Plothole? (spoilers about endings inside)

[luc0s]

So, I finished the game last week and played through all the endings, and then I started thinking about them, in particular the Arasaka ending.

In most endings you get to meet Alt in the end who explains that V can't survive in her own body anymore because the Relic chip fundamentally changed it to receive Johnny's construct, so V's body would reject V's consciousness as a foreign invader. This is why V dies in give or take 6 months if she takes her body back. Only Johnny is able to live a full life in V's body now.

Okay, fair enough, I can swallow that; makes sense as far as sci-fi writing goes. But then I played through the Arasaka ending.

In the Arasaka ending, they remove the Relic chip through surgery, which damages V's mind. Combined with the Relic having significantly altered V's body, they once again give V only 6 more months to live. They offer her an alternative: upload herself to Mikoshi and wait until they find a suitable body for her. When V asks why they can't just upload her to a Relic chip and slot her into the first body they find; Takamura (or Hellman) explains that the new body would need to match her DNA profile for the Relic chip to take; that's why Saburo could take Yorinobu's body, because they are related and have similar DNA, but because V's DNA got changed in such a weird way by Johnny's chip, it's going to be difficult to find a body that matches her DNA profile.

Is it just me, or does that explanation sound like a direct contradiction of what we already know to be true about the Relic chip?

Fact: The Relic chip, when slotted into a body, starts to alter and change the body to become an appropriate host for the construct on the Relic.

Fact: Because of Johnny Silverhand's Relic chip, V's body's DNA is being changed to match Johnny's, so it can receive his construct. This is why V's body rejects V's own consciousness as a foreign invader.

So, Relic chips are build to fundamentally alter the host body, to prepare it to receive the construct on the Relic. So remind me then: why can't Arasaka just upload V to a Relic and slot the chip in any random body they have available? All of the sudden it matters whether the DNA of the engram on the Relic chip and the DNA of the host body match? It didn't seem to matter for Johnny; he can take V's body just fine despite them not being related.

So, is this a massive plothole? Is Arasaka lying and if so, why isn't V calling them out on their very obvious and blatant lie? Or am I missing something?

 

[LG135]

I agreed with your opinion. The arasaka ending is ... Kinda stupid.

 

[CTPhipps]

I agreed with your opinion. The arasaka ending is ... Kinda stupid.

My take on the subject is that is probably what they eventually do. Remember, you're just going in Mikoshi until they plan to release you and all the other 1%ers who have paid to be part of the Arasaka Master Race. Haruko is basically saying you get to be on their body stealing Ark as your reward.

You were the first test case of the Relic and Saburo is the first successful use of it.

 

[machinech]

Nope you didn't miss anything... just bad writing. Something common these days as it seems writers tend to either exclude crucial details supporting a seemingly illogical conclusion or flat never noticed the contradiction of their own making in the first place. (ie see game of thrones devolution)

 

[Wenceslaus]

Honestly I just presumed that Johnny and V are simply match for the transformation and that hte relic can only alter the body that much (which still could be fatal for the V)
But as I look now, it is not the most convinient part of the story.

 

[MojoBreaker]

not surprised at all, at the state of this game and story also.

 

[Shoklen]

I just accept it as more manipulation by Arasaka; in this case they got V to lock herself up into soul-prison and can keep her there until, whenever, or forever. Given what she knows about Arasaka now, probably forever; quietly tucked away... With the look on Vs face, during that final scene, she (played female) probably thought the same but just accepted it (though still hopes).

Arasaka lies?! What?! Nooo.....

 

[-Aeon-]

Can you link in a video where Arasaka scientists say that V's DNA is rewritten? Alt mentions it in other endings. She says that body is Johnny's. But nowhere in Arasaka ending do we hear (from what i can remember at least) that body has become Johnny's. It could be the scientists don't know any better. Could be they only focused on fixing your neural system. Which is why despite the fix they do not know why your immune system is attacking your cells. Could be you were too late and they think Johnny's DNA is yours.

 

[apeabel]

So, Relic chips are build to fundamentally alter the host body, to prepare it to receive the construct on the Relic. So remind me then: why can't Arasaka just upload V to a Relic and slot the chip in any random body they have available? All of the sudden it matters whether the DNA of the engram on the Relic chip and the DNA of the host body match? It didn't seem to matter for Johnny; he can take V's body just fine despite them not being related.

So, is this a massive plothole? Is Arasaka lying and if so, why isn't V calling them out on their very obvious and blatant lie? Or am I missing something?

