The Retcons of Johnny Silverhand | Cyberpunk 2077 Theory
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- Today I cover why there are no legitimate retcons or timeline differences within Cyberpunk 2077 and the Table Top RPGs, Red and 2020.
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Music: Samurai - Black Dog (Unofficial Instrumental) by DuLo
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I hope we get more on Silverhand, also a way for both V and Johnny to survive the ending without V having basically a form of terminal cancer
you gonna see me kid
@@UnlistedU Johnny… what in the fuck?
Doubt it..there’s no happy endings in Night City. As Silverhand himself says “Wrong City, wrong people.”
@@BrawnyStream There's happy endings on Jig-Jig Street...
@@gerardvineyard5762 eh...satisfying maybe, wouldn't say happy...
Little fun fact, Black Dog is the only Samurai song not to have an associated sidequest yet in 2077. Just pointing that out...
Maybe it'll be a mission in the dlc?
Archangel also doesnt have one. except for Kerrys Malorian revolver being named Archangel.
I believe it was named after a quest written in the ttrpg by Mike Pondsmith, as part of the quest is finding and releasing the unreleased Samurai song of the same name, which is how it ended up on the radio in 2077.
When you are playing as a corpo and talk to the old man with all the samurai memorabilia you can convince him your the real deal by referencing a Arasaka ghost story about the ghost of a man that was torn in half, and then mention its a little known fact that man is Johnny Silverhand. So even seeing Johnny's version first hand there is a subtle reference to the "true" event of Smasher shooting him in half in the game.
But if Silverhand died being split in half, and his body was stored, that means he was not interrogated by Arasaka, thus it can't be Silverhand, who's on biochip inside V. Especially, since he'd have no knowledge of fight on top of the tower. But, since we don't know what happened to Blackhand during his fight with Smasher, it is a possibility, that he got captured and put into Soulkiller in secret, then Arasaka disposed of the body, by disguising it as Silverhand's. So rather than Silverhand disillusioning himself by attributing Blackhand's feats to himself, it's more likely to be Blackhand's engram on the chip thinking he's Silverhand.
Or better yet. In order to interrogate Silverhand, Arasaka merged dead Silverhand and captured Blackhand, by using their Soulkiller and putting engram of one into body of the other, basicly causing them to experience what V does in Cyberpunk 2077, but accelerated. Then they put that merged psyche back on engram, once interragation was over. This would explain memories of both of them on same engram.
If Spider Murphy but a data shard in Johnny’s head what if Arasaka used it for the engram after all Johnny was put into the prototype but if they needed Morgan alive again for some kind of information they probably wouldn’t wanna put him into a prototype and used Johnny as a test to see if the shard could work without the risk of losing Morgan’s memories they were after?
I was thinking the same but Morgan gets mention in 2077 si he is still around
@@chechenko_9430 AFAIK after bombing of Arasaka Tower, there are only rumors about seeing someone that looks like Blackhand. There is no confirmation that it actually is Blackhand.
Maybe he was blended as to nerf blackhand? Forgetting his true nature and believing he is somone considered irrelevant and ridiculous by Arasaka....Johnny Silverhand. That's why V becomes a great solo, because he actually has morgan backhand inside, that believes he is JS.
Another thing to consider in this line of discussion-- after you play the Love Like Fire mission, and Johnny has his arm blown off by Smasher's arm launcher... "Johnny" is taken from Arasaka tower to meet Saburo Arasaka. If you look down and to the left, "Johnny" still has his silver arm/hand. Certainly could be mistake/lazy QA... There are all sorts of artistic decisions made with regards to first person-- like the outer torso cosmetic armor you're wearing might be long sleeve, but Cyberpunk might render it with the sleeves pushed up. This could be an artistic choice that was missed by QA. It could also be symbolic of yet another inconsistency in Johnny's memories.
Idk about everything else, but I do know the sleeves thing was an intentional design choice to prevent clipping issues with the arm cyberware animations. The Launcher and Mantis Blades both don't play nice with the long sleeve design of jackets, and forcing them to stay down with mods makes it look super weird. Same thing when you try to use the Gorilla Arms to force open doors.
Tbh, we have no idea if what Smasher told people happened with Silverhand and his death is 100% truth anyway. He could just have easily embellished the story to massage his own ego.
Yeah, not just unreliable narration on Johnny's part, everyone involved has a motive to lie through their teeth and be sure to not only aggrandize themselves but to obfuscate any actual truth.
I guess the biggest questions I have now are why/how did Johnnie's faulty memories continue long after his actual death? If we take the first memory we see in 2077 as half truth, then Smasher would have fatally wounded Johnny hours if not days before the conversation with Saburo. I guess it's a pretty nitpicky question tho. Also I think it's established in the lore that Spider Murphy was the one to make the Johnny chip, but was Spider Murphy just grabbing souls left and right? I'll probably read up more cause I just don't know enough about Murphy to understand her motivations for doing so.
P.S.
The Ebunike ship is pronounced Eh-boo-nee-keh.
I am under the belief that Johnnys body and or chip was not recovered until after the Black Dog story. I honestly believe that when his chip was eventually stolen by Arasaka and used to progress their soulkiller program, that they actually cut from his death to add a memory of him being captured. This way they could technically probe his engram for information in a “real” interrogation. For Murphy, I believe she only had one chip and she just used it how Alt would’ve wanted. She was friends with Alt and Bartmoss. She was pretty much there for the same reason as Johnny.
@@LayedBackGamers I recall reading somewhere that the Soulkiller Chip Murphy used on Johnny was originally supposed to be used on Kei Arasaka, who she later managed to Soulkill at a later date. This implies either she had multiple chips, or had a complete version of Soulkiller's source code.
@@mimictear6788 Chip is a weird term in this instance. I think "data slug" is a better term. Or else there's confusion with the biochip, which is 2077 tech.
