I think the Temperance ending actually pushes the engram closer to being true to Johnny Silverhand as "the ideal" rather than 'the man who would become Johnny Silverhand', Robert Linder. Since the engram is steeped in cyberpsychosis, rage, narcissism and has had nobody but its own company to deal with for fifty years, it's only once it's let out into the world to interact with V and people who knew Johnny that the engram starts to stabilize.. but only with some discipline. That's why it's so important for V to call Johnny out on his shit in the oil fields -- by telling Johnny that he fucked up and lost V's trust by going on a joyride after promising to behave, it puts the engram in its place and shatters the last of its unhealthy narcissism (which had already been on shaky ground after realizing that the life of Johnny Silverhand amounted to not even having a grave marker). The engram has the potential to be Johnny Silverhand, or at least the closest to the heroic Johnny Silverhand of legend, but it needs to have its personality flaws checked and dealt with. Spending time with Rogue and Kerry probably fills in a lot of the gaps for the engram as well in that regard. So by the time that the Temperance ending rolls around and Johnny walks off in V's body, he is "healed" and ready to actually move on with his life and become something else, something more. The Temperance card itself reflects healing for that very reason. You rescue Johnny Silverhand, the ideal, from what is effectively digital purgatory and give it a second chance beyond the suffering of the original.
During his life time he was practically stuck in a loop of mistakes. Always ending up against Arasaka, losing the ones he cares about, and pushing those who were alive away from him. Then of course stuck in a loop as an engram. You're right that V was truly one of the few opportunities Silverhand had at properly growing as a person. Being in Vs body forces him to face the consequences of his lifestyle, and to have someone more personally tell him what he does wrong. He never gave anyone else the chance to stop him, he was always rolling. The Temperance ending happens to be my favorite for this character arc, and overall is the best chance at V surviving while benefiting Silverhand as well.
I actually got the temperance ending for my first playthrough and i think it's the best first ending to get honestly. Between the gut-wrenching performance by (at least Male) V's Voice Actor, how soft-spoken Johnny becomes by the end of Mikoshi, and the whole sequence of Johnny's new life, it really got me in my feels and gave me an unforgettable experience, and I'm so glad to see Johnny grow and heal how he did
Love the way that you wrote this, finally someone saw what I saw in Johnny. Also, I would love to play as Johnny in V’s body in a sequel trying to get V back in his body or into a body and blast shit together as a duo that would be mindblowing
3:54 johnny calls himself Robert John Linder i think twice in the game. he knows that's his name. its a poetic phrasing, robert john linder sacrificed his life so that "johnny silverhand" could live.
Phantom liberty has made a notable lore change, Johnny does in fact have an extended conversation and Confession to V while they wait for Reed at a basketball game. He mentioned that he 'died' as "that kid" during the war. Even using his full birth name as part of the story. He bla.ed the war for destroying what he was, and only leaving Jhonny silverhand in its wake.
From what I read, he completely blocked all memory of Morgan Blackhand out of the Arasaka raid out of his narcissism. Pondsmith himself said Johnny is an unreliable narrator and he's "half cyberpsycho". But what we know for sure he was honest about is Saburo Arasaka watching him die, Saburo talked about that in his journal and whatever he chose to tell Kerry as a goodbye.
It's also possible Arasaka edited out the details of Morgan Blackhand, because Arasaka & Militech are in a cold war - and they don't want to signal to Militech that they are gearing to openly blame them for the bombing. Militech blamed Arasaka for the nuke - but Arasaka isn't pulling a "No U" on Militech, instead opting to make Johnny Silverhand a scapegoat that can de-escelate the public conflict.
According to R. Talsorian's book "Firestorm: Shockwave" original print of 1998, Johnny was dead before the nuke's detonation. Unless the lore has been retconned afterwards, there's no way a wheelchair-bound(back then) 102-year-old Saburo Arasaka could speak to Johnny before he died.
Think that complete tosh saying the narcissism sole cause. Johnny been edited is more likely Yorinobu deliberately put his personality on the chip to use Johnny Rage aspect to Netwatch to break the stalemate. Morgan Blackhand likely altered it so no one come after him if it isn’t corrupted element too along with his personality.
The story has seen huge retcons no matter which direction you look at it from. There’s too many confirmed inconsistencies between stories for it to work otherwise.
@@HenbotJohnny wasn’t supposed to be on the Relic Saburo commissioned the chip personally to body Jack Yobinuro. He was put on the relic to smuggle Johnny to net watch so they could deal with Alt. Net Watch wanted Johnny’s engram and could not care about the relic.
How though, that would assume Johnny's is able to change the hardware, he exists upon. My assumption was that either Johnny was dead/severely damaged by the time they used Soul Killer, or this version of Johnny (it's just a shard, and so could be copied countless times), was an attempt to either manipulate an Engram or create/recreate Johnny
@dark_fire_ice Arasaka didn't use soul killer on Johnny, it was Murphy he soul killed him by slotting it into his dying body after he was cut down by Adam Smasher.
@@NihilistSolitude then why the Johnny matrix? An identity, that refers to themselves as Johnny Silverhand, and can back that up (to a degree) is implanted into V, at least to a point, but does not convey anything related to Spider. So how would you square that circle?
@@dark_fire_iceShe inserted a shard containing soulkiller into his dying upper half, but wasn't able to extract it because of the urgency they had to leave. This is all detailed in Pondsmith's story for the Arasaka Tower operation, led by Blackhand - not Johnny. Considering Johnny's substance use, and the fact he was dying in this moment - it's reasonable to suspect that the Engram wasn't perfect. Then combine that with the fact that Arasaka held possession of that engram, and could have altered those memories - or the engram altered them over time to cope.
This is supported in the "Ballad of Buck Ravers", where Corp V can answer the psycofan's querry with the line that "Arasaka interns are told that if they fail their terms, a ghost of a man torn in half will haunt then. Nobody remembers, they speak about Johnny."
I honestly think V is an engram in a virtual reality. Jonny is the catalyst to push V to do things, so arasaka can collect data and increase its defense systems and strike force.
The dog tags have interesting implications, maybe Johnny has deluded himself so much that he sees Robert Linder and Johnny Silverhand as two separate people. He thinks Robert Linder saved his life. When in reality his old self (Robert John Linder) "died" so that Johnny Silverhand could "live" going forward. You've mentioned "the hand" in the past maybe the catalyst for this metaphorical death of Robert John Linder, was the event that caused Johnny to lose his biological hand
I definitely believe that either Alt messed with his memories so it wouldn’t be possible to gain more information or what you’ve said where he thinks of himself as a completely different person. Kinda like Batman. Either those or his brain is just absolutely scrambled from damage and psychosis.
This actually sound rather plausible. I'm pretty sure there have been cases of people developing fully fledged alternate personalities to cope with trauma, and each alter isn't always aware of the others. It may well be that Johnny managed to wrestle control from the original man after they split, and become the dominant personality, which would have some nice symmetry with how 2077 begins. Plus having "the hand" still around might mean Robert is still in there, just suppressed and angry
Also, you have to consider that Johnny’s mind was totally destroyed pre-nuke, a drug addict addicted to fighting with unhealing traumas, it is evident that the memory that was extracted from him was not like that of any other human.
Minor thing, don't think Yorinobu becomes Saburo in any other ending besides the Devil. In every other one he succeeds in dismantling Arasaka as a serious competitor in the megacorp race.
@@S3Cs4uN8 it's his achieved goal in any ending except for the devil ending. Also it's kinda clear throughout the game that he's been prodding militech for a war because in the words of Sebastian Ibarra "there's no bigger smokescreen than war"
@@clarencewalters338 Plus it likely plays into his whole 'I want to destroy Arasaka from the inside' thing. What better way to ruin your Megacorp than by pushing into a costly, resource destructive conflict that you'll work to drag out as long as possible.
