Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - Cyberpunk 2077: Part 2

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

In the 2nd part of our conversation about Cyberpunk 2077 we are rejoined by Roberto to talk The Soul of Theseus, morality, and sexism in the player community. Spoilers for every possible ending to the game (along with which one makes you a good person). Roberto's Pods: @tsarpowerpod & @History_Georgia patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Alright, yeah, I'm so ready for this. I want to know all about morality and talk about how moraless I am as a corposcom. So So, the game, I think, does take a stance on what is a good moral choice and what is not in terms of how you handle your predicament. Your predicament of the relic that is killing you. I think the game, now the game will let you do whatever you want to do because it is a game and it's a good one. But I think the writing does lean towards some options having better choices than other or at least your friends and relations inside the game will judge you differently based on

what choices you make, which they do really expertly through the epilogue of them calling your phone, whether they're leaving voicemails for you. And the different endings give you very, very different reactions from the people. Do you guys want to start with the best ending or do you want to start with some of the worst ones? Let's start with the worst ones. We can be happy afterwards.

I really do eventually like I think talking about the worst, what I perceive to be the worst ending specifically, mostly due to the societal ramifications of that particular act. It's the the worst ending in mass for the world. Which was that? Would be the Arasaka ending. Without a doubt. Something that you don't learn until you do that quest is that Yorinobu is not the worst part of the Arasaka family. He might in fact be the best part of the Arasaka family.

Because he was pushing back against his dad's crazy ass plan. And when you sit there and you think about what the relic is, and why the relic program is what it is, the whole point is to save people's psyches in quotation marks, their souls, their imprints onto these data drives that can then be slotted into new bodies so they can continue existing. By siding with Arasaka, by going along with Hanting, she ends up slotting Saburo's consciousness into Yorinobu's body, killing him and replacing him with his incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful and incredibly evil dad. That is where you learn the explicitly that the relic program is going to be a way for rich people to be immortal

Yes, and at the end literally this and like this is something people we talk about particularly as leftist Conceptually about the wealthy living off like the backs and the labor and the bodies of the poor This is explicitly the most rich and powerful people in the world taking over the bodies of other people to live forever. Even though they make jokes like, oh well we expected that they would already be dead. Like Hellman tells you they expected the bodies would be dead already or whatever. In this world do you think there's any chance that someone like Yorinobu or the people that buy the relic wouldn't just go out and like see a person and pick them and go, I want that body and have that person kidnapped and

killed so they can steal their body? Absolutely. They would absolutely do that. And you see that time and time again when they just kidnap random people off the streets. This is straight up get out shit. It is. Oh my god, it literally is. Holy shit, yeah.

They're just picking, you know, oh this is a fine specimen. I want that. Look at their eyes. Look at this. Oh, we can change that later with, you know, with a Ripper Doc. It's fine. And I'm like, because I didn't read up on some, on the endings before, because I was trying to pick the best one.

So I know it goes into them. I've only done the one, but this, for me, this ending is the one thing that, you know, it's called a devil ending for a reason, because you're giving, you're, you're making it so people cannot die, which is the one thing that Johnny's trying to tell you over and over like, hey, people need to be given the choice to die. And if you're studying them continue on, you're losing that you're killing someone just to let someone else live. Who is just going to keep oppressing people over and over and over again and just keep switching bodies. They're going to commit mass murder just to keep living forever and ever. And who knows how long it's gonna last for because, you know, all these body mods, they can last over like 150 years and slow down their aging. Because, you know, Carrie doesn't look a day over, you know, like 30 or 40. But it's like, I still think even like someone like Carrie, then you get get like Lizzy Wizzy who has a quest line where her

Boyfriend is trying to get her involved in this whole thing and she's like I don't like that And like this I mean this was literally also a plot point in Neuromancer think about like the corporation that has like the people that go on ice for a while then they come back out You know what it means for like remade This is an old theme within cyberpunk, but it is very directly. The technology exists for people to be immortal, but only the rich will have access to it. And it will be to the detriment of everybody else. And by doing the devil ending and siding with Hanako and Arasaka, you have essentially given them carte blanche to do this going forward. And it's, it's especially disturbing when you hear what Saburo has to say about it.

Um, where one of the lines that he delivers is about how he had given, uh, Yorinobu life. So it was, it was his right to take it back. Because he was his son, it was his right to take his son's life away because he gave it to him. That is horrifying. It's absolutely horrifying. And in a lot of ways, just it perpetuates this idea of you know people being seen as property and specifically one's children. Yeah and that's not even to mention we're talking about like the direct applications of like the relic and soul killer programs. We're not talking about the

other half of it which is enemies of Arasaka are soul killed and then put in infinite time soul jail They are put in infinite infinite jail So someone like Johnny or whoever who is an enemy of Arasaka or alt or all these like people who cause like Arasaka problems Get captured get their fucking souls ripped out into an engram and then put in prison in the fucking, you know, the what do they call it, the Makoshi until forever? You're just in time jail. You're just in soul prison forever. These are the circumstances where Johnny seems rational. These are the circumstances where Johnny seems rational. Honestly, yeah. When you first meet him, he's like, oh, I didn't even know I was asleep until I got slotted in.

Because he just doesn't realize that you're stuck in this prison for almost 50 years. Over 50 years. And it's like, oh, it's like I was just kind of stuck there, not knowing what was happening. Yeah, it's the idea that like you can just put that a state or a corporation could just put people in soul prison. It should be objectively terrifying to everyone. And or also they could just yoink you off the street and kill you because some rich guy saw your body and was

Like I need that one now. Thanks Yeah, it's not great So that's the worst ending and also if you do that ending all the people that were your friends Call you and tell you how much they hate you and how you've betrayed everything you stood for Mm-hmm, because they're just perpetuating the problem. This is You know, you're your complete corpos gum. The only person who's happy with you at that point is Takamura. Is Takamura who?

Oh, Takamura. And only if you sign your body rights away to Arasaka. Yeah. So that's yeah, you put it from from from an outside perspective, like for society and the world as a whole, that is the worst ending. Because you're like, yes, Arasaka, please continue putting people in soul jail and ripping bodies and letting rich people live forever. Like that's objectively bad.

Second one. Let's see. The straight suicide. I think that's one of the worst endings simply because of the way it affects people around you. One of the one of the more pervasive messages of the game, I think, is resilience. And yes, one of of perseverance in the face of hardship. That's the whole thing with this entire setting is that despite the fact that all of this stuff is horrible and shitty and terrible

and no one gets a happy ending, ultimately there are still good things in it and There are still good things in it and those things persevere regardless. And killing yourself is kind of the opposite of the message that they're trying to deliver. It's the cop out. And you're just perpetuating the problem with like everything else. Well, it's, it's, it's a resolution which resolves nothing, particularly. And this is something I don't know if I should get into now while we're covering the innings, but it's a theme I want to get into because I think this game actually does have a view of resistance and of perseverance

and of what dare I say, like sort of revolution. And I think that that view is one that Kethel and I talked about when we did our, in regards to Ursula Le Guin, when we did our presentation at Intelligent Speech, which is that the revolution, the improving the world, you can't save the whole world. It's not possible. It can't be done. But what you can do are individual acts of revolution and individual acts of improvement. So you can improve people's lives at the personal level.

We talked about how for us, the revolution is personal. It's things that you do and choices that you make are what lead to revolution. And I think that this game is actually supporting that idea because if you look at what V manages to accomplish, depending on the ending you take and what we're talking about here, is the world objectively as a whole better for the stuff V does? I mean, minus making it objectively worse by siding with Arasaka. With all the other endings, is the world better?

But can you pick out numerous individual people whose lives are better because of actions that V takes? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There are numerous people whose lives or situations are improved by these actions. And I think that's the message of the game in terms of revolution and resilience is you can't, as it tells you repeatedly, you can't beat Arasaka by blowing it up.

It doesn't work. They already tried and Johnny lets you know in no uncertain terms that he knows he failed. What happened? There's a bigger tower now right But what can change what does change is? people's Individual lives are improved there aren't by doing a bunch of gigs There are a lot of people who are alive that would not otherwise be alive. Thanks to you

alive that would not otherwise be alive thanks to you. One way or another, generally based on your ending, Judy gets to break out of a cycle of like abuse and heartbreak. Pan Am's family manages to avoid becoming subjects of biotechnica, right, and losing their freedom. Like, Kerry goes from like a cycle of sort of self harm or depression to like revitalizing his career. River stops being a cop, I guess. It's always good. Yeah, it's always good. Pro stands for that one generally. But there you can think that you can even just small missions. There are dozens and dozens of people who individually have their lives improved

by these actions. So can V fix the whole world? No, but V can fix the world for certain people. And I think that's the message of the game, which relates again, as I said, to some stuff we've talked about before. You can't do a world revolution. It doesn't work.

Think about when you're doing the beat the brat missions. There's the guy you fight who's like, girl is pregnant. And after you beat him, you can choose to let him keep the money and his car because clearly he needs it for his like family. And then he'll text you later and be like, hey, I just wanted to say thank you for like being nice to me. This is my new baby. It's named after you.

Right? Like you've that man specifically his life and his girlfriend's life are better because of you and the choices that you made. And I think that's the message of the game, which is why I think the suicide ending is the cop out because you eventually burn a lot of those bridges by doing it because you've hurt a lot of people that you otherwise were helping by killing yourself. And hearing all of that, it makes me think of the basically, you know, there's like the great man theory. So V is not the person who's in a changed history for Night City. They're just a moving cog.

And something that Leo Tolstoy, especially in War and Peace, talks about is essentially not, it's not one person who can change things it's a group of people who work together to do multiple small things that change the course of history. And you know that's what V is doing you have multiple small people you know all your companions everyone that you work with and you're working together to accomplish a goal. And even that goal just changes something for Night City like it works out for the best and just you know just ending yourself kind of destroys that whole concept of as you mentioned everything you built up you just destroy with a single gunshot at the end if you do that's what you decide to do to yourself and you know it goes against you know what Johnny's been trying to teach you what you've been teaching Johnny it goes, you know, it goes against, you know, what Johnny's been trying to teach you what you've been teaching Johnny. It goes against, you know, what Jackie would want from you, which is the most important thing.

Yeah, it goes against what Jackie would want from you. It goes against what Panam or Judy would argue for you. All these people whose lives have been improved by knowing you would, and they do tell you in the voicemails in the ending that like sort of like the devil ending you've betrayed your principles but in a different way by not fighting i mean the game tells you like you said catholic game tells you explicitly that continuing to fight is good and to me maybe that's why this game resonates to me so much is if you've all been listeners for a while, you heard my episode about Lord of the Rings and about like Theoden,

right? And what I think the political message I've always taken from that is, which is that even in the face of overwhelming odds, odds that you cannot win, it is your sort of moral duty to continue to try, even if you won't. And that is what the, I think the game and your, by proxy, your friends in the game are trying to tell you, is that yeah, you can't change the world by yourself, but you can help so many other people who can go on to help other people, right? Think of the whole Aldecaldo clan can have a significantly better future if you pick the

Pan Am ending. You've improved the lives for all of them. And I think that's the game's message and why the suicide ending is like sort of the second worst one. Well, I'd say it'd be the third worst. Well, going to the moon is also really bad. Well, I would say the ending that isn't even that just copps out the whole end of the game in general. Yeah. It does completely avoid the Makoshi everything. Yeah.

