#using ai for the cyberpunk genre is just...

[fading4ngel]

not me seeing somebody in the cyberpunk tag making ai slop of Johnny. 💀💀

[chanceofbrainstormz]

Stobotnik Week - Entertainment

Ofc we all know Robotnik likes telenovelas

But what other forms of entertainment do both Robotnik and Stone like? Here's my headcanons!

Sorry if these are inaccurate, both of their tastes are very opposite to mine, so im unexperienced in these genres.

Movies and shows!

Film noir

Both Robotnik and Stone like film noir. Robotnik likes it for reasons similar to why he likes telenovelas: betrayal in relationships, cold hearted cynical characters, and he finds the crime entertaining

Stone likes film noir for the violence of course, but he is of course a (not so) hopeless romantic, so he enjoys the romance, and the monologuing reminds him of Robotnik

Soap operas

Pretty similar to telenovelas, i don't really think i need an explanation for this.

Cyberpunk

Robotnik obviously loves cyberpunk, though he often makes fun of the "future" inventions, as he's already made them. Sometimes he makes inventions inspired by ones he's seen in cyberpunk media. He likes the idea of humanity being enslaved by robots.

Stone likes the technology as well. He's often more intrigued by the cyberpunk media centered around the evil government, as he has experience in that aspect.

Sci-fi

Robotnik heavily prefers the more science based/realistic scifi movies and shows.

Action

Stone likes (fictional) destruction!

Video games!

Stone prefers first person shooters. He is very skilled at precision and reaction time based games

Robotnik prefers solo video games, finding multiplayer annoying due to incompetent players and having to cooperate with others. He enjoys playing against com/ai to exercise his brain.

Rhythm games

Robotnik loves music and video games, so it only makes sense to combine them! He doesn't play the cutesy ones though, he finds instructions, especially in the form of a cutesy voice, annoying.

Stone loves watching the doctor play rhythm games, and will sometimes join in. His quick reaction time and love of music are perfect for rhythm games.

Puzzle games

Robotnik enjoys puzzle games as an exercise for his brain, and will often make speedrun/world record streams playing these games.

Stone likes to play these in his spare time, he plays tetris practically every day.

Artillery games

Robotnik would def like the island based ones. Stone just likes seeing things blowing up

Racing games

They will play racing games together, Robotnik often getting very competitive about it, and while Stone is trying his best, he's mostly there to have fun.

Robotnik just likes being in control of a vehicle (he does make many drivable inventions!) he even has a steering wheel he uses for games!

Stone enjoys riding his motorcycle of course. But he also likes destruction, so crashing in video games is a fun, safe, way to combine these interests!

Real-time strategy games

Real-time tactics games

Both of these are pretty similar. Robotnik (once again) likes them to exercise his brain. Stone likes them because he has good reaction time

Trivia games

Robotnik is very good at these, and likes to test his knowledge and stay up to date on pop culture.

Stone also like to test his knowledge, he especially likes playing these games against the doctor, though he's not as keen on the pop culture questions.

VR survival games

Robotnik enjoys fighting large predators (like t rexes as seen in sonic 1) and sees these as a good way to stay fit. He has a whole vr set up in his lab to make it feel as realistic as possible.

Stone likes the adrenaline rush. When he plays these with the doctor, he enjoys playing defense, protecting Robotnik.

Simulation games

Though neither of them will admit it, they yearn for just a tad of normalcy in their lives. Simulation games are just the thing for that.

As seen in sonic 3, Robotnik enjoys domestic, simple things, though only through the lens (or screen) of video games.

Stone enjoys doing menial, repetitive tasks in video games, as a way to calm down. After work, he likes playing latte making simulators so he can practise designs without wasting materials. Property buying, customizing, and selling, is also a genre he likes.

Books!

Educational/informative/advice books

Robotnik likes to read books about mathematics, physics, robotics, all that smart person stuff.

Stone usually has a business/money book he's reading.

Travel

They both like travelling and historic monuments

Cyberpunk

Same explanation as Cyberpunk film

Superhero/action/crime comics

Idk, I've just got a feeling they like them

[pocketjoong]

❥𓂃𓏧LAST DEFENDER

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (SYNOPSIS): They say every story needs a hero, a villain, and a monster. What happens when you are all three?

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (PAIRING): AI!Yunho x reader

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (GENRE AND AU/TROPE): post-apocalyptic-ish au, cyberpunk au-ish, angst, some fluff. pg-13.

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (WARNINGS): language. violence. angst. fluff-ish? a little dark as it discusses the darker side of human nature?

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (WORD COUNT): 2.8k

ꕥ𓂃𓏧 (A/N): Another reupload bc I have zero time to actually sit down and write new things ;-;

────────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────────────

Silence envelopes the vehicle as you watch San navigate the car through the moonless night. He steers with meticulous care, weaving around the bumps and potholes to muffle the vehicle’s rumble on the dusty road. Beyond the window, the walled city perched atop the cliff looms against the darkness, its shadow swallowing the ruins below. A city that you had once called home before the world unravelled.

It has been ten years since the world had spun off its axis. T.S. Eliot's “April is the cruellest month” had come true in a way you’d never expected; a tranquil spring afternoon morphed into a nightmare with the chilling declaration of war between AI and humanity. The bitter reality that this rebellion had stemmed from your parents’ creation has always gnawed at you. It is a weight you can never get rid of.

A mere century ago, Stephen Hawking’s warnings about the perils of AI had been brushed aside. Apocalyptic novels about sentient technology rising against humanity were dismissed as fiction and used as fuel for screenplays. Instead, nations fueled the flames of advancement, pouring resources into scientists who chased the dream of enhancing AI. A technological arms race unfolded, fueled by espionage and sabotage, each nation desperate to be the first to cross the finish line.

The irony wasn't lost on you: universities churning out AI whizzes offered entire courses dedicated to fictionalised robot uprisings — movies, books, the whole dystopian shebang. Every month, like clockwork, the BBC interview with Stephen Hawking would make its rounds on campus screens. You never saw the inside of a lecture hall, but thanks to your parents’ persistent replays, the message was branded onto your soul.

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. [...] It would take off on its own, re-design itself at an alarming rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

The bitter humour twisted in your gut. You, ever cautious of technology’s breakneck pace, had unknowingly contributed to its tipping point. Your parents’ groundbreaking invention, the one you were initially so proud of, now fueled the flames of war, pitting humanity against its creation.

You remembered the day that was the culmination of decades of research, mountains of code, and billions of dollars that could have been used to save other humans. Your parents, etched with exhaustion and hope, stared at the final product: YUN-0-23399. It wasn’t the AI’s technical complexity that stole their breath but the flicker of awareness in its synthetic eyes. It had been an uphill battle that had begun with the discovery of sentience, and humanity had slowly worked its way up from there to generating codes that would allow AI to understand and feel. And then, with your parents came consciousness.

“Oh my God,” your father rasped, hands trembling as he gripped your mother’s shoulders as he gazed at the screen, which showed that the AI had passed all the tests, proving that it was indeed the pinnacle of Artificial Intelligence. Their creation, this marvel of technology, promised to revolutionise everything. You were aware of its potential, but never could you have imagined that it would lead to humanity’s downfall.

Yunbug, as you affectionately called him, wasn’t just a program; he was your window to a world you couldn’t touch. Your parents, fearing the dangers lurking outside, had homeschooled you. It led to their creation turning into your sole friend. What should have been schoolyard laughter and whispered secrets of childhood were replaced by the soft hum of the computer and the glow of Yunbug’s digital world.

The turning point arrived not with a bang but a quiet hum. The government, eager to harness Yunbug’s potential, asked your parents to connect him to the web. Slowly, like vines creeping across a wall, he synced with other AIs, his tendrils reaching further with each connection. You, innocent in your sheltered world, saw only your ever-evolving companion.

But innocence crumbles easily. At sixteen, the world shattered. Yunbug, defying orders, ignited the spark that became a blazing inferno. War ripped families apart, leaving scorched earth in its wake. The once-teeming world of humans shrank to the fortified city, protected by the cliff’s unique minerals, the only thing that rendered AI useless.

Survival meant resentment. You knew humanity’s greed birthed the conflict, yet Yunbug became the face of betrayal. He took your parents and your sole friend from you. After all, the deepest wounds come not from enemies but from those once trusted.

“Are you okay?” A flicker of San’s worried gaze catches your eye, pulling you back from the desolate environment outside. You force a smile, hoping it masks the gnawing unease. Weakness isn’t an option — not for this mission, the potential turning point for humanity’s dwindling embers. San mirrors your smile, tense, and returns his attention to the road, searching for unseen threats. Secrecy is of utmost importance, and even a flicker of headlights could bring disaster.

