56 - Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Worldbuilding Roundtable

B01_07 - Edgerunners Roundtable === What does it mean to be human? At what point do we separate ourselves from the technology that binds us and the systems of control that subvert our very humanity. Entity yet? Another TV show adaptation of a video game done incredibly well to ask meaningful questions about the human condition, but how did they nail this setting? So well? Buckle up tombs. We're going to talk edge runners. Intros --- welcome to the WorldCraft Club. A show about developing wonderous fictional settings that will draw your audience back time and time again. I'm James, your host and today's episode is a little weird. You see we at the WorldCraft Club or exactly what we say on the tin. We're a club. There are lots of us back here on the worldbuilding discord and those folks have ideas and obsessions. One of those obsessions was cyber punk edge runners. The groundbreaking show that released on Netflix earlier this year, and many of us were already playing cyberpunk 2077. So we just kind of got lost in the show. There were spoiler led and rants aplenty. So I got a select group from our discord to join me in a panel discussion with these three questions. What is it that draws us into the cyberpunk setting? Where did edge runners knock it out of the park and where might we improve upon it? The goal here is to critically analyze this amazing show and take a key lessons back to our own work. Whether you're writing a novel or running your next killer TTRPG campaign. We want you to walk away from this a more confident and capable worldbuilder. Understand that this is a very trimmed down version. The conversation itself was an hour and a half long, but I wanted to keep this show brief. So I was selective about the snippets I chose and I've tried to weave it together with some of my own interjections. If you want to have conversations like this jump on our discord server using the link in the show notes and as always if this show has been useful to you give us a glowing five star review on your favorite podcasting app this really helps us out and if we don't quite merit the five stars send us an email with your thoughts on how we can improve or hit us up on any given social media platform again linked in the show notes. Oh, and, uh, one more thing. Major spoilers, like major spoilers for cyberpunk edge runners coming. So if you haven't seen the show yet, Paul's us. Go watch it it's worth your time and we'll be right here when you get Back. So let's begin with a Roundup of our panelists. Aja server member at large and V creator and general lover of cyberpunk is a setting. Marcus a long time friend and partner of the show. You'll recognize him from earlier episodes of the pod. Rage a member at large, who is currently studying theater and imbibes media through that lens. Staff, our server mod who cannot be fired by night and scientists by day. All four of these folks offer a unique take on the setting and the show What is CyberPunk? --- So let's start here. What is it that makes cyberpunk cyber the essence of the genre. Sure we know the neon color schemes the general disrespect for authority the kitsch fashion style mohawks implants but let's dive a little deeper marcus brought this observation What I think makes cyberpunk, unique. we can find in its name cyberpunk. and I know particularly the cyber, part of it, which deals with cybernetics. And I know a lot of people think cybernetics as in those cool implants that, you know, cyberpunk protagonists have, It's not actually its origin. I think cyber punk is unique in the way. That it expresses a dystopia to the audience because cybernetics is actually the study of control and governance, particularly automatic control without , authoritarian power or higher manage. Okay, I'm gonna shout out to Greg from the YouTube channel How to Drink for Opening My Eyes to this. You know, I watched a video of him making a David Martinez, from, from the Edge Runner Show, and he dropped this on me at the end and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is what, this is what I was looking for. cyber is actually. Comes from the Greek word ki, which is a ship's rudder basically. So cybernetics roughly translates to, helmsman and basically cybernetics deals with mechanisms that have a feedback loop, something that analyzes something, and then also then has the power to change what it analyzes. So like the helmsman, it can see the ship's course, and if it needs to adjust the ship's course, the helmsman can move the rudder and then adjust the ship's course and then analyze where it's going. Again, the modern day version of this that we see every day is the thermostat. It can analyze a temperature and then automatically adjust the temperature depending on what system that it has put on. So basically, the professors and scientists that were dealing