[SPOILERS] Peralez Questline

[Spectral_Warrior]

Hi Everyone. There have been topics about other parts of the game where discussion is started, however I didn't see any that was about discussing the Peralez Questline.
Only some small snippets of very specific stuff such as: Finish the Peralez Questline before calling Judy outcome or One side job more important than most "main" jobs (SPOILERS).
I don't want to go too much into speculation on what the outcome of this questline does or means for the future, I would more so like to discuss the Questline itself and what I consider to be a major absence for V. Notice up front, this post will therefore main cover the quest "Dream On" Because this is where most of the options and missing elements become apparent.

* * * FROM HERE ON OUT MAJOR SPOILERS * * *

Lets start at the beginning: I Fought the Law.
This quest starts when we get a Call from Elizabeth with the request to meet, as they have a job they want V to look into.
You meet with both Elizabeth and Jefferson and they brief you about wanting you to investigate the murder on Mayor Rhyne. You get a BD to look into, on which you find River Ward whom you'll have to contact afterwards as a lead into the investigation. In the BD you watch what looks like a potentially staged, but failed, murder attempt at the mayor by Peter Horvath. After meeting up with River you speak to his CI and/or the scrapseller who employed Peter Horvath for a short time. You then find yourself on Animals turf: the Red Queens Race where you learn that, apparently, Mayor Rhine just died of a mixture of too much booze, VR and some bad luck in whats essentially a 'dirty club'. NCPD is covering it up via an associate of River. The quest ends with you going back to the Peralez family where you can either choose to tell thm that you think it is indeed this guy Holt, the Mayors Deputy, who the Peralez's were suspecting it to be (confirming suspicions) or you can state it was NCPD shoving under the rugg type of biz.

Now, at this point, I Fought The Law quest is fairly straight forward with little to make note off.
Only small things of note to me are: The Peralez's seem too keen on wanting Holt to be mixed up in shady affairs even though it seems legitimally that he's not involved.
Closest thing I could make out of it is that (if you believe it) he used Peter Horvath to try and murder him as seen in the BD, but that failed, afterwards he was out of the picture. And the second thing that caught my attention is River never asks what happened after the meeting at the end with the Peralez's as he was very interested in the murdercase. Albeit this may not have gone anywhere in particular anyway.

Then for the by far more interesting Quest: Dream On.
I'll try to run through this one a bit quick: I believe it is Jefferson this time that calls you (or Elizabeth, I can't really remember) anywho, they want to meet at their apparment, where Jefferson discloses he believes they were robbed. At least he woke up one night and found a strange person in his home who he shot but passed out immediately after. After going through some dialogue you get to investigate the entire appartment which you 'conclude' by discovering a secret room filled with surveillance stations and the lot. You find a weird computer and follow a series of wires to the roof where you find an antenna dish, which in turn point towards a antenna in the streets with a van parked besides it. You follow/chase the van as it pulls away and find yourself in combat with some Maelstrom. Defeat them and hack into the van where you discover the truth!
The Peralez's are being conditioned by an unknown and most likely outside force. Upon discovery of this, you call Elizabeth with your findings. She suggests to meet at a Ramen Shop in Japantown where she confesses she had known/suspected something for some time. The meet concludes with her asking you to not tell Jefferson beause she believes it would ruin him. She says you can meet Jefferson right thereafter.
>> I'll conclude for now by saying: whatever you discuss has little impact on the IMMEDIATE ending of THIS quest, because either way its virtually the last you'll hear of them (not counting several messsages and the post-ending thing)

Where I wanted to go into however is only now starting, because upon discovering the truth from the van I started getting the idea that we, the merc V, could become a quite interesting character for the Peralez's. After reading all terminals, messages and talking to Elizabeth and Jerfferson I got the impression V is the ONE unaccounted for contact with the Peralez's, even after the weird short talk you have with the "Unknown Person". It is also here where I got the destinct impression one very crucial choice was not present in the dialogue with Jefferson becasue of that exact reason.
Lets go over it.