Relic chips.. plural..
Fom what I understood, there is only one chip.
Arasaka sells the Secure Your Soul program, where your engram is stored in Mikoshi. That is Relic 1.0.
The biochip is Saburo Arasaka's personal commision and was being tested - unsuccessfully - in an attempt to create immortality tech, for Saburo alone. What V has in their head is a prototype - Relic 2.0. The first time the biochip worked was when Dex shoots V in the head. What Arasaka does in The Devil end where you agree to get uploaded is the same procedure the rich and famous buy from Arasaka. Nobody but Saburo (and V because plot) has access to version 2.0.

Hellman says it - nobody is supposed to be able to afford Relic 2.0 - it was always meant to stay in-house.

There is no additional biochip for V to get uploaded into, the only people that can use the prototype are Saburo (after they cut the chip out of V to study) and Johnny (after the chip 'accidentally' activates).

Nope you didn't miss anything... just bad writing. Something common these days as it seems writers tend to either exclude crucial details supporting a seemingly illogical conclusion or flat never noticed the contradiction of their own making in the first place. (ie see game of thrones devolution)

He did miss something. Some of the writing is rushed and scenes are clearly cobbled together at times, but the writing is pretty solid. It's not just bad.

 

[Epilogia]

There's also the fact that there are full-chrome people walking around. There's even a quest with one of them - Lizzy Wizzy who killed herself while performing but the Trauma Team revived her and slammed her into a full cybernetic body.
So what's the thing that's preventing us doing just that as well?

Game is 70% "Johnny Silverhand Simulator 2077" with 30% plotholes to the rest of the story.

 

[Wenceslaus]

There's also the fact that there are full-chrome people walking around. There's even a quest with one of them - Lizzy Wizzy who killed herself while performing but the Trauma Team revived her and slammed her into a full cybernetic body.
So what's the thing that's preventing us doing just that as well?

Game is 70% "Johnny Silverhand Simulator 2077" with 30% plotholes to the rest of the story.

Vesna Vulovic survived fall from 10 000m when most people cound not handle petty 20m fall.

Real world is full of plotholes. Whoever do that, was a lazy writer.

 

[who.is.matt.burns]

There's also the fact that there are full-chrome people walking around. There's even a quest with one of them - Lizzy Wizzy who killed herself while performing but the Trauma Team revived her and slammed her into a full cybernetic body.
So what's the thing that's preventing us doing just that as well?

Game is 70% "Johnny Silverhand Simulator 2077" with 30% plotholes to the rest of the story.

Lizzy Wizzy's body is chrome, but she still has her ganic brain. And it's the brain that the Relic chip modified, which is obvious in that if you give Johnny the body, even after the timeskip between the last mission the body hasn't changed in appearance.
I'm pretty sure that it was mentioned multiple times throughout the story that the Relic in V's head was a prototype, and that they'd never previously gotten it to work. Meaning they didn't necessarily understand the tech well enough to reliably replicate it (in the present, at least). The program being offered to the 1% was purely to store the engram, with the possibility of being able to put it into a body later, even though they hadn't worked out the latter bit. So I don't really see the plothole here.

Elsewhere, yes, such as when (if you're not playing a Streetkid) the Padre calls to introduce himself to you as if you don't know him, even though the timeskip montage after meeting Jackie shows you interacting with him. But I don't necessarily think there's a plothole in the ending(s).

 

[DM_Veil]

I took it to be them lying to me. The whole thing about Mikoshi seemed like they just wanted me to digitize myself and be completely beholden to them on the "promise" of getting a new body. Considering they want me to sign away all my human rights to Arasaka and become their property, it felt like I would just get thrown away the moment I was digitized. "We haven't had any complaints yet." Internally I was screaming "BECAUSE THEY CAN'T COMPLAIN IN STORAGE" but maybe that's just me.

Who knows what they do with the engrams; maybe they just collect the bodies and put them on ice for their fearless leader to be reborn in one day. I certainly don't feel like I have any reason to trust them, especially after seeing what happens while I'm recovering from surgery. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole time in space was fake and I was already just an engram living in a Matrix like world. The tests playing out the same repeatedly certainly gave me that vibe.

There are a lot of ways to interpret the ending I think and it's kind of fun not knowing what is true and what isn't. In my head I see the Relic as the sci-fi version of a Lich's phylactery in fantasy games; Saburo's own personal attempt to live forever using the body of anyone foolish enough to buy into the promise of immortality.

 

[I_Willenbrock_I]

So, I finished the game last week and played through all the endings, and then I started thinking about them, in particular the Arasaka ending.