in cybernetics throughout the time basically got to the point and they were like, Okay guys. We made all these models of different cybernetic systems and cybernetic systems on type top of systems. And we've got super complex analog cybernetic systems and we got super complex, models, in digital. That mimic life and we're telling everybody, Yo, we've gotten to the point where anything you can think of, any experience, any feeling we can make a model of. Therefore, we ourselves are just a complex system of cybernetic feedback loops that interact with each other. And if you zoom in, And know what all of them do. Then an outside force can then go and manipulate what it they are analyzing and thus create, the right levers. It can create the right situation that it once, and the system has no choice in the matter. Therefore, there is no self. So cyberpunk in itself using the root words has more to do with systems of control than it does necessarily the implants that we associate with it. Suddenly the punk elements make more sense. The punks are the ones who are subverting those systems of control ones who are living a life that they choose even if that life is messy short or complicated. Rach -Why Cyberpunk Now --- Now rage followed by AAJ round this point off with another couple of key observations about cyberpunk in terms of accessibility, when compared to say other high fantasy genres. The cyberpunk setting is inherently non magical. And so the setting is expressed through how technology and, our intellect has advanced so much that we can have all these fantastic things. We can have all of these, body modifications, transhumanism, et cetera, but we don't have magic. My friend the other day asked me if arcane, was cyber punk, and I told him, I don't think so because first off, the technology and mechanisms are more closer to, a. steampunk setting. It's not steampunk, but the way that technology works in that world is closer to that. And it also has magic. Well, cyberpunk, all the holograms, et cetera, aren't something that are manufactured from like innate ability or some kind of unexplainable or somewhat explainable, phenomenon. It's all stuff that we as humans have created and crafted and brought to life. it's not something that happens in nature. Rach - Dystopia --- Also in the greater media and the way that trends work, we have been seeing in fashion and in technology and in like other forms of art that we are having a similar look to the future. The way that the sixties did. There is a certain branch of, media and consumerism that is, that has a very, sixties kind of futuristic optimism. There's another branch that is looking towards the future of a dystopian kind of world and, trying to focus on sustainability or what will happen when sustainability fails, like we aren't able to be sustainable anymore and always thinking like, If we don't explore, you know, the deep sea, everything else on our planet has been the idea of a frontier is on earth, is kind of nonexistent. Space really is the final frontier. it's the one place where the unknown is. And so with cyberpunk and specifically edge runners, I think that the focus not only of looking towards or how the moon in space is still a, a dream to people, I think is incredible cuz that's something that's been with culture for forever. But also just like seeing how much that the earth has been, manufactured and, processed with. Like the cyberpunk setting with all the neon lights and everything. AJ - Cyberpunk Why is It So Important --- , the reason why this setting is so fascinating, and different from what's going on, in most of the, the geek genres these days I, I feel like we've kind of grown past those fantasy and medieval settings. I feel like we're we. Changing as, as a geek genre, you know, it's ourselves. We see what's going on in the world. And cyber punk is, kind of a reflection of that, or at least of the extremes of that. And so moving on. From the, you know, fantastical, medieval setting is kind of us being like, Look, this is what the world actually is and this is what our world might become if we don't change things. And it's, it's got those same struggles that we have in D and D and Game of Thrones and everything like that, but it's. , it's still different because it's so, so much closer to us. It's, it's, examining, spirituality. It's examining what it is to to be yourself, which are all aspects that are, Really have a lot of focus these days. So that's why now is why this genre is kind of picking up a following. I think this observation is key about the cyberpunk setting, especially as it manifests in edge runners, there's a manufactured world, a built human space that will feel very familiar to us in our modern Western settings. We're surrounded by stuff that is made. This genre offers a dystopian and pessimistic. Look at a future where so much is consumed, but very little is valued. Rate was circling