The canon conclusion to the 4rth Corporate War

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The canon conclusion to the 4rth Corporate War

In the V3 thread, we are discussing the outcome of the 4rth coporate war.... However, since V3 is going to be disregarded (like highlander 2), this discussion should really be its own thread... especially since most people (including me up until I went back and actually looked closer) seem to think it was this major catastrophic event.... when in actuality, the nuke at Arasaka tower had pretty minimal effects...

CDPR INTERVIEW said:
"So what is the world in 2077. What will change?
The fourth corporate war in Cyberpunk 2020 ended with the detonation of a nuke on top of the Arasaka Tower, resulting in the entire corporate district being annihilated. We have the reconstruction of the buildings somewhere else. It is the same city, but it moved a little closer to the coast. You’ll find some legendary places like Afterlife. The corporations will also remain present – Arasaka, Dynalar, KiroshI etc, be sure to find them."
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There are things to consider... although it would seem that changes are being made to the Shockwave finale... or perhaps whoever was giving the interview was mis-speaking or under-informed...

Here is Night City as presented in the full color map that came with the Sourcebook. The red highlighted portion is the area where the damage was limited.


At the end of the book Firestorm: Shockwave, it definitely describes the nuke as being underground, in the foundation of the building. The nuke itself doesn't seem to do any damage to the surrounding city, but the collapse of the towers causes the larger twin towers of Araska to fall 1 to fall nowrth east, the other to fall West and slightly north, over onto other buildings, causing massive damage to WNS, The Stock exchange, Marshals department store, a night club(presumably Rainbow Nights), the 10th street center, the West Plaza Executive Tower, and some abandoned Militech Facilities are all completely destroyed, Other buildings take massive damage from debris as the two smaller Arasaka towers collapse to the eats and south west... including the US Federal Building, The Japanese Consulate, and the Microtech and WNS Towers. The Damage caused by both nuke, and complex collapse, is detailed fully on page 133 of Firestorm Shockwave.

This map is a close up of the damage zone that shows the buildings destroyed or damaged by the event.


The Nuke caused the 4 Arasaka Towers to topple in an x formation outward. The large NW tower was the first to fall, then its twin, then the two smaller towers...
This map shows the path of destruction caused by the Buildings, RED is for the two larger towers, who pretty much obliterated what they fell over on, except for the FED and Consulate, which only substained massive damage, as opposed to outright deastrustion... Yellow is for the two smaller towers who managed massive damage, but did not destroy the buildings they impacted with.


During this fight, Johnny and Rache are confirmed dead. Thompson is grievously wounded, perhaps dead... Morgan and Adam Smasher are on the rooftop when the building collapses, and are presumed Dead. Saburo Arasaka has fled to Japan.

In the epilogue, Kei Arasaka, Saburo's heir, is forced to download his consciousness via Soulkiller into a digital prison by Rogue, Spider Murphy, and Shaitan.

Now... the important bits...

First, the nuke was detonated underground, it was a small low-yield device, primarily designed for excavation. As such, upon closer inspection, the damage from the nuke to the city is almost inconsequential. It was certainly NOT detonated at the top of the tower, if it was, all the iconic characters would be dead, as it is clearly stated to have been detonated while some were still on it, and others were hovering above.

Second, while the damage caused by the collapsing towers was heavy, it was not the major city destroying book described by V3, there is no way the body count reaches even a million.... It would be about triple the effects of 9-11, but really no more. There would be n need for a relocation of the city... and in fact the larger buildings could be, and would be repaired...

Arasaka would most likely spin it as a terrorist attack on their towers, and this would likely go unchallenged save for a few floating conspiracy theories. After all, the nuke itself was detonated, under orders from General Eddington of the United States Army, under orders from the POTUS. This is treason on an unimaginable scale... this is like if George Bush were directly responsible for 9-11 levels of treason... No one ever gets to Challenge Arasaka's claims that this was a terrorist attack.... and if Arasaka discovers themselves that the strike teams that attacked them were operating under military authority... Christ...

