bakerstreet | Cyberpunk

Welcome to the future. Please abandon all hopes and dreams after this point, for the very definition of the term cyberpunk is "high tech, low life". The idea behind cyberpunk comes from the thought that as technology advances, so broadens the gap between social status, where becoming middle class is an achievement and anyone wanting to become anything higher suffers from pipe dreams. This life is pain, where the only person you can really trust is yourself.

These are worlds defined by poverty or absolute control, where the net is your only escape from the troubles of the world. Cyborgs, meta-humans, AI, and corporations with undisputed power are what's being served out here. Do you have what it takes to survive?

To get started, you can create a scenario for yourself, or merely go to the Random Number Generator and choose a pre-made one for you and your thread partner, or you can even leave your comment blank and let respondents pick.

Possible roles

>The office drone: You're no one special. Day in and day out, you punch into work. You're unaware, or at least uncaring, of how shitty life around you is because at least the fistful of dollars you get keeps you from being on the streets.

>Deprogrammed: Similar to above, but a set of circumstances has made you realize just how blind you are. You don't have the savvy others may have but you have the determination to see your goals out until the bitter end. Or at least until your enemies make you a better offer.

>The muscle: You have a specific set of skills that are in high demand. Be it assassin or head-basher, you're rarely out of a job.

>Tech support: You have a way with computers that would make ABC agencies cry. Big people rely on you while even bigger ones are trying to get their hands on you.

>The talking head: Your district, your city, or your country knows you well. You're the face of propaganda, and boy, can you weave it! You're kept comfortable by the masters that feed you, though the days may be difficult as you see more and more injustices enacted.

>The Street tough: You're the lowest of the low. Life has given up on you, though you keep fighting on. You're the dealer, the gangster, the informant, the thief, and more. You know all the short cuts and the best ways to cause a stir.

>The fish out of water: Through experimentation, creation, or other factors, you've found yourself in this brave new world with no support to lean on. You need to understand the way things are if you're to survive long.

>The Hard-luck hero: Can be any of the above, though circumstance or sheer force of will has kept you from straying away from doing what's right.

>The Antagonist: Board member of a mega-corporation? G-Man with the need to stay in Power? Religious fanatic with an extremist bent? The background matters not. What does matter is that if you aren't the problem, you certainly benefit from perpetuating it.

There are so many more possible roles, so don't let this list limit you! If you think it could fit, play it out!

Prompts
>Deep Throat: One (or both) of you have managed to stumble across information that could change the way the world around you works. This could make or break the two of you, if you know how to handle the consequences of your following actions.

>The Hook Up: In the real world, people wouldn't waste their spit on scum like you. But in the net? You're a god, peddling information and resources better than Wal-Mart. Just be careful who you talk to. Not everyone thinks what you do is a good thing.

>Take a Stand: The corporations, the government, the gangs, the machines. It doesn't matter who it is, but you're tired of their interference in your life. Are the two of you ready to take them on?

>Thorns In My Side: You're the king or queen of your private enterprise. You have it all: A private army, AIs capable of placating the masses, connections even better than the government, and a demeanor that could charm Satan himself. However, there's still that little nuisance known as the underdog, and they're knocking at your door.

>What You Need is a Gramme...: You just got that newest drug shipment in, and it promises to be the biggest trip in your life. It promises to make you stronger, faster, smarter, and sexier, all in one hit. The only thing left is to try it.

>The Patchwork Man: People are disappearing, and no one seems to notice or care, except you and your partner. The only thing? They're also your worst enemy.

>Escape From...: You've just been kidnapped, and unfortunately, your thread partner's the kidnapper. What's their motive? Can you escape?

>Voight-Kampff: Your job is to track down and 'retire' human-like bioengineered androids who have gone rogue. Sounds simple enough, right? Not when your targets are as intelligent as any human, or more. Not only that, they are stronger, almost indistinguishable from humans in appearance. So much so it's possible one could be one and not realize it...