@@LayedBackGamers I am afraid this doesn't track from what I remember about the chip: The chip V slots is an experimental relic, with Silverhand's engram loaded up on it at a later time possibly by Arasaka Yorinobu, not the original storage device for his engram. To me this would also track with Yorinobu's character arc within the 2077 game, as we discover through the Devil ending his real intentions.
I should also add: we cannot assume that Smasher came into possession of of his belongings at a later time, or even all at once. While I admit we cannot assume he could not have done so, there's no reason to overly focus on that with respect to Johnny's body. What we do know is that it gets delivered to Los Alamos in 2043. We also cannot take Greyson as a credible narrator, either.
He's an engram in Mikoshi at the mercy of a corp he just bombed. It's implied on the news during the New Dawn Fades ending that they were torturing and editing engrams.
I hope the DLC has us doing a deep dive with Night Corp that leads to contact with Spider Murphy. Maybe Spider Murphy will take a look at Johnny's Chip and initiates a merge that saves V's life by merging Johnny's engram with V's Neural Network, kinda like a Ghost in the Shell ending. Would be pretty rad and more satisfying than the main endings.
If Alt can't save V i doubt Murphy could. And like Alt says by the time we get to Mikoshi, the biochip had altered V's dna so much that he would still eventually die
@@squirrels666 what if alt is lying
@@batpoolzilla3200 Alt is an extremely advanced AI basically. Highly doubt she/it would lie
@@squirrels666 Anything can be done. That whole plot point is a swiss cheese of plotholes. First of make that 6 month 6 years at least. Autoimmune diseases are nothing new, and they don't kill you in 6 month.
Then start with, that even with her DNA rewritten V will still look mostly the same. Her skin color, is basically the only thing that could change at this point. She won't change gender (assuming you picked female V), and she won't look anything like Silverhand. So actually there is no good reason for the biochip to rewrite her DNA, but it does it, nevertheless.
But actually the biochip would either kill *both* Vi and Johnny, no matter who stays in the body or *neither* of them. Rewriting V's DNA can change her blood type, which is an instant death, so we can assume that's not happened. The reason the game gives for V's imminent death is that her body (meaning her immune system) will slowly destroy her brain. There is no good reason for the biochip to not rewrite the nerve cell's DNA as well, but let's just accept it. In that case her brain would be essentially a transplanted organ, and people can live, pretty long with transplanted organs. Lonbger than 6 month at least.
But in reality your brain is the *last* place where your immune system will cause problems (due to something called the blood-brain barrier) and it'd kill the nerves in other parts of your body way sooner. Nerves, even Johnny would need to move, breath and - you know - live.
I see three options. Either the writers never took the time to research the single most important topic in their plot, *or* Alt doesn't know this (which would make her a very stupid AI indeed), *or* Alt knows this and she is deliberately lying to V, because she wants her to let Johnny live. For now I vote number 3.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness it seems like you are speculating really hard dude. Have another play through
a great example of the memories being unreliable interpretations is how we know Arasaka interrogates all personality constructs for useful information, if Johnny was inside Mikoshi this would certainly have been done to him. Him being interrogated by saburo after having already been cut in half is likely his way of “remembering” this interrogation within mikoshi, not within realspace
Things we know happened in 2077 flashbacks:
1. Johnny is injured by Adam S. (And he plants a bomb that may not have detonated (it may have been a different weapon, and uploads a program).
2. Johnny is carried on a gurney.
3. Johnny gains consciousness in a chamber and after meeting Saburo loses consciousness.
I assumed he was soul-killer'd, but Arasaka may have just been using advanced interrogation techniques, facilitated by the woman with dark glasses.
Silverhand wasn't injured. He was killed in the Arasaka lab by a shotgun.
@@markjackson1989 Right. That may be true, but we don't see that in 2077. We see him shot. We see him transported. We see him black out.
Narcissism aside, he isn't a BD editor. We can be pretty sure the data points we see in his memories actually happened, even if it's not the full story.
Nothing we see contradicts him being killed elsewhere. Because although he blacks out, we may not be seeing him die.
I believe that the interrogation scene takes place within Arasaka Soul prison. When they eventually come into possession of his chip sometime after 2038, they removed his death and inserted a false memory of being captured. This way they could “realistically” interrogate his engram.
@@LayedBackGamers I hadn't thought of that angle.
On one hand Jackie is more GIF than engram, should those events unfold. He's more picture than program. Is that because he's disembodied, or because significant time passed between brain-death and soulkilling?
We know Trauma Team is on the way moments after Saburo's death, we see them come in to land.
If Spider is the one who takes Johnny's Chip, how much time had passed?
(This would be much easier in Altered Carbon, they'd just have to take the Stack).
@@dougpirko211 The issue for Jackie was that he had been dead long before they attempted to use soulkiller on him. Johnny was soulkillered by Murphy moments after getting shot by Smasher.
Is it possible that morgan blackhand and johnny's minds might have been mixed up some how during the storing on the ship? If so or if they were for some reason merged during storage then this would explain the mixup of memories johnny has and the seeming exagerated importance of johnny to smasher during these memories.
Literally just finished watching memories video and here I am.
Well thank you for the support and I hope you enjoyed the two videos in conjunction my friend
Yup, it's weird how very few people consider Johnny's memories aren't reliable and think 2077 is a bunch of retcons. It's even said by THE Mike himself.
6:00. You're not wrong that silverhand's memories are wrong, but there's no issue with Smasher knowing how Johnny died if the false memories were actually true. Just receiving his body directly from Saburo would give him the details.
He probably didn’t care
I've talked to fans who didn't know it was an TTRPG. I was like "I was into Cyberpunk when it was a book."
Decades of story writing and characters to learn about
I think that the part that glich out in his memories is when the editing begin, I really think that glich was on purpose, since it doesn't makes much sense how he got to the stairs, and here's my two hypothesis.
