{Major Spoilers] Endings And What really Happens

[Aasimar-X]

@Goodmongo
the problem here is if you believe in god and/or some sort of afterlife or not

the program is called soulkiller
at some point of the story it tells you, you have the same memorys, but your soul is gone
the buddist monks who belive in rebirth dont see any problmes in this
Silverhand dosnt give a shit, but acts very different when he gets put back in your boddy
i cant even say if V is different or not.. because for example Judy tells you your kinda different and more distance
maybe because your dying.. or maybe because of Silverhand.. or becasue of missing soul... who knows

so what is the truth?

i think CDPR did a very good job on this, because it lets so much room for speculations,
and freedom depending on what you belive or not

 

[Sullivan1993]

I believe V even after mikoshi is the original V we don't see any sign of difference there if we don't dig to much(cuz if we do there is no answer to it at all), even cdpr or mike.p can't know how this engrams and soul means in real sense.We can clearly see they only did this to us decide whether we want to be digitalized or live as what we are even with small time's left for us to die that's the concept but i wished they would never put that 6 month montage it was clearly ruined the reason to play afterward and bringing us back to the last mission,ah come oooooon that was bad design right there

 

[OG_VELI]

Sorry but still can't follow the logic here.

Engram V has original memories plus Mikoshi. Original V only has original memories and does not experience Mikoshi.

The "new" V after getting re-implanted has what Engram V has, original memories plus Mikoshi. So how is it not Engram V?

If I have two cars that are identical in every aspect but i drive one of them 10 more miles and then pick a car I would have picked the car with more miles if in fact the odometer had more miles.

The only other alternative is Orginal V got additional memories from Engram V about Mikoshi. But now that they are identical how do you know this? It's just a guess.

One final point. Didn't Alt state that the body was wiped clean? So where was Original V stored at? The brain was an empty vessel per Alt.

Why would you call it Engram V, though? An engram is just data, your memories, and your personality. It doesn't have any consciousness. If another person's body receives that data, you won't wake up in that body, but that person will, thinking that he's you. Let's take Johnny, for example. If you insert his engram into V's body, Johnny doesn't wake up in that body, V wakes up with Johnny's personality and memories. It's like brainwashing.

But if your personality data is extracted and reinserted back into the brain, into your body, you will wake up thinking that you are you - as if nothing ever changed, because if you think about it, nothing has.

 

[Witzzard]

Why would you call it Engram V though? An engram is just data, your memories and personality, it doesn't have any consciousness. If another body receives that data, you won't wake up in that body. Let's take Johnny, for example. If you insert his engram into V's body, Johnny doesn't wake up in that body, V wakes up with Johnny's personality and memories. It's like brainwashing.

But if your personality data is extracted and reinserted back into the brain, into your body, you will wake up thinking that you are you - as if nothing ever changed, because if you think about it, nothing has.

Well Alt says that Soulkiller copies the consciousness. While she also tells you she'll flatline your body, copy things over and edit them. And each and every Soulkiller version causes brain death, from what we're told in the overall lore.
Now other NPCs say different things about what happens to your soul, what a soul even is (As V can ask the two Monks if a copied Engram in a cloned body would have Soul - their answer is, if i remember correctly, a "NO"; but an Engram is a person in their opinion).

Naa... you won't be thinking, but the engram copy in your brain would be thinking
Honestly it's the year old question what happens with your consciousness when you sleep enter a coma or anything else. There's no way to know. But what's certain, is that no matter if it's the original person afterwards or not, as long as the memories stay - what's there will think it was always there.

 

[OG_VELI]

Well Alt says that Soulkiller copies the consciousness. While she also tells you she'll flatline your body, copy things over and edit them. And each and every Soulkiller version causes brain death, from what we're told in the overall lore.
Now other NPCs say different things about what happens to your soul, what a soul even is (As V can ask the two Monks if a copied Engram in a cloned body would have Soul - their answer is, if i remember correctly, a "NO"; but an Engram is a person in their opinion).

Naa... you won't be thinking, but the engram copy in your brain would be thinking
Honestly it's the year old question what happens with your consciousness when you sleep enter a coma or anything else. There's no way to know. But what's certain, is that no matter if it's the original person afterwards or not, as long as the memories stay - what's there will think it was always there.

