#Cyberpunk 2077 Essay

[sakuranplays]

Asian Representation in Cyberpunk 2077

For a long while, I have this idea floating about writing what Cyberpunk 2077 did about Asian representation. This long overdue but similarly complex topic that was an unintended follow up to my previous post about my argument against Orientalism in Cyberpunk 2077. In that post, I tried to write as concisely as I can but I realized that I did not articulate further using the game itself which leads to some persistent confusion and casual assumptions about the game.

As a disclaimer, I am not defending orientalism or even war crimes while discussing about Cyberpunk 2077. I am not endorsing only negative portrayals of Asian people nor defending the problematic western stereotypes of Asians in the media history. We could have a civilized discussion over this entire matter because lucky for all of you, I am fluent enough in English that I could use my own voice for this. Every words that I wrote in this series; about the topics I explored, about myself, my lived experiences, my history, my opinions and my criticism are all solely my own. I think I am uniquely qualified to talk about many aspects of this topic but I like to think I am not immune to criticism and neither was the Cyberpunk 2077 game itself. What I generally hope was my writings would help, inform, educate and hopefully clarify some of the contentious takes directed towards me, CD Projekt RED, R. Talsorian Games and the video game; Cyberpunk 2077. There was simply no perfect Asian representation that could encompass all of the wealth of diversity. We couldn't perfectly portray everything either in academia, in media, in writing, non-fiction or even fictional works either by Asians or non-Asians. Asia is the largest continent on earth. Asian people are richly diverse, complex and sometimes described to many people across various ethnicities and nationalities. All we could in representation works was to attempt, to explore, to criticize and to create more and better works as an honor to ourselves and to our people. We all have our own stories to share and our interpretations. There was so many things that I could write about Asians in Cyberpunk franchise but I intend to fully explore again that was more than just the controversial Arasaka family or the Tyger Claws. I want to talk about the Asian aesthetics of Night City and many Asian characters in the game and including Cyberpunk Edgerunners' Lucyna Kushinada and Cyberpunk 2077 : No Coincidence's Aya and because of the impending release of Phantom Liberty, I am looking forward to explore Song So-mi @ Songbird. (Especially with the OST release, I know that CDPR used traditional Korean performance Pansori as Songbird's musical leitmotif and I'm so excited to explore that once I played the expansion) But for starters;

Not all Asians are East Asians

I wished I didn't have to write that down but I realized it was something that a lot of online discourses in English seemed to center itself either by non-Asians or East Asian diaspora in Western countries. It was most apparent within these published articles : Orientalism, Cyberpunk 2077, and Yellow Peril in Science Fiction and How Cyberpunk 2077 Resurrects the 1980s’ “Japan Panic” which were very hyperfixated on Arasaka and the Tyger Claws. Another element that I noticed from these articles and by their writers, they both neglect the fact that not every diasporic Asian portrayed in Cyberpunk 20777 are East Asians. Not every Asians are Japanese or Chinese or Korean.

I am not East Asian.

I am Southeast Asian.

My V was a Malay woman like me. Someone who was flawed, imperfect and maybe portrayed many sides that was very unbecoming to the image of a Malay Muslim woman. I created this Tumblr blog mainly to share my own CorpoV. She was my own OC that I was simply obsessed with. Cyberpunk 2077 remained to be the only game that truly allowed me to craft a genuine Southeast Asian woman protagonist with her personal history that was almost relevant to me on personal level.

However, V could be anyone of any races or ethnicity. She could also be Japanese, Korean or Chinese because the game have localization with those languages. In the game, V can love sushi, drink tea, burn incense and work for a fictional Imperial Japanese company. After all, Cyberpunk 2077 is a roleplaying game . But did you know who else was also a Southeast Asian in Cyberpunk 2077?

Aha... think I don't notice the casual disrespect towards our glorious living legendary Pinoy rockerboy ever? My next post will be all about Kerry Eurodyne.