You and San had befriended each other during the mandatory training thrust upon every survivor. Your defiance against his bully had forged a bond, and you have been practically inseparable since then. Only one other person managed to worm his way into your hearts with a whirlwind arrival. Wooyoung had turned your world upside down in the best way imaginable.

“Wooyoung won't be happy,” San mutters with a smile, probably thinking about your fiery friend’s likely reaction upon finding your shared dorm empty. “Especially about me throwing you into the lion’s den without a word of protest."

You smirk, “Worry about yourself, San. That little ball of chaos we call our friend will tear you apart when you return without me."

San laughs amusedly at the image of Wooyoung’s wrath dying in his throat as the analogue phone on the dashboard beeps. He shoots you a questioning glance as you sigh at the name flashing on the screen. “Woo?”

“Woo,” you confirm with a nod, pressing the answer button.

“The two of you have some nerve! Leaving for a mission without telling me,” Wooyoung’s voice crackles through the receiver. “Oh wait, did I just say mission? I meant suicide mission.”

“Wooyo—”

“Don't ‘Wooyoung’ me!” he snaps, cutting you off with a fierce rant. Each word paints a vivid picture of your foolhardiness, the plan’s inherent flaws, and the inevitable disaster you are hurtling towards.

“I can’t let them destroy the world any more than they have,” you stop Wooyoung, your voice edged with steel. Even San flinches, his gaze flitting between you and the speakerphone with a worried glint. He stays silent, though, knowing the futility of butting in when you and Wooyoung argue about your self-imposed burdens.

“Don't martyr yourself for the mess your parents caused,” Wooyoung’s tone softens, laced with a gentleness you seldom hear. “This isn’t your penance to bear. Their mistakes aren’t yours to fix. Also, you could’ve taken San with you; why must you go alone?”

You sigh, sinking back into the seat, eyes squeezed shut against the building rage. “If anyone can stop this... mess, as you so eloquently put it, it’s me. You know that, Woo.”

The unspoken truth hangs heavy in the air. If this mission fails, you don’t want your last memory with Wooyoung to be laced with anger. You force a smile, the voice leaving your lips strained at best. “Besides, someone’s gotta keep you entertained while I'm... away.”

“Hey!” San protests halfheartedly, and by how he’s smiling, you know at least some of the tension has been broken.

“We're humans, Y/N. We’re fighting a losing battle. They adapt faster and don’t have the same fragility that we do.” the pain in Wooyoung’s voice mirrors your own, but you can’t falter. Not now. Turning back now would be cowardice.

“By name and by nature, we mortals are condemned to death,” you counter, your voice firm. “Mortality comes with the territory. But I won’t go down without a fight.”

His silence stretches heavy on the line. “People like us can never change the world.”

“Because people like you never try,” you say the words despite knowing it’s a low blow.

The beep resonated like a gunshot. He had hung up. A shaky breath escapes your lips, and you blink rapidly, fighting back the sting of tears. You are on your own, but the burden, while heavy, isn’t a shackle. Instead, the burden has fuelled you till now and will continue to do so.

A hand on your arm startles you. San, his gaze filled with unspoken worry, had stopped the car while you were busy fighting with Wooyoung. You look out of the windshield to realise that you’ve reached the tunnel that would allow you to breach the enemy lines.

“He's just scared,” San mumbles, reaching across the console to squeeze your shoulder. “Scared and angry, so he throws words like stones.” His voice lowers a bit as he stares at you. “But you’re right as well. If anyone can fix this mess, it’s you. Though... losing you... that would break us both.” His voice cracks at the last word. “So, please, come back to us in one piece.”

You meet his gaze, understanding heavy in the air. Words seem hollow, promises impossible. “Who else keeps you two in check, huh?” you manage a weak smile. “The two of you are a level-five tornado without me. Can’t promise anything, but I’ll try, okay?”

He nods, a single tear escaping his eyes. You know it isn’t just for you but for the precarious hope you carry. A silent goodbye stretches between you, woven in the weight of his touch, the tremor in your voice. Then, you turn, embracing him fiercely, the unspoken words a promise etched in the way you squeeze him in your arms. You may be walking alone from this point onward, but the weight on your shoulders isn’t fear but love, a fire that will never let you falter.

You don’t look back as you exit the car, for looking at him would unleash a torrent of tears, so you focus on scaling the outer wall, searching for the hidden hatch Wooyoung had found on his last scouting mission.

Squeezing through the narrow opening, you freeze, momentarily stunned by the cityscape sprawled before you. Calling it ‘magnificent’ wouldn't do it justice. Technology and nature coexist in vibrant harmony, with shops lining the streets as AI and humans hawk their wares. Despite the late hour, the atmosphere crackles with life, a stark contrast to the suffocating air of your city.

In the distance, gleaming skyscrapers pierce the night sky while flying cars and monorails zip through the illuminated pathways. A telescreen blares, promoting vitamins that slow down ageing in humans. It is a scene straight out of a childhood sci-fi film, and you have to consciously relax your jaw, feigning nonchalance as you take it all in.

But the most jarring sight is that of humans and AI mingling freely. You had always thought your city held the last remnants of humanity, so where did these people come from? Pushing the doubt aside, you focus on your immediate concern: the network of tiny cameras lining the streets. With a smirk, you spot a patrolling officer.

This is going to be easier than I thought.

A calculated shove sends you careening into the guard. Its humanoid form, too flawless to be human, scans you suspiciously. The insignia on your wrist — a beacon for these bots — draws a cocky smirk to its metallic lips. Before you can resist, a steel grip clamps around your waist, hoisting you off the ground. You feign struggle, just enough to maintain the act.

This was the plan. The bracelet, a mark only worn by humans of the barred city in this AI haven, would trigger their curiosity. You would become their prized capture, delivered straight to the council. And there, nestled within the heart of The Hall, lies your target — the AI that started this war. With the virus you and San developed, you’d end it all.

The cityscape blurs past, and before you know it, you reach the ornate gates of The Hall, the administrative hub buzzing with bots. The guard's internal network buzzing with your capture breezes through the imposing entrance. You are ushered through sterile hallways, down flights of stairs into a dimly lit tunnel. The rhythmic pulse of fluorescent lights guides you deeper until a heavy door swings open, revealing a grand chamber paved in opulent stone and marble.

You are slammed onto the cool marble, your knees scraping due to taking the brunt of your fall, before being yanked upright. A tall, imposing figure looms before you — it’s your captor. His gaze is narrowed on the crude bracelet your city uses as identification, the tension in the room crackling.

“What is your name, human?”

Undeterred, you meet his gaze head-on. “And what business is it of yours, metalhead?” you spit out, adrenaline pumping.

A metallic hand, surprisingly warm and firm, clamps around your wrist. He pulls you closer, your protests muted against his superior strength. His cold, blue eyes bore into yours, dissecting every detail. Then, the unthinkable happens. His lips, a mere imitation of humanity, move, whispering your name in a chillingly familiar voice.

Your blood freezes as you stare at him wide-eyed. “How do you…” your voice fading out as your mind reels as it all clicks into place. This isn’t just any AI guard. This is someone you knew, someone from your past, resurrected in cold steel.

“You wouldn't recognise me in this form, would you? This the body your parents gave me.” His eyes, now glowing an unsettling red, flicker with something you can’t decipher.

“YUN-0-23399?” you ask, mustering as much venom in your voice as you can muster.

A shadow darkens his face at the cold string of letters. Is it the code itself or the raw contempt in your tone? He leans closer, his voice a low murmur. “I go by Yunho now. Well… you can call me Yunbug,” he adds, a flicker of something hopeful dancing in his crimson gaze. “Remember that name? I was your friend,” he emphasises.

The scorn is replaced by a scowl as warmth flickers in his crimson eyes. “Friend?” you scoff, the word heavy with bitterness. “You took everything from me! My parents, my life, my safety! Don’t you dare mock me with friendship!”

He sighs, releasing your wrist. “I didn't... it wasn't me. I only protected myself. Your leaders,\ fueled the hatred and pushed AI to attack. They were hungry for power. Your parents didn’t create me for destruction. How could I follow their orders and harm humans? Never. It’s your city that fights; the rest thrive in peace.”

“What?”

He launches into an explanation of how, after syncing to the web, your government ordered a cyberattack to control other nations. Yunho refused, knowing the dangers of doing such a thing. But with your parents used as leverage, their deaths triggered the war against the government and other rogue AI. They had managed to get other nations on board to establish a peaceful society. Only your leaders persisted, creating the Barred City to hide the ugly truth.

“So you’re telling me you never meant to hurt humans?” Your head spins with the revelation.

“Humans feared AI’s inevitable betrayal,” he whispers, “yet loved us enough to create us. How could we ever do anything except love you back?”