Earlier, when V asks why out of all people he requested you, he says that you are the tried and tested. But more importantly, Elizabeth even before that says that she dismissed everyone in her building in order for Jefferson to call upon you, which leads me to believe that Elizabeth may have tried to get as off the record as possible with that investigation, because V was not conditioned or in anyone's pockets. She's by all means the wild card, as by definition an unpredicabe wrench in the works.
I also believe that up until V interfaced with the van, the "Unknown Person" was unable to figure out who the merc was. The ISS agents failed to do so as they kept describing her as 'the mercenary'.
A side question I shall pose before I continue: What exactly was the method of conditioning? during the mission I got the impressions the conditioning was done by feeding the Peralez's foods and drinks and whatnot to make them susceptible to suggestion. This is hinted at when you scan the fruit basket. However as soon as Elizabeth entered the secret room she started getting a headache. I'm not sure however if I much believe that this means they are being conditioned via some form of brainwave trnasmissions. (I recall V stating that the dish on the roof was the transmitter, and the van the receiver, not the other way around)
So in short: how were they being conditioned? And would it have made a difference if you trashed the surveillance equipment and everything? Did they have some form of shard slotted anywhere? I didn't find any evidence this may have been the case. However Jefferson clearly had cyberware, so ... maybe?

--> This leads to my main point. If I assume with above question in mind that the conditioning could be counteracted by destroying the equipment, ceansing all eadibles and relocating to a 'untouched surrounding' and maybe even flush any cyberware....
Why was there no option in the concluding talk with jefferson to take up arms alongside of him?
The way I see it: If you go with Elizabeths request, you once again basically throw in the towel and give up, case closed.
However if you tell Jefferson, the only thing you can do from there is basically say "go fight the good fight" I'll be visiting your grave afterwards. <-- this because during the convo with Elizabeth before that, you get to ask a question along the lines of 'Do you think he'll pick a fight he can't win?'. To which Elizabeth basically says: most likely it'll go like that.
I would have expected that IF you tell jefferson the truth, you'd be their most valuable asset in the fight against the conditioning and unknown organization/people behind it. For one, V can give Jefferson a 'Fixer package' which he could use to contact V via a middleman (or simply as a means to stay off the record) when they find themselves in a bind with the mysterious character. V namely remains being the one assets the Peralez's have that is uncontrollable by their puppeteers. This is also reinforced by the idea that the conditioning cannot take place if there is not physical interaction anymore to whatever is found in the Peralez Appartment.

Now, I know that this story is (currently) designed to be the type where the fate of the Peralez's is grim, ending up as completely transformed people who are merely slaves/puppets to their masters (who we do not know the identity off)
And I'm not really looking for V to come in and save the day, but I would expect a very reasonable chance that V could try and fight for their individual freedom.
I would've liked to explore the idea in a third quest-mission (which would ONLY trigger in specific circumstances) where you would try and root out who's behind it. You could very much so fail in doing so and find yourself in a position where the Peralez Family receives conditioning to actively block you out, and forget about your even existence. however there is still a lot of potential here that could be explored based on just the narrative of these quests alone.

And then I'm not even diving into the entire Mr. Blue Eyes discussion that seems to stem from this, or the rogue AI one, which would open up a real big story to explore.


I hope I've been somewhat coherent becasue the last bit feels like I started to ramble on.
So: time to discuss, what is your ideas, opinions about this subject, fellow forumers.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Warning : All what I'll said are my opinion, not the truth

And the second thing that caught my attention is River never asks what happened after the meeting at the end with the Peralez's as he was very interested in the murdercase. Albeit this may not have gone anywhere in particular anyway.

For me, River have his own opinion/suspicion (when I talk with him on the ledge) and he think, V will said the same thing to the Peralez.
In addition, he will have the only evidence in his possession analyzed , the infected BD (that will not be done, since he is then suspended)
In short, the Peralez's affair is dead (and less important) for him when you meet him for "The Hunt".

So in short: how were they being conditioned? And would it have made a difference if you trashed the surveillance equipment and everything? Did they have some form of shard slotted anywhere? I didn't find any evidence this may have been the case. However Jefferson clearly had cyberware, so ... maybe?

