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Skitterdoc 2077

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After the Astor is a scenario that doesn't actually involve a family called Astor, and is instead about Arasaka trying to take over the police force contract in Melbourne.

Skimmed through Eurosource and Eurosource+, but neither name comes up.

Of the upper class mentioned, interestingly the 'Old Nobility' are actually not in as good a position as the upcomers, as seen by how they try to marry into newer powers. The truly powerful are the 'Goldenkids' (as in a class of people, not a family name) (Not to be confused with the Goldenkid's mentioned on the wiki, which are the Cybergeneration/ Yogang version, similar in attitude but are much smaller in scale that the version in Eurosource).

The Goldenkids are the descendants of the corporate elite during the initial explosion of corporate power, with immense wealth, as well as both political and military power. Explicitly stated to be one of the controlling forces behind the government and the Euro-council (indirectly of course). They play games that gamble ownership of entire companies.

There's a side note about someone who was asked to investigate a family member, but they refuse since the last guy sent just disappeared.

They are noted to have undergone genetic modification and 'probably' nanotech upgrades to reduce the effect of ageing, and while it's probable they received other optimisations it is not specified.

Though this is of course for the 2020 series, so we don't know how that power lasted through the century.
 
One way to defeat face matching irl is to dazzle the sensors. Just a mask with some very bright infared LED's will drown out most common cameras.
Obviously that does not defeat facial tracking, since it's basically a beacon saying "I'm a sneaky mofo". But it's the sort of thing that you could pretty trivially embed in a bunch of clothing like hats and stuff using modern tech, so I could easily see it becoming a fashion statement. To the point that you might be able to blend into a crowd.
 
The_Shameful said:
After the Astor is a scenario that doesn't actually involve a family called Astor, and is instead about Arasaka trying to take over the police force contract in Melbourne.

Skimmed through Eurosource and Eurosource+, but neither name comes up.

Of the upper class mentioned, interestingly the 'Old Nobility' are actually not in as good a position as the upcomers, as seen by how they try to marry into newer powers. The truly powerful are the 'Goldenkids' (as in a class of people, not a family name) (Not to be confused with the Goldenkid's mentioned on the wiki, which are the Cybergeneration/ Yogang version, similar in attitude but are much smaller in scale that the version in Eurosource).

The Goldenkids are the descendants of the corporate elite during the initial explosion of corporate power, with immense wealth, as well as both political and military power. Explicitly stated to be one of the controlling forces behind the government and the Euro-council (indirectly of course). They play games that gamble ownership of entire companies.

There's a side note about someone who was asked to investigate a family member, but they refuse since the last guy sent just disappeared.

They are noted to have undergone genetic modification and 'probably' nanotech upgrades to reduce the effect of ageing, and while it's probable they received other optimisations it is not specified.

Though this is of course for the 2020 series, so we don't know how that power lasted through the century.
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Ok then.

So now I'm wondering if this was something common with campaigns. I know that's happened in some meta-plot settings, one person's idea spreads and mixes. (WoD had several things that started as fan ideas, were posted in the White Wolf magazine, and then ended up as 'canon' in various campaigns)

It's been so long that I don't know. Like I said I saw the name pop up in some old campaign blog.
 
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for anyone interested

If you have Cyberpunk 2077 on PC it also comes with a free copy of the 2020 Core Rulebook in the game files under "BonusContent" subfolder "sourcebook"
 
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Arimai said:
Won't work for CCP. The MSS killed the first to try that. Plus you need both your GPS chipped internal passport, and government issued phone on you at all times and within a limited range of each other or it sends an alert to the local police station. You cannot access any store or service without that ID and QR code from your phone. If the recorded feed from the surrounding crowd does not have your face on it, every person who was there for that time frame get arrested and tortured. Everyone. If you were unlucky enough to have walked within a block of the location MSS or one of the other security agencies will arrest you. The PRC totally embraced the concept of Big Brother from 1984 and decided it was too soft and proceeded to make a more Despotic version.

That phone is always on and recording live 24 hours a day to the closest MSS data server. We sold them that tech.
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So you appear to be talking about politics...

I'm talking about stuff in the context of a fictional story set fifty years in the future which was originally dreamed up like 40 years ago.
 
Ciber said:
So you appear to be talking about politics...

I'm talking about stuff in the context of a fictional story set fifty years in the future which was originally dreamed up like 40 years ago.
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In their defense, I was the same about the game's idea that the Old Internet somehow could keep itself online and working, without anyone paying electrical bills or repairing hardware, and somehow not being able to be stopped by cutting wires and turning off power to buildings....

