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Skitterdoc 2077

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Finbar said:
St Cogs is, based on rough guesses and looking at maps, not in the area that would traditionally become Dogtown, but rather it is a bit to the west of the stadium, but that said, Hanson might make her an offer of security, which means the area expands slightly, or, he may not feel comfortable about all the potential murder borgs being in 'his' new turf, when the shit hits the fan. Going to be interesting to see which way things go.
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On one hand, St. Cogs would be at that time home to the best ripper doc in the area which is more than enough reason to ignore their presence while on the other hand Taylor would be an unknown element with a small yet growing army of Borgs that could probably ventilate Hanson if given enough of a reason.
 
I'm so happy to see this update so quickly. Looks like Saint Cog may be used as buffer zone between Night City and the rest of Pacifica.
 
I can see it now!

...The assembly had started, the "Army of Night City" was slowly filling the large room.
As Marie and her men filled in they were first met with the borgs.
"Saint Cogs Home for lost Borgs" what a joke! They were a paramilitary force if she ever saw one!
They were an iron fist led by one of the scariest monster in the whole city and they were completely loyal to their "Warlord".
When the chaos had started they had been the first to join up with their "glorious leader" when She had snaped and decided to restore order the only way Night City understood: Massive amount of Brutal Violence.

While the fighting between Arrisaka amd Militech had stayed generally clear from the city proper it stil had spilled into it and in the issuing chaos many attempted to gain power or using it to further their own goals at the cost of the stability.

Gang wars had immediately erupted and mass lotting&rioting and in that mess The Ripperdoc had enough and started to clear up the mess in Her proximity.

The second group was made up of "Colonel" Hansen amd his "NOT NUSA" forces.
They had joined Her after the borgs and brought their own military vehicles with them.
As they had been officially not part of the NUSA military they had thrown in their lot with the Warlord and as the MiliTech had tried screw them over, their loyalty was assured but still, they were slowly becoming the NUSA loaned forces to Night City, acting as semi-official intermediate between NUSA/MiliTech and the Night City Ruler.

Next were the Tiger Claws, the Asian gang with such a badly hidden connection to Arrisaka that it was almost as bad a joke as the "Saint Cogs".

And with them but still stading somewhat apart was the man in old western setup and cowboy hat that the Warlord had poached from them.
Slightly delusional the man might be but you did not recive the nickname "Deadshot" in the Night City without good reason and the setup of upgrades She had done on him had quickly been named "The Deadshot Treatment".

The man had been transformed into a terror with a gun and his "gunslinging" had its own fan pages even.

Then where the other power broker's in the cities, those powerful and with influence but without the true connection to the Warlord:
Corpos, Gangs, Politicians and the few representatives of the people that allowed to attend this meeting.

Their leader had manage an incredibly act of diplomacy where She made it clear that Night City was not to be their battleground but they were allowed keep fighting and using the City as usual as the city remained neutral.

That and Her connections to both corpos and that She weilded the only truly organised military force AND the experience to use it properly had made Her proposal a better outcome than a costly war.

However, as the proposal hinged on one person having the power to enforce the neutrality, She had been forced to take power and with both of the big Corpos supporting Her the city leadership had no real choice but to fold.

Now Taylor Herbert was crowned The Warlord of Night City and according to all rumours.... She hated it...
 
Parzival95 said:
Big laugh that word is defintely gonna get around that for a small favor Taylor arranged for an Arasaka battle group to kick NUSA out in less than a day.
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I really want to say that this isn't really what happened, but uh. This is pretty much what has happened. The implementation details aren't really as important as the fact that talking to Taylor resulted in a literal freaking fleet of Arasaka ships to conveniently chill out nearby.

Yeah she is not just in the political web now, she's now Extremely Fucking Important. Let's hope the guy isn't very prone to sharing things. Except that people will know that he met with someone from the medical university, and can relatively easily trace who and when. It would require knowing that he was one wanting an option, but, uh. Yeah. Sorry Taylor, you are a politically significant entity now.

Especially if a tiny little fleet will end up being significant for the city's continued history.
 
Red Shirt said:
on the other hand Taylor would be an unknown element with a small yet growing army of Borgs that could probably ventilate Hanson if given enough of a reason.
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Given that they believe Taylor to be there "on family business," I'd expect they both wouldn't want to pick a fight with Gram's organisation as long as they can coexist, and would expect her to have many other HVAC options than the borgs' not-a-gang (HVAC being Homicide, Ventilation And Carnage obviously)
 
Lydia Hood said:
Is it even a shard anymore? I mean it would seem alot more like en Entity than a mere Shard at this point, albeit one that is significantly nicer than its race typically are, I guess the lack of peer pressure and indoctrination in blowing up worlds of any species they interact with would help with that, plus the fact its obsessively focused on the only being it had at first interaction with, namely Taylor, so any notion of killing her would be anathema to it, as she is the only being it would consider in some way a kin.
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Well, it sorta acts like Vicky's shard does in Ward. It's still a shard, but it's more 'pro-host' than 'pro-science experiment lab rat'. Admittedly, I suspect Vicky's (and now Cyberpunk Taylor) shard has a few screws lose. But they loves their human pets!
 
