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View Full Version : Cyberpunk timeline - need input



logan9a
2007-09-24, 12:40 PM
What I’m looking for - more interesting events that lead the world up to a cyber punk time line. I’m not looking for complicated stuff - I’m going more for adventure rather than science. If anyone has any ideas that can go into here I’m interested. Movie references are good, perhaps even links to useful web sites. (Note - I claim no credit for any of this stuff - I’ve been going around collecting it from various sources to try to flesh out the campaign timeline.) I’m wanting to get this well developed because it is my intention to have the players live through it rather than just presenting it as ‘history’.

TIMELINE FOR MODERN DAY CAMPAIGN

2010: Social security doesn’t pay ANYONE enough to live on.

2010: National ID card (has tracer chips in it, without card cannot get into government buildings, board airlines, etc.). Finger prints, retina scan, etc are in there. (These become known as SIN - Social Identity Number aka Serial Identity Number etc) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID

2011: CHOOH2 (alternative to gas) developed by the company Biotechnia.

2012: As the US corporations have found it much more ‘cost effective’ to relocate their manufacturing overseas (or Mexico). Unemployment rampant. The same corporations that relocated their plants putting hundreds of thousands of workers out of jobs wonder why their US sales are down.

2013: TRC (transferred reflex conditioning) biologic interface chip developed in Munich, Germany.

2013: Arab fundamentalists blow up part of NY with a nuke. 300,000 die initially (half a million wounded, thousands missing), thousands more die eventually. Martial law declared in US. (This goes on for YEARS). Arabs stuck into modern concentration camps. [The complete disruption of social and economical structures, life-threatening conditions, raging epidemics, general unrest and a huge crater in the middle of downtown with the corpses of 300,000 people splattered in and about it would be a passable reason for anyone capable of moving to pack up and go, I think. And for the government to say, to hell with repairing this, we don't have that kind of money - if building a wall around it to keep good citizens out and undesirables in and turning it into a kind of no-return maximum security exile zone was significantly cheaper than rebuilding, a shortage of resources (such as would result from the assumed economical depression) could make it seem a rather inviting option. - from Max]

2013: Nulls (no tracing chips, no ID cards) begin to make their appearance. At first, they are imprisoned. Eventually, it becomes a passive resistance movement. Nomads also developed (many are nulls).

2015: Implanted chip - takes care of money, ID, etc. Needless to say, bone saws become more popular.

2015: Middle east has permanent troop encampments in it; needless to say the Arabs are doing lots of resistance fighting and such but the USA firmly holds on to the oil.

2016: US begins withdraw of military from countries in which no current combat is going on. Crime continues on the upswing (too many unemployed) in the US - troops begin to supplement the local police departments.

2016: Musical group “Cassilda’s Dance” begins recording. Gives adults recurring nightmares. Warning labels on it. Gives plus to Cthulhu Mythos skill and loss of SAN with every CD! Great stocking stuffers!

2016: Lots of unemployed and homeless - it is continuing to grow.

2016: Corporations begin to experiment on people under the guise of ‘free medical clinics’.

2017: Corporations begin training their own armies.

2017: Arabs nuke their own lands in order to get rid of the fuel sources OR they put in some sort of chemical thing that renders the oil useless. ‘Flame of Allah’ is an example of one of the dozen ‘terrorist’ groups that spring up.

2017: Rip Doc cyber phase. All cyberware is VERY iffy and runs on batteries.

2017: Chips implanted into people - (has tracer chips in it, without card cannot get into government buildings, board airlines, etc.). Finger prints, retina scan, etc are in there. As these are put into the right hand, certain religious groups having read Revelations get ready for the antichrist (some possible modules with this but the short answer is they are still suspecting the end after another hundred years).



2017: Baby boomers discover that when they remove some money (to live on) from their stocks that, when a lot of people do this all at once, that the price of the stock plummets. In a panic, the baby boomers (now senior citizens) attempt to withdraw their money from the ill conceived 401K system. As a result, several companies are heavily hit - some even collapse entirely and are absorbed by larger companies. More people become unemployed as they are dismissed from the newly acquired companies perpetuating the entire cycle. 401K is now regarded as a wild gamble.

I can see this on some level. However, I think it'd be more of an ID thing than a tracking thing. After all, if everyone has to get it then that means that the high-level corplords do, too, unless they're all foreign nationals, and I don't think they'd want to go to the extra trouble of having the tracking thing disabled. After all, the difference between a law that doesn't exist and a law that isn't enforced, is that it only takes one wrong situation to change an unenforced law into one that will bite you.