The one we do where you get the medal from President Myers and then you get sent to a government facility and you're gone for like two years and you're you disappear. I will say something cool about that ending, though, is that you get to hear one of the most interesting speeches, in my opinion, from Johnny as you're flying up away. And at the very end of it, he says your real name. It is one of it's one of like two to maybe three times in the whole game that you hear like your full name. And you don't object to it, which that's the one where he says like, you know, good night.

Valerie today has been a good day, right? Or something like that. And unlike the past time where you're able to object to someone saying your name, your full name, because in all the other instances, you're able to tell them, sorry, no, you can only call me by the I only let my friends call me. Not even all my friends. And it's only people that you're really close to. I think, I don't know, I think it just does a really good job showing how far Johnny has come. Yeah, Johnny changes a lot with you if that's the way you choose to interact with him, I think. But in terms of the morality of the ending, you're right. That one is sort of a cop-up because you don't deal with Arasaka. But I mean, Yorinobu is in charge, and he's opposed to the program generally.

It could be fine, but he's still a corporate scum. Yeah, it's better than siding with him. But you also don't solve or further progress any other things you were working on. And all, everyone, essentially everyone moves on just without you and it's almost, in a lot of ways, it's almost like you were never there. I mean, there were changes because of you.

But like, you then just become nobody. Because you come back and you can't use any more Chrome. You can't be a Merc anymore. You can't do anything. You're just, nope. Oh, does it destroy your ability to use Chrome in general? Yes. You're now incompatible with any implants.

Oh, god. You become the normiest of normies. That's a horrible ending. Also, you side with the NUSA and President Meyers. The things you have to do to get that ending, I think, make it morally bad. Oh yeah, absolutely. No, because all you get is a medal, you get healed, but you lose out on everything else because you sold yourself out. Not to the devil, but to at least something similar to it to the great satan yeah the united states of america um

and also to get that ending you had to give songbird over to the nusa yeah which i think is a morally undefensible choice uh Someone who literally by that point has no autonomy anymore and you've essentially sentenced her to torture and Slavery for the rest of her existence by that point. So to get that ending you have to do a lot of really morally terrible things For endings that I feel like are just sort of Almost morally neutral It's any of the ones where you just like the secret ending the don't free the Reaper where it's just like you alone Storming Arasaka Tower is kind of badass is fun. And if you flatline during it

Just over it just gave over and you're set back to the start and you're locked out of that ending Yeah, or you know or you eventually you get through it and then you go to one of the two endings where either you take your body back and you live for like six months or you just give the body to Johnny, whatever. That one's fun, that one is kind of fun as Cato's pointed out because as you do it,

as you're blowing away everyone in Arasaka tower, you hear their soldiers like, you know, on their comms and they're like, are we got a side of them? How many other one it's just one mark. I mean, with me, if I have net running skills, I could probably, you know, go in shotgun in hand, start net running, get anyone who gets close is Boosh. Well, that's the other thing is that you like, you really like like they really get angry the fact that there's just one of you. Yeah, they're like you're kidding me.

It's one guy like, oh, come on. The ending where you go in with Rogue is essentially equivalent to going in by yourself except that Rogue gets killed. OK, either way, you either end up living for six months and dying. Just also in those endings, there's no closure with your love interest or your friends. You just sort of kind of hang out for a few months and then die. Or Johnny gets the body right away. If you go in with rogue

And then johnny takes the body and you get to play the little epilogue as johnny Like johnny goes to the the memorial space and goes and visits the memorial for rogue and v Oh Because they're because johnny put them both in the calabariam or whatever it's called Cuz cuz Johnny put them both in the the Calabariam or whatever it's called You go and you give and he leaves something at both of their like graves for for rogue envy before he like fucks off to New Orleans or wherever he's going. I I think if you go that route it I hate to say that it makes more sense Because I never used to think oh, yeah, it would make sense to hand your body over to Johnny.

But when you think about it in that particular circumstance, the one where you decided to go with Rome, where you know, you're only going to survive six more months, but Johnny would be able to live. A full life, a full life after that. Um, I think it's better to give it to him at that point. At that point, yeah. Which brings us, but it kind of makes sense, right? You're like, look, I'm either going to be dead real soon or I can give the

and then we're both dead or I can give the body to Johnny and just like let him live his life or whatever. But that brings us to the single best ending in the game. And I'm going to argue not only for our own personal preferences, I'm going to argue that thematically it is the best ending. Okay. That's the star ending. That's where you call the Aldecaldos for help.

We storm Arasaka with the Aldecaldos and you and Pan Am and Saul make it in before Saul gets his skull smashed in by Adam Smasher and you go and you do the thing and then you can you can still decide to give Johnny your body if you want to but I don't know why you do the Aldecaldo ending if you're going to give Johnny your body anyway that seems kind of pointless um you can go back to your body so obviously we all prefer that one because it's the only one where you get to leave Night City with Judy and Pan Am. You get to go with your love interest and your bestie and you get the fuck off. Now it is implied also that in that ending too you also only have like six months to a year to live. That's what alt tells you, right?

But it's also suggested once you're out that with all the technology they've gotten and connections that the Aldecaldos have, there's a chance you might be able to hook up with some people who might be able to help you. with some people who might be able to help you. They at least give you a grain, a morsel, of a possible extended life for V. It's obviously not said, but there's a morsel, a hint that it could work out. Number two, you get to spend the whole point of this game, as I've just been arguing before,

is that it's helping people around you. It's helping other people have better lives. In this ending, Del the Colos all get a better life because all the shit you just stole from Arasaka. You collapse Arasaka as a corporation like significantly. Like Hanako gets killed. Hanako dies and you get to hear about how much Arasaka stock is crashing. Okay. Which Shiro Nobu did on purpose.

Yeah, he did on purpose. And also just because the investors are being like, well, Arasaka couldn't even defend itself from a fucking nomad clan. All the columns get a better start like to their new life with all the money they just made. It's better. You get to spend more time with Judy, with your love interest, helping her heal and become a healthier pet person before you eventually pass on, if that's what's going to happen. Then you also set her up with a new family, which is the Aldecaldos. Well, actually, I think there's a good chance that V does survive because Well, actually, I think there's a good chance that V does survive because in the voicemail, there is a message from Misty where she reads her tarot.

And she's like very happy about the positive reading she got as well. Yeah, I know a lot of people online will say that that ending will all tells you you only have six months, you only have six months. But I think you also understand that within the frame narrative, not all characters know everything. Like you can't take what alt says 100% at face value. Oh, alt's also unreliable, not necessarily because she's going to be incorrect, but because she has ulterior motives that are very unknown. Because she's still a rogue AI from the Black Wall. Yeah, she's ultimately a rogue AI. It's not... And she wants to absorb all the souls from Makoshi.

So let's just... Yeah. She wants to absorb the Makoshi souls into herself to become a more powerful AI, which she does get to do. So I think that that ending is the only, that one does I think give you a legitimate belief that V gets to survive. And what this is going to bring me around to is I think one of my sort of ultimate thesis that I think the game is telling you about Night City and the ultimate message from it is there are there's two ways to survive

in Night City. There's two paths. There is either to be ultimately selfish or to not play. Those are the two ways to win in sort of the game of, you know, Night City. Either you have to be the ultimate selfish survivor willing to burn and to kill anyone for yourself and only yourself. And sell yourself out. Sell yourself out.

Or you have to not play. By leaving. yourself out or you have to not play. If you choose, if you choose not to participate, you can survive. And I think there's multiple examples of this. Now, if you look at it just from the endings, the endings where V gets to live, even theoretically there's being selfish, siding with Hanako or giving up songbird to side with the NUSA Ultimately selfish options, which all of your friends will abandon you because of how you've been Or there's leaving Night City with the Aldecaldos You're not you're choosing no longer to play. It's not a game you can win if you look at the NPCs that examine these, Rogue.

Rogue is the ultimate selfish survivor. If you look at the raid from the raid on Aristocka Tower in 2023, whose left? Just Rogue. It's Rogue. And the game pretty much tells you why is Rogue still there. Because she sold out. After the raid, she sells out to Harasaka.

It's why she's the only one from the afterlife still left after that raid. You don't know what happens to Spider Murphy or the person who's in the game but not in the game, Morgan Blackhand. Is Morgan Blackhand ever mentioned in the game? No. But that's because John... Well, you can read data shards from him. But you don't know about him because Johnny is an unreliable narrator and his memories are false and he completely forgets that Morgan Blackhand was the one actually doing the real assault on Arasaka Tower. Well, Johnny's crew was kind of a distraction, but whatever.

All that whole crew, they say in game, because you know the guy you have to talk to with Rogue so you can find Adam Smasher, the guy you go beat up on the boat. Yeah, I remember that. It tells you the reason Rogue survived is because she sold out to Arasaka. She even worked for Adam Smasher for a while. She worked for the guy that killed Johnny. Which is why she's so hung up on finding him and everything.

Once Johnny is back, she feels guilty because of what she did. That's why I think she also says it's not right when they go on that date and then they don't hook up or whatever. You know why she feels it's not right? She's guilty. She sold out. And now she feels bad because Johnny's back and he's like, yeah, you know, we did it and we tried and she's like, And guess what? When she decides to care and to not be selfish, what happens?

She dies. She dies. Ames Meshman kills her because she stops being selfish. It is only people who are... even that's not a guarantee, but it's one of the best ways is to be perfectly selfish, is the way to win the game. I mean, they tell you all the time, if you want to be a good solo and a good merc, you have to be out for yourself above all other things. Even if you read the data shards about other successful Mercs, like Morgan Blackhand, Morgan Blackhand just did whatever he got paid to do and didn't give a shit about anybody else. Because that was his job. That's that's how you survive is by being selfish.

The other way to win is to not play. Yeah, just do not play cyberpunk at all. Well, let's not play the game of like fame. Yeah. Within Night City. It falls back to what Dekshin D'Shawn says in the beginning of the game. You know, you can live a flashy life and end it short,

or you can live a long and quiet life. If you look at people in the game, like NPCs, who make it, who seem to be doing fine generally, you know, it's Night City, no one's doing fine. But like more or less, it's the people who don't participate in the rat race of the fame and the money of Night City. Now with one exception of like the quest line, you know who, you know who's pretty chill? Claire. You know why? She has no chrome,

You know why? She has no chrome. No modifications. No dreams of grandeur. She shows up and does her job, goes home. That's it. And so she gets to she gets to live in her is fine. Pretty much either way, because she doesn't play the game. She's not doing the Merck life. She's not doing the Merc life.

She's not going for it, you know? That's how you get out with the Aldecados, is you choose not to play. How does Judy eventually get a happy start to her life? No matter which ending you go for, she leaves Night City. She either goes to Pittsburgh or like leaves with you or like goes to see her grandparents in Oregon or whatever, right?