Very sad about the Taylor x Gloria mutual friend-zoning, kinda surprised more people aren't talking about that.

Tho I can understand why when Taylor just organized a freaking Arasaka carrier battle group for the mayor of NC. There's no denying it, you're in the big leagues now, Tay-tay.
 
Huh, of all places I expected to see a QP relationship form, Cyberpunk was certainly not it.
Also really nice to see that nuance between envy and jealousy :D

And Chirurgeon going for the fast burn rather than the more conservative matrioska approach, which I guess makes sense when you have effectively infinite versions of the star to play with.

Now if it wants to change system it can now relativistically slowboat via Antimatter Photon Rocket with a ramscoop, unless it has a reactionless drive design stashed in that crystal somewhere. I doubt regular shards are given access to the shard FTL method tbh, and would it even work in this reality?
Tho ofc that would immediately make her prescence obvious to the neighbors, tho its probably too late given how distinct antimatter is. Just gotta wait for the light emissions to reach our funny aliens :rofl:
 
Ashran said:
Huh, of all places I expected to see a QP relationship form, Cyberpunk was certainly not it.
Also really nice to see that nuance between envy and jealousy :D
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I wouldn't call it QP. More like mixed signals on the Gloria/Taylor thing, since Taylor is essentially hellbent on remaining Aro-Ace. She just wants a kith-and-kin setup, not a love life. Domestic partnership without the squicky parts. That's what I've been reading it as anyhow.

Too much altered brain physiognomy can do that to you I guess. (So can extensive childhood trauma, especially the varieties that result, in Worm, in Master type triggers. Go figure.)

Point is, she doesn't see herself as Gloria's girlfriend and Gloria didn't have enough "chosen family" architectures to work with because Cyberpunk is dystopian.

Ashran said:
And Chirurgeon going for the fast burn rather than the more conservative matrioska approach, which I guess makes sense when you have effectively infinite versions of the star to play with.

Now if it wants to change system it can now relativistically slowboat via Antimatter Photon Rocket with a ramscoop, unless it has a reactionless drive design stashed in that crystal somewhere. I doubt regular shards are given access to the shard FTL method tbh, and would it even work in this reality?
Tho ofc that would immediately make her prescence obvious to the neighbors, tho its probably too late given how distinct antimatter is. Just gotta wait for the light emissions to reach our funny aliens :rofl:
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What Chirurgeon seems to really need is a way to tap more eldritch dimensional energy (ideally without getting caught by the Network). Or at least a way to substitute physical energy for dimensional for any of her other activities so she can eliminate her last practical bottleneck on longevity.
 
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Logos01 said:
I wouldn't call it QP. More like mixed signals on the Gloria/Taylor thing, since Taylor is essentially hellbent on remaining Aro-Ace. She just wants a kith-and-kin setup, not a love life. Domestic partnership without the squicky parts. That's what I've been reading it as anyhow.

Too much altered brain physiognomy can do that to you I guess. (So can extensive childhood trauma, especially the varieties that result, in Worm, in Master type triggers. Go figure.)

Point is, she doesn't see herself as Gloria's girlfriend and Gloria didn't have enough "chosen family" architectures to work with because Cyberpunk is dystopian.

What Chirurgeon seems to really need is a way to tap more eldritch dimensional energy (ideally without getting caught by the Network). Or at least a way to substitute physical energy for dimensional for any of her other activities so she can eliminate her last practical bottleneck on longevity.
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Taylor isnt really aroace, more demisexual. Its just that in Cyberpunk the difference is a lot harder to grasp given the 'cultural zeitgeist'

Also, there's no "Network" to get caught by, this multiverse cluster is the Cyberpunk cluster and is therefore 100% separate from the Worm cluster. The issue is that dimensional energy is a very specialised resource most likely produced by dedicated support shards whose function and structure were explicitly meant for it. There's no reason a newborn medical shard would ever get such structures and more importantly, the data for its production in the first place. For Chirurgeon, dimensional energy is therefore lostech.
 
