The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

Dismissing their concerns and deriding their comprehension of what they've seen of the game ("you can't seriously think") is not the way to go about it.

A lot of transhumanism stuff has echoes in the real world, a lot of it to do with body modification that us trans folk get to deal with.

If you're looking forward to the game, that's fine, but you're being incredibly rude about Delta's very real and valid complaints with the game.

...that the original Tabletop RPG, Cyberpunk, is rife with the concept of human cybernetic rnhancement. The idea of engancing your body with technology is the whole goddam point of the cyberpunk genre, dating back to William Gibson’s excellent novel ‘The Neuromancer’. You can’t seriously think that a cyberpunk game set in a sci-fi future would use a staple concept of the genre as a ‘thinly-veiled’ attack against trans people? I mean, it’s like saying you can have a space-opera game without aliens, spacecraft or science-fiction; a Sword-And-Sorcery tale withput swords, or other medieval set-dressing; a shooter game without any guns...it takes the life out of the genre. You might as well accuse the last two Deus Ex games as being attacks against victims of thr Aparthid in South Africa!

While I cannot (and will not) purport to understand what you’ve gone through; I can say that a lot of the things you mentioned purport to the concept of the technological singularity and the idea of transhumanism. The director - as I understand it- was reffering to cybernetic enhancements making her unclean in the eyes of people opposed to the singularity.

Queer person with an anxiety disorder here. Will avoid.

Have some Kryptonite and a Kryptonite Neutralizer!

To expand on the content warning: I'm going to quote some transphobic and misogynistic things people have said, and talk about how they're gateways to violence against people like me.

Hi, I'm a queer trans woman, and CD Projekt Red keeps saying things that worry me to the point that I'm solidly wary of both game and company.

The first thing I saw directly connected to CP2077 was this tweet, in which the official CP2077 account tweeted "Did you just assume their gender?!" in response to someone saying "I want more guys!" - which was pretty clearly intended to be read as "I want more content, guys!". "Did you just assume their gender?" is a transphobic meme, for reasons Dr Ashley Nova explains better than I can before coffee.

CDPR issued the usual non-apology ("Sorry to all those offended", "we didn't mean to", etc), and I want to say they fired the PR person who wrote the tweet (no sources on that one, I'm afraid), and that would have been that. Except...

Just about a year later (this month, in fact!), Adam Badowski, the game director on CP2077, had some hideous things to say about womens' bodies. While trying to defend a mission in which the player rescues a kidnapped woman, finding her naked, unconscious, and on ice, said director talked about how augmented bodies are profane, no longer sacred - and I directly quote, "She is not clean."

"She is not clean." Because she dared to change her body. Because she dared to use technology to live a better life.

"She is not clean" will quite possibly be on the lips of the person who beats me to death. For daring to change my body. For daring to use medicine (which is technology!) to live a better life.

The entire thought process there is utterly terrifying to me, because to say that only unchanged, unassisted bodies are sacred is to say that trans people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, anyone who dares use technology or medicine to make their bodies more comfortable and their lives better are profane - valueless, evil, and the deserving recipients of the violence we're already subject to.

The game reduces this woman to a literal object. She has no agency, she even has no awareness, she's completely exposed, and the player is invited to make a moral judgement on her - is she clean or unclean? Should she be rescued or not? Should the player inflict violence on her? The game's director has made it very clear that he intends this to be things the player has to think about, to debate the value of an augmented (read as: trans, or disabled, or...) person's existence.

And finally, the only trans person I've seen or heard of in the game thus far, is a hyper-sexualized in-game advertisement. Trans women are frequently hyper-sexualized in media - we're presented as these terrifying things who want to trick good innocent straight men into having sex with a person with a penis, to the point where our very existence is an active sexual threat. And that's very easy to read into the advertisement - it's presented without context, just a piece of set-dressing, "here, it's the transsexual menace!" thrown into peoples' faces once again.

As of the E3 demo earlier this month, you cannot play a physically gender non-conforming character in Cyberpunk 2077. You must pick, apparently-cis man or apparently-cis woman. There has been no discussion of the nuances of living any other option, either on its own or in relationship to capitalism, technology, surveillance, or augmentation - the key themes of cyberpunk. The game's commentary on transness is scarily un-nuanced, with a trans body being displayed for shock value and an augmented body (thinly-veiled metaphor for transness or other minorities that use technology to adapt) being displayed for the player to judge as clean or unclean.

Unclean. I still can't get over that.

If it was just one of these incidents? Sure. We could talk about it, we could disassemble it, I could have faith in CDPR. But this stuff keeps happening - every time we see a hint of the culture there, of how they think about queer people or disabled people or women, it's horrifying. And we get the usual non-apology, and then it happens again. And again.

