[SPOILERS] My personal beef with CP77- How can we justify Johnny's terrorism? Really?

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Johnny is a narcissistic ass. I never liked his character, and never felt sympathy for him. He was annoying, unlikable, and is the main reason I didn't like the game. The best ending is my character blowing out his own brains, to kill the ass hat.
 
Johnny is a narcissistic ass. I never liked his character, and never felt sympathy for him. He was annoying, unlikable, and is the main reason I didn't like the game. The best ending is my character blowing out his own brains, to kill the ass hat.
That is certainly true...although he can be a charming asshole when he wants to:)
 
Fascinating stuff. But according to this it seems like the game version is a bit different again, since Johnny's doing the nuke-placing; and Johnny's blamed for the nuking by the rest of the game world historically.

So the question re. Johnny's evil or culpability still seems unresolved.
No. The "story" has been re-written so that Johnny is blamed and it's an act of terror, not a wartime assault. Johnny is not Johnny anyway - he's a digital recreation or even fabrication. His memories are extremely suspect and 50 years later, so is everyone else's.

This is what Arasaka wants - and 50 years later, they get what they want. This is what the player and everyone else in the setting now sees. The USA and Militech isn't blamed for the bombing, Arasaka wasn't defeated by them and one man shoulders all the blame while the Corps and governments come off clean or as victims.

Keep in mind Johnny had no real issues with nuking the tower, although he was told it would be contained to the lower floors. Neither did Alt or Spider or Shaitan and Morgan was part of the planning group. It was war, no one had clean hands. But Johnny never decided to nuke Night City and kill millions. It wasn't his plan and it wasn't his command. If he even placed it at all.

Also, the death toll was much higher than reported in 2077.

One of the issues with 2077 is that the sub text is either too well hidden or the audience isn't encouraged to look harder.

In short - don't trust what Corpo media tells you.
 
Johnny is a bit of cliché anyways. If the world is already dead to him then why proceed on said world? Why blow up buildings killing thousands of people? Why not kill yourself?

No instead be a self indulgent poser rocker try hard rebel. The character is as poorly written as the overall story.
 
Welll..by 2077 the narrative has been altered. And Johnny...is not really Johnny either. CDPR holds the 2020 timeline as canon, too, so, yes.


Whole thread is a good read.

But to summarize - the bombing of A tower was planned and executed by the US Gov and Militech and several operators, including Morgan Blackhand. Night City was an enemy-held territory on US soil. Johnny was there as part of the distraction team, Alpha, that Arasaka was supposed to chase as the main team.

The MAIN objective was the Arasaka data hoard in the basement, targetted by Strike Team Beta. Super valuable as the DataKrash was eating everything in sight.

Read the whole thing - it's quite illuminating.

Remember, though, by 2077, it's been 50 plus years since the DataKrash and the world-wide Net that existed at that time going down.

Whole lotta BS out there. Of course! The age of disinformation is very much a Cyberpunk theme.
Indeed. Alt does warn us that Johnny's version of events is unique
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No. The "story" has been re-written so that Johnny is blamed and it's an act of terror, not a wartime assault. Johnny is not Johnny anyway - he's a digital recreation or even fabrication. His memories are extremely suspect and 50 years later, so is everyone else's.

This is what Arasaka wants - and 50 years later, they get what they want. This is what the player and everyone else in the setting now sees. The USA and Militech isn't blamed for the bombing, Arasaka wasn't defeated by them and one man shoulders all the blame while the Corps and governments come off clean or as victims.

Keep in mind Johnny had no real issues with nuking the tower, although he was told it would be contained to the lower floors. Neither did Alt or Spider or Shaitan and Morgan was part of the planning group. It was war, no one had clean hands. But Johnny never decided to nuke Night City and kill millions. It wasn't his plan and it wasn't his command. If he even placed it at all.

Also, the death toll was much higher than reported in 2077.

One of the issues with 2077 is that the sub text is either too well hidden or the audience isn't encouraged to look harder.

In short - don't trust what Corpo media tells you.
Haha yes!!
And no one considers Rogue a terrorist. The power of the status quo is magnificent
 
One of the issues with 2077 is that the sub text is either too well hidden or the audience isn't encouraged to look harder.
It's a bit of damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Thankfully creative freedom and vision are relevant to CP 2077 as things that can be both, contribute to world building and suspension of disbelief and what makes things fun and interesting, like discovery it has necessarily nothing to do with items and that but the world, story and characters. That's also definitely one of characteristics of Cyberpunk literature. Snow Crash is exception but it doesn't have any noir and is subtle as sledge hammer, it was Stephenson's first book AFAIK and written to be at the same time novel in the genre and parody of genre.

