Tuesday, December 24th, 2024 - TrickJarrett.com: Be excellent to each other.

From the Archives: Cyberpunk setting

12/24/2024 11:44 am | : 13 mins.

Looks like I wrote this in December of 2005, almost twenty years ago. Near as I can remember, I was trying to set up a Cyberpunk themed RPG game and this was me taking an idea for the setting. I emailed it to a group of people as I was trying to get the game going.

I had been living in Atlanta around that time, thus why it's a central focus (plus, the main alternative was Orlando, which just doesn't have the cyberpunk possibilities as much.) Also interesting is my reference to a depression that Canada would experience in... 2027. I doubt we'll see that occur such that they sell off British Columbia & the Yukon.

I don't know, I find some charm in the dystopia I described, such as the idea that disease is solved and the government just does it. Yeah, right. Especially with the looming appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr. and everything that led to this.

I have no real memory of this write-up, so I can't really add any more context of insight on what I was thinking. I must have had a hook in mind given the mass transit plot I lay out in this. I am guessing I was also pulling from one of my favorite books as an adolescent, "Invitation to the Game" by Monica Hughes and other Cyberpunk genre I had been reading at the time.

Subject: "The Future is Bleak"

The year is 2106, the world has largely settled in terms of International negotiation and there has been relative stability for over sixty years. The key word obviously being 'relative.' NATO has dissolved, the UN has remained stable, and the world has welcomed dozens of countries to the 22nd century as technology became more widespread and easier for the third world nations to adopt.

The United States just recently elected its 62nd President and 83% of its citizens don't know his name or what he looks like. In fact they don't know that he is actually a she, Sheila Cunningham. The US after successfully, though slowly, extricating itself from the Middle East has returned to being an isolationist nation. It turned the world policing over to the UN, as well as supplying 5 million soldiers to the cause. Make of this what you will, but it at least is no longer directly attributable to the US.

The US now has 55 states, adding two states south of Texas as Mexico dissolved in 2056. We also added 3 states east of Alaska as Canada's government struggled through the depression of 2027. Georgia remains largely unchanged on the map. Atlanta has expanded to cover most of the Northwest of the state, the Mayor has been replaced by a City Council representing the fifteen districts. Atlanta reached its pinnacle in 2065 when it achieved the first automated metro city road system allowing automated vehicles to travel over the roads while allowing passengers the freedom to not concern themselves with driving. This also solved the ever growing traffic issues with the much more efficient and reliable automated vehicles. MARTA was taken offline and replaced by a system called simply "The Phoenix" which moved much faster and allowed it to expand to fill all fifteen districts while providing reasonable commute times.

The crash occurred in 2077, 12 years after the major changes to Atlanta, the automated transit system was hacked and caused massive pileups resulting in deaths of over 15,000 people. The Phoenix also shut down and its passengers were taken hostage by a mysterious hacker group known as "The Green Team." They wanted the systems shut down forever, they threatened to do this to every system like this ever set up. Their beliefs were that this sort of system opened the doors for the fall of civilization, a system built on faulty principles and faulty security. The fact that it took 12 years for the system to get hacked was lauded by many agencies, but the deaths were too much and the city agreed to the hacker groups terms. After shuttling people to safety, the roads were shut down and the Phoenix was shut down. This left Atlanta with a major problem, to support a city as widespread as it had become, they could no longer rely on public transportation or automated vehicles. As a result the city shattered and became segmented. With only government given access to manual vehicles, cars, trucks and armored vehicles, the city found itself unable to support itself regionally and an exodus followed as people left looking for work elsewhere.

The automated roads remain unmoving with vehicle carcasses lining it, the vehicles rusted and decaying with broken glass all around them. The Council which oversees the city has little interest in renewing the system as the economics to drive it are gone.

The US has moved continually west and inhabited the rural states to begin building the mega cities of the future. Oklahoma City has exploded as an economic power, quickly becoming the New York City of the 22nd century.

Disease has all but been destroyed. The US government provides treatment through its water supply such that almost everyone is innoculated to all but the most deadly viruses. STDs have been exterminated and the world is free to procreate as it sees fit, population controls are in place such that female babies are given a hormone which does not affect their growth any, but also which acts as a form of birth control until they are given the anti-hormone which restarts their reproductive system. After female activists cried about the unfairness of this, the US government found the equivalent hormone for men such that they shoot blanks until given the anti-treatment.

Specific Technology Topics: Robotics exists but artificial intelligence is still elusive, the closest the world has come is the Google Intelligent Response Library – GIRL, a utility they provide which through extensive libraries of knowledge is able to simulate intelligence by use of its huge archive of knowledge. GIRL access is available through the net at a nominal fee.

Space travel exists, the government support for it began to die down after the successful Mars mission opened a remote testing facility in 2034. Commercial Space travel picked up as Virgin championed it. The call for remote construction forced the world governments to come to terms with ownership or at least rights to the moon and Mars. It was decided that the US would manage construction and land rights for both of them, but would not limit ownership to any country or person. The high costs involved limited people from initiating a new gold rush out there but Virgin seized the opportunity and bought up a large chunk of land on the Moon with plans for the ultimate resort. They began construction in 2097 after fifteen years of fundraising and drumming up interest. With plans for it to open in 2110, rumors abound about it.

Nanotechnology exists but is frowned upon as it was found to be unreliable and largely insecure. The amount of space required for secure encryption quickly proved taxing the nanotechnology which might provide secure encryption and security for the owner, or host rather. This is not to say that it cannot be used, since multiple players have inquired about it – but that it is not a regular thing to be found in everyday use. It is definitely accessible to players if they wish to include it in their character.

Specific Societal Topics: Poverty runs rampant in Atlanta. With the crashed economy and the lack of steady income for the majority of citizens it is a city of short term deals and general living in squalid conditions. Wealth is a reason to be recognized, and a reason to wear a bulls-eye on your back.