Huh. I guess it's protagonist privilege. No idea what could they lack that we've got otherwise.
The Architect of Anarchy: A Cyberpunk Crafting Quest
- Thread starter Magoose
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
- Pronouns
- Zack
[X]Give us an Aftermath for this adventure?
I think it would be good to talk to Kenji after what we found out about the plans Arasaka has for us.
I think it would be good to talk to Kenji after what we found out about the plans Arasaka has for us.
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- Location
- Lost in the internet
[X]Give us an Aftermath for this adventure?
Let's unwind and plan our next step, 'cause we git heavy revelations
Let's unwind and plan our next step, 'cause we git heavy revelations
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
Well everyone around him is incompatent. Lets not kid ourselves here, if there was someone with a fraction of the skills that he has, he would have noticed.
Compleatly outshines Arasaka's stuff, and... they can't replicate it.
Thats the big thing that you must remember. Arasaka can't replicate something that Senji made in his kitchen table workshop.
Sure that is a problem, but it is also a solution to your problems.
Our parents have in store for us. Not Arasaka.
Soboro couldn't give two shits about you.
Our parents and the other board members however.
Vote closed
New
Crafter of War
The Dorf
- Location
- Bend
Arasaka is struggling even with access to all the high-end components they want. We made those with uncommon parts. UN-COMMON.
While uncommon components aren't literally scrap, to Arasaka they might as well be.
- Location
- Lost in the internet
Are we sure they were serious ?
Or are they trying to pull a tax-exemption scheme by pouring a shitload of money on R&D and claim it was unsuccessful XD ?
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
... I'm going to tell you something out side of story.
the Arasaka RND are failing to replicate it.
They simply lack imagination...
as to why they are failing, I am keeping that to myself.
But they are getting bent over the love seat by rivals within the company and everyone compatent is either getting reassigned. or just really rolling nat 1s.
When we go back to the normal turn I'm going to once again advocate for designing a souped-up cyberpunk Tommy gun. The Thompson is one of those guns that looks really good wielded by someone in a suit.
Plus it's a good idea to start out making small arms before going for heavier weapons.
Plus it's a good idea to start out making small arms before going for heavier weapons.
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Endorfinator
Awkwardly Social
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh I definitely have ideas for some weapons, get to bring out my deeply hidden enthusiasm.
- Location
- USA
The most amusing thing is if a competitor like Constitutional Arms or someone like them--heck, Colt, Beretta, Glock, etc. all still exist in 2013--gets ahold of a gun, goes 🤷♂️, and produces a working knock-off within 6 hours.
Adventure 1 Samurai Afterstory
New
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
Adventure 1 Samurai Afterstory
(White_Rabbit POV)
To think that all it took was for some wayward corpo to stumble right into his lap. A gift wrapped in corporate arrogance, delivered on a silver platter.
It wasn't even his win. It was hers.
That should have pissed him off. Should have made him feel more like a tool, a cog in the machine. And yet…
He couldn't be mad.
Because what she needed, what she wanted, what she was desperate for, was time.
Time to finish her work.
Time to make sure it wouldn't kill everyone who touched it.
Time to give him a chance, a real chance, to escape the cage of his fucked-up body and be free.
Tom exhaled, the breath rattling in his lungs. He coughed hard, the kind of wet, dragging sound that made his ribs ache, and then dialed the number.
He waited.
The dial tone rang.
Then—
"Tom?"
She was breathless. Like she'd just run a marathon. Or maybe he had disturbed her and Silverhand getting primal. Not that it mattered.
It made him feel like shit that he wasn't there. That he couldn't be.
Not while he was stuck in this chair.
Not while this—this hell—was his home.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Felt the shard in his hand.
"Alt, we have the data." He rasped, voice dry as static. A fit of coughing overtook him, forcing him to pause. When he finally caught his breath, he stared at the tiny sliver of stolen corporate hell between his fingers. "Got all of those secrets you needed. Should keep them off your back for a while. Make them focus elsewhere."
A sharp breath on the other end.
"Yeah? Didn't know you needed to turn off the entire fucking stadium to do it."
Tom let out a weak chuckle. "Had complications. But there always are." His lips curled into something like a smirk. "Easy to hide with Silverhand there. Thought it was just one of his stunts."
A pause.
And then—
"Senji… what's your take?"
Tom's brows furrowed. He tapped his fingers against his chair's armrest.