1 - the edition was part of Mikoshi interrogation (less likely)
2 - the edition was part of Yoribobu's plan (more likely)
I think Yorinobu edit his memories so he would think he was the hero, so he would eventually find Alt to fulfill his revenge against Arasaka, which in a way or another, it works, most of the endings of the main story are just like that, even if the original plan failed, Johnny's Engram was ultimately program to fulfill that mission to destroy Arasaka whatever the way possible.
Yeah I’m not sure how so many people just write the raid sequences off as “retcons”. If they were retcons why would they show the exact occurrence of his original death then a sudden cut to a staircase. It would make absolutely no sense. The only reasoning would be like you said, Arasaka removing the memory of his death. I’ve always thought of it as a way for them to have a “realistic” interrogation of his engram. I’ve never thought of Yorinobu doing it to bring down Arasaka with Silverhands drive. Very interesting take!
You aren't wrong. I look forward to your comprehensive Johnny Silverhand video.
Thank you for your support. I’m going to do my best creating the video in a comprehensive way for everyone who loves Cyberpunk.
Heres what i think happened... at arasaka tower morgans memories were copied, seeing as they didnt have soulkiller yet. Johnny was dumped but being a rockstar some fan saved his body along the way. At some point arasaka realized they could reverse engineer soulkiller from johnny, causing them to look for him, gathering his various items along the way. Once arasaka gets johnny and soulkiller they fire him up and interogate him, this is the scene we see with saburo. Notice how saburo is the same model as the one we see get mercd by his son, leaving me to believe it was much later than 2023. Also the woman says her husband died in the tower, youd think she would be more emotional, or even slightly doubtful that he was dead. Arasaka tries to interogate johnny using morgans memories, possibly for years or even decades. However because they dont 100% understand how soulkiller works johnnys engram goes a bit mad and starts to think morgans memories are his own. Notice how johnny sees his silver arm when he takes control of v, i think thats what happened with morgans memories. Once v gets clapped johnnys engram gets reset causing mass chaos in the memory section. I doubt alt would have wanted soulkiller to be used as a body switching tool, not to mention arasaka doesnt really seem to understand how it works(the guy who designed the chip basically says so). So the johnny we get isnt actually johnny but a weird tortured ai with ptsd or something. The alt we see in the flashbacks is different to the one in netspace so either the engrams change over time, or soulkiller changes you. The fact that johnny doesnt see the buddist monk leaves me to believe that the engrams can be manipulated in some form, which could add to the fact that arasaka mangled johnnys engram permanently.
That’s not the same model, there literally is two in game models
In one coversation Johnny himself mentions engrams being changed and I think he mentioned altering memories as well. If its possible that the Johnny we know ingame is a merger between Johnny and Blackhand it either happened accidentally or it was done as a experiment by Arasaka so it was possible that there is a unaltered version of the Silverhand engram hidden in Mikoshi but we never see it.
So Adam smasher kills Blackhand, or maybe uses soul killer on him, finds out Johnny had been as well, takes it for himself, Arasaka tries to merge the two psyche’s in a new type of chip and begins trail phases for complete body takeover so that the Arasaka family can be blended together into one body being of one mind. Their rule would be through the ages using the bodies of the next generation allowing them to join the hive mind they created with the help of soul killer. Yori doesn’t want that to come true and tries to fight back feebly, honako wants that and wants the test to be on her brother rather than her so that they can gauge what the process does. Like we see in the ending with Hanako Her father gets put in the body of Yori and when V is rid of Johnny’s psyche he still has a connection to Johnny even though he is gone. To support this idea of a hive mind of Arasaka, it would be like what Alt does with Makoshi where she takes all the souls under her and blends it into her code, they basically become apart of her, their memories serve as counsel to her. This would explain why Johnny has a spilt idea from one story to the next. He has been spliced together with Blackhand. It explains the fight scene seen in his memories and everything with Arasaka. Blackhand was the one in the chair but Johnny remembers it as him because he was the dominant psyche in the test chip. It is possible they were working on two separate chips and Yori only stole the one with silver hand being the main test subject.
A theory anyways..
Black hand wasn’t killed by him, only one that was killed outside of the goons that day was Johnny, Blackhand and Smasher fought to basically a “draw”
Cause as of right now, BlackHand is considered MIA
Really nice videos, hope it gets more exposure. Would be really nice to have a bit deeper dive though. Finished CP2077 long ago, but I still remember that Alt directly mentioned that Silverhands memories were a mess, and later in one of the endings it is shown that Alt can fully read engram that Johnny is, completely creeping him out as if she can read his mind. Also in Arasaka ending if Jackie was given to Arasaka his engram feels odd. I thought that it was just fake at the time. Which is kinda explained by Alt, saying that Arasaka's Soulkiller is a worse version than her. Also I vaguely remember Hanako mentioning something about that in the ending.
Another thing to keep in mind - seems like both Arasaka and Nightwatch want Alt for various reasons. But Nightwatch in the game is part of conspiracy of brainwashing people. Seeing that they can work together, well, we can have some brainwashing going on here, on top of the ego.
So anyway it would be really nice if someone pieced those clips together from the game to prove the point.
Great video! Started wondering if Johnny's memories were wrong when it was him at the top of the rooftop and not blackhand
I thought that whole sequence was wack. You literally just get blown away by Smasher and then you're suddenly fighting him on the roof. I knew there was something funky going on there, I just wasn't familiar with the lore and had no idea what to make of it.
Not to mention the complete lack of acknowledgement of Morgan Blackhand by Johnny. He never once mentions him and your only awareness of Blackhand is through dialogue with Jackie and some references in shards and a drink at Afterlife.
Heh. Even Maximum Mike has written out the Cyberpunk V3 edition of the game. I do not follow any of the social media posts, so Danke for the info about Mike Pondsmith. It is nice to see my group of Edgerunners are not alone in disregarding V3. lol
Gotta keep up to date on Pondsmith. Though recently he's been a bit silent...probably finishing up the Edgerunners kit. I thunk we can all rest easy that v3 got retconned
What if Silverhand actually died twice?