We will discuss Kerry in the TTRPG, what he become in Cyberpunk 2077, his complicated history, his character analysis, his traditional Batok tattoos, his relationships to Johnny Silverhand, their band Samurai and other Filipino representation within Cyberpunk 2077 game. However, I have to admit that my own exposure to my dear neighbouring Philippines was genuinely abysmal. I live in West Malaysia and unlike my Sabahan and Sarawakian friends, I am not exposed enough to the Phillipines. Personally, I won't claim I am an expertabout Filipino people, culture and heritage (and if you are from Phillipines, feel free to DM me, please) but I hope to do justice about our beloved rockerboy in the way he truly deserved. Didn't just make music on that boat. Busted my ass servin' drinks, waitin' tables. Free time, I-I composed till my fingers bled. - Kerry Eurodyne "Boat Song"

[theseareregularthoughts]

johnny silverhand. johnny silverhand and his relationship with v. johnny silverhand and the fact that v is the catalyst for his growth as a character. v makes johnny better.

i haven't talked about johnny or silverv at length yet and this isn't going to be that post but their relationship is something i turn over in my hands like a rubix cube with regular frequency. it's so multifaceted.

thinking about the fact that johnny wakes up in a world that moved on without him. he realises his efforts amounted to nothing. that line, that only the diehards know johnny silverhand's name- he faded into obscurity. he's a direct foil to v's character and their thirst for fame. for the want to be known and recognised. johnny is its consequences.

thinking of johnny realising the other shoe has dropped. he cares about v. cares about them beyond a means to an end. that he's too little, too late, again, but he's trying, trying to be better, to get help. to keep v from dying because he thinks of himself as a cancer.

thinking of others reacting to the fact v trusts johnny. the way the narrative enforces the sense that, at that point in time, no character knows johnny like v does. even rogue. rogue accuses johnny of manipulating v, says he must've had his claws in deep and doesn't believe anyone could ever think johnny worthy enough of a second chance because deep down, she doesn't think so either. nobody will accept that johnny might have changed.

except v. v, who pushes johnny to be better, more understanding and empathetic, through actions johnny wouldn't have committed himself. johnny watches what it's like to be a good person through the eyes of someone he, arguably, grows to love, and attempts to mimic it.

johnny lives in memory of v, in the temperance ending. he wears their face. he doesn't want to forget them. he reads literature about the preservation of the soul and immortality and he hopes that somehow when he talks to himself v can hear him. that in the back of his mind v is there, a role reversal he never grows comfortable with. he doesn't know how v stood it.

[ato-dato]

Breaking! Local senior citizen is embarrassed about past hair choices!!!

[trashnav]

Pyramid Song

[elvenbeard]

What if we kissed under the bigass neon Christmas tree at Corpo Plaza surrounded by virtual snowfall?

🥺👉👈😘🎄🐟❄️ (<- the emoji combo Kerry sent Vince to start off their date, probably)

Fantastic neon tree prop by @lokiina (you don't have to scale it up to 3000% like I did, but you can, and that's awesome!) 💚

Snowflake props, comfy sweater (Kerry), scarves, and pullover (Vince) by @pinkyjulien💛

Some headcanons and behind the scenes pics below the cut xD

I wasn't sure if I'd manage to do wintery pics still in time cause the last weeks I was ill and also busy as hell, so yeah XD But then, as I was playing around with the Christmas tree, knowing that it's scalable, I had the spontaneous urge to see just how big you could make it... and we'd been talking about how utterly decked out NC has got to be in colorful lights and shit around Christmas (because, yay, consumerism!). And since there are virtual cherry blossoms everywhere, there's gotta be virtual snowfall too!

This is what it looked like from afar :D

Now, headcanon time!

I think, as someone who grew up in the 90s and poor-ish, like me, Christmas must've been a special and magical time for Kerry, even if it's probably lost its charm as he grew older. I still think though, since I interpret him as someone very nostalgic who tends to linger in the past, he'd definitely be into decorating the house and having at least a small fake tree or something set up. He probably did that with Louise and his kids as well (cause yay, giving presents to make up for the guilty feelings of being a probably otherwise not very present parent - ba-dum-tss), and in the following years it brought back too many bad feelings and memories for him to really look forward to it. But with Vince he'd wanna make new memories, he'd probably be in the holiday spirit again for the first time in a long time... but little does he know that Vince is a little Grinch ("What the fuck is a Grinch?" - ".... movie night, right now!")