"Techie. Not a merc." He muttered. "Real good armorer and smith, though, if the chatter's right. Arasaka's losing their goddamn minds over this 'Ghost.' that made a weapon they can't replicate."
A longer pause.
"And?"
Tom sighed, tilting his head back. The injectors in his chair hissed softly, pumping more painkillers into his failing body.
"I'm ninety percent sure Senji and the Ghost are the same person."
Alt's voice was unreadable. "Can we use him?"
That made him laugh. Not a good laugh.
A bitter one.
Tom scoffed. "Use him? For what?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Not hesitation—calculation. Alt never spoke without thinking first, and that silence told him she already had a plan forming in that razor-sharp mind of hers.
Then, finally—
"For everything."
Tom frowned. "Everything?"
"Think about it." She sounded energized now, focused. "How many techies in Night City can actually craft something beyond off-the-shelf chrome? How many can design something from scratch that outperforms corpo-tier R&D? Arasaka has entire labs full of engineers, and they can't recreate his work."
Tom exhaled sharply. She wasn't wrong.
Arasaka had unlimited funding and some of the best engineers on the planet. If they were struggling to reverse-engineer the Ghost's weapons, it meant one thing—
Senji wasn't just a talented gunsmith.
He was a fucking artist.
And artists were unpredictable.
"You need firepower, don't you?" He muttered.
"Not just firepower." Alt's voice was almost impatient. "Think bigger."
Tom drummed his fingers against his chair's armrest, thinking.
If Senji was even half as good as the rumors said, then it wasn't just his weapons that made him valuable. It was his ability to build. To create.
To innovate.
Arms manufacturing was one thing.
Armor? That was another.
And experimental gear? That was a third.
He sucked in a breath. "You want custom chrome."
"More than that." Alt's voice was sharp. "If we're gonna take the fight to the corps, we can't rely on stolen hardware forever. We need a specialist who can build things they've never even dreamed of. Weapons, armor, cyberware—hell, maybe even something that lets us bypass ICE physically instead of digitally."
Tom's eyes narrowed. That was a dangerous idea.
But it had merit.
Netrunners were the kings of the digital battlefield, but they had one massive weakness, they were fragile as hell. Didn't matter how skilled you were if a gonk with a budget-tier shotgun could put you in the ground before you even finished your breach protocol.
What if Senji could change that?
What if he could make smartgun-linked firearms that automatically adjusted for netrunner lag?
What if he could craft armor that dampened EMP waves, making runners harder to fry?
What if he could design physical tools to break into ICE-secured facilities, bypassing firewalls with a mix of hardware and software?
He wouldn't just be a gunsmith.
He'd be the fucking revolution.
Tom exhaled slowly. "And if he doesn't want to help?"
There was a beat of silence.
Then, Alt's voice, colder than before. "Then we give him a choice. Work with us… or be left behind."
Tom closed his eyes.
Yeah. That sounded like her.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Alt POV
"They haven't found the source code for Soulkiller yet," she said, voice clipped, controlled. "And I'm going to keep it that way."
Tom sighed, a slow, rattling exhale that made her jaw tighten. She could hear the struggle in his breath, the way his lungs fought against his own body. The meds took the edge off, sure, but never enough. Never enough to let him forget.
Forget that he was dying.
Forget that his body was a prison.
Forget that he was running out of time.
Just like her.
"I'm not gonna last much longer," he murmured. His voice was soft, worn thin by pain and exhaustion.
Alt hated hearing it.
"Tom—" She didn't want to go back to this. Didn't want to revisit that thing—the thing that had stolen years of her life, the thing she had built only to realize it should have never existed.
But Tom… Tom was different. He didn't care.
"You know I could ask," he rasped. "I could ask you to do it. Get me out of this fucking chair."
Silence.
Long. Heavy. Suffocating.
Then, finally, in a voice barely above a whisper—
"You're the guinea pig."
It sounded like a curse.
"I know." A weak chuckle, was forced through a dry throat. "Can't forget that."
Another breath. Another moment that neither of them could afford to waste.
"If it works…" A faint, humorless laugh. "I'll be better than ever."
Better than ever.
Or worse than dead.
Because Soulkiller wasn't meant to save people.
It was meant to steal them.
A digital prison. A copy that walked and talked and thought like you, but wasn't you. It couldn't be you.
Because how could a ghost be the same as the body it once belonged to?
But Tom didn't care if he would be a prisoner of the Net. He was already a prisoner in the real world. What was trading one prison for another.
"Take care Alt." He said, and the phone hung up, a dial tone.