Unlike Alt it's not like Johnny’s consciousness had a chance to get stuck in the internet, and considering piss is involved in one of these deaths (something that is impossible if youre cut in half by a shotgun blast) maybe the original soul killer program allowed original Johnny to either “revive” or he was already unknowingly moved into another body once already and V actually is the owner of ah engram copy.
OOHGHG THIS ONE FUCKS THIS IS COOL
Retcon is where you erase big events not minor events all those minors but those events lead and build up to the confrontation against Arasaka in Cyberpunk 2077, A retcon is when you don't upon previous main big events or the upcoming events don't tie to the previous story like what happened in Attack on titan in chapter 139 and the assassination of Eren's character.
I always thought about it like they altered jhonnys memories in mikoshi . They said they could alter memories with the person having no idea
Amazing video, notifications on can’t wait for any new videos it’s like watching a bigger channel. 🎉❤
So this is me watching a video about lore. Connecting the dots as to why I didn’t get the hand in the end of the chipping in after the 2.0 update… I’m betting that little mention of yours about the body might be a big part of the dlc; has a lot more weight to it.
I really like your content, and have been researching alot about the inconsistencies in the storyline and like that you're one of the few that have done a video about the topic. Even mention specific issues that bug me.
I happen to have more issues with the formation of Samurai, Johnny joining the army, and his birth date. Johnny was born in November 1988, which means he apparently joined the army around the age of 14 or 15? A bit young to lie about one's age and get an experimental arm installed.
Plus... it makes a certain conversation between V and Johnny regarding a 2004 Samurai gig really uncomfortable. During the mission to recover Johnny's pants.
There also might be 3 versions of the song Chippin' in... and wasn't Never Fade Away apparently written about Alt Cunningham? A cool Metal Fire released in 2013 with both Chippin' In and Never Fade Away included on the track listing. Then there's the Chippin' In album and the Never Fade Away album. With Chippin In being released in 2020, and Never Fade Away being released in 2013... WHAT?
Oh and Johnny preforms Never Fade Away during the mission before Alt even dies... so why is he obsessed with her not fading away?
I had a history teacher in middle school whose uncles faked their ages to enlist during WWII and I have since met a guy in his 90s who claims to have done so as well. While it’s anecdotal, it was a lot easier for people to fake their documents and pretend to be different people before states got better at sharing information across state lines. With the collapse of the US, states would have no longer been able to easily verify information across state lines again, meaning it would have been difficult to determine which Robert John Linder is enlisting.
@@Sytheduke Well, when Johnny tells you the story about his dogtags, he says they belonged to a man who gave up his life for Johnny's. The tags read "Robert John Linder", confirming Silverhand isn't actually who he says he is, he took another's identity.
I really appreciate the support! I definitely am going to be bringing this kind of stuff up in my timeline video but covering his age, I doubt the corps and military truly cared enough to check ages. Hell even this type of thing happens in our current world which is truly unfortunate.
@@LayedBackGamers that’s a lame explanation for a clear timeline discrepancy. Who cares if the stories don’t mesh together they both have things to say
God I have such a hard time understanding basically everything about cyberpunk and reading all these theories and videos is amazing I love it
These cyberpunk 2077 lore videos are fucking great.
Thank you my friend. I really appreciate the support. I’m going to be creating a Silverhand timeline video so going forward with in depth videos, I don’t have to go into too many side details and timeline details, that way I can focus on the videos topic much better. I’ve seen that with the two current ones I’m somewhat forced to leave out huge details and explanation as it would make the video too convoluted having to go into too many side discussions.
Since Jackie's construct can be found and interacted with under Arasaka Tower if you didn't leave his body to his family, what if the interrogation that Johnny remembers is post engram when they recovered the body from Samantha? And from the Lizzie Wizzie sidequest it's shown that the Arasaka might be able to alter engrams so could some memories be planted or altered?
I just want a way to save Jackie..
also it would make very little sense to make 2077 a separate timeline. It takes place 50 years after 2022. What would be the point in jumping so far ahead in time to only have it a separate timeline?
Yeah jump so far ahead then toss out decades worth of content. Especially the fact that other details and memories are very accurate to Red, it’s only specific parts of the HQ raid that “aren’t”.
Maybe he was blended as to nerf blackhand? Forgetting his true nature and believing he is somone considered irrelevant and ridiculous by Arasaka....Johnny Silverhand. That's why V becomes a great solo, because he actually has morgan backhand inside, that believes he is JS.
Great video! you are getting me so exited for phantom liberty!!
Guy's remember what Hellman said about Biochip it was meant to transfer the consciousnesses of one individual into a empty dead body, but if Johnny's mind is on the chip what if you slot the biochip into Johnny's dead body what if the whole point of 2077 is to revive Johnny Silverhand.
Just was playing the Ballad of Buck Ravers as a Corpo. V’s dialogue tells of an Arasaka ghost story about a ghost cut in half. Which is what happened in book, as he was blown in half by Smasher’s shotgun, not what was shown in Johnny’s memories. More support for a cohesive timeline and the unreliable historian that is Johnny’s Engram
memories are subjective, google the memory fallacy, its entirely possible Johnny remembers things in a different way then they happened, i remember the party i went to last saturday different to my friends all do
Fantastic job, I definitely agree that his memories aren’t reliable. Nothing about his engram is reliable
Angel is a very interesting character, because she looks like Alt. So I believe that Angel and Alt are one and the same.
I try not to spam too much information and overload these first two videos. So I chose not to delve into this currently but the idea as well that Murphy distributed multiple parts of Alt across the net to retrieve later can also be involved in how Angel is connected to Alt. There can practically be multiple Alts.