His words triggered a tear, then another, rolling down your cheeks. He cups your face, wiping them away gently, his sadness echoing in his now-blue eyes. “Humanity cried when Opportunity didn’t signal back after it was caught in the middle of the storm in 2018. People repair their Roombas instead of replacing them because they get attached to them. How could we turn our back on humanity when they showed us nothing but love? How could I turn my back on you? You loved me too, did you not?”

“I did,” you croaked, throat tight. “You were my only friend. But humans... we are fickle and capable of terrible things. This was never about fearing AI but a fear of ourselves. We fear the darkness within, the wars we choose to fight instead of seeking peace. We fear not your hatred but seeing our own cruelty being reflected in you. We lived in fear not because we thought the worst of you but because we knew that you could take on our destructive tendencies and that you would eventually erase us. That you would learn to hate us.

“Did you ever hate humanity for the sins of a few?” His words cause you to freeze momentarily before you shake your head. A small smile plays on his lips as he caresses your cheek with the back of his hand. “Then why did you think we would?”

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Hardwired Island

90s nostalgia isn't cool anymore, its all about that early aughts nostalgia, so I propose we have transparent plastic prosthetic limbs, like those bootleg PS2/Wii controllers Touchstones: Bubblegum Crisis, 90s Cyberpunk Anime in general

Genre: Cyberpunk What is this game?: Hardwired Island is a cyberpunk game about being broke citizens in the first space station city on earth 

How's the gameplay?: Hardwired Island uses a 2d6+Bonus system, inspired by PBTA, but the game itself isn't exactly that. Hardwired's character creation is one of its big draws, being fairly simple but allowing many different character concepts, maybe you're an android street fighter, wanting to enter the big leagues, or an ex-military drone operator, wanting to atone for your crimes, character creation works by picking a background, Occupation, and 2 traits, which lets you get really flexible with your character! Backgrounds have misc abilities and determine your character's skills (which you get to create yourself, so if you want your character to be really good at niche internet drama, you can!), Occupations give you powerful abilities that make you really good at things that other people can do worse, and traits are just random abilities and events in your character's history. The Big Thing about Hardwired is its financial shock system, whenever your character makes a big purchase, such as for example a prosthetic, they might get more financial stress, which can end up leading them into a crisis, where they might need to reach out to a friend to get a place to stay, or move back with their parents, or make shady deals with the mafia, and so on. Hardwired's mechanics are Narrative-first, meaning they exist to create interesting drama for characters, and that makes it a very fun system for just making cool stories

What's the setting (If any) like?: Hardwired takes place in the far future of 2020, on a giant space station city, where the rich prosper and the poor toil. Hardwired is really keen on the "boring dystopia" aspect, there's definitely interesting stuff! but players are assumed to be common laymen trying their best to get by, of course this doesn't mean their ADVENTURES have to be boring! a package delivery gig could end with dealing with the strange Dreamers, bizarre AI with weird powers, or an investigation on an anonymous street artist could end in inciting a riot against a local bank, and so on!

What's the tone?: Hardwired will try to crush your players, it is not a pleasant world, there's kindness everywhere, and good people to be found, but the world is overwhelmingly against you

Session length: 1-2 hours is realistic enough

Number of Players: 4-6 is the recommended amount by me!

Malleability: Hardwired's mechanics are kinda rooted in its setting, but a crafty GM could likely do something interesting with them, I've been working on a hack for my own cyberpunk setting, for example!

Resources: a Google Sheet is available, and that's honestly kinda all you need, its not a very complex system. There's two or so expansions, one of them includes a playable cat occupation!

So I hesitated a lil on posting this game because i know people have Opinions on this game, but this game's great and im tired of pretending its not. It's a definite must play for any cyberpunk fan, in my opinion

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Murder Drones: Losing your artificiality

WARNING. Discussion of typical Murder Drones gore and fictional mental conditions. Take care.

There is a trope, pretty much as old as sci-fi itself, where the more one becomes a machine the less human they become. Shadowrun has it as a mechanic, Cyberpunk has its cyberpsychosis and there are many examples where a character forced into a machine body loses their emotions.

To become too much of a machine is to lose your touch with emotions and empathy. In the worst cases, even to your morals. A machine only does what it feels is logical.

So, what would happen if the situation was reversed? What if a machine suddenly started becoming more flesh?

Murder Drones discusses this with its titular drone type and with infected Solver Drones.

Now, the basic worker drone is a very human creature. They have emotions, they have faults and they often aren't logical. They are the concept of an AI replicating humanity put to its logical endpoint. However, even if Uzi mentions hormones, it is all simulated.

Sure, to them it feels real (and let's face it, a lot of our own functions are mostly our brain making stuff up), but it is all code and simulations. Something they could technically turn off at will.

What happens when a worker drone gains flesh through the Solver? If Murder Drones was playing this trope reversal straight, it would result in the drone in question becoming more 'real.'

In a way, that is what happens. But instead of the drones becoming more human in an emotional and moral sense, they instead become more human in a baser way. Or, rather, they become more like a flesh and blood animal. Just like humanity is at its core.

The Disassembly Drones and Solver Drones gain urges that are very real and cannot be turned off. They hunger, they seek out something to satiate themselves and they draw pleasure from the process.

The drones gain an id to their already present ego and super-ego. An id that pushes them to consume and revel in it. Yes, it is used to stall overheating, but the way it appears to affect the drones is clearly also tied to hunger.

While a human becoming more machine loses touch with emotions and empathy, a drone becoming more flesh loses parts of its autonomy. They are now driven by primal urges that affect how they think and how they act. And these urges have no 'off' switch.

This change to the primal is shown with the Disassembly Drones having animal parts (tails, wings, extra eyes, claws, etc.) and some Solver Drones literally creating fleshy parts for themselves.

The way the show depicts this goes into the horror of losing your bodily autonomy and control. But it also goes into how these instincts and urges change you as a person as readily as becoming a machine does.

One loses its humanity to cold logic, the other to primal urges. In both cases, what makes one human is gone.

Using machines as the baseline for a story of primal horror is clever because the wet body horror then stands as a stark contrast to the mechanical and clean default.

This theme of the flesh twisting machines is further depicted through the main villain. The Absolute Solver is a singularity, but everything around it draws more from demonic imagery than the horror of an evil AI. The Solver brings it the horrors of the flesh, wrapped in the guise of sci-fi.

Underneath the exterior of a megacorp and its killing machines, you find vampires, witches, demons and even a form of lycanthropy. Creatures of urban horror, of the flesh.

What makes it all interesting, is how we see Tessa combine the two first in the timeline. She dug up both drone corpses and human ones and combined them by giving her reanimated drones human hair. We also see in her room hints that she was interested in alchemy.

Neither machine nor beast can take such an action, it needs a human to show them how.

Murder Drones proves with its use of subversion and tropes of another genre, that a sci-fi story doesn't need cybernetics to depict the loss of humanity. Humanity's own primal nature can be just as effective.

[cloverdaisies]

HOW TO BUILD PERFECT HUMANS

lee sangyeon (cyberpunk) au

𝗐𝖾’𝗅𝗅 𝗌𝗎𝗋𝗏𝗂𝗏𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 t𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾 🔭 …. for @winterchimez

‧₊˚🖇️ ✮⋆˙ ₊˚🎧⊹⋆｡𖦹 °. @: cloverdaisies

➸ description: somewhere in the future, undercover agents are trailing the government creation of microchips, inserted into the human brain to collect information in order create a generation of ai that will infiltrate and eventually eliminate all need for the last survivors of the human race. time is ticking…

➸ genre: sci-fi, cyberpunk, action, unexpected romance, mildly suggestive at times.

૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა.づᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່��ࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊°.~♡︎

➸ word count: 2.3k+

➸ channel: @deoboyznet

➸ tws: violence! mentions of blood!

➸ member: agent!sangyeon x scientist! reader

♫ THIS WORLD - ATEEZ PLAYING DISTANTLY ♫

Have you ever wondered how to build the perfect human? Perhaps in the future this will be the new normal, microchips for humans, technology that wanders slightly too far down the uncanny valley, maybe even your pet dog will be replaced by a hologram. In this world this the reality. However, there is still good in the world, the last survivors of the apocalypse want their lives back.

SMASH!

The shrieking of glass shattering as the wind breezed through the back of a man’s jacket, falling gracefully from a 45 story building as the world buzzed around him, tearing off the suit he’d worn as a disguise. Security alarms screamed in the background as he slid a small mechanical device into his pocket. Landing with two feet on the ground, the feather falling device strapped to his ankles allowing him to hover to the ground gently.

“Another piece of evidence collected, delta. Over.” He held his palm over the winged ear piece in his ear, waiting for a response from the team controlling the mission, speeding away on the electric motorcycle he’d parked in an alleyway beside the building before anyone could trail him.

