The story doesn't explain this about Relic (SPOILER!)

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One thing unclear is whether the Relic chip could still function if it suffered damages during the death of the host, such as via a gunshot to the head, which is exactly what happens to V. If the host suffered catastrophic physical harm during his death, it's possible that some or all of his implant functions would be gone too. This wouldn't be a very good design for a resurrection implant, would it? It would only be good for people who die peaceful deaths -- which we are led to believe are rare in Night City. The Relic specifications that Hellman gave to V also doesn't mention any safeguard against any such scenario.
 
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So, here is how I understood the whole thing.
The relic as it appears in the game doesn't revive people. It's on "Write only" mode. So the idea seems to be that if you put it in a empty vessel, let's say a braindead clone, it override the brain with the chip construct and inhabits the body. So far it's experimental tech and doesn't really work. (it will work by the end of the game if you end up in the Arasaka corpo ending, Saburo override his son and comes back in his body).

When Jackie did put the relic in, nothing happened, the relic wanted to write but found a working brain so it didn't even start. Jackie dies, if the relic stayed in him it will have started to write itself on him, but being dead that would have been the end of it. If you're dead your personality doesn't really change much things.

The relic passes to us, finds a functioning brain and doesn't do anything. Dex shoots us in the head and we go braindead for a sec there, the relic mistakes us for braindead and starts overriding the construct on our brain. If we died there that would've been the end of us and johnny, simply diyng with us but hey...plot twist, we ain't dead.
First Takemura with the help of Delamain stabilize us, and then Victor saves us bringing us back from the dead. (trauma team does that quite often).
 
The Relic system seems to not have a problem getting your engram. As long as the brain isn't destroyed. And you aren't past the point of brain death. Where the neurons depolerize. If you're in this safe area. You are fully transfered to the Relic system. It also acts as a copying system, as a secondary option. Since Saburo did this before his death. Basically Mikoshi can make you live forever. Or make an army of yourself.
 
My original question is that what if the Relic chip ITSELF is damaged, or is it indestructible? If the chip were damaged, it would very well lose its ability, wouldn't it? The person wouldn't be revived, and this would be a very short game. The chip slot is right at the temple, so a gunshot to the head could easily damage the Relic chip. We could say Dex's gunshot missed it and didn't damage it. But I'm questioning the lore now: didn't the inventor of the Relic think of ways the chip could be damaged? I'm also questioning the game's writer: why does it have to be a gunshot to V's head so we even have to ask this question? They could have V be killed a thousand other ways.
 
I actually have a crazy theory as well. If you read the Transcript of the Relic 2.0 specifications given to V by Anders Hellman, you learn that several attempts to use RELIC 2.0 to implant both a digitized engram and enhanced personality construct had resulted in failure. They had then attempted trials using subjects on the verge of biological death, but were still unsuccessful in activating the chips basic functionality. They then proceeded trials with hosts that had undergone both brain death and cardiac arrest. This also failed as the biochip would show initial signs of activating before lapsing. The question is why did the chip work on V, but no other test subjects. What was the missing ingredient in V's case that allowed the chip to function? My answer, serendipitous cross corporate synergy.
Let's talk about Sandra Dorsett, because she plays into my theory. When you return Sandra's databank to her you have a variety of options. You can choose to not read the databank at all. You can break its encryption and then lie about it. You can come clean and praise her, or you can come clean about reading it and attempt to blackmail her. Her reactions will span from paying you extra for your compliments, to attempting to gun you down with a home turret. I remember when I initially played through the various scenarios, her reactions seemed to go from 0 to 60 in a split second. Then, I remembered the contents of the databank.
Night corp was testing a AI designated CN-07 on its employees. The databank states how it had successfully bypassed various security systems and engage in a period of subliminal conditioning. It specifically notes how a subject that had been calm and empathetic experiences a psychotic break, strangled a colleague over a coffee dispute (which gets some empathy from me, I have often wanted to strangle coworkers that kill the pot and don't start a new one) and then throws themself out a 16th story window. So, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that Sandra has already been experiencing the effects of CN-07 and when stressed quickly resorts to extreme violence.
Now, what does this have to do with V? Well, when V rescues Sandra at the beginning of the game, he has to interface directly with her system to get her vital stats. During this interface, he appears to pick up some kind of virus. He has Vic look at it the next day while getting new optics. Vic assures him he flushed it from his systems. But, my suspicion is that he did not, or that by the time he did, CN-07 had already began its process of conditioning V's mind.
RELIC 2.0 failed previously because even when implanted on test subjects that had undergone brain death, the brain itself still required additional conditioning to accept RELIC 2.0's programming. The RELIC would have only worked on V because V was one of the few people that was actually in a per-conditioned state that would prove ultimately receptive to RELIC 2.0's primary function.
 
My original question is that what if the Relic chip ITSELF is damaged, or is it indestructible? If the chip were damaged, it would very well lose its ability, wouldn't it? The person wouldn't be revived, and this would be a very short game. The chip slot is right at the temple, so a gunshot to the head could easily damage the Relic chip. We could say Dex's gunshot missed it and didn't damage it. But I'm questioning the lore now: didn't the inventor of the Relic think of ways the chip could be damaged? I'm also questioning the game's writer: why does it have to be a gunshot to V's head so we even have to ask this question? They could have V be killed a thousand other ways.