As an aside and another idea - the creation of a supercorporate state. That is to say, a remote island (Mauritius? Galapagos? The Canaries? One of the Hawai'ians? Maybe even a space station?) that is set up as a corporate super-haven, much like Delaware is in our country. Corporations around the world move to relocate there, all their executives become citizens there, and even though their taxes are teeny-tiny, it all goes to the creation of a massive defense force that ensures the mutual corporate sovereignty? (Of course, while anything goes in the rest of the world, on the island nobody carries a gun or breaks the peace.) I like the island idea better than a space station because an island is a lot easier to defend - imagine an island the size of Massachusetts with a giant fleet of aircraft carriers.

Arcologies would be prevelant, but what I mean is, imagine an island that is its own country. It is specially set up, in its own constitution, that it is a haven for corporations - its taxes are very low and it places very few legal requirements on the corporations there. And because all the corporations are there, this little country has a lot of power, to the point where it has a massive military, can extradite its citizens, and is probably a member of the Security Council. America may well have a law that says you have to have these ID chips if you are a citizen, but all the executives are citizens of Corponia, which has no such law.

Rather than allowing corporations to have their own territories - an idea that I've always considered really dodgy - the corporations have instead banded together to subsidize a real country, with a flag and an anthem and a postal service and everything. Their support has made this little country a juggernaut on the world stage, and within its borders they completely - and mutually, because corporations are pragmatic and can work together if they have to - make the law.

2018: First appearance of trauma teams. Due to the difficulty of getting people to pay, it is required to have money on account. Trauma teams are armed and, if you have enough money on account, they might wade in to extract you from combat.

2018: US troops withdraw from Arabic places. Arabs hate the US forever and ever. Possibly future bombings and reprisals for next hundred years.

2018: Lots of new diseases break out - government suspects the Arabs; it could be them or the corporations exploring new possibilities, etc.

2018: Huge droughts in the ‘bread basket’ of America. People begin to call it the ‘greater depression’. American food exports end. Food riots begin. Crime setting new records.

2018: Huge corporations (mega-corps) continue to suck up the little guy.

2018: Abandoned or partially abandoned cities with inadequate police protection become ‘Combat Zones’. Police work more on containment than law enforcement with them.

2018: Matrix 1.0 (new internet) released. Company ‘Thompson’ (see also Thompson Eyephones) wants to ‘steal away’ the head developer (possible kidnap/extraction module).

2018: Thompson Eyephones (ala Johnny Mnemonic) comes out. Using cobbled together eyephones, gloves and mats, visual surfing gets under way.

2018: Social security announced a total failure and abolished.

2019: The Federal Weapons Statute is established. Firearms may now be carried openly for ‘protection of self and property’. Crime falls by 30% within the year. The corporations (who lobbied for this bill) immediately arm their troops to the teeth.

2019: Massive firestorms rage over the ‘bread basket’ of the US destroying lots of crops and grasslands. This causes a LOT of religious nuts to pop up. The end is near!

2019: Space stations; we need a good reason for those to pop up - maybe we finally got a signal from a different galaxy and people want to go explore it in hopes of profit?

Fusion power exists. It doesn't create free electricity for all, but it's certainly an improvement. Plain old distilled water is fine for ordinary uses, but if you want to make these things portable, you need He3 - found primarily on the moon and in the upper atmosphere of the gas giants. In any case, the refined product is much heavier than the base, so you want to do it in zero-gravity for easy transportation. Space stations around Earth begin as giant factories and evolve from there as more and more industries - use your imagination - require zero-gravity to work effectively. - Jaochai

2020: Lawyer purge? End of stupid suing?

2020: Texas secedes from US? “Free state”?

2020: Military cyber phase begins - the military begins to cyber up the troops. It is a trade off - if you get cybered, you are theirs until they decide they no longer need you.

2020: ADVENTURE: EDGE ON

2020: Lots of food rioting. Elderly die off in droves. Government begins to break down.

2020: Fleeing radiation, war, famine, economic and industrial failure causes several ‘ghost towns’ to spring up. Some are havens for gangs and criminals, others are testing grounds for corporations.

2020: More religious nuts; many are highly agitated that the world has not yet ended and begin to take steps toward bringing that around.

2021: Alaska attempts to secede from the US but the US wants that oil so they send in troops to keep it.

2021: The framework for the new (visual) internet is now firmly in place (WorldSat Network)

2021: ADVENTURE CRASHPOINT

2021: First appearance of the Wasting Plague in Greece. It spreads.

2021: Most nomads (and lots of other people) are Zero’s or ‘SINless’. They are tolerated as cheap labor.

2022: Bioplagues.

2022: New tech: EMP proof chip.
2022: New tech: Level 2 wired reflexes.

2024: First corporate war; EMB vs Transworld Air and Orbital. See also ‘Solo of Fortune’ page 51.

