green Day.

I don't find it goofy or unwatchable or unreadable, necessarily, any more than I find old sci-fi classics from the Fifties to be goofy or unwatchable. The good stuff always has themes that endure. The material that just fetishizes fictional, dated technology as our savior or destroyer was probably shit to begin with.

No problem with it at all.  For the same reason I have no problems with Dragons, Goblins and all manner of fantasy creaturers roaming a near European fantasy world.    Cyberpunk is a setting for fiction what's the problem?

This...

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416018It was a bit easier to blow up a few cities with nukes, predict continued Soviet aggression, throw the words "Sony", "Zeiss Optik" and "megabyte" into an otherwise unremarkable Dashell Hammett type story with some vague pseudo-spiritual mumblings, wrap the whole thing in an entirely stolen from Blade Runner narrative and be feted across multiple literary genres in 1985 when it looked like, yes, we were fucked in 30 years.

And this:

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069Much the way eco-disaster porn is doing now. All futurism quickly becomes retro, because predicting the future, especially through fictional media, is a sucker's game. The fiction changes to reflect the values and fears of the time.

Traditional Cyberpunk was a 80s thing reflecting on the fears of the 80s, much like how Metropolis pedicted a clash between rich socialites and factory workers who were treated as little more than robots. CP has been dead since Neal Stephenson stabbed it in its heart with two katanas while riding on a motorcycle in Snow Crash. It just took the news a lot of years to filter into other layers of pop culture; CP2020 was still popular in the late 90s, Deus Ex the computer game was a very traditional cyberpunkish game with a back to the 80s vibe in 2000 (although it also foresaw the securitisation/terrorist scares of the next years - and in their fictional NYC, the WTC is missing from the skyline because it had been destroyed by terrorists - or was it really terrorists?). In the end, The Matrix made the genre into a mass-consumed movie, indicating that indeed, cyberpunk was dead dead.

Gibson seems really dated now. The colour of a TV set turned to a blank channel is blue, and nobody cares about space enough anymore to build a luxury space station there.

P. K. Dick, however, hasn't aged one bit.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069Punk went mainstream and sold out. Even the dark future has its Green Day.

Billy Idol's "Cyberpunk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(album))" cd?

The only CP-ish thing still viable is RIFTS.

ADD: I NEVER got the whole "Revolution" thing that was going on in R. Talsorian's CP. Not in the 80ies not in the 90ies, not now.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069All futurism quickly becomes retro, because predicting the future, especially through fictional media, is a sucker's game.

This can be said about almost any prediction methods in general.  :banghead:

Just like all those individuals who try predicting the future movements of the stock market, and/or predicting when a stock market "bubble" will burst.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: ggroy;416074Billy Idol's "Cyberpunk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(album))" cd?

Oh god. Why did you have to remind me...

Quote from: Settembrini;416076The only CP-ish thing still viable is RIFTS.

ADD: I NEVER got the whole "Revolution" thing that was going on in R. Talsorian's CP. Not in the 80ies not in the 90ies, not now.

The revolution thing is easy - it's based on a continuation of the USA anti-Vietnam counter-culture from the 70's.

The biggest problem with cyberpunk is that EVERYONE actually sold out in the 80s and now no one really cares about anything anymore.  And the few that do are happy with slacktivism and whining once in a while because pretty much everyone is a worshipper at the altar of capitalism and consumerism (and anyone who isn't is clearly a member of the muslim/gay/communist conspiracy or whatever) and is too busy enjoying their small creature comforts or finding minority groups to blame than to see that giant corporations have already taken over the world and are turning us all into slaves.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416014...are those media now sort of goofy and unwatchable/playable/etc.?

I can handle the "alternate future" of Twilight:2000 a hell of a lot more than I can dig on the utter silliness of Cyberpunk 2020's post-industrial mess.  It's kind of like listening to KMFDM - "I can't believe I ever thought this was all that great."

CyberPunk to me always felt goofy even if it is being fun to play. A version of Urban Fantasy using technology instead of magic.

Most this is due me being involved in computer programming since the early 80s. The virtual reality aspect of the NET I thought was dumb. Especially how most cyberpunk games modeled net hacking as a series of "boxes" like a dungeon.  My view then hacking would be you figuring how to establish a direct connection and go from there. That the net in this regard acted more like the phone network that it just gets you connected to destination from where you are.

Today with Zombie computer networks and the possibility of hacking into one computer to get trusted access to another somewhere else does lend itself to the dungeon view of the net. However to me it looks more like recruiting computer minions to do your bidding directed to a particular destination.

Still Cyberpunk provided me with one of my best roleplaying moments ever.

I was playing a game of Cyberpunk 2020 and I was a tech. We had an obnoxious player who was running a Solo with a lot of tweaks and mods to make him a virtual killing machine. The players was known to be a backstabber and a "All for me and none for you" type.

So early in the game we were able to upgrade to our weapons. Of course the Solo insisted rudely that I do his weapons first which I did and then I worked on everybody else gear.

So we do the adventure which involved some breaking, entering, and stealing. Along the way we not only grabbed our target but some additional valuable tech and loot.

Then at the end of the session we were talking about dividing what we found. Of course the combat monster Solo pulled out his guns and stated that everything was his. Everybody groaned as nobody could even hope to match him in combat.

I said "I don't think so. I got a 9mm that says different". Mine you I haven't pulled out anything and he had his weapons out already. The Solo player laugh and told me to back down or he will kill me. I then told the GM I am drawing." Of course I lost initiative and the Solo goes to shoot me.

And nothing happened. The gun wouldn't fire.

Then I got the 9mm out and blew him away.

