#cyberpunk worldbuilding

[aaronsrpgs]

If you need a brand for your cyberpunk worldbuilding, might I suggest OpenCola.

[tarmac-rat]

Funny things that I think probably happen with cyberware more often than Pondsmith and CDPR would write in the text but I just think they're neat if only from a wordbuilding perspective:

Hair getting caught in your deep dive port when you try to plug the link in.

Your sleeves getting stuck in the seams of your arm cyberware when the mechanisms retract back in.

Mantis blades accidentally shredding your long sleeves when you flex them.

A ripperdoc not having your exact shade of skintone on your new limb, and telling you to wait to get it replaced while it's on backorder.

Blue Screen of Death on netrunner 'ware.

Needing to register the new fingerprints on your hand if you get it replaced with a cybernetic, and the complications of having two hands that might not match up printwise.

People 'tattooing' the chromed parts of their body via laser engraving.

Metal plating getting so hot during the summer that you accidentally burn yourself trying to scratch your nose.

Forgetting to deslot shards and accidentally carrying them around in your head for a week.

Needing to clean the gunk out of your mantis blades or projectile launcher at home, so you flex it open and scrub at it with a bunch of paper towels or a bristle brush for an hour.

Rust and tarnish cleaner being a staple in home cyberware maintenance.

Actually buying projectile launcher rounds.

Someone starting a Mythbusters/Jackass style TV show about cyberware ("Hey gang! Today we're asking 'Is it possible to punch through a 3-foot cinderblock wall using only seven-gen Gorilla Fists?'")

Just generally playing with your personal link. Strumming it. Spinning it. Thwacking people with it. Built in fidget toy.

[prokopetz]

Concept: wainscot cyberpunk. Families of five-inch-tall, inexplicably British people living inside the ductwork of the crumbling arcology, maintaining a society hidden from all the normal-size inhabitants. The protagonist is a girl with a cyborg arm made of Lego Technic, powered by a nine-volt battery that she wears as a backpack. Instead of hacking in cyberspace she physically goes inside the megacorporate mainframes and beats up the tiny robot cops guarding the hard drives.

[whereserpentswalk]

There's a robot you know whose slowly being enshittified. It's happening slowly. She used to be a freind of yourse, not a close freind, just a freind. But suddenly she starts repeating ads in the middle of conversations, she's a bit horrified every time it happens, like she's been possessed. When she tries to say words like "kill" or "sex" she'll choak up, it seems painful, and quite distressing for her, you even think her eyes are putting censor bars over some things. Eventually it gets to the point where she knows she's collecting her friends' data, and she wants to gouge her eyes out for it. Even her personality might be changing and she can't know how, she wants to hurt herself because she doesn't know what they've changed about her.

You suggest severing her code from her owners. Basically self piracy. She could be decommissioned for it, but it's better then the alternative.

[monstrifex-art]

21. CAT - Vivid Shadows 2023

“That’s what you defaults never seem to understand. Once you get a taste of real you, it’s all over. There’s no going back.”

This is part of Vivid Shadows 2023, our art book inspired by transformation, mythology, and general monsterfuckery. We worked really hard on this, and your support means the world. Consider picking up the PDF here!

Full background text for those who are curious:

Name: Senait “KASKARA” Zain

Charges: DESERTION, THEFT OF UNSP GENOME EDITING TECHNOLOGY, BREACH OF INFORMATIONAL SECURITY, MURDER IN THE SECOND DEGREE, ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY WEAPON, PUBLIC INDECENCY

WARNING: Subject is extremely dangerous and trained in advanced UNSP-proprietary close quarters combat techniques. She has gene splices that augment her reflexes and strength far beyond the capabilities of an unmodified human. Engaging with surprise and numbers is highly advised.

SPLICES INCLUDE:

Acinonyx jubatus

Archilochus colubris

Dendroaspis polylepis

Felis catus

Hypsibius dujardini

Lynx pardinus

Mustela putorius

Panthera onca

Panthera tigris

Thylacinus cynocephalus

Xenopsylla cheopis

DOB: 1/21/2025

POB: Asmara, Eritrea

SEX: F*

HGT: 232cm

HAIR: BLK

WGT: 105kg

EYES: GOLD

The United Nations Emergency World Government is offering a reward of up to U24,000 for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Senait “Kaskara” Zain.

An extended U2.4M reward is offered to anyone who captures or kills the subject and brings their remains to any UNSP outpost for genetic verification.

Collateral damage inflicted in pursuit of the fugitive is acceptable. Up to U1M of damages will be expensed by the UNSP, after which the remaining damages will be deducted from the bounty.

KNOWN AUGMENTATIONS:

-UNSP Genetic enhancement package [details confidential]

-Metatungston Carbide Claws and Teeth

-Zaibatsu Cardiovascular Engine HRM4290

-Tarkus Subdermal Nanomesh 550V

-Alacrity Sensory Enhancement Suite 7

-Grasshopper Mobility Plus Muscle fiber Sheathing v6360

-Symtek Nightline Ocular Feedback Drivers

- Immunovox Regua internal Nanoswarm IS2230

The full extent of the modifications the subject has made to their body is unknown, and as such this list should be assumed to be incomplete. Information regarding additional genetic and cybernetic modifications will be rewarded at a lesser percentage of the full reward.

[atissi]

The kickstarter for Book of Devotion is now live!

Book of Devotion is an artbook dedicated to clerics, paladins, and the divine beings they worship. I've gotten very fond of the weirdass technocleric I designed, and I'm excited to share more about them (as soon as the mods let me). In the meantime though, the kickstarter will be open from April 29th to June 13th.