My best guess would be that Silverhand and Blackhand's engrams were melded inside Mikoshi somehow. However Arasaka got Johnny's Soulkiller chip from Murhpy, Johnny was stored in Mikoshi, along with Morgan's - whose memories we see from the rooftop fight, to his death by soul killer. No idea how the two got mixed up, but maybe it had something to do with an attempt by Murphy and crew to liberate Morgan's engram from Mikoshi before losing Johnny's Soulkiller chip to Arasaka. Perhaps Spider even tried to extract Morgan onto Johnny's Soulkiller chip, causing the meld. Who knows.
So the Silverhand V knows is more than just Johnny, it's an amalgamation of Johnny and Morgan (and likely a bit if Jackie, considering the Tarot card visions), with Johnny being the prominent persona. That's my theory at least.
I feel like I got that on day one but apparently peope didn’t get that first time when alt even says this
The confusion that people have is that yes, 2077 is a different timeline from the TTRPG but not from 2020. There was a third edition of the TTRPG that was not very well recieved and is now officially a divergent timeline. It's now called Cybergeneration and you can still pick it up from the Talsorian online store. But its the third edition that was retconned so 2020 and the fourth corporate war are canon and they move smoothly into Red and then to 2077. And we can forget that the God awful third edition Cybergenerations ever happened.
Cybergeneration and Cyberpunk 3.0 are two different things.
@@junior-fj8ud You're right! Its been a long time, I'm an OG player. I forgot Cybergenerations was released as a supplement before, I thought they had just rereleased third edition as that. But I'm half right. Third edition was the book I was remembering which was the sequal to 2020 which I hated and has officially been retconned and removed from canon. So there are two divergent timelines as Cybergenerations is also now another divergent timeline. So Cyberpunk 2020 second edition timeline goes straight to Red which then goes to 2077!
My question is how does Adam smasher know about constructs in edgerunners?
I believe by the point in Edgerunners the save your soul program is either already public or about to be. More than likely Smasher is technically a construct/was soulkillered simply because he can hop around bodies.
@@LayedBackGamers hmm interesting so since Adam is killed by V would that mean he’s still technically alive if they have more than one biochip of him somewhere? Or salvage the chip from his corpse?
@@EternalNightingale Yeah I doubt Smasher is dead. He’s able to hop between bodies.
Been loving the breakdown of Silverhand's memories. Only issue I have is your pronunciation of Ebunike. It's eh.boo.neek.aye - they say it in game a number of times.
Yeah I’ve since fixed my pronunciation so I hope I have an opportunity to say it in the future and redeem myself
Yeah, but isn't it made pretty clear to Rogue during 'Ghost Town,' that he died at the top of Arasaka Tower? I'm still heavily skeptical of the contents of Cyberpunk Red, and your theory that Silverhand's memories/visions are misinformed by his ego/narcissistic personality still doesn't really add up. Suggesting that the story of "Black Dog," is canonized doesn't prove that the whereabouts of Silverhand's death in Red wasn't retconned in 2077. Retcons like these happen all the time between these very different forms of media, considering production, scripting, acting, all of that - there can be real explanations like these that help us realize why the story is changed around. Considering the Relic being a critical focus of the story at most times, and Johnny's role in the creation of them (I mean, his personality is contained in one), I can see why they might retcon the contents of Cyberpunk Red to better explore the narrative being told in 2077.
That mission Ghost Town actually has V state that Silverhand is “zeroed in Arasaka tower” in front of her. Never mentions a rooftop. If anything it’s saying legitimately inside and actually killed. The only part of the story that is “changed” is a cut at his first encounter with Adam. Note how the encounter is exactly how it occurred in Red. He is knocked to the floor and he begins unloading his guns onto smasher. Then it suddenly cuts to him being on the roof with no explanation. The cut is because Arasaka needed to install a fake memory of a capture to “realistically” interrogate his engram in soul prison.
This made more sense... looking forward to the next video.
One thing I always wanted for the game is a skin swap from Johnny that made him look like his old Red art instead of the kimono
Let me know what you think about the information provided in this video. Are there any small details that justify a retcon or can everything be filled in by the time gaps? Personally, I believe the new Edgerunners Mission kit will give us a lot of information up to the year 2076 at least. Hope you all enjoyed and I look forward to releasing my video on a proper Silverhand timeline next.
jesus this is a great video the quality is amazing. Keep up the great work my guy ❤
@@kaptinkodu732 Thank you I try my best to make these videos as comprehensive and interesting as I can. I really appreciate the support my friend.
So why is Johnny on the chip yorinobu has? I’ve asked this on the steam forums and the theory is that netwatch specifically asked for his engram, in the hopes of using him to talk to Alt. But I’ve heard some say that Alt IS the Blackwall, which is run by netwatch. If that’s true why would they need johnnys engram to talk to an AI they control? I just keep coming back to the wall of what is so special about Johnny that yorinobu put him on the new and updated relic 2.0 chip and bring it with him from Japan. I know the voodoo boys want him to talk to Alt but surely netwatch don’t have the same goal right?
@@happyninja42 Johnny most likely has the original trace of soulkiller. Alt perfected it and made a portable version. Arasaka didn’t develop it as much as they wanted by the time Alt died. More than likely Arasaka wants the chip to try to take the original code. Johnny just happens to be the only one that had it inserted and preserved.
@@LayedBackGamers When you say "more than likely ARASAKA wants the chip" you mean Netwatch yes? That they want Johnny because he's got the original source code, unaltered by the AI evolution of Alt? Ok I could see that, but, again, if she is the Blackwall, why would they need that? Don't they actually control the Blackwall? I don't really have an issue with the idea that Arasaka has a giant library of everyone they could get their digital hands on, I just keep getting stumped as to why anyone OUTSIDE of Arasaka, would want Johnny so badly, to try and bribe the son of the head of the megacorporation, to smuggle it out. But then to ultimately not actually care? Like the Netwatch guy you run into in the GIM doesn't seem to care that you have the thing they were VERY interested in getting, in your head. So it just seems really disjointed.