Given the nature of Mikoshi and how evil Arasaka is, I'm sure the inconsistencies are a combination of Arasaka meddling and Johnny's own narcissism. And psyberpsychosis. This is kind of why I think that the only "canon" endings are The Sun and Temperance. The Sun because it completes V's arc as a "Night City Legend" and will most likely end with them dying assaulting the Crystal Palace, and Temperance because it completes engram!Johnny's character arc into becoming the hero Johnny Silverhand could have been.
I definitely agree, I believe those two endings complete their character arcs the best. Even Johnnys ending completes Vs arc in a way, V learns to stop focusing so much on being some hotshot legend and instead to let himself make his own decision. He chooses a friend over being a legend, which was a mistake him and Jackie had chosen so early on. V was lucky to get out of that situation.
Ok the sun ending is the one that Johnny tricks V he say that he will save V but he goes and put a bomb in mikoshi - arishaka this completes Johnny and the temperance ending is the one that V gives the body to Johnny and if you play as female V Johnny say that he is not going to be female for much longer if i am not wrong . Why any of this two ending is good for V ? I mean in the nomad ending V is alive and she or he can find a way to save her or him self if this is possible and their is the chance that Alt is lying ( don´t trust anyone in night city ) . Made is the way that we play the game when i play i think my self as V and Johnny is a parasite i mean he try to kill V i don´t want that anymore and then if you give control to Johnny to find informations about Smasher he takes the red pills like a sweet something that is killing V faster so he don´t care about V ( i always say no to that quest ) it doesn´t make sense to give you body to a parasite . I think the canon is when V is hating Johnny no one will like a cance..... and Johnny is a cance.... to V
Johnny lying or beeing inaccurate is even visble in game. In his first flashback, when the strike on Arasaka Tower is happening, we can hear Thompson say something and Johnny even replies to it or mentions him, if I rember correctly. After the flashback with Alt he says that he does not know what happened to him and never heart of him again
yeah, i noticed he was there in my what, 4th playthrough? i feel like people are gonna end up blaming CDPR for the inconsistencies, thinking they were just inconsiderate to bother with accuracy instead of purposely making it that johnny was narcissistic and incorrect
I actually love how these memory sequences were done. To me I think it’s obvious these memories are false. One of my favourites is when Johnny claimed he never saw Thomson again after beating him. However we know he’s there during the raid on arasaka tower as we see him in the memory that takes place prior. All the little inconsistencies. Things out of place such as rouge riding a kusinagi motorcycle which were in production years after 2013. The advertisements you hear as ambience are the exact same ones V hears during current day 2077. These aren’t lazy mistakes on the developer’s part. they’re very intentional. The memories of V and Johnny are so intertwined at this point that they merge elements of each other’s lives within the sequences. It’s the perfect mix of ego from Johnny from time passing and V’s own influence on Johnny’s memories that create these really compelling and interesting segments.
Considering Pondsmith talking about chatting with CDPR about timeline. I think it isn’t going to be so separated, seems to me that they are working together on the lore .
I remember in my first playthrough during a tapeworm section Johnny says they alter your memories and who you are in mikoshi without you even knowing it, I thought to myself so what if they did the same to Johnny and he isn’t aware of it but then to what purpose of editing his memories would it serve, the game never mentions to make V aware that the memories are false or altered after meeting Alt but it’s a cool theory and a rabbit hole to dig into, I just know sometimes it may not be what the devs at CDPR thought of, hopefully phantom liberty throws another bone at this since Johnny is still with V
I think Phantom Liberty without a doubt will. They’ll be aware of the chips existence, claim to be able to help V, and since it’s NUSA and Militech, they’ll know the truth behind the raid. It’s even a possibility that this opens up a new ending of the game for us, where we raid Arasaka with Militech and start a new Corporate War.
@@LayedBackGamers Well we know Morgan Blackhand won’t be showing up, but the teaser does make it look like V will be joining the military and Johnny seems to be there skeptical of my choices as usual.
@@LayedBackGamers bro back to Today and you was right about everything, only last sentence was not right with new war and storming arasaka but the rest is 👍
Amazing collection of information. As someone who loves CP77 but never got into tabletop games, its really cool to have a resource like this, to fill in some of the lore and give even more depth to that story. much appreciated!
Really glad you actually made a video further expanding on this. Having all of this slowly clicking to place realizing it’s not supposed to be a different Canon entirely has been interesting
Thank you for the support! I hope I was able to make it all organized and informational as best as possible. Silverhand story in RED and 2077 has been made much more of a focus of importance. Seeing as Never Fade Away, Fall of the Towers, and Black Dog were all placed into RED to bring focus to Silverhand in 2077.
The Adam smasher encounter just made even more sense it always haunted me first time around and not being aware of the deeper lore while aware of Morgan Blackhand now it's become clear why he didn't care.
The first 10 seconds almost say it all. Also, Johnny tells you how Arasaka messed with his reality and his memories to torture him. His memories also do not follow the canon in the rulebooks or paperback book stories from the 80s. His is a broken soul trapped in a world of his and others' making. There also has to be a reason Alt does not want Johnny as an AI past the black wall with her.
I think the missions with the monk are meant to prove to V that the reality they are aware of may not even be actual reality at all, so by extension literally everything in Cyberpunk 2077 from the people to the events had the potential to not even actually happen, or not in the way that we as the player experience them happening as. There are many clues throughout Cyberpunk that what you are seeing may not be real, but the Monk I truly believe is the key to it all. If Johnny and V were experiencing everything 1:1 as the game tries to lead you into thinking, Johnny should be aware of the Monk but he never is! V is the only one to acknowledge and gain anything from the interactions, and Johnny in his psychosis and narcissism brushes V off when they bring the Monk up in conversation after the missions. Also, I have no idea what the Buddha like statues and their mysterious numbers have to do exactly with this, but I am 1000% convinced that they are related to that Monk.
I took that quest as the monk showing V that the soul is real and the fact Johnny has no clue what he experienced when he should shows the engram ain’t a copy of a person’s soul they are a AI that thinks they are the person they are programmed to be. But there is for sure more. As you said there’s too many clues that suggest more is going on
alright, this one's a doozy. One of the monks in-game talks about how if something can experience suffering, than it is alive, and subject to death. That is a clue towards the engram's true nature, but not a definitive answer, since any annoyance, anger, sadness or regret expressed by the engram may just be tech copying what it knows about those emotions. What IS an answer is that Johnny doesn't experience the meditations. Meditations in buddhism often aren't about a higher self, or a soul. They are about conscience, the thing we all have that allows us to observe our own thoughts, perceptions, feelings and body. If the engram can't have this experience, that means it is not a conscience. While V enters a meditative state, the engram doesn't come along for the ride. This is more than enough proof that, as he is inside the chip, Johnny doesn't count as a real person
I mean it's straight out stated that Ai are basically sentient beings even with immigration laws forbidding them to cross the blackwall delimanes quests straight out say that there is free thinking AI. The project is called soulkiller because it doesn't preserve the soul, it kills it in favor of replicating your memories into Data. Ai Alt even says that she's not the same person as human Alt, and human Alt died when her memories were transferred to the net. It's always been hinted the engram Johnny is not the real Johnny silverhand. I don't think the Monk is key, but he is a guide that allows V to accept his own self his "soul". You're focusing too much of the surface level, not enough into the deeper meaning. Monks are guides to enlightenment they are not keys.
Theres a point about narcissism that most keep missing due to a lack of knowledge on NPD, the self obsession and aggrandising is an outward coping mechanism of severe self hatred and insecurity, inwardly they torture themselves with twisted memories, one left with nothing but memories for fifty years would absolutely have descended into a mess of painful false memories
You also need to take into account that other personalities and memories might have been added to further alter the truth within the engram. There is a good theory that Morgan Blackhand is on that Chip as Adam Smasher wouldnt acknowledge Johnny's existence as a threat unlike Morgan.