So. All that to say: I predict Cyberpunk 2077 will be Yet Another White Male Power Fantasy. It might even be good at that. But the themes they're using that comment on people like me, and the messages the average uncritical player will take away from the game about people like me, scare me.

It doesn't sound like a natural fit for a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (how would the plot accommodate more than one protagonist?), but it does sound interesting.

It reminds me a bit of Quantum Conundrum, notable for cross-dimensional puzzle shenanigans and extremely entertaining voice acting by John de Lancie. Oh, and it was directed by one of the people behind Portal, which makes total sense in retrospect. (Phobos played the game, I just watched.)

~Neshomeh

A couple days ago now, so I'm afraid my thoughts on it have faded, but I enjoyed it. The meeting of one canon's worldview with another is always fun, and Zaphoriel studiously trying to figure things out with little to no help from Faust is good stuff. I think the concept of little men living inside the electronic devices was mentioned to me at some point, and it's still very funny. Also the blue (or purple) smoke being a special atmosphere that keeps them alive. Don't let the blue smoke out, seriously! {X D

I hope these characters get to the Discworld and meet some camera imps and such down the road. ^_^

As for crit, I DO recall that there's one instance where Zaphoriel is referred to as Zaph toward the end, which struck me as odd since it only happens the once and I don't think the characters are on nickname basis yet.

Also, I'm not sure I follow the internal logic of when Faust is amused at Zaphoriel's discomfort and happy to increase it, and when he feels sorry for the other guy. Is it supposed to be essentially based on whim/mood?

~Neshomeh

(Inspired by playing far too much Wizard101 and Pirate101, and my quest to find games like them, naturally.)

The Big Bad, who plans to rewrite history or something like that, causes an accident with a time machine that sends the player character back in time. The PC visits different times and places in history, interacting with historical figures, fighting the Big Bad's minions, solving puzzles, and trying to repair their time machine so they can return home.

But that's not all. The PC has amnesia and doesn't remember anything about their life before the accident. As they try to protect the past from the Big Bad, they also uncover clues to their own past.

The game itself would be kind of an edutainment thing, i guess. Kids would learn history and (hopefully) have fun at the same time.

If I'm describing a game that already exists in some form, please let me know so I can play it.

And honestly we could use a couple earlier ones, since some agent backstories and hS's histories stretch back further.

But you won't find any missions published before 2002, since that's when TOS started.

Oh, and for big stuff, there's also the (woefully incomplete) History of the PPC, Part One. I started it, but never intended it as a one-person project, so if anyone wanted to chip in—flesh out existing entries, add stuff that's missing, or whatever—that would be really really awesome!

~Neshomeh

Because it's, you know, the Original Series. First in publication order by definition. {= )

After that, we DO know which were some of the first spin-offs thanks to Jay linking them in TOS chapter 13. Sadly, only six remain; gladly, they are collected here.

After THAT, I'd move on to anything that was listed on Miss Cam's site. The site is rehosted by hS, and a lot of those works have been rehosted since the list was made, but the links there should work if the spin-off still exists in any form.

After that...

Well, that's where it gets really tricky, because from mid-2005 until about 2008, stories were mainly collected on the original Complete List of PPC Fiction on LiveJournal, and I don't know if there's anyway to look back and see when things were added to it there. From December 2007 on (IIRC), we had the wiki (though Araeph continued to update the list on LJ for some time, too), so yeah: try the Year pages, like Ix said, and good luck! ^_^

~Neshomeh

I don't know if I'll ever have the time, but I would love a Wiki page that just lists and links every written PPC story ever, in chronological order. It gets tricky, though, because so many stories aren't really given an in-universe date, and the date of publishing doesn't necessarily apply. (For example, The Reorganisation takes place in 1998-1999, a couple years before the first installment of the Original Series was posted in 2001.)

So yeah, such a list might exist some decade, but not this decade. :(

—doctorlit, :(

It looks pretty neat, even though cyberpunk isn't really my style.

Honestly, I found Evangelion a bit weird when it came to mecha shows. I don't think I got past episode six or seven, although it's been a couple of years since my initial attempt. I do remember that the biological mechs (I'm unsure whether that cropped up in the first six episodes, or whether I did the naughty thing and just read spoilers at some point) were a idea that I didn't like, and still don't like. I mean, what's the point in dressing up these alien lifeforms as giant mecha if they aren't actually mechs? It's a cheap way of making a mech, and I will stick rigidly to my mechanical mecha. I mean, the same applies for biological starships (or in the case of Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan trilogy, airships). They're just weird, and I detest them.

