Cyberpunk 2020 + 2300AD
- Thread starter ChalkLine
- Start date
I always had the soft spot for the cyberpunk milieu and I suspect many in GDW also did. Afterall, if they could not make a credible dark future, as there were too many fans whinning and saying that cyberpunk was not science fiction...they could keep the rosy future and just make Earth the cesspoll and point Referees & players alike to R. Talson & ICE's products.
For me, cyberpunk is a gritty reality that I loved to employ when things get tough on the frontier or at a certain TL development of a world that has tried to make the transition to a postindustrial economy but failed. I also believe that cyberpunk makes for excellent spaceport/starport encounters in the 2320AD universe.
With age, I have mellowed out, but still think one Sector should be exclusively cyberpunk, and as if the good folks at Signal GK had a mind time travelling device, they answered my thoughts...and boy what a milieux...
For me, cyberpunk is a gritty reality that I loved to employ when things get tough on the frontier or at a certain TL development of a world that has tried to make the transition to a postindustrial economy but failed. I also believe that cyberpunk makes for excellent spaceport/starport encounters in the 2320AD universe.
With age, I have mellowed out, but still think one Sector should be exclusively cyberpunk, and as if the good folks at Signal GK had a mind time travelling device, they answered my thoughts...and boy what a milieux...
I don't think that's a bad idea either.
I recently spotted an article in the original JTAS that offers a Computer Implant to characters, much like Transhuman Space's Virtual Interface Implant, which draws heavily from cyberpunk.
epicenter00
SOC-13
That's funny you say that. My view from the outside was that I always thought GDW didn't like cyberpunk. I think they saw it as a passing fad, but catered to it with 2300 in an effort to jump on the cyberpunk bandwagon that was really huge at the time in an effort to boost sales. The integration between 2300 and the cyberpunk genre was interesting, but I don't think it was wholly successful. Then they tried making their X-Files type RPG, Dark Conspiracy, but ruined that (imo) with everyone driving around weird retro 1950s cars with lots of hoses and the women dressing like marching band majorettes.
I always thought that 2300 attempt to become "vanilla" cyberpunk was pretty tragic, because 2300's background had huge possibilities to set it apart from other Cyberpunk settings. I once had an idea that basically followed the concept that off-world colonies was nationalism's last gasp.
I would move stutterwarp detection a bit back (or move the game start to 2200 or something and get rid of the Twilight War) - leaving more time for humanity to (overexploit) the solar system. Trapped in a single solar system, bound together by economics, it would follow the Cyberpunk credo of a "rotten civilization unable to fall." Corporations and other profit-pursuing entities would dominate humanity by this time, while nations to try and increase their collective bargaining power against the multinationals would have increasingly banded together into federations and unions, but whose power was clearly waining.
You enter into this stutterwarp. Suddenly, humanity is free the solar system, at least in theory. By this time the multinationals are secure in their de facto control of humanity - there's the "cyberpunks" who basically are a social pressure release valve - a place for the young and the firebrands to go but the corporations have learned by now that such groups don't play well together so will never be more than a small nuisance, but it keeps the masses happier, and the Darwinian social mechanism produces brilliant corporate scientists and leaders at times. The corporations frankly don't know what to make of stutterwarp. They don't like exploration because it's hugely expensive in the short term and the effects of off-world colonization is a factor that's going to rock their carefully arranged coalitions and partnerships to exploit humanity for the profit of a few.
While traditional cyberpunks are parasites - unable to survive away from leeching resources from the multinationals to develop their "black market" tech or raiding corporation databases for information and so on - stutterwarp appeals to a larger group of the disenfranchised. Skilled corporate workers in "first world" countries who find themselves outsourced of a job, middle-management who realize they'll never get ahead because anagathics and AIs don't age or retire, nationalists who don't like how their nation has sold their souls to the doling out of paychecks by the corporate overlords. These people pool together their resources and strike out from the Sol system to start again. Ironically, this means that most colonization is done by people from the (former) "western" world who have been marginalized by brilliant workers from the (former) third world who are willing to work for less.