I'm suppose, the Peralez are conditioned with many things (the fruits, the unknow technology connected to the screen, the pain when they doing something wrong...). "They" (unknow) rewrite their synaptic connections (Data shard)... how, when ? I don't know...
The way they did that is particulary obscur and not really explain.

And, unfortunately, I can't really help the Peralez, since he gets hacked directly in the street like that by them. Honestly, they are a little bit too powerful for our poor V.

But, this quest leave lot of questions, it could be intentional. Like why Mr Blue Eyes is here !
If CDPR don't add content for this quest line, I'll be extremely surprised and also disappointed

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

Warning : All what I'll said are my opinion, not the truth

For me, River have his own opinion/suspicion (when I talk with him on the ledge) and he think, V will said the same thing to the Peralez.
In addition, he will have the only evidence in his possession analyzed , the infected BD (that will not be done, since he is then suspended)
In short, the Peralez's affair is dead (and less important) for him when you meet him for "The Hunt".

I'm suppose, the Peralez are conditioned with many things (the fruits, the unknow technology connected to the screen, the pain when they doing something wrong...). "They" (unknow) rewrite their synaptic connections (Data shard)... how, when ? I don't know...
The way they did that is particulary obscur and not really explain.

And, unfortunately, I can't really help the Peralez, since he gets hacked directly in the street like that by them. Honestly, they are a little bit too powerful for our poor V.

But, this quest leave lot of questions, it could be intentional. Like why Mr Blue Eyes is here !
If CDPR don't add content for this quest line, I'll be extremely surprised and also disappointed

Yeah I realize that about River. I just thought he may wanna know out oc curiousity sake. from the premise of the next River sidequest it becomes clear that even taking it to internal (which he'll do in any regard) end in him getting booted from the force.
However he knows from V that Peralez (not an unknown in those circles) has the same suspicoins as him, so there would still be incentive to be curious about it.
But as I said its minor in itself, just something that I noticed.

I agree with you about the Dream On part. Specifically the fact its so vague is why I raise the question. So far I have not seen much explicit info on the Peralez conditioning not being able to 'halted' via a combined effort of trashing everything and go completely underground. Mind you, the impact it would be on their lives in such regard is also not to be underestamiated. Main point being, much is still vague and there's still very many options unexplored here. Perhaps purposefully, we'll see I guess.

The Entire Mr. Blue Eyes thing I still do not know of what to make of it. I've not yet done the ending where he shows up (The Sun??) so I am still unclear on if he would be the same, perhaps the interaction would be the same in that ending or whatever, that gives it away. So far to me its just theory, which is why I didn't quite want to go into that so much anyway.
I'm personally also not really that interested in the guy. I was more so suprised that the questline in its entirety just ends with Peralez's cutting contact with you for the remainder of the game. You're fairly unaware of what really happens. Its implied they're beyond saving. And that is exactly where I raise a flag because I think they may not had to be, at least as far as the extend of what V could try to aid them in the future if the shadowy people come knocking at the door, sort to speak.

It is as you say, time will tell what may yet be revealed in the future (via dlc or other)

 

[Didacgomez]

ou then find yourself on Animals turf: the Red Queens Race where you learn that, apparently, Mayor Rhine just died of a mixture of too much booze, VR and some bad luck in whats essentially a 'dirty club'. NCPD is covering it up via an associate of River.

This actually i think is the major event not a minor one, is very handy that Rhine dies and Holst takes the campaign against Peralez. Compare Peralez political stance with Rhine and Holst in terms of corporate taxation and Night City status as a free city. Since it was implied that the "mind control" has been happening for a while one might wonder if his political beliefs are just a build-up.

If you dig a little bit, you will find connections with 6th Street (and by extension with NUSA) in the campaign for Major and we know that a reunification war was relatively recent (and you can find a shard with an estimation of the likeliness of another war for the same reason). If you think how NC get the status of free city (thanks to Rhyne and his plead of help to Arasaka) and you follow one of the theories about who MBE is-even without MBE, the pointers are there-, then the pointers are not towards rogue AIs with shady agendas but more common human/corporate politics.

