Cold Open
This is why I usually just cover books. (Tosses controller) But, for a small change of pace,
we did decide to give Cyberpunk 2077 a shot. When you get past all the edge and gratuity and
bad publicity, there's actually something... quite satisfying about the storytelling in this game.
Something which, whether you write cyberpunk or any other genre, you might just be able to
learn from... Ad Card
A big thanks to World Anvil for helping to make this video possible,
and to all our Patreon supporters as well! Intro
You might know Cyberpunk as the genre of neon lights and leather coats. A
world where physically-augmented half-human, half-machine rogues move through claustrophobic
mega-cities in the rain; where once-hopeful technologies have become the tools of oppression;
where bands of misfits wage futile wars against the tyrannical engines of greed.
All of this is very cyberpunk, and very fun, and very interesting.
But the part of the genre that has always held my attention is the... liminal natural of it.
The world of cyberpunk isn't just a digital dystopia full of groundbreaking technology.
It's also a world of change. The technology in these stories brings us to the brink of what is
human... and what may no longer be. Body
Topic #1: Cyberpunk and Humanity As a big fan of human-kind myself,
you can imagine how interesting this is to me. It... almost makes me feel like
I'm not all that different from you afterall. This comes up in a lot of different stories in
a lot of different ways. There are some really overt examples out there, like Blade Runner's
replicants, which are basically just new and improved artificial humans, given a baked-in
expiration date so humanity isn't instantly rendered obsolete. There are also subtler
examples, like in the video game SOMA, where your mind can be copied into a digital environment,
free from the mortal constraints of your body. The fun of this is that these technologies beg a
whole lot of questions. Mainly, where is the line? When have you changed the species or the human
experience so much that it no longer qualifies as "human"? This question isn't often answered,
but rather reveled in for all the fantastic-and often dreary-speculation it can lead to.
The term for this transitional and confusing space is "trans-human",
which is really just the evolutionary process along the way to "post-human".
Julian Huxley, the brother of Aldous Huxley who wrote the book "Brave New World",
wrote that: "The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself-not just sporadically,
an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity."
And the technology in these stories is the missing link that makes it possible.
This could be a good thing; it could be a bad thing. If we were discussing golden age hard SF,
this would probably lead to a species of golden, angelic post-humanoids living in an immaculate
utopia. Cyberpunk... is not that. It's more skeptical; more personal. This isn't just
speculation about what the future could hold-it's an investigation of how this trans-human future
might challenge humanity. And to give us a lens through which to view that challenge,
cyberpunk stories are usually attached to divested rogues, who are, like everyone else, trapped
in the grinding cogs of a system that seeks to abuse humanity's new and delicate state-whether
that be the plotting superintelligence Wintermute in William Gibson's flagship novel Neuromancer,
or the mechanical overlords of The Matrix. By watching the conflicts with these abusive forces,
the audience learns something about their own humanity.
Even this audience member. And this was the thing I appreciated
so much about Cyberpunk 2077. In a way few other stories have managed, it put me eye-to eye with
that conflict-made it feel personal. Not just because it's a game and I'm controlling the
character and their actions, but through its story structure. It's a method I think writers of every
genre can benefit from, but especially those who write in deeply personal and challenging genres
like Cyberpunk. Topic #2: Transhumanism
vs. Posthumanism in the Game But before I tell you how the
game does this, I need to give you some context-which means spoilers.
Early in the story, the player ends up in the fairly inconvenient situation of having a second
mind downloaded into their body-in this case, Keanu Reeves. There are worse parasites to have.
The process is supposed to genetically modify your body in preparation for the new occupant,
but there's a bit of a malfunction and the new mind can't completely take root. So,
your body is steadily becoming incompatible with you, and both you and the invading mind are dying.
You spend the latter part of the game chasing a promise that both your mind and the invading mind
can be removed, and that you can be installed back into your own body, saving your life.
One small problem, though: those genetic modifications I mentioned earlier?