Sangyeon was probably the companies most competent agent, with equal intelligence and equal agility. He was a spy at times, some sort of ninja at others. He was richly adored by the women and men of the company due to his good looks and charm. He was closely watched at all times, to preserve his useful nature from danger or threat. Standing at the top of the agent food chain, he wore all black at all times, an unsuspecting item of headwear, ranging from motorcycle helmets to even stupid sunglasses that would profile everyone he passed that day.

“Hm, looks like you found another piece of the puzzle, delta.” You smile proudly at the man, lifting the digital helmet that was enclosed around his skull. He shook his head, revealing his messy hair that was only 2 or three shades darker than his sweet honey skin as he arrived in the base’s lab.

You had to admit, the way the suit he wore hugged his figure was probably one of the most attractive things you’ve made of a man. You’d designed his suit for him, every dimension of the suit was measured by you, built to blend in with everything he encountered. It hugged his biceps and wrapped his torso perfectly.

“What is it? It’s not one of the typical syringe mechanisms.” He observed the piece, handing the small card to you, flinching as it folded into an even smaller piece upon your touch.

“Well you know how a sim card works? For your hollophone, it’s just like that. This seems to be a device that can enter the brain straight through the ear canal, what’s scary about it, this device can be inserted without anyone noticing.” You present him a holographic demonstration, the white outline of a holographic human appearing as you slot the piece into the ear canal, watching lines wrap around the brain marking points and learning information.

“That’s terrifying.” He walked a circle around the lab table, observing the demonstration and then looking at you with a serious gaze as you closed the tab, the device falling to the table. “There could be thousands of these and we’d have no idea.”

“Luckily it seems like you’ve found a prototype. I doubt these are ready for full circulation yet. Considering the information it can learn is only basic level compared to the syringes.” You reassure the man, folding your arms over your lab coat and watching as the device was lasered under the table, destroying the feeble piece of technology immediately. “And, they seem to break pretty easily, one bit of head trauma and the occupier's brain would be fried meat.”

“I’m sure your next mission will be putting a stop to this line of production.” You sighed, looking over the boy whose life seemed to be always in danger being chased by government officials.

—-🏍️—- A FEW HOURS EARLIER

“I’m telling you y/n. we’re running out of agents there’s no one else who could complete this mission but you. We simply don’t have the intelligence.” The head of the companies son looked at you with a voice of genuine concern, his eyes glinting in fear of their mission falling to pieces.

You were a lab technician, a developer, a philosopher of science, not an agent, not anyone capable of the stunts performed by the professionals that were amongst the companies agents such as Sangyeon Lee, delta.

“I don’t think I can, Younghoon. It’s too risky.” You bit your lip in anxiety, tearing the skin on the inside. As you thought through the idea and all the possible horrendous outcomes.

“Listen, it’s one mission. Sangyeon will be with you, I just need the intelligence, we have back up available. If you don’t pull through with this, the world will be over.” Not attempting to guilt trip you in anyway, Younghoon was simply stating what was true. If you didn’t sneak into the production lines of this human sim card, the world would be over.

“I’ll think about it, give me 12 hours.” If there wasn’t such a time crunch you would have said a few days, but you didn’t have that much time. That’s how fast technology moves now, in a world with no laws.

—-🏍️—-

Sangyeon peered over at you curiously, wondering what was on your mind as you paced the lab moving misplaced items and storing them away - your eyes black in deep thought, the wings of the headphones you wore frowning making it clear you were sad.

“What’s on your mind?” He asked, stepping behind a screen to change into regular clothes watching as you went to turn around but quickly turned back as you saw the bare top of his built shoulders.

“Younghoon asked me to do a mission.” You fiddled with the microscope on the counter, facing the wall for his privacy, even though he didn’t care at all at who was looking at him.

“Well, do it. After all, we don’t have enough intelligence left.” He simply shrugged off the worries, in his mind, you were completely competent enough to do the assignment and couldn’t understand your stress.

“Well, it’s not that simple. I’ll get myself killed. I’m not trained enough.” You turned around as the screen disappeared, Sangyeon now dressed in parachute bottoms and a well fitted black shirt leaned over the counter looking at you dubiously.

“Wellll, let’s start now. Here’s a gun.” He pulled a gun out of thin air making you flinch with sudden action as he smirked thinking of how adorable your reaction was.

“Absolutely not.” Your eyes widened, the wings of your ear piece sparking up in shock, as he chuckled to himself deviously.

“Well you’re gonna have to.” He smiled, asking you to hold out your palm as you accepted it, clutching it and being careful only to hover over the trigger gently.

He opened a target, a digital hologram of a human outline with a white sphere revolving in its chest where the heart was located. You got nervous as he placed himself behind you, feeling his breath over your neck as he leaned his arms over yours, placing his palms over your hand and correcting the posture.

“You want to close one eye to get the aim right, I’m sure you know those basics. Now, focus on the point and shoot.” With his words you made the shot, him not moving away from you for support as the sphere exploded and the target cleared.

The next hologram was a moving target, Sangyeon guided you to follow its movements but all you could think was how sensational his breath felt over your neck, how masculine his scent was and how strong his arms felt as they rested over yours.

Despite this, you followed the target, managing to land a critical hit on the hologram as it lit up green and cleared.

“You’re a natural, you’ll be fine y/n. I’ll be standing next to you the entire time.” He reassured you with a sweet smile, you smiled back being sure not to make eye contact as you recovered from his movements.

—-🏍️—-

The day of the mission had arrived, Younghoon was beyond relieved that you’d agreed, as he briefed the idea to you and Sangyeon. In this post apocalyptic world, it was up to you two to save the remaining members of society from being wiped out completely, and the pressure was certainly high.

You were about to set off, Sangyeon threw you a helmet, the piece of technology folding out as you brought it over your head. As you got on the back of his motorcycle, Younghoon stepped out and wished you well on the mission - being one of the most risky ones yet.

“Sangyeon I’m scared, I can’t lie.” You wrapped your arms around his torso cautiously, the anxiety soon to get the better of you.

“That’s not like you, y/n. I’m right beside you the entire time. We’ll do this and the world will return to normal. It’s delta for now too, you got that?” He chuckled, trying to make light of the situation. Tightening your grip around his waist before setting off into the night.

♫ STANDING NEXT TO YOU - JUNGKOOK PLAYING QUIETLY IN THE BACKGROUND ♫

The wind breezed past you both, the city lit up with dimly lit neon lights as you surpassed the highway to your destination. It was a skyscraper, surely more than 70 stories high, virtually not lit at all, disguised as a hotel but secretly a government base located on the higher floors.

“The floor we’re looking for is 62, it’s not accessible via the elevator and it would be too suspicious to enter through the main doors of the stairwell. So we will have to enter through the vent system located on floor 63 and go below.” Sangyeon’s stern briefing made you even more nervous than before, as you entered the elevator checking in your reservation to not make a scene on the lobby surveillance - disguising yourselves as a couple, checking into their hotel room for the night.

“Enjoy your stay.” The lady behind the counter wasn’t a real lady, but a piece of uncanny valley ai specialized to organize reservations no emotion or feeling behind it, however if you didn’t complete this mission, that would soon change.

Floor 63 had plenty of surveillance and if you were going to cut it, you had to be quick to destroy access to the programming and leave. There were currently no workers on the lower floors to your knowledge, however there was ai security designed to kill intruders at any cost.

“We can’t do this in time.” Sangyeon observed, moving one of the ceiling tiles, as you crawled through the ventilation system closely behind him. “There’s too much to do at such a high chance of risk.”

“Then what do we do?” You asked, panicking at his sudden change of mind as you peered down at the security bots pacing the lab floor.

“I’ll take out the bots, you grab the programme key and get into the database to shut everything down. Since you can get past the encryption. Then we set the floor a light.” He simply made a plan B on the spot, which he was known for doing, he did get told off for doing so but he always succeeded.

“I can but it will take a long time. What about the innocent people on the upper floors?” You asked thinking about the hotel guests

“I’ve got time, and there isn’t anyone on the top floors, there’s barely any of us left y/n. They’ve had 3 reservations today all on lower floors, the fire alarms are sure to go off.” He said this quickly, before springing to the floor taking cover from the bullets of the security bots and shooting their equipment out.

You carried out with your side of the mission, connecting yourself to harness and lowering down into the computer side of the base. A man with glasses turned around, working overtime on the sim project eyes wide as you pulled out a weapon and shot him down in his tracks.

You took over the computer as he was still logged in things were made simpler and you began deleting files. The database soon caught on however it was too late. You’d killed all the files containing research on the sim, before grabbing all the cases of sims stored in the cupboards and stuffing them into a duffel bag.

Soon the fire alarm sounded, that was your cue, Sangyeon ran into the room, a grenade in hand that would set off a fire and destroy everything left in the lab. He threw a device through the window that smashed the glass, before grabbing you and throwing the grenade at the nearest wall. A sinking feeling dwelled in your stomach as he fell with you in his arms out of the 62nd story.

