Real Life ‘Inspiration’ for a Cyberpunk Game

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The Morris worm happened in 1988, and Takedown was written about events that happened about then as well, so we have documented instances of this stuff happening 35 years ago. Folks were hacking dial-up timesharing systems back in the 1970s and people were using phreaking to fool telephone systems into making long distance calls by the end of the 1960s.

Admittedly Morris and the folks described in Takedown were using VAXes and Sun workstations with permanent internet connections, which were well out of the budget of ordinary schlebs then. However, within the next few years BSD and Linux were widely available on commodity PCs and had more or less the same capabilities; by the latter part of the 1990s ISDN, cable and DSL connections were widely available in cities in developed countries.
 
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So basically, chickens are already mutated dinosaurs that we've mutated and are eating...:grin:

www.france24.com

Proof humans reshaped the world? Chickens

When aliens or our distant progeny sift through layers of sediment 500,000 years from now to decode the Earth's past, they will find unusual evidence of the abrupt change that upended life half-a-million…
www.france24.com www.france24.com
 
You are going to get to the Video eventually. It is about some of the great video technology that we have today and how it is changing "how people make video "entertainment" ". See that is the issue. The same technology can be used to help create deep fakes or misleading news clips. (Like how Russian Media is saying that all the videos when the "Ukranians hijacked Russian Broadcasting and showed "the war" " were computer generated "fake images".) How will we know. So the reputation of the presenter might be important. So the source (I might trust ABC more than World Daily) becomes important. However, in a world full of microchannels or controlling mega corps, how will this change what we see AND believe.



So one of my favorite bits for a chronicle I built in a thread (Cyberswat - Near Future Policing).

Famous People you never know: Many "Actors" are Vepeteers or Virtual Puppeteers. They are the people that provide the templates for animating more famous actors in VR productions.

Selene Hyle is the famous Vepeteer of recent years. Personally credited for making Kim Kardashian's current acting career, she captured the essence of the great Media Figure and has brought her forward. Kard co has been making significant money on The Kim's current long media and short media appearances, eclipsing the money coming in from the more recent Janel's (The Kim's grand daughter) IP. True Selene had been asking for more and more money each appearance, but Kard Co had been reluctantly happy to pay... as the re-establishing of their flagship character is foremost in their goals.

Selene has been found killed in her apartment. Someone clumsily tried to make it look like a break in with a forged friend ID. (This is a recent crime trend. Home Invasion/Robbery using a spoofed ID of an owner's friend. They use it to make the home's AI (or the owner) to let them in and given them access. ) Selene's representative had recently broken off talks for making the second half of season 4 of The New Stories.

There are any number suspects. Kard Co could of done it because they were tired of the extortion Selene was performing (or that she was in talks with Jaeger's another Virtual Acting House). Selene's understudy (who had been doing more and more work) wanted her out of the way so she could take over vepeteering The Kim. Alexi y Co, a rival Virtual Acting House who's rating have been going down since The New Stories has been on, could of provided the spoofed ID to a crazed fan. Or the crazed fan could be acting on his own, but simply got the spoofed from an Alexi y Co employee.

I tend to do detective stories, rather than straight crime. I like showing the science or weird aspect of the setting via these events. This one shows the Vepeteering and the technology of VR actors in the media. You may find out that your new favorite sexy star is actually a virtual figure, and worse yet secretly vepeteered by a guy.
 
VisionStorm said:
Supposedly this is to improve air quality. Question is: Does it actually work?

I have no idea. :trigger:
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Per the details I have read, yes. For O2 purposes, it is more efficient. It will even absorb "airborne toxins", which should be filtered out every few years (or when the algae should be replaced). Now the problem is that they do not cool the area like trees. Still cool temp vs breathing? There is a hierarchy here.
 
Favelas


1_rocinha_favela_closeup.JPG


The word Favelas comes from Brazil. It came from where discharged soldiers without places to stay built random shelters under Favela Trees. In Architecture, it is places where buildings are built to the immediate needs of "occupants" with no planning, organization, and often no "legal ownership" of the land under them. Buildings are built upon buildings, with mixed materials and processes. These were often built due to rural to urban migration, where the new population could not afford to live in the urban space.