Fuck... she hated it when she had to look around... and see nothing but reminders of what she created.
AN:
Alt and White_Rabbit... hey who says there can't be nobility in Night City.
Or at the very least... plans.
(White_Rabbit POV)
To think that all it took was for some wayward corpo to stumble right into his lap. A gift wrapped in corporate arrogance, delivered on a silver platter.
It wasn't even his win. It was hers.
That should have pissed him off. Should have made him feel more like a tool, a cog in the machine. And yet…
He couldn't be mad.
Because what she needed, what she wanted, what she was desperate for, was time.
Time to finish her work.
Time to make sure it wouldn't kill everyone who touched it.
Time to give him a chance, a real chance, to escape the cage of his fucked-up body and be free.
Tom exhaled, the breath rattling in his lungs. He coughed hard, the kind of wet, dragging sound that made his ribs ache, and then dialed the number.
He waited.
The dial tone rang.
Then—
"Tom?"
She was breathless. Like she'd just run a marathon. Or maybe he had disturbed her and Silverhand getting primal. Not that it mattered.
It made him feel like shit that he wasn't there. That he couldn't be.
Not while he was stuck in this chair.
Not while this—this hell—was his home.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Felt the shard in his hand.
"Alt, we have the data." He rasped, voice dry as static. A fit of coughing overtook him, forcing him to pause. When he finally caught his breath, he stared at the tiny sliver of stolen corporate hell between his fingers. "Got all of those secrets you needed. Should keep them off your back for a while. Make them focus elsewhere."
A sharp breath on the other end.
"Yeah? Didn't know you needed to turn off the entire fucking stadium to do it."
Tom let out a weak chuckle. "Had complications. But there always are." His lips curled into something like a smirk. "Easy to hide with Silverhand there. Thought it was just one of his stunts."
A pause.
And then—
"Senji… what's your take?"
Tom's brows furrowed. He tapped his fingers against his chair's armrest.
"Techie. Not a merc." He muttered. "Real good armorer and smith, though, if the chatter's right. Arasaka's losing their goddamn minds over this 'Ghost.' that made a weapon they can't replicate."
A longer pause.
"And?"
Tom sighed, tilting his head back. The injectors in his chair hissed softly, pumping more painkillers into his failing body.
"I'm ninety percent sure Senji and the Ghost are the same person."
Alt's voice was unreadable. "Can we use him?"
That made him laugh. Not a good laugh.
A bitter one.
Tom scoffed. "Use him? For what?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Not hesitation—calculation. Alt never spoke without thinking first, and that silence told him she already had a plan forming in that razor-sharp mind of hers.
Then, finally—
"For everything."
Tom frowned. "Everything?"
"Think about it." She sounded energized now, focused. "How many techies in Night City can actually craft something beyond off-the-shelf chrome? How many can design something from scratch that outperforms corpo-tier R&D? Arasaka has entire labs full of engineers, and they can't recreate his work."
Tom exhaled sharply. She wasn't wrong.
Arasaka had unlimited funding and some of the best engineers on the planet. If they were struggling to reverse-engineer the Ghost's weapons, it meant one thing—
Senji wasn't just a talented gunsmith.
He was a fucking artist.
And artists were unpredictable.
"You need firepower, don't you?" He muttered.
"Not just firepower." Alt's voice was almost impatient. "Think bigger."
Tom drummed his fingers against his chair's armrest, thinking.
If Senji was even half as good as the rumors said, then it wasn't just his weapons that made him valuable. It was his ability to build. To create.
To innovate.
Arms manufacturing was one thing.
Armor? That was another.
And experimental gear? That was a third.
He sucked in a breath. "You want custom chrome."
"More than that." Alt's voice was sharp. "If we're gonna take the fight to the corps, we can't rely on stolen hardware forever. We need a specialist who can build things they've never even dreamed of. Weapons, armor, cyberware—hell, maybe even something that lets us bypass ICE physically instead of digitally."
Tom's eyes narrowed. That was a dangerous idea.
But it had merit.
Netrunners were the kings of the digital battlefield, but they had one massive weakness, they were fragile as hell. Didn't matter how skilled you were if a gonk with a budget-tier shotgun could put you in the ground before you even finished your breach protocol.
What if Senji could change that?
What if he could make smartgun-linked firearms that automatically adjusted for netrunner lag?
What if he could craft armor that dampened EMP waves, making runners harder to fry?
What if he could design physical tools to break into ICE-secured facilities, bypassing firewalls with a mix of hardware and software?