What happened was that when the players handed me their weapons to modify at the beginning of the game I slipped the referee a note. I put image recognition software on their sights. Then I programmed them not to fire if I was the target.

The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gather his things and left muttering to himself.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416078Oh god. Why did you have to remind me...

It was amusing back when that Billy Idol "Cyberpunk" cd was first released, especially on the alt.cyberpunk usenet newsgroups.  Just about everybody was dogpiling on Billy Idol.  Allegedly Idol even posted some comments on alt.cyberpunk using his Well account.  (Back then, some naive folks thought The Well was some online hipster hangout, for whatever reasons).  Though there was no way to verify whether it really was the real Billy Idol actually posting the comments.

Hardly anybody thought Billy Idol was "Kerry Eurodyne".  :rolleyes:

Quote from: estar;416080The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gather his things and left muttering to himself.

The rpg players I've come across over the years who would get angry over such things like this, were frequently the same types who would do stuff like:  smash the joystick, kick in the coinbox on an arcade machine, kick in the tv screen, kick or punch a hole in the wall, etc ... when everything completely went against them in a video game.

Quote from: estar;416080CyberPunk to me always felt goofy even if it is being fun to play. A version of Urban Fantasy using technology instead of magic.

Most this is due me being involved in computer programming since the early 80s. The virtual reality aspect of the NET I thought was dumb. Especially how most cyberpunk games modeled net hacking as a series of "boxes" like a dungeon.  My view then hacking would be you figuring how to establish a direct connection and go from there. That the net in this regard acted more like the phone network that it just gets you connected to destination from where you are.

Today with Zombie computer networks and the possibility of hacking into one computer to get trusted access to another somewhere else does lend itself to the dungeon view of the net. However to me it looks more like recruiting computer minions to do your bidding directed to a particular destination.

Still Cyberpunk provided me with one of my best roleplaying moments ever.

I was playing a game of Cyberpunk 2020 and I was a tech. We had an obnoxious player who was running a Solo with a lot of tweaks and mods to make him a virtual killing machine. The players was known to be a backstabber and a "All for me and none for you" type.

So early in the game we were able to upgrade to our weapons. Of course the Solo insisted rudely that I do his weapons first which I did and then I worked on everybody else gear.

So we do the adventure which involved some breaking, entering, and stealing. Along the way we not only grabbed our target but some additional valuable tech and loot.

Then at the end of the session we were talking about dividing what we found. Of course the combat monster Solo pulled out his guns and stated that everything was his. Everybody groaned as nobody could even hope to match him in combat.

I said "I don't think so. I got a 9mm that says different". Mine you I haven't pulled out anything and he had his weapons out already. The Solo player laugh and told me to back down or he will kill me. I then told the GM I am drawing." Of course I lost initiative and the Solo goes to shoot me.

And nothing happened. The gun wouldn't fire.

Then I got the 9mm out and blew him away.

What happened was that when the players handed me their weapons to modify at the beginning of the game I slipped the referee a note. I put image recognition software on their sights. Then I programmed them not to fire if I was the target.

The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gather his things and left muttering to himself.

That rocks, and oddly enough fits right into the genre perfectly :D Knowledge is power :worship:

Quote from: estar;416080The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gather his things and left muttering to himself.

Awesome ownage. :cool:

I think Jonathan Lethem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lethem) put the last nail in the coffin with his short story, "How We Got In Town And Out Again", which asks the questions, what would we really do with virtual reality?

Quote from: Halfjack;416087what would we really do with virtual reality?

Holodeck porn?  :rolleyes:

Quote from: estar;416080Then I got the 9mm out and blew him away.

That's a beautiful story.  I love the brain over brawn angle.

I was kind of hoping for braintaping at some point before I die... still got time, I suppose.

Reading this thread, it just occured to me that you could make a functional cyperpunk setting based on a player group of Iraqi antiheroes in 2005.  The rubble next to new mansions, the high tech corporations such as Blackwater, the existence of a small number of highly educated Iraqis in a basically dysfunctional war zone, the factions... it's a pointed ear away from Shadowrun.

Quote from: estar;416080The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gather his things and left muttering to himself.

I have just one thing to say: Bravo. :D

Quote from: Halfjack;416087what would we really do with virtual reality?

Porn and fancy MMOs

Quote from: Sigmund;416103Porn and fancy MMOs

Jesus. Just imagining the billions of dollars the porn industry could make with virtual reality, that's kind of mindboggling, when I think about it.

When people always say "What happened to Cyberpunk?" I always answer, um.. you're living in it, dude.  People look around and say we're not in Cyberpunk yet, no, we're still in the history section, the era marking the rise of the Megacorp and the carving up of the world.

Yeah as SciFi, ie. predicting the future of technology, Cyberpunk was off the mark, but how about we wait until someone actually develops a neural interface for a computer before we declare the "Cyber" dead.  Now the "Punk" aspect, well, to be honest, I doubt most of us would know anything about whether there was any "Punk" out there.  We sound mostly like SINNERS, not the SINless to put it in Shadowrun parlance.

As far as corporate control goes, how many different corporations own the news you see from all sources?  You could count it on one hand, I'm guessing.

Give it 10 years or so, then revisit. :D

CP is pretty close I think. Information has become far far more available than Gibson thought it would. We have virtual reality in MMOs and Second Life, I mean WoW has an annual GDP that would place it above Albania.

It's no suprise that people don't voluntarily chop of limbs and have complex surgery and flying cars were alway 'pie-in-the-sky'.

If you look at Asian booms the decline of American global hegemony, the disenfranchisement of youth culture, the development of totally new methods of cultural interaction and the rapid changes of that culture we are living in a CP world.