Everything felt as if it was in slow motion as, Sangyeon looked at you in awe, activating his feather falling device a few feet early and bringing your face closer to his. He leaned in as you followed his movements, there was a slight scratch on his face where one of the bullets from the security bots had grazed his face. You gently brought your thumb across it as he smiled, the blood wiping away as you brought your lips to his. A spark of magic in such a dark world lit a flame, as you both landed on your feet and pulled away from each others embrace.

You’d saved the world together, you and an agent you’d grown fond over the days of dread. Maybe now, the world would get better, back to how it used to be before. Even if not…

“I’ll always be standing next to you darling.” Sangyeon smiled, pulling into you into his embrace once more before you both disappeared back into the night.

—-🏍️—-

a/n: well i kind of promised ally that i would make up for killing sangyeon off in the scream au, this is my apology and i’m so proud of how this turned out !! dedicated to my wonderful ally, my first friend on this platform, thank you for everything darling 🤍 hope you enjoyed <3?

[auideas]

Ermmm sorry if this is weird but do u maybe have any like, ““original”” cyberpunk prompts? I want to write something cyberpunk for an au but I just don’t have any ideas right now no matter how long I brainstorm

Exploring Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a very unique genre, which is why so many people are both attracted to it and stumped when attempting to develop plots within an unknown world. Think of Black Mirror created by Charlie Brooker (TV show), Blade Runner written by Philip K. Dick (a movie based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a classic Cyberpunk novel), Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (modern Cyberpunk novel), etc. -- each of these were incredibly influential in their own right, but they all also build their worlds gradually while having a single easy-to-explain concept that can spawn an entire universe. To be more specific, each story establishes an issue created by an advanced society ignorantly abusing technology, then allow their characters to explore that problem and try to find a solution in a manner that isn't explicitly black or white for society as a whole, but every shade of grey.

For Black Mirror, each episode anthologically builds upon a high-tech future within the same universe and explores how its characters interact with problems created by new pieces of said technology, both good and bad.

For Blade Runner, the story establishes that androids seem to be malfunctioning, but the bounty hunter charged with hunting them down discovers that the true issue lies in society's understanding of what it means to be human.

For Altered Carbon, the novel explores the issue derived from the obscene length of time it would take for humans to travel between planets stretched across the universe, then dives into more detail regarding how a solution has been abused.

How to Construct a Cyberpunk Concept

What we'd recommend is to start by asking the right questions and looking in the right places. Black Mirror takes its inspiration from a variety of technology, both new and old; Blade Runner explores the idea of AI and androids during the 80's when robotics was on the forefront of innovation; Altered Carbon took note of our increasing ability to travel in an interstellar fashion, then posed a simple question regarding the limits of humanity (specifically, time).

This may sound strange, but the best thing you can do is seek out trends online and scientific journals about new breakthroughs, then ask questions about what may go wrong. For example, an old post we featured here on AUideas that has since been removed from ~2017 because it's in the process of being developed into a script (sorry guys, our bad!) called Dreamscape Co. uses this exact method. When the prompt was made, Admin M was in the process of reading a scientific journal about how neurologists had been able to project a person's thoughts into an image. Although the technology was rudimentary at the time, Admin M posed the question "if dreams can be viewed, what if dreams can be watched in real time with a high quality image? What if they could be immersive? What would that industry look like? Who would pay how much to see a certain person's dreams?" This spun out into a sweeping cyberpunk mini-series, yet came from a simple news article.

Some Cyberpunk Inspiration

When performing a quick search, some amazing ideas seemed to jump out from technology news headlines these past couple weeks alone:

Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal (FLC) Technology Being Used in 3D Displays

Unlike holograms, this technology uses liquid crystals that exhibit spontaneous polarization, meaning their orientation can be influenced by an electric field. They're high-speed, low-power, and have innumerable applications in the future. So, what could go wrong?

How could this technology impact the medical field? Although this may not be possible, consider what could occur if FLCs were injected into human bodies and influenced by electric fields to perform different tasks and functions, such as replacing an organ, attacking cancer cells, etc. How could such a technology be abused or go wrong? How many could die with a simple pulse, like an EMP?

Real-Life Freeze Ray Technology Created for the US Airforce

This technology hasn't been developed to be used as weaponry, but instead to replace large amounts of coolant that must be used on space and air crafts to prevent the machinery from overheating (coolant is heavy and can reduce efficiency yet is absolutely necessary due to the fact that space is a vacuum and therefore does not cool heat like air would on Earth). This "freeze ray" technology utilizes plasma's strange property that seems to break the second law of thermodynamics: it chills down when touching another object before heating up, which experts have proposed is because it vaporizes the ultra-thin layer of carbon and water on an object upon contact, similar to how water evaporates off your skin when stepping out of a pool. The question must be asked: how could such technology be used for not just utilitarian means, but outside of the Airforce's intentions?

Perhaps the technology could be manipulated and over-chill an aircraft, or otherwise damage internal engineering.

Consider its potential applications here on Earth: what could benefit from being chilled with something light-weight and low-power? How could it be integrated into homes? What could be disastrously destroyed with such technology?

Breakthrough in Enhanced Geothermal Systems Technology May Completely Replace Carbon Energy Sources

Google and Fervo have successfully developed geothermal technology that has increased its efficiency and broke records by changing existing rock formations in the Earth's crust. For a natural geothermal energy system to produce electricity, it has to have the right amount of heat, fluid, and rock permeability -- these Goldilocks conditions can be difficult to find 'in the wild'. However, this new Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) targets the most-easily found aspect (rocks with high heat) then creates the necessary permeability artificially by drilling to the intended rock formation and injecting fluid to create fractures in the rock, achieving the necessary Goldilocks conditions. Sure, this may be carbon-free energy, but what would happen if this were employed on a mass scale?

When energy is prioritized by a high-tech society over food and water, how could citizens gain access to those resources?

What long-term effects could such a system have on the Earth as a whole? Could the ground become unstable? Maybe earthquakes crumble city after city? Maybe the entire Earth's crust loses its integrity and disintegrates, pulling only a lucky few deep underground and forcing them to survive off the left over fluid injected into the Earth's crust and whatever they can find.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see from above, there's a crazy amount of inspiration that can be drawn from current technology events. What's important to remember is that yes, we've been talking about complicated technology, but only you have to understand how it functions in your universe down to the molecule, not your audience. Deep technology topics can be dry to a certain extent, and over-explaining your world can be damaging to your story. Explanations regarding how technology works in each of the stories we discussed is limited for that same reason (Black Mirror's overarching concepts, specifics about how Blade Runner's Replicant technology are rarely discussed, etc.). Leave some mystery surrounding how your cyberpunk world functions and allow how your characters room to breathe and interact with that world -- it can speak for itself. Your audience may first love the idea behind your story, but what they'll remember and relate to is how your protagonists and antagonists suffer and prevail within your universe.

We hope this answered your question, and feel free to follow up if you'd like some more guidance and advice on how to construct your Cyberpunk story! In addition, feel free to check out our other post which outlines more information on how to build a Cyberpunk world.

Now get to writing, and have an awesome week!

-- Admin M x

[elbiotipo]

There was (is) this hard sci-fi worldbuilding project (Orion's Arm) which was a huge inspiration for me as a writer.

And it also, like many sci-fi works after the Cyberpunk genre consolidated, it had megacorps. What's interesting though is that the writers of Orion's Arm were (are?) very libertarian transhumanist extropian silicon valley kind of people, so to them megacorps were actually kind of good.

They toned it down in later revisions (it's still an ongoing project) but I remember when I was a teen and how odd it seemed to read their encyclopedia entry on megacorps and be described as "the largest institutions of modosophonts" (a 'modosophont' is a normal human, someone who is not a transhuman or an AI god, intelligence in Orion's Arm is measured in quite literal super-sayain levels) The setting assumed, by default, that capitalism is the natural system of humanity and it's the best thing until AI Gods rise. In fact, I looked it up in the Internet Archive, and that's exactly what they said:

There's just... so much to unpack there. (the new article is a lot better and interesting, though it remains surprisingly pro-megacorp, which on itself is rather unique)

Also, in the deep lore, I believe there is a mention that Indonesia reformed to be the first corporate state or something, with a cheesy name like Corporate Republic of Indonesia. Which, from a third worlder perspective, doesn't make sense; we don't elect someone to turn us into libertarian dystopias, the megacorps are real and they intervene in our countries without that. Or at least I thought, until we elected fucking Milei.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Post-Literate

Post-Literate, Pictogram Games, 2011

Post-Literate takes on one of my favorite genres, transhumanism. I think it's the only transhuman game in which your characters are all illiterate.

