Cyberpunk Tendencies ― Storyteller's Crate
“Technology isn't rational; with luck, it's a runaway horse, foaming at the mouth, ready to throw itself off a cliff in desperation. Our problem is that culture's tied to that horse.”
― Martín Felipe Castagnet, Los cuerpos del verano
Introduction:
Welcome. Welcome to City 17.
You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centres. I thought so much of City 17 that I elected to establish my Administration here, in the Citadel so thoughtfully provided by Our Benefactors. I have been proud to call City 17 my home. And so, whether you are here to stay, or passing through on your way to parts unknown, welcome to City 17. It's safer here.
Today, I wanted to give way to one of the things that I wanted to write for a long while now, the concept and storytelling of Cyberpunk, I wanted to address many of the important aspects of what makes a cyberpunk story, cyberpunk, not only that, I wanted to address some of the artistic palette that makes up the Cyberpunk genre.
The roads to take in this utopic future to make it seem like such, in many ways, I wanted to touch upon the ambiance of a Cyberpunk story as well what I believe to be the heart of these stories. Something that is very important to the understanding of the cyberpunk, is a tendency to bring up the human nature, what is it, exactly to be human?
What is the soul, what makes somebody a human, among other things, but most importantly, it should be coupled together with a few rules of thumb that are not written but followed nonetheless in the creation of these stories, from Blade Runner to Halo's I Love Bees, and more these are things that are truly present and everlasting in these settings.
So, let's get not get ahead of ourselves and explain all of it in the introduction and let's start looking at these factors, without further delay, let's begin.
Act I A Dying World
One of these many aspects that I wanted to cover first is the ambience of such a story, from the official score soundtrack to the aesthetics of this kind of genre and universes, to me, however, Cyberpunk is a very specific manifestation of the low tech, anything such as the sheer style of Alien and Aliens, behaving as blocky, slow machines that still oozed and looked advanced enough to operate the systems of a ship, to the basic concept of a blocky chatterbox in I Love Bees with its analog dial sound and static that never guaranteed a clean communication port.
Cyberpunk is the lack of basic human necessities, lack of water, lack of food, lack of a clean area of housing, but with technology advanced enough that we do not really have to worry about the decaying environment around us, corruption, death, among other things, this is a sheer manifestation of the human nature to be selfish. To only care about oneself.
In layman's terms, as explained by the Cyberpunk article in Wikipedia: Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech" featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
Clunky Technology is Hyper Technological:
Well, let's start with addressing something that I will always hold as a true rule of thumb, the technology itself. I'm sure that for many the main aspects of Cyberpunk comes in the ways of neon lights, flashy tech and just holograms. But no, to me? To me, Cyberpunk is all about the modern technology taken to the next step. What would happen if we had the ability to have this technology today? How it would look and how it is not far off from reality.
From the Holograms of Blade Runner 2049 to the blocky computers that are just more cumbersome than they are helpful as well as the lack of a proper interface to work with but instead the crudest realisation of industrialism and simple aspects of technology and the User Interface design.
Technology has to be sophisticated but at the same time incredibly crude, blocky features, hard screens, round edges and just heavy, almost industrialised designs on everyday utilities. Navigation computers are just crude realisations of aerodynamic navs from today used in pilot HUDs, screens look straight out of the 90s or the 80s while also retaining the aspects of modern LCD in a blocky and crude setup, etc.
It's a fine line between futuristic and modern and in my opinion, more artists and writers should put plenty of attention towards their technology almost as much as they put in their worlds. - At least in my opinion, of course.
More Human than Human:
One of the many thematic concepts that are uttered either consciously or subconsciously by the mind when you think about the Cyberpunk genre, more so because more often than not it denotes that the artificial constructs - A.I., Androids, Replicant, Synthetics - are far more worthy of the title of being human than those who are actual humans.
How do they gain this kind of perception, however? By caring more, or seeming, like so. They build deep connections with those that are their current holders, relationships that sometimes build into platonic relationships of family, love, etc.
Many such examples come into mind when you think about the Cyberpunk genre; but whether or not their feelings are truly genuine is another topic altogether, however, such examples would be: Cortana, Joi, Rachael, Dorian, Poe, etc.
But, of course, with that humanity, comes evil as sometimes these constructs can become evil or are already evil.
A Lack of Life Insurance:
This is a predominant theme in a plethora of cyberpunk franchises, from new to old, life is almost insignificant in these universes. In a myriad of ways, they are insignificant. Being treated as part of a lower tier of being or even just residing in places that resemble a slum but in a hyper-futuristic and hyper-technological era.