Basically NC before Rhine death is an Arasaka sponsored city while if Peralez won and if you didn´t follow devil ending the Major is anti-Corp and Arasaka has lost their influence in NC (in sun/star) and the Major might be under control of a faction that benefits the most of his anti-corp/prounification politics (why not brainwash Rhine or Holst if is a non-human actor?).

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Yeah I realize that about River. I just thought he may wanna know out oc curiousity sake. from the premise of the next River sidequest it becomes clear that even taking it to internal (which he'll do in any regard) end in him getting booted from the force.
However he knows from V that Peralez (not an unknown in those circles) has the same suspicoins as him, so there would still be incentive to be curious about it.
But as I said its minor in itself, just something that I noticed.

Yes, but in my mind, River is much more preocuped by the disappearance of Randy rather than the Peralez's affair (Finally me in his place, I would give a damn about the Peralez). But add a little dialogue during "Follow the River" if you have finish "Dream On" could be welcome

A little additional point about : "V can help the Peralez or not".
Are the changes in the Peralez brain reversible ?
If not, it's dead. Whatever V does, they will be "puppets" forever

This actually i think is the major event not a minor one, is very handy that Rhine dies and Holst takes the campaign against Peralez.

It's possible that Holt win the elections ? (I think it's possible with V choice during "I fought the law").

If you dig a little bit, you will find connections with 6th Street

Yep, i think is in GIG: Error 404.
6th Street are pro-Peralez. On their servers, they have anti-Holt propaganda, if I remember correctly.

 

[Didacgomez]

It's possible that Holt win the elections ? (I think it's possible with V choice during "I fought the law").

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Peralez always wins but one is almost a tie and in the other is a very comfortable majority

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

This actually i think is the major event not a minor one, is very handy that Rhine dies and Holst takes the campaign against Peralez. Compare Peralez political stance with Rhine and Holst in terms of corporate taxation and Night City status as a free city. Since it was implied that the "mind control" has been happening for a while one might wonder if his political beliefs are just a build-up.

If you dig a little bit, you will find connections with 6th Street (and by extension with NUSA) in the campaign for Major and we know that a reunification war was relatively recent (and you can find a shard with an estimation of the likeliness of another war for the same reason). If you think how NC get the status of free city (thanks to Rhyne and his plead of help to Arasaka) and you follow one of the theories about who MBE is-even without MBE, the pointers are there-, then the pointers are not towards rogue AIs with shady agendas but more common human/corporate politics.

Basically NC before Rhine death is an Arasaka sponsored city while if Peralez won and if you didn´t follow devil ending the Major is anti-Corp and Arasaka has lost their influence in NC (in sun/star) and the Major might be under control of a faction that benefits the most of his anti-corp/prounification politics (why not brainwash Rhine or Holst if is a non-human actor?).

Yeah you are correct. There's a gig (or some) from El Capitan that highlights this also. The one I recall is the one where you have to take down a transmitter. But I believe there's at least one other that implies 6th Street having a political interest. And there's the assault location where several workers were rallied to go and vote for Peralez.

Yep, i think is in GIG: Error 404.
6th Street are pro-Peralez. On their servers, they have anti-Holt propaganda, if I remember correctly.

Had to look it up but this is the one yeah. 6th Street is transmitting alti-Holt shit and you're supposed to install malware on the servers.
It leaves little to the imagination who Muammar's Client may have been.

Post automatically merged: May 23, 2021

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Peralez always wins but one is almost a tie and in the other is a very comfortable majority

I was looking into this yesterday because I was curious if the questline could be ended differently.
Its either with 70% victory, or (and this seemed odd) with 49% victory, but this may have been a typo on the website I read this. I think they meant to say that Peralez was victorious with a 49/51 outcome.

 

[Didacgomez]

Its either with 70% victory, or (and this seemed odd) with 49% victory, but this may have been a typo on the website I read this. I think they meant to say that Peralez was victorious with a 49/51 outcome.

i guess is total votes, you can win with 49% of the voters if the rival gets 20% and rest goes to null votes or other candidates. But unless we missed something, Peralez seems to always win.

Yeah you are correct. There's a gig (or some) from El Capitan that highlights this also. The one I recall is the one where you have to take down a transmitter. But I believe there's at least one other that implies 6th Street having a political interest. And there's the assault location where several workers were rallied to go and vote for Peralez.