2025: CyberModem invented. This requires an isolation tank and room sized equipment. Most using it fry or go insane - 1 in 10 chance of survival.

No, no, no. If it's dangerous then nobody will do it, and if only one company produces the correct modem then that creates an inter-corporate monopoly, which would be bad. We want several equally-matched corporations.

2025: More work on cloning goes on.

2025: ‘Medicine’ Cyber Phase.

2025: Elections found to be rigged - like Florida back in the 2000’s but this time the citizens (already unemployed, hungry and desperate) freak out and riot. The US government wanes in strength to that of a corporation.

2017: Tycho makes a neat space station. ???

2026: Stage three human clones that only live for six hours.

2026: EEC scientists begin secret work on “Operation Green Man” to create a human fit to colonize mars.

2026: Full cyberlimbs are now in use standard with US Military forces.

2026: Government martial law repealed except for around government facilities as they don’t have the resources to keep it up. End of tyrannical rule.

2027: Braindance developed at UC Santa Cruz. “Dreamtime” = Jail time in Braindance. “Brain Potato” = Braindance addict.

2027: Cyber modems improve - up to one in six chance of living.

2028: Space war.

2028: Second corporate war. Antarctic module?

2028: Braindance disc starts up but still too expensive for market penetration.

2029: Main cyberware phase.

2029: Adventure: Nightsider

2029: Adventure: Greenwar (for corporate intrigue)

2029: Adventure: Shadows of the underworld

2029: Adventure: One stage before.

2029: First braindance/simsense megahit ‘Free Fall’ sells millions.

2030: Food riots (lots of people die)

2030: Module: Northwest passage

2030: Module: All fall down

2031: Crystal Palace (space station) completed.

2031: Adventure: Divided Assets

2031: Adventure: Vat Job and A Star is Dead from Shadowland book.

2031: Level 3 wired reflexes are invented.

2032: Module: Ivy and Chrome

2032: Module: Dark Angel

2032: “Operation Green Man” uncovered by the public. They make a big show of shutting it down but keep going in secret.

2033: First true AI developed at MicroTech’s Pasadena facility.

2033: Specialized cyber phase.

2033: Adventure: Near orbit - start on page 46.

2033: Stage four cloned limbs are perfected, but the techniques are inadequate for the creation of the self-viable human clones, as the drugs used to accelerate growth create non-functional brains.

2033: Memory drives are developed. Capability to record memories into digital format. (Smuggling files like the movie ‘Johnny Mnemonic’).

I would replace this with the invention of the head-computer. The ability to record memories as data would appear as soon as the 2-way BCI appears. It's the head-computer - where you actually have a silicon microprocessor inside your head - that would be the important advancement here.

BCI is my generic term for datajack, cybermodem link, whatever - it's a wire that goes between your head and a computer. The obvious use would be in visual programming - like I said, if you could create an operator just by imagining it, have it come in the form of a shape, and be able to arrange it geometrically with the other operators and lines of code, that'd be hundreds of times easier than what we're doing nowadays. The programming - using this interface to make programs for people who don't necessarily have it - would be the first step, but once people found a lot of ways to work with it they'd start using it for other internet stuff, like playing games and looking at porn. But the practical comes first.

One thing that cyberpunk usually glosses over is that a datajack, for example, is really two pieces of technology - one that carries information from your brain into the computer (to control a mouse cursor or a machine), and one that carries information from the computer into your brain (to make up for blindness). Right now, we have both of them, but not in one unified package.

One more thing about cyberwear. Evne though this doesn't necessarily work in real life, here's a kind of system that can simulate a 'too much cyberwear' mechanic.

In addition to its other effects, every kind of cyberwear has a 'Body Stress' rating. This represents the fact that the human body is designed to reject foreign implants. As you put more stuff into your body, you have two options - you can build up scar tissue and gradually dampen the effectiveness of your implants, or you can take anti-rejection drugs that kill your immune system. For small stuff, like some grafted muscle or a cyber-melee weapon, all you need is very doses of Dampen-o to keep your machines from locking up, but for more intense stuff like an armored torso or boosted reflexes, you could need lots of it. Some cyberwear has a 'neural stress' rating, which simply reflects the fact that adjusting the physical geography inside your head will eventually cause behavioral and psychological disorders.

2034: Adventures: Night City Stories.

2034: Adventures: Necrology.

2034: Adventure: Tales of the Forelorn Hope.

2035: Adventure: Media Junkie (1&2)

2035: Adventure: Double Exposure.

2035: Nanotech.

2036: Adventure: Harlequin’s Back

2036: New Tech: Cloning advancements combined with modern cyberware to power itself off of the natural electric fields of human bodies.