Where either the status of these places or the weather itself being almost contaminated is one of the many main aspects of them. The poor are disregarded and criminals are treated on a shoot first never ask questions basis.
But no franchise illustrates this better than that of the Judge Dredd series, including the original movie of 1995 starring Silvester Stallone in a hyper-futuristic version of the Judge Dredd franchise that I would wager to say that is better than the 2012 version of Dredd. Although, both contain their own merits and high points.
Beyond this, to write a cyberpunk story, however. I would wager that this... Disregard for life is an integral part of the fiction. Why? Well, let me explain.
The Ironic Contradiction:
I call this an irony but, well, it makes complete sense. In innumerable ways, you can't show the importance of life without really... Taking it away. Something that is touched upon even in the Watchmen movie. - Even if it is a completely different genre and a completely different message, I believe this one line lines up perfectly with the philosophy that becomes of this genre.
Dan... Grow up - Your schoolboy heroics are redundant.
What have they achieved?
The ironic contradiction is that by taking such life, you begin to understand the meaning of it, the ulterior motive of the Cyberpunk genre lies in its motive to kill. To show that even in the harshest environments, life still prevails.
It allows us to understand or at the very least get a little bit closer to the true understanding of what it means to survive. What it means to lie to save humanity, what it means to create life and have that life die for us, what it means in all its splendour, to live. As well as the character of Rorschach, playing the role of our noir detective.
Techno-Noir:
One of my own favourite aspects of the Cyberpunk genre is that of the noir hints in many of the universes that call the genre a home. In one or more ways, this aspect is present in universes and franchises like Judge Dredd, Halo 3: ODST and of course the Blade Runner series.
I love the aspects of mystery and detectives, as well as the term that I once coined myself while writing one of these articles for the Halo Universe - Military Noir.
And well, in the end, we all know what happens to our fateful detectives. But there's always a meaning behind every action, a ulterior motive, from K's sacrifice to Rorschach's own sacrifice meeting his end at the face of a compromise he could not meet.
Act II Conclusions
Conclusion:
In a somewhat summarised conclusion, the Cyberpunk genre really captures something special out of most of the catalogue of storytelling - in my opinion - it fights with itself in the sheerest form of irony to prove a point; that in the most wretched places, in the harshest environments, we remain. That humanity - life itself - it remains.
Cyberpunk is not about the struggle but about the constant pursuit of meaning towards our still ongoing existence. Which is why so many of these storytelling tropes work so well within the confinements of this genre.
It’s why we continue to fight each other. It’s why we continue to struggle with our lives in the most wretched low life conditions despite having such high tech, and it is most definitively why we constantly seek the meaning of our humanity and the secrets of life. Something that even movies like Prometheus and Covenant tend to do well in how it seeks the meaning of life and the meaning of creation.
Why our creations rebel against us and why we continue to fight each other for land, creation and life. Cyberpunk in its sheerest form is the yearning for the meaning to our survival, the meaning of our lives in such a dystopian future where the lines are blurred and there’s only morality and ideology as well as a line that was blurred long ago between life and death.
If war is about profit, ideology and survival. The entire focus of the technological revelation and our cyberpunk tendencies is to find a meaning to our everlasting and overextended period of existence. As such we seek to destroy, control or change the order of life.
And we will continue to do so, for as long the land knows man, we will continue to crave the knowledge that we seek and we will relish on the land and ravage it if we have to.
Author's Notes:
And that my sons, brings this one to an end. Probably shorter than usual but I have been getting back on the saddle and it hasn't been kind to me, for the most part, I have been dealing with a lack of muse that could've killed me if it tried harder haha.
But I am around and still working, I have been focusing far more upon my work with Blender which I am sure many of you that follow me have been seeing on my twitter as I continue to drop hints and such about my work and how much I have been advancing with it. As I enjoy it, far too much.
I have even been questioning making my patreon up for an art kind of thing in between articles! Which I am sure you guys will let me know what you think. For now, I remain hard at work!
And I must thank all of you that have pledged to me in the past few months, you have no idea how much it means to me. I continue to try and reinvent my work in better ways and I have been toying with the idea of just jumping on to YouTube sometime soon!
And a new profile update is coming soon! I hope you guys like it as much as I do.
LuckyBois:
Robert ThanMuffin Nels Jones ULTRAMANZX
Buckaroos:
Ardent Prayer
Holy Bucko:
Jack Britton
Richie Hyatt
As always, stay safe, be on the lookout, and keep hunting boys and girls.
- HaruspexOfHell