So with CP2077 expected to release early next year, and with some considerable hype around the game, how are people here feeling about the game? I for one am excited, primarily because I played a bit of Cyberpunk back when I was in High School, and I enjoyed it. IIRC, I found myself a little annoyed that the rulebook didn't have very nice pictures of all the cool augmentations and weapons, and now that I look back, the game was a little crazy in that 90's way. Nowadays, I'm more into Shadowrun when it comes to sci-fi TTRPG's, but since it's CD Projekt Red doing the game, and since they're not owned by EA, I'm pretty excited for the game. The question is whether they'll deliver something that isn't just flashy garbage that looks well in a trailer, but fails to deliver on the goods.

Here is the first, dating back to 2004. There's probably a few missions that missed the list, but it's likely the most complete archive of missions by publish date. You can find the rest by searching for "year" on the Wiki.

Welcome back!

I forget that reading fan-fiction is mostly just browsing until you find something that interests you, I guess that most of the PPC fiction is no different in that regard.

Though it would be rather hard to make that list, as most of the early missions have been eaten up by the internet. Plus, it would be a fairly long read.

If I were you I’d just find what some interesting missions and go from there.

So I've poked around the wiki, and poked around the board, and I've poked some fella in the eye, but I can't seem to find a mention of a list of PPC Fiction put in real world chronological order by the original publish date.

I'm having a hankering to start reading missions, but i'd like to do it in order so i can keep everything straight between department heads, PPC emergencies / catastrophes, important agents, ect....

Is it a hopeless hope that this exists?

PS. I'm not new, I joined a few years back, but was never very active. With that in mind...Hello Everyone!

These episodes are titled "Rei I" and "Rei II." I guess we're going to learn something about her in this arc, so I'll have to stop calling her Listless Waif and start calling her Rei now. {= P

Spoilers start here.

We do, in fact, learn some things about Rei in this arc. Firstly that there is very little to know: she has no past that anyone knows about, including her. At one point she tells Shinji that she pilots her Eva, Unit 00, because it's her only connection to the world.

It shows, too. Shinji might be bad at peopling, but Rei is worse. She strikes me as being somewhere on the autism spectrum, actually. Her feelings aren't obvious on the surface, and she's aware that she doesn't know how to behave in certain situations. But that's getting ahead a bit.

We open episode 5 with a flashback to the start-up test with Unit 00 that left her so badly injured when we met her. She doesn't sync with her Eva as well as Shinji does with Unit 01, and when synchronization fails, Unit 00 flips out and starts trying to tear the place apart. It's okay, though, because Hard Bastard is there watching, and he stops the giant robot's fists with his face! {= D

Actually, we also learn something about Hard Bastard in these episodes: he is, in fact, capable of human emotion, and he seems to care about Rei a lot. When Unit 00 is finally subdued and the pilot capsule is ejected, blazingly overheated, he runs down and pries the hatch open with his bare hands, burning them in the process, to get Rei out.

And Rei seems to like him, too. His glasses fall off and break in the process. She keeps them, and carries them with her like a good luck charm. Rei slaps Shinji when he tells her of course he has no faith in his father's work, with a father like that. They smile when they talk to each other, these two characters who have not yet been shown to smile and rarely do so, ever.

Huh. So that's... huh.

Shiji, having observed them talking and smiling together, is just as extremely baffled by this as I am. It's a really brilliant scene, with no words required to get the point across. The show is good at this, when it doesn't go on forever.

Shinji is now curious about Rei, and so are his friends Tracksuit and Glasses Nerd. Tracksuit is more about ogling her, though, and Shinji isn't looking at her like that. He's just wondering why she's alone all the time.

Labcoat (who has an impact on the plot in this arc!) gives Shinji an excuse to go talk to her by giving him Rei's new NERV access card to deliver to her. Her apartment is in a crappy area, and she doesn't seem to bother with taking care of it, or even locking the door. I guess she has other priorities; can't blame her. Shinji gets no answer when he calls out to see if anyone is home, so he goes in, and we get an interesting scene of social awkwardness when she suddenly steps out of the shower.

Now, in a lot of animes, this would be purely for lulz and fanservice, but here, it's character development. We get the bit you'd expect, where all the awkward flailing on Shinji's part leads to the pair of them collapsing to the floor with him accidentally touching her breasts. Shinji is horribly embarrassed, but Rei doesn't seem to care or even get why she should. She goes about getting dressed, unbothered. Shinji can't resist peeking at her as she does, but it doesn't come off pervy, IMO--he's not drooling over her, it's just plain curiosity. I don't think Shinji has a sexuality that he is aware of, at least not yet. Rei certainly doesn't.