Ashran said:
Taylor isnt really aroace, more demisexual. Its just that in Cyberpunk the difference is a lot harder to grasp given the 'cultural zeitgeist'
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Given that what we're describing is in either case a trauma-induced impaired libido, putting any importance on specific contemporary identity-driven labels on it is rather silly. The point was successfully conveyed in any case. She doesn't have relationships or sexual intimacy, and aside from purely safe fantasy scenarios she barely engages in, doesn't want either enough to even pretend. But it's no part of how she understands her nature or relationship with the world: not "who she is".

Ashran said:
Also, there's no "Network" to get caught by, this multiverse cluster is the Cyberpunk cluster and is therefore 100% separate from the Worm cluster.
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There's communication back and forth sufficient that the two Taylors have had full on conversations. Ergo, dimensional activity can be noticed if it's not cautious of that fact.

Ashran said:
For Chirurgeon, dimensional energy is therefore lostech.
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She has Haywire's Tinker Shard data. She should be able to reverse engineer that lostech from that alone.
 
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Ace Dreamer said:
Does that work if the ninja are Spider Drones?

Or, could she switch to 'Zerg Rush'?
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One Ninja is an unstoppable epic badass. A hundred ninja are a speedbump. See also: Doctor McNinja v. Rayner (my old link for this is busted. May require some googling. It's this trope and the old reverse switcheroo dialed to eleven.)


Ace Dreamer said:
Shards are not noted for their creativity... Poor shard-chan... OTOH, maybe [BEST HOST] could help?
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I mean this Shard has already gone off the rails enough to sublimate an entire star system. And is contradicting her ingrained sensibilities to open direct communication with her Host.

So who knows. My point was just that it's her main bottleneck and solving it would eliminate pretty much all of her longevity/functionality issues.
 
A shard/human hybrid is born…. If it was any other universe I would say may god have mercy on there souls but here… they deserve what she will do to them. Thanks for the chapter it's been awhile.
 
nice chapter thx for writing it
fun seeing the army guys planning to become part of the gang of taylor ^^
can already see grandmother going with a proud tear thinking she is a chip of the old block
 
Lydia Hood said:
Is it even a shard anymore? I mean it would seem alot more like en Entity than a mere Shard at this point, albeit one that is significantly nicer than its race typically are, I guess the lack of peer pressure and indoctrination in blowing up worlds of any species they interact with would help with that, plus the fact its obsessively focused on the only being it had at first interaction with, namely Taylor, so any notion of killing her would be anathema to it, as she is the only being it would consider in some way a kin.
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One they will be a lovely entity couple.
The only AI she understands, understands her, and truly gets along with.
1stSlug said:
Well, it sorta acts like Vicky's shard does in Ward. It's still a shard, but it's more 'pro-host' than 'pro-science experiment lab rat'. Admittedly, I suspect Vicky's (and now Cyberpunk Taylor) shard has a few screws lose. But they loves their human pets!
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She's less a human pet right now and more a pet rock to her, a crystalline pebble at that.
 
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Logos01 said:
There's communication back and forth sufficient that the two Taylors have had full on conversations. Ergo, dimensional activity can be noticed if it's not cautious of that fact.
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It is the connection between the Taylors that allowed the conversation not a connection between the Shards. Whatever caused the swap doesn't appear to be Shard based and didn't allow for direct communication between Shards.
 
Something was bothering me in the last chapter, and I think I've found it.

Wouldn't the powers that be from Night city offer to pay Taylor for using her to contact their family for playing messenger? in the corpo run world, I'd expect that she would be compensated for using her contacts... Or is the whole thing about Taylor repaying that favour back?
 
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I've lost track of the shard animals, Taylor has Shard pigeon, who has Shard dog? I think it might be space Taylor. Did Arasaka Taylor get a shard animal? Basement Taylor definitely didn't have one I know that much
 
Redelectric said:
I've lost track of the shard animals, Taylor has Shard pigeon, who has Shard dog? I think it might be space Taylor. Did Arasaka Taylor get a shard animal? Basement Taylor definitely didn't have one I know that much
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Taylor has the pigeon.
'Arasaka' Taylor used to have a dog, but kidnappers didn't kidnap her dog, so David has it.
No other animals if memory serves
 
I have asked elsewhere but found a answer here. Siren's Call is located in Dogtown or now Borgtown. With Kiwi acting as the Police. Scavs are the Criminals. Col. Hanson will become Night City Special Forces?

I mean, Col. Hanson felt like he was being set up, he was sound out by an old friend on which way he will jump. His 2nd is babysitting a bunch from MilTech Intel Weenies who are Exited! While a separate group, who Taylor is a part of, has Net Assets that equal of a Medium DATA bank. His 2nd was fed info to wreck Dr. Taylor visits.

Is His Boss being fed False Info to wreck a Rival Ops action and Col. Hanson left Holding the Bag?
 
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