I don't see a point writing the same thing but in different words, so here, the only logical explanation, at least in my eyes, to this entire situation by u/Sihplak:

Spoiler

From what I can tell, the nature of the game treats the soul intentionally vaguely, but I think there are enough clues in it to lead to some kind of conclusion. I'll refer a good deal to this forum post from another user as well as the summarizations in this wiki page on the Relic, this wiki page on Soulkiller, and possibly most importantly, this page on Alt Cunningham (notably the "2013" and "True Nature" sections)

From what I can gather, the crux of the issue seems to be the continued physical connection. When V jacks into Mikoshi, Alt using Soulkiller on V does not kill or delete V's consciousness. Part of this I think is corroborated since we play, I argue, as V's consciousness in this moment of being jacked into Mikoshi. Further, due to the nature of the older version of how the Soulkiller program worked with engrams, it seems to be implied that Johnny's engram has never been Johnny's original consciousness because of the severed connection and imperfect copying due to Arasaka's tech in 2023. In V's case, it seems implied that Alt can move V's full original consciousness perfectly copied back into V's body. This is further emphasized since how Alt's original consciousness died was from her connection to her physical body being severed, leaving a digitized, soulless AI construct in her place.

In regards to the question regarding V dying from being shot by Dex, what's interesting is that what led V to survive was the relic reviving you in the process of trying to overwrite V's mind; in that regard, V is still the original V, but slowly having their consciousness "overwritten" by the engram. Later on when meeting Hellman, you learn that the biochip and brain deteriorated to being codependent to a greater extent than when they were both just damaged by Dex's bullet, so in that regard, we learn that not only is V still their own consciousness, but with elements of their consciousness being altered, but that V's being becomes a mix of the biochip and their physical brain to an extent. In that regard, V's consciousness being in Mikoshi I think still makes sense; V is physically linked between Mikoshi and their body, and the biochip/brain connection is still there. While the Biochips processes are still seemingly trying to destroy the brain, the biochip and the brain are integrated into one full consciousness. In this regard, there is no sanctity of the living functions of the body or brain, so much as there is sanctity of the continued connection between the digital medium Soulkiller is operating through to transfer/host a consciousness and said body. This is why AI-Alt is different from the Alt that died; AI Alt is not the original Alt because Johnny separated Alt's connection from her engram connected to the net, killing Alt and Alt's consciousness which was still physically embodied by Alt, but leaving an engram AI version alive. So, in this case, if V were separated from Mikoshi during this process, V's consciousness would die as it would lose connection to the body/biochip, resulting in it becoming a digital emulation of the mind as a rogue AI.

Put in simpler terms, V jacking into Mikoshi seems to effectively be the same as when Alt was jacked into the net. Alt had made a program to allow the consciousness to explore the net, which effectively physically moves it from the body to the net. In the case of Arasaka, this was used to develop Soulkiller when they captured Alt. Johnny trying to rescue Alt ended up killing her as there was no safety protocol taken to allow her consciousness to return to her body. The main difference in V's case is how the biochip works; for V's consciousness to return to her body, the whole physical connection has to remain, while Soulkiller is used to allow V's consciousness to take over Johnny's biochip, and thereby, reclaim the full biochip-brain aggregate that V's body is reliant upon now.

My argument is that you always experience the consciousness connected to V's original body; jacked into Mikoshi, the physical connection links V's temporary engram in the net to their body making it still original V, and if Johnny takes over, you experience V's brain's experiences, but with Johnny's memories and personality. In that regard, the game mechanically reinforces that you always experience "V", but in different situations. Has interesting implications about what makes you "you".

 

[Crusher93]

There is only one ending where V is still the real V. And that is the Arasaka (devil) ending where V leaves to go back to Earth. The removal of the chip did not include sould killer so V is still the real V (what's left anyway).

In the Arasaka ending you lose your memories/identity. V feels empty after the operation. So it's up to the player - What would you rather lose? Your memories/identity(arasaka ending) or your friends and maybe soul/councsiosness(mikoshi - go back to the body ending) or everything(johnny/suicide ending)? xD Although... its not that simple.