You can find also Valentinos to be in Arasaka payroll, in lore street gangs are many times used as deniable street operatives by Corporations.

But going back to your original post, I think that the whole questiline is related to NC politics and the struggle to control the city council. This might be further elaborated in DLC/expansions but I'm not sure V can play any role at all changing it (although he/she might be further involved in a story with all this stuff) since it relates to the bigger picture of the world setting.

Post automatically merged: May 23, 2021

Ah yes, I forgot to mention a detail about 6th Street: recently they changed their leader by a guy called "Gunner" and that caused some internal turmoil in the gang, you can find some pieces of info about him but I'm not sure you can even meet him or find his real identity.

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

i guess is total votes, you can win with 49% of the voters if the rival gets 20% and rest goes to null votes or other candidates. But unless we missed something, Peralez seems to always win.

Also possible, they just give the one number. Never what Holt's side may have garnered. But yes, he seems to always win.
Which may be a setup (if we like to be wishful) that that goes somewhere. Because as it stands right now, He's always gonna win the election, but also always be a puppet. so ...

But going back to your original post, I think that the whole questiline is related to NC politics and the struggle to control the city council. This might be further elaborated in DLC/expansions but I'm not sure V can play any role at all changing it (although he/she might be further involved in a story with all this stuff) since it relates to the bigger picture of the world setting.

Maybe not so much in changing it. Its also not immediately the aim. But I can see some ways V's involvement would remain, even after the current questline.

More and more I feel like this may get some future dlc or something because it can become quite a large and overarcing story where the fate of NC itself is at stake, and by extension everyone in it. The building blocks seem to be there and they seen unaffected by the various outcomes (much).
So good way to go forward with something.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

More and more I feel like this may get some future dlc or something because it can become quite a large and overarcing story where the fate of NC itself is at stake, and by extension everyone in it. The building blocks seem to be there and they seen unaffected by the various outcomes (much).
So good way to go forward with something.

In my first playthrough, for this quest, I have hoped until the end to get a holocall, a message or something... In my mind, it couldn't end like this, with more questions than answers
A half-open door on something great, but which in the end, it never fully opened

 

[seracy]

It was my understanding that they were being manipulated with brainwaves, which rewired their brains and allowed their memories and personality to be edited. It would make sense that something like this may need to be paired with some sort of medication for full effect, which would explain the food and why "their" influence seemed to be weakening as the Peralez's started eating more pre-packaged/unaltered food during the campaign.

Peralez always wins. If you tell him that Holt was involved, Holt is charged and loses by a much wider margin, but the world-state is always Peralez wins.

To your main question, I think the revelations at the end of Dream On are beyond the kind of job you'd hire a street merc to deal with (but I do think this changes later). V is wading into a shadow organization manipulating political figures by changing their neural network with brainwaves (and are most likely the ones responsible for Rhyne). V may be able to disconnect antennae and destroy the van, but that doesn't solve the bigger conspiracy. Peralez is at a point where he needs to seek bigger help than V.

I think it's pretty interesting that we get an ending voicemail from Peralez, a side character. His circumstances continue to change post-ending. In one voicemail, he is completely paranoid of even his wife and reaches out to V because he doesn't know anyone else he can trust. In the other, Elizabeth keeps her word to fire their security and Jefferson offers V a job as his new head of security. I think both voicemails invite V back into that storyline and solve that "why would you hire a merc for this???" question.

River is sidetracked by the Hunt, but he does mention in the Sun ending that he still has the Heywood case "hanging over his head" and I assumed he was referring to Rhyne.

I tell myself not to have any specific expectations for the expansions but this feels wide open and it's hard not to lol.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

For the Peralez, It reminds me an other game, the Reaper's indoctrination
It's slow and insidious, but when you realize it, it's too late... the damage is done.
In short : "Their geese are cooked"

 

[bcraig6010]

Hi Everyone. There have been topics about other parts of the game where discussion is started, however I didn't see any that was about discussing the Peralez Questline.
Only some small snippets of very specific stuff such as: Finish the Peralez Questline before calling Judy outcome or One side job more important than most "main" jobs (SPOILERS).
I don't want to go too much into speculation on what the outcome of this questline does or means for the future, I would more so like to discuss the Questline itself and what I consider to be a major absence for V. Notice up front, this post will therefore main cover the quest "Dream On" Because this is where most of the options and missing elements become apparent.