He wouldn't just be a gunsmith.
He'd be the fucking revolution.
Tom exhaled slowly. "And if he doesn't want to help?"
There was a beat of silence.
Then, Alt's voice, colder than before. "Then we give him a choice. Work with us… or be left behind."
Tom closed his eyes.
Yeah. That sounded like her.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Alt POV
"They haven't found the source code for Soulkiller yet," she said, voice clipped, controlled. "And I'm going to keep it that way."
Tom sighed, a slow, rattling exhale that made her jaw tighten. She could hear the struggle in his breath, the way his lungs fought against his own body. The meds took the edge off, sure, but never enough. Never enough to let him forget.
Forget that he was dying.
Forget that his body was a prison.
Forget that he was running out of time.
Just like her.
"I'm not gonna last much longer," he murmured. His voice was soft, worn thin by pain and exhaustion.
Alt hated hearing it.
"Tom—" She didn't want to go back to this. Didn't want to revisit that thing—the thing that had stolen years of her life, the thing she had built only to realize it should have never existed.
But Tom… Tom was different. He didn't care.
"You know I could ask," he rasped. "I could ask you to do it. Get me out of this fucking chair."
Silence.
Long. Heavy. Suffocating.
Then, finally, in a voice barely above a whisper—
"You're the guinea pig."
It sounded like a curse.
"I know." A weak chuckle, was forced through a dry throat. "Can't forget that."
Another breath. Another moment that neither of them could afford to waste.
"If it works…" A faint, humorless laugh. "I'll be better than ever."
Better than ever.
Or worse than dead.
Because Soulkiller wasn't meant to save people.
It was meant to steal them.
A digital prison. A copy that walked and talked and thought like you, but wasn't you. It couldn't be you.
Because how could a ghost be the same as the body it once belonged to?
But Tom didn't care if he would be a prisoner of the Net. He was already a prisoner in the real world. What was trading one prison for another.
"Take care Alt." He said, and the phone hung up, a dial tone.
Fuck... she hated it when she had to look around... and see nothing but reminders of what she created.
AN:
Alt and White_Rabbit... hey who says there can't be nobility in Night City.
Or at the very least... plans.
Well screw you too Alt.
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
- Location
- Three feet to the left
- Pronouns
- He/They
I'm not up on my Cyberpunk lore, who are these assholes?
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
an oc, and Alt Cunningham.
- Location
- Three feet to the left
- Pronouns
- He/They
Alt's the one who made the machine to turn people into programs for immortality, right?
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
Yes.
She's also maybe took some of Johnny's anti corpo messaging to not heart, but she does see the big picture better then anyone else.
She sees oppertunity.
Hey lady, we just make the tech. You pay us and throw us some quality parts and we'll sell you any bullshit we can make.
It looks like the better we perform the higher people's expectations rise. Pretty soon we are going to making stuff not found even decades from now.
Endorfinator
Awkwardly Social
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh boy I can't wait to flex our muscles. I'm torn between spending our action building new guns vs improving our workshop. Gonna need to make some kind of ammunition plant at some point.
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Haven't voted here just yet, but I've been following along. I will when the next choices come.
Man....I expected the direction this little after-credits scene was gonna be like this, I even had half an idea to wanna vote towards helping with their goals. But if that's how Alt's ass wants to treat us, she can end up an AI anyways for all I care, Fuck 'em. if everybody just wants to use us. We do our own shit.
Man....I expected the direction this little after-credits scene was gonna be like this, I even had half an idea to wanna vote towards helping with their goals. But if that's how Alt's ass wants to treat us, she can end up an AI anyways for all I care, Fuck 'em. if everybody just wants to use us. We do our own shit.
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
I want to make this clear just for you to remember:
No one is a good person in Night City. They may be somewhat Heroic and not nearly as evil as say Arasaka and the other corpos and gangs. But they are flawed and broken. and are lacking that heroic moral fiber that exists in most other settings.
They may have heroic goals (Alt, in some cases is more heroic then Johnny in that regard) but they are firmly on the anti hero side of the heroic scale.
Now, as a reminder, Cyberpunk isn't about saving the world. It's about saving yourself.
Maybe along the way, something can happen.
"When you help someone who has no money, you gain something that those with money cannot buy."
- Location
- Three feet to the left
- Pronouns
- He/They
Well, these guys aren't corpos or gangers. That's as about as good as employers get in Night City, as I understand. May as well work for these guys. They might fuck over Arasaka, along the way.