There's several things in the setting that if you're aware of how things turned out IRL, that just stand out because "That doesn't work like that."


It's a 40 year old title set in an alt-timeline. That's not always in the mind of people when they go off on a rant like this.
 
GamingGeek said:
In their defense, I was the same about the game's idea that the Old Internet somehow could keep itself online and working, without anyone paying electrical bills or repairing hardware, and somehow not being able to be stopped by cutting wires and turning off power to buildings....

There's several things in the setting that if you're aware of how things turned out IRL, that just stand out because "That doesn't work like that."


It's a 40 year old title set in an alt-timeline. That's not always in the mind of people when they go off on a rant like this.
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Remember it's an old internet that was infested with malevolent AI superintelligences for a blurry period of time.
It's entirely possible they were clever at times. Hiding. Pretending for a time that certain systems had been successfully purged. Hacking chip foundries so that their malware backdoors are baked into any new hardware. Starlink style networks of sats that can mimic cell towers. Piggybacking powerlines for data transmission. Subverting open source repositories to embed mathematical backdoors into common encryption algorithms. Submersibles in the deep ocean tapping into any newly laid undersea cables.

Remember. Some places had to go back to punch cards for a time.
It's no mean feat to force that.

Modern semiconductor manufacturing is the kind of thing that requires literally global levels of cooperation. Entire pyramids of integrated design software interfacing between companies. It's very possible that the fragmented future of 2077 can's support that. That to sustain their tech level they just have to live with malevolent AI in their chip design software stack. Relying on clever software sandboxing to run their everything while unable to affect the parasitic network stack that underpinning.
 
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GamingGeek said:
In their defense, I was the same about the game's idea that the Old Internet somehow could keep itself online and working, without anyone paying electrical bills or repairing hardware, and somehow not being able to be stopped by cutting wires and turning off power to buildings....
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I'm pretty sure the AIs controlled all the power and manufacturing at the time of the crash. Like, in the vein of Delamaine's manufacturing, but for everything. And of course, fuckloads of autonomous military weapons, which would likely have their own autonomous support equipment for field maintenance, so that alone covers defense against cutting and repairs... and even if it didn't, what better way to cut costs than autonomous cable bots! :V

On top of all this, the old net was an Internet of Things, so aside from power cutting cables wouldn't do too much. It's a lot of wireless mesh.

It's still possible to attack it, and undoubtedly things were cut, but it's not as simple a problem (or a non-problem) as you're assuminmg it to be.
 
Lanthanoid Slime said:
I haven't seen anyone in the thread make a clear, sourced statement establishing the Astor's canonical presence in the source material. I would love to see some old scans from the original books, that sort of thing I find fun. Reading what Spira wrote, I see no supporting evidence for the Astors holding eugenic sympathies or gene editing their family line beyond the norm in this fictional instance.

I suspect that many of the people acting excited!excited about about them are trying to invoke IRL conspiracy theories that say that the Astors, since they are a rich and prominent family, therefore must be secret Jewish Freemasons with ties to the Illuminati. IMO it requires less assumptions to assume that the author didn't think up of another version of the 'Tessier-Ashpool' name from Neuromancer and just copied straight from the sources William Gibson remixed.
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I was referencing the Armstrong half of the name, not Astor, although that side may have a hand in the absurd wealth part.
 
Ciber said:
So you appear to be talking about politics...

I'm talking about stuff in the context of a fictional story set fifty years in the future which was originally dreamed up like 40 years ago.
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Deleted it. I meant to imply if that technique doesn't work today it won't work in the future. Cyberpunk has even more robust tracking and identification systems. Especially as many cybernetics worn by people are sourced from Scavs and knockoff companies who have hardwired back doors in those implants.
 
The Astor name is associated with Old Money in American media. They are referenced in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Futurama among others. They are mentioned in the original NYT article about the Titanic disaster I once read, so the actual family was active in the society papers of that time period. No idea of the current family state, not really curious either, outside it's uses as a fictional device.
 
Astors are still around, still rich, and have members who are British Nobility.

They're part of the *old money* families, both in Europe and America. (If you want humor, one of the most visible members of that 'class', worldwide? Paris Hilton. Amusing, isn't it.)