(See, this is why I dislike the conclusion, and really the idea of a corporate hot war of this scale altogether, from the firestorm books.... seriously what the fuck.... )

Anyway, if they do decide to include the 4rth corporate war, and I would honestly rather they just ignored it.... then this would explain why Arasaka is Still around, and still a powerhouse.

In total the death toll from this even would be somewhere between 1 and 5 thousand people. The explosion happened at night, after hours for most of these places. The most populated buildings that were destroyed would be of course Arasaka, the Japanese Consulate, Plaza West Tower and the night club. WNS and Microtech would see casualties at well, but weren't total losses. The other buildings destroyed were either empty or had skeleton crews at most. Non-essential Arasaka personell had already been sent home, expecting an attack. And even Plaza West and the Japanese Consulate would have far fewer people in the buildings than during the day.

So really, there is no reason for a relocation of the city... and in fact it makes little sense.

It's possible CDPR does not want to attempt the massive undertaking required to reconstruct the Night City map from the sourcebook (which any way you slice it is pretty disappointing)... and is using the 4rth corporate war as an excuse as to why the map looks so different... however it's not necessary, and makes little sense under the circumstances...

A quake would be a much more plausible reason for a massive change to the city, I am still dissapointed that the NC sourcebook is going to be completely tossed out and made irrelevant by this... but I understand that CDPR has limitations....

Regardless, if the 4rth corporate war is included, as they said it will be, it's effects in Night City are pretty minimal... and in the end, Arasaka won the corporate war... Saburo is still in charge afterwards, his Daughter Hanako is safe in Osaka at the family compound, his other son, Yurinobu was imprisoned with the soulkiller, and may or may not have been extracted fromt eh bulding, but with the loss of the virus, there is no way to put either him, or Alt, back into a body...so Hanako will be completely influenced by her father, and the loss of her brothers, both of whose deaths will be blamed on the terrorists/Militech/United States....

Militech on the other hand suffers major losses, its CEO, Donald Lundee is forced to all but dissolve the company, seeling off assets or relocating them, the company is devastated, and Lundee is seen as a traitor by the United States public. What is known to the general public is that Militech and Arasaka had been involved in covert operations with each other following the CINO-OTEC affair, then Militech initiated the Hot War by attacking an Arasaka instillation directly and openly. Militech is commonly seen as the aggressor in the affair, though they tried to play on patriotism and home team angles with the media... In the end, Militech comes out having sustained much heavier losses than Arasaka, both financially, resource wise, and from a public viewpoint... especially on a global scale.
 

Aver

Forum veteran
There are things to consider... although it would seem that changes are being made to the Shockwave finale... or perhaps whoever was giving the interview was mis-speaking or under-informed...

Or they changed it a little bit. In the The Witcher games they changed slightly some events/characters from The Witcher books, so they would fit better to their game.
 
Or they changed it a little bit. In the The Witcher games they changed slightly some events/characters from The Witcher books, so they would fit better to their game.

I kinda said that.... right there in the bit of mine you quoted....
 
I do not quite agree with you when you say that Arasaka won the war.
I mean, the losses (in terms of money, assets and human resources) are sky-high, both for Militech and Arasaka. The conflict is worlwide, their security contracts were suspended or cancelled by the other corps. In Europe (if my memories are correct), they have been calmed down pretty quickly. Arasaka maintained a domination in Asia, as Militech remained a great power in South America. The writers decided to settle the campaign in desUnited States of America. Militech And Arasaka are both, in my mind, the loosers of that war.

The Governement is the winner, for it appears as the only power able to rival the military power of the two corps (even if they somewhat "nationalize" Militech). I also believe that the Spy Factory (Arasaka) is fully aware that the US military decided the nuke strike. However, due to the events (slaughters, blind terrorist actions, open urban warfare) and their fallouts, absolutly no one would blame the Prez to have nuked the tower (who knows what the guys in black keep there) in order to restore peace. I do not remember anyone complaining about the Big Stick operation (destruction of a Corp and their employees because they set up the assassination of a Prez).