I don't know if all of the memories of the concerts are fabricated, considering what Johnny remembers as his final words to Kerry are in fact the final words he said to Kerry. When you meet up with Kerry near the start of Johnny's adventures in righting his wrongs through V's body, Kerry asks what the last thing Johnny said to him was and when he answers whatever you chose, Kerry confirms that to be true. So unless Arasaka hacked Kerry to specifically alter his memory to match up with Johnny's, which I find highly unlikely, that does seem to have actual been his final words to him.
Doesnt't Saburo fail his plan in the "Blaze of Glory" ending where you storm Arasaka tower alone, since it is mentioned, that Arasaka is on the edge of going under ?
Well they are in a state of chaos but delamain also phrases it as they’re recovering but won’t go away. As he said V and the afterlife are only safe from them for now. We don’t have much word on Saburos plan. It’s a possibility it has completely gone under unless they’re able to put together their research again, or they’re putting off a reveal until a safer time seeing as public opinion on Engrams are negative at that time. So revealing that Saburo has come back in a new body might make things worse or it’s just overall not the right time to reveal it. You’re right though it’s very possible Saburo failed so I shouldn’t have stated it so conclusively.
@@Imnothere132but dont fear the reaper ends up the same way as the Panam or Rogue ending, you meet with Alt in Mikoshi and Alt takes all of Mikoshi into cyberspace becoming one with her (or whatever the fuck lol) so Saburo’s engram prolly seizes to exist
I’ll always subscribe to how it went down in the TTRPG source books. Always. Johnny was always a dill weed and he died one. He was Blasted in half by Smasher, and Spider Murphy took pitty on Johnny and put the Soulkiller engram in him as he lay there bleeding out. The Johnny we meet in 2077 isn’t even the real thing, it’s a copy of his brain. He’s convinced himself that the plot was all his plan, not Militech’s. That’s why Blackhand never shows up, Johnny’s got to be the star. The OP was Blackhand’s plan, as ordered by Militech to carry out.
Alt is always the target for Arasaka, they mention it multiple times. What if they made the relic into a kind of inhibitor for Alt. All Johnny talks about is getting back to mikoshi over and over again and seeing alt, as his memories show these are still the most prevalent on his memory. the relic was in Yorinobus apt during a time that we know he stole it from Japan 'against' the family's wishes. When Saburo comes into the room he doesnt seem angry at all and is so calm that it maddens his son to killing him meaning nothing wasnt going according to plan. We can infer that arasaka were most likely the ones who asked for the relic to be stolen as even adam smasher isnt suprised that we are there (he knows). So they wanted the relic stolen, they wanted the theives to upload the chip knowing it wouldnt last in its container without someone chipping it it, knowing they would be someone who would be prone to having sympathy to a figure like johnny and though not trusting would still be curious enough to listen and even maybe fullfill silverhands plan. They know that the relic only works on a braindead host theyve tested it thoughly on multiple subjects, as we read through the games dataslates, and they were counting on being able to kill those thieves before leaving or let Dexter kill him as the figure he would do and of course we have Arasakas number one lapdog, Takemura, go back and see if the relic is still intact who we know, from the devil end and how he directly lies to us, has never been fully honest with us at any step of the journey. This was all an elaborate plan to stop their greatest threat, Alt.
Dude, why do all this only to test the most expensive tech with the most absurd technology if they can have unlimited amount of bodies for them to test?
Saburo was trying to make this technology so he could transfer his engram to Yorinobu's body, but it was DEFINITELY not according to the plan since Saburo can only transfer his engram to Yori's body if V chooses to side with the Sakas.
J was a digital construct in the hands of super-hackers that specialize in mind F'ing for 50 years. Now that I think about it, I seriously doubt there's much of the original J left. Which explains why he's so different from the books, where he's a rockerboy freedom fighter, not a psycho nuclear narcissist. That being said, I think pre-Alt's Death he was that rockerboy freedom fighter, but after the death of the woman he loved he snapped, became the psycho. Then he was killed, digitized, and who knows what Arasaka did to him. As to 2023, I think there was more to it than we know. Like, why was Spider working for Militech? Where'd Johnny get the nuke? Why not nuke the servers if they were after Soulkiller? Why'd a pro like Smasher not just kill him? A lot there isn't consistent. The entire 2023 sequence is sus as hell.
Video explains that Johnny wasn't the one to handle the nuke, it was militech/blackhand, and that smasher DID kill johnny, leading to spider being the one to make his engram
I find it fascinating how many people think that memories are something that is accurate. Even if you disregard the fact, that the relic was never at 100% integrety when it was placed in Vs Head, Memories are literally just people remembering core-feelings and impressions and your brain making up the scene around that. This why memories change over time and you can literally start noticing it when you pay attention (for example the Size of people changes for Childhood-Memories, when you grow up, because if it was not ciritical to that memory your brain will just adjust for your current heigth). And now take into account that Relic was damaged and the personality on it was a half-cyberpsycho. It does not get a lot less reliable as that when it comes to narration.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all enjoy the video and have a great day no matter where you are and who you're with. Let me know down below what you all thought about the video and if you have anything to add. Thanks for watching! FOLLOW ME ON: ● Community DISCORD Server: discord.gg/M2ESDtg9xk ● Twitter: x.com/LayedBackGamers ● Twitch: www.twitch.tv/layedbackgamers
with the upcoming DLC, I think we find out the real truth of what actually happened to Johnny silverhand.and other characters like Morgan blackhand . Good video
@@connorthomas3919 Thank you I appreciate it! I agree, with the involvement of NUSA and Militech, with what we can assume is a promise of fixing Vs condition, I’d find it weird we don’t discover more.
in game after playing through Johnny's memory of the arasaka raid.when v he first meets him, it is in a recreation of the arasaka Towers, and when we first .Hava first interacts with him, and he says, "Who are we it is in the hallways of the arasaka Towers .maybe Hinton towards where he actually did die,
This is the most comprehensive list of fact seperated from the fiction of Johnny Silverhand's life I have seen. I also like how you handled some of the difficult to answer plot holes.
I always interpreted that what he meant by saying that the dog tag is from a friend that died and sacrificed his life. That a ‘part’ of Jonny died in this war, what I mean by that is that he was formed by this war, he was destroyed by this war, he was altered because of this war.
This definitely fits in with the theme of the game. If you take into account all the main interactions you have as V in night city there were probably 3 people (max) that didn’t string you along and attempt to use you. Those three being Jackie, Judy, and Panama. Moreover Johnny never gives a clear explanation as to why he suddenly wants to work with V. the only thing I could think of was that through convincing you to get him to Mikoshi alt would disentangle both of them allowing Johnny to continue to live on in some form beyond the black wall and out side of the control of the relic device, while simultaneously cutting V loose with a body that would actively reject him.
So... The reason why Johnny is publicy known as the terrorist who blew up Arasaka Tower, when in reality it was an act of war by Militech... Is because of Arasaka propaganda? Kinda ironic that Arasaka of all factions, would be the one to corroborate Johnny's memories of events. If it's true, that is.