I mean a 12 year old today doesn't know that music came of records or tapes and if you give them a CD for xmas they rip it and then sell the disc on ebay. Kids get arrested and fined millions of dollars, for copying information,  by oppressive governments working at the behest of mega-corporations.

The phone in your pocket had more power than a 1980s mainframe, and every teenager knows how to jail-break it so it can run pirated software that comes preinfected with trojans, viruses and wurms.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069All futurism quickly becomes retro, because predicting the future, especially through fictional media, is a sucker's game. The fiction changes to reflect the values and fears of the time.

Absolutely true...except the futurists are usually somewhat right.  

The fears that automation would destroy jobs was correct.   "High paying blue collar labor" is a punchline in 2010, not a job description.  

Corporate gene-coded foods, Mad Cow, nationwide poisoning recalls are all happening.  24/7 surveillance, government wiretapping of all citizens,  massive databanks that encode all facts about your life...are all sooo boring to talk about now because we traded real freedom for false security years ago.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069I don't find it goofy or unwatchable or unreadable, necessarily, any more than I find old sci-fi classics from the Fifties to be goofy or unwatchable. The good stuff always has themes that endure.

Very true.   Themes hold their value.

There is a remastered version of Metropolis.   If anyone has not seen that movie, the new remaster is absolutely worth seeing.

Quote from: jgants;416079The biggest problem with cyberpunk is that EVERYONE actually sold out in the 80s and now no one really cares about anything anymore.

Too true.

In the RPG of Metabarons (D6), there is the "Necrodream" which is basically the hypnotizing culture of the techno-religious-corporate galaxy and 99% of everyone just bobs along half-awake.   The PCs are those who try desperately not to succumb to the dream.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;416107Now the "Punk" aspect, well, to be honest, I doubt most of us would know anything about whether there was any "Punk" out there.  We sound mostly like SINNERS, not the SINless to put it in Shadowrun parlance.

The SIN/SINless aspect of Shadowrun is the hardest part of the game for me as the GM.  I have a hard time trying to make sense of a shadowrunners in a 24/7 surveillance world.

In Traveller, you hit the planet, commit a crime, escape the planet and hopefully dodge bounty hunters as you head out of the sub-sector.   In Shadowrun, you generally live within 20 miles of wherever you commit your crimes.

Quote from: Spinachcat;416113The SIN/SINless aspect of Shadowrun is the hardest part of the game for me as the GM.  I have a hard time trying to make sense of a shadowrunners in a 24/7 surveillance world.

In Traveller, you hit the planet, commit a crime, escape the planet and hopefully dodge bounty hunters as you head out of the sub-sector.   In Shadowrun, you generally live within 20 miles of wherever you commit your crimes.

I always saw this as being about the bottom line. When society is so capitalist that even the police are a for-profit outfit, chasing criminals has to make sense fiscally. The pay-off has to exceed the overhead. Plus, even for corps that get hit by a pro runner team, it might make more sense to seek retribution from the other corps involved rather than the runners, because those assets might come in handy down the road. Kinda weak, but it worked for us back then.

I'm sorry; I'm still not seeing it as any different than it ever was.  It just happens faster is all, and people tend to hear about it more now than they did before (internet/everybody's a reporter).  I look at old CP2020 supplements then look out the window and...I don't see it, sorry.

I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?  How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

The chief difference to me seems to be that everyone thought by now you'd be toting a plastic assault pistol USB wired into your forehead, your liver would be made by Toyta-Sony-Siemens-AG Inc., and everyone would be wrapped up like a Versace leather colostomy bag with spikes and a gas mask.

Quote from: Sigmund;416127I always saw this as being about the bottom line. When society is so capitalist that even the police are a for-profit outfit, chasing criminals has to make sense fiscally. The pay-off has to exceed the overhead. Plus, even for corps that get hit by a pro runner team, it might make more sense to seek retribution from the other corps involved rather than the runners, because those assets might come in handy down the road. Kinda weak, but it worked for us back then.

Well, it does make sense in a way.  As far as the corps are concerned, stopping the runners while they are on a run is essential, but killing them after the run is useless.  Yeah, you can go the old Soviet route and kill every shadowrunner that messes with you, but then you'd better hope you never need one yourself.

As far as the cops are concerned, it's a lose/lose.  If runners do what they're supposed to, they don't really cause much disruption with civilians.  Trying to track and bring in all runners who aren't actively committing a crime is going to end up causing more damage then it's worth, so the cops end up catching them when they do something stupid or obvious.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I'm sorry; I'm still not seeing it as any different than it ever was.  It just happens faster is all, and people tend to hear about it more now than they did before (internet/everybody's a reporter).  I look at old CP2020 supplements then look out the window and...I don't see it, sorry.

I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?  How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

The chief difference to me seems to be that everyone thought by now you'd be toting a plastic assault pistol USB wired into your forehead, your liver would be made by Toyta-Sony-Siemens-AG Inc., and everyone would be wrapped up like a Versace leather colostomy bag with spikes and a gas mask.

I see what you're saying and you're right, but the thing is I never saw CP as being any kind of accurate prophecy about the real future. It was a speculative caricature. It took what might be (and turns out many were correct) and then sent them over the top. It was meant to be entertainment first and foremost after all. Much like European medieval fantasy doesn't really resemble actual medieval Europe, CP America doesn't really resemble actual 21st century America. There are recognisable details, but the genre was ramped up for entertainment purposes. That's how I see it anyway.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I look at old CP2020 supplements then look out the window and...I don't see it, sorry.

Don't look out your window, look at your television.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?