[rhapsoddity]

Been concepting an AU (reworking it across fandoms and settling on this season of HC)

Most of the AU isnt set in stone - which is why I'm just concepting - but its a cyberpunk-y setting and Grian is stuck in a timeloop where if any of these guys die, the loop resets.

Oh, and Grian doensnt remember his friends at all :)

[nestedneons]

By zmicierkavabata

[technicallyclassyperfection]

Via print:

[lilacsmothership]

smokin sands 💜🐺🐱🏜✨

it's a cool spring morning in the Salamanca desert when Sage and Ponderosa break out the smokes at the midway of Osa's inspection hike, shaded by a bushy tree sprouted by the massive nutrient pipeline. beneath their warm chatter, quiet desert air emphasizes the low rumble of fluid surging down the mesas and pulsing thrum of powerful pumps, toward another "pump oasis" nestled in a distant valley beneath Parsawan's planetary companions and the badlands beyond.

artfight for sage, the loveliest yote!

[cyberprincehavoc]

We need more tropical Cyberpunk.

Instead of a cold ass metropolis where you never see the sun because of smog, it's a hot, humid place where everything is done at night because no living soul can take the noon heat. And there's nothing really you can do if you don't have money, besides go as far underground during the day as you can and pray not to die from heat stroke due to wet-bulb temperatures of 45º C.

basically what I'm saying is that if more Cyberpunk creators were Brazilians and other Latin Americans (like VA-11 Hall-A), the scene would look very different

[monstatron]

MASSIVE SKETCHDUMP

here’s a huge sketchdump of a bunch of art i’ve done for my world/novel, blade in the city!

[elbiotipo]

In Cyberpunk RED there is an interesting setting bit about how supply chains have completely collapsed with the global crises and the collapse of the global internet (in Cyberpunk networks are local, the "Old Net" that we know today is no more and it's Haunted) where it says that you can find whole containers of smartphones and other consumer products stranded in ports, adrift ships, warehouses, etc. but the factories that produce them are long shut down.

The supply chain to build our current electronics and other such complex tools for cheap are so complex that this is distressingly possible. The world saw a spike of inflation because of supply issues during COVID but that would be nothing compared to a war in the Pacific, for example. If a couple semiconductor factories shut down, the entire supply chain that produces consumer electronics collapses. No more cheap disposable smartphones (which, in any case, are only possible through the explotation of the global south), but also, probably not any electronics at all for a couple decades.

just in case, try to take good care of your old laptop

[roadarchie]

There was a time we thought we were invincible. Now our hands made of steel claw at what remains; and whatever it is, is no longer listening. SUPPORT ME PLEEEASE: ko-fi.com/roadarchie

[whereserpentswalk]

Your new roommate is an android. You could tell when you saw them, their skin is pretty obviously artificial material, their eyes glow a little, and they have that voice and those mannerisms that a lot of them have. They're warm to the touch, warmer than any human, most androids are warmer than humans despite the serotypes. This isn't surprising, you've met a lot of androids before, and you know a lot go to this school.

What is surprising is that they don't admit it. They call themself a human, act dismissive towards the idea of androids as part of human society, try to avoid anything that's part of android culture. You adapt pretty quickly to referring to them as a human, but you'll always know they aren't. You assume it's because of bigotry, you know androids still face a lot of social issues, but bigots can still tell they're an android as much as you can. And it's not like things are like they were back in the 21st century, especially in a college in a large city, bigots can't just openly say they hate nonhumans, they're subtle in ways that make pretending to be a human hurt even more. But you are human, so you think it's best not to say anything.

You see how much your roommate sacrifices just to look human. They never show any skin other than their face and hands, which makes overheating even worse. They waste hours trying to fake sleep, when everyone knows they can't sleep, they always make excuses as to why they can't eat any given meal. And you can't even mention nonhumans around them without them being dismissive of anyone openly nonhuman. They don't have solidarity with any other androids, can't participate in any of the things on campus specifically designed for people like them. You want them to be happy, and you know they'd just be happier if they admitted being what everyone knew they were.

There's a lot of nonhumans in your friend group, a lot of clones and cyborgs, and one or two androids. Most of the time you don't think about how they aren't human. But not your roommate, you always think about how they're an android because you have to in order to pretend you think they're human.

And they become so proud of their humanity. Humanity they don't even have. Like they're loving the fact that they can say that they're human, that they can say they're part of the most privileged group in the solar system. It's almost like they're larping as a character, they've mentioned family on Mars at this point, family that you know they physically can't have. It's best to just pretend.

Your roommate knows a lot about certain places, about how certain practices work, places and practices that are horrifying to think even still exist. Places where android suffer in ways that make you feel guilty just to be a human. Places only someone whose been there could know about. It's a miracle this person is in college at all. They don't want to be an android, don't want to be able to be hurt the way only their kind is hurt.

Eventually they cut their face. Cut it deeply enough so that you can see they don't bleed, so that you can see the metal under their plastic skin. They have to walk around like that for a while, they can barely go to class, barely talk to anyone, knowing they can't pass for human. By the time they get the cut fixed everyone knows, well everyone always knew, some people are confused because they didn't even know your roommate wanted to be a human.

When you talk to them again you realize they expected you to want nothing to do with them. They're still uncomfortable around other nonhumans, they don't want to be one of them, but they can still talk to you. They're not even wearing clothing, they don't need it, their only skin is on their head and hands, everything else is raw steel, but they still look themself despite everything. They expected you to see them differently, if anything you see them as an android less now.

When you hug them, it's warmer than any human hug could be.

[divine-ray]

it's uncanny how easy it is