Militech, NUSA, and Arasaka are practically in a cold war. They are beginning to nudge at each other but aren't read to go back at all out war. So Arasaka would both not want to reveal the information they know, and save face from being looked at as weak by being defeated by another security corporation.
is it really a lie if his own memories were manipulated by arasaka take into account they extracted his engram a copy of his memories before killing him its very believable that arasaka cut his memories to pieces to analyze his whole life after all rogue was the only survivor of the atlantis crew its very likely they extracted much of his personality and rewrote other things and experimented on his engram like a damned guinea pig the worst part is we dont know that ambiguity is what makes the world of cyberpunk so damn good either he lied which he probably can or has OR arasaka fucked his engram up pulling it apart either way its how you interpret how you interact with johnny that determines where the story goes.
dead right, trying to understand what mistakes arasaka made to defend itself, to understand alt's motivations and inner workings to have a better chance to catch her and find who kick them in the balls
Fantastic job with the video! I must say I loved how in-depth you went and how nicely you included all current theories from the arasaka bombing theories up towards the post-blackdog theories! I think you summed up all the thing we have to work with very nicely and I can’t wait for more content from both 2077 and the ttrpg. I would like to add that the Robert John Linder connection is heavily hinted to be a disconnect from his past life, and how he was sacrificed so that Johnny Silverhand could begin - just like say - Bruce Wayne and Batman. But it is very possible that the corrupted engram has went so far as to think of them as 2 different entities. Another thing that I would like to like to note is the theme of immortality with Johnny, even in Cyberpunk 3.0 and Cybergenerations the rocker’s whole shtick was immortality but at the cost of very slowly losing himself (he would be saved and revived by Alt every time he’d get killed by using her soulkiller-esque software) so I would keep a keen eye on the post Black Dog theories regarding him and Alt. Just as you mentioned, the fragmented Alt in 2077 could be a piece of her that survived or evolved, the rogue Alt fragment even doesn’t refer to itself as Alt but merely appeases Johnny in that regard. Something I am working on researching more that I have read on the wiki is the rumor that if V treats Johnny’s engram as just code, without a dose of humanity, in the endgame Johnny’s engram admits that he is nothing but code trying to honor the man that he is supposed to simulate as an engram and inspiring the rebel inside of V. If I find anything more in that regard I will update you all but until then it’s just an interesting rumor. Lastly I’d point to the similarity of the fake memories we see in 2077 with the stories of Morgan Blackhand or perhaps one of the Lobos during the assault - pointing towards the idea that Johnny’s engram might have already merged with memories of previous victims of the relic - although that might just be a far fetched stretch as it doesn’t leave much room for such merges because his body was recovered soon after the bombing albeit in the bunker… The most interesting part to me is the error we find in what Greyson tells us about Johnny’s body and death - it seems completely false in comparison to what we know from the ttrpg cannon, even if Silverhand was revived by Alt/Angel after Black Dog and recaptured, interrogated and killed by Arasaka - his engram wouldn’t be as flawed and damaged as we know it is - it would be fresher. I feel we will yet see more of him, Alt and Morgan Blackhand in the content to follow. ~A thing of beauty will Never Fade Away… Merry Christmas! (I’m orthodox christian so christmas to me is on 7th January but I wish happy holidays for all!)
Well Merry Christmas today and when you’re celebrating! I definitely find it interesting that v3 and cybergenerations still use the idea that Silverhand is continuously brought back. Shows that no matter what he was always meant to stay alive. I believe in the possibility that he has memories from a lobo or Militech that was soulkillered and stored within Mikoshi. I’m always interested to talk so comment or whatever you’d like if you find more!
@@LayedBackGamers Honestly I'm just very curious as to where the story goes next! The whole arasaka bombing conspiracy points to 4 things: -A borged up Adam Smasher getting all but destroyed (either by Morgan Blackhand or the explosion) and getting put into an exoskeleton -Morgan Blackhand disappearing but probably not dead, Adam Smasher would be gloating about it all the way to 2077 if he killed him -The uncertainty of who triggered the bomb (this is such a wildcards as it could be anyone or anyTHING) -The bomb detonated prematurely, approximately at the 120th floor of the southern tower We know alpha team's AV got away from the explosion so a fair amount of time passed before the explosion, that leaves lots of room for more things to happen at Arasaka Tower before the explosion. Might have been Militech, might have been Blackhand himself (thought I doubt it) or any other secret netrunner (might have been Rache or even Alt fragments). Only thing we can say for sure is that Smasher didn't win as his borgo brain is the only thing to survive. And the Black Dog story points us to a few more important things: -Angel is heavily hinted to be Alt (that possibly succeeded with her original ITS Soulkiller program to transfer an engramed mind into a clone body - this principle was similarly done a lot in Cybergenerations) -Johnny's body is with Angel -Arasaka (or at least Michiko's segment) knows about the nuke and Samantha's discoveries And some pointers from Cyberpunk2077 are: -Rogue worked with Arasaka to help establish them within Night City after The Big Lie by Trace Santiago "cleared" their name -Johnny's belongings were scattered throughout Night City (except one of the Malorians and the Porsche which we know Adam Smasher took) -Much is forgotten in the passing 50 years with almost all of the nuclear fallout clearing fully (except all the waste in Del Coronado Bay) -Grayson's lie about Silverhand's body and death is either a mistake by the devs or a very nice ploy to confuse us and add further mystery into the story I feel like everything is pointing towards a whole story that we are not seeing but one that is cleverly hidden behind lots of false stories or subjective truths and I love that so much! In narrative we sometimes believe the narrator as if it is the absolute truth but here we only have certain perspectives just like in real life. It makes piecing together to whole story so much more fun! My question to you is: Where do you think the stories is leading us towards? What comes next? The Phantom Liberty DLC feels like it will be a step in the wrong direction STORYWISE as I feel that it will open a whole new story that doesn't have much to do with the mysteries that we are left with. I think the DLC won't answer any questions nor add anything to the discussion, I just think it will do it's own thing if you understand what I'm trying to say? But I sure do hope that I am wrong.
@@Reljadin101 I feel that the Ingram is separate from Johnny .that the Ingram to the personality of Johnny silverhand. it believes that Robert John Linder died in the Halls of the arasaka Tower.and the two of them are two different people .but I believe that Robert John Linder. isn't dead.then and that Johnny silverhand was Robert John Linder's cyberpsychosis, and Rober John Linder's body was frozen and revived .Robert John Linder being alive in separate from Johnny silverhand kept a low profile. it's just a theory that I had
@@Reljadin101 I believe while the overall story will lead us into a 5th corporate war for Cyberpunk Orion, which will more than likely be setup in Phantom Liberty due to NUSA and Militech. However in relation to Silverhand and Alts story, I believe it could even be revealed eventually (kinda like cybergenerations) that Silverhand and Alt literally went and lived their lives together with their second chance. I doubt Alt had so much planned out to get Silverhand outside of Night City just to get stumped by Arasaka again. That would probably be a new story for the TTRPG similar to how we’ve gotten a Silverhand story for each pretty much. In Phantom Liberty however, I feel that the setup will be another one of those “If you help us we can help save you V” from Militech and NUSA. Which heavily hints at another corporate war seeing as no matter what Arasaka is attacked. Now if they add a new ending with Militechs aid? (Which I’ve heard ending options/dialogue will change because of the DLC)We can all take a gander at where that leads. Since it’s Militech and NUSA messing with the engram, I wouldn’t doubt that they point out inconsistencies within the engram or just give us general information that will directly prove Silverhand wrong. I’m going to be making a video on the fifth corporate war possibly being setup and the possibilities Phantom Liberty contains and are leading us. I’ve just gotta think and look into it some more before I do.
Man these comments are over a year old now but still so very helpfull and relevant for a lore n00b like me. Thank you guys so much. 🤜🤛 Playing the game with no prior reads into the lore left me with a few brain gremlins after certain plot points in Johnny's memory. Especially after looking up Black Dog. Somebody must have frozen him before the bombs went off to preserve the body right? (Could it be Blackhand, Rache, Alt?) Angel resembles Alt so much in Black Dog, seemed like Samantha finding the nuclear case doesn't seem a total coincedence to me. Also for her being a huge Silverhand fan feels like a trol from Alt in some way after their relationship was so toxic. Grayson does not make much sense unless it were some random human bodyparts or maybe they left the arm there for it to seem like it was Johnny. Always found it pretty weird how they wanted to patch that out at some point. So many questions still. 😂 Super excited for Orion to hopefully expand a little on the Black Dog story, rogue AI's, Rache Bartmoss and hopefully Morgan Blackhand. 😎
Great video. If Pondsmith stated Johnny wasn’t a reliable source, I believe him. Even more so that from Johnny’s first encounter of Smasher.. to the rooftop.. and then being taken out of arasa tower all the way to talk to Yorinobu & then directly into soul killer. It states Johnny was split in half by smasher & died, and in the game there isn’t a piece of Johnny missing from smasher even up to his convo with Yorinobu. I believe Johnny’s memories were tampered or he re-wrote it to cope with the parts of himself he was not proud of.