During my first playthrough with Johnny Silverhand and other things. Something that I remember well was about if I trust the writers or if I don't trust writers. And that was not because of CDPR but... the Outer Worlds was really good, outstanding really and I expected that to be very unique for a video game. I spent lot's of time in CP 2077 with Silverhand among other things, for a long time expecting game to drop the ball. I was very long in story where that changed to if they drop the ball. There's huge difference between when and if. If there's a gaming memory I'm going to remember for a long time, that is when I watched credits roll after phone calls were ended and thinking about the best game I have played ever and, "holy heck, they managed to pull that off!" That is to say about expectations, literature, stage, cinema, tv-shows, games, one of these have had one hell of a Peter Pan syndrome.

If people skim through a book, or are more interested about their cell phone or something when they watch a movie and then they don't end up understanding those works, we usually don't blame those works for that. Why would games would be held to different standard?

Regardless of media, there are always outliers. Decades I have been lurking discussions about cyberpunk and every now and then there's Neuromancer is discussed and sometimes it occurs, but it does occur, like clockwork really, someone says how Neuromancer is absolutely unreadable or words to that effect. And no, novel isn't any less remarkable for that Gibson didn't wrote in simple English, it's however very unlikely that it had became a classic if he were done that. Some you win, some you lose.
 
Johnny is a bit of cliché anyways. If the world is already dead to him then why proceed on said world? Why blow up buildings killing thousands of people? Why not kill yourself?

No instead be a self indulgent poser rocker try hard rebel. The character is as poorly written as the overall story.
To try to change things?, even if by the setting he is doomed to fail.

its fair that you don´t like Johnny or the story, but really in Rtalsorian universe he is the archetypical cyberpunk character that appeared in every single edition of the game in one way or another and was present in all major story events (with most of the official material devoted to : piss off Corporations).
In Rtalsorian universe, cyberpunk can refer to the genre, the franchise or as "rebel"(from CP2020 digital goodie):

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If you have "The World of Cyberpunk 2077", in Rogue interview she also differentiates "imitation" of style and what does it mean to be
"cyberpunk" (V in-game starts as a merc, depend on your decisions you can be a cyberpunk):

"it's an out-of-date description of a street rebel who's fighting with some omnipotent ,oppressive system." She also denies being part of the attack to Arasaka tower....

Maybe CDPR surprises me, but I doubt you can expect a 180 degree shift from the source material in terms of story themes and mood.

A personal criticism that I have regarding the story, is that CDPR was too conservative: they reused too much NPCs that should be retired (ahem,Rogue,ahem Saburo,ahem Smasher) and there are whole parts of the game you can say: this is from Neuromancer,this is from Hardwired,this is from Count Zero, I'm going to assault Arasaka Tower (suspected when Yorinobu was announced, 99.9% confirmed when you see Saburo on scene).
Luckily (for me), the underlying themes that you can discover compensated this "overuse" of previous elements.
 
A personal criticism that I have regarding the story, is that CDPR was too conservative: they reused too much NPCs that should be retired (ahem,Rogue,ahem Saburo,ahem Smasher) and there are whole parts of the game you can say: this is from Neuromancer,this is from Hardwired,this is from Count Zero, I'm going to assault Arasaka Tower (suspected when Yorinobu was announced, 99.9% confirmed when you see Saburo on scene).
Luckily (for me), the underlying themes that you can discover compensated this "overuse" of previous elements.
It's understandable that they kept all those references though, after all the game is something of a period piece for the pleasure of late Boomers and Gen X-ers. If they'd tried to do something too new that didn't reference the classics, there would have been even more disappointment from us oldsters :)

The whole cyberpunk theme is terribly dated now, but it does have its own internal logic and consistency.

If you're familiar with Stephenson's Diamond Age, I seem to recall that it started with a clean diss of the whole cyberpunk genre even in 1995, and the tropes in that are long in the tooth now too. Reality has turned out to be less cool, but in some ways even grimmer, than predicted (corporate control is off the charts nowadays, and it's much subtler and more robust than people envisaged then).

But it's still a hell of a lot of fun :)
 
I don't think Jhonny ever really understands that he make half million people die, and made thousands families cry in pain.
Hi. Thanks for the interesting topic.

You don't justify anything unless you... do. I don't think nuking the Arasaka building was right to do, but let's say it happened. It is the lore/trivia of the game.

Speaking of the perspective, I have over one million frags in various Quake games. I never thought of it that way. In-game, I am just an angry construction worker who had gone postal and is using nailgun on everyone.
 
If they'd tried to do something too new that didn't reference the classics, there would have been even more disappointment from us oldsters
I´m not that old (false) I'm young in spirit...
But I don´t know, I wonder if even if I enjoyed the game and story overall it would have been better for them to try something more on their own. I'm kind of expecting, that CP2077 its like "closure" of tabletop timeline (that is kept at 2045, so few decades of freedom for CDPR and Rtalsorian to don´t collide) and opens a little bit their own stories (I mean, blowing Arasaka tower is always what precedes a new Cyberpunk edition...some major NPCs are removed from the scene-depending on your ending,but thats another topic-).
 