The multinationals who control Earth by this time are content to worry and plan on Earth, finding that exploration is much easier to do when people like that are willing to do it for you. Some of the smaller companies, more agile in their thinking, are funding their own colonies. The more successful groups that rise up from such colonization they attempt to buy-out and co-opt into their corporations and the more hospitable colony worlds are increasingly corporate controlled. But there's still a wide universe out there of idealists, nationalists, religious separatists, and so on who just don't want to play ball. They're arming, making new nations out there, some of which want to eventually liberate their home countries from "corporate occupation."
Contacts with aliens is equally different in such a universe.
The Ebers are a sideshow. There is a low-level war between the thinly stretched power of the multinationals on one side and the Ebers and human partisans on the other trying to prevent the Ebers from being exploited.
There is no "Slaver War" - the leading power of the Sung allies itself with a corporate power bloc, while other corporate blocs ally themselves with lesser Sung powers. Without the moderating effects of "common humanity" on Earth, the corporations have driven the Sung to a brutal civil war on their planet, killing millions if not billions of Sung. However, the Sung don't bear a grudge towards humanity since humanity is doing its part in helping the Sung technologically (technical advisors, weapons designs, and so on are all being shared by corporate supporters) - the Xiang remain slaves of the Sung.
The Pentapods have social problems of their own. Humanity (badly) mirrors their own existence. Individualistic "Bullets" being set out to the frontier to explore and develop to reap the rewards for the "gods" (corporations) back home. The Pentapods aren't blind, however, and their "bullets" are seeing how humanity's "bullets" don't get along with their "gods" and this has caused rifts in the Pentapod race as Pentapods are wondering exactly why they're doing this for their gods. For the now, their "gods" have withdrawn from their exploration "bullets" to prevent further meme-contamination, leaving the exploration "bullets" time to develop on their own. This has little hope of ending happily, however, and its said that the gods are developing new genetic and chemical methods of enforcing servitude.
The Kafers are the wildcard. Finally, there is the force that can bring down the "rotten" society of mankind. The barbarian tribes at the gate and they're sweeping all resistance before them so far - the powerful battlefleets of traditional 2300 don't exist - navies are expensive and unprofitable and customs cutters and bulk freighters are a poor match against Kafer Alpha and Delta battleships. So far, humanity's response has been haphazard. Sometimes resistance is vicious, othertimes laughably disorganized. Indeed, the Kafers haven't conquered humanity yet because they're encountering the Ylii problem - it's often more fun to fight each other than humans. The corporations have repeatedly sent emissaries to the Kafers in the hopes of creating a "profiting sharing" arrangement to utilize Kafer muscle to keep humans in line while offering Kafers "smart drugs." Fortunately (or unfortunately) Kafer intransigence has led such efforts to fail. Entire worlds along the "French" arm are dead or conquered by the Kafers. Kimanjano and BCV fell when corporate militaries pulled out when accounting AIs computed the lack of profitability and waste of corporate resources could not be recouped and the Kafers are learning that targetting corporate industrial facilities from orbit is the best way of making the more effective human forces withdraw. Back on Earth, the corporates AI cores and anagathic executive boards shudder, washing away the unpleasant thoughts with software revisions, ever more complex artifical realities, tailored recreational drugs, and parties. They enforce a strict "business as usual" regime on Earth while they "explore solutions" to the "Kafer Issue" - one that doesn't involve too much loss of profit and loss of market share to other companies. Meanwhile, middle-upper management has to deal with the fallout, and there's hope for humanity in that as these managers are now putting their heads together within corporations and even across corporations. They realize the fossilized leadership is only going to react when the aliens get to Alpha Centauri, but by then it'll be too late. Far too late. Unfortunately, such managers are stuck in their positions precisely because they lack qualities such as initiative and leadership to rise higher (or jump ship for the frontier). So far, this is only grumbling over luncheons and in the gyms as that "someone" should do "something." With the tacit support of such corporation-controlling elements, however, leadership (perhaps even from the outside) could enact a violent change in control of the corporations giving humanity a chance to resist the Kafers before it's too late, but will that happen?