Vince's family *never* celebrated Christmas in a big way. His mother thought the decorations tacky and didn't want them in her house. Culture-wise, with his dad's Japanese background, Christmas is more a romantic couple's holiday than the traditional family or even religious thing we have in the west. So he doesn't have strong feelings about Christmas apart from "hm, yeah, the lights are pretty I guess". But I'd also like to think that Kerry does manage to get him in the holiday spirit at least a little bit too xD Cause in the end, it's about spending time with your loved ones and giving a shit about the rest imo XD

[pois0ntree]

So, I feel like regardless of how you view astrology, it's still just an incredibly intriguing psuedoscience in general when it comes to interpreting human nature. And I got curious about Johnny and V's signs and their compatability, and too much of it is just TOO ON THE FUCKIN' NOSE. So, here's some of my favorite quotes from the articles I found about it:

For reference- V's canon B-day is October 12th making them a Libra. And Johnnycakes' canon B-day is November 16th making him a Scorpio. (pfffttt so perfect, really)

"With a Libra-Scorpio relationship, watch out for an increased sense of codependency."

"Both Scorpio and Libra act as mirrors for each other."

"Libras are free-spirits who do not like to be chained to anything or anybody, including their partners, so when Scorpios try to control them, things can quickly go awry."

"For Libra, a Scorpio can be quite useful as they provide useful insights into the process of tackling a problem through their systematic approach. However, they can be equally annoying due to their outbursts of emotions which are challenging for a Libra to deal with."

"Libras would need to be careful not to overgive for the sake of keeping the peace, while Scorpios would need to identify when they need to pull back and spend time alone."

It's all so perfect because it reiterates how these two are the epitome of an "opposites attract" or "yin/yang" type of relationship that can be very challenging but also work so extremely well for both partners because their conflicting traits balance each other out; they keep the other's overbearing personality traits in check while also just bringing out the best in one another. V's Libra nature of being very loyal, giving, peace-keeping, and free-spirited conflicts heavily with Johnny's tendency to be very rebellious, selfish, provocative, and opinionated/set in his ways. And their situation w/ the Relic just CATAPULTS the effects of their conflicting yet complimentary dynamic. V's inherent selflessness eventually rubs off on Johnny and teaches him to care more about the people closest to him rather than only caring about his revolutionist ideals in a rather obsessive way. In other words, V grounds Johnny and brings out his humanity, which even HE thought was long gone by the time he died. And on the other hand, Johnny's brash confidence teaches V to be a little more selfish when necessary and fight for themself for a change rather than typically putting other's needs above their own; he shows V the importance of taking action, of always fighting for what you believe in, and never losing sight of who you are.

Their relationship starts off with their personalities and values in complete war with each other's, but in time, they being to embrace their differences and evolve into better versions of themselves by the end because of their profound influence on each other.

Throughout their journey together, Johnny can't help but reflect on his poor choices and empathize more with the people that matter most to him, all because this little merc that now knows him better than anybody still willingly chooses to help him try and make amends with his past despite all of his flaws and mistakes.

Even at the expense of losing themself faster in the process, V still chooses to embrace Johnny and give him a second chance because that's the kind of person they are. And because Johnny also comes to know V better than anybody, he decides to follow in their suit and do whatever he can to prevent V from destroying themself just for him. He gives the merc his dog tags as a promise that it'll be his life for theirs, and by the end, V is faced with an impossible decision to have to make:

give in to their own inherent nature and sacrifice themself for the rockerboy parasite that they've grown to love and now can't imagine having to say goodbye to, or embrace the side of Johnny that urges V to LIVE and never stop fighting- to not let anyone else change who they are, ever again.

[kdval]

I wanna know about Roland? Tell me about him🫣

Hello, Mara! Thank you for asking!

Oof, I'll try to be brief. can't promise tho muwahaha Roland is one of the main POVs in my fantasy/teslapunk novel that takes place in an alternative world, set in ~1900. Once I decided to recreate him in CP to show him to our dear @imaginarycyberpunk2023 (and ended up with creating Lara as well bc they're inseparable in my head and I need to feed my brainrot lul)... so here we are!

In the novel he's a beast hunter, an orphan raised by non-human beings — Presences (you probably know one of them already — Ha'al). Actually, in his youth, he started with hunting people on Presences behalf (only bad people, I promise!), but then they decided he's not suitable for this kind of job and made him a beast hunter instead. At the beginning of the story Roland's been hunting for 20 years and is preparing for the early retirement. He's a captain of a small squad – only three people currently. He's convinced that he's good for nothing but hunting (since it's the only thing he has done his entire life). So his whole arc is basically about him finding a new purpose in life (which ends with meeting Lara).