I actually just found in game confirmation that Jonny is full of it. When you do the side job "The Ballade of Buck Ravers" you talk to a man named Karim running a music stand. You ask him for bootleg Samurai tapes from their first gigs. He wants proof that you are a real Johnny fan. If you play Corpo V a dialogue option will apear "Corpo| I know what they say about him at Arasaka" in your full response you tell Karim that they tell new suits at Arasaka that if they don't make quotas "the ghost of a man cut in two" will get them. In Johnny's memories in the game it shows him shot to death by Adam Smashers projectile launcher mod not cut in two. But in the source material Johnny was cut in two by Smasher using a shotgun. Confirmation in the game that Johnny's memories don't match.
So this is going to draw on a little bit from one of your more recent videos, but I think the engram that we have from the relic is what was left over for the second application of soul killer after what spider did during the raid at least according to her story. So the relic engram may not be intentionally lying to us. It may just be piecing together a personality from whatever was left over after Murphy's shard did its work. Between that and the circumstances in which it was made a lot of the relic engram's actions make a bit of sense.
there's also how the biochip's integrity was rapidly falling before V could get it in their head. Mix all these factors in together and it's a wonder it functioned as well as it did.
I believe that part of it comes down to falling down the penthouse during the heist, damaging the biochip to like 82% I think it was making his memories unreliable as well.
I love that the Silverhand sequences show him as this one-shot deadeye badass lol that's the first tip off I got that he's an unreliable narrator. But also that's roughly how human memory works, it was a quick raid, of course he wouldn't remember a drawn-out firefight. (Also Johnny is literally "just some guy" he was so delusional he had no idea there were other teams that night, hell he thought it was his idea)
What time of day exactly did the bomb detonate on Aug. 20, 2023? After V gets shot in the head and dies, we see a flashback to Johnny's participation in the raid on Arasaka tower. During the whole flashback, a time of day can be seen in the upper right corner of Johnny's scanner HUD (hold down LB). The scanner HUD’s displayed time doesn't say AM or PM - it is displayed in a 12-hour format, but we can assume it starts off as PM, since it's clearly night time when the raid starts. Also, the time doesn't update minute-by-minute, but only changes at three of the six key transition points during the flashback. 1, 9:00: The flashback initially shows Johnny playing a show with his band. 2, 10:00: The show is over. Johnny says goodbye to Kerry and gets onto the helicopter with Rogue. 3, 12:10: Johnny gets off the chopper with the nuke, having landed on Arasaka tower. He drops off of the nuke, hacks the network with Spider Murphy, gets confronted by Smasher the first time. He gets shot and the screen goes black. 4, 12:10: Johnny exits the building to go up the stairs back to the rooftop. Some text flashes briefly on the lower left of the screen stating, “ARASAKA TOWER, 11:45 PM, AUG. 20, 2023”-however Johnny’s scanner HUD still says “12:10”. He goes upstairs and tries to get on the helicopter with Rogue, only to be pulled down by Smasher and shot. Screen goes black. 5, ??:??: Johnny regains consciousness briefly while being loaded into the back of an Arasaka van. He sees the top of Arasaka tower in flames, but it doesn’t seem the nuke has exploded yet. You cannot activate his scanner HUD during this sequence, so it’s unclear what the time of day should be. 6: ??:??: Johnny regains consciousness while being interrogated by Arasaka. Again, the scanner HUD cannot be activated, so we can’t see what time it’s supposed to be. In the distance we can see a nuclear mushroom cloud. There are two anomalies here that support the idea Johnny’s memory is corrupt. Firstly, there is no way it’s 12:10 AM when they first land on Arasaka tower, since if that was the case, then the bomb would have detonated on Aug. 21, not Aug. 20. Secondly, there is no way the mushroom cloud is real, because real mushroom clouds rise quickly-the fireball from the nuclear explosion is extremely hot, and hot air rises. The extremely fast rise of a nuclear fireball after a nuke goes off is, in fact, what creates the “mushroom” shape.
What's strange is that the Soulkiller data slug that was inserted into Johnny by Spider Murphy to create an engram of Johnny lasted so long outside of an uncontrolled environment to later be found intact by Samantha. In comparison during the Cyberpunk 2077 engram heist with V and Jackie, the engram seems to be extremely volatile, sensitive to temperature and physical disturbances.
As i've listened to these things and even read the lore exerpts in the sourcebooks, one inconsistency still remains (IMO) about the 2023 assault on Arasaka tower: Adam Smasher is said to have used a Samson up to the point he fought Morgan on the roof, when he is in a Dai Oni. The Dai Oni according to its entry in the black chrome books needs HOURS of preparation before being fielded, all which are done with the biopod inside. But the timeline of everything happening that night is too short for Smasher to have switched bodies AND be run through all Dai Oni stages of activation. Leaving aside the fact that the biopod in a DaiOni is drugged up to the gills as a matter of procedure to keep it from going completely berserk.
Well I'd need to look more into myself on this specific occurrence, but I've always assumed it's a possibility that Smasher is already a construct so is capable of just being data transferred between bodies or something along those lines.
@@LayedBackGamers well, about that..... I remembered something a few months back. The temperatures and sheer amount of radiation at ground 0 of a nuke are unsurvivable. In the range of 1000 degrees celsius past the melting point of tungsten for the first mile or 2. A biopod cannot survive that. So Smasher and Shaitan (if not retrieved) would be 100% deceased. Now, 2077 and Edgerunners Smasher by this logic is definitely an SPI. If Yorinobu was able to be refleshed (assuming that it was done by let's say Hanako or on her orders between september 2022 and august 2023), so to a degree can Smasher's engram be put into a new biopod or even body to get borged again.
Could the nuke have been detonated by AIs from beyond the black wall? After all alt Cunningham without her body may have been seen as some type of hazard or threat to the rouge/free AIs... Maybe her merging with a rogue I was part of some deal or condition to escape makoshi. Also in that process, Morgan blackhand's mind was saved or transferred to a new or different body either by alt alt or via the involvement of rogue AIs... Maybe he merged with an AI too in the process in order to survive... Hence why we have Mr Blue eyes and potentially a Morgan black hand character coming up in the next DLC.
That’s an interesting take! I’m not too sure on the AI detonating the nuke, it’s a possibility but honestly I believe Militech and NUSA chose to sabotage the nuke without anyones notice. Nobody would’ve participated in the raid if they knew it would destroy night city. Even Blackhand assumed it would be more controlled since it should’ve detonated much lower in a secured part of Arasaka. I think Militech and NUSA just hated night city since they wouldn’t align with them. Blackhand as well since he didn’t have much cyberware installed, he probably was in the nuke radius since he was fighting Smasher. So he definitely had to be saved and “put back together” in a way. Wether by engram or just cyberware who knows. Maybe he even reached an Arasaka bunker before the blast though.
@@LayedBackGamers about blackhand... I've been thinking about that too.. though Morgan blackhand did not have much cyberware, I'm not sure soul killer had a minimum cyberware requirement... I do think Alt had to merge with some free/rogue AI because I don't think it was humanly possible for her to escape makoshi. She had to evolve. Maybe in that process of her evolving either she or some other entity rescued or evolved Morgan blackhand. I am starting to suspect that Morgan blackhand cyber arm was recovered and might be what we see in the upcoming DLC.
@@MrPikaGammer I think I was not clear enough. Morgan blackhand in his entirety doesn't need to appear... However the continuation of Mr Blue eyes and/or any other character sporting a black cybernetic arm or hand might be methods by which he is referenced. I am personally inclined to believe Mr Blue eyes is the evolved AI version of the original Morgan blackhand... Or some type of doll to the same effect.
