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For me, cyberpunk is all that is dark and gritty and messed up about our own world, only magnified, blackwashed, and fermented. It's a world where the rush of technology has gotten to the point that innovation becomes further invasive and oppressive. The media is inescapable, the corporations ply their wares and manipulate the consumer in any way possible. Information is so freely available that privacy becomes a desperately sought-after commodity.
They know who you are. They know what you eat. They know what you buy. They know where you took your last vacation. They know what color your kitchen is, and they'll offer you a product that will go just perfectly with your new toaster-oven. Worse yet, they'll sell that information to anyone who asks, ostensibly to "better serve your consumer needs." They're like a psychic-friends network gone horribly awry.
It's a world where corporations run everything that's profitable, leaving rotting hulks of national governments that preserve the bloated bureaucracy but emasculate the power of the masses. All the frustration, none of the control. Whom you vote for is pointless, because your quality of life won't change a whit; the prices of the food you eat is fixed (but cleverly so as to preserve the veneer of free market competition), the roads you drive on fall under corporate jurisdiction (Ares Heavy Construction and Mitsuhama-Komatsu could care less if you hit potholes on the highways they bought from the government and are charging you a toll to drive on) and even education has become suspect (who is *really* paying for little Johnny's textbook sims, and are they conditioning him to be a future model consumer?).
It's a world where the Awakening of magic and the emergence of metahumanity have created new levels of racism and classism. It's a world where the number of people with nothing is immense and the gap between rich and poor is painfully distinct. The middle class has shrunk considerably, and people fall into three categories: the rich in upper management, the drones in production, and those who fall between the cracks of a society that doesn't give a devil rat's ass about them. It's a society that is so stratified and obsessed with getting into the "upper deck" that it drives people to mercilessly exploit everything they might care about to get ahead. It's a society where faith is lacking, loyalty is fleeting, honesty is rare, and trust is virtually non-existent. It's a world where the first question on everyone's mind is, "what does this guy want from me?"
It's a place where dwindling natural resources have led to increased, often violent competition. Nations and cultures are destabilized as a matter of course, because in the turmoil of war and unrest there's profit to be had. Promises of power and privilege are whispered into the ears of petty would-be dictators by corporations who are in it for the almighty nuyen, and will just as soon sell out their pocket despots as soon as someone more pliant comes along.
It's business as usual. It's working 14-hour days for a shot at "getting ahead." It's all the convenience of modern household electronics putting you in instant touch with every type of consumer product imagineable. Buy! Buy! Buy! Because after all, who you are is determined by what you have, what car you drive, where you live. But the things you own end up owning you. It's a place where morals are less important in the grand scheme of survival.
It's a world where lethal plagues have reduced a population drastically, but massive forced population displacements have concentrated people in cities. People are brought closer, yet are forced to build up walls just retain some shred of sense of self.
It's a place where self image can be bought, sculpted in flesh and chrome and precision optics. Bodies are made and remade constantly, and appearance has become substance in and of itself. Body modification and "performance enhancement" are peddled to a cyber-conscientious populace conditioned almost from birth with feelings of inadequacy.
It's a society where depression has bred escapism. Any pleasure can be yours for the right price, and people will go to great lengths to plug in, turn on, and tune in to somebody else's carefully choreographed and scripted brainwaves just to let them forget the drudgery of their own lives. Recreational drug use and simsense addiction are par for the course, and are socially acceptable forms of "entertainment." You can be anyone and anything in your head, and motivation in the real world suffers accordingly.
And then there's you. Where do you fit in? Are you a predator, or are you just prey that thinks it's being clever? Are you mastering your own destiny, or are you just another pawn in some shapeless, formless, ruleless power struggle that you'll never be a player in and could never fully comprehend? Are you a force for the greater good, or has your idealism blinded you to what your actions are really accomplishing. Are you an avenging angel, or have you become death, the destroyer of worlds? Do you live by a code, or is your code one of survival above all else? Are you an individual or just another nameless, faceless number, a cog in the machine devoid of all personality or independent thought? Do you see the world for what it is, or do you buy into the whole neon and velvet candy coating provided for the entertainment of the docile masses?
Are you a hardened urban warrior in the spiritual sense? Are are you just more meat for the beast?
That's what Shadowrun is to me.
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