Roland is stern, stoic man who only opens up with his friends. Despite this he's very talkative, philosophical even. He's from poor village family, and although Presences taught him manners, he can be rude, sharp-tongued and doesn't bow before aristocracy. Roland is an exceptionally good gunslinger, who has some little but useful non-human skills. He's also a one-lady type of guy, and he and Lara are... well, basically they're soulmates (it's a bit more complicated in the novel but let's call it like this for now).

I've been working on this novel for five years already so I don't quite remember where exactly this character started... But I would say Roland is a wild amalgam of different fantasy and non-fantasy characters. He has the dignity and loyalty of Aragorn; the reflection and thinking of Erich Maria Remarque's character; some details in his behavior, appearance, and facial expressions are from H. Jackman’s Wolverine (maybe even his Van Helsing too yeah I love this guy). And some other little details from typical western heroes.

As for his PrEtTy PuPpY fAcE... I designed him long before CP, here's this crude piece of "art" (haven't finished it yet):

Keeping in mind these type of characters as the prototypes:

Not completely sure what I'm gonna do with him (and others) to fit him into CP setting tbh... Either I'll try to make an AU to my novel or simply continue... just shooting pics 🤔

I tried to be as comprehensive as I can but feel free to poke me for more info if you want 🙃

[troythecatfish]

[harcove]

"Rivers romance is so vanilla its boring-"

yeah WELL MAYBE I WANT VANILLA OKAY- MAYBE IM DEPRESSED AND JUST WANT THIS KIND SOFT BIG MAN TO BE A GOOD BEAN TO ME AND TO JUST RELISH IN THE CUTE SEMI-DOMESTICITY I CAN GET FROM IT OKAY?

[idlescree]

Join us for the premiere!

To see the start time in your area, click here!

Climb into the ice bath and let's take a deep dive to discover the meaning of cyberpunk within the context of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. In addition we will be examining the role of stories within the narrative, the real power of dreams and how they can free or trap us!

We'll see you there, choom!

[wanderingaldecaldo]

The Spider & The Fly // Lucretia My Reflection

character rambling analysis after the cut

Initially I picked these two because I liked the contrast, and it wasn't until I started to write the tags that I realized how appropriate they are as a pair.

The first is from the beginning of the journey with V, and the second from the last moment before she bids V good night in the safe house.

I wrote a little bit about the first one and how much I love it, and here's the dialogue that immediately precedes it. We get to see her completely vulnerable in this scene. She admits she can't trust anyone and she doesn't know what to do. She feels helpless.

But the second one... when V says it doesn't seem like she misses D.C. and her only response is "Hm" and that smirk.... What does that mean, Rosalind?

Is she missing the freedom of private life? Could the action of the day have made her nostalgic for her past life in the Marines?

Though it seems she has mixed feelings in about her time there, as earlier she can say, "One learns things in the army, in spite of oneself."

"In spite of oneself" is not a ringing endorsement, not to mention calling it "the army". Would a Marine call it that? I'm skeptical. Either it's sloppy writing, or it's an intentional call out to her ambivalence about the time she served by not honoring the institution with its proper name.

What does that smirk mean, Rosalind?

[juststayquiete]

VAL GARCIA BY THE AMAZING SWEET KIND BRAVE THE ONLY OF THEIR KIND - @theviridianbunny

WHEN I TELL U I WAS SO HYPED ABOUT BUNNY DRAWING MY BABIEEEEE😭💖💖💖💖

THE VIBE!!!! THE DETAILS!!!!! THE COLORS!!!!!!! I'M SO SO SO HONORED TO RECEIVE THIS GIFT AAAAAAAAAA

BUNNY IS SPECIAL TO ME IN MANY WAYS BUT I TOLD THEM ALREADY THIS THANK YOU FOR MY BRAVERY ONCE AGAIN!!!!!

[chipped-chimera]

WIP WEDNESDAY - 21/06/23

(I mean it’s technically Friday now between timezones and spoons but have this otherwise I’ll keep forgetting) My first WIP Wednesday! Thanks @theviridianbunny​ for the tag! I’ve been really getting stuck into modding - as well as falling into my usual mod habit of ‘start like six project at once and end up with a million WIP files' but I guess I’ll talk about the major ones.

Graphic design is my passion ...