Note: Utilities are legally non-existant in most cases, but illegal taps into existing structures and various attempts to "civilize" said neighborhoods have brought power and water. Though check all the water cisterns. Most of these areas are "lawless", beyond the borders the local police are responsible for. Many favelas are run by gangs and organized crime or local militia (which are like criminals, but with a thin veneer of respectability).

These are not just in Brazil, but in many places. All it takes is for the local political and legal bodies to ignore "those poor people over there" for a time. (Or like in Hong Kong where certain spaces were "someone else's administration" and untouchable by those who might care.)
 
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uqau3mj2wpcb1.jpg


I could definitely see Arasaka/Militech pulling this off on cyberware. Did you want the long-running, no ads version of Sandevistan? Well, I have just the right plan here for you...
 
In a similar but lower tech application, a local e-bike manufacturer went bankrupt.
To unlock the e-bikes, you needed a manufacturer app.
So if after the bankruptcy the app goes offline... :crap:
 
Godfather Punk said:
In a similar but lower tech application, a local e-bike manufacturer went bankrupt.
To unlock the e-bikes, you needed a manufacturer app.
So if after the bankruptcy the app goes offline... :crap:
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This is an issue we're going to have to solve with laws eventually. Too many physical things requiring always online chatting with a central server. And once we solve it with laws, there will be an immediate work around. I also find this concept to make for some great "punk" in your cyberpunk moments. Breaking in to steal the codebase so someone can buy up the equipment on the cheap, reverse engineer a jailbreak, and then flood the street with the new, unregistered equipment.
 
Raleel said:
if I remember correctly a Belgian manufacturer made a hack to give folks access to those bikes.
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www.tomsguide.com

E-bike maker VanMoof declares bankruptcy — how to make sure your bike doesn't get bricked

VanMoof has gone bankrupt and it's not good news for e-bike owners
www.tomsguide.com www.tomsguide.com

Looks like it was only the Dutch entity that declared bankruptcy with no actual statements on future of the app. US and UK entities and servers unaffected. But yes, rival Belgians did create an app to save the bikes.
 
And just as I was writing a short story about a guy marrying an AI*, my phone gave me an ad...for the application named "AI girlfriend":grin:!



*Just wait until AIs learn to cook, wash dishes and turn off the washmashine:shade:!
 
deflagratio said:
There's a fun idea for a re-occurring encounter. The Repomen. It's Max-Tac but for obtaining physical possessions.
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You also have real-life cases of violent wars between towing companies, competing over cars. I have a vague feeling that Ken Hite might have done a podcast segment on the RPG potential there.
 
Well, if autopilot technology for cars gets smoothed out, they won't even need a third party to repo one -- just send a signal and have it drive itself away.
 
Dyrnwyn said:
Well, if autopilot technology for cars gets smoothed out, they won't even need a third party to repo one -- just send a signal and have it drive itself away.
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I believe there are RW examples of the cars being remotely turned off for easier and reliable repossession.

www.cbsnews.com

Why the repo man can remotely shut off your car engine

Lenders are using engine-shutoff devices, disabling cars if subprime borrowers are even a day late
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

I love the idea of a Cyberpunk game based on the PCs being 'repomen' as Repo Man is one of my favourite American 80s films and its jaded and punkrock sf vibe is perfect for the genre.

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Picaroon Jack said:
I don't think 3D printed gun was on anyone's radar in the 80s.

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This picture provoked a discussion on my friend discord about how to control for this in a cyberpunk world. You no longer are doing runs for arms, or at least those arms would require a different kind of work to make usable. Manufactured arms have to be stripped of identifiers and countermeasures. 3d printed arms would be more subject to data theft as the plans would be the target. Then there is manufacturing and countering the DRM to prevent it from being printed in an uncontrolled facility.
 
Picaroon Jack said:
I always pictured those plastic one shot guns in vending machines like snacks. Nothing says they couldn't be 3D printed, I suppose.
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Strangely me too. In Cold Chrome Knights I plan on 3D printers being able to fit in a coat/trench and someone printing small firearms right there with them. Major weapons need a van/car setup, and of course, anyone who specializes in guns as opposed to pick up and toss as needed probably has a custom non-print job made by a craftsman.
 
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