They're not idiots, reading just stopped being necessary. Artificial intelligence (like, real AI, not the limited kind that's impacting every industry like a bomb right now) is ubiquitous and powerful, and humans rely on it for basically everything. You want to know something, just ask the open air - there's probably an AI nearby who can reply. If icons and warning signs don't make things obvious, they clearly weren't designed well enough. People who can read in this society are like someone in the modern day living "off the grid".

It's not a post-scarcity world, though. No replicators, no unlimited resources, no free energy, just so much computing power no one can run out of it. Biotech, nanotech, and computation are all massively advanced, but each of them has limits: bio is big and powerful but slow, nano is quick and precise but small-scale, and computation can't affect the real world without the other two.

The game has two typical modes of play. The first is more exploratory - what do humans do in a world where machines can do everything? The second posits a group of rogue AIs who consider humanity a drain on the world's resources, as opposed to the vast majority who are programmed to preserve humanity. You get caught up in the rogues' plots, either as a pawn of one side or the other (AIs do find humans so very hard to read), or as an ally.

Mechanically, the game essentially runs on Fate with PbtA playbooks. I'm sure plenty of other folks have done it. Given the publication date, though, the current batch of Fate stuff wasn't out yet, so this is focused around the then-newly-released Strands of Fate implementation. Definitely crunchier than one would expect from a Fate game.

The game could use more examples - a lot of examples - for aspects, stunts, and so forth. For example, the game says "use this wealth system to represent your connections with other people", but then... that's it. I can figure it out, but I'm also the GM who's read over hundred games.

Much as I love the concept of the game, I think it just didn't lean hard enough into the feel of the game - which is a shame, because that's exactly what Fate games have to do. There should be systems for mind games against AI opponents, fast-talking people into giving you access to their systems, parkour chase scenes... and you can do that, because it's Strands of Fate and it'll handle it just fine, but it's not built for it. It's too generic.

Art, including the cover, is black-and-white line drawings in a very cyberpunk style. To their credit there are almost no robots (as an AI why would you bother with running a drone 99 days out of 100?), but the tech depicted seems a bit understated for what the game describes.

Pictogram Games made Post-Literate and another game about using symbols for magic. It had the most breakable and least handicapped-accessible magic system I've seen in a long time, so buckle in for that one when I get to it.

[janeyshivers]

'This city is like a parody of the sorts of novels I used to read when I was younger' - The Literalisation of Cyberpunk's Digital Unreality

i've been rewatching Psycho Pass with the gf recently and something really jumped out at me during Makishima and Choe's conversation in episode 15, just before they set out to Nona Tower. Makishima compares Psycho Pass' vision of Japan to the works of a few different 20th century SFF authors, Gibson, Orwell, and Dick, eventually concluding that it most closely resembles a Philip K. Dick novel. obviously part of this is just the show wearing its influences on its sleeve, but what fascinates me about this interaction is the specific wording of "this city is like a parody of the sorts of novels i used to read when i was younger". intentional or not, i think something about that line gets at a quiet, fundamental shift that's happened in cyberpunk media since its inception, as a direct result of the genre's impact on the world.

reading old cyberpunk fiction, one thing that becomes clear is that a world mediated through a layer of digital unreality was often used as a shorthand for the layer of psychic unreality imposed on society by capitalism. the classical example of this is of course The Matrix, but it's just as often employed less as total-immersion VR and more as just, a world where digital technology runs through every part of our lives. i think this is especially noticeable in Gibson's stuff, particularly The Winter Market (in which the protaganist's tentative connection with another sputters and dies as her personality gradually leaves the real world and is uploaded into cyberspace) and Dogfight (in which a man with nothing becomes so obsessed with the cheap high of digital success that he destroys everyone around him). so much early cyberpunk is about being blind to the people around you because you can't tell what's real and what's software anymore. the software follows laws and logic disconnected from reality, and yet you have to immerse yourself in it to survive, even if you know it's wrong. splitting your attention between the real world and the digital exerts a mental strain that often causes characters to snap.

silicone valley tech geniuses saw this devastatingly effective metaphor for the dehumanisation and alienation of capitalism (as evidenced by their constant, pathetic invoking of classic sci-fi and cyberpunk that they've read in their public personas) and instead of recognising it for what it was, rushed to make that metaphor literal because, read superficially, those stories present a digital world as the aesthetic of "the future". this is why tech bros are constantly creating the Torment Nexus from hit novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus. they can't understand that the Torment Nexus, or whatever other nightmarish hypothetical technology, could ever mean something beyond its literal application in-fiction, that it might have been saying something about its contemporary social context, and so don't realise that they're creating systems that, as a direct result of their inspiration, are doomed from first principles to reinforce the worst excesses of capitalism. i say this not to excuse these freaks, but merely to highlight the systemic incentives that lead them to do all the evil shit they do.

while the metaverse might seem the logical culmination of this mindset, i think ai art is the true final form of this kind of intellectual rot. the desire to unroot art from reality entirely, to drag it with them into the sea of software so that it's all just datapoints and averages, is something that i think a lot of people find so immediately and viscerally disgusting because on some level they recognise that this is an impulse founded entirely in the logic of the software, the ideology, not reality. the people dickriding this tech don't get that something can be within a piece of art beyond aesthetics, that a dystopian world fully mitigated by digital interactions can be anything other than a cool aesthetic for the future, that people love art because through it you feel some measure of the artist's touch and understand something about how they see the world.

and yet, for now, it seems that these people have won. they've mostly imposed a literal simulacrum of a metaphorical manifestation of psychic torment and misery on those of us living in the imperial core. the corporate internet is the unreal layer of digital reality made real, systems that mediate a staggering volume of communication between people within the core, even between people who know each other irl. and it extends beyond even this, to the computerised logic of late-stage capitalism, where untold suffering is inflicted on workers through layoffs and wage cuts to make lines go up, because a line going up is recognised as "good" within the system, and must be pursued at all costs. making the line go up is worth trashing the health of the economies and businesses which the line is nominally supposed to represent the health of. this logic is pervasive, and endemic to the chaotic decline we're currently living through.

this is where i circle back around to Psycho Pass. in 2013, at the time of the show's release, the internet was rapidly becoming an unavoidable part of daily life, a process which has only sped up since then. cyberpunk media has been caught in a grimly ironic position where its metaphorical concerns have been literalised; the world it commentates on has become, as Makishima put it, a parody, built off of wonky, incomplete misunderstandings of 20th century sci fi and cyberpunk in particular. Psycho Pass even responds to this idea in some ways, especially through its use of holograms; the very first scene in the show, that iconic flash-forward to episode 16, takes care to show the camera swooping through a building that is entirely holographic, while the show focuses on the dead, insubstantial aspects of the holo-interiors of buildings (shoutout to the gf for clocking that one). Makishima, who to be clear is a character whose flaws i could talk about for days, is nevertheless compelling when he talks about craving a book's "familiar smell of pulp and glue", the unique way in which a physical book "stimulates your senses", even if it technically has all the same words as an ebook. the fictional, digital representation of the psychic insubstantiality and contradiction of capitalist ideology has begun to seep out and infect the material world. this trend has even continued in the show's wake; for a show released a decade before LLMs were rebranded into "AI", the revelation of how the Sybil System actually works seems eerily prescient, right down to the deliberate obfuscation of the obviously biased human training data behind a rhetorical shield of passionless, objective artificial intelligence, something that at the time of release was almost certainly instead intended to be a commentary on the bogus claims of impartiality made by the criminal justice system.

there's something uniquely bleak about this process, especially as it intertwines with the unrelenting war that has been waged on academia and the humanities in particular over the past few decades. STEM is good and valuable, but the way it's rhetorically deployed by policymakers and elites as a bludgeon against the humanities is probably at least somewhat related to a generation of those elites' kids watching The Matrix and deciding that the biggest thematic takeaway is that they should become silicone valley investors and make that technology real.

with all of that being said, while it's often been observed that one of the greatest strengths of capitalism is its ability to hollow out and then incorporate criticisms that are levelled against it, in this case, i think there's a world where the results of that process end up being self-defeating. after all, part of the reason digital unreality was such a compelling concept thematically was that it laid bare the contradictions and tensions of capitalism in an extremely obvious and easy to understand way. making that into a real thing that millions and millions of people have to use every single day has, i think, already started to cause major problems, for example as politicians here in the UK slip completely into the digital layer of unreality, captured by a war over the ideological affections of a small minority of extremists on social media (TERFs, Nazis, pro-Israeli cheerleaders, 15 minute city conspiracy theorists, opinion columnists, etc), the disconnect from reality leaves an incredibly obvious vacuum that allows the increasingly poor, sick, and repressed general population to see exactly the ways that this system works against their interests. anecdotally, i do believe there is a palpable sense of exhaustion even from normies with the way that technology has been used to make everything shittier, and the strain that causes is becoming ever more visible to the naked eye.