@@domtef347 Mike has already said that Morgan isn't Mr. Blue Eyes. CDPR modified their 2077 Blackhand model to be Mr. Blue Eyes so they didn't have to make a whole new model. There were no plans to use Blackhand in 2077 in any way shape or from after they were scrapped. It is so that his story can be expanded by the Sourcebooks.
Was it ever explained why Alt created soul killer? That would be really interesting to learn about. Curious what would prompt someone to make a tech like that.
If you're familiar with the original Cyberpunk TTRPG lore, you'd now Alt altered Johnny's memories when she created his engram right before he died after Adam Smasher cut him in half in 2023. Spider Murphy connected Johnny to the Arasaka Mainframe for Alt to be able to run Soulkiller on him. "Never Fade Away" plays out pretty much in 2077 as is did back when the original story was released in Cyberpunk 2013. Check the "All Things Dark and Cyberpunk" section of the Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook. It's all there. By the way, Johnny Silverhand never worked for Militech. He used Militech to get the nukes for the Arasaka building.
I haven’t seen anything in 2020 mentioning that he was connected to the mainframe for Alt to run soulkiller on him. Only seen that Murphy was given the Soulkiller program, stating the chip she inserted was given to her by Alt a long time ago. Especially since she let the head of Arasaka use soulkiller as Supuku. I do believe though that Alt changed his memories as Angel, which makes more sense on the timeline. He technically didn’t work for Militech, but it was a Militech op. He was just there for his own reasons, to save Alt. Not to nuke Arasaka. I’m not sure where you get that information, as even the TTRPGs of 2013,2020, and RED never state he planted a bomb. They only ever state that Blackhand was seen bringing a heavy briefcase to lower levels, which makes sense since Blackhand didn’t go for the kill on Smasher, he just wanted to save Shaitans Biopid and ditch. (Not trying to be rude. Just confused since I’ve scanned the TTRPGs pretty well. So I’d like to see where specifically if I missed something that major)
@@LayedBackGamers I'm reading my 25-year-old "Shockwave" hardcopy as I answer to you. Johnny Silverhand didn't know about Alt being still alive and trapped within Arasaka's mainframe, he just wanted revenge for 2013. The nukes serve him well for that purpose even if their existence is not revealed until the failed Cyberpunk 3.0 was released for storytelling purposes. There was a third "Firestorm" series book planned to wrap the 2020 edition and explain all this that was going to be called "Firestorm: Aftershock". Never saw the light if day. As for Johnny being connected to the Arasaka mainframe when his mind was ripped away and turned into an Engram, I was talking out of the top of my head. You're right, Soulkiller was given to Murphy as a demon. A Demon in the Cyberpunk lore is a series of programs that run at the same time when released on a computer system. The version used on Johnny was the 3.0. For the game's purpose this version of the Demon is, and I quote: "Nearly an AI in its own right, with a cunning and intellect that rival some netrunners", the most powerful version of the program ever. As for the sake of Kei Arasaka commiting "Seppuku" with Soulkiller...He did, but only because Rogue and (Possibly Shaitan in an Alpha Borg as somehow his biopod was apparently rescued from the wreckage and inserted on a basic Alpha Borg body) were there to prevent him from using his wakizashi. My bad for doing a bad exposition of the facts, haven't run a Cyberpunk session for more than a decade. I have every single book of both Cyberpunk 2013 and 2020 published by either R.Talsorian or the now defunct Ianus and Atlas Games, but like Johnny's, my memories don't recall the facts as accurately as they used to 😁. Keep up the good work. Been into this lore since 1990 and I still find it very compelling.
Hold on a moment. Angel is Alt? One of the two Dolls offered at Clouds is named "Angel" and the other "Skye." The etymology for Skye is believed to be Old Norse for "cloudy." Or could be a reference to the English word "Sky." "Alt" is a prefix from an Indo-European word for "High" or "tall hill." Could V's Cloud Doll have been Alt's AI?
This was really interesting. I could never figure out how in Johnnys memories he gets fucked up by smasher but then the next scene is him back up and running or how after the nuke he somehow survives and is being pulled from the wreckage but in the next scene the nuke looks like it’s leveled the whole cite from afar. This was really insightful into this character and the world building put into the game.
It’s because that point is where Johnny actually died for real. He got ripped apart almost instantly by smasher while Murphy and Rogue watched it happen. The “memories” that happen after that never actually happened. It’s probably a mix of Johnny coping with the fact he got one tapped and Arasaka invading his memories to find the reason he attacked. Johnny just visualised it as an interrogation.
@@boglurker2043 like if I’m not mistaken he’s attacked before they finished detonating it or was it after and I’m just not remembering the order of things correctly?
@@FeartheOldGods There were actually 2 nukes that went off. There were 2 teams doing the Arasaka raid. Johnny says it’s his op, but it wasn’t. It was Morgan Blackhand’s. Militech hired them to do it. Johnny tagged along because he wanted to free alt. He wasn’t a major part in the operation like his memories make out. Why doesn’t Morgan show up? Don’t really know, could be Johnnys ego or just Arasaka fuckery. Johnny died before the nukes went off. During the heist though Johnny already had a relic with Alts original version of soulkiller on it, given to him by Alt. When he got shot by Smasher, Spider ran the soulkiller program to try to save him before he died. She succeeds but then the nukes detonate, so they have to leave him behind. During the clean up Arasaka find his body in the rubble, and that’s when they take the relic with his engram on it and plug it into Mikoshi. They mention that the copy is corrupted because of the radiation his body was exposed to.
I can't believe I've read a ton of the TRPG lore and have 300+ hours of gameplay in 2077 and never realized the inconsistencies between the two were intentionally placed by the writers to show how Johnny is lying to us all the time.
One small detail still annoys me, and I think it just got overlooked but in the ending with Rogue, when you get dizzy and nearly fall out, she grabs you and says ‘not this time’ which is very similar to memory of Johnny on the roof
It’s funny I didn’t know much about any lore. But this makes so much sense. In 2077 Adam shoots Johnny’s metal arm off then it cuts and his arm is back on when they are interrogating him. I chalked it up to a mistake by the game developers. Maybe it was or maybe it was a mistake by the Corps?
I highly do believe they used johnny to get at alt and control of the dark net but like weve discussed i highly believe theyre underestimating alt and her capabilities....
@@JohnnySilverwrench They definitely underestimate her. I mean especially the AI Net “Alt”. Seeing as the moment she entered the Arasaka network she was frying all their troopers, netrunners, and systems. If Alt is still around though, persay the Angel version, she definitely has something big being planned. There’s a lot they can do in Phantom Liberty and the Edgerunners kit, it’s the best time to be invested in Cyberpunk. Thanks for watching and always checking in, I always appreciate it and like talking about these topics! Hope you had a great holiday.
If his memories were altered, whether while in mikoshi or by alt, why would they add the footage after where his death should have occurred? How would it benefit either party by making Johnny have another standoff with smasher and also see night city being bombed before the sequence ends with a him being soulkilled?
I started playing this recently, as I acquired the Phantom Liberty DLC. I watched this video a while back, but now I can't play the game without noticing the inconsistencies in Johnny's recollection of past events. It would make sense to me that Arasaka altered Johnny's memories in some way so as to be able to interrogate him better. It would explain why you witness two death scenarios: One on the roof of the plaza where he gets his arm blown off, and one in the zen garden after uploading his manifesto, both at the hands of Smasher. The way Johnny tells it, the first scenario he survived somehow in the Zen Garden, but then fell from the chopper and had his arm blown off. So in the later scene when he's being interrogated before he got hit with soul killer, his arm is magically back. This led me to believe that the scene with soulkiller was a sort of edited enhanced interrogation, and Johnny was already dead and deposted in an engram storage chip maybe, or maybe Mikoshi. In past runs, I always sort of took everything at face value because "It's a game", but this run I am starting to find myself noticing things I didn't notice before regarding narrative, and the plethora of sub-stories in the game (Like who killed the Mayor, the Peralez bit, Johnny's "lies"). This channel, and this video and videos like these, have changed the way I play this game, and how I view the marrative as a whole.