Basic design of the Relic is the Relic goes in after death. The host would most likely be "written" while under intensive care/in the hospital so very low risk of head trauma until the process was completed and the Relic able to be removed safely.

E.g. It was not designed to be carried around inside someones head until they died. It was designed to be placed into the host under safe/controlled conditions to have the engram written to the host. It isn't a "Resurrection Module" in the sense that you described it.

I'd assume like anything if the Relic was damage it could cease to function though.
 
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Based on the movement of the NPCs as well as yourself in certain situations, the Relic chip was slotted in the nape of the neck. Now arguably, how many slots does a typical person have?

Recall Delamain talking Takemura presumably through some life support move using a personal link inside to Limo to V, and mentioning secondary slots or sockets.

It also explains how the chip would not have been damaged if it was at the neck and not the head.

What it doesn't explain is how poorly even a small caliber round failed to do damage to the frontal cortex. Dex was not only a terrible shot, but apparently Plan B (his personal weapon) was terribly nerfed at the time, considering basic stats when you recover it off his body later.

That's the part that misses the mark, pun intended.
 
What it doesn't explain is how poorly even a small caliber round failed to do damage to the frontal cortex. Dex was not only a terrible shot, but apparently Plan B (his personal weapon) was terribly nerfed at the time, considering basic stats when you recover it off his body later.

That's the part that misses the mark, pun intended.

I mean, Dex does hit you in the head and kill you. You are only alive because the biochip reboots your brain and resurrects you. Vic gives you the bullet he dug out of your skull. I always assumed the reason you couldn't remove the chip was because the bullet had done enough damage to your frontal cortex that your brain had been forced to reroute functions through the biochip.
 

xlawx

Forum regular
For medicine perspective, the body lives longer than the brain.
In RL, if you're organ donor, your brain have to be identified "clinically" dead first and your body still can function with the life-support machine for several hours, even days.
Relic has a function of life-support nanomachines. Hellmann said, firstly it was a prototypes and you aren't supposed to stand up. You forgot, you were brought to Vik, who should repaired your all implantants and gave you an omega-blocker.

We could say Dex's gunshot missed it and didn't damage it. But I'm questioning the lore now: didn't the inventor of the Relic think of ways the chip could be damaged?
Vic, the Ripper Doc said, the calibre was very weak. Typcially mischoice of DexShawn for not pick a weapon with bigger destroy potential. The inventor can read the diagnose and he cant say much a lot because he did one work phase, the rest did other people.
 
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Actually if you read into emails in Arasaka tower (during mission with Rouge) you will notice they seem to say Relic procedures are not working. They seem to have very low success rate as low as 19% (!!!). And from various endings it seems that Mikoshi is primarily used to gather intel about subjects. Not to preserve life. Surprise, corpos lie ;-). When this facts come out Arasaka basically go bankrupt because of that (in space ending I think; edit: yeah, Delamin talks about this).

My theory is that Relic is not really working. And that with V it was simply a fluke that it worked.

v2micca theory with Sandra is interesting... But you forgot that Sandra suffered from serious trauma. She is likely to suffer PTSD. She seems to me to be actually very nervous all the time. Don't want to chat and wants to get straight to point. Snaps quite easily... Why? Because she is hacking the NightCorp which has wide influences. And also most of the people are very nervous in the Night City. They will shoot you when you stand to close to them. So... I like that theory, but it's a bit of a stretch ;-)

Report 11 with deaths of subjects is here:
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Report to board members about Secure Your Soul failure is here:
1609857081683.png
 
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I have a question.
Johnny's engram via the relic is overwriting V's brain.
At the end, Alt says she can't save V and if V went back to her body she would have only 6 months to live.
During the separation of Johnny and V, Alt says she has to basically kill V's body to do it.
At the end, V has her own engram now.
Couldn't it be possible that once V's engram is put back in her own body - it overwrites her brain again removing the Johnny stuff from her brain and basically putting her back together as just V without the 6 months stuff?
If it's possible to do that, perhaps one of the upcoming expansions will have you, panam (and maybe Judy) looking for the tools/cyberware that would enable her to do just that.
 
I have a question.
Johnny's engram via the relic is overwriting V's brain.
At the end, Alt says she can't save V and if V went back to her body she would have only 6 months to live.
During the separation of Johnny and V, Alt says she has to basically kill V's body to do it.
At the end, V has her own engram now.
Couldn't it be possible that once V's engram is put back in her own body - it overwrites her brain again removing the Johnny stuff from her brain and basically putting her back together as just V without the 6 months stuff?
If it's possible to do that, perhaps one of the upcoming expansions will have you, panam (and maybe Judy) looking for the tools/cyberware that would enable her to do just that.
Soulkiller removes all information from the brain. When V returns to his body his mind is empty.
 
Soulkiller removes all information from the brain. When V returns to his body his mind is empty.

i've mentioned this several times in another thread: v's body has had it's dna rewritten by the nanites, and supposedly that's supposed to force V's body to reject the engram. now, the engram is just digital information, there's nothing biological to it at all, no dna for the body to reject (i'm also guessing there's no physical component either making it even dumber now that i think of it). so, there's really no reason for V's body to reject their engram, even if their body's dna has been completely rewritten.
 
I thought as the chip as a degradable material that slowly dissolves and merges with the body. But honestly, does it really matter.
even in shows like altered carbon, if you get blasted in the neck- You die for good. Which is why it was against the law x2 to blast somebody in the neck
 
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