One of the first works in the cyberpunk genre was Philip Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?, published in 1968. Since then, cyberpunk has managed to acquire unspoken rules, without which it is difficult to imagine it today both in movies and in video games. Cybersport.ru talks about the seven main rules of cyberpunk.
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The presence of powerful corporations
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Perhaps one of the main genre attitudes is the accomplished victory of capitalism. We see cyberpunk – we are waiting for a mega-corporation, publicly or secretly, governing this world. At the same time, heroes are usually in contradiction with corporations and try to oppose something to the inhuman sharks of big business.
Usually corporations are so afraid of losing their credibility that they do not disdain any methods: from espionage and bribery to creating their own army or police services. The monopolists ruthlessly crush especially ardent opponents, in many respects this is precisely what causes public discontent.
For example, in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Adam Jensen works for the bioengineering company Sharif Industries, and in the course of the plot he encounters PMC Belltower and competitors in the person of Tai Yun Medical, which also develops implants and biotechnology. And if you recall the Shadowrun series, then such mega-corporations as Ares Macrotechnology, Evo Corporation, Horizon and NeoNET occupy an important place in it.
Crime
Shadowrun returns
It’s impossible to imagine cyberpunk without criminal syndicates working on both sides of the barricades. Hackers, killers, thieves, smugglers and other criminals are regular guests of stories in this genre.
Most often, heroes are bandits: runners, dekkers, mercenaries and smugglers. All of them are ready, if necessary, to both oppose corporations and help them – if only the result is financially beneficial.
Crime was also involved in games: the main syndicates in Shadowrun are Chinese triads, Japanese yakuza, thieves in law from the former USSR and the “ghost cartels” of South America. VA-11 Hall-A, in turn, mentions the crime only in passing, without specifying specific names and titles: no, no, and someone unclean will come to the bar.
Victim Heroes
Transistor
Attempts to follow corporate rules often play a cruel joke on the heroes. Every now and then the characters become victims of machinations or traps, they are substituted and betrayed. If the protagonist, by some miracle, managed not to become a victim of the corporation, a friend, brother or someone else will put the bandwagon.
Most of the stories have a detective connotation: with each chapter, the protagonist finds himself deeper and deeper into the maelstrom of events, trying to figure out the situation and stay alive. In cyberpunk, you can usually only trust those who can confess to the face of future betrayal. At least it’s clear from them what to expect.
JC Denton begins in Deus Ex as a government agent fighting terrorists, but soon realizes that the situation is far from so clear, and admits that all this time he was fighting on the wrong side of the barricades. And the singer Red from Transistor begins her journey after becoming a victim of Camerata, a powerful corporation that actually controls the city of Cloudbank, where the girl lives.
High technology and widespread poverty
Observer System Redux
Perhaps the main rule of the genre. In English, it is formulated more succinctly: “High Tech – Low Life” (“High technologies – low standard of living”). High technologies like cybernetic prostheses, huge skyscrapers and flying cars in cyberpunk always coexist with filth and catastrophic poverty.
Rampant crime is often a consequence of the poverty of ordinary people. For illustrative purposes, cities of the future often have clear-cut neighborhoods for rich and poor, further highlighting social inequality.
You don’t have to go far for examples: the Observer events unfold in a dysfunctional area, where you can easily see the neighborhood of Soviet carpets with deer and powerful servers, and the superintendent of the building in which most of the game is deployed has a lot of high-tech prostheses installed – albeit not in best condition.
Social commentary and philosophical ideas
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Cyberpunk was born in the 1980s, but many of the statements of the founders of the genre remain relevant today. Mega-corporations are outspoken criticism of monopolists. Social stratification is self-explanatory. Ostrakism of the augmented – rejection of otherness.
Another important topic for cyberpunk is transhumanism and its impact on society. Today, many of the ideas of transhumanism – such as digitizing consciousness or completely replacing the body with a mechanical one – remain fiction, but in cyberpunk they are important topics for discussion. And on the basis of this fantastic element alone, one can ask questions about human nature, about the norms and rules of the society of the future, and many others, which one day, probably, mankind will face.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, for example, shows a society divided according to the principle of having augmentation. In the new world there is no place for those who have been artificially improved, and the outcasts have to live in a separate ghetto. And the Observer goes further, wondering if a person remains himself after giving up his body.
Asian motives
Ruiner
Even in his first works, William Gibson laid down certain rules of the genre that are still relevant today. And for the correct stylization, he decided to build on Asia: most often, global conflicts in cyberpunk unfold precisely between the powerful Japanese zaibatsu – “money clans” that control financial flows.
In games, zaibatsu also carry weight, although sometimes they fade into the background in the face of megacorporations. Nevertheless, even in stories that unfold in other countries, no, no, yes, and something from Asia will flash. It is worth adding that the ubiquitous neon familiar to every cyberpunk fan also came to the genre from Asia: Gibson said that for him Tokyo is the living embodiment of cyberpunk.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is set entirely in the Czech Republic, and yet the player encounters at least two corporations with Asian roots: the automobile giant Motokun and the pharmaceutical giant VersaLife. And the world of Shadowrun is imbued with the spirit of Asia: no matter which city the events unfold in, the player will still meet street samurai and zaibatsu representatives.
Cyberspace
Remember me
Finally, it’s hard to imagine cyberpunk devoid of cyberspace. It is multifaceted: somewhere characters with the help of the soundboard penetrate into another reality and are forced to fight with other hackers or protective programs like “Black Ice”, and somewhere special implants allow detectives to penetrate into someone else’s consciousness and interact with human memories.
For example, in the Paris of the future from the action Remember Me, the main character Nilin is able to rewrite other people’s memories, changing them at will (if there is direct access, of course). And in Shadowrun, cyberspace is a fully-fledged separate tactical mode that uses a different set of skills.
Despite its long history, cyberpunk continues to appeal with its uniqueness. A bleak future, although it does not bode well, beckons with exoticism and adventures that cannot be found in real life.