Ed: Durr this is why you finish the video before commenting lol.
Given how it all breaks down it's more likely Johnny got the soul killer treatment from Spider Murphy and Arisaka just got the chip or at least the engram that way.
Assuming it's the only copy at that...
I'm of the idea that militech deceived johnny making him somehow believe that bombing was "his" operation while morgan blackhand unit was overseeing the whole operation... infact none seems to know the involvment of militech and NUSA in arasaka tower bombing. This + memories altered by ego and damages and we have johnny version of the facts.
I had a thought that it might not even have been Johnny's fault for the difference in events. It really could have been that Arasaka modified Johnny's engram into a better leader for it's future use instead of being a follower.
Oh sorry you just explained it, ignore my question on the other video !
Just imagine that THis Crate they are speaking about contains Jhonnys body and in 2077 Cyberpunk in some Dlc we have the chance to Upload Jhonnys Biochip back to his own boddy XD FOK YEAH BRA
For this to be true you have to be 100% confident in Grayson being 100% correct, which we just can't prove.
lookin forward to the next video choom!
Thanks choom I appreciate the support! Hopefully sometime soon I’ll have my complete Silverhand video completed. It will cover everything possible in relation to his engram and memories!
I personally don't care about retcons about Johnny and the old characters. I'm more interested in the culture, specifically how the culture of the cyberpunk world had barely changed in 57 years, and despite this, cyberware had barely gone beyond what it was in 2020, the same corporations and figures from 2020 are still on top, people still call each other choom like they did in 2020. That would be like if our world had essentially the same culture, corporations, slang, style and technology that was mainstream in 1965.
Well with the crash of the net, it brought everything to a complete stop. So the spread of culture isn’t the same anymore and everyone is forced to somewhat be stuck to where society was and try to recover.
'Soulkilled' should be the word, not Soulkillered.
Great work
Cybergeneration got relegated to a separate timeline, though Maximum Mike does comment on the Carbon plague on the radio...
I would like to note that Johnny's memories not being 'true' is NOT a theory. It is confitmed by Alt in her first dialogue if you exhaust her options.
Rectons of Johnny Silversins
Mikes post doesn't say thing things weren't retconned, he just says they are the same timeline (dont think mike really cares at this point he just likes the paycheck's). Besides CDPR has a long history of retconning s@*$ with Sapkowski's work (part of the reason he hated the games). Arasaka didn't hit johnny with soulkiller, spider did, Yorinobu was also hit with soulkiller in 2020. The raid on Arasaka tower also didn't play out like that either, it was done by multiple strike teams (johnny wasn't even leading it). Plus Rogue knew all about these events and about johnny's frozen body in CP:R. Sure you can play it off as Alter memories or hes a copy or whatever but that still creates continuity issues.
Sapkowski doesn't hate the video games, he just considers them a separate medium than books. He's just not fond of games as a storytelling platform in general, in no way has he indicated he hates the game. He acknowledges them as the high level production they are
God Damn this game is pretty.
Maybe the whole interaction with johnny and saburo are different and the person talking to saburo is a militech operative of the operation and not johnny.
Right, but what would be the ending more in line with the og cyberpunk then? Mr blue eyes one?
Or just leaving? (3 endings are you leaving the city but in very VERY different ways...)
I’d say technically Mr Blue Eyes or giving your body to Silverhand. Personally I think that even if giving your body to Silverhand doesn’t become the canon ending, I feel as if Pondsmith would still bring him back in another way.
@@LayedBackGamers felt the same... misty hints to that. V is already dead no matter what he does. But that can be argued to be life as it is.. cause even without the chip V would have died of something .
What happened to V just made him decide much more quickly what he wanted to do.
So yeah i agree with you.
@@LayedBackGamers i also think that don't fear the reaper is a very fitting end.
While the panam ending is just "feel good ending that yeah you win.... but damn if it costed us a lot"
Becoming a legend makes you back to square one. Dead and alone, a legend but nothing free from the city
The "cure " option well... it sucks and made me sad but i did it to see them all.
And let's not talk about the end it all option.
Can't wait to see what cd red does next..
Then why in the ending where Johnny takes over your body, when V is abot to fell from the helicopter, Rogue grabs him and says "not this time, honey"?
Wrong! There are at least two retcons: the look of Johnny Silverhand and the lyrics of his songs.
The entire story of '77 feels pretty damn underwhelming as the marketing and such for V as a character was supposed to be OUR insert as the player and not another pawn to a linear story. So, that's why I feel having the large emphasis of Johnny Silverhand for 3/4ths of the story to be quite irritating because your character, who you made your V as gets ripped from your hands and placed on a chess board of survival to keep V alive and find a way to get rid of Silverhand or let Silverhand live another day in some other fashion.
As sad as Jackie's death was, I have shed a tear from it, I never really connected to Jackie like the game wants you to believe. You only do two quests playable with Jackie and each are about 10 minutes each. All the cutscenes of V and Jackie doing gigs together are there to gaslight the player in liking Jackie more, and that is EXACTLY the point of the game where V is no longer your insert of a character and just a character being placed on that aforementioned chess board of survival.
I'm sure there's no official retcons in the game to the entire Cyberpunk storyline, however in this game specifically there is a sense of preemptive retcons to how V is handled as a character as I feel V and Jackie were supposed to be like a duo-solo party in the TTRPG aspect of Cyberpunk. But we don't get that.
I guess the point of this comment is to illustrate how there is a disconnect between V as a character and who you want V to be vs the concept of V not being an insert of you and only as a NEW insert for Johnny Silverhand. And this irritates me because ::SPOILERS:: every ending either makes V a slave to Arasoka or dead in some fashion. Which to me just feel like lazy writing due to the devs not knowing how to handle a custom insert character and how to implement it in future titles/DLC.