(Long) rambling about mods I'm making + things I've learned below the cut~

My V’s tatt project is still ongoing, and I’ve (somewhat begrudgingly) been trying out Substance Painter to work on bits of it, mainly polishing seams between UV maps. It’s definitely got a lot of benefits, especially for graphic placement in really tricky areas (like anywhere in the entire head mesh region for example) but I still think a lot of the heavy work will still be done in Photoshop so I’ll probably be writing up both experiences with them when I do that tutorial I keep hinting at for complex tatt work. I’ve started drafting a tumblr tutorial but I wonder if that’s the best format, maybe a PDF? Google doc? Github wikis look cool? (tho I think I need to pay for that) - if y’all got suggestions for tutorial formats pls let me know!

As for the other arguably overly-ambitious-project-where-I-bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew ...

H A I R.

Hair has been the bane of my existence for about the past week( ... weeks? Maybe two?), most of it involving cursing, a lot of reverse-engineering game meshes and smashing my head against blender. But if not already evident from my monowire post - I am a stubborn bitch with too much time on my hands so even though there were at least two moments where I wanted to curl up on the floor under my desk and just stay there - we got there.

This all started because my favourite hair mod which I cannot split from my V’s identity was acting funky and the shape of it had been altered since a physics update. It wasn’t her anymore. So I needed new hair. I tried editing the existing hair. I tried importing the old hair mesh. I tried so many things and they didn’t work out one way or they threw a million errors or there were an obnoxious amount of verts.

I even tried looking for replacement mod hair. None of them fit, all of them felt too ‘clean’ for my V. So I just concluded: FINE. I’ll make my own damn hair. From scratch. At least then I’ll actually KNOW what’s going on with the mesh, right?

Problem with hair is tutorials are very limited in respect to Cyberpunk, so I had to learn a lot of this by myself and looking at other processes used for building game hair. I’ve had a previous stint in game design at uni but it was very introductory and more broad-strokes concepts not specific stuff like what ‘real time hair’ is and how you actually go about placing hair-cards (there’s a million different ways btw) but after another 3 days smashing my head against blender I finally got shit to work to a satisfactory level using hair tools for blender and the particle hair grooming system (not the 3.5 blender system, maybe more on that at some point).

Putting together the hair cards I was 120% convinced this was going to blow up in my face, primarily through vert count. But this hair tool plugin? Alarmingly efficient. I was frequently checking my work against Alt's hair mesh (one I was planning on rigging to) and here's the final-ish stats -

This is with only Alt's hair mesh selected (no cap) and then only my mesh(s - lots of layering to build it up), and by comparison I felt I'd built up the density of a chinchilla. This is not a brag, this is mostly genuine confusion over how efficient this plugin is, all I did was smack around hair curves. It did all the UV mapping junk on the fly.

Although structurally complete, I still consider this a WIP (yes I know there's a reeeeal fun vert funkiness in that second render, it's been fixed) since I'm having to go back and fine-tune some of the UV's the plugins mapped that I'm not happy with and generally figuring out my density problem because if anything, after putting it in-game it felt too dense.

Because yes, somehow I got it in game.

WITH. PHYSICS.

This may have driven me absolutely up the wall between having to learn blender from scratch then what the heck real time hair is and how that works etc. etc. but ... god, seeing her move back from the mirror and just feeling that instant catharsis of 'IT'S HER!' made it so. Damn. Worth it.

It looks too thick - this might be because I chucked in the 'doubled' feature Wolvenkit comes with because I hadn't spent any time doing backfaces. But it also might be because it's black? That's going to need investigating.

The physics need a lot of work too, I did a pretty rushed weight painting job last night on a merged version of the mesh because I was worried whether it was even viable and I'd already dumped an insane amount of hours into this between trying to salvage the old hair and building a new one (with some more bells and whistles. Mainly - curly). That wasn't without it's issues -

This almost fucking cracked me, given this was one of the issues I was experiencing before trying to fix an existing mesh mod. Turns out I was just being dumb and forgetting to export the armature, which I'd thought I wasn't supposed to do after having blender throw a bunch of errors on other hair attempts. I gave it a try after one last shot and boom. Worked. (I dunno what those errors were about man but now I know armature? very important).

Will I release this hair? no damn clue, depends on if I can get it to a level I feel is 'releasable'. I already know what I'm calling it though - Venatrix her side-handle I've decided on.

I look forward to adapting it into maybe a comb-back version, as well as a tied up version, so I can show off both her undercut + have the option of NOT hiding every damn tatt I've obsessed over placing on her neck haha.