Last edited:
Epicentre, I've never said this online, but that post has changed how I see a roleplaying world.
I only have one problem, and that's that the Kaefers are easy to beat militarily.
Humans are smart, it's our defining characteristic. It'll take them about a month to work out the kaefer psychology and exploit it. Humans don't like to get hurt, and they hate big casualty lists, so their entire military technology has evolved to avoid getting bitten. Kaefers, however, need to get hurt, scared or threatened.
In the Cyberpunk millieu drone warfare is the big thing. Swarms of nasty little drones; some with sensors, some with guns, some with explosives.
Humans feel threatened unless they win the intelligence war, and prefer not to fight otherwise whereas Kaefers are consumate improvisors. It is the Human forethought that kills them over and over.
Vignette 1;
The Auroran Hotback. Light medium to dim. Wind low.
Twenty kaefers amble into a defile in a mass. Up in space a starship or satellite detects them and via microwave alerts a nearby drone swarm. Tiny legged, wheeled and hovering drones start to congregate on the area. Firstly the sensor drones form a perimeter and transmit back to the relay drones the tactical picture. The human controllers assess the threat and start to assign drone squads battle commands with AI help. The kaefers slow for the terrain and suddenly the defile erupts with explosives, lasers and heat seeking micromissiles. There is a lull and the kaefers get smart, but the AI has already withdrawn the drones. The kaefers are ready to counterattack when a precision guuided munition impacts on the defile from orbit . . .
Vignette 2;
An Australian ADF frigate on patrol under the umbrella of a US strike group detects a distress signal insystem. A cargo ship is being obliterated by a kaefer delta. AI and human experience show that the kaefer ship, stimulated by battle, has a 95% probability of already 'going frankenstein' and entered the combat mind phase. The frigate immediately sends a warp courier and a laser message to the US strike group for assistance and throws two 'bricks' at the kaefer delta.
These 'bricks' are huge armoured drones, run by an AI for tactical flexibility and using laser comms to the mother ship (which they may dwarf) for strategic interoperability. The huge armoured behemoths warp towards the kaefer, ready to play the armour vs armour slugfest game while the ADF frigate launches missiles and evades away from the battle. Dedicated ECM and ECCM drones and sentinels play hell with kaefer (actually Ylii) sensors. Armoured missiles ('half-bricks') have the survivability to drop submunition detonation lasers. The ADF frigate, light and poorly armoured, remains the speed and distance to evade away until the rest of its unit arrives.
Most importantly, the ADF frigate is not perceived as an immediate threat, the bricks are (and are a threat). Humans, with their alien -to a kaefer - reluctance to experience fear and threat have created an unwinnable battle even when they are native in the scenario.
I only have one problem, and that's that the Kaefers are easy to beat militarily.
Humans are smart, it's our defining characteristic. It'll take them about a month to work out the kaefer psychology and exploit it. Humans don't like to get hurt, and they hate big casualty lists, so their entire military technology has evolved to avoid getting bitten. Kaefers, however, need to get hurt, scared or threatened.
In the Cyberpunk millieu drone warfare is the big thing. Swarms of nasty little drones; some with sensors, some with guns, some with explosives.
Humans feel threatened unless they win the intelligence war, and prefer not to fight otherwise whereas Kaefers are consumate improvisors. It is the Human forethought that kills them over and over.
Vignette 1;
The Auroran Hotback. Light medium to dim. Wind low.
Twenty kaefers amble into a defile in a mass. Up in space a starship or satellite detects them and via microwave alerts a nearby drone swarm. Tiny legged, wheeled and hovering drones start to congregate on the area. Firstly the sensor drones form a perimeter and transmit back to the relay drones the tactical picture. The human controllers assess the threat and start to assign drone squads battle commands with AI help. The kaefers slow for the terrain and suddenly the defile erupts with explosives, lasers and heat seeking micromissiles. There is a lull and the kaefers get smart, but the AI has already withdrawn the drones. The kaefers are ready to counterattack when a precision guuided munition impacts on the defile from orbit . . .