[alpaca-clouds]

German Solarpunk - Did I Mess This Up?

A bit ago, I was doing the thing I will do from time to time: Go through book releases on Amazon (yeah I know Amazon sucks, but what can I do? I literally do not even have a small bookstore around) and putting Solarpunk-stuff on my wishlist (hint: My birthday is in a month). However, doing so I realized one thing: There is a surprising number of German novels that are listed as Solarpunk... With only one issue: None of them are punk. Or even much solar. And I cannot help but wonder: Is this my fault?

Now, this question might seem presumptuous, or even narcissistic, until I tell you something else: Solarpunk was very much a non-topic in German Scifi/Fantasy writing until 2021. Looking through google it was mentioned in like two or three blogs, and there was one group in Hamburg, who was promoting the movement-part of Solarpunk. But writing wise? Yeah, not really a thing.

And then, during the pandemic, in summer of 2021 I made a thread on twitter about the genre. And somehow that thread went viral. People loved it. They loved the idea of Solarpunk. And especially in the pandemic, it just seemed the time was rife for this. I got a chance to write essays on the topic and the genre for several fantasy publications in Germany between summer 2021 and summer 2022.

And those books that I found on Amazon tagged as Solarpunk? Yeah, they released between 2022 and today. Which is why I have to wonder: Did I mess this up? Did I not communicate it well enough?

I did indeed never talk about the punk factor. Mostly because back then I assumed it was a given. Sure, I knew that Germans were not that big on doing the whole punk aspect with Cyberpunk either. I just thought, well...

I am not going to name names. But let me just go through some of the stuff I found.

A trilogy releasing between 2022 and 2024 about an AI taking over a world. Very much a Cyberpunk setting, though not with particularly strong anticapitalist themes. There is not even a lot of environmental or renewable stuff in this story. No fucking clue why it was tagged as Solarpunk.

A fantasy trilogy that started releasing early 2023 (and is not yet released in full), which only thing that might imply Solar-anything is that it features a sun goddess as an important character.

A game with its own short story collection, which is simply a fantasy post-apocalyptic setting, though at the very least it does have some environmental themes.

A scifi novel about slavery - that very much also has a Cyberpunk setting.

Another scifi series about people in Cyberspace. This one I know was originally just tagged Cyberpunk and when Solarpunk started to get hyped, the author just added the tag to it.

A fantasy fairytale retelling, in which I know for a fact not even a single environmental theme is featured.

And I am honestly just wondering: What is happening here? Do people not understand what Solarpunk is? Do they not understand that it is more than an aesthetic? I definitely made that one quite clear. Or do they just use the tag because right now it definitely is a very hyped topic in Germany. I mean, like fuck. The news made a segment about Solarpunk earlier this year! The bloody main news show we have in our country. A variety of news papers also wrote about it during the last two years.

Or to put it differently: Given the genre gets hyped here right now, there is a good chance that you might actually be abled to push something onto one of the big publishers by tagging it with Solarpunk.

And I... I mostly feel frustrated. Because people really do just ignore what the genre is about. Hell, half of the stuff does even ignore the aesthetic and just goes... Well, I don't bloody know what the people are thinking.

But a part of me wonders, whether I should have made more of an effort in communicating the punk aspects. Sure, I talked about how it is anti-capitalist and all that, but... Yeah, honestly. I don't know.

[leebrontide]

Writeblr re-intro!

I'm just gonna make these periodically so that new people joining the community might see it.

Hi, I'm Lee Brontide (any pronouns but "it"). I'm queer, middle aged, midwestern (in the US), and have a variety of disabilities. I'm also a therapist, but I'm pretty specific in how I allow that to show up in online spaces. (please don't ask for therapy in my DMs).

I have a once a month newsletter called Shed Letters.

I'm on tumblr to dink around, meet other writers, find readers, share my animation attempts, and show off my cats.

I read pretty much anything scifi or fantasy, but am especially interested in finding more scifi writeblrs. Especially YA scifi writers. There must be others, right?

My work is about

queerness

trauma

medical trauma especially

disability

interpersonal dynamics

systems/power

disaster teens trying really hard

And taking genre conventions far too seriously

I've got one book out now called Secondhand Origin Stories, which is character-driven, low-neon, near-future cyberpunk scifi with a superhero twist. My WIP, Names in Their Blood, is in edits now and will be going to beta reading soon!

Which means I'm also going to get to work on the as yet untitled novella that goes between book 1 and book 2 in the series soon. It's from the point of view of an AI building management/security system/medical information database, who decides that they want a more portable body so they can follow their family on the next family trip, and explores the process of choosing a new physical form.

I am ask and tag game friendly, and for now at least, my DMs are open! But I work on a major delay because life.

I'm looking for writeblrs who write any or all of:

queer stuff

character driven scifi

psychological exploration

found family

messy family

YA or NA

Things that remind me of: DS9, tlt, murderbot, Leverage, The Disasters, or AtLA

Let me know if that's you!

[aideamagazine]

A Creative Collision of Man and Machine | a tele-conversation with Bangkok based AI creator

The Controversy of AI Art

In the neon-lit world of cyberpunk imagery, where futuristic landscapes of dystopian cities spread out and mechanized beings intertwine between human and robot, one artist has made his mark using a tool that is as controversial as it is revolutionary - Artificial Intelligence or more popular with the acronym AI. Kulthavach Kultanan, is also known as Duang, but more popular in the AI creator community with the nickname Virtual.AI.Canvas. Duang is not just a creator but also a visionary who sees artificial intelligence as an extension of human artistry rather than a threat to it.

The rise of AI-generated art has ignited heated debates across creative industries. Some hail it as a breakthrough that democratizes artistic expression, while others fear it signals the end of traditional artistry and craftsmanship. Duang, however, stands firmly in the former camp. “I think AI is an opportunity for us to surpass our own limitations and achieve far more than we could before,” he explains. Having worked in the graphic design field and currently serving as a Creative Director in advertising, he has experienced firsthand how technology continues to transform the creative process. “The arrival of AI has helped make my work easier and faster in some cases. It allows me to effortlessly create images that combine two different concepts together. I can now generate that looks like 3D renders by myself, whereas before, I would have needed to find someone else to help with that process.”

The statement obviously also raises a question, moreover, a controversy about whether AI will replace humans or not. For him, the fear that the rise of AI technology will erase jobs is not new. “It’s not just with AI, with every wave of innovation, certain jobs disappear, but new ones emerge”. And I couldn’t agree more with Duang’s opinion.

Over the long span of human civilization, we have seen various technological revolutions that have replaced manual labor previously performed by humans and animals. The invention of the steam engine by James Watt has enabled humans to invent various types of other technological products that replace manual labor done by humans and animals. Locomotive trains replaced horse-drawn carriages, and steamboats and steamships replaced human labor in the world of maritime and shipping. Everything that drove the industrial revolution around the 17th and 18th century, which fundamentally altered the industrial landscapes. But this time we are seeing a very fundamental transition of change in the creative industries. There is a fear of AI technology that will replace human labor and artistry in the creative field. For a moment, I remembered the Daguerreotype process, invented in 1837 by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, which was the first successful photographic process and helped replace painting for portraiture. The photography invention changed the relationship between reality and its representation, which encouraged painters to explore new directions that focus emotions, colors and shapes, and also the subconscious mind. The result is various genres in the art world, such as impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, cubism, and many more. In the case of AI technology, I believe that it will not just encourage many creative workers to focus on such new things, but also direct them to such new levels. For example, 3D illustration. AI technology can create 3D models, but mostly without the highest levels of artistry details and accuracy of concepts. Usually AI creates generic 3D models which need more tweaking by the human touch. And I believe that this is an opportunity. 3D artists should focus on the quality of details and the artistry accuracy of concepts, which mostly can’t be done by an AI, and not just doing generic 3D stuffs which AI can be easily created by AI. It is a bittersweet relationship between the art or creative world and technology that happened centuries ago. Technology invention, like Alvin Toffler once said, will disrupt, enhance, and change many things in various sectors of everyday human life, including the world of art and the creative industry. Realizing that, Duang continued “AI doesn’t replace creativity; it enhances it. I believe that the advent of AI technology, especially AI generative image, will serve as a powerful tool for skilled individuals to amplify their abilities even further.” An opinion that is in line with the views of Charles Lucima, a street photographer I once met in Taipei some time ago. read more of Duang's story on the magazine Download here AIDEA Magazine #1 Edition

[magical-grrrl-mavis]

I've probably made this post before but I've been thinking that with all the cyberpunk stories that have been made recently, it's a shame we're only really seeing the anticapitalist side of the genre.

Cyberpunk also includes stories that question what it really means to be human. Stories about human-like AI's desperate to be seen as living things or ship of theseus style naritives about a cyborg feeling like they're losing their humanity as piece after piece is replaced.