So really the "never fade away" sequence was more or less accurate, in spite of what Alt says. Alt was taken, Johnny (wrongly) insisted Arasaka wanted him, Johnny gathered a team to rescue Alt. Alt's body died in the end and her mind was trapped. All perfectly in line with what we saw. Where things differ are mainly in the details of who did most of the shooting (ie in Johnnys memory he's practically a 1 man army, in reality Rogue is the one pulling the most weight), and how EXACTLY Alt ended up disconnected and when the Arasaka guy ends up dying. Ironically AI-Alt seems to blame Johnny for killing her, when the real events suggest she was dead before he got there. At worst, he didn't try to save her properly (reconnecting her), IF that even would have worked he probably didn't know any better, and apparently neither did anyone else involved.
So glad I found your channel from the first silverhand video. Keep it up man. The vids explain the lore really well, have been thoroughly enjoying learning from them. Edit: and Merry Christmas
I appreciate it, thanks for always watching and checking in. I’m excited to see what Phantom Liberty and the Edgerunners kit bring. This is the best time to be a cyberpunk fan.
After listening to this theory and reading some conversations here, I feel like the whole depth of Cyberpunk is really starting to sink in. I'm starting to actually dig the "no happy endings" thing. This is probably the thickest dystopia I've experienced. In the real world, we strive for a steady income, abundant access to food, water, healthcare, time and money to support hobbies, raising kids in good schools. In the real world in a 1st world country, those things feel achievable if you just work smart and hard enough for it, hopefully not too much luck required. Variables to your success being whether you grew up with a good education, how much parenting your parents do, etc. (Gonna use fake numbers here) Without any of these life variables, let's say your chance of success is 10% by default. With a perfect life & support network, that pushes your chances of success to say ... 90%. You'd have to try real hard to screw it up. Rich parents bribing you into Harvard kinda thing. In Cyberpunk, these goals are seemingly on the same level as riding a magic dragon. More is stacked against you, and the things working in your favor are nearly meaningless. If we're using my fake numbers, instead of 10% chance of success by default, in Cyberpunk you have ... 0.1% by default. And a perfect upbringing & support network maybe push you to 1% at best. Even if you land a dream corpo job, chances of being literally killed by your rivals is pretty damn high. So if the real world's challenge was "How are you going to live?", Cyberpunk world's challenge is, "How are you going to die?". Just my sentiment. This dystopian world is fascinating.
Makes sense that Arasaka tampered with Johnny's memories because there are many inconsistencies from the tabletop books but that was most likely done on purpose. The question is, was Johnny still alive when they made him an engram because the tabletop lore said he died during the tower.
@@DevaChriss Mike Pondsmith stated that Silverhands engram is damaged from radiation damage his BODY took. Meaning the engram we meet on the biochip was made after the nuke went off.
@jefflovesfishing2002 That could be true as well. He was an engram for 50 years so his memories could be foggy, but Arasaka had his engram for decades so they could have tampered with his engram as well. Also during the heist, the relic got damaged so that could affect his memories too. So many possibilities, but I think it will be made clear in the Cyberpunk sequel hopefully.
The flashbacks from the engram are super obviously embellished. While I imagine that the true Johnny Silverhand was a capable fighter considering he served in a war, him one shotting every 'saka goon with his malorian (also the way he reloads the weapon is incredibly over the top), how he somehow found enough time to upload some manifesto when his nuke was tumbling down the elevator shaft primed to detonate are plainly not possible, it's like he's constructed an action movie from his memories. Man is lying to us from the word go, about everything. Also an interesting detail perhaps is every time we interact with him in cyberspace we visit the digitised version of where he met his end with Smasher.
Johnny Silverhand is what he's always been, a narcissistic, manipulative scumbag trooper with PTSD and unhealthy coping strategies living in the now. He's the ultimate unreliable narrator because he was there, but his own shortcomings and issues prevent him from remembering things the way they went down. Even without memory editing, he'd be super unreliable.
Well of course, he remembers everything in the way it most suits his agenda, and his mind fabricated the gaps and exaggerated the exploits. When you play as Johnny, he one-shots everybody he fires at and has time to spit witty quips. He is a narcissist.... so he is the hero and the victim. The best guy on the team. And in failure, he will do mental gymnastics to twist it into success or achievement. His ego will dismiss and discard failures, shortcomings and humiliations.
Here is something I started to think today: that's not Johnny. That's an actual construct made from a dead engram just like Jackie's. Hironobu is accounted by his father with the Relic steal, but never mention an engram. What if the Steel Dragon had the defective engram from a cut in half corpse his father made to try to extract the responsibles for the nuke? And then the son built a functional Johnny to sell to the Voodoo Boys attract Alt? That would explain the differences on the freshest memories, which weren't well fixed for proper extraction.
Id like to add minor detail here. He wasnt going to sell the engram to voodoo boys, but to Netwatch and then voodo boys learned about this deal and commisioned the heist to snatch the engram before its sold to netwatch.
I personally would love another flashback to 2023 arasaka tower assault in Phantom Liberty where we learn the real truth with Johnny witnessing this flashback.
Okay...let's create a CP77 conspiracy theory here: Why his memory is fake? What is the gain tho the one who did it? - Hyp1: Silverhand engram can change his own memories as perceived by V, manipulate V - Why? A mercenery to attack Arasaka? So V delivers his body willing in the end? Because V is a lowbie and he wanna help him grow? - Hyp2: His memories were altered by Saburo's order - To torture Johnny? Because he was going to put this engram into someone's body and to what end to that someone? In Yorinobu? In a common proxy to do what? Was he trying to also reach Alt and planned or hired for the VB try to steal it and try to reach beyond the black Wall? Why? Why he still needs Alt? What does ALT stole or discovered while she became and Engram herself and fled beyond the Black Wall that Saburo wants back or silenced? Also, did he ordered Helman (see below) for those reasons? And why Saburo wrote that he could nuke and end NC, but decided to get back... well, Hanako stopped him, does it means it is all her doing??? - Hyp3: His memories were altered by Yorinobu's order - Because he wants to be Johnny, and probably Blackhand as well, since both memories are kinda mixed? Maybe so he can really annoy his father? Or even takeover Arasaka and reaching the secret Mikoshi, where Saburo's own Engram is kept? Also, did he ordered Helman (see below) for those reasons? - Hyp4: Silverhand cyberpsycko delusions - Pondsmith already stated that Silverhand is a CPsy. So this is the result? But why does he has Blackhand memories as well? - Hyp5: Ander's Helman did it - Did he really merged Blackhand and Silverhand? And does this means he has something to do with Mr.Blue Eyes, since Blue Eyes body is named Blackhand in mods? And does it means that Helman or someone he obeyed (Arasaka, Yorinobu, Saburo, or even an Rogue AI that now controls Blackhand body as Mr.Blue Eyes)? Does it means that they werre trying to control NC, a free city, who is out of any other country jurisdisction? Does it means they had plan to use such free city for any other secret project? Was that what Sandra Dorset found out and got so scared of? -Hyp-others: Rogue AI's did it - As stated on Hyp5, a Rogue AI can also create an AI controlled city finally. The mayor is reprogrammed... maybe and Engram himself, since he was raised by Knight Foundation?? Is Knight back in the shadow against big players like Arasaka? Or is Mr. Blue Eyes the Rogue AI taking over NC? Or even hitting Arasaka back, as another Engram or enfuriated AI, and that's why maybe hired VB to free Silverhand and Blackhand and HAD to merge both because there was just one Engram to make?
also, the Lucy's Arasaka's child netrunner program to hunt Alt support that Silverhand (and Blackhand merge?) Engram was maybe another initiative to bait Alt... and that's why Saburo didn't nuked NC (or Hanako)... and maybe he (or Hanako) even hired the VBs, to make the Engram believe in what happened so Alt wouldn't suspect... and in this case, yes, Adam Smasher, knew about the Heist and really saw V and Jackie, and let them go... also, that's why they (Saburo, Smasher) were in NC EXACTLY at the day where the Heist happened... and maybe they just didn't saw Yorinobu's kill coming... or even have that planned and staged in front of V, so the World would believe Saburo's death... maybe even further lure Alt, or a specific move against other opponents (coorps, governments)???