You may also notice that this conclusion is very similar to WW2 ending, when USA bombed Japan to avoid a really bloody conventional campaign.
 
I do not quite agree with you when you say that Arasaka won the war.
I mean, the losses (in terms of money, assets and human resources) are sky-high, both for Militech and Arasaka. The conflict is worlwide, their security contracts were suspended or cancelled by the other corps. In Europe (if my memories are correct), they have been calmed down pretty quickly. Arasaka maintained a domination in Asia, as Militech remained a great power in South America. The writers decided to settle the campaign in desUnited States of America. Militech And Arasaka are both, in my mind, the loosers of that war.

The Governement is the winner, for it appears as the only power able to rival the military power of the two corps (even if they somewhat "nationalize" Militech). I also believe that the Spy Factory (Arasaka) is fully aware that the US military decided the nuke strike. However, due to the events (slaughters, blind terrorist actions, open urban warfare) and their fallouts, absolutly no one would blame the Prez to have nuked the tower (who knows what the guys in black keep there) in order to restore peace. I do not remember anyone complaining about the Big Stick operation (destruction of a Corp and their employees because they set up the assassination of a Prez).

You may also notice that this conclusion is very similar to WW2 ending, when USA bombed Japan to avoid a really bloody conventional campaign.


You don't think anyone would blame the prez? For setting a nuke off on us soil, in the heart of of one the largest cities in the country, in a free state, that caused the arasaka towers to collapse onto several of the surrounding buildings.... I mean forget all the civilian casualties of the Nightclub, the office buildings, Microtech, Executive Plaza West, the Dept Store, and the obscene monetary amount of property damage.... WNS... the media corporation... Yeah I think they would kinda freak out... and the Japanese Consulate... that is an act of war...

Don't forget the billions of eb worth of Satellites the USAF destroyed rather non chalantly on the possibility Arasaka "might" have hidden weapons systems stored in them, or hem parking their other oribital battleship over Tycho so the Euro's couldn't get involved... which are also acts of aggression....

And the only justification was that Araska had there hands on a really nasty computer virus? One that required ridiculous amounts of resources to implement?

Christ... our country has a conniption if the president gets a non approved blow job.... The president directly being responsible for thousands of American civilians... jesus.... I cannot even fathom the reaction to that in the modern age...

Keep in mind this is already in setting where the government has failed the people so harshly that many opted out, becoming free states, so they wouldn't have to pay in to federal emergency services and relief efforts... A country that abandoned its own people in hostile territory in the thousands when they pulled out of the second south am war... A country where not only operation big stick went down, but the collapse and years of rebuilding afterwords...

If you don't think the president would be lynched by her tits if word got out, then you and I are playing very different games of Cyberpunk....

No.... that shit would get covered up so deep it would hit the earths core...

Arasaka may suspect.... hell they may even know in their hearts what happened, but the US would make sure they couldn't prove it.... Otherwise, the only real outcome in the after math would pretty much be global war... as well as an outright civil war in the US.

As I have said... the Firestorm books should be ignored... or at the very least just glossed over... because if you really start to analyze the outcomes, what comes out the other end isn't cyberpunk... at least not as the setting we know and love... it won't even resemble it artificially. Not to mention the whole thing is so contrived and silly.... I know Sardi digs it, hell I know lots of people dig it.... but the reality is it never would have gotten that far in the first place...

Hell the corporations wouldn't ever have taken to a hot war in the first place.... they are corporations, profit is everything, and there is no profit to be made by such a thing. The whole thing was just silly.... it was fun silly, it gave everyone a chance to play with the big toys... but it was still silly. The covert war of Stormfront kicked ass.... the hot war... just plain goofy shoes.... there was nothing plausible about the scenario.
 
The end was stupid. If a national government could do that to the megacorps it's not Cyberpunk 2020 at all, it's just another action movie. The - for me - WHOLE POINT of the Dark Future is that your elected/appointed reps aren't worth diddly. The PRes would have made that phone call to Lundee and he would have laughed at her. Or she would have become VERY ILL just before the call. Because Corporations are Not To Be Messed With. Ever.