Yeah. It's by leaving Night City, choosing not to participate anymore. While she's in Night City trying to make things better, working with the mocks, trying to improve clouds, things go to shit all the time. So she leaves. These life didn't go poorly until if your street kid V, these life didn't go or even Nomad V, your life didn't go that bad until you showed up. And so you either are selfish or you don't play. And I think that's sort of what the game tells you in the world of cyberpunk

and night city, specifically. Those are your options. And I think those are reflected in the endings where V has hope of living. So I've been monologuing. I don't know if either of you have thoughts on my assessment of that. Um, the only thing I would maybe add is that there's sometimes with the believing or the not playing, there is an element of selfishness to it, if that makes any sense. So it's, it's almost like the only way it boils down to how you want to be selfish, if that makes any sense. Because in the case of say, Judy, who's like they're trying to make things better, everything goes to shit, and

then she leaves. That's both her realizing that she can't really play the game. And also her taking a some might call it selfish action of getting out. Not, not staying and working with the mocks anymore. Yeah. But it is very different from selling out, if that makes any sense. Well, I mean, for another option, Pan Am leaves the Aldecaldos, goes to Night City to be a merc, right?

What's like the main thrust of her quest line when you first start dealing with her? It's convincing her to leave night city and go back to the aldecaldos Like you have a bunch of conversations with her about how being in night city. There's no way to win You know what I mean? Like her quest line is learning that Night City sucks ass and playing the game of edge running is not a way to survive or to win. If anything, I feel like the grandest message there is mostly one of you, no matter how much you think

you might be able to, you can't win in that system. Like that system is not designed for anyone to win. It is set up to make you fail. And I see that as that's part of the, I think, underlying criticism of most cyberpunk of capitalism. Just like fundamentally is very much a you cannot win. I think that is part of the message that I think as we talked about the very beginning separates what I call more genuinely thematic cyberpunk from cyberpunk as an aesthetic Is that Again, Neuromancer like he gets out but he has to essentially you know what I mean like

Burn everything and like get out right? It if you he doesn't he doesn't change the world No For yeah for V or whoever you don't change the world you No. For you, for V or whoever, you don't change the world. You get out because you, the system isn't designed to be one. It can't be one. In snow crash, they explicitly do a good thing. And that's my point. In snow crash, they fucking win. The bad guy dies. All the bad guys die. And you just get to like be cool. And that's that to me is an explicit endorse is in a way is an endorsement of the system being that well if you play your cards right you can still win within

this capitalist hellscape. Which you see in Night City that you can't even the most powerful people can't win. Saburo got killed. The guy who ends up being the next the mayor of Night City dies, then the incoming mayor of Night City who you help, Parales, is being fucking mind controlled. And if you tell him he gets like freaking super paranoid, doesn't trust anything. help Parales is being fucking mind controlled. He had the. And if you tell him he gets like freaking super paranoid, it doesn't trust anything. Yeah. And so like, sure. He ends up being mayor. I'm pretty sure like he ends up being the next mayor of Night City, but he's permanently

mind controlled by blue eyes and AIs or night court or whoever the hell it is. Right. blue eyes and AIs or nightcore or whoever the hell it is, right? So even the people at the very top rung cannot actually win and That to me is what makes Cyberpunk thematically good is because it's like you said Catholic with the underlying criticism that Capitalism is not a system in which you can win.

All of your victories are small and personal or individual. They're not systemic. Which do eventually, I don't know if this would be a good time. We want to talk about Johnny. Well, we're talking about personal victories and morals. Let's talk about Johnny. Let's deal with what we're talking about. Personal victories and morals. Let's talk about Mr. Silverhand. You mean Keanu Reeves? We're going to talk about Keanu Reeves.

You are breathtaking. No, first of all, when I first played this game, I was expecting Keanu Reeves to be in it for like this long. I think most people were expecting him to be like a guy you run into. Bro was in the entire game, front to back, face to face. You play as him. Yeah, like...

Sometimes good and sometimes not good. Yeah, and in Phantom Liberty he even shows up a lot. Yeah. So he's got a lot to say in Phantom Liberty. He's got a lot to say in every way. And on one hand, I see him partially as a. Not a self insert for the writers, but because he isn't, but in partially I see him as a self-insert and partially he's kind of a criticism if it makes sense. He's like your moral not counterpoint. He's not a foil to be necessarily cricket basically

Yeah, yeah, but as like everything else in the cyberpunk world your Jiminy cricket is also kind of a piece of shit. Yeah It reminds me of the joke the joke an old joke it is that you know, I Give you my moral support, but I have questionable morals. That's Johnny. Mm-hmm And like the way I see Johnny is You have this character who V Who is down on their luck and just about every situation, you know They find something good and happy because because you can't win in Night City Something goes to shit once they find something that could make them luc situation, you know, they find something good and happy because you can't win in Night City.

Something goes to shit once they find something that could make them, you know, happy. And then you have this person like, no, you are not following these, you know, you are not being your true self. You need to be your true self. Which is weird for Johnny to say you're being your true self because

by the end of the game, depending on how you interact with him, you become more like him and he also becomes more like you. Because Johnny, when you first meet him, would under no circumstances let you take your body back. Mm-hmm. No. Not at all. Not at all. Not a single hope. But, depending on how you interact with him By the end of the game. He will tell you he tells you If it comes down to it, I will die so you can live even if it's for a little while longer It's

He Fundamentally, he eventually makes an unselfish choice. And I still think that goes back to his monologue. Once you like start looking back at some of his memories is that he wants people to have the choice to die. He doesn't want to be, you know, soul prison. He doesn't want to be in, you someone's you know angry and rewriting them He just wants people to have the choice to die and if and because our sock is taking that away from him

It's like no. I will glad you know I'm already dead. Let me be the person to die again because I'm just a Cybernetic construct I'm not you know actually Johnny Silverhand anymore. Oh We're gonna talk after we're done talking about characters, we're going to talk about that. I think we're going to talk about that, I think. I think Johnny is. Well, first of all, and I'm going to say this. Why don't you tell me why don't you tell me about his politics, Kefo?

At least when you first meet him. When you when you first meet Johnny Silverhand, he is a politics of pure negation. There is no positive program there. But he's he's effectively a an insurrectionary anarchist. an insurrectionary anarchist. Yeah, he is. He's very, and in that same vein of making selfish choices, he's very much a burn the system down, not because he thinks anything should go in its place or anything will arise from it, but because he thinks it's just the right

thing to do to burn it all down. He either read or definitely pretended to have read Blessed is the Flame. I think that in the second... It is by survivors of the Holocaust. uh, survivors of the Holocaust. Um, uh, they're anarchists and they're essentially their politics are politics of you don't need to know what's coming next because you can't determine what the future will hold, but that you, you should be burning down the system you live under because it is killing you.

Got it. Thank you. That's kind of it. Someone on Twitter will yell at me for summarizing it wrong, but everyone also knows that I don't read. So that's the gist of it is it's the anarcho-nihilist politics of negation. It's that you should burn down all that which oppresses you, even if you don't know what's coming next, because their concept is that you can't plan for what comes next, sort of. coming next, because their concept is that you can't plan for what comes next, sort of. And it's, it kind of goes into that same sort of Phaedon-y thing of even though you don't think you can succeed, or you don't think that it's possible, you have to do it anyways. And Johnny

is very much a, Johnny is very much a cynical bastard who has seen all of his plans throughout all of the different things he's attempted to do fail. And who's just decided that, at least at the beginning of the game, that the best response to that is to be a pure nihilist and to just say, fuck it to everything, burn it all down. That's the only option. He doesn't like see any value in life. He doesn't see any value in people. He doesn't see any value in any of this stuff existing. existing friendship or community. And like, like, if you think about it, he doesn't value life at all, even even back when he and you could probably make the argument that that happened when alt died. Because that's when he decides I'm going to nuke a

building. He kills a lot of normal people. Even though he supposedly tries to avoid it by like issuing evacuation warnings and stuff. Well you're not going to be able to get out of range of a nuclear weapon. A lot of people die from nuking Arasaka time. A lot of people die from nuking Arasaka. And if you do the Arasaka ending, there's a whole thing where like built into their bylaws is under certain emergency situations, the entire workforce is called in. So you're even killing the janitors, man.

Oh yeah. Well they work for Arasaka, Cathode, come on. It's, it's a guy. But in this, there's three, there's three employers and there's like four employers in night city. There's Arasaka, Militech, Kang Tao, and Biotechnica. It's so it's, it's just, um, at least initially, he is a nihilist in the purest sense of the word. He does not value life. He does not value anything other than his own autonomy. That is all he values.

And his autonomy is only useful in its ability to exercise violence against who he sees as the oppressor. And what's ultimately ironic about the whole situation is that he has no autonomy because he's piggyback riding in your body. So as you can say, as you can desperately wants autonomy above all things, is incapable of expressing even the slightest bit of it. Which I think is partly what makes him so angry at the start. He's like, he tries to kill you like instantly. Which does lead me to one of my favorite quotes and line reads in the whole game when he doesn't have any autonomy is Is a great line or forget what transmission it is, but V says Johnny well, what would you do for you were in my shoes and he goes I am in your shoes dumbass and I can't do anything

My favorite line reads the whole game. She's like, well, you're in my shoes, Johnny, what would you do? I have in your shoes, dumbass, and I can't do anything. But you're right. It's he, he's that's, that's Johnny. When you meet him, all he wants is the freedom to go store Marasaka again. But throughout the game through interacting, and now this is obvious, the way we play the game, you could play the game more selfishly, but I think the game tries to lead you this way by doing things that help people.

A lot of times, especially early on, Johnny shit talks you for trying to help people. He should talk. He should talk to you all through Judy's companion missions for just trying to help a bunch of whores He's he's a craer of this game. Yeah, he is the craer. He just disapproves of whatever you do Why did you pay that guy the docking fee you could have just forced him to not make you pay it Yeah, so like I, there are some things that, uh, it's nights of the old Republic too.

Um, um, so like there's a lot of times, particularly in the first, you know, half ish of the game, you do things to help people and he's like, it's fucking stupid, you're wasting your time. Why are you helping them? We should just be going to Arasaka right now. You're wasting your time. But by interacting with you and you helping people, you doing good work over time, especially if you interact with him nicely instead of telling him to go fuck himself,

he picks that up from you. He starts to value the lives of others. He starts to value the wellbeing of rogue and of Carrie to some extent. He starts to value the wellbeing of other people. Like when later on he like, you know, for all of us being like the female character in Romancing Judy, later on he like, you know, for all of us being like the female character and romancing Judy later on, he does, he does admit, I think it might be when you have to call her before you make your decision, he admits he's like, I've kind of come to like her, like she's growing on me, which coming from Johnny is like

the nicest thing he said about anyone. You know what I mean? Like the whole game, you teach him to value other things. And by doing that, particularly in the ending that we chose, what happens? He willingly gives up the body and exist his own autonomy to you. And he goes and becomes bored into alt. And that also goes back to overriding theme, which is how does he what happens? He's no longer selfish.

