(IW) Cyberpunk Worlds

[WholesomeMadScientist]

Originally Posted by ajardoor

Snowcrash

Snow Crash is to much of a mess and too absurd to be a parallel in the same way as Transhuman or Traveller - Intersetellar Wars, but not bizarre or inhospitable enough to be a Hell World or Puzzle World. It’s too peculiar to exist in a “I don’t have to worry about worlds where Washington and Jefferson instituted a pharaonic monarchy with a divine god-king.”-Michael F. Flynn kind of way.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've come to believe that if we ever do see surgical interface with bionics of soem sort the only way to prevent constant threat of infections would be to graft (probably cloned) skin over it so you'd never see those metal arms.

You'd need something like that where the original meat and new implants interface together, but it should be possible for the bulk of, say, a cybernetic arm to be obviously metal (or carbon fiber, or whatever) if that's what the user wants. I suspect it would be cheaper to seal the entire thing, however.

Some thoughts on the general thread:

Reverse Engineering: Provided they can establish themselves, would Homeline actually need to reverse engineer captured technology? A lot of the obsolete (to the worldline) tech is probably going to have design specs available somewhere (heck, you might have an underground of 3d-printed, homemade technology Homeline could make use of), and for things that aren't you might be able to hire a crew to steal some for you (or hire a team to do the reverse-engineering for you, maybe with a cover of wanting them to prove themselves before you give them the "real" job).

Establishing a Presence: A lot of suggestions mention renting an apartment and basically watching TV for a while to gain Cultural Familiarity (and then teach it to other agents - or maybe just record the shows and use them for training). But would renting an apartment be necessary? A lot of science fiction stories have invading aliens learn about human culture by basically parking in orbit, analyzing the transmissions from our satellites, and then basically watching our TV for a while. Homeline could probably do something similar (except out in the wastes or at sea rather than in orbit). If all there's no public access and the channels have too good of security on their signals to crack, there would undoubtedly still be pirate signals that are designed so anyone can watch them. Learning everything about culture from TV is going to make for a quirky sort of Cultural Familiarity, but I think the characters would just come across as "watches entirely too much television." They could even work that into their cover stories, particularly for relatively-young agents (or those who can pass as such) - say they grew up with over-paranoid parents and never really socialized, and lack formal education, thus only really knowing what they learned from watching TV (throw in the parents having an "off-the-grid" obsession if you were only able to access pirate TV).

With that Cultural Familiarity, you should be more prepared to blend in and setting yourself up as a Runner, Fixer, or whatever. As others have noted, becoming a Fixer (or whatever the setting's equivalent is) would probably be the best option.

Food Trade: This is a very interesting idea. You'll need to be careful to avoid the attention of the agri-corps and synth-meat corps (and gangs - I know the prologue mission in Cyberpunk 2077 involved Maelstrom in a synth-meat factory they were in control of), who may not appreciate the competition, but you could potentially get a lot of chrome for very little money.

Nuke 'em All: I don't think Arasaka ever found out where Johnny Silverhand got the fissile material for his nuke from, so there's a potential opening for Infinity, Centrum, etc to have been his supplier. I think the timelines even line up alright if we assume the Cyberpunk world has a date equal to or slightly behind Homeline/Centrum/etc (which I think canonically no timeline is ahead of), as Silverhand nuked Arasaka HQ in 2023.

[WholesomeMadScientist]

Originally Posted by Varyon

(which I think canonically no timeline is ahead of)

Parallels set way after 2027.

Traveller - Intersetellar Wars pg. 236:

“The Infinite Wars
The Centrum (see p. B523 or GURPS Infinite Worlds) has undertaken its most ambitious plan yet: to influence the outcome of the Interstellar Wars in favor of the Vilani Imperium! In many ways, Vilani culture is similar to Centrum’s, and there is much to be gained by influencing so vast an empire. Infinity, naturally, favors the scrappy Terrans and opposes Centrum on principle. Both sides try to influence the outcome of the Interstellar Wars, without tipping their hand and revealing the Secret to the technologically advanced civilizations of this alternate. The heroes might be members of an I- SWAT team, or locals who discover the cross-temporal meddlers and their plans.“

The parallel “Transhuman” mentioned in IW Lost Worlds pg. 16 has to be Transhuman Space.

Lands Out of Time pg. 38:

“Within the GURPS Infinite Worlds setting, the World of Banded Night has been somewhat snidely christened Burroughs-6. It is found in the Quantum-3 band, but there is considerable debate over whether or not it qualifies as an ‘Earth.’ Most researchers consider it to be part of a wholly alternate universe. A small minority classify it as a ‘Future Echo,’ saying it could be Earth a billion or more years in the future. Some projections of stellar positions seem to bear this out, but the data is inconclusive, and such a hypothesis raises far more questions than it answers.”

“Autoduel-1” the local present is the later half of the 2040s.