A personal criticism that I have regarding the story, is that CDPR was too conservative: they reused too much NPCs that should be retired (ahem,Rogue,ahem Saburo,ahem Smasher) and there are whole parts of the game you can say: this is from Neuromancer,this is from Hardwired,this is from Count Zero, I'm going to assault Arasaka Tower (suspected when Yorinobu was announced, 99.9% confirmed when you see Saburo on scene).
Luckily (for me), the underlying themes that you can discover compensated this "overuse" of previous elements.
This is only fan service for people who are familiar with those works. Even me, I'm familiar with books but I didn't knew tabletop game was relevant cyberpunk work and these characters were new to me. That said, they did helluva great job with using the existing material and tying them with philosophical aspects of game. Johnny / Rogue is philosophical take on romantic trope that's been there's since Shakespeare's Romeo and Julie. Shakespeare back in the day realized, that what was requested from him, ever lasting love story where lovers stay on height of that all, would be impossible, solution was to kill them before their life ever turns banal, before they get sick, stages of life actually haha. CP 2077 throws Freud to that, among other things. End result is that we get mature take on things and players can ponder about yet another ideal, if ideal larger than human, could actually be something quite toxic.

Militech and Arasaka conflict, how much it makes sense in 2077, how to convey to player the idea that it is ultimately about old fuckers who just can't let go and people are pressed between brand a and b of corporate fascism and chaos of proxy war via gangs. I guess that could be made to work without Saburo, but for someone who isn't familiar with tabletop, his character is essential piece of the background of that all.
 
This is only fan service for people who are familiar with those works. Even me, I'm familiar with books but I didn't knew tabletop game was relevant cyberpunk work and these characters were new to me. That said, they did helluva great job with using the existing material and tying them with philosophical aspects of game. Johnny / Rogue is philosophical take on romantic trope that's been there's since Shakespeare's Romeo and Julie. Shakespeare back in the day realized, that what was requested from him, ever lasting love story where lovers stay on height of that all, would be impossible, solution was to kill them before their life ever turns banal, before they get sick, stages of life actually haha. CP 2077 throws Freud to that, among other things. End result is that we get mature take on things and players can ponder about yet another ideal, if ideal larger than human, could actually be something quite toxic.

Militech and Arasaka conflict, how much it makes sense in 2077, how to convey to player the idea that it is ultimately about old fuckers who just can't let go and people are pressed between brand a and b of corporate fascism and chaos of proxy war via gangs. I guess that could be made to work without Saburo, but for someone who isn't familiar with tabletop, his character is essential piece of the background of that all.
Is I guess the intention: a Rtalsorian universe crash course as 1st installment for those not invested in tabletop( i'm always a little bit hesitant to say Cyberpunk, because Neuromancer,Hardwired,Snow Crash or When Gravity Fails are all cyberpunk but each with its differences in setting).
But if we focus on the topic of this thread, it causes some disonance if you are not a "info rat" collecting shards and trying to see more than what Johnny appears to be... 1st time in close of 25 years (my cp2020 copy is 1996,my cpred copy this year) that I see "Silverhand is a depicable terrorist"-i can agree with asshole,although it seems that he can grow as a person in-game-
 
Is I guess the intention: a Rtalsorian universe crash course as 1st installment for those not invested in tabletop( i'm always a little bit hesitant to say Cyberpunk, because Neuromancer,Hardwired,Snow Crash or When Gravity Fails are all cyberpunk but each with its differences in setting).
But if we focus on the topic of this thread, it causes some disonance if you are not a "info rat" collecting shards and trying to see more than what Johnny appears to be... 1st time in close of 25 years (my cp2020 copy is 1996,my cpred copy this year) that I see "Silverhand is a depicable terrorist"-i can agree with asshole,although it seems that he can grow as a person in-game-
I don't see how Silverhand taking advantage of Rogue is off topic as it really shows this side of him that isn't growing up, his obsession with Arasaka and how he reacts to Rogue's death it's like "Well..." He really doesn't give a damn.

I agree with establishing the world part but CP 2077 story is constructed in a way where things say multiple things, like how I summed up Johnny few messages back. These things flow like reading a book, well Sterling's "Island's in the Net" didn't had that, but it still covered new topics in genre. Might have been hard to swallow for someone who bought it for it's cover, woman with gun in her hands. Story wasn't anything like that. Haha.

How accessible characters are... I don't think everything needs to be explained in big bold letters, or alternatively thinned. Hollywood and games industry isn't exactly stopping producing all sorts of forgettable trash. You start thinking that it's a problem that people need to read datashard or what if they miss dialogue there, especially when it should be pretty obvious at least when V meets Alt that Johnny is unreliable narrator... oh, that was one quality I forgot, Johnny is really good use of unreliable narrator and that effect really of course wouldn't work if he weren't unreliable narrator.

