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I'd just like to point out; cyberpsychosis is a cover in world, a smokescreen, a convenient half truth. It's just normal psychotic breaks that happens to everyone when they are subjected to the corporate hellscape. The reason it's more obvious when a walking tank has their inevitable meltdown should be, well, obvious. There's allusions to it in every piece of cyberpunk media, but the biggest sticking point is that mechanically the impacts do very little to your humanity themselves (it's mostly the surgery and the damage can be fixed with therapy) and affirming implants don't have any negative impact on humanity (iirc).
The game really doesn't cover it, but iirc the cyberpunk 2020 ttrpg has a mechanic for going into cyberpsychosis if you add too much chrome (also edgerunners too). I do like the notion that it exactly the same as normal psychosis, just with a walking Swiss army knife
the game does sorta cover it, at least RED does. Implants usually have a relatively small impact on your humanity by themselves (that's the permanent humanity loss), the procedure of getting them and the purpose that fucks you up. Iirc medical grade and affirming implants do nothing to hurt your humanity either, it's not the chrome it's turning yourself into a tool that hurts. Humanity is also higher among people with a decent life (as in, loving family, supportive friends, etc) and can be lost through bad experiences, which implies it's just a mental health thing.
Edit: i might be thinking shadowrun on the medical implants, but shadowing isn't trying to be philosophical about humanity so i doubt it's that.
Shadowrun is very big on the split between the natural world and the technical world, IIRC even medically necessary implants still weaken a person's connection to the natural world.
I think that it's more about the fact that the more chrome you add, the less human you are, and that should have a very heavy impact in your mental health, just like it has on people with several implanta nowadays.
This is such a cool idea! Do they explain this somewhere in the cyberpsycho quests?
It's the premise, to capture them alive so they can undergo a revolutionary treatment aka therapy.
Each and every one of the cases are cases where people had psychotic breaks that can be understood without all the techno magic.
In fact, that's more of an indication that all the cybernetics don't really affect the brain more than whatever mental issues people that get implants would have. If mental issues can't be fixed with a chip, it's very cyberpunk-esque to discard the person ASAP.
What the other guy said. But also, while implants do have negative affects on your humanity on their own they are not that big of a deal. I specifically remember befriending a therapist on the last RED character i made because i could practically borg myself without using borgware (which would make it cost way less humanity) and stay sane as long as i spaced the process out and got help in between. It would have made me a bit of a cocky asshole, but it wouldn't have sent me flying over the edge in their own. You can also lose humanity through bad experiences, like seeing kids die, so it's clearly not (just) a cyber stat, it's just mental health.
Which rpg are you talking about? I’ve played a lot of Cyberpunk 2077 and a lot of this doesn’t sound like the game I’ve played
The cyberpunk game. The actual game, not the video game. Although it's hinted at in all cyberpunk media including 2077
So it's kind of like the school shooting epidemic in a way
Sounds like what they’re saying. Basically, if tomorrow like 80-90% of ppl got implants, but same number of shootings and attacks happened as happen now, im sure there would be plenty of people calling it something very similar. And still blaming everything by the societal ills that led us here. “It’s guns, it’s mental health, it’s bullying, it’s blah, it’s blah.”
Everything but the overarching truth that we are extremely disenfranchised and beaten down and made insignificant in a system that literally runs on us for the good of the system.
The absolute back asswards orientation. We are the most advanced society ever known, but we serve capital and the idea of the capitalist system. We sacrifice ourselves for it, our bodies, our families, our time, our passions and dreams. To serve capitalism.
It’s the absurdity of the truth. This is an absurd existence. Why not act absurdly? It’s malaise or it’s psychosis. Most of us just err on the side of malaise.