to a point about the moon in ed runners. Lucy has a fantasy of leaving earth and going to the moon, which in the cyberpunk setting is a little bit of a kitschy tourist attraction, but she has a romanticism about it. It's her fondest wish to get away. People have always had a fascination with the moon or attributed with mystical powers. This is what I love about cyber punk. There's a closeness to it. And accessibility compared to our current experience with technology, but there's also a very earthy connection to our humanity. A sense of our ancient selves, a mysticism and the human condition. I think this might be a good general question to ask yourself as you develop your settings, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. What does my setting say about. MI or better yet. Us as humans. I think that provides a great overview of the why cyberpunk question. What it is that draws us all into the genre. What makes it so appealing and why? Right now, Next up, we wanted to talk about what stood out to us. What follows here are some snippets of our conversation from Marcus AIJ staff and rates, the whole panel, discussing elements of the show that really drew. Them in Language in Cyberpunk --- I honestly, whenever I think of cyber punk, every, coming from the game or especially the show, what stuck with me is the language, particularly the slang. I always think that's an interesting way, to world build because it also reflects society . Edge runners and cyber punk as a whole nailed it because in other sci-fi, usually the special words or the new words really just replace curse words when Yeah. Frack, frail, staco, you know? And that's the way for them to get colorful language in a lower, you know, TV rating. But even though that's not really realistic, because usually curse words, cursing doesn't really change over generations very much. But what they nailed was that the words were not 100% made up. They are existing words, so it feels even more natural on top of just the delivery. The confidence, they didn't go by giving you a lesson of, or, or make David completely ignorant of like, ch what's that? He knew all this stuff and he used this language. You know, he, he uses it, but like chum, is, you know, a root word off of, chumba, which is like a brother or comrade in a different language. To call something you, you know, fancy pre, which is just short for premium, if you're going to flatline somebody or get somebody zeroed, you can kinda get what they mean because they're natural words, that language not only just kind of flavors the world, but then it gets reflected back onto the world. To flatline somebody. Uh, and the Afterlife, the, the logo to the Afterlife, the a is a, uh, a heart monitor, but it's the last monitor and then it flatlines underlining fitter life, you know, That that's what really stuck with me. And I just like, I just like how ch sounds, you know, it's like chum, but a little more like warmer. I don't know. It's, I dig it, you know? I kind of wanna just call everybody my ch know. AJ - Phone Conversations --- Um, this, and continue on with their conversation, but they'll double up on words half the time and step. Yeah. Steph asked that at the, almost the end, I think it was the, one of the last episodes. She's like, Why does it do that? And it was like, I don't know exactly, because they don't do it in the game. But my guess would be, uh, and, and this is a really cool like Worldbuilding idea that I'm, I'm guessing is, was their idea, is that their implants in your head. Taking your thoughts. You notice they don't talk when they're talking on the phone, they think, and it sends because of that, the the way you think. When I pause here and I'm like trying to gather my thoughts, my thoughts are going a mile a minute. And you're making mistakes as you go along before they come out of your mouth. Those mistakes are picked up just, just a little bit as you're trying to send those messages to people to talk on the phone because you don't have the, that time to pause. It's in your head, it hears your thoughts. So it's, it's really dangerous because there's gotta be some, some disconnect to, It's obviously like you could be thinking like, you know, uh, this ariso guy's totally gonna double cross me. Yeah, yeah. We'll be there for the job. No worries. So it's gotta have some sort of disconnect with your thoughts. But I don't think it fully works that way. I think it still sees those, those hitches in your thought process Steph - The Dystopia - Cyberpsychosis and Despair --- cyber psychosis was, Really fascinating to me as a concept. They did a really awesome job demonstrating it at various stages, right? Like you see the cyber psycho that I says, Rebecca's brother really early on, he's so far gone. He doesn't even think he just. He just murders someone, right? Like he's gone. Um, and that's like your kind of first introduction besides the, the guy