And then he ceases to exist. But V also becomes V also becomes more like Johnny a little bit. V gets a little bit more aggressive and a little more go getter by the end of the game, I think anyway. Because they're definitely... Well, something what Johnny says is right. Johnny is right about a lot of things. He's just an asshole. Which makes you want to listen less to him.

And for me, I remember when I first, you know, point blank, did not know what was going on in the game. I was like, why is this guy such a dick to me? I understand we're in this situation together. Help me out here. Like to quote, to quote the big Lebowski, am I right? Yeah. You are.

You're just an asshole. Yeah. Like he's, he is right that Arasaka is actively ruining everyone's life. That's true. He is right that Makoshi continuing to exist is an existential threat to humanity. He's right. What he's wrong about is that like, just, you know, you should kill that. Like nothing else matters besides that because you kind of need other people in order to combat Makoshi. Except for the one. You can't do it on your own. I mean, you can technically you can with the don't

pay the reaper ending. Yeah, technically you can, but that is also a secret ending that you can only get through a very specific dialogue with Johnny and that you then have to do the weird thing of not making a choice and just sitting there on the rooftop for like five minutes, not making a choice before the option even pops up. It's not one of the easily presented options to you. Right.

So you can, but like also in that one, I'd argue you're not doing it alone because it's kind of you and Johnny doing it together or sort of, but like in more of the presented endings, you can't kill Makoshi alone. Either you need rogue or you need Pan Am Yeah, and also you can't do any of it without alt Like alts the one that really actually kills Makoshi and fucking saves you or untangles your psyches or whatever and Yes, Johnny is a representation of some anarchists. I know. I know people that have Johnny's politics.

And again, in many instances, are they right? Yes. Are they kind of assholes? Yes. Do they lack a positive program? Yes. Let's not even get into talking about voting. Okay. Or democracy or building a program in advance. Let's not get into that. We don't have time for that sort of internet sign, internet drama. Okay. Don't at me.

Adding you right now. Was there anything else you wanted to say about Johnny or should I go to the one other character who I think we need to talk about moral choices for? No, I really just wanted to be like he was a post-left anarchist and that's... He is a nihilist post-left anarchist and you eventually bring him around to the idea that maybe a little bit of society is okay. Yeah. And, and he, um, I do, I do want to mention because there is one quest, um, that is very openly, we'll say mocking of specifically communism. Um, the, there's like a Bartmoss collective or something that occasionally sends you messages throughout the game and you receive these these messages and they're like labor slogans. They're like, you know, all you have to lose is your chains, blah, blah, blah. Swedenborg Riviera stuff. Yeah. And eventually you while you're following this line of thought from location to location to location to location. Johnny is just openly being like, oh, come on, these people are stupid. Like, like actively being the most post left that an anarchist can be, where he's just openly mocking the concept of communism. And then you eventually find out where it's coming from, and it's this big... It's like a Zoltar thing, yeah.

Yeah, that has been corrupted into delivering, instead of fortunes, Marxist slogans. Johnny's like, please leave it. It's great. Please leave it. It's hilarious. So I don't know it just again, it highlights more of Johnny's politics of pure negation. there the rejection of any external political program I do enjoy the one mission where you and Johnny like seemed to definitely agree or at least I always did you know that the one in Dogtown where you go to the place where they're like putting chrome and children oh yeah the lady the lady the lady the lady like tries to make a deal with you and you say fuck you and blow her away and Johnny is like Finally, thank you God I never pulled the trigger on somebody so fast. No, but there's a better ending to that

You get the kid a contract and then blow him away Yeah, you can technically get her to agree to give the kid a contract and then kill her but like it's real satisfying Just go fuck you true. I mean, that that's what I did I just blew her away immediately. Talking about morals there's a lot of quests where you get to the person that you've been contracted to kill and you can like talk to them and like cut a deal you know there's like one for the there's one for the Padre with this corporal lady like ran a girl over that you can sort of like- That corporal lady can just go fuck off. Yeah. And here's the thing. You actually read the emails and stuff.

She's like, I hit some bitch who gives a shit. I got insurance for that. Yeah. She, she has actual insurance. It's like pedestrian accidental pedestrian death insurance. I needed that for my playthroughs. There's another, I'm pretty sure it's another, is it another Padre mission maybe? Maybe it's Dino where you talk to this scientist who like did biological experiments on like Aldecaldos.

Yeah. That lady gets killed so fast. I killed her. I could have just blown her head up with a shot of like. Oh yeah. That's the only way that you can, if you're a nomad as your background, you can then go talk to the guy in the trunk that we mentioned earlier. Um, unless we were talking about that before. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, like the, the corporal that was in a trunk, right?

Alexander Pushkin. Yeah. Yeah. Pushkin. Um, you can actually, if you're a nomad, find out that he was working on the same project as her. And then you're like, well, and then you can like more satisfyingly shut the trunk on him. And you've already delivered him and then in retrospect, you feel good about it. Yeah. Yeah. That also works.

Yeah, there's a couple of that's that's again. That's another one where there's nobody. No, you're sending him to the tiger claws, which you're sending him to the tiger claws on the behest of a scav. Yeah, they got on the bad side of the tiger claws. Well, that's oh, no, I don't think he's a scav. I think he's supposed to be a solo. He's got the he does have the thing. Yeah. Well anyway, um, the one other one other main character I wanted to talk about in terms of making moral choices, and this will segue into my spiel about gamers' reactions to things, I think. Let's talk about Songbird.

Who? Somi. Let me think of the color Songbird too. I know. So, Somi, at the Phantom Liberty quest line, or near the end, you get to choose whether you side with Reed or side with Somi. And I think it's a great moral dilemma

the game presents you with. However, with my flawless logic, I think I will argue. Siding with Somi is the only moral option, or is the superior moral option. Now, Kethel, you might actually disagree with me. I'm just being, I'm being can't agree with you. I don't actually disagree with you. But so what you learned about Somi,

she was a teenager just doing some net running like hack and shit, right? It's like a teenager in like New York City or something. And she, like a lot of people, you know, was doing some light crimes. And she eventually got caught, got noticed by like the NUSA as like a teen. Reed shows up to her house and says, hey, you're good, but not good enough. Either you join us and work for us,

or you go to jail forever, or get killed, something like that. So she is forcibly recruited to become an agent for the FIA. And she worked for them for a long time. During this career, she is forced by President Meyers to cross or access the Black Wall numerous times, explicitly endangering humanity by fucking with the Black Wall. Not because she wants to, because Meyers is forcing her to.

And so then later on, when she's, her whole plan in Phantom Liberty is to not have to work for Myers anymore, not have to access the Black Wall anymore. It just all goes wrong because it's Night City and you don't get to have nice things. So Hanson does it differently than she asked him to. Working with her plan to escape doesn't go

like it was supposed to and all this other stuff and it goes badly. And so in the end when Reed and Myers are like, oh, you need to bring her back to us, bringing her back to them is agreeing to essentially return her to prison slash slavery because then Myers is going to use her as a blackwalled netrunner one way or another against her will. And so me, I think, is a reflection of V in that she is poisoned, essentially, in the brain and is doing whatever it takes to survive

and to get away from a situation which she cannot escape. And it goes poorly for her in a lot of instances. But I don't think that there is a moral option that involves giving her back to the NUSA. And I think this relates to what I would, what I, this does, I think to some degree relate to the conversation we had with with Sean about the Poppy War, OK, which is what is just what is justified violence if you are a slave attempting to escape? That's true. What constitutes if you are an enslaved or oppressed person, facing like your own death

or enslavement, what level of violence is justified in you resisting that enslavement? And so, because some people argue that siding with So-Me is morally bad because she turns on the defenses in the stadium, which does kill innocent people. Also, I think there's also a certain line you can listen to where before this happens, pretty sure they say that before this meeting and for doing this thing, most of the stadiums been evacuated already because of the meeting that Hanson is having and because of what they're doing that most of the stadium has been evacuated. But I will see people argue that siding with her is bad because she crosses the black wall

because she turns the stadium defenses on people. But she's doing this all in service of no longer being enslaved to President Myers. And I would personally argue that that is not, you're not morally culpable in that situation. I don't know if either of you, that's been a monologue for me, I don't know if either of you two have an opinion on that.

Well, the way I can see it both ways. So, I obviously did the side of so me, but siding with Reed, it's understandable at points where you're trying to capture someone who's been constantly going along into the black wall and you've already started frizzing out and could be an issue overall. And especially because they're dying and you want to get them

help, but if they're which comes out later is that they're going up there working with rogue AIs to go to the moon, and that could be a potentially bigger problem than just sending her to the NUSA, where, yeah, she will be enslaved and everything, but what will the rogue AIs do to so me while she's up at the moon? Because you do not know.

Because you just get a little message and like, oh yeah, here's my, you know, my data, you know, my deck, cyber deck, and here's a souvenir from there, but you hear nothing else from her. Yeah, the implication is that she survives and she's fine, but you never know for sure, because they could have just been the people on the moon, could have just sent you that shit

to make you Think she's fine But I also don't know why they would go out of their way to reassure you because it's not like V can do anything about it So I don't know why they would go out of their way to reassure you Just for funsies By the same time it I also think of it is it depends on how your V is is your V more of a corpo Patriot whatever or are they more so seeing that, yes, we are in a similar situation, and I'm trying, you know, but I found out

you lied to me, so now I'm going to give you over to read and take your place instead. I personally think the most cowardly option is the is saying, telling so me you'll say for and then giving over to read at the end. I think that's the most morally corrupt option. That is not even any real benefit to doing so. I like because you don't even get your even from a gameplay reward. You don't even get the end USA ending that way. You don't get the moon ending for yourself that way. You don't get anything. get anything. You're nothing. And you don't get reads gun, like, I think what's I'm just trying to think about it from the perspective of how much information you receive at the time. And I can see the logic of either decision from the perspective of how much information you have in the moment

with information from beyond those choices. Absolutely, which I think is a genius move on their part to kind of hide, for example, Somi's backstory being hidden, like her actual backstory being hidden behind. Bothering to talk to her. story being hidden behind. Bothering to talk to her. I don't know how much they show in. The so me path, but in the read path you actually play through her memories.

You don't do that in the so me path. So you get to explicitly see. All of it has constructed at least. And like so me is in there like talking to you, leading you through her memories, essentially. And it's really bizarre what they chose to lock behind specific endings because it very much, in my opinion, shows that they did not have an idea in their minds as to which one would make the most sense. Well, so the one of the project leads actually give an interview somewhat recently that said they very specifically wanted to craft the ending to try and split the player base 50 50 on that choice. Yeah. And I can see that they did like it makes it makes a lot of sense how that happened because From a gameplay rewards perspective you're getting a lot

For doing either side, but they're they're almost hiding some of the information for either sides Position behind the opposite sides Position behind the opposite sides. We have you pick that if you take that side, you get the information that supports your side. If you pick that side. Oh, no, because if you get if you pick the read anything like you get background that makes you. Feel bad. Well, yeah, it's specifically like. Like it is soMi's backstory.