How many years combined were those compared to the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts?  How much money has been funneled out of the US straight into the coffers of contracting corporations?  Fuck the Lufthansa heist, these guys have been doing a Lufthansa heist every hour for 8 years.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

Because now it's not a company town, it's a company country, with a handful of corps controlling what the majority of people see and hear.  We're about 50 years past simple yellow journalism and purple prose now, you can hook someone up to a PET scanner to see how their brain reacts to a commercial.  The level of manipulation that is possible is entire geometric orders of magnitude greater, and the fact that that's really not commonly known or just accepted just reinforces the point that The Corporate Takeover Has Been Televised and no one caught it, they were too busy surfing for the Paris Hilton cocksucking video.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137The chief difference to me seems to be that everyone thought by now you'd be toting a plastic assault pistol USB wired into your forehead, your liver would be made by Toyta-Sony-Siemens-AG Inc., and everyone would be wrapped up like a Versace leather colostomy bag with spikes and a gas mask.

The thing about Cyberpunk is that the technology really is only a small part of it.  Granted, that's the part everyone focuses on because it's visual, but we're really much closer then you think to a SR4 tech paradigm, with everything wirelessly connected with no VR, but AR.  As far as the collapse goes, well we haven't had it yet, and we may never, but we did come fairly close on the economic front.  As far as the corporatization of the world, it's in full swing.

Cyberpunk imagined the SINless; we got 4chan.
Cyberpunk imagined screamsheets; we got Google Reader.
Cyberpunk imagined romanticized anti-corporate revolution; we got the Creative Commons.
Cyberpunk imagined ubiquitous, subliminal advertising; that came true.
Cyberpunk imagined people fragmenting into violent, squabbling tribes; we got X-Box Live. ;)

To think that we would actually all have big clunky chrome limbs and spiky hair; of course that's absurd, because it was reflective of the culture and technology of the time, not the actual future.

So yes, it's dated. Shadowrun 4E will be just as dated in 20 years, and we'll look back and say "haw haw, they thought we were going to have stupid augmented reality and be flying around a bunch of remote control drones, what a joke!"

Quote from: CRKrueger;416147How many years combined were those compared to the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts?  How much money has been funneled out of the US straight into the coffers of contracting corporations.  Fuck the Lufthansa heist, these guys have been doing a Lufthansa heist every hour for 8 years.

Again...it's been going on for decades if not centuries.  The US did Guatemala on behalf of United Fruit.  Go further back - the East India Trading Company, a private contractor that had a writ to pretty much run it's own private navy and conduct business in whatever fashion it saw fit in the name of profit.  

QuoteBecause now it's not a company town, it's a company country, with a handful of corps controlling what the majority of people see and hear.  We're about 50 years past simple yellow journalism and purple prose now, you can hook someone up to a PET scanner to see how their brain reacts to a commercial.  

Do you know how the "studio system" worked from the 20's onward?  How the Howard Hughes and Jack Warners of the world (and the WR Hearsts) decided what people would see and hear?  And eat and drink?  Shit, how many places in the US could you buy cocaine and heroin over the counter?

QuoteThe level of manipulation that is possible is entire geometric orders of magnitude greater, and the fact that that's really not commonly known or just accepted just reinforces the point that The Corporate Takeover Has Been Televised and no one caught it, they were too busy surfing for the Paris Hilton cocksucking video.

All "they" have done is refine the science a bit (really, statistical methodology holds up whether your trying to find out whether or not people really like that Elvis character's song "Hound Dog" or if you think Dell makes a better subnotebook that Acer): again, Standard Oil, US Steel and the Railroad Trusts ran the country for decade upon decade.  Do you think Ike warning us about the Military Industrial Complex was for shits & giggles?

QuoteThe thing about Cyberpunk is that the technology really is only a small part of it.  Granted, that's the part everyone focuses on because it's visual, but we're really much closer then you think to a SR4 tech paradigm, with everything wirelessly connected with no VR, but AR.

And I say that once you strip the trappings away - the leather jackets, the forearm-replaced-with-a-gatling-railgun nonsense, the NeuroUltraNet Braincore jacks - cyberpunk's got nothing.

Now, nostalgically, I like Gibson's works (and Stephenson; never cared for Bruce Sterling)...but like the KMFDM comment I made, I can't believe I was just GAGA over the whole thing.

(I hated SR's D&D meets Cyberpunk mashup.  Hated.  But that's neither here nor there.)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416153And I say that once you strip the trappings away - the leather jackets, the forearm-replaced-with-a-gatling-railgun nonsense, the NeuroUltraNet Braincore jacks - cyberpunk's got nothing

Since a large part of cyberpunk was style-over-substance, this shouldn't be surprising.

In Storming the Reality Studio (http://www.amazon.com/Storming-Reality-Studio-Cyberpunk-Postmodern/dp/0822311682), the author posits that the very first work of "cyberpunk" fiction was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416155Since a large part of cyberpunk was style-over-substance, this shouldn't be surprising.

In Storming the Reality Studio (http://www.amazon.com/Storming-Reality-Studio-Cyberpunk-Postmodern/dp/0822311682), the author posits that the very first work of "cyberpunk" fiction was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

Loved that book.

Also DD, I think you are correct that the corp-uber-alles, screw "the man" socio-political stuff was nothing new, and just a reflection of the us young and stupid anti-establishment types thinking (once again) we were making some kind of stand (just like the hippies, greasers, beatniks, etc..). The essence of CP is actually in the trappings, "the leather jackets, the forearm-replaced-with-a-gatling-railgun nonsense, the NeuroUltraNet Braincore jacks" as you put it. That stuff IS the cyberpunk. That's why it's being dated doesn't bother me. It's always been fantasy. Honestly, I still like KMFDM too :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;416147you can hook someone up to a PET scanner to see how their brain reacts to a commercial.  The level of manipulation that is possible is entire geometric orders of magnitude greater,

I read an article about a firm in LA that does audience-testing for films, but the audience is all wired up to brain scans and monitored scene by scene.    I am quite sure that they offer the service for commercials and music videos as well.