In most endings you get to meet Alt in the end who explains that V can't survive in her own body anymore because the Relic chip fundamentally changed it to receive Johnny's construct, so V's body would reject V's consciousness as a foreign invader. This is why V dies in give or take 6 months if she takes her body back. Only Johnny is able to live a full life in V's body now.

Okay, fair enough, I can swallow that; makes sense as far as sci-fi writing goes. But then I played through the Arasaka ending.

In the Arasaka ending, they remove the Relic chip through surgery, which damages V's mind. Combined with the Relic having significantly altered V's body, they once again give V only 6 more months to live. They offer her an alternative: upload herself to Mikoshi and wait until they find a suitable body for her. When V asks why they can't just upload her to a Relic chip and slot her into the first body they find; Takamura (or Hellman) explains that the new body would need to match her DNA profile for the Relic chip to take; that's why Saburo could take Yorinobu's body, because they are related and have similar DNA, but because V's DNA got changed in such a weird way by Johnny's chip, it's going to be difficult to find a body that matches her DNA profile.

Is it just me, or does that explanation sound like a direct contradiction of what we already know to be true about the Relic chip?

Fact: The Relic chip, when slotted into a body, starts to alter and change the body to become an appropriate host for the construct on the Relic.

Fact: Because of Johnny Silverhand's Relic chip, V's body's DNA is being changed to match Johnny's, so it can receive his construct. This is why V's body rejects V's own consciousness as a foreign invader.

So, Relic chips are build to fundamentally alter the host body, to prepare it to receive the construct on the Relic. So remind me then: why can't Arasaka just upload V to a Relic and slot the chip in any random body they have available? All of the sudden it matters whether the DNA of the engram on the Relic chip and the DNA of the host body match? It didn't seem to matter for Johnny; he can take V's body just fine despite them not being related.

So, is this a massive plothole? Is Arasaka lying and if so, why isn't V calling them out on their very obvious and blatant lie? Or am I missing something?

The epilogue is full of plotholes.

DNA, the thing with Saburo and yorinobu, nanites changing DNA, the fact that there is a treatment for damaged neural tissue in the game, the fact that gene therapy is very common in cyberpunk 2020 (and that there are companies who do it), other ending s have equal problems.

This whole forced 6 month timer is one big cluster fuck that almost gave me a nosebleed.

 

[DerHoss]

Discrepancy? Yes.
Plothole? No.

It just means that the nice people at Arasaka are lying to you. Why would they?
Well, obviously they don't wont you to walk away with all the knowledge about them and the relic that you have.
They could just put a bullet through your head, but then they'll lose there precious prototype.

 

[CitizenMigraine]

This whole forced 6 month timer is one big cluster fuck that almost gave me a nosebleed.

Gave me a migraine

 

[Galerion90]

Bad writing just to establish the same status quo as the other endings with 6 months to live. Nothing more really to it.

 

[AulisVaara]

Who knows what they do with the engrams; maybe they just collect the bodies and put them on ice for their fearless leader to be reborn in one day.

Given Alt's plan for what to do with the bodies, I suspect that Arasaka is thinking along the same lines: wanting their own supercharged AI to be able to tackle whatever is beyond the Blackwall. You've been there, you've had interaction with it, so the data in your head really has value to them.

Arasaka seems honorable, but the ends justify the means to them, as demonstrated by grandpa Arasaka taking over his son's life and using legal technicalities as an excuse.

Once you get that contract under your nose and it signing away all your rights, you really should know that whatever they are saying is bullshit.

I agree that copying V's engram on a new relic and slotting it into her neural port would work (but probably take some time to *fix* her body), except V hasn't figured it out and nobody else is willing to do it for her. And it's a risk even then, since you need to kill yourself to activate it, and would need to again, presumably.

Eh... or him, whichever you played.

 

[Crudeo]

In my head canon I understand the ending as follow:

Due to the circumstances that V got shot in the head and the bullet damaged brain and the relic at the same time - as stated by Viktor, we had a unique situation where nanites from the relic and the body got mixed up and the relic started to reconstruct and reconfigure V's body.

And yes... Arasaka is an evil Corp, but i doubt they would just take a body/corpse and gift it to V.

We all learned that it can be a horrible and slow process and definitely bad PR for their started Relic Program.

As Arasaka I would lock V away and this is the best chance.

V is talented and might be useful, but with the current situation and and V's network and recourses, it would be really difficult to control V.

Better wait 20-50 years and then have a grandiose agent to reinstate.

Less ties for V and more reliance on Arasaka.

Exactly what they would want.

 

[NosirrahMas]

This man woke up and chose facts lol