You see her as a kid. You see her in her apartment. You see her going through this whole process, and you get her monologuing along with it. Oh, geez. In that case, you can just do the Phantom Liberty start and just jump right into it if you want. My only real reasoning for picking the read ending. Is because you're secretly a slimy corpo fuck?

Yes. In the moment, there's a lot of decisions to be made. In the moment, there's a lot of decisions to be made and you do get obviously the choice, like the explicit choice side with one side with the other. But it's time. And it's time. So you get like this like moment of. Also, can I say, point out, obviously this is out of game knowledge, but siding with Somi is also the only way that Alex gets to have a happy ending.

That's true. Which is counterintuitive because you're siding against her. You're siding against her, but if you side with her, she dies. Which is why I didn't want to go with Freekz. I was like, well if Alex dies, she's really cool. I don't want to do that to her It is it is so whack to me that they hide they like the missions that you do on reads end are Ridiculous like they they completely change the gameplay of how the game works You do you do like a fucking like horror game level if you side with read there's like an alien isolation inspired side with Reed. There's like an alien isolation inspired segment where you're getting tracked down by a maintenance robot that's infected with a rogue AI from beyond the black wall.

It's hunting you down. It's like it's a crazy mission. And then the previous mission to that is you working with his contacts in like sixth street. Yeah. to set up an ambush for for the caravan that so me is in right like so the caravan that so me is in and you get to like, essentially play a tower defense down tower defense game where you essentially are like picking Okay, I want mines here. I want to set up over here. I want read set up over here. I'm gonna start over here. And Phantom Liberty has a over here. I want read set up over here. I'm going to start over here. Phantom Liberty has a few of those weird sort of bizarre missions because you also have the one

where you're sneaking into the to the to the dinner where you do the Overwatch thing with the sniper. Yeah. I will say though that you didn't play through it, Kethel, but deciding with so me gets you I think maybe my favorite mission in the entire game, which is the very end when you're fighting your way through the spaceport. Oh, that's so much fun. Getting through the spaceport, you do some, like, you know, some sneaky stuff, but eventually the FIA shows up and starts assaulting the spaceport. Like full on their security, like F NUSA soldiers are having a full on battle with airport security because that's a whole separate company right they're independent and

you and so me have to fight your way through both of them more or less to get out and it is this entire running battle where you get to use any weapons you want all these different rooms and scenarios you sneak and you're blowing shit up. But at the end, you do the thing which is one of the greatest fucking things ever with a banging soundtrack, with a soundtrack which by the way is called Contra La Luna, which is against the moon, which is obviously thematic and it's great. But while you're trying to hack to get like the trolley train to you so you can go out

to the launch pad. You're getting just swarmed by soldiers. And so if you've ever wanted to do pure, just like, you know what I mean? Constant battle where you get to like use all of your combat stuff to maximum effectiveness. This is it. You're like defending a guard tower or like a control room from like 20, 30, 40 soldiers while soMe does some hacking. But at the end, you're so overwhelmed.

You need to survive. So you like grab So-Me, so harms around your shoulder and by linking your, like your cables together, So-Me breaches the back wall and you get to murder people with pure black wall energy. That was one of my favorite missions. Like the music is fucking banging and V has you've got your hand out and as the dudes come it just says like left click to unleash Black Wall and V just kind of goes like this and like clenches your fist and the guys just

like evaporate into red matrix lines. Yeah. As you just nuke them with the black wall and it rules so hard and there's no other mission in the game like that. So what's what's really fucked is that I know I know that that's super badass and it's still more badass than what I'm about to say. But you get a similar vibe with Erebus. Oh yeah with the with the Erebus like gun, because it's black. It's like rogue eyes and it's like black. Well, shit. So every time you pull the gun out, it's like you are all futilely like your life is so futile or whatever bullshit it says.

And then when you shoot people with it, they just start black wall exploding. Like they just. Well, I will say this. The the gun you do, you don't get a gun, but the cyber deck you get from SoMe lets you unleash Black Wall energy. Yeah, if you're a Netrunner V, the cyber deck you get from where you can unleash the Black Wall energy. The Black Wall cyber deck is also behind Reid's ending. Really? you get from where you can unleash the Black Wall Cyberdeck is also behind Reed's ending. Really? Because you need the Chimera core from the, not the Chimera core, you need the core from the robot that's chasing you down. And then you have to find one of the specs, you have to find both

the specs and you get to pick one or the other the black wall chip or the black wall gun Going back to the morality of it though So you talked about that whether which one you think is more moral kind of depends on which kind of V you play for me the true like sort of the Apotheosis the like the mission statement of how I saw V as a character for the whole game really comes on the train with Somi when she admits finally that she lied to you even though you can kind of guess a long time leading up to this that she was lying right you kind of I don't know to

me even without spoiling the ending I kind of saw it coming oh you know I knew it was the offer was too good to be true Yeah, like you knew it wasn't gonna happen, right? There's some meta knowledge where where you're also like the game's not gonna end here Yeah, so like I get that but you're on the train with her and she's like, you know dying or whatever Like in the seat across from you as you're sitting on like like an airport tram Like riding out to the platform, you get to have a conversation with So Mi. While she's like sort of floating

in and out of consciousness. And she admits she's like, sorry, I lied to you. But like, I didn't know, I didn't have any other choice. Like I was just trying to survive, right? One of the options, one of the lines V can say is something that given the option, I would have said to so me at the beginning of phantom liberty, when she first contacts you, it's like sort of again, my visa mission statement, which is, you didn't have to lie to me, I

would have helped you anyway. Yep, that's why he told her exact same choice because like, because my VC so me as a kindred spirit and so the fact that you can sit there on this quiet and like it's it's a quiet tram ride after you've just been unleashed in the black wall and people doing all this epic shit it's this quiet little tram ride while Stomi is like dying and saying look i'm sorry i lied to you it's you know you can do whatever you want now it's whatever and like V just looks at her lied to you. It's, you know, you can do whatever you want now. It's whatever.

And like V just looks at her, she's passing out. It was like, you didn't have to lie. I would have helped you anyway. Which is like, again, like what I would have done. I know I'm not gonna get an answer out of this, but you deserve one. And then you get there and Reed is like, come on, you can still stop this and Reed is like, Come on,

just you can still stop this. I'm like, Reed, I'm gonna shoot you in the dick and balls first on purpose. Honestly, I hated that you could not shoot Reed immediately upon seeing him. You have to enter in a little quick time event. Which is so stupid. So I'm like, No, if I see Reed, I'm just gonna shoot him the fuck down because he like turned his back on his friend again.

Send you some real threatening fucking messages, they'll tell you what. Yeah, I would have dropped him the moment I saw him in person. To me, that's the apotheosis I think of what my view is and was supposed to be and why I think the El De Caldo ending makes sense and why a lot of the choices make sense is like,

I would have helped you anyway, even if I couldn't save myself and I think that goes back to what we were talking about earlier with like, you know, the Theoden thing like I'm not gonna live to see a better tomorrow, but you might because of my actions and I think that's sort of where the heart of the story Lies if you're not just being a selfish prick the whole way through No, I completely agree with that and it's one of those things that I feel like this whole game is trying to say like, it is okay to help people. Because even the bit of good that you do in the world, as much as Night City sucks, you're still able to be there

to help some of the people around the areas, people who may have otherwise just, you know, lost everything or died. And sometimes, yes, you're a bit late, but you're able to stop these people from doing other things as well. Again, it's, it's, it's a little help you give to the people around you, not big systemic change. Exactly. Like one of the missions I think that everybody hates to play. Before we go into the big thing that you want to talk about today, is the one where you accept a, you know, a brain dance. It's an obvious scam. Yeah.

But like, I know it's a scam. And I want it with I feel like my view is okay. I know it's a scam, but I want to see where this leads. Well, because by this is a scam, but I want to see where this leads. Well, because by going through with it, waking up in a scav house, you then get to kill the scavs running that scam so no one else will fall for it.

Exactly. And then I get back, see the guy, I'm like, where's my money? And then immediately, chong. Which if you don't, And I end it right there. If you ask for your money back before you test it He gets to stay there and continue hocking that scam at other people thereby entrapping them into the scav den Exactly, but what they didn't know is that I have gorilla arms. So they were screwed from the moment

I came in they don't know is I'm the most yeah, I'm the most yoked out person in all of the night cities ever seen. I Am the literal champion of night city I mean if you look at it from even like an in-universe power levels perspective that Night City's ever seen. I am the literal champion of Night City. I mean if you look at it from even like an in-universe power levels perspective, your V can solo Adam Smasher and all of Arasaka Tower by herself, making her more powerful than any of the famous mercs you've ever heard about in the game. And she lives. Like you can make it all the way through Arasaka and live. You know what I mean? Like you're better than Morgan Blackhand. You're

better than anyone else. You're better than any of the people in Edgerunners. Yeah you're better than anyone in Edgerunners that's for sure. But we'll save that for a bonus episode. I want to be there for that one too. We talked about Soumi and that wants to get me into into my bit here about community reaction Okay Because like I said, we've up to this point. We've been talking about how the game presents these moral choices how we as players we as players reacted to these moral choices and we as players reacted to these moral choices and how the world itself is presented.

Now, because this game is rife with moral questions, I thought it would be interesting to spend a lot of time observing gamers' reactions, players' reactions to the options this game presents. Gamers notoriously illiterate. Notoriously media illiterate, notoriously accepting, notoriously cool with women. Gamers. Yeah, we're cool with women. Yeah, I'm cool with women. I ams women, okay? So, one very specific trend I noticed that I have, I've got to stick up my ass about that I have to talk about.

And I do say you two are free to disagree with me if you want. This is my own personal vendetta. Kethel knows this like when I talk about like sexual assault in a book. It's a my vendetta. It may be good for the story or something, but I'm just going to be pissy about it. Okay. But it's a personal vendetta.

What I want to talk about is pretty much. Cross the board whenever the say the subreddits for cyberpunk talk about NPCs, they dislike the most or NPCs that they think sort of Get what was coming to them or NPCs that you'll just see hate about them sort of brought up out of nowhere where they'll be talking about one character and some will Yeah, what's better than this one? There's three characters in my mind they get a lot of hate from gamers three characters that are sort

of universally viewed as being as liars, as deceivers, and as not worthy of redemption. Why don't you go ahead and guess what these three characters have in common. They all work for Arasaka. Oh, it's also not the genocidal or sort of not genocidal, but murderous maniac who lives in your head. Huh? It doesn't have to do with the fact that they live in Night City. I mean, that is that is related, but that's not what binds them. It is that they're all women disproportionately hated

among the player base, at least of the vocal player base online are three characters from this game, and they are Claire, Somi and Evelyn. You have the trans character, the trans woman, And they are Claire, Somi, and Evelyn. You have the trans character, the trans woman, a Korean American, and a sex worker. Obviously nothing is universal, but in terms of negative attitudes that are routinely promoted and stated across

sort of the subreddits and forums and stuff, you get that a lot of people really fucking hate Claire and the only and the only thing they ever say about it is that she lies to you and because of that she is deserving of a lot of scorn despite the fact that she doesn't lie to you the whole way, she does tell you the truth, and you have an option to back out before the final race. And even in the final race, you can still follow her directions and still not kill the guy,

and still get a good and a positive ending for Claire. Okay? But I see pretty universally across the subreddit. Oh, she's a liar. Oh, she's all upset about her husband dying, but that's the rules of the game. So she's bitter when I didn't I fuck you. I just want to win the race. I only want to win the race. Well, now she won't serve me any drinks at afterlife anymore. It's fucking bullshit. Do you know how many people in this game ask you to kill somebody? Everybody. Literally everyone. Do you know how many people

in this game ask you to kill people for less justifiable reasons? This guy crashed my car on me. Also. Kill him. I see people go, oh well her husband died in the race and that's part of the rules of the race. She can't be mad about it. You can still be mad about it. Number one. And number two, if you kill that guy, you're also killing him in the race, which is within the rules. That's kind of the whole point of the mission.