* * * FROM HERE ON OUT MAJOR SPOILERS * * *

Lets start at the beginning: I Fought the Law.
This quest starts when we get a Call from Elizabeth with the request to meet, as they have a job they want V to look into.
You meet with both Elizabeth and Jefferson and they brief you about wanting you to investigate the murder on Mayor Rhyne. You get a BD to look into, on which you find River Ward whom you'll have to contact afterwards as a lead into the investigation. In the BD you watch what looks like a potentially staged, but failed, murder attempt at the mayor by Peter Horvath. After meeting up with River you speak to his CI and/or the scrapseller who employed Peter Horvath for a short time. You then find yourself on Animals turf: the Red Queens Race where you learn that, apparently, Mayor Rhine just died of a mixture of too much booze, VR and some bad luck in whats essentially a 'dirty club'. NCPD is covering it up via an associate of River. The quest ends with you going back to the Peralez family where you can either choose to tell thm that you think it is indeed this guy Holt, the Mayors Deputy, who the Peralez's were suspecting it to be (confirming suspicions) or you can state it was NCPD shoving under the rugg type of biz.

Now, at this point, I Fought The Law quest is fairly straight forward with little to make note off.
Only small things of note to me are: The Peralez's seem too keen on wanting Holt to be mixed up in shady affairs even though it seems legitimally that he's not involved.
Closest thing I could make out of it is that (if you believe it) he used Peter Horvath to try and murder him as seen in the BD, but that failed, afterwards he was out of the picture. And the second thing that caught my attention is River never asks what happened after the meeting at the end with the Peralez's as he was very interested in the murdercase. Albeit this may not have gone anywhere in particular anyway.

Then for the by far more interesting Quest: Dream On.
I'll try to run through this one a bit quick: I believe it is Jefferson this time that calls you (or Elizabeth, I can't really remember) anywho, they want to meet at their apparment, where Jefferson discloses he believes they were robbed. At least he woke up one night and found a strange person in his home who he shot but passed out immediately after. After going through some dialogue you get to investigate the entire appartment which you 'conclude' by discovering a secret room filled with surveillance stations and the lot. You find a weird computer and follow a series of wires to the roof where you find an antenna dish, which in turn point towards a antenna in the streets with a van parked besides it. You follow/chase the van as it pulls away and find yourself in combat with some Maelstrom. Defeat them and hack into the van where you discover the truth!
The Peralez's are being conditioned by an unknown and most likely outside force. Upon discovery of this, you call Elizabeth with your findings. She suggests to meet at a Ramen Shop in Japantown where she confesses she had known/suspected something for some time. The meet concludes with her asking you to not tell Jefferson beause she believes it would ruin him. She says you can meet Jefferson right thereafter.
>> I'll conclude for now by saying: whatever you discuss has little impact on the IMMEDIATE ending of THIS quest, because either way its virtually the last you'll hear of them (not counting several messsages and the post-ending thing)

Where I wanted to go into however is only now starting, because upon discovering the truth from the van I started getting the idea that we, the merc V, could become a quite interesting character for the Peralez's. After reading all terminals, messages and talking to Elizabeth and Jerfferson I got the impression V is the ONE unaccounted for contact with the Peralez's, even after the weird short talk you have with the "Unknown Person". It is also here where I got the destinct impression one very crucial choice was not present in the dialogue with Jefferson becasue of that exact reason.
Lets go over it.