2037: Mission to colonize mars departs.

2037: Several biodomes are made by people who think humans will blow themselves up, etc. These can later be used in “Logan’s Run” or “Paranoia” or whatever. These people are extremely isolationistic and violent toward those who want to invade their privacy.

2038: Fairly reliable cyber modems - one in two chance of living - still huge but getting smaller.

2038: New tech: ICE systems put in place to protect cyberspace network.

2038: First (preemptive) laws to prohibit cloning passed in Europe - these are called the 7th day laws (see the movie Sixth Day for details).

2039: Mars mission reaches Mars.

2040: New Tech: Move by wire.

2040: Cyber foot ball played - hideously violent sport.

2040: They make a fully human clone, people want to destroy it but it escapes.

2040: Adventure: Land of the Free

2041: Mars base made. Tridium and Uridium discovered. This allows vehicles to hover. See movies ‘total recall’ and ‘fifth element’.

2041: Repet opens (see movie Sixth Day).

2042: Massive mining on mars.

2043: Weird alien crap found on Mars - hushed up by the government (do something different than the ‘Total Recall’ plot.

2044: First true hover vehicles finally emerge.
2044: New tech: Chip skills.

2047: Cyber decks down to keyboard size.

Shadowrun has taught us that cyberdecks are keyboards, but I don't accept that. If you ask me, they'd be briefcases with a handful of switches on the outside.

2047: Cloning of human limbs only takes a few hours instead of days.

2048: Cyberspace reaches maturity.

2049: Neural interface become somewhat commonplace.

2061: Hover vehicles common (see movie: Fifth Element)


On other countries as of 2007:

Latin America America. The staple Cyberpunk imagery is that of glittering skyscrapers surrounded by slums, right? Go to Mexico City, Sao Paulo, or any number of other Brazilian super-cities (Rio, Brasilia, Salvador), and you'll see it - the Torre Latinoamericana is in walking distance from some of the worst concrete-slab project housing I've ever seen. I once heard somebody say that Mexico City is perfect for these kinds of things. (In other parts of South America, you get genuine shanty-towns where people live in shacks. Shacks are not cyberpunk. Concrete slab is cyberpunk.) Brazil and Mexico both have perhaps the highest wealth disparities in the world.

You wouldn't expect this from Africa, but it has three enormous cities. The largest and most squalid of them, of course, is Lagos. Lagos is huge, dense, populous, and impoverished, and is of course a great time. Kinshasa, off in the DR Congo, is another good city for the same reasons, and it has another one going for it - it is right across the river from Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. The two nations are not exactly on the best terms, and only the Congo River - which is swimmable - separates them. The largest city on the continent is Cairo, which is also the largest predominantly-Arabic city in the world. Cairo is another excellent cyberpunk city, especially as that skyscraper-slum contrast is further highlighted by the presence of ancient monuments. (there are actually very few pre-Roman monuments in Cairo itself, but there are tons of Islamic ones, including what is arguably the center of the Islamic intellectual world - Al-Azhar university.)

China's pretty bad, too, however much I love the place. Beijing and Shanghai are one thing, but once you leave the tourist spots you find more and more gargantuan slums. You find entire slum cities, built around factories or mines. The problem with cyberpunk in China is that the Communist Party of China has climbed into bed with most of the big corporations. It's not a question of the corporations being a law unto themselves as much as the government and the businesses being controlled by people who are really part of the former. Thus, they represent a much more omnipotent threat to would-be cyberpunk protagonists than, say, Cyberpunk IBM. They also happen to be the mind, honor, and conscience of our epoch.

In Southeast Asia, you find Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, and Kuala Lumpur as the most crowded and polluted cities around. (Phnom Penh is not cyberpunk. I love it, though.) If you want to go even further south, you can get to the entire island of Java, in Indonesia - set up basically as one giant city, which Wikipedia tells me has 124 million people on it. While Vietnam still exerts a good deal of political control over its businesses, Thailand and Malaysia are capitalist paradises, with all that entails.

The cyberpunk capital of the world, at least in my approximation, has got to be somewhere in India. India is home to Mumbai, which is far and away the most densely populated city in the world. The country is home not only to extensive agriculture, mining, and fossil fuels, but also to a developed (and fast-growing) high-tech sector. Don't think I'm evangelizing the place, though - most people are dirt-poor, some people are very rich, and while the government is very strict with ordinary people, bribery and corruption are endemic. Unlike their comrades to the northeast, in India people still routinely starve to death. The only potential problem with India, as I said way back up in the section on Latin America, is that concrete slab housing projects are cyberpunk; shanty-towns with wooden walls and tin roofs, no matter how many of them there are or how tightly people are crammed into them, simply aren't very cyberpunk.