In other news -

My much-needed wacom tablet replacement arrived (as well as other things I was looking forward to 👀) meaning my Wacom Cintiq, workhorse of ten years can finally enjoy her retirement. Her controls were getting funky, she had a few dead pixels but man. I'm convinced they won't make them like her ever again. Either way she's done unfortunately - upgrading my monitor to 2k made this painfully obvious. I don't think it's even running in full HD, it's that old. And with Phantom Liberty coming out this year? I'm probably going to need a new videocard and DVI compatibility isn't really a thing anymore.

So for future I think I'll just stick to the basic tablet set up, invest in screens. Also now I FINALLY know what her hair is gonna look like and with the tablet here, I can get back to work on the tattoo bodysuit.

Anyways, that's it for now! (Jesus Christ did you really read all of this? If you did you're a fucking trooper). Sorry for the extended ramble but MAN I did a lot, I needed to yell.

Till next time Chooms! Thanks again @theviridianbunny for the tag~ <3

Oh shit wait, have the blender renders before I forget because hahah I figured out how to do that too lol -

[alexhwriting]

Since I finished Bloodborne last stream, I need to figure out what from my list should come next as far as games to play, so here's a poll!

[iamsusiedeltarune-blog]

Spoilers for the base game of 2077 “No happy endings in Night City” is a phrase etched into the very being of Cyberpunk, both the ttrpg and 2077. But we as humans crave a happy ending. We want to see the person we relate to succeed at any cost, through any odds. This craving goes further when it is our characters we find subjected this shit, our children. Plenty can be achieved by embracing the grit and darkness, but doing so in a still satisfying way can be a challenge for new GMs and people looking to expand the city’s borders. That’s part of why I want to ineffectively muse at this idea. The other part is I am a pretentious ass who can’t just enjoy things (see above). Without further ado:

“No happy endings in Night City” is not predicated on Night City. You may say “but the best ending in 2077 involves V leaving Night City”, and you’d be right. But it’s not just leaving Night City that helps V, they leave Night City in the Devil ending, probably the worst ending in the base game. “No happy endings” doesn’t mean there’s some permeating stink around Night City leaving everyone to die violently before they’re thirty, and you can’t fix a character by having them fly to Nebraska. It’s not Night City that causes the endings, but what Night City represents.

“No happy endings in Night City” does not mean everyone has to die in violent agony. Bringing up 2077 again, Rogue is the best example of this. Rogue’s already achieved her bad ending in 2077. She’s the queen of Night City, nigh untouchable, the deal broker to the highest order. And she’s alone. Most everyone she used to call friends are dead or gone. The one guy she truly loved is sitting in gay baby brain jail and he never really gave a shit about her anyways. In almost every ending, she’s doing the best out of everyone who stays in Night City.

“No happy endings” doesn’t mean there can’t be bright spots. It’s not an excuse for everyone to be in constant unending misery. If you want that, play FATAL.

[aaamike]

After David bulks up, his weapon of choice is smart weapon (the Yukimura). So basically David, has a smart link (most likely) to use it. He also has gorilla arms.

Why am I bringing this up? Because David at this point has become something called a Borg. Someone who has waaaaay too many cyber implants. And his weapon of choice, more often than not, is a smart weapon(think he uses a smart shotgun later.) I’d also like to draw attention to the two weapons in the game that are considered Borg Weapons

RT-46 Burya and Malorian Arms 3516 are in the lore, both considered Borg Weapons since they both work as a power weapon and a tech weapon and specifically, you need to have a specific build, or implants to use them to their fullest.

Also, another interesting aside: Adam Smasher is considered a Borg, in general. And earlier, David’s ripperdoc compared him to Adam Smasher. With the show’s plot, and how comfortable David is with cyberware, I wonder if he was on his way to becoming Adam Smasher 2.0.

By the time we see bulked up David, he is undergoing the initial stages of Cyberpsychosis. While Adam Smasher, despite not looking like it, is a complete Cyberpsycho (based off of the Cyberpunk series creator, Mike Pondsmith says) a High Functioning Cyberpyscho at that.

CyberPsychosis tends to affect people who have a low sense of humanity. David has high humanity, due to his Mother, Maine, Lucy and a set career path and expectations(at the beginning of the anime anyway). That high humanity is why David was such a decently functioning Borg as opposed to Full Cyberpyscosis Adam Smasher. But I digress.

David Martinez and Adam Smasher are both technically Borgs and I made this entire Ted Talk as an excuse to talk about Borg weapons and how cool David is because he used a mid tier smart pistol.