that just is slaughtering a whole bunch of dudes with the sand vest in the beginning. but Maine's slow dissent into cyber psychosis was so powerful, right? Just watching him being in complete denial that anything was wrong. his, Absolute confidence that he was gonna be different somehow, and that he was gonna get over it. And it was just like crushing for them to just kind of, kind of sit by helpless. Right? It makes sense, right? When we think about regular organs that you have transplanted, right? That's a risk, that's a problem. Your body. Is defensive, it protects itself. It recognizes when something doesn't belong there. Um, so the fact that with, with cybernetics, it's your brain that can't cope with the fact that so many parts of your body aren't what they're supposed to be. That's, that's really fascinating. Similarly how they're just so cavalier about death. Like, they just know they're gonna die. Right? Like they go into edge running, they're like, I'm, I'm here for a good time, not a long time. Right? Maine, Maine specifically is like, Yeah, you can have my arms when you die. He just like totally casual about that, right? He, he knows it's an eventuality and he doesn't mind even hesitating to be like, Yep, they're yours when I die. You can have 'em. And, uh, it's, it's. It's really sad right? That they see themselves as essentially disposable. Because of the lives that they lead and, and, and how they live. , there's so. Small pieces too, to the soul crushing dystopia that are just really fascinating. Right. when David can't visit his mom in the hospital, cuz he doesn't have the visitation package on his health insurance, his mom going from Yeah. She'll probably pull through to like, Nope, she's gone. Essentially just, just like, The devil's in the details. Right. And, and there's so many small moments in in edge runners that like kind of drive home the, the absolute sadness that exists in this world. Yeah, a lot of. Another part to like the insignificance of David's death is like the last part of the hero's journey is the return and. for normal stories or normal, like non tragic stories. Um, like let's say Legend Zelda with Link. There's funny memes about how Link he'll just wake up, Oh no, he has to go get the princess and he'll go to bed. And then every time that he goes through that cycle, he goes to bed more suspicious about what's gonna happen. , He's more afraid about, not even afraid, just suspicious about waking up because he's gonna have to go through this whole cycle all over again. But with the return for, Edge Runners, it's less about David and more about the sandin, I think, in my opinion, because you start with, David watching the Sandin being used on someone with cyber psychosis and you end with him with the same sandin. Going through cyber psychosis and probably televised too. Were recorded. Which sucks because we grow to love David in comparison to, what I consider the transformation part after the, death rebirth section of the, failure with Maine. the episode right after you go straight into a new job, there's this new kid, you're like, Oh, maybe it's David 2.0. Instant death. He and that's truly, in my opinion, an insignificant death. But it sucks and it's tragic that, David at the end just gets simmered down to just. A person who went through Cy Psychosis with the same OV Vista that we started the show with. All these observations tie into a bold presentation of a dystopian setting. The insignificance of the protagonist death, the despair of cyber psychosis and the little touches of reasonable future tech, like neural linked phone calls and the evolution of language. This all is wrapped up in a setting that is. Uh, confident we didn't get a breakdown that explained every element of the setting to us. Our protagonist was a native to the setting and use the language naturally. They never broke down the issues with neural communication or why words are repeated or confused at times they left it to the viewer to make those decisions. I think this might be the biggest single piece of worldbuilding advice that we can possibly glean from this show. Whatever you do. Do it with a bang. You have to go out, swinging with your setting and trust your audience to pick up on the context clues. Uh, Steph pointed out the setting oozes self awareness. The creators at studio trigger knew exactly the world they wanted to create and pulled no punches, exploring its abject misery. This betrays, a singular and clear vision delivered with confidence and not a little bit of faith in their audience. Lastly, we broke down some of the stuff we'd like to have seen, plus a little bit of science-y nitpicking from step. NitPickery --- I wanted to ask about immuno blockers, actually. Cause we brought, Steph brought that up and she's smart. , so, you know, you're, you're you're half chrome. You're pumping yourself full of amino blockers. How are you not catching the