I wonder if the firm has been used for political commercials.   It's a whole new level of evaluation and testing.

I'd like to be totally against it...but if it makes horror movies scarier and action movies more exciting, I gotta go say Plug Me In!

DD, I'll agree with you that corporate controlling aspects of society and gov't is nothing new, and the difference is not one of kind, but of degree.  Where I disagree though is that the incredible change in the degree of control certainly does make a big difference to me.

I see a difference between a populace who would react if they knew the truth and one that has been carefully and systematically conditioned to just not give a fuck.

As someone said upthread, if Cyberpunk as a genre fails to deliver today socially, it's because we all sold out in the 80s and there is no resistance.

I always viewed Cyberpunk in a social, political and economic context, I never thought "Pink Mohawk" was a key to the genre.  Corporate dystopia and the willing sacrifice of freedoms by the populace were the keys for me, and we got that in spades.

Quote from: Sigmund;416157That stuff IS the cyberpunk. That's why it's being dated doesn't bother me. It's always been fantasy. Honestly, I still like KMFDM too :D

Me three.

And yeah, it's a bit like saying "well, if you take out the hard-bitten dialogue, moody lighting, double-crosses, twists and femme fatales, film noir's got nothing."

Quote from: CRKrueger;416162I see a difference between a populace who would react if they knew the truth and one that has been carefully and systematically conditioned to just not give a fuck.

Systematically conditioned to paying full attention to crap like Lady GaGa, Angelina Jolie, Taylor Swift, movies, reality TV shows, etc ...   :rolleyes:

I still think the Military Icebreaker - combat software with the same kind of mystique as a B2 stealth bomber, piloted in real time by a shit hot console jockey - is the coolest thing in the world.

And I presume somewhere in the world there exists some kind of army authored hacking tool. So did they get it right or wrong?

It seems to me that there are elements of truth to be found in cyberpunk fiction, and that is all one can really hope for.

And Military Icebreakers are so cool I'd have missed them if they didn't exist.

My GURPS Cyberpunk campaign ran from 1990 to 1992, and it is still one era in my gaming history I fondly remember (it actually was inspired by "Golem^100" by Alfred Bester, and had horror and paranormal elements.

It was set in 2090. Manhattan was abandoned, a refuge for the poor and the homeless. A Megacorporation had built a lab under the WTC Towers, and they experimented with drugs capable of awakening mental powers in human beings (the lab rats were the destitutes living in Manhattan). A subway train connected this lab to a monitoring center set under Liberty Island.

Some of the experimental drugs came from chemicals exctracted in SE Asia (exp. Laos) after a war down there where heavy concentrations of NBC weapons had been used on the jungles.

You can see the inspirations: "Blade Runner", "Escape from New York", some of the most hallucinogenic vistas of "Apocalypse Now", "Altered States" and even "Air America" and some Iron Maidens' cover threw in the mix. It also was the only time that a campaign didn't ended well with *the players* agreeing that it was a great ending. :D

Anyway, for my 2090 future I took an hint from "Aliens": take reconigzable technology and prop it with futuristic thinghies. The "marines" from "Aliens" are worse equipped than an elite soldier of today, and helmet-mounted cameras sending sending images on fuzzy B/W screens were "retro" even when the movie was out. But that was the point: you both grasped the context and had enough cool vistas/gadgets to call it "futuristic/awe inspiring". Same for the choices made in the original "Alien" or in movies like "Outland".

IMHO, *the* thing no one saw coming were cellphones. An iPhone 4 would cost a truck of credits in the "future" of GURPS Cyberpunk.

Quote from: ReckallIMHO, *the* thing no one saw coming were cellphones. An iPhone 4 would cost a truck of credits in the "future" of GURPS Cyberpunk.

And what's nuts is they we're already here (according the wikipedia the first commercial cell network was launched in Japan in 1979). I remember that people I knew started to get them in the early 90's.
I think, though, that nobody imagined they would be quite so ubiquitous.

Quote from: Reckall;416180IMHO, *the* thing no one saw coming were cellphones. An iPhone 4 would cost a truck of credits in the "future" of GURPS Cyberpunk.

My personal favorite: the "Cistron" from GURPS Black Ops.

A miniature computer with a full-color screen that you can write on, a fold-out keyboard, can access the Internet AND television AND radio. OMG! And it has a GPS!

Price: $62,000, if you can find one on the black market because it's super-magic ultra-technology.

Quote from: Aos;416181And what's nuts

SIMPLE JACK

Did fucking Erik Bwhotshismname post something not about...the GAME...or rather THE game?

I will mark this date in my calandar.

I don't think cyberpunk is unplayable or goofy.

Would a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon type game be unplayable?  Maybe a little goofy, but certainly not unplayable.  Same with cyberpunk.  Just as the "rocket patrol" pulps are a 1930s vision of the future, so too is Neuromancer/Talsorian-esque cyberpunk a 1980s/early 90s vision of the [nearer?] future.

Doesn't invalidate a thing.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?  How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

It is the old adage, "My dear, I play in the middle ages but god as my witness. I never ever want to live in the real middle ages."

When you dig beyond a surface examination of events you will find the things that we changed because they proved intolerable or abhorrent to live with.  Doesn't mean our times are not beset with problems nor does it mean that we can cease to be vigilant.  