If she just wanted him murked, she could have gotten anybody at the afterlife to murk it. She works with the most infamous mercenaries in the entire city. She serves them drinks. Like rogue is her boss. If she really wanted the guy killed by a murk, she could probably just ask rogue. She wants it done within the, within the race, the same way her husband died. And I think the hate for her is so disproportionate to what she's asking you to do. And I'm sorry, I don't have any other reason to propose as to why they hate her so much

is besides that she's a trans woman and they like, like they have to win every race because they're gamers. They can't stand not winning the last race. Like if you two disagree with me, that's fine. I would like to know that there's another reason why she gets so much hate beyond other NPCs who ask you to do fucked up stuff. Honestly, I do not understand the hate behind Claire. And, well, I mean, now I do. But when I first met Claire, I had no idea that she was a trans character. I did all the races with Beast. I guess what I did not notice, a trans flag on the back.

And on the dashboard. Well, me in 2020 did not know what that flag was. Welcome to my podcast, Roberto. I was a different person in 2020 compared to now. But if you read the character cards, you know, for everyone like in like the whatever the log, like it calls her trans like in the log. And then when she's talking about her husband, she says he was with her like before her gender affirming surgery.

Yeah, no, that was when I finally like put the the dots together, I'm like, oh, oh! And I think that's where the hate comes from, is because she is a trans character. Can I just say, I wish, in a trans woman, I wish I could be stacked like Claire. Holy shit. Yeah, and I think that's part of the reason why people dislike her so much.

She's hot. Is because they didn't know she was trans. Yeah. Are they freaking out? Is this the trans panic defense? I kind of think it is because they call her a liar and they talk about her lying about the goal of the race. I think it's because they feel lied to about her being trans, personally.

Oh, no, absolutely. I think that's the main reason because they don't find out until you race with the beast and you're like, oh shit, that cute bartender I saw in Afterlife was not what I expected it to be. Despite her being exactly what you expected it to be, she's had all the goddamn surgeries, you truse gum fuck bags, whatever. Yeah. And it's like, I didn't then like, well, you know what?

She's not a romance option. So it's like, I didn't then make it. Well, you know what? She's not a romance option. So you know what? I don't care. I, I also think that you're onto something too, when you were like, because gamers can't finish the last race. That, you know, they can't deal with not winning every race. They can't deal with not winning the race.

They, they want to be the champion of everything. Yeah. And then she tells you to fuck off and won't serve you drinks anymore. No shit. Your actions have consequences. Fuck Wad. The one I really, the one I really don't understand, like truly there's not even a little bit of understanding in the vaguest of ways is why people dislike Evelyn so much. I have, I have with my own eyes, say people, seeing people say, and agree with the idea that, this is a quote, she deserved what happened to her.

Which is to me like an unforgivable statement. No one ever fucking deserves that. Like, ever. Like, oh, she lied, you know, where did she lie to you about anything? Never! She actually doesn't lie to you at all! You're a merc, she gives you a thing to do, and you did it!

And then it went wrong, like everything does in Night City. She even tries to cut Dex out, and Dex is like the biggest piece of shit. She tries to cut out the biggest piece of shit in your orbit at the time, which was Dexter Deshaun. Oh, I agreed to. I said, yeah, because you know what? Dexter Deshaun, not a fucking merc at all. So he just arrived back out of nowhere. So who am I to fucking trust this asshole? No one deserves what happens to Evelyn. What happens to her is unforgivably evil. No, yeah, absolutely. And what I, especially going to basically reading what whatever that wood guy did, I forget his woodman, what you know, seeing what he the way he talked about her and then

hearing back about what he did to her. I've never felt again, we talked about earlier about this mysteryantery you fear good killing the target I feel so good killing Whitman. You know I feel even better about killing. Oh I'm so glad that they took away the stupid only fingers would carry the mark for San Devestan because you should be able to kill him. Yeah, absolutely. And that is my favorite thing is I you do the one punch and you do the second punch and he's dead and I'm like, actually don't think he's dead. I may just shoot him afterwards, but it's whatever. Yeah, I always come back later because he's still on the map. I let him come back later,

just walk into his walk through thing. He's like, it's you and you're like, and then by the time you walked out, your star's gone away already. Yeah. And that's one thing that's also like about Phantom Liberty is you get the mask that like lets you like automatically take stars off. Again, for people, again, massive trigger warning, massive trigger warning for what happens to Evelyn.

After the job goes bad, the voodoo boys, probably Placidae, or Pl placid, tries to fry her brain. Then Woodman rapes her, gives her the fingers who bucks with her and then sells her off to scabs who make the most exploitive, disgusting brain dances possible. It's horrific. The Urest gear, but she has had so much trauma that she can't continue to live. And I have seen people say that like, Oh, she was stupid.

She didn't plan the heist right. She planned the heist perfectly fine. The thing that fucked it up was literally, yeah, it was Saburo showing up out of nowhere. If Saburo hadn't showed up, the heists would have gone off flawlessly despite like the multi- also you had like a multi-hour delay because T-Bug underestimated the hotel security. You had like, you sat in that hotel room for like five hours. Any time before that, you're out of there, scot-free, with a perfectly intact relic.

No, Johnny, nothing. You know, no Mikoshi being destroyed. Yeah, you just get the money and you get to go continue being a Merc with Jackie and Evelyn and Judy, then leave Night City with the money they made off of selling the relic. However, I wouldn't be surprised. This is obviously unconfirmed because we don't know what would have happened if we completely finished the quest.

But I think that's what I betrayed you anyway. Absolutely. The Voodoo Boys would probably have fucked over everyone anyways. Yes, I think I think Dex would have tried to zero Jackie and and V anyway. I don't know. I think Dex was was panicked because of the particular situation He was there because of Arasaka. I don't think he's usually I'm gonna shoot everybody and get on with it Yeah

But the voodoo boys definitely would have tried to kill you all as soon as Evelyn took the chip to the voodoo boys to give To them they would have killed her. Yes, they wouldn't have given her the money. You wouldn't have received anything Yeah, plus you would have killed her and then plus he probably't have received anything. Yeah, Plessid would have killed her. And then Plessid probably would have tried to find a way to fry all of the people who were involved in the heist. Which also never feel bad for killing all the voodoo boys on site. It's fucking on site. I never do. I'm, I, you know, every time I see a voodoo boy, I stop blast them with a few shots scabs and the voodoo boys.

If I see them, I will stop whatever I'm doing. Get out of the car, kill them and just get back in the car every time. Every time I basically almost never kill the Valentino's like I don't really see the need most of the time. I kind of see I also kind of let Sixth Street go until you actually played through a lot of the fixer quests over there, in which case Sixth Street, it's also on site. Because there's a mission, you know, where the guy's trying to escape and then he just tries to throw a party before he leaves and the Sixth Street shows up and murders all the sex workers just for no reason.

They just murder all the dolls that were hired to be at this party After I played that mission the first time on site for 6th Street as well. My V is a vigilante motherfucker I'll tell you what, you know, I do not like 6th Street at all I think they're one of the worst gangs out there like the Valentinos have their issues But they're like top two for me them and the animals baby But I don't like the animals either, but they don't really do anything though. They're whatever. Um, but again, going back, I've seen that opinion with people with Evelyn. They don't, they think she's not worth it. She doesn't deserve it. That like, it's not,

it's not tragic. What happened to her? I've seen people argue that her, her death wasn't tragic at all. And it's like, excuse me? And again, it's because she's a prostitute. It's because she's a sex worker. It's the only explanation. And we've already kind of talked about, so me, where I've seen a lot of people argue that because she was crossing the black wall, she was a threat, and that because she lied to you,

she deserved to die, and that she crossed the black wall, she deserved to die or be imprisoned. Despite the fact that it's pretty clear that she only accesses the black wall because Myers makes her do it. Yeah, so I don't get... literally all the hate comes from the gamers because these are women who are screaming. Despite Johnny's homicidal antisocial tendencies, he never gets that hate. That's because being homicidal and antisocial sort of gamers bread and butter. So. I mean, yes. And you have so many other characters who screw you over, but they don't get the hate, you know. Takemura, literally literally you do missions with him

immediately says you know you shouldn't have killed Oda. Yeah Takamura would also would turn you over at the drop of a hat if it would accept if it would get him accepted back into Arasaka. Yeah and it's like you know you do work with Takamura oh my god Goro Takamura is so great I. I'm like, is he though? Is he? You don't even want to, you have to imagine how many people Takamura has probably killed for Arasaka. Oh no, I don't have to make him. I know a shit ton. And it's like, Oh, but you know, he's just trying to get back.

I'm like, yeah, he's trying to get back to, you know, a horrible Imperial boss, you know, corporate boss who's trying to like run, you're starting to get back to a horrible Imperial corporate boss who's trying to run. We've already talked about how evil Saburo is and what he was trying to accomplish. And this guy here supporting the Saburo with... What is fun though is doing the star ending and Takamura calls you a piece of shit before he kills himself, which is pretty great. Yeah. I'm pretty sure any ending aside from the Arasaka ending gets you that. I wonder if the moon one does because you don't just... Arasaka doesn't get destroyed by the moon ending,

but you also don't help them, I guess. So yeah, I suppose it could be any of those. He gets pissed with you and then kills himself. I suppose it would be could be any of those He's like I've been reading samurai death poems, but I can't write poetry so instead I'll say fuck you You know what eat shit talk girl Takamura Especially stupid after you save his life Yeah, you saved his life But like for me V saves his life as then just explicitly because he saved your life in the dump, but like that's about it But I'm sorry like maybe I'm overreacting and reading a little too much into that because my own specific tendencies but I see like sort of the the the opinions that sort of the larger gaming community puts out about Claire and

that sort of the larger gaming community puts out about Claire and Evelyn and so me. And I can't not see like sexism and other various bigotries in those opinions that are not shared amongst other NPCs who do equally as terrible things. Or not even terrible things. Claire doesn't even ask you to do anything terrible. Neither does Evelyn. Yeah, no, it's like With the with all of them it's you're A merc they ask you for help and you do it like you have no other reason to not do it. It's like You help Claire because one she's your friend Two, you know, she works at the afterlife. So why are you gonna of all people why are you gonna tell her no?