They've already been made. Even though both minds can be removed successfully,
only the other mind is now a suitable fit for re-installation. If you're put back in,
you might be able to live a relatively normal life for another six more months or so,
but your condition would officially be terminal in a way that no known technology can fix.
And this is where we come to the pivotal decision of the game:
will you return to your body and die as "you", or will you stay in cyberspace and live forever
as... something else? There are a bunch of different endings to the game,
but you're pretty much always met with some permutation of this question. And it is... a
very interesting question indeed. Topic #3: The Effect of the Game
I don't get angry very easily, but I'll admit, the first time I was faced with this decision, I
was... uh... we'll say unamused. I felt as if I'd been duped. I'd spent so long chasing the promise
of survival, and now the only way to survive was to leave the world behind, become nothing more
than a bunch of code? I'll pass, thanks. I spent a not-insignificant amount of time
stewing over this. Why was I so bothered? Was it really because the story mislead me?
Plenty of good stories do that, and they didn't bother me. Was it because the ending
is unfair? Well... no, I'm not owed a specific outcome as a player-the story is the story.
Eventually, after a lot of the grasping around, I think I figured out what was going on in my head:
By putting me in the situation of someone trying so desperately to survive-making that my objective
as a player-the developers gave me the opportunity to really value the protagonist's humanity. To
feel it. After dedicating time and effort to protecting it, getting to know what it meant
by interacting with the other characters and making decisions along the way that would define
who the protagonist is, the decision at the end actually has a very personal impact on
me. It wasn't just "live forever or die in six months, no brainer", it was "live forever in
the emptiness of a cold, unknowable void, or die surrounded by everything that makes you... you."
I was annoyed, because I cared about my-that is, my character's-humanity. I didn't want
to lose that, even if doing so technically meant I-er... my character-would survive.
And the fact that this story could make me feel this way... is profound.
It' hard to make something as grand and nebulous as the concept of what it means to be human
so personally affective. I can imagine how a story themed around something like that
could become so broad and pretentious that you can't related to it at all.
But this game-and often Cyberpunk as a genre-has a way of grounding us. Fairly
simple protagonists with fairly simple motives, who, by virtue of fighting a system that seeks
to abuse their newly-redefined humanity, have to grapple with what that humanity actually is.
In Blade Runner, Rick Deckard is more or less a retired executioner, not too interested in the
bigger picture... until he's holding it in his arms, staring into its eyes. In Neuromancer,
Henry Case is just a cyberspace hacker who'd like to reverse the damage done
to his fried nervous system so that he can get back to work. And in Cyberpunk 2077,
you're just a merc with big dreams who doesn't want to die before you see them come true.
These are people, motivations, circumstances we can understand and get invested in.
That way, when the big corporate machine or the scions of the singularity come knocking,
we have something to worry about-a frame of reference for what's at
stake. Conclusion
I think the very simple and very powerful lesson any fiction writer can take from this
is that not every protagonist needs to be a selfless revolutionary. Especially not when the
forces they're up against are posing such a big thematic threat. Sometimes these grand, sprawling
ideas need to be looked at through a simple perspective in order to be meaningful to us.
Sometimes a punk... can do a lot more than a hero.
Ad Spot Segue
When I come across a method or an idea like this, I like to find some way to try it out if I can.
But there's a lot that goes into a good story beyond the writing and the method.
A lot of planning. It can be a drag if you're just trying to get to the execution...
but World Anvil can help lighten the load. Copy
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Patreon Spot Before we wrap up,
I'd like to give a quick thanks to all the helpful humans who support the show on Patreon. All those
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Outro And... that's it for this video!
There's usually a few weeks between uploads, so if you want more Tale foundry in the mean-time,
come join our community! We have a discord server that's basically like a big family of creatives-a
lot of love, there. We also run writing groups on Twitch every week, if you want to get some
practice in! You can find links to all of it in the description. Hope to see you there!
Until then, thanks for watching, and keep making stuff up!
I'll see you... next time. Bye!