I copy my main points from the other thread, cause it fits here as well:

I see that many people don't even think about the ending in philosophical terms - it's really interesting theme. Even if you dont like the story, you cant say its not interesting, unless you dont really like these kind of themes.

The theme of Identity-ego-soul-counsciousness.

Alt says that soulkiller "kills" the soul but copy the counsciosness. Now - how can these two things not be the same thing? I dont know.

Hellman does not treat the engram as a human being.
Hanako treats Saburo's engram as if he was real.
Johnny says even if he is just an engram, he is himself and thats what matters.

At the end in mikoshi if you chose panam, rogue or secret endings - Alt copies V(what exactly does she copy?) kills the original v and put back the engram of V into V's body.What exactly is V at this point? Is he dead? Is he alive? Is he just a construct? These are questions that are important.

The same philosophical problems are in all endings(even in the arasaka ending) except of suicide for an obvious reason.

It really depends on the player's interpretation.

The identity is one thing.

But the other thing is ego/soul. Is it really the same V(i dont mean if he changed or not, that is not the problem, we all change all the time) after Mikoshi? Is it the same soul behind his eyes? Or is it just his copy that is not exactly the same person? This is more important than the theme of identity itself.

I'll try to explain it as clearly as I can:

V goes to mikoshi. V comes back from mikoshi.
My question isn't: is it really V after mikoshi or 85% of V or anything related to IDENTITY or parts of it. Because it is a different thing from counsciousness/soul. You dont have to have an identity/ego to have a soul.

Example:

Look at people with Alzheimer's disease - Would you say they dont have a soul at all because of having no memory of themselves? I would say they definately are counscious, they just don't remember.

Indentity/ego = //// = soul/counsiosness.

Let's say V copied himself into an engram and then also lives after Mikoshi. Then there would be two V's living simultaneosly. And only one of them is original-real V, the other is just a copy-chatbot version of V, just like Silverhand.

So my question isn't if it's the same V my question is if it's V at all.

I like the story in this game, although I dont like how they treated this theme in the game. It could be more dwelled on, more answers would be needed, more questions answered. Hell, V should have more questions in the conversation with Alt after she says that soulkiller kills the soul and meanwhile in the game he answers" ok so we got a plan" xD like he does not care or does not know better.

And yeah I agree that the ending is left unresolved and makes this philosphical disscusion pointless...
like in real life to be honest. Why dwell on it - if we are robots programmed by nature or just electrical impulses in the brain or if there is live after death and so on? if we just wait long enough we will hopefully know the answer - after our time on this planet ends. The adventure is more important than the goal. That is one of the answers that this game gives.

Also there is the theme of losing fear of death, V becoming enlightened and the tarot metaphore of Fool going to The World and acquriing the aforementioned enlightment.

For me soul and counsciosness is the same thing and in nature, in reality these things along with identity and ego are kind of interlocked and all are working at the same time. So taking one thing and leaving other is what matters and what is left is what is important.

Counsciousness is a very subtle thing... it works kinda like water - hard to grab it and examine it because "you are it". Even if you believe that your brain is the source of it, it would be hard to explain it in at least "science fitcion" way to work, but if you dont believe in that, then it makes even more problems. One of the scientific theories about counsciousness would have to be true in the Cyberpunk Universe to explain it in more detail. Meanwhile the game kinda makes it open for interpretation - which is kinda cool, but also not really cause the ending makes you WANT to believe that after Mikoshi V is V and not copy-of-V, because you want to have a good ending for him. You want to make the whole journey relevant and important.

Maybe V magically transfers himself(even though he is technically, physically dead)into copy of himself and later into his body and no one really questions it, if it is really V after that or not, neither the characters that know V after the ending in the game, nor the players in real life.

The story has major plot holes and lots of unanswered questions. V in my playthrough died(or "almost" died depending on interpretation) like 3 times and we dont even know the exact biological state of V after he goes to Vic with the relic. Its all so superficial and general.

I guess suicide ending isn't that bad option in this game after all. It does not matter at all what you choose, you die in some kind of way in all the endings anyway.