I don't think every critique presented is some sort of revelation about some short coming. People want comic book characters can always go to read comics. Meanwhile I enjoy things like Johnny saying how he never drink vodka, always tequila, except he sunk vodka like a champ in drinking contest after V gave him control. It's even better if you think that Johnny may really believe in what he says.
 
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For me there are always several degrees of contact with art that one can have. When watching a painting you can have zero information about the artist and walk away with the impact the object had on you or you can know the artist enough to know why he went through his red period, how much is autobiographic. This happens with pop-art also, how much one chooses to know about their favourite band.
In Cyberpunk's case I love how they honoured the main IP even in this factual plus rumour access to information we have as player. I'd love if the lifepaths demonstrated different knowledge of Night City and the Badlands though.
As to copying or referencing a lot of other works I agree that for me they took it too far sometimes. I don't know why but the Johnny goes to Town, the matrix reference plus the prodigy Smack my bitch up was the moment I really felt, too much already. But it is my sensitivity too. I don't think it's bad they place easter eggs for example or different homeages but some were unnecessary in my view.
 
Cyberpunk Red
the bomb (2023)

In retrospect, it was just Night City's bad luck that it was a Free City in an area not controlled by a larger power like a nation. Neither of the Corporate combat- ants was stupid enough to drop a nuke in the middle of some place where the remnant U.S. or the still power- ful EuroTheatre cared about. In fact, probably the only thing that kept then-President Kress from wiping out every Arasaka stronghold on earth was the fact that Night City wasn't technically part of the U.S.

So, they dropped a bomb.

The power of the bomb detonated in the Arasaka Towers was about a tiny fraction of the Hiroshima bomb; basically a tactical nuke a bit larger than a "suitcase bomb;" it was designed to utterly demolish Arasaka's Reliquary Database Project and make it unusable to a rival Megacorp. Similar to a 1950s Davy Crockett backpack nuke, with an overall yield of .1 kiloton, the Nuke was prematurely detonated at floor 120 (366m/yds.), in Kei Arasaka's apartment bunker where the Soulkiller lab was located.

The blast instantly obliterated the Arasaka Towers, splitting them in half and causing them to collapse outward. The entire central city became rubble in seconds with almost everyone in the immediate area dying instantly. And, as much of Night City was built on fill, because the elevation (5m/yds.) was originally so low, the Arasaka nuke caused a minor earthquake that liquefied parts of the fill and flooded the inner city.
After the bomb (2030-2040)
President Kress blamed the Night City attack on Arasaka, although she was soon able to determine that the actual weapon used had been supplied by a Militech strike team. The Big Lie was that Arasaka blew up the Corporate Center in an area denial attack to stop Militech from seizing the Arasaka's Night City office. In point of fact, Arasaka did actually have a much larger thermonuclear device buried in the foundations of the Towers for just that reason, but the explosion of the Militech pocket nuke rendered this plan inoperable. No one knows where the Arasaka Bomb actually wound up after the Fall of the Towers, and since only a few of the upper echelon of the zai- batsu (such as Kei and his father Saburo) even knew about this fallback, the knowledge of the Arasaka weapon has since passed into the realm of rumor.
the ReAlm oF ConsPiRACy & RumoR
Very few people knew anything about the Militech- backed strike team or its composition. Rumor has it that Morgan Blackhand, operating as a hidden gov- ernment asset, passed the information about the failed raid on to President Elizabeth Kress independently; this is still only in the realm of rumor, as no one has seen Morgan Blackhand alive or dead since the Fall of the Towers. In any case, Kress used this (and the reactivation of General Lundee's commission) to gain leverage over Militech, bringing it to heel and nationalizing its assets as part of a resurgent U.S. government. Bringing the full force of her military and propaganda resources to bear, Kress painted a lurid picture of Arasaka as an evil foreign Megacorp run by a madman who wantonly destroyed an American city in the pursuit of personal power. Arasaka's char- ters to operate in the United States were immediately revoked, its members and board declared terrorists, and their assets either seized or driven offshore.
Yet, for all this political theater, Kress showed little or no interest in helping Night City recover. Much as several previous Presidents during the Collapse had done, she wrote the city off as unrecoverable and offered sanctuary in a new United States to the surviving refugees. There were two reasons for this: First, with the resources of the United States already stretched to the breaking point, there were exceed- ingly few options left for Kress. Second, the flinty and farsighted American President saw this as the perfect way to bring the wayward "Free State of NorCal" (and its lucrative technology base) back into the gov- ernment's control.
But stubborn to the end, Night City fought back.
DATA : There are dozens, if not hundreds, of conspiracy theories surrounding the Night City holocaust. Feel free to make a few up for your
game.
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