common cold and keeping it forever on a regular basis, let alone any other disease that could possibly kill you if you are literally blocking your immune system constantly. Right? Like, like he would've not been able to survive much earlier in this process because of, like, besides cyber psychosis, right? Like the, It was, it was like a, a. 20 mil syringe, and they just like all of it. Two of them just, yeah, no, the b the body can't handle that. It was just, the volume was excessive. he would've suffocated for lack of oxygen due to having no blood first. What We'd like to have Seen --- Um, anyway, I really like Maine as a character and I think a main prequel. Could be really fascinating to see his rise to becoming a shadow runner, Right? And, and his, his relationship with Doo and, you know, how, how Kiwi gets in in the game, right? Even how they find Lucy, and, and their whole team and, and. Of course that would give you more Rebecca as well. And just, just like the whole world that David gets dropped into completely unexplained would be really fascinating cuz they, he just kind of hits the ground running, quite literally. I would love that story because Maine was such a cool character. All right, so. One thing I'd like I wish I saw more of, and I hope I'll see, well, I'm pretty sure I'll see more if they have a season two. But what I wanted to see more of in season one, even though I understand why they didn't, but for a show called Edge Runners, there was only one team of Edge runners featured in the entire season. I understand why they did it. You, but the thing is that like come the second half of it like you never see, they kind of throw a montage of it, of, uh, David rescuing, uh, one of the couple times he rescues, Rebecca from, Mexican standoff in the entrance to the Afterlife. Um, and then, and then Rogue, just giving them, you know, the, okay, the green light to join in. But like there was really no comparison between David Martinez's team and other edge runners. And I feel like they could have in the last, the setup highway heist where they were secretly the other ones. But I think. I understand that they opted to just do whatever gangs because all up to the point, they were all expendable, faceless people that we didn't care about. Um, and that were just getting duped, which made David, you know, the actual edge runners at the end of it, you know, made them feel like, no, we are the actual people that are gonna get the job done. Um, but just. There was really no comparison to how other Edge runners felt about, um, David, you know, or Maine or whoever, and was just very interpersonal. I'd love to have an anthology series that just show. The perspectives of other people in the world, in their lives. I also think it would be really funny for ar Romeo and Julie yet kind of, episode if they do an anthology because that one cityscape moment where Fair Day is looking out and you see the holograms for Arisa Osaka right across from the Miltech one reminds me a lot of the Manga Shakespeare series, Romeo and Juliet, which is set in a modern day Tokyo, and it is, illustrated by Sonia Leong. Anyways, I think that would be funny and also terrible, but in a good way. but otherwise I think just, yeah, more slice of life, explored the world more. Did great with the first one. Yeah. So that about covers it. Aside from some minor gripes, immuno blockers, et cetera. This show kind of nailed it. Most of the things we'd even lightly fault the show for are actually just requests for more content, which is hardly a criticism. I personally hope CD project ride gives us some new stuff going forward in different media, maybe, um, graphic novel series, a book who knows. Let me wrap. Us up here I'll summarize it in two key takeaways. One. Don't be shy about your setting, build it with confidence and trust your audience to pick up the pieces through context, edge runners. Did this pew toughly. Flee with their use of language and casual inclusion of different technological artifacts throughout the series. They didn't say how it worked. They merely let the audience pick it up through context. Number two. Despite the setting, drawing contemporary interests for its modern style, the kitsch, the punk aesthetic. The setting was steeped in ideas that would resonate with humans throughout time. Freedom, choices, life, friendship, purpose, and meaning. These deeper themes, make the show richly accessible to just about anyone who had happened upon it. And that I think about covers it for this round table conversation. don't forget you. If you want to have pre-me conversations like this, go ahead and hit us up on the discord server. If you're into worldbuilding we already like you don't be shy. For our panelists aaj marcus Rachel and staff, I'm your host, James and. we'll catch you next time on the WorldCraft Club podcast I'm mad with power. I'm still not getting a wiggle. Where's Mike Wiggle.