Vignette 2;
An Australian ADF frigate on patrol under the umbrella of a US strike group detects a distress signal insystem. A cargo ship is being obliterated by a kaefer delta. AI and human experience show that the kaefer ship, stimulated by battle, has a 95% probability of already 'going frankenstein' and entered the combat mind phase. The frigate immediately sends a warp courier and a laser message to the US strike group for assistance and throws two 'bricks' at the kaefer delta.
These 'bricks' are huge armoured drones, run by an AI for tactical flexibility and using laser comms to the mother ship (which they may dwarf) for strategic interoperability. The huge armoured behemoths warp towards the kaefer, ready to play the armour vs armour slugfest game while the ADF frigate launches missiles and evades away from the battle. Dedicated ECM and ECCM drones and sentinels play hell with kaefer (actually Ylii) sensors. Armoured missiles ('half-bricks') have the survivability to drop submunition detonation lasers. The ADF frigate, light and poorly armoured, remains the speed and distance to evade away until the rest of its unit arrives.
Most importantly, the ADF frigate is not perceived as an immediate threat, the bricks are (and are a threat). Humans, with their alien -to a kaefer - reluctance to experience fear and threat have created an unwinnable battle even when they are native in the scenario.
Well, GDW was a product of the marketplace. I am sure that there might be some old gognards who did not make peace with cyberpunk until very late (heck, re-read neuromancer today and it tame compared to the transhumanist science fiction out there now). Sure, 2300AD started off as something different and their attempt at vanilla was flawed but they could not just junk the whole milieu and start again.
I would have said by Cadilacs & Dinosaurs they had made their piece with cyberpunk. I find your conclusions very interesting...but 2300AD is a game that I collected but never really could get anyone to play. If anything, I really like Traveller 2300AD, as it had a hard SF feel and its grit came from the Cold Equations of actual survival. But, where there is proof of GDW change is in the pages of Challenge, as it sought to make a darker and dark Traveller (and their other games - although, it is hard to call T2000, a light game). This was not in just serving the market but also just going where the fan base is.
Whilst, cyberpunks may have thought they invented a totally new SF. Many of the ideas are as old as Science Fiction, itself. What cyberpunk did well was convey the noir which up to that point had been in the shadows now it was part of mise-en-scène.
I would have said by Cadilacs & Dinosaurs they had made their piece with cyberpunk. I find your conclusions very interesting...but 2300AD is a game that I collected but never really could get anyone to play. If anything, I really like Traveller 2300AD, as it had a hard SF feel and its grit came from the Cold Equations of actual survival. But, where there is proof of GDW change is in the pages of Challenge, as it sought to make a darker and dark Traveller (and their other games - although, it is hard to call T2000, a light game). This was not in just serving the market but also just going where the fan base is.
Whilst, cyberpunks may have thought they invented a totally new SF. Many of the ideas are as old as Science Fiction, itself. What cyberpunk did well was convey the noir which up to that point had been in the shadows now it was part of mise-en-scène.
So how did that work out for them?
I think the 90s went way overboard with the noir. Some, like any spice, is good. A diet of nothing but is... bland.
Just MHO
epicenter00
SOC-13
Following on to some thread necromancy, but hey, this section of the boards have been slow for a while now, so I don't consider it a sin.
Indeed, how you describe it would be how humans could seriously maul the Kafers. Really attacks by "stealth" weapons would pretty much turn the Kafers from a deadly threat into an annoyance like malaria - deadly if the social and political will doesn't exist to eradicate it (Africa), but otherwise little more than a nuisance (Malaysia).
However, in the Cyberpunk version of 2300, nobody would be doing this. Creating such a military is hugely expensive and nobody wants to plunge money into making some sort of military without assurance that everyone else is shouldering an equal burden. After all, it only takes one company or bloc to hold back while everyone else sacrifices for that bloc to come out ahead. Unlike in the past war is not good for business. The Kafers are pretty much punishing speculation and nothing that is hugely profitable for the corporations are being lost on the Frontier - the money's still to be made on the Core worlds where everything is divided up and carefully regulated. If the corporations could pull together, yes, it would be exactly as you describe. Kafers would die by the thousands, if not millions or billions, without ever seeing a human being.
