this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Cyberpunk

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What is Cyberpunk?

Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.

Cyberpunk characteristics include:

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What's your favorite depiction of cyberspace? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 8 months ago by Hammerjack to c/cyberpunk
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Including any movie, TV show, video game, book, anime, whatever. What's your favorite depiction of cyberspace?

Maybe Hackers?

Or Lawnmower Man?

Maybe Ready Player One?

Or the video game Rez?

Or, I don't know, Tron?

Or maybe you prefer the "consensual hallucination" of Neuromancer? Or the Metaverse from Snow Crash?

Your avatar can look any way you want it to, up to the limitations of your equipment. If you're ugly, you can make your avatar beautiful. If you've just gotten out of bed, your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these.

When I say "cyberspace" I'm thinking any computer-driven virtual world you can navigate through in the first person. And personally, I'm excluding any virtual worlds that look identical to the real world. So I'd exclude things like The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor.

What do you think? Which cyberpunk work created the best cyberspace world?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Johnny Mnemonic

[–] Hammerjack 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

When you need the best hacker, you just need to find a cybernetic dolphin. 👍

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It worked for SeaQuest

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Ralph Breaks the Internet

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The Netsphere in BLAME!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Sup brother

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Dennou Coil

[–] Hammerjack 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I thought Dennou Coil only had augmented reality, do they also have cyberspace? I've never watched it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It does a little bit of both.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

really like recent Pantheon's series take

everyone and everything is super weird and vibrant

also, moving at dramatically different speed due to difference in their budget

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Man that series is undrated as hell

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

More Tron and Ralph Breaks the Internet style. I know I've seen more cyberpunk things that have used a more realistic "avatar world" driven aesthetic, which is what actually exists in certain ways (mostly avatar chat systems like Second Life, VRchat, and, yes, Meta Horizons) but I'm having trouble recalling specifics. Even back when I would see these things as a kid, I thought that's how it would turn out more than the silly abstract bullshit things like Johnny Mnemonic made it out to be (although the scene where he builds a machine to go online is still one of my favorites).

The best depiction by far was Ready Player One. The book, though, not the movie. Though it being written within the modern age doesn't make it prophetic as much as just knowing what the Internet and VR are actually like.

[–] Hammerjack 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I think Ready Player One's Oasis is the one that'd be the most fun to actually use. And I agree that's probably because it was written after the internet, VR, and multiplayer games showed that "going online" isn't enough, you'd actually want something to do online.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I like the book Hyperion's description. Kinda reminds me of how that Hackers depiction looks, except more massive and there are AIs (and other intelligences and processes) roaming around, enforcing rules, running algorithms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

2 books by Tony Daniels....for some reason the 3rd was never written.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Daniel_(science_fiction_writer)

Metaplanetary & Superluminal.

To me, the way the "virtual" people were treated, the way the world building & how the connectivity of everything comes together is absolutely amazing.

It has left me with literary blue balls since i found these books in a used bookshop, since he hasn't completed the series.

[–] Hammerjack 2 points 8 months ago

I've never heard of those! Cool!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I always liked System Shock's cyberspace, but that's probably just nostalgia lol. I just loved the idea of having full and pretty intuitive control over all 3 axis when flying, I had never seen that done in a videogame before at the time.

The remake's cyberspace is pretty cool too, and the music slaps.

[–] Hammerjack 1 points 8 months ago

You're right, the remake did a fantastic job of updating the visuals.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I read Tad Williams Otherland series in the 90s and I still think back to its depiction of cyberspace regularly. Probably time for a reread as an adult to see if it holds up.

cover of Otherland by Tad Williams