But it doesn't change the fact that more people live in freedom and prosperity today than any other time in human history. That trends continue to point to the expansion of both.

As to the original OP, yes there are elements of cyberpunk today. Extrapolation works well for many elements of technology. Jules Verne's book "Paris in the 20th century" is eerily prescient in many parts. But taken as a whole both Verne and Gibson are way off the mark. The main problem are being unable to predict "out of left-field" advances along with secondary and synergistic effects on society due to technological progress.

Today Cyberpunk is still enjoyable as an alternate present. Much like James Bond/Super Spy, Urban Fantasy, and several other genre.

Quote from: CRKrueger;416162I always viewed Cyberpunk in a social, political and economic context, I never thought "Pink Mohawk" was a key to the genre.  Corporate dystopia and the willing sacrifice of freedoms by the populace were the keys for me, and we got that in spades.

I agree with this. Like the Comedian said: "It came true. You're living in it." Isn't the sf that stands in the same relation to today's world as cyberpunk to the world of the 80s all that posthuman Singularity stuff -- like Charles Stross and Ken McLeod?

Quote from: danbuter;416019On the contrary, I think the current world is very cyberpunk, minus the common cybernetics. If you're outside in a city or many large towns, you're on camera. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it was Blackwater doing the street corner guards stuff. Big banks and big corporations tell politicians what to do. The internet is pervasive. iPhones and other wireless devices are better than the cyperpunk stuff in the Gibson books.

Things are very dystopian right now. England is hurtling back to the nineteenth century and America feels like a lost cause. Russia seems to be flexing its muscles from time to time while China is on the ascent. India is a fast growing nuclear power.

I used to enjoy Cyberpunk greatly but it has not aged well at all. I'm sure there are plenty of good modern iterations of the genre, but modern technology renders the ability to predict fun stuff a little less potent. Digital technology was new in the 80's and so 'jacking in' was a cool idea. In the end I started reading Jeff Noon whose work somehow got lumped in with cyberpunk when it's more organic and rooted in mythology not cybernetics.

Quote from: ggroy;416074Billy Idol's "Cyberpunk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_(album))" cd?

No matter what anyone says, Adam In Chains is a good tune.

Quote from: ggroy;416088Holodeck porn?  :rolleyes:

ah yes..."if you need me captain, i'll be on holodeck 4"

No surprise there, number one.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;416381Things are very dystopian right now. England is hurtling back to the nineteenth century and America feels like a lost cause. Russia seems to be flexing its muscles from time to time while China is on the ascent. India is a fast growing nuclear power.

I used to enjoy Cyberpunk greatly but it has not aged well at all. I'm sure there are plenty of good modern iterations of the genre, but modern technology renders the ability to predict fun stuff a little less potent. Digital technology was new in the 80's and so 'jacking in' was a cool idea. In the end I started reading Jeff Noon whose work somehow got lumped in with cyberpunk when it's more organic and rooted in mythology not cybernetics.

I feel like you and I have a very different view of the world. I'd say, "America is being forced into a state of sustainability (; Russia is flexing its muscles by flying its outdated 1960's air force around the Atlantic and fiddling with its own despair, India is on a fast track to suffering one of the largest and most horrible famines ever recorded during the next 40 years, and China's top heavy population internal political tension promises a shitty future of decline.

The global crisis forces states and people into a nastier frame of mind and more predatory behaviour all around (witness Greece being thrown under the tracks by its former buddies who enabled/encouraged it to spend like crazy, or the way foreclosures are being subcontracted/auctioned off to people who are basically the mafia), so while we might not get chromed-up cybersluts with retractable claws, we might get homeless cannibal gangs roaming the big cities, a constant barrage of increasingly aggressive commercials and a lot of totally cool corporate and government-related repression. Plus we already have a lot of fucked up post-modern subcultures that are way weirder than most CP could dream up, except maybe less concerned with everyday violence. Take a trip to 4chan and see what I mean (or better yet, don't do it). :worship:

Quote from: Cranewings;416386I feel like you and I have a very different view of the world. I'd say, "America is being forced into a state of sustainability (; Russia is flexing its muscles by flying its outdated 1960's air force around the Atlantic and fiddling with its own despair, India is on a fast track to suffering one of the largest and most horrible famines ever recorded during the next 40 years, and China's top heavy population internal political tension promises a shitty future of decline.

The soliloquoy section in Spreading the Disease by Queensryche from their 1987 long player, Operation Mindcrime, is as relevant then as it is today, and that is quintessentially cyberpunk though perhaps with the exception of the rise of the religious right/fundamentalism. I don't recall Gibson writing about that, but it's been a while since I read him. My favourite was always Burning Chrome.

Cyberpunk is essentially a parody. The notion in Snow Crash of the single heavily armed guy that is in fact a nation state, and the cosa nostra running fast food. This crazy extrapolation into hypereality isn't something that has translated well into gaming.

Here's my view of a potential cyberpunk future based on the fears of today:

* The world becomes dominated by the economies of China and India and the militaries of China and Iran.  Japan, Brazil, and Turkey are major players now as well.  The USA has collapsed under the weight of its own debt because one side refused to cut the military or increase taxes while the other side refused to cut spending on the poor or stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

* The USA is now over 50% Hispanic with even Arabs being a larger minority than Whites.  Spanish and Arabic are now the official languages.  A coalition government of Hispanic Catholic cardinals, Arab Muslim mullahs, and Fundamentalist Protestant bishops now rules the country, which is divided into zones for each (anyone not falling into one of these categories is relegated to a slave caste).  This branch of government handles all laws for social issues - a large part of the coalition holding together is their agreement that a primary goal for the nation is to hunt down and kill all homosexuals and their supporters.

