Cyberpunk in THS? (Free city of Dar es Salaam?)

[Icelander]

My friend wanted to start a cyberpunk game. The setting he wanted to use wasn't published yet, however.

I do have a lot of Transhuman Space books, however, although I haven't actually read them all.

Could you set a cyberpunk game in a free city in a developing country, where the local government is more-or-less under the thumb of foreign international conglomerates, some of whom are involved in various unsavoury shenanigans?

How would, for example, Dar es Salaam* work in that capacity?

The only canon mention of that city I recall is that the population was decimated in 2021, when hantavirus was released through experimentation.

After a long and bloody civil war that lasted into the late 2030s, Tanzania broke into several successor states in the 2040s and 2050s, although in the current era of 2100, only Tanganyika (SAC) and Zanzibar (Unaligned) remain.

Is it implausible or inapproriate for some in-setting reason that Dar es Salaam remained independent of either part and received status as a free city?

How would Dar es Salaam work as one of the endpoints of the al-Mu'aqqibat underground railroad for bioroids?

Could bioroids be smuggled from somewhere else, into a free city of Dar es Salaam, with the goal of procuring for them a citizenship of Tanganyika or another SAC country, which would allow them to enjoy freedom, some degree of social security and at least the possibility of economic advancement?

How does Zanzibar treat bioroids? For that matter, how do majority Muslim countries which do not belong to the Caliphate treat the legal and social status of bioroids?

What is the situation in the Seychelles? How do they treat bioroids? What is the economy like?

Would the Olympus Project in neighbouring Kenya have some impact on the economy of Dar es Salaam?

*My friend spent time there as a kid, so he knows it better than any other city in a developing country.

[Icelander]

How plausible if the notion of a free city of Dar es Salaam that among other things acts as an intermediary virtual trading baazar, located between the rival blocs of the SAC, TSA and Islamic Caliphate?

The SAC networks are supposedly strongly secured against TSA designs, but there is a clear incentive for the Dead Broke and Poor countries in the SAC, at least, to prefer free TSA designs, even if they are a few years older, over expensive IP from Fifth Wave countries.

The same, to some degree, applies to the Islamic Caliphate, though no doubt the island of Zanzibar becomes the official supplier of any goods bought in Dar es Salaam and imported into the Caliphate.

Would it be contrary to established THS canon or inherently implausible to have the Tanganyika 'net be relatively well secured with firewalls and expert law-enforcement/intelligence service infomorphs thoughtfully provided by South Africa, but the Dar es Salaam 'net being home to several competing data havens and being riddled with back-doors, including ones that allow access to the TSA networks?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Would it be contrary to established THS canon or inherently implausible to have the Tanganyika 'net be relatively well secured with firewalls and expert law-enforcement/intelligence service infomorphs thoughtfully provided by South Africa, but the Dar es Salaam 'net being home to several competing data havens and being riddled with back-doors, including ones that allow access to the TSA networks?

I think answers to that lie in the themes of Darknet. A city having a very active Darknet section of servers and stuff seems plausible.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I think answers to that lie in the themes of Darknet. A city having a very active Darknet section of servers and stuff seems plausible.

How would your usage of the term 'Darknet' compare to phenomena that in the THS are refered to by the terms 'Free Net' and 'data havens'?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

How would your usage of the term 'Darknet' compare to phenomena that in the THS are refered to by the terms 'Free Net' and 'data havens'?

Hmm. It's been a while since I read the books. IIRC Darknet and Freenet are the same thing. OTOH, data havens seem to be a concept that is somewhat separate. E.g. it's hypothetically possible to keep a data haven within the non-free net; you can 100% reliably keep the data you sell obscured from everybody except the buyer, since the encryption in THS is impenetrable; you just have to tolerate the fact that everyone will know who is buying it (the main problem with the non-free net).

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Hmm. It's been a while since I read the books. IIRC Darknet and Freenet are the same thing. OTOH, data havens seem to be a concept that is somewhat separate. E.g. it's hypothetically possible to keep a data haven within the non-free net; you can 100% reliably keep the data you sell obscured from everybody except the buyer, since the encryption in THS is impenetrable; you just have to tolerate the fact that everyone will know who is buying it (the main problem with the non-free net).

Ah, ok.

Yes, the Dar es Salaam that is emerging in our play* has a lot of underworld servers that allow access to the Free Net. There's also a very dubious data haven for actively criminal activity that operates under the cover of a full-immersion VR/Slinky** MMORPG, Netrunner 2020. Behind this false-front digital kingdom (FW p. 43) / data haven are considerable resources, as it has immense bandwith and computing power, an incredible number of infomorphs and a frightening number of connections to the darkest of the Free Net, as well as various parts of the more open or less-secured TSA networks (especially servers hosted in Madagascar).

*We've finished one session and I'm working with the GM to help him with THS background, worldbuilding and plausibility checks. I've also been appointed quartermaster-general, responsbible for finding in the sourcebooks or failing that, statting up, any equipment that players request or NPCs would need and would plausibly be available to them in a corrupt and lawless Third Wave city in the TL10 THS world.
**Depending on user system and chosen level of access. Those who are not using a direct neural-jack, i.e. Augmented Sensory Links with no brain-to-downslink encryption or security features, are usually unable to take advantage of many of the best hidden higher-level secrets of the data haven, unless they are infomorphs or have other methods of attaining Enhanced Time Sense.