On the Other Hand, if the ESA or the Europeans or EBM/WNS/Biotech and everyone else who ACTUALLY runs the world had made that phone call, I'd be fine.

Also, nyah nyah, Wisdom. If you check back on my early posts, you'll see me arguing that the nuke wasn't that bad and Arasaka had contained it. Now you see my genius, I'm sure.

Militech and Arasaka both lost, but who lost more is hard to say. Militech was being chopped up but whatserface Luccini is taking the reigns whereas Arasaka has no one. I'd say Militech came out the better PR wise just because they were Americans on American soil. You guys are crazy about that.

Financially...who knows. Real World, they'd probably be arbitraged into nothingness.

As for moving Night City - nukes leave rads, but really I like the idea that the Corps did it for some Hidden Reason.
 

Aver

Forum veteran
The end was stupid. If a national government could do that to the megacorps it's not Cyberpunk 2020 at all, it's just another action movie.

Actually I would say that world with completely worthless government is more cliche, than world with governments that still have power.
 
As mentionned somewhere else, there is no 2 cyberpunk games the same. So, I think I'm as entitled as you are to have an opinion on what is cannon (written in R Talsorian books).

The picture I have from my readings of official materials is a very bleak America. I would not say that I'm not influenced by the books I read elsewhere, but I do not picture the US government as a powerfull entity. Corruption, scandals, decay of the USA as a federation, collapse of the economy left the country ruined. When compared to Pac-Rim sourcebook, or the European Sourcebook, USA are depicted much as a third world country. Corps experiment their drugs / weapon / whatever in the streets, Nomads travels for jobs, the average income is very low, the politic system is a joke, and the main concern of about any citizen is to earn his/her life. In a word, USA in 2020 are much like Brazil (or India) today. They try to regain their place as a world leading nation.
Your statement about people reaction is a bit naïve (still from my point of view and no offense intended). I do believe that, with enough propaganda, people may be made believing anything. If the governement says that they nuked Arasaka towers because Arasaka was producing there (and planning to release) a bio plague. Who may prove otherwise ? Arasaka, and, in doing so, reveal what was really in the basement ? No way. And who would believe theme anyway ? They fought a nice little war and both them and Militech are despised as murderous bastards.

You seem to think that the government is accountable to the electors of his policy. That's not totally true. Those in charge are puppets of corps. That is also cyberpunk. Just check the US Defense authorization Act, allowing military authorities to detain anybody without trial. Inject that in a CP setting.
I do not want to engage on a debate about US policy worldwide, but I can't help thinking that some decisions are way away from the ideas of Justice and Democracy (again, I just expose my opinion ).
As said before, considering the derelict shape of a once great nation in CP2020, I do not see why the people in charge would be worry about a popular reaction to a mini-nuke, especially if presented as a pre emptive strike on an enemy about to kill thousands. The only power the US gov retains is military. All the political decisions are bogged because of Corp corruption. The Prez being the only commander of armed forces, he/she may be the only accountable one for any decision.
And propaganda may easily present the Prez as a saviour (what are 5000 casualties in lieu of 5 000 000 ?). That is my point.

The only motives I see in war, from a Corp view, is Corporate Culture and possible gains. Arasaka has both. Japanese pride and melancholy of the WW2 is Saburo's obsession. Japan economy is far above US economy. The only real challenger is Militech. Arasaka has a legal front, and a much darker back office. They are not worse than other corps. They all spy, assassinate, kidnap and so on. But Arasaka is the most successful in this little game. Japanese government is Arasaka's pawn. Why not settle the score from 1945 ?
And, just as in 1940, Arasaka starts a war Saburo may believe short and sees himself as the only possible winner. Militech is his only challenger as they share the same markets in weaponry and security. And his idea proved wrong. But in the case he successfully wipes out Militech, who is going to hinder him ? There is no real "hot war" in Europe or in Japan. And America (North and South) are not the world leading powers. And Arasaka knows in which closet the skeletons are : don't expect much legal fuss. So, in the end, Arasaka would dominate the Corp world.