* A small conclave of ancient rich white men rule the megacorps who manage the other branch of government dealing with all other kinds of laws.  None of them actually live in the USA itself (as it is largely a wasteland now) - they handle everything remotely and most are only still alive through massive advanced life-support systems.

* Most areas of the USA are now wastelands, both as the result of nuclear hits (the result of a reaction to the country's relentless war-mongering), the collapse of the government (after it went bankrupt), and the loss of most jobs as nearly everyone was outsourced from other countries.

* Parts of the USA are now being rebuilt as new "company cities" by the megacorps after the standard of living here fell below that of Bangladesh.  Slavery was re-instituted as a punishment for bankruptcy, with most poor people (white and black) now owned by the corporations and the other wealthy elite.  The new cities have areas of slave dwellings (slums), factories, and the palaces owned by the wealthy elite.

* The ruins of cities are home to massive gangs that are nearly feral.  Rural areas have cave-dwelling clans of inbred cannibals.

* The world as a whole is very bad off.  Temperatures have risen several degrees, massive flooding along coastlines with deadly droughts in some areas while others endure massive rainfall.  The result - widespread agricultural losses resulting in famines.  The air is choked with smoke across the entire planet.  Most flora and fauna is dead.  Cans of pure air are sold on the black market.

* The year of the game is still set in 2020.  ;)

Quote from: jgants;416446* The USA is now over 50% Hispanic with even Arabs being a larger minority than Whites.  Spanish and Arabic are now the official languages.  A coalition government of Hispanic Catholic cardinals, Arab Muslim mullahs, and Fundamentalist Protestant bishops now rules the country, which is divided into zones for each (anyone not falling into one of these categories is relegated to a slave caste).  This branch of government handles all laws for social issues - a large part of the coalition holding together is their agreement that a primary goal for the nation is to hunt down and kill all homosexuals and their supporters.

Osama Bin Laden is de facto president of the world.

Quote from: jgants;416446Here's my view of a potential cyberpunk future based on the fears of today:

* The world becomes dominated by the economies of China and India and the militaries of China and Iran.  Japan, Brazil, and Turkey are major players now as well.  The USA has collapsed under the weight of its own debt because one side refused to cut the military or increase taxes while the other side refused to cut spending on the poor or stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

* The USA is now over 50% Hispanic with even Arabs being a larger minority than Whites.  Spanish and Arabic are now the official languages.  A coalition government of Hispanic Catholic cardinals, Arab Muslim mullahs, and Fundamentalist Protestant bishops now rules the country, which is divided into zones for each (anyone not falling into one of these categories is relegated to a slave caste).  This branch of government handles all laws for social issues - a large part of the coalition holding together is their agreement that a primary goal for the nation is to hunt down and kill all homosexuals and their supporters.

* A small conclave of ancient rich white men rule the megacorps who manage the other branch of government dealing with all other kinds of laws.  None of them actually live in the USA itself (as it is largely a wasteland now) - they handle everything remotely and most are only still alive through massive advanced life-support systems.

* Most areas of the USA are now wastelands, both as the result of nuclear hits (the result of a reaction to the country's relentless war-mongering), the collapse of the government (after it went bankrupt), and the loss of most jobs as nearly everyone was outsourced from other countries.

* Parts of the USA are now being rebuilt as new "company cities" by the megacorps after the standard of living here fell below that of Bangladesh.  Slavery was re-instituted as a punishment for bankruptcy, with most poor people (white and black) now owned by the corporations and the other wealthy elite.  The new cities have areas of slave dwellings (slums), factories, and the palaces owned by the wealthy elite.

* The ruins of cities are home to massive gangs that are nearly feral.  Rural areas have cave-dwelling clans of inbred cannibals.

* The world as a whole is very bad off.  Temperatures have risen several degrees, massive flooding along coastlines with deadly droughts in some areas while others endure massive rainfall.  The result - widespread agricultural losses resulting in famines.  The air is choked with smoke across the entire planet.  Most flora and fauna is dead.  Cans of pure air are sold on the black market.

* The year of the game is still set in 2020.  ;)

Jesus Christ, that is fucking awesome.

My Pathfinder group just started talking about wanting to play Cyberpunk too...

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416014...are those media now sort of goofy and unwatchable/playable/etc.?

Cyberpunk is precisely as unplayable as are westerns, 1930s pulp adventure, cliffhanger-style SF like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Lovecraftian jazz-age horror and any other genre that you can think of.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!;416487Cyberpunk is precisely as unplayable as are westerns, 1930s pulp adventure, cliffhanger-style SF like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, Lovecraftian jazz-age horror and any other genre that you can think of.

Holy crap! Welcome back, Herr Doctor! :)

Indeed!

Hey WB Doc R

Idoru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru) is happening now...

http://singularityhub.com/2010/11/09/cant-miss-videos-of-japans-3d-hologram-rock-star-hatsune-miku-in-hd/

Woot - the Doctor is IN! :)

Thanks.  If I can think of anything to say, I may stay.

Don't let that stop you - half the time nobody is saying anything around here anyway. ;)

In cyberpunk, Azeroth would be a recognised nation state.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;416383No matter what anyone says, Adam In Chains is a good tune.

There were a few ok songs on that cd.

Though in the end, that cd was very much doa when it was first released.  It may have got a better chance, if Billy Idol had released it under a pseudonym and on an indie label.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416014It's kind of like listening to KMFDM - "I can't believe I ever thought this was all that great."