>Be More Human: You're a cop, a gumshoe or someone else dealing with law enforcement, a dangerous job to do alone. Good thing you have a partner, right? Only one problem, they're an android. Robots who can think and feel are a thing now, and what's more, some are starting to think they should have all the rights humans have. Whether you agree or not, you two are stuck together.

>FUCK Society: As the internet grows more advanced, so does inter-connectivity to the point whole cities are now monitored by powerful operating systems that govern all aspects of city life. You are a hacker that is out to fight the megacorps, while seeking revenge against the criminal element.

>This is the Construct: You're not just a cog in the machine, you are literally inside the machine itself, either raised from birth or a visitor (willing or unwilling) to this digital realm. Can you bend reality to your will as a User, maybe even The One, or are you a Program of the system, out to help or hinder the hero's mission? What are you supposed to do? Survive.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(contractually obligated to be here!! ota, m/f for shippy.)

[He's muscle/street-tough, possible Hard Luck Hero under the right circumstances. Not-often-seen son of a business magnate, not technically disowned because that would ruin the appearance of a happy family, but not ever far from it, either.

On-grid, he's every inch the reckless, feckless, rich-kid stereotype. It works for him.

Off the grid, on the other hand, he's a pit fighter, specializing in hand-to-hand, but trained with various weapons as well and far preferring the not televised, not even recorded fights to anything where he might be seen by people who aren't there in person. He lets people believe it's ego, but it could well be some darker secret.]

[Alvis is a member of the Akari priesthood, one of many strange little sects that sprung up as technology and understanding of the natural world advanced. The Akari believe that trees are the root of all life in the universe.

One of the oddities of their order is that they believe that their pain can bring others absolution, ritual scarification is not uncommon, and they are often derisively referred to as 'scarbacks'. It is polite to refer to them as 'aunt' or 'uncle', though they generally refer to each other as 'cousin'. They're a widespread order, and they've lasted as long as they have by adapting with the technology, believing that there is a time and a place for it. They are most easily identified generally by yellow traveling robes, and often by the assortment of spiked rings or bracelets they wear.

Alvis himself is one of the ones who has fully embraced this new world, with a 24/7 stream of his small cell of an apartment and a shoulder-mounted camera on the occasions that he goes outside.]

[Some may remember him as one of the youngest members of the group -or Clan- of techs that kept things running around Peach Trees residential tower.

More will remember him as the voice of Peach Trees information under the reign of Ma Ma Madrigal and her Clan of monsters.

But these days most people will know him just as the nervous young man with the augmented eyes, the one who has all the information, or who can repair even the most dead of electronics, both for the right price.

(Totally open to whatever sort of plot, if you just need to know something or get something fixed that's great, but getting him sucked into something over his head again is also great!)]

[Antagonist, of a sort. Einar is a man that sells dreams. Bespoke, exquisitely-crafted VR simulations of a usually -but not always- particularly violent nature.

You see, Einar sells murder. Or, rather, the simulation of murder, beautifully rendered, and well-enough displayed that he probably has at least a few bodies in a basement somewhere.

But of course, this isn't the sort of thing someone can just order from a catalog, but there are always ways to track someone of his talents down.]

[In a world where everyone is jacked-in 24/7, actual human contact is something of a commodity, one that Companions, like Gabreel, provide.
Also possibly a companion-bot that grows feelings, I'm good with either.]

[She's got her own channel, she always has had, one of the pretty talking heads that the government -or the corporation- employs to keep the people watching and happy -but not too happy- and entertained and more importantly, consumers. There's always a new beauty product or a new gadget that her followers just have to have, because she has it.

But as much as she likes the accolades and the adoration, she actually wants what's best for her fans, and that's the kind of thing that gets a star cancelled...

(Vecna as the corporation employing her & gathering info on her followers? Someone rescuing her before she can get cancelled? Whatever y'all, I'm here for all of it.)]

[Perpetual fish out of water. He came from a wealthy family, built on technological and scientific advances, the kind of family that there were always rumors about of varying degrees.