You know, she works at the afterlife. So why you evolve people? Why you don't tell her no Especially when rogue runs the fuck. Yeah, she's mad This guy killed her husband in a death race and now she wants to kill that guy in a death race That's perfectly justified and within the rules And if anything you can convince her to like hey, you know, it's okay to be mad You can see yeah, you can you can help her and still spare the guy's life. And then you get two cars instead of one. If you spare him, you get both cars. I mean, I don't.

I'm a vindictive little bitch and Claire's like, I'm going to kill the guy. And I'm just like, oh, whatever you say, bestie. I mean, I just use three vehicles at all times. So like, I don't really care about other cars. One thing this game really does help me with role playing is there's times where V can say things or you can explicitly choose not to say anything, which I think is a really clever dialogue choice often, because a lot of games force you, you know, you play like Mass Effect and it's like Paragon, Neutral, Rebel, Flirty.

And those are like your four options, you know what I mean, in any dialogue. But this game, there's a lot of times where things are happening and you can choose to simply not say anything. And for my V, sometimes that's what she would do when you're like, oh, why wouldn't you question this guy? Because I wouldn't, I don't care. I'm not going to ask him any further questions.

I'm going to blow his head off. Yeah. And there's like the one, you know, the first time you encounter that is when you go meet with, um, was it Royce? You can speak up and defend Jackie, but you know, if you do that, you're going to screw over the mission, you know, which goes to hell anyways, but you can still flatline a few of the freaking Maelstrom people. That's also like choosing between two devils, because either you're helping Militech or you're helping the Maelstrom. And I'm sorry, I'm killing the Maelstrom people that's also like choosing between two devils either you're helping Militech or you're

Helping the Maelstrom and I'm sorry. I'm killing the Maelstrom every time But but then you don't get the massive dodo bat No, you get you kill Maelstrom. So you get the massive dodo bat and also you do the middle tech shard, right? I mean, yeah, yeah, you can like give them the sharp. You don't have to give them the shard. Actually, you can keep the shard You just like say you're going to use the shard and then you can just like draw your fucking gun on Royce anyway. But I just that was a very specific audience reaction I'd seen to those characters, which hit me obviously in a very specific way,

which I found upsetting. I know we've been going for a really long time, but there's one last thing I wanted to talk about, sort of a topic I wanted to cover if you two are up for it. It's sort of a two piece topic, one I want to talk about how we handle it, and then one about how my opinion on something has changed. Because I teased that way at the beginning. Number one, let's talk about engrams. Is an engram of a person that person?

No, not at all. Why not? an engram of a person, that person. No. No, not at all. Why not? So my reasoning is, is that you are, the same way you were to clone someone, you can still carbon copy that person, but all the, and like you can have their experiences and memories there, but they still,

it's like the ship of the sails. Like, are you making the same person, or are you just the same person or are you just putting in are you speaking a whole brand new thing and my concept of it is no because once you make this person into like a cybernetic thing they're no longer themselves because the same way that you see Johnny because if Johnny was still Johnny he wouldn't be influenced by V at all but because you're both within the same body your personalities are having that sense of mixture so you're currently influencing that copy of Johnny but Johnny's been long dead buried beneath an oil derrick but I'm gonna make this a debate with you

I think okay not saying you're wrong I just want to have this a debate with you, I think. OK. Not saying you're wrong. I just want to have the I want to have the debate because I think the game kind of argues that who a person is. And we've we've seen this in some of our debates about books and other things before specifically talk about ghosts in the shell is the person simply the collection of their experiences, what they've been through and how they react to those things, because you're right,

like making an engram is like making a clone of somebody. However, if to make the clone is only made when the person dies, but that clone at moment of transfer, that clone is everything that the other person was. Sure, they become different, but that's because they're now experiencing different things. So the Johnny that's influenced by you sure is different than the Johnny previously, but that's because Johnny's in a new situation now. If Johnny had, I don't know,

when he was still in his body ever made a friend, like an actual friend, that friend could have influenced Johnny the same way that V does, simply through their friendship and their companionship in meat space. The idea that you no longer are you, I think, is more connected to, are you tied to some aspect of your physical being. Because if it's not, then the V that finishes the game is not V. You're actually the third version of V by the time you leave with the Aldecaldos.

Because V died when Dexter DeShawn shot her in the head and was rebooted by the relic chip and had parts of the brain repaired by the relic chip. That's where Johnny comes from. And then Alt turns you into an engram to disentangle you from Johnny and then reinserts your engram back into your body. So that sort of makes you the number three. I agree with that. And that's how you argue that you're no longer the person that

stormed Arasaka tower and you're also no longer the person that went on the heist. No, that's something I completely agree with. Cause that V died when Dexter DeShawn shot her. And then you died again. Once you got your engram split. My old. And because you were returned into like a, you know, basically cybernetic thing, you're returning to software

basically. So they're just uploading your software into your body. So for me, engrams are just a copy of a person that because for me, especially as I'm thinking of this as like a Christian person. Well, I mean, that's part of the question because you're because it's no longer The soul that you were born with that soul died when Dexter D'Shawn shot you and then you were merged with Johnny Silverhand soul Because that's what's left in your like memory banks so Johnny Silverhand himself says this you know you're the only person who was able to change me

because you're with me 24-7 because they're a part of the same thing and they're like and you also mentioned earlier I am in your shoes dumbass like they're the same person so that being is Johnny and V. And then you have the V before everything, Johnny and V. Then you have either Johnny or V at the end. And these are all different iterations of the same coding, but changed in some way. So it wouldn't be the same code each time because something's changed.

So Ketho, is Major Kusanagi a person? Because I see this as being a continuation of the debate we had during Ghost in the Shell. Yeah. I think mostly where the the argument would have to come from is a question of continuity of consciousness, if that's even possible. It is really weird to think about, but it's kind of like the same concept behind the fantasy conception of teleportation, where you get essentially voiped in one place and then rebuilt somewhere else. And if this person

that you were effectively just died, was just destroyed. And another thing was created with your exact personality and like everything about you being exactly the same. But this part of you died and there's no continuity of consciousness. It's the teleporter from Star Trek. Yeah, from the perspective of the person and that person alone, when you get blasted by the teleporter, you're dead. And you just simply cease. But you don't because then you're like instantaneously conscious again.

And as far as you can tell. Are you instantaneously conscious again though? Was that version of you that was in that body now conscious somewhere else? Or from the perspective of that body, that specific body, did you walk in there get blasted and then just nothing? Yeah, but that's the thing is does that person get blasted and cease to exist? And then instantaneously there is born an entirely new being who fully believes that they were just blasted in the back room. See, I would argue that.

Is identical in every way to the person who got destroyed on the other side of the teleporter. Well, there's a great Star Trek episode about that, actually. I would argue that is the case that someone just died and someone else is now here. I think that is also that is also I don't know if any either of you have ever seen the prestige. The movie, neither of you know.

OK, well, maybe I shouldn't talk about it then, because it does spoil the movie. Or what? Catho, do you you don't care about spoilers, do you? I know you don't, though. Do you? Well, I don't. But Roberto, I don't care. And that's true in the prestige. It's about a magician.

And here's like his like crowning trick that he does in every show is he like, you know, goes into like a cage and is like, like, you know, crushed or whatever, like disappears out of one spot and appears in another one. Identical. But what you eventually learn is he's not doing magic. He's learned how to perfectly clone himself. And so there's two of him. He's learned how to perfectly clone himself. And so there's two of him. He makes a clone, does the trick, and then the original one of him is killed.

So there's only ever at the end of the show one of him. But there's essentially a pile of dead hymns from every time he cloned himself. But the clone is always like the continuation of him That makes sense because it's the new one because it's the one that has to be on stage at the end of the trick Because that's it's over there where he's not anymore And it's all about what he's is he the same magician? Because he's been cloning himself and then killing the previous iteration of himself every time. Because my argument is that this new version of you,

be it the clone on the other side of the teleporter, or you the engram, I think from the perspective of the engram, there is a continuity of consciousness. Because like when I fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning, I'm technically unconscious. There's no continuity there between me falling asleep and me waking up. And so if I fell asleep and then woke up as engram me, that there's no break in continuity of consciousness

in there for me. As far as I can tell there's yeah as far as you can tell there was no break as the engram So the engram comes preloaded with that information on it with every single piece of experience and feeling and opinion and information that the previous you had. It is you. It it's see this one I'm talking about because I still pretty much, I still pretty much entirely feel as though when you get blasted by that teleporter ray, you're dead and then you as you were, don't have continuation of

consciousness, but the new version of you does and and see I see it from like a from like a more of like a religious philosophical perspective because then you believe in there's like some sort of concept of like of the soul as I mean they talk about it in 2077 having us having a soul right they call it the soul killer but to me that concept of a soul, and I think this is what I talked about earlier, where I've changed my mind, because I talked about this in Ghost in the Shell, where I argued, I believe I argued,

that there had to be some minimum amount of your original physical body present for you to still be you. You could not be entirely replaced by machine and have to still be you. You could not be entirely replaced by machine and have you still be you. I'm pretty sure that that's what I argued, and I don't think I agree anymore. Because I've come down on the other side of the ship

of Theseus argument. Because the ship makes sense, though, because it's a non-animate object. It has no opinions. It has no thoughts. If the ship of Theseus could speak and had memory, then by the time you've replaced all the bits, there has been a continuity of thought and memory

that that ship still carries. You know what I mean? Like that ship. That ship is still carrying the thoughts and memories of the previous iterations of the ship. And so I don't I don't see why that ship is no longer the ship. See I would I would still argue that it is a ship but not the same ship. But hmm. And again, I want to be clear.

I'm not trying to look like fucking facts and logic everyone to prove I'm right. I've just realized that I have come around on this opinion to a side that I previously did not hold. And I think it's fun for us to debate it because we don't often disagree on this podcast. Yeah. So my chain of thought with this whole thing is, especially looking at V's perspective, V's body was dead. They were not going to come back from that. It took an external device to kickstart everything and begin the healing process, but at the

same time again to rewire her like code. If a person has a heart attack, or brain hemorrhage and dies, then is brought back by your little fucking shock pads they put on your chest and you've had some brain damage, but you managed to recover. Are you not still the same person? The I would argue that instead of three V's there are two V's I Think that dying and then coming back as is possible in in so far as not necessarily being totally dead Like if there was something to heal, I don't think that V's body was 100% dead

If there was a body that the relic could reboot. Yeah, it's like, because it's not like the relic had these engram on it. So there was something to prepare. Because here's the thing, if somebody dies, and then you somehow were to replace all of those body parts that had failed, You can't bring the body back. And I suppose if V as V was completely gone, then the chip wouldn't have been able to bring her back. And even if it did, it would have brought back Johnny and just Johnny. And just Johnny, it would have been an empty shell. It would have been what they originally planned for it to do, which is to kill the person and then reboot them with the chip. Yeah.