But... but... some of the KMFDM songs are really good. Some are trash, but some are still good. *sniff*

Quote from: danbuter;416019On the contrary, I think the current world is very cyberpunk, minus the common cybernetics. If you're outside in a city or many large towns, you're on camera. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it was Blackwater doing the street corner guards stuff. Big banks and big corporations tell politicians what to do. The internet is pervasive. iPhones and other wireless devices are better than the cyperpunk stuff in the Gibson books.

This is the stuff me and my GF point out all the time (we both really like cyberpunk). We see something really high-tech and we're like, "hello, cyberpunk" (yea, that's a direct quote). Last thing we saw that did this: we were in the Emergency Room a week or so ago and they took Val's temperature with this plastic "nub" that they just ran across her forehead over to her gland on her neck. Literally one second. Just a quick swipe across the forehead. It was uber-cyberpunk.

Also: love any thread where Deus Ex is mentioned. It really is my favorite video game, ever. I hope the third one makes up for the shitty second installment.

Regarding the OP: no, I am in agreement with quite a few posts here. I look at things like Cyberpunk 2020 (which I still run from time to time) as divergent-history type things. Fantasy-science fiction. Sort of a "what if" setting.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069Punk went mainstream and sold out. Even the dark future has its Green Day.

Punk did not go mainstream. The mainstream has tried to emulate punk. There's a difference. A bunch of middle-class suburban nice kids playing pop-punk all over the radio was never punk. Some *bands* have sold out, for sure (Casualties, I'm looking at you, you fucking sell-outs), but punk as a whole is still an angry, urban D.I.Y scene.

Quote from: estar;416080The virtual reality aspect of the NET I thought was dumb. Especially how most cyberpunk games modeled net hacking as a series of "boxes" like a dungeon.  My view then hacking would be you figuring how to establish a direct connection and go from there. That the net in this regard acted more like the phone network that it just gets you connected to destination from where you are.

Werd. I always made the 'net just DOS. No Windows 2020 to look at. No stupid friggin' Matrix where people look like Dragons and circus clowns. Just green symbols and letters on a black background. I HATE the idea of the Matrix in Cyberpunk games. The movies it was okay. But the way it is handled in most RPGs? No. Just... no.

-=Grim=-

Speaking of Military Icebreakers...

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/

QuoteSimply put, Stuxnet is an incredibly advanced, undetectable computer worm that took years to construct and was designed to jump from computer to computer until it found the specific, protected control system that it aimed to destroy: Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

The target was seemingly impenetrable; for security reasons, it lay several stories underground and was not connected to the World Wide Web. And that meant Stuxnet had to act as sort of a computer cruise missile: As it made its passage through a set of unconnected computers, it had to grow and adapt to security measures and other changes until it reached one that could bring it into the nuclear facility.

When it ultimately found its target, it would have to secretly manipulate it until it was so compromised it ceased normal functions.

And finally, after the job was done, the worm would have to destroy itself without leaving a trace.

I'm willing to back off of my original thesis, just a tiny bit.

One thing that smacked me as being "THAT UNPROBABLE!" when I first read Neuromancer back in the late 80's (shut up, Firefox, Neuromancer is so a word) was that everything existed in the Cloud.  Case didn't need a phone line to use the net.  Wherever he and his deck were, he was able to log on.

well... (http://www.pinzoo.com/wireless-refill-minutes/airlink-mobile-prepaid-airtime-cards/coverage-map.jpg)

Part the second: when I read Neuromancer, the one model cell phone you could buy cost as much as my friends brand new Chevy Luv pickup truck ($4300, but he didn't have a/c or a stereo).  You could use that cell phone in like four major cities.

I bought one for $5, but it was on sale.  The cheapest in this list costs $7 (http://www.walmart.com/browse/Cell-Phones/Prepaid-Cell-Phones/_/N-7tpbZaq90Zaqce/Ne-2p4j?tab_value=Online&ic=48_0&ref=&search_sort=4&selected_items=+&depts=E)

And finally: the $99 computer (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227300249)

So for a little more than a hundred bucks, including the price of a cup of coffee or a soda at any of the local fast food joints near me (or I can just sit outside of them and save a buck or two) I can do business (legal and illegal) on the 'net, watch TV, talk to people at great distances...

Is it like ramming a meat thermometer sized "CYBERJACK" into my forehead and viewing things in a horrid 1980's color scheme of flat shaded polygons where viruses look like monsters and I have to wear a data glove and other silly shit?

No, but there is a degree of "street grit" to the idea that if someone needed to do illicit activities on a computer as well as via phone, they could, and then throw the hardware in the trash outside and move on, as opposed to 10-15 years ago when the idea of pitching a $4000 laptop and $900 cell phone might make even the most jaded "punk" flinch a little inside.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;422014So for a little more than a hundred bucks, including the price of a cup of coffee or a soda at any of the local fast food joints near me (or I can just sit outside of them and save a buck or two) I can do business (legal and illegal) on the 'net, watch TV, talk to people at great distances...

Is it like ramming a meat thermometer sized "CYBERJACK" into my forehead and viewing things in a horrid 1980's color scheme of flat shaded polygons where viruses look like monsters and I have to wear a data glove and other silly shit?

No, but there is a degree of "street grit" to the idea that if someone needed to do illicit activities on a computer as well as via phone, they could, and then throw the hardware in the trash outside and move on, as opposed to 10-15 years ago when the idea of pitching a $4000 laptop and $900 cell phone might make even the most jaded "punk" flinch a little inside.

I feel you. We *skipped* the meatjack.

A very good book about the geopolitic of the next 100 years is... The Next 100 Years (http://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years-Forecast-Century/dp/143321542X), by Thomas Friedman. Even if the author himself admits that most of the "facts" are speculation, the rationale behind them is very interesting, and can be used as a blueprint for one own "future world".