TL;DR - The Emphasis on Johnny Silverhand ripped the story away from it being you with your TTRPG style character "V".
It's very interesting how, apparently by information leaked around April this year, the expansion is gonna be a spy thriller in Pacifica where somehow the Relic is getting jammed, which means Johnny seldom will get the opportunity to say something until at least the end, making most of that storyline mostly about V doing things
Who is Angel? Do you believe the theory that she is Alt?
I do. We never see what happens with Alts body and Murphy claims to have spread Alt around the net to retrieve later on.
Wouldn’t be the first time CDPR got lord wrong. Lol
But doesn't Rogue confirm Johnny's story?
Which parts and how so? I remember one clip where V says she let Johnny die INSIDE Arasaka in front of her eyes and she doesn’t dispute it. Haven’t seen anything else really though.
If you haven't yet, you also need to take a look at the Never Fade Away flashback. There are a number of differences between the short story and the flashback, most of which seem focused on making Johnny come across as a much bigger jerk than he was in the short story. These differences might be explained by guilt on Johnny's part over not being able to save Alt.
Or the short story could be how Johnny or the media with him spun it and the one in the game is how it actually happened
@@mr.nobody2191 The short story includes Johnny's team spooking the Arasaka security guards so that they open fire on a bunch of people who just want to watch a concert. That's not something that you reveal to the public.
Its. In a way explained in the game itself.. If you look to V's partner in crime who gets axed early on and how his character is after he was uploaded into Arasaka's database. The process is not perfect, so there is going to be problems. So people thinking Johnny's engram being perfect in terms of how its memories work is basically people just not paying attention. ( Obviously, yes this means there is a problem with one of the endings with Arasaka. While its considered to be his resurrection.. It really is not.. They are getting a knockoff version of him. A incomplete version of him. Though it is one that is as close to the real one as they could get. This is why both, IE Johnny's memories, and what really happened, are correct and is of the same timeline. )
I know my comment was not posted shortly after you uploaded this video, but I hope you still see it and understand what I am saying. There is a major problem with Arasaka's tech and no one is really talking about it when it comes to this. It is something that is glaringly obvious and accounts for the problem... So I am hoping this clears things up for people who for some reason either forgot or just did not notice it in the first place. Oh and PS.. Hanako also explains and points out the issues with it.. But V's character basically does not really listen to her. Though the only people who will get this explanation is if Jackie Welles is delivered to Arasaka/Victor ( They both end up in the same place if you do not send him to Jackie Welles's mother/family ) and you of course talk to her, and the engram of Jackie Welles.
I always assumed that Jackie's engram was so fucked up because he was scanned so long after his death, after brain tissue had already mostly died off. Saburo and Johnny and even Alt are way too refined by comparison, he seems like the outlier case.
* S P O I L E R S *
Things we know for sure. Johnny has a large ego, he seems to believe Arasaka is out to get him when this is all about Alt, Soulkiller and Mikoshi. Make sense that his memories, while dying become 'corrupted'. What's interesting is that, if Arasaka gets a hold of Jackie's body after the Heist you get a recording of him on Mikoshi, not an engram like Silverhand; so what defines the difference between a functional engram and a recording. Furthermore, Silverhand's appearance in the TTRPG is more like David Bowie, which I recall reading was the inspiration (might be wrong). Could it be possible that in some way the memories of Silverhand got overlapped with that of Blackhand? I'll go with the idea of Arasaka recovering the Relic that Spider planted on Silverhand as a way to recover what they lost of Soulkiller and Secure Your Soul program, as Saburo had a very personal interest on the program being succesful.
6 friggin months to make that huge web of weaving story’s line up is insane lol..and yet people are going to criticize and find holes and call it all crap anyway.
And the "holes" they find are just them not looking deep enough. Even now I still get comments claiming the TTRPGs aren't Canon to 2077 and refuting the statements of the literal creator of Cyberpunk 2020 - 2077. Absolutely insane!
E-BU-NI-KE, not yubenick. Great video otherwise. I love that you're shining a light on the unified time-line. The myth about alternate timelines needs to stop.
Thank you for the kind words I will always appreciate it. I’ve been working on a pretty long and complete Silverhand video that will cover everything in my first two and more. So that way all the information possible is in a single video. I’ve fixed my pronunciation (I think) so hopefully I don’t mess it up again anytime soon.
@@LayedBackGamers I think you bring a totally fresh perspective to the table here with the table top games (badum-tss) and it's really refreshing. Looking forward to your next video :)
@@DrDAC-go7hs Thank you I try do what I can to help bring more interest and new perspectives to the Cyberpunk world. I hope you continue to enjoy!
I think 2077 is cooler if you choose to believe Johnny's memories are mostly real, so I did just that. But back to canon I feel like Red and 2077 don't exactly line up with some details simply because they were written by different people and while Mike probably gave CDPR some cliff notes on what happened and what's canon they might've had some rewrites along the way on either project and just missed some stuff.
The Never Fade Away flashback is supposed to be a recreation of a short story that was written for the black box first edition of the rules. It also appeared in the 2020 rules, and I've heard also appears in Red. It's about as close to "set in stone" as a piece of lore can be. But there are a bunch of differences between the video game flashback and the original short story. You can't blame that on a cliff notes version of the timeline. You can argue over the reason why, but CDPR knowingly produced a flashback that doesn't match up with something that's been a part of Cyberpunk lore for as long as the game has been around.
@@junior-fj8ud I know.
What the background music?
I don’t believe it has a name, but the start of the video is the Cyberpunk End Credits Music. I as well play the Black Dog instrumental within the video.
gateo?
Oh, so all the inconsistencies are just bad writing... shit I was willing to give CDPR and Pondsmith the benefit of the doubt that they just weren't really talking to each other (gave an overview of the stories and that was it) but if they were talking for a full 6 months... The writing is just bad then but I should have just guessed that since there are major inconsistencies in just Pondsmith's work. (This is my biggest pet peeve in storytelling. How hard is it to reread what you fucking wrote to make it consistent?)