I still think this campaign owes very much to the actual hystory of WW2. Japan really believed they may win the war. And they have lost. The Firestorm campaign take more or less the same scenario, and it is as believable.
 
The PRes would have made that phone call to Lundee and he would have laughed at her. Or she would have become VERY ILL just before the call. Because Corporations are Not To Be Messed With. Ever.

On the Other Hand, if the ESA or the Europeans or EBM/WNS/Biotech and everyone else who ACTUALLY runs the world had made that phone call, I'd be fine.

I quite agree with you.
Except that D Lundee is (here again, if my memories are true) depicted as a patriot and he is still faithful to his country and chain of command. A bit simple.
 
Yeah, he is, if I recall correctly. But what country? The U.S. is smashed. furthermore, that idea that MILITECH'S CEO and Chairman would have a primary loyalty to ANYThing else makes me gag. You know how Corporates are depicted in the game - well, the CEO is the ultimate expression of those cunning, self-serving, ruthless greedy bastards.
 
Actually I would say that world with completely worthless government is more cliche, than world with governments that still have power.

Where the money the governments spend comes from ?
It's not a cliché, it's the real world.
 
Yeah, he is, if I recall correctly. But what country? The U.S. is smashed. furthermore, that idea that MILITECH'S CEO and Chairman would have a primary loyalty to ANYThing else makes me gag. You know how Corporates are depicted in the game - well, the CEO is the ultimate expression of those cunning, self-serving, ruthless greedy bastards.

Yes. Totally right. That's why I stated that this motivation is a bit simple (understatment) :p
 
...since V3 is going to be disregarded (like highlander 2)
...pfft. There goes the Nomad again, rambling on about this mythical "Highlander 2," as if it existed.

Too much of that homebrew moonshine.

OI, WISDOM: you're gonna drink yourself blind at this rate, chombatta. You need to put down the bottle, m'man.
 
Highlander had a sequel?! Was it awesome? Why have I never heard of it before?

Also, governments have plenty of power in both most fiction and in the real world. CP2020 was unusual in that it didn't even -pretend- to give the USGov any power and made it clear they were pretty hamstrung.


And then Home of the Brave came out and the National Boner re emerged. Sigh.
 
Good point; there does seem to be a bit of disconnect between the main book and Home of the Brave.

I suspect CDPR may take a bit of artistic license, or otherwise build off of larger, overarching themes, rather than getting into logistical minutia.
 
My knowledge on this is still pretty-much based on Wisdom and Wikipedia, so what actually happened in the gaming community during that big time-lag between Shockwave and the CP77 announcement?

It's clear that PnP players didn't all just switch to V3, but how much of that would you say was because of the change to Fuzion, and how much because of a lack of acceptance of the post-2020 history, or were there other reasons too?

Because I'm definitely getting a strong impression from you all that only 2020 should be considered canon, and that while some of the events in Firestorm may be included, they could also be changing a lot. And that this would probably be a desirable direction.
 
I didn't make the jump to v3 because I didn't know about it. =p Had a pretty good gap of not playing ANY PnP games, so I didn't even know about it until discussion in this forum, honestly. So, most of the timeline I'm aware of after 2020 is piecemeal knowledge.

I suspect most of this game's market is not going to be invested in the PnP game, nor come from the PnP background. As stated above, I'm expecting a certain amount of artistic license being taken.
 
Because I'm definitely getting a strong impression from you all that only 2020 should be considered canon, and that while some of the events in Firestorm may be included, they could also be changing a lot. And that this would probably be a desirable direction.

Well, Since Pondsmith declared that CP 2077 is going to be based on Cyberpunk 2020, we theorize on that and do not include Cybergen or Cyberpunk 3.0.
I don't consider Cyberpunk 3.0 a bad game, but I did not appreciate it. It was too different and I didn't enjoy the flavor.
 
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