But V does come back. So V didn't die entirely. And then in the following sequence, when the engram happens, V, the one V you were playing as goes, and then a new thing that is still in for all intents and purposes for to the person to whom that Ngram belongs to everyone outside of that person it is V to every circumstance but to the previous V it is no longer that V. Okay, I can agree with Cathal on that one. Again it's still going back I think it's easiest for me to conceptualize as the teleportation thing. It's from the perspective of the new, newly created you.

That you've always been you. You've always been you. But there's no way to transfer someone's consciousness from one place to another just by building the physical pieces. That's what the engram is doing. The engram is literally copying and transporting your consciousness. But what about when that engram is being... because SoulKiller doesn't have to kill you. I guess technically it doesn't because they want to do it and not kill Lizzy Wizzy.

They want to do it and not kill Lizzy Wizzy. They offer it as a service. It's literally just a copy. It's just a copy. It's just a copy. It's just a copy of you. So if that's the case, like, are there two of you now? Yes. Is there a split?

Like, are you experiencing both consciousnesses at the same time is what I'm trying to say. It's like if you're not experiencing both consciousnesses at the same time, that means that that that other thing is a separate consciousness to yours. Okay. So you know you're gonna get me there because like, if you say you invest in like the relic for yourself and you go and get copied, but then you go like two years and you haven't needed it yet. Do you go back every couple years to like do like a quick save? You probably have to. Probably. To update the relic with like your new experiences up to that point. God, you know, I'd be like me in video games, I'd be fucking quick saving constantly. Oh my God, I had a I tried new food yesterday. I really liked it better go

re-upload my conscious to make sure I remember to like that. Well, except you also remember these are people who are filthy, frickin rich, who could just have it probably saved that home and just is it just on like a rolling thing where like every night when you go to bed, it just does like a backup of you when you go to bed at night. That would be wild. We they don't explain it much further. Like, you know what I mean? Just like you go to bed and it just like sort of auto saves for you.

I wonder what version of Saburo they slapped into Yorinobu's body in that ending. To me it would be whichever the most recent version was. The most recent version that they saved. Yeah, but I'm saying with him, he probably saved the version of himself before he went to visit Yorinobu. You know what I mean?

Like maybe the last time he left Japan. But then he wouldn't know what happened to't then he wouldn't know what happened to him He wouldn't know what happened to him, but he wouldn't need to see would have Hanako Who's is like lackey tell him everything but no that's just the day I want had because I think I've come around I'm pretty sure during ghosts in this shell I said there had to be at least a bit of physical continuity for you to continue to be you I mean ghost in the shell kind of makes that argument It makes both arguments. It makes both arguments.

It makes both the argument that you are a bundle of experiences and it makes the argument that you are you because of what you are made of. And then plays with both of them a lot. And I think I have come around to the idea that you don't need a physical continuity for you to be you. But I also freely admit that that is colored by my personal experience. Because believe it or not, since we did that episode and, you know, Cyberpunk month,

I've had a big change of heart about, let's see, changing your physical form to be you. And this is a little soul-bearing, but anyone that makes it this far into whatever we're recording, I think has earned it to be fair. I think previously I was very opposed to sort of the trans-human body modification idea. And some people may remember me being explicitly against it, saying that like, yeah, my flesh sack's a stupid flesh sack, but it's mine. And I think that was a subconscious reaction

because I was suppressing the idea that I was not happy with my flesh sack. And the idea, once I opened the Pandora's box of accepting that my sort of bag of flesh could be changed, that there would be a lot I'd want to change about it. Which surprise, there is. And so I think my experiences being a trans person has largely colored my conception of what it means to retain continuity for you as a person. I've also become much more consciously aware that who I am is the collection of my experiences

because I can feel myself on a regular basis becoming a slightly different person than I was months ago because of either media I've consumed or decisions I've made. And I can feel myself, I can feel myself being a different person purely through my experiences. And so I think that's why I have done a 180 on the idea that it is a continuity of flesh and that what matters is the continuity of consciousness. I think there's to a degree, like, I don't disagree with you in the. In the body modification space, in terms of if we're talking cyberpunk related,

where it's like true cybernetic replacements. Is is Lizzy Wizzy still Lizzy Wizzy? Yes, because the assets are still there. Yeah, that's true. No, she doesn't. She had literally all of her body replaced by cybernetics on stage. I think you could reasonably replace almost everything except your brain. She was literally killed on stage and had her body completely rebuilt from Chrome, her entire body.

Wait, when? It's before the events of the game. That's why she's already gold when you meet her. If you read the data shards and stuff, that's partly what made her famous. Oh shit. Is she went on stage and died. And then live on stage, RipperDocs came out and replaced every part of her body with cybernetics. Oh fuck.

She's just a robot then. I'm honestly of the opinion you could pretty much do a replacement on pretty much everything except your brain. So Adam Smasher is still Adam Smasher? The same Adam Smasher? I mean, the same. Well, I think your experience is having your body completely transformed in a million different ways

will irreparably change your brain, but at the very least, there is continuity of consciousness there. And plus, Adam Smasher has been alive for so long. He's had like so many different like cybernetic processes that yeah. We talked about how much the modification like changes how you react to things. How like the human member of the team reacts differently to the guy, whatever his name is, you know, the, you know, the guy on the team who's part robot versus Kusanagi who's like full robot. And I remember arguing that like, there was a line there that got

crossed at some point where you're no longer you because you're too much robot. And I think I was wrong. I think Kusanagi is still Kusanagi. It's just her experiences have varied wildly from what they would have been had she kept a human body, but that's understandable because it's not the same body. Yeah. There's, there's an element to that that is very much like the reason that they're so flippant about human life when they get that far in is because their body and the bodies of the people around them are so disposable and replaceable.

But like, again, I can no longer hold the position I held before about continuity of flesh, because I am now no longer in the same body that I was in when I did that episode. You know, like, I'm literally not to be fair, you're certainly not in the same body that and no one's in the same body that they were when they were born in everything has eventually been replaced. Yeah, I mean, there's like the same body that they were when they were born in everything has eventually been replaced. Yeah, I mean, there's like the cells you get replaced, but I'm talking about like even more direct like hormonal and physical changes, right? Like I'm not in the same body enough your brain cells. True. But and so but I'm just saying like my experiences now are different

because of the body I'm in is different than the one I was in before. And so I guess, yeah, I've come around. You can fucking engram me. I don't give a shit. Just put me in a body that I like better. I'm fine with it. It's cool. Engram me, baby. The funny thing is, even if we invented the technology to do all that, there'd be no way to tell. No way to tell what? That it worked? The continuity of consciousness at all.

Oh, no, because the engram would always wake up assuming that they are the continuity of consciousness Yeah, they would always believe that they are The there's a really good Show that talks about that invincible with the two blue brothers Cyberpunk has a guy who split himself into two the twins. Oh, yeah shit Yeah, the twins combined their personalities into a single personality and then split it into two the twins. Oh, yeah, shit. Yeah. The twins combined their personalities into a single personality and then split it across two bodies. Yeah, those are some weird fuckers.

Those guys are fucking weird. That is a that is a choice. I will tell them that that is a choice. They are free to make that choice. I'm not afraid make that choice. I will never be making that choice. But I'm also free to say, that's fucking weird, man. You literally killed two people. V also thinks it's weird because she like dunks on him like the whole time.

Which for me... Constantly. I mean in a weird way, constantly using the wrong, like, pronoun. Yeah, they're saying you versus, like, him and you versus just you or whatever. Yeah, it's like, we need both of you and it's like, it's not both of you, it's just us, it's just me. Yeah. That's like the other one I'm like, okay, you know what?

This is just weird because because as I said, they killed two people to combine themselves into one person. You remove the sense of self of two different people. See, in that case, I argue you're right. That is not continuity of consciousness for either of them. That is just the whole last new person. No. To be fair, that was their goal.

Yes, they wanted to be a whole new person. Thank you for humoring me in that debate, because I realized that was their goal. Yes, they wanted to be a whole new person thank you for humoring me in that debate because I realized that I've changed my mind and you know the listeners can decide for themselves if all that matters is the even presumed continuity of consciousness or Whether the new you is functionally indistinct But the old you did die, or whether once you've lost all your parts in any way that you're no longer you, who knows?

Is there one V, two Vs or three Vs in this game? There's an argument for all of them, I would say, five. There's five Vs, because the Roman numeral V is five. Ha ha. This is the end of the podcast, that's been enough. That's, I've had too much of that. All of you thank you for sticking with us during our hiatus while we had brain worms and mental health.

Thank you for sticking with us to the two parts of this episode I'm sure it'll be because we're at almost four hours of recording. So I'm sure this will be two parts. Maybe I can con Trevor into editing this for me, so I don't have to. We'll see. Again, thank you, Roberto. Thank you for joining us. If people want to find you, they want to plug your two podcasts

again, please. All righty. So you can find the history of Sacradavelo, which is the history of the country of Georgia from prehistory all the way to the modern times. And they just qualified for the Euros, so heck yeah! Georgian soccer, baby! And then Tsar power where I am ranking the Russian rulers from Rurik to Putin based off

of... And then we're going to see who is the most Russian of all when they get to start dancing with the czars. So yeah, so those are my two shows. You can find them anywhere. You can find a podcast show and yeah, if you're on Patreon, we have Weeby, Evgeny Zamyadidon there. And I know I'm going to ask the both of you to come onto my show

The Georgia show and talk about some myths Yeah, we'll talk about some Georgian myths. Again. Thank you all for listening If you want we do have a patreon it's like three hours a month where we that's where we generally talk about video games And movies and TV shows This one just clearly had too much content for us to leave behind the paywall. And we had brain worms about it. And if we didn't talk about it, we'd never actually get back to reading a book. I don't think.

Yeah, we'd probably explode. We will be back to books after this, which book? No idea. I won't even pretend. We will we will ideally probably have a Patreon episode out at some point where we'll talk about the cyberpunk show edge runners Which is related to this in a lot of ways Because I like watching media that makes me cry It's a thing I like to do now is watch shows that make me cry so we're gonna talk about edge runners

Sorry, that's not really a spoiler kettle, but it kind of is good luck when you watch it I've also apparently become a weeb now. I'm watching anime. So I'll probably have some bonus episodes about that Rock listen, we'll have bonus episodes about anime and then I'll make you watch all of Satoshi cone shit No, so eventually I've already said you two are free to do a bonus episode about JoJo's Bizarre Adventures whenever you want. Oh yeah. Just don't expect me to watch all of them to be on it with you, but y'all can record it all by yourselves.

I'm not even intending at this point to make you watch JoJo because JoJo has too much, but I will make you watch Perfect Blue at some point, and we will talk about that. Oh, OK. We'll do Perfect Blue. Yeah. But you two you two record the Jojo episode. I'll just edit it. We'll be fine. Thank you all for listening. We will be back and talk to you again soon. And if you're still a patron at this point, we love you personally.

And I will smooch you on the forehead. Goodbye. I'm expecting that. If you're still a patron at this point, we love you personally and I will smooch you on the forehead. Goodbye! I'm expecting that. Goodbye! Goodbye! Bye! Bro. Be fuckin' real, man. Come on.