Earlier, when V asks why out of all people he requested you, he says that you are the tried and tested. But more importantly, Elizabeth even before that says that she dismissed everyone in her building in order for Jefferson to call upon you, which leads me to believe that Elizabeth may have tried to get as off the record as possible with that investigation, because V was not conditioned or in anyone's pockets. She's by all means the wild card, as by definition an unpredicabe wrench in the works.
I also believe that up until V interfaced with the van, the "Unknown Person" was unable to figure out who the merc was. The ISS agents failed to do so as they kept describing her as 'the mercenary'.
A side question I shall pose before I continue: What exactly was the method of conditioning? during the mission I got the impressions the conditioning was done by feeding the Peralez's foods and drinks and whatnot to make them susceptible to suggestion. This is hinted at when you scan the fruit basket. However as soon as Elizabeth entered the secret room she started getting a headache. I'm not sure however if I much believe that this means they are being conditioned via some form of brainwave trnasmissions. (I recall V stating that the dish on the roof was the transmitter, and the van the receiver, not the other way around)
So in short: how were they being conditioned? And would it have made a difference if you trashed the surveillance equipment and everything? Did they have some form of shard slotted anywhere? I didn't find any evidence this may have been the case. However Jefferson clearly had cyberware, so ... maybe?

--> This leads to my main point. If I assume with above question in mind that the conditioning could be counteracted by destroying the equipment, ceansing all eadibles and relocating to a 'untouched surrounding' and maybe even flush any cyberware....
Why was there no option in the concluding talk with jefferson to take up arms alongside of him?
The way I see it: If you go with Elizabeths request, you once again basically throw in the towel and give up, case closed.
However if you tell Jefferson, the only thing you can do from there is basically say "go fight the good fight" I'll be visiting your grave afterwards. <-- this because during the convo with Elizabeth before that, you get to ask a question along the lines of 'Do you think he'll pick a fight he can't win?'. To which Elizabeth basically says: most likely it'll go like that.
I would have expected that IF you tell jefferson the truth, you'd be their most valuable asset in the fight against the conditioning and unknown organization/people behind it. For one, V can give Jefferson a 'Fixer package' which he could use to contact V via a middleman (or simply as a means to stay off the record) when they find themselves in a bind with the mysterious character. V namely remains being the one assets the Peralez's have that is uncontrollable by their puppeteers. This is also reinforced by the idea that the conditioning cannot take place if there is not physical interaction anymore to whatever is found in the Peralez Appartment.

Now, I know that this story is (currently) designed to be the type where the fate of the Peralez's is grim, ending up as completely transformed people who are merely slaves/puppets to their masters (who we do not know the identity off)
And I'm not really looking for V to come in and save the day, but I would expect a very reasonable chance that V could try and fight for their individual freedom.
I would've liked to explore the idea in a third quest-mission (which would ONLY trigger in specific circumstances) where you would try and root out who's behind it. You could very much so fail in doing so and find yourself in a position where the Peralez Family receives conditioning to actively block you out, and forget about your even existence. however there is still a lot of potential here that could be explored based on just the narrative of these quests alone.

And then I'm not even diving into the entire Mr. Blue Eyes discussion that seems to stem from this, or the rogue AI one, which would open up a real big story to explore.


I hope I've been somewhat coherent becasue the last bit feels like I started to ramble on.
So: time to discuss, what is your ideas, opinions about this subject, fellow forumers.

I think the most interesting aspect is how many corporations/groups (AIs) could all want to influence society.

If the writers are stupid and lazy it will be all "Mr Blue Eyes"

If they are smart you have the situation of Mr. Blue Eye's group I personally think he's a pawn, his eyes are blue as something manifesting in him is changing influential people's behavior to have them perform acts/rules/laws that coincide with their plan. The peralez quest with bold writing implies the influence comes from beyond the blackwall/AI, maybe even ALT as it felt so familiar to you and johnny. If was just arasaka only johnny would feel similarity.

At rhe same time we have the Sandra quest - after you rescue her you retrieve her data and she collected data on how a corporation was using subtle mind influence upon employee and consumers to influence their buying habits. Less invasive and persona changing than the mr. blue eyes strategy of memory /personality replacement but potentially more wide spread. But quite shocking to learn you have been influenced to buy AllFoods vs. competitor as they have been messing with your pavlovian responses.

You can have expansion deal with learning that there are several corps/groups dealing with mind influence as well as complete memory modification and the ramifications.

Lots of opportunities. Overall two decent/good quest lines.