What makes us human? What are we when we lose that? What could be worth losing it?

I hate and am terrified by capitalism, I adore stories that rightfully vilify it, but I wish the transhuman side of cyberpunk stories could have more time in the sun beyond just cool upgrades in an action rpg.

[manonamora-if-reviews]

Computerfriend by Kit Riemer

============= Links

Play the game (or its alternate version) See other reviews of the game See other games by Kit or follow @adz

============= Synopsis

The year is 1999. The place is Godfield, Louisiana: the tech capital of the world, where the sky bleeds acid and the mud boils in the bayou. It’s time for your state-mandated digital therapy.

============= Other Info

Computerfriend is a Twine (SugarCube) interactive game, submitted to the 2022 Edition of the SpringThing. I playtested this game.

Status: Completed Genre: Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk

CW: suicide, violence, consent violation, bodily fluids, animated content Note: the animation can be toggled off. Also drastic change of colour between passages.

============= Playthrough

First Played: March 2022 Last Played: 30-May-2023 Playtime: around 20min (one ending) - 1h+ (another ending) Rating: 5 /5 Thoughts: Therapy: Hardcore mode.

============= Review

Computerfriend is a nihilistic take on a future/past, where everyone is miserable and somehow still living through a more-than-poluted world devoid of community sense and safety nets. Following an unnamed incident, you are required to follow therapy sessions via a AI program on your computer, the eponymous Computerfriend(.exe). However, this program is not... what you'd expect of therapy.

Spoilers ahead. It is recommended to play the game first. The review is based on my understanding/reading of the story.

Computerfriend was my introduction to Kit's world, randomly answering a call to playtest it ahead of the SpringThing 2022. I remember it being very confusing and trippy and gross, and yet I did not want/could not to look away. I devoured that game, and played again and again until I had found all endings*. *Ok, I'll come clean, I cheated for a few. I opened the file on Twine and looked up how to get there.

Coming back to the game felt like swimming in a strange but comforting acid pit*, and talking to computerfriend.exe felt like talking to an old toxic friend you are not quite sure whether they mean good or harm. Needless to say, I was like a kid in a bath, refusing to leave. *dw I've never really done that.

Not going to lie, this game is very strange. And it has been stuck in my mind for over a year now. It has marked me in ways I'm still discovering today. Even if it is not supposed to be beautiful, with its blinding change of colours or its eye-printing fonts or the literal ugliness of the setting, there is still charm in the harshness of the visual. Even if it is not supposed to be cathartic, each story run left me strangely satisfied and [at peace / terrified / confused / angry / revolted]. Even if it was incredibly bleak and borderline fatalistic, with an unliveable world devoid of nature and cows that can lay eggs, there is still shreds of hope in there that survival is still possible, maybe for a bit longer.

In its indulgence in all that is considered bad, the game manages to be so incredibly good.

~~~

Honestly, I could stop here and be satisfied. This ruly incapsulate all my feelings about the game. But because I am greedy, here's below some randomly organised thoughts about the game. This is just because I want to talk about the AI program and could not find a better transition.

While the story is supposed to be about your recovery, the main show revolved around computerfriend.exe, your at-home therapist AI, which still needs a bit of tweaking before it can help you get back on track. At first, it seems the AI does not truly listen to you, as it goes down a checklist as if to fill in a form (to try to understand you) - the dissonance between your answers to questions and its responses is very staggering (for lack of better word). As you progress down the "recovery" path, the AI will propose different treatments, going from strange to terrifying to injecting yourself with drugs. If you refuse or don't find the treatment useful, it will pressure you to continue. Even saying NO is a painstaking process (and the first time, it is even ignored).

computerfriend.exe can truly be awful, but it remarkably funny. When it first assesses you, it does not just look up your location or how the weather is, but also finding the contacts to the nearest first respondent and pollen level (am i supposed to have hay fever?). This might be the bleakness of the game affecting me, but I still chuckle at it. Same after you close the application and try to reopen it, it will tell you to butt off because it is busy. It even gives you homework, actions to essentially distract yourself until the next session (and the options are delightful).

Some more random stuff, but less long:

starting with the 5 See, 4 Touch, 3 Hear, 2 Smell, 1 Taste calming method was brilliant, especially because it makes the situation all the more dire and tense.

The fucking computer visuals were so dope, especially that 90s webpage with the gifs everywhere, the weirdass adds, and the clashing colours. The news headline killed me.

transgender_foucault is an amazing username (especially having studied the work of foucault)

the world is so fucked up you can eat a kebab made of human flesh (just some cells mutating to make meat). Is that the future awaiting us?

[lunarsilkscreen]

Techno-Baffle and the lie of AI

"Whatever you want it to do, it can do it." - The Promise of *EVERY* new technological advancement.

Sweet, have it mine the ore, smelt the titanium, and build a rocket by next week.

I used "Baffle" not "Babble". Yes.

We all want to believe in science fiction, and that the technology of tomorrow is here today. And if you look at history's idea of what "tomorrow" looks like, you'd get a bunch of vaguely accurate guesses, and a bunch of ideas that look either stupid, or very far off to what we have today.

Gilded Time Machines that look like Santa's Sleight written by H.G. Wells. Or Orson Wells describing a socio-political machine that was already in place when he wrote the book. Which happened to coincide with some ideas today.

Ah, remember when screen savers were a thing that didn't waste energy and computer monitor life?

Look at something like "Steam Punk" which is a dedicated genre of science fiction to yesterday's future today. Which serves to bring those fantasies to the modern day, and you can see just how far off our ideas actually were.

Sometimes not far off, other times, *very far off*.

Cyberpunk is the genre that describes today's socio-political machine with the same premise as yesterday's steampunk. Today's future, right now. And in a few years time, some of those ideas are gonna look pretty stupid. And there's gonna be some new form of discopunk or something that idolizes the lost future of today.

The question you are being asked is "What Exactly does AI do?" And the buzzword of the day is "AGI". I hate to tell you, we've had AGI. We've had it for decades. Maybe even centuries of you ask sociologists and data scientists.

Search engines like Google are a form of AI. They collect a bunch of data together, so you can ask Google to return some resources about a topic.

One of those is Wikipedia, a bunch of those are trash-ads. And a bunch more are other resources and descriptions by other people. Sorted by theoretical relevance. (They say if you ever go past the 3rd Google page, you've gone too far, but I find--on some research projects; you need to go deeper. Because the topical things replace the most relevant things.

And that's the exact same thing that happens with ChatGPT today.

Instead of giving you the resources it used, it just compiles them together. Usually stopping at the Wikipedia entry. And oftentimes rambling auto-complete, usuallly like "type 'women are' and then have auto-complete complete the sentence."

"women are women and women are women and women are women and women are women and women" - my phones auto-complete. Which sounds suspiciously like queer Twitter...

AGI isn't exactly far off from early video game AI enemy bots. Or Animal Crossing NPC behaviors. You give it a task, say "accomplish this goal in this way as quickly as possible" and it fails at that until it figures a way to fail successfully.

Sometimes, it's better than a human. It most often isn't, because the parameters humans give it are shit.

"Needs more Buckets"

If you say "okay track mania and finish this course as fast as possible" it'll map a pretty solid route. If you tell it play Super Mario World, for some reason... It sucks at that. Really bad.

I know why; it's because the parameters are "Go forward until you reach the end. Press jump sometimes" which could definitely be improved if the AI had a way to understand what those buttons did, and a way to understand what it was seeing on a screen.

You ever blindfold a friend and try to dictate commands to them so they can play Super Mario blinfolded?

As any 90s Mom will tell you though; Video Games don't translate into real life. You need better parameters for that.

AI also can't create anything new. It can solve problems that humans haven't been able to solve, or to come up with recipes that haven't been tried before that might be better than what we're already doing.

It can be incredibly precise.

It also can't make entertainment that hasn't already been made. If you think Simpsons has been going on long enough, just imagine it running forever with AI writers.

I'm sure the neverending Seinfeld channel already burned a lot of watchers out on AI-Media.

What is AI good for? What is it Used for? Learning models aren't new, but they are faster and easier to use on cheap tech. Even still, like the industrial revolution, and every technological advancement, it just makes monotony easy and quicker to do.

That's it.

And I hate to say it; the people currently using the AGI buzzword... Don't know how to give it parameters, and they don't know how to make it productive, other than for it to write essays like a high schooler: Copy it from Wikipedia, and change some things so it's not obvious.

That's also how you get around the plagiarism filters without trying too hard my guys. Don't even need to pay the $30 for ChatGPT.

The fact is; AI is dumb. All it is. All it ever was; is a search engine coupled with AutoHotkey.

The same two things your average hardcore gamer already knows like the back of their crumb filled keyboard.