This is also further pushed too because of Jackie Welles' body if he was sent to Vics. Being dead or on the brink of can result in very mixed results or just utterances of who they were.
The funny thing is though Johnny flawed he isn’t wrong about the corpos and what he says should be done. Even if you dismiss Militech TTRPG even the game shows you that Johnny was being manipulated by Yorinobu even before you get him. So it wouldn’t be surprise if they do in the Phanton Liberty story the reveal of the true story he was being run by Militech. It matches the whole trajectory to make out his liberty is a phantom . It then also could reveal how Blackhand and Militech turned him into the scapegoat for the bombing.
There is a very good reason why his memories are off.. For one. His Engram was damaged. For two, the system was not exactly perfect yet when he was initially hit with soul killer in order to create his Engram. Even by the time your character, V comes into play. The Engram system is still not fully working right. At least not to the same level as one would hope. But one would be understood if you where not paying attention to a few things you can find out during the Cyberpunk 2077 game's storyline as, in order to put a full and complete picture of the problems.. You have to pay attention to every variation of Cyberpunk 2077's Storyline... And also have some knowledge of the tabletop game as well. In the ending where a engram of Saburo Arasaka got created and put into his son. IE. His son is now dead, and the engram of his father now exists in his body. ( Disturbing, but in a way it is justice for what the son did to the father, while also sort of bringing back Saburo. ) The new version of Saburo Arasaka though.. Is not perfect. As is they had to both use soul killer, plus data they extracted from the brain, and also used information/documents they had on him in order to recreate said engram. Soul Killer is not capable of really obtaining the "soul" or all of a person's knowledge/data from their brains in order to replicate them even at that point. It was still an experimental piece of tech. One that the company felt that they had to risk using in order to bring Saburo Arasaka back in any way they could.. But of course they could not announce bringing him back without also releasing the the whole Eternal Life thing being announced to the public. So they basically released a product to the public early, while announcing it earlier.. All due to the fact that the company was afraid of this war in the company and seen resurrecting him to be the best alternative. So,, Yea a lot of the issues could be easily for several different issues, or a collection of them. Regardless.. Yes. The things that Johnny Silverhand tells you are not necessarily true, and they are also not necessarily something he made up himself but some/all of it could be made up by him. *EDIT* PS I am talking about the PC/console game and why some of it explains why it alone explains why Johnny's "memories" are lying to us. in the game. Adding this part into the comment JUST in-case it was not obvious before I added it.
Rogue backs up his memories, though. At least with what happened in Arasaka. As well as Grayson. And with the concert in 2023, he pushes his way on stage and takes over Kerry's set with band.
I'd like to see this reassessed post phantom liberty. Some of this breaks down a bit but it can also be re-analysed. like, he outright says that his actual name is Robert John Linder, which erases the dogtag engram inconsistency.
I think the Temperance ending actually pushes the engram closer to being true to Johnny Silverhand as "the ideal" rather than 'the man who would become Johnny Silverhand', Robert Linder. Since the engram is steeped in cyberpsychosis, rage, narcissism and has had nobody but its own company to deal with for fifty years, it's only once it's let out into the world to interact with V and people who knew Johnny that the engram starts to stabilize.. but only with some discipline.
That's why it's so important for V to call Johnny out on his shit in the oil fields -- by telling Johnny that he fucked up and lost V's trust by going on a joyride after promising to behave, it puts the engram in its place and shatters the last of its unhealthy narcissism (which had already been on shaky ground after realizing that the life of Johnny Silverhand amounted to not even having a grave marker). The engram has the potential to be Johnny Silverhand, or at least the closest to the heroic Johnny Silverhand of legend, but it needs to have its personality flaws checked and dealt with. Spending time with Rogue and Kerry probably fills in a lot of the gaps for the engram as well in that regard.
So by the time that the Temperance ending rolls around and Johnny walks off in V's body, he is "healed" and ready to actually move on with his life and become something else, something more. The Temperance card itself reflects healing for that very reason. You rescue Johnny Silverhand, the ideal, from what is effectively digital purgatory and give it a second chance beyond the suffering of the original.
During his life time he was practically stuck in a loop of mistakes. Always ending up against Arasaka, losing the ones he cares about, and pushing those who were alive away from him. Then of course stuck in a loop as an engram. You're right that V was truly one of the few opportunities Silverhand had at properly growing as a person. Being in Vs body forces him to face the consequences of his lifestyle, and to have someone more personally tell him what he does wrong. He never gave anyone else the chance to stop him, he was always rolling. The Temperance ending happens to be my favorite for this character arc, and overall is the best chance at V surviving while benefiting Silverhand as well.
I actually got the temperance ending for my first playthrough and i think it's the best first ending to get honestly. Between the gut-wrenching performance by (at least Male) V's Voice Actor, how soft-spoken Johnny becomes by the end of Mikoshi, and the whole sequence of Johnny's new life, it really got me in my feels and gave me an unforgettable experience, and I'm so glad to see Johnny grow and heal how he did
@@LayedBackGamers wait V has a higher chance of survival in temperance!? Imma need you to elaborate choom
Love the way that you wrote this, finally someone saw what I saw in Johnny. Also, I would love to play as Johnny in V’s body in a sequel trying to get V back in his body or into a body and blast shit together as a duo that would be mindblowing
@@Flamevilleno it's just Johnny. Still has V's vocal cords though.
3:54 johnny calls himself Robert John Linder i think twice in the game. he knows that's his name. its a poetic phrasing, robert john linder sacrificed his life so that "johnny silverhand" could live.
Phantom liberty has made a notable lore change, Johnny does in fact have an extended conversation and Confession to V while they wait for Reed at a basketball game.
He mentioned that he 'died' as "that kid" during the war. Even using his full birth name as part of the story. He bla.ed the war for destroying what he was, and only leaving Jhonny silverhand in its wake.
From what I read, he completely blocked all memory of Morgan Blackhand out of the Arasaka raid out of his narcissism. Pondsmith himself said Johnny is an unreliable narrator and he's "half cyberpsycho". But what we know for sure he was honest about is Saburo Arasaka watching him die, Saburo talked about that in his journal and whatever he chose to tell Kerry as a goodbye.
It's also possible Arasaka edited out the details of Morgan Blackhand, because Arasaka & Militech are in a cold war - and they don't want to signal to Militech that they are gearing to openly blame them for the bombing. Militech blamed Arasaka for the nuke - but Arasaka isn't pulling a "No U" on Militech, instead opting to make Johnny Silverhand a scapegoat that can de-escelate the public conflict.
According to R. Talsorian's book "Firestorm: Shockwave" original print of 1998, Johnny was dead before the nuke's detonation. Unless the lore has been retconned afterwards, there's no way a wheelchair-bound(back then) 102-year-old Saburo Arasaka could speak to Johnny before he died.
Think that complete tosh saying the narcissism sole cause. Johnny been edited is more likely Yorinobu deliberately put his personality on the chip to use Johnny Rage aspect to Netwatch to break the stalemate. Morgan Blackhand likely altered it so no one come after him if it isn’t corrupted element too along with his personality.
The story has seen huge retcons no matter which direction you look at it from. There’s too many confirmed inconsistencies between stories for it to work otherwise.
@@HenbotJohnny wasn’t supposed to be on the Relic Saburo commissioned the chip personally to body Jack Yobinuro. He was put on the relic to smuggle Johnny to net watch so they could deal with Alt. Net Watch wanted