Isn't that cut/paste like i said? So alt creates an engram of V, deletes V from your body, then instead of storing V away in a databank, she gets placed back into her body, hence you continue playing as v afterwards.
I was expecting this to be the choice initially but after giving it some thought I believe it's actually up for philosophical debate.
In this case I don't believe V is actually "killed" by Soulkiller, but put in a dream-state while their brain is rewritten. If you assume their brain doesn't die during this process, you are either choosing if when V wakes up their brain believes that they are actually them or if Johnny's engram is programmed onto V's organic brain.
The way I see it even if you choose to "let Johnny take your body" it's still just V living their life THINKING they're Johnny, because the actual Johnny died long ago with the one in the game being an AI copy acting as he would based off a brain scan.
In this interpretation in the cyberspace scene after Alt "Soulkills" V you are actually not playing as their consciousness but as an AI construct acting as they would based off the brain scan. You choose what V's physical consciousness gets to believe they are.
Thus if you assume Alt is telling the truth and the brain scan is a complete reproduction of V, if it gets reinstalled into their brain the original V goes on to live the remainder of their life with their mind intact.
Johnny asks Alt in the end if she can transfer V's psyche back into her brain and Alt answers "as if onto a blank, virgin partition".
To me this means like on a freshly formatted hard drive, meaning you got mindwiped.
so went to twitter, let´s see. I even mentioned this thread there guys. not just my ideas.
You play as V yes. Who that V is? No one can possibly know the answer to it, Alt included.
You get to continue playing as a copy of V instead, not as the original V that we started the game as. I think that's a big difference when it comes to story telling.
I think it's no solace to the original to know that a copy can live on, but the original has to die.
Yes but the V's physical brain hasn't died in this case unlike previous victims of Soulkiller. If V's engram is truly an authentic, one to one reproduction of their brain their original human consciousness would wake up as V. Just like if Johnny is transferred it's still V but their brain believes they are Johnny.
Kinda feels like this is what they wanted with the ending. Ppl to discuss at lenght about diffrent views on it. Pretty well done i guess.
Nah, this isn't proper "discussion" they wanted. This is just people coping. They wrote an awful ending, simple as that.
But they still felt the need to rub the audience's face in the dirt by telling them they still have a grim outlook, and they need to extrapolate from symbolism what the future truly holds.
With that recent Bloomberg article out, I'm starting to doubt we'll even see a DLC cycle.
With that recent Bloomberg article out, I'm starting to doubt we'll even see a DLC cycle.
V's brain gets wiped after the copy is made, cause that is how Soulkiller works. If you wipe someone's brain and delete all the memories and whatever else is stored, then that person is dead (or a vegetable) and only the organic matter remains.
In Sci-Fi there are relatively few books that have successfully explored the concept of personality/mind transfer, without stumbling over the Altered Carbon/Cyberpunk obstacles. John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" is one such book, there the mind transfer from the original into a fresh clone body is an actual, aware experience by the original meaning that the stream of consciousness is never interrupted for the protagonist.
But this is unfortunately not the case here, otherwise the tech using Soulkiller on Johnny would not have said that there are "fates worse than death".
alright guys. i can promise you this. The whole "engram copy" thing is NOT GOING AWAY. id rather us focus on the alterations to the ending that are more realistic to come (DLC, more endings, more ambiguity to what happened to Vs "soul" via ingame dialoge). the Entire engram part is staying, because it is a common trope in cyberpunk
Yea im giving up more and more hope that this will turn into the game i was promised. Will take atleast 1 year more before it can be up to that polish and with all the missing stuff. Think its time to cut my losses soon
The memories are copied too, Johnny is also an engram but he is still the same johnny as in 2020
Even if we were to get DLC that expanded on, added to, or fixed these endings it would be at least another year from now, probably longer. Maybe we get a mid-game paid dlc before the end of the year (2021), but until then it's waiting.
I gotta say, the ending I got was pretty upbeat.
I mean, yes Alt says you will lose your body. But to quote Vic "Your body is just a body, you can patch it up, replace parts, or get a whole new one if you need to" I mean, no the game doesnt hand you a happy ending on a silver platter, but it does give you a hopeful ending... at least mine was. Yea, you wont be safe, you will have to keep finding a cure... but its not impossible. Not in that world.
I mean, in the ending I got, it was massively optimistic if anything.
Alt is just one opinion after all. I dont have to care about what some AI thinks. I mean, she forgot about that part initially, why should she be right, that there is no way to cure it.
I mean, yes Alt says you will lose your body. But to quote Vic "Your body is just a body, you can patch it up, replace parts, or get a whole new one if you need to" I mean, no the game doesnt hand you a happy ending on a silver platter, but it does give you a hopeful ending... at least mine was. Yea, you wont be safe, you will have to keep finding a cure... but its not impossible. Not in that world.
I mean, in the ending I got, it was massively optimistic if anything.
Alt is just one opinion after all. I dont have to care about what some AI thinks. I mean, she forgot about that part initially, why should she be right, that there is no way to cure it.
True but I think that oversimplifies it. A soul can be a religious mystical interpretation but I think it can also be considered your consciousness. In this case the soul would be your brain, which even if transferred to data wouldn't be you but a reproduction of you.
As long as your brain remains alive you retain a consciousness, what is on it is another matter. To me that is a soul.