He fell out of the public eye sometime in his early twenties, of course there's rumors about that too, that he died, that he's been in rehab, that he's started a cult, any one of these things might be true...]

[She lives in the wasteland or the ruins or whatever the local city calls the uninhabited zones outside of the city's protection. She lives on the very edge of what's actually habitable and she might in fact be crazy.

But better crazy than ~~BL/ind~~ being a good little drone under the city's control. But if someone needs a rescue, a detox, or a getaway driver for a raid, she'll be there.

(Down for something semi-canonical or just whatever kind of futuristic dystopia your particular setting of choice is)]

[Tech Support to the extreme, this kid was raised both on and by the system, she knows her way around it and through it all like a fish through water, and she uses it all to her own advantage.

She's definitely built up a little empire for herself, or at least a little patch to call her own and while her services are entirely legitimate on the surface, there's always something going on beneath.]

[It's no Ratz's Tavern, but Eliot's food truck is pretty well known, and not just because of Eliot himself -though that's part of it- and not just because both of his assistants are attractive -though that's part of it too, he's pretty sure- but because he's got a reputation for a damn fine grilled cheese, and for being able to help with literally any problem, though some problems will take more time -and more leverage- than others...]

[Some combination of Tech Support and Muscle, she's the kind of system security that goes through making sure there's no recent unauthorized or illegal-type activity on long-deactivated accounts of whatever sort, and if there is, she's the one who rains fire on the perpetrators, sometimes literally.]

[Eddie is the kind of guy who has the hookup, if he doesn't have what you need he knows who does. He is, however, very discerning in his client base, and does his best to stay away from anything that could get him in actual trouble, because most of what he makes goes to funding his World.

Which is to say: he runs a sword-and-sorcery VR server with a small but loyal fanbase and he's not going to do anything to jeopardize that.]

[Bobby is one of the Lo-Teks, literally living off the grid by way of being an urban scavenger, living in service tunnels, abandoned buildings and the like, he's old enough to remember a time before all this though, and knows that it'll all come down again. After all, even the walls of Jericho fell.

But he knows things, new knowledge, old knowledge, it's all the same to him and he can teach you how to plant green and growing things, or repair a pair of VR goggles all the same, if you can track him down, and give him a good reason why he should help.]

[The secretly corrupt lawman antagonist in an iron-fisted, totalitarian sci-fi dystopia of a rotting city where crime is spiraling out of control and the law empowers patrolling individuals who are trained from childhood to follow a strict code of conduct and be judge, jury and executioner, OBVIOUSLY.

More info in journal. Up for canon meshing, etc.

I’m liking playing with the idea of this guy working with resistance/underground/radical political groups? He’s working his way pretty high up in the ranks in his 30s now, with much more tempered (now) history of experience and a “legendary lawman” reputation under his utility belt. It’s an opportunity too good to pass up to have a man on the inside… if you believe him, that is.]

Edited 2023-08-25 16:51 (UTC)

[Street tough, some other merc type gig, maybe reluctant hero if she hates your opponents more than she hates you. Open to most things (and mun is very into transhumanism and body augmentation so let's get freaky with it).]

Cyberpunk

goro takemura / sandayu oda | cyberpunk 2077 | m/f for shippy

millions knives | trigun stampede | ota

Steve | Stranger Things | OTA

Alvis + Killjoys + OTA

Techie | Dredd | OTA

Einar + Inception OC + OTA

Gabreel King + OC + OTA

Chrissy Cunningham + Stranger Things + OTA

Klaus + Umbrella Academy + OTA

Shiny \ Fabulous Killjoys OC \ OTA

Nim | Modern King Arthur | OTA

Eliot Spencer | Leverage | OTA

Lup | TAZ: Balance | OTA

Eddie + Stranger Things + OTA

Bobby Singer | Supernatural et al | OTA

Rico Dredd | Judge Dredd | ota

2B | Nier: Automata | OTA

Magne Hikiishi | My Hero Academia