Once again unless they are dumb and lazy and both these similar but different potential plot lines all lead to mr. blue eyes,

Post automatically merged: May 24, 2021

Yes, but in my mind, River is much more preocuped by the disappearance of Randy rather than the Peralez's affair (Finally me in his place, I would give a damn about the Peralez). But add a little dialogue during "Follow the River" if you have finish "Dream On" could be welcome

A little additional point about : "V can help the Peralez or not".
Are the changes in the Peralez brain reversible ?
If not, it's dead. Whatever V does, they will be "puppets" forever


It's possible that Holt win the elections ? (I think it's possible with V choice during "I fought the law").

Yep, i think is in GIG: Error 404.
6th Street are pro-Peralez. On their servers, they have anti-Holt propaganda, if I remember correctly.

I think them being puppets forever rings true. As how can you reverse memory replacement besides reliving/reseeing accurate memory of events.

Also - the screens are there. Even if they fire the security firm, one can still - maybe more slowly - still get into the screen and transmit to the peralez's - albeit take more time and go slower. But the infrastructure is in place.

 

[MrGuyton]

There's something that confused me during Dream On, I followed the van to the Maelstrom gang and then snuck in to their compound. On the roof above the bridge where the van is parked there is a transparent (cloaked I guess) flying car. I got busted whilst scanning the van so I had to fight the Maelstrom but when I'd finished the vehicle on the roof was gone. Who's is it?

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

@MrGuyton what I've read is that its speculated to be the organisation mr blue eyes is part of.
I regretfully did this quest the 'scripted' way, as in: chase the van with my car and crash the party with mealstrom so I was too busy with scurrying away from maelstrom and never really noticed the cloaked vehicle.

[Edit]: if we're to stay within the limit of what the quests tell us: then thát would be the big question. Who is powerful enought to brainwash the Peralez's (and whoever else) while simultaneously remaining in the shadows.

 

[Kathy97]

In my opinion, Peralez questline leaves you with some existential doubts in your head.

I usually play CP at night, before going to bed, and this sidequests always carry a strong message behind that doesn't let me sleep until 30 minutes of thinking about them

 

[LeKill3rFou]

There's something that confused me during Dream On, I followed the van to the Maelstrom gang and then snuck in to their compound. On the roof above the bridge where the van is parked there is a transparent (cloaked I guess) flying car. I got busted whilst scanning the van so I had to fight the Maelstrom but when I'd finished the vehicle on the roof was gone. Who's is it?

If you are fast :
You can kill 2 guys who were in the van. They had an interesting > shard
If they get on the stealth AV or be killed, the AV flies away.

The AV and the 2 guys (on the ladder).

But Sadly, no information on who they really are

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

In my opinion, Peralez questline leaves you with some existential doubts in your head.

I usually play CP at night, before going to bed, and this sidequests always carry a strong message behind that doesn't let me sleep until 30 minutes of thinking about them

During my holidays in december last year I played mostly in the dark myself with a blacklight behind my television screen

 

[Bartinga2077]

"[SPOILERS] PERALEZ QUESTLINE"​

Will not say too much about one of my top favorite gigs, but will say that this one in particular always signaled to me that it actually was not completed. Like the planning of its story was evolving during development, and all of a sudden management barged in yelling, "Time's up! We're launching!", and it was interrupted abruptly.

Just feels like an entire 3rd follow up gig is missing. Becomes really apparent with one of the last options. To my accounts, like this, it ends with the perpetrators still at large.

 

[MrGuyton]

"[SPOILERS] PERALEZ QUESTLINE"​

Will not say too much about one of my top favorite gigs, but will say that this one in particular always signaled to me that it actually was not completed. Like the planning of its story was evolving during development, and all of a sudden management barged in yelling, "Time's up! We're launching!", and it was interrupted abruptly.

Just feels like an entire 3rd follow up gig is missing. Becomes really apparent with one of the last options. To my accounts, like this, it ends with the perpetrators still at large.

I wondered if this and the Gary side quest are somehow linked and will make sense with a dlc, or like you said weren't completed. If it wasn't complete, then it would have made sense to pull " Dream On" too and leave it after " I fought the law"