Edit: How are you going to make that leap? He was already dead... before any of this... In Arasaka Tower... cut in half with a shotgun... in HALF... meaning two parts. There's no way any of that would have even happened let alone Johnny imagining it... which is what he would have had to do. Saburo wouldn't have even gotten Johnny's body because it would have been worthless, maybe the chip but not the body (which according to red was perfectly preserved somehow) and unless Smasher and Johnny were actually rivals (which once again, according to RED, they weren't) He wouldn't have given 2 fucks about Johnny's shit. Hell they wouldn't have even gone after Johnny's body as who the fuck would leave a valuable chip (containing soul killer, you know, the program they wanted?) on a dead fucking body?
Alright, so let's take this on face and say "yes, they are true".
Well, let's begin to tell how poor this "concept" of theirs, refusing vehemently to call this a story, seen better in amateur works made in 2 hrs with nothing but a small idea in mind, really is.
Ill begin with the heavy hitter, the engram itself.
It is long established that a living body provided a lively engram, and a dead body provides a quarter baked one, like this story badumtss, on a serious note, Jackie's engram is so quarter baked it is no wonder it plays like a VI, and you really expect me to believe let alone think that Silverhand, having half his fucking torso removed by this launcher of Smasher's would not have been ended right then and there? No heartbeat, brain was shutting down, and by the time of proper storage containment or even the chip itself no matter which route you choose the engram of Silverhand should not have been even remotely as functional as it is, meaning, the retcon was done in a half-baked attempt to conform to the lore, and once again, it was NOT done right, hell, they could've let this one be and make a hard reboot instead, and provided they did their due diligence in regard to QA, and the story isn't as rushed as it is, they could've won the Polish Debt seven times over.
The second point, the Thompson angle, look, it was clear both men gave half a fuck for Alt, and given the times, its easy to imagine the guy being there.
Third angle, Smasher, honestly, ill put this to a rush, cos everyone even Silverhand knows Smasher was there, and unless again, Smasher did NOT rip off half of Silverhand...or Hand in this case, memory should say (Smasher=1), but like the arm, it equals 0.
One time two times three times, look, unless y'all wanna stay divided, you all either push for a hard reboot and enjoy this game just as a spinoff title, as was the decision made last minute, or you continue arguing with quarter baked engrams and aimless creative decisions. As it seems the dev team and writers do. An agreement is to be made is my point here.
Those are my two cents, come to an agreement any kind of agreement that doesn't result in yet another cockup, or enjoy pointless "debates".
This is your local retard, signing off. Have a good one.
Yeah this is the dumbest thing to happen imo. It is a retcon 100%
Check out my timeline I just uploaded. It might change your mind as I lay out what reasons Arasaka would have to eventually find Silverhands body and engram after 2038.
@@LayedBackGamers just because it can be explained doesn’t make it a non retcon. While alt implies Johnny’s memories cannot be trusted, it doesn’t justify them being completely false. Imo Johnnys memories were intended to be a somewhat reliable narrator that only now has to be explained away through retcons.
@@UAFC Settling for it being a retcon when Pondsmith himself said it isn’t is odd. Pondsmith said it’s all on the same timeline and there’s no point in them keeping the other flashbacks and details the same but specifically cut randomly where he clearly dies. That cut is clearly intentional and hinting at his memories afterward being false.
Why do you have silver heads consciousness in the shard?
If they’re not red corning then why is he a central character in the show and in your consciousness?
He is a central character in your consciousness because his datachip is overwriting your mind
He doesn’t become “central” until Arasaka specifically needed his soulkiller chip since that’s what contains the original program by Alt. That’s why they needed to use his engram specifically. So technically it was just change that he was the one to get soulkillered by Murphy and make him essential
please pin meeee
No offense, but how do you pronounce Ebunike wrong when they say it like a dozen times in game lol
To be fair I wasn’t really focused on the name of the cargo boat
Did Pondsmith say it's the "same timeline" or a "unified" timeline, because there's a big difference. Unified mashes different elements together for a new canon.
Well what I find to really matter is the way he describes each table top flowing to the next then flowing to 2077. There are seperate timelines in some Cyberpunk stories but they are always explicitly stated as seperate and what they’re technically a seperate timeline of.
uhhh hold up 5:47
soul killered by spider murphy?
spider murphy was part of his crew
and didnt look or sound anything like the woman who put the soul killer device on him
how on earth did you get that?
also how do you keep mispronouncing the damn boat's name?
its said out loud several times and you dont even get close to an approximation of what the name sounds like.
She soulkillered him because he got obliterated by an Auto Shotgunned from Adam Smasher so it was to save him as an engram. That was what Alt wanted. I am speaking of the Red sourcebook not the 2077 scene as that’s a fake soul prison interrogation not reality. My bad for getting a boats name wrong. It’s severely important I pronounce it correctly or my entire video falls apart (I have already been told and have since the release of this video fixed my pronunciation for future reference. The rudeness was uncalled for) Thanks for the informative comment. I will have a timeline video out soon that will cover the topic as a whole and have a better perspective. It should answer some of your questions.
Smasher could have either watched video of Silverhand's interrogation, or someone else who was in the room (Saburo, the tech, a security guard) told him.
I think Johnny is still alive somewhere, it’s a stretch and I’m only speculating but I found it odd that alt and Johnny work so vastly different as engrams. Alt has a very blackpilled take on being a construct, it could either be cuz her soul was “killed” and Johnny’s wasn’t, tho one could argue that alt still has a soul she’s just got a pessimistic view because she’s so logically driven and cold. Either way I love that this IP is designed in a way to welcome speculation, one day we’ll have answers for all these questions but until then all we can do is theorize
Eh..hes got a grave downtown. Idk what you mean that there’s no body. They cremate the dead even if he was found
That's a memorial