Edit (thought): While IIRC, ES/ES+/RGtUK mentioned that the *old nobility* was having issues, but getting members married into the Goldenkids, CP mentioned almost nothing, and I do mean nothing about the old money families. PacRim had some hints, (and that they're all mostly still around, still running corps et al, but not much more.), but outside that, almost nothing said. (IIRC, with the understanding that it's been years since I read CP2013/2020 source material, I think a few corporate fact files had one or two names that really were suspicious, but that's about it.)

Even in Europe Old Money != Old Nobility, though there is more than a bit of connection.
 
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I've seen a lot of speculation about Annette's family, but other than the small mention in story, nothing concrete. I don't think anything from source material has been shared either.

Some are speculating that Annette's family may have a background in genetic engineering and eugenics. If true, some evidence of that would be present in CP-Taylor's DNA, and a comparison would reveal a difference from Taylor's.

Does Taylor have any DNA samples from her counterpart still? Maybe a hairbrush or something.
 
Could you show a chapter about what is happening in the bay? Just really interesting to me and I want to know more. Not to say that what's happening in night city isn't interesting, it's just that I'm curious about what's going on in earth bet.
 
I would prefer the Bet storyline not be full chapters. What if you put a short bet quote at the start of each chapter. So you don't have to tell the whole story, just imply whats going on there.

"Why does it have so many limbs"

"This is the Protectorate! Come out with all your hands up!"

"So this 'gonk', is is in the room with us right now?"
 
I would prefer to stay focused on the story being told. While I would probably read the opposite story, I always hate when stories jump back and forth, especially when they have no relevance to each others plot. It's not really a different scene or "checking in with other taylor" it's just writing an excerpt from a totally different story.

Things are finally getting to the point where thestory can really get exciting. Now with income, interaction and mild attention from the corps, military training and action with edgerunners. Even if it's mild, edgerunner jobs have a way of spinning wildly out of control
 
didntsave said:
Why not have it be in a side story tab?
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Doesn't stop it from being seen as a distraction or disjointed back and forth. The notification still appears since the author is posting multi-k words. In my view it would be a disservice for it to be a 'once in a while' update since it is legitimately its own story worth being told and its being treated effectively as the author including snippets unrelated to the stated title of the thread in this thread. It would have no impact on this story unless it was used to hint at CP!Taylor knowing something was going to happen because of past events along the line of "glad I don't have to keep paying off [person/gang that isn't 'Klaws] to keep that blackmail from getting out, not my problem now suckers!" only for that thing to happen that (next) chapter to Worm!Taylor. Basically a low effort justification for random events to occur to Taylor.
 
Please, please don't turn this into another Worm fanfiction. In my opinion this is a really well written story set in the Cyberpunk universe, which is rare. Worm fanfiction on the other hand is extremely common.
 
AirBreather said:
SpiraSpira,

There was a link posted on SB - unsure if you caught it:
The 12 Days of Cybermas - A Cyberpunk Red Holiday Sequel
@ https://rtalsoriangames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/RTG-CPR-DLC-12DaysofCybermas.pdf

The only cyberware option of note for Taylor would likely be the 'Raven Microcybernetics MicroWaldo,' even if she doesn't technically *need* it due to Tinker SKILLZ. Other options can add flavour or as neat 'finds!'
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Tech level on some of those is inconsistant with what we see in 2077, but that's almost given at this point. I still don't know why 2077 took away energy weapons and extreme cyberware/biosculpting (other than they didn't like it).
 
GamingGeek said:
Tech level on some of those is inconsistant with what we see in 2077, but that's almost given at this point. I still don't know why 2077 took away energy weapons and extreme cyberware/biosculpting (other than they didn't like it).
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The tech weapons I could not say at all why they are gone perhaps they felt they had enough types and more would slow things down. As for the extreme body sculpting that is definitely due to limits in the game engine since many of that would need different models. It would still be nice if they were in it though but given all the issues the game had when it came out and the improvements they made I can live without it.
 
Hdwj786 said:
The tech weapons I could not say at all why they are gone perhaps they felt they had enough types and more would slow things down. As for the extreme body sculpting that is definitely due to limits in the game engine since many of that would need different models. It would still be nice if they were in it though but given all the issues the game had when it came out and the improvements they made I can live without it.
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They can render Elves, Dwarves, Dryads, and monsters in the same engine for the Witcher... but they can't render exotics (including short-stacks*) running around Night City? :p

No, the reason was they didn't want to let the freak flag fly, and to be fair I do understand. Don't agree with, but I understand.

*Because remember, they tried to get Trigger to remove Rebecca because she didn't fit their vision of Night City.
 
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