While Shinji is still not looking, she up and leaves for work. He follows her, and tries a few times to strike up a conversation without much success until he asks her why she's an Eva pilot. She asks him whether he has any faith at all in his father's work, see above for how that goes.

We end episode 5 with Shinji watching her interact with his father as they're loading into their capsules, and the stunned look on his face. Beautiful.

This time, our Angel attack mostly takes place in the second half of the arc, and this one is pretty different from the others. Rather than being a recognizable humanoid or animal-like shape, this one is a simple octahedron determined to DESTROY THEM WITH LASERS. It beats the crap out of Unit 01 without even trying, and Shinji can't shoot it back because of an extremely powerful energy shield. Shinji is nearly boiled alive in his capsule, but they get him out, and he's more or less okay.

They also succeed in loading Rei into Unit 00 and booting it up without any trouble.

This is good, because they need both pilots to pull off the insane plan that Irresponsible Woman comes up with in order to stop this Angel. First, they need an untested, extremely large positron cannon (IIRC, no promises) that they requisition from the armed forces. Then, they need to load it up with all the power from the entire country of Japan. Then, they need Shinji and Unit 01 to precisely aim this thing at the Angel, taking into account such details as the rotation of the fricking planet. And finally, they need Unit 00 to carry an enormous shield made of, like, an old stealth jet or something, I'm not totally sure of the technobabble—just in case he misses and the Angel tries to melt his face again.

Well, long story short, this actually works, and the day is saved. Rei does almost die again in the process, though, and this time it's Shinji who pries her out of her capsule with his bare hands. They have a moment, and it seems like they might become friends after all. Awww, socially awkward nerds in love, maybe eventually! ^_^

That's all I have to say about that. I really liked these two episodes, and I'm looking forward to more.

~Neshomeh

To add my two cents, I think Gestalts are somewhat distinct. Gestalts almost never assimilate, and they don't often breed new bodies, either. They only add new ones if some of the old ones die. They're very high on the composite side- either they have a few individuals, each of which is responsible for a certain task, or they have task groups responsible for different things. And they can be quite affected by their component parts.
They're one of my favorites mainly because I think the whole assimilation thing can make a hive-mind rather one-note. They're gonna getcha, and you'll either have to kill them or convince them to leave, and then they're kinda out of the picture. But a gestalt is capable of chilling out with other characters.
But then again, sometimes it's a great deal of fun to run from or try to negotiate with the spooky hive mind.
Most gestalts I've seen either treat the parts of the gestalt as lobes of the brain, which are slightly more vulnerable to damage, or as something like moods.
One of my favorite gestalts is Gavotte from Skin Horse, a webcomic I enjoy quite a bit. It also has plenty of other sorts of hive mind.
I also built a gestalt myself, though I've not written anything for them, with the gestalt "portions" acting almost like different moods. They kind of have the problem of being too human.
I guess that's the tension in a lot of sci-fi, that it's hard to interact with things that are meaningfully different from humans.
But speaking of fantasy- anyone know of any fantasy hive minds? I guess there are mind flayers from D&D...

I think that's a decent way to look at it, but I was more thinking, for cases like this, that there'd be a theoretical numerical ranking, with, let's say 0 being a pure Collective and a 10 being purely Scattered, and the Formic would be somewhere in between. If it comes down to whether or not they can contact a queen, I think they'd end up closer to the Scattered side of the scale.

Most of my writing these days is very short writing for the digital drawer, but I have a few bits and bobs I intend to do things with.

There's multiple LotR fanfics I'm going to publish when they're ready; one which might go up sooner rather than later deals with a famous lady and her somewhat mysterious sword (so mysterious, in fact, that Tolkien never outright says it's hers). Another is an exploration of how 'sex == marriage == reproduction' works when we know full well that gay people exist (don't worry, it's... mostly SFW).

On the original fiction side... hmm. I think I mostly burned myself out doing NaNo last(?) year, but I have things to come back to at some point. I also may or may not do something with the team of teen superheroes I'm presently illustrating; we shall have to see.

hS

... and apart from the fact that I discovered I only know a handful of hive minds (I've managed to chart a total of four, though there's more I just don't remember the details on), the big thing that popped through is that they're all coming up as Collectivist.

I think there's a big difference, though, between Borg (Star Trek) Collectivism, where their ability increases with how many other Borg they're in contact with, and Formic (Ender's Game) Collectivism, which I believe comes down to 'can they contact a queen'. Would the latter actually be Anchored-Scattered, and treat 'each member' in the Scattered definition as meaning 'each Queen'?

hS

I have some fiction ideas in my head but I haven't written drafts for them.

The closest thing I have to any non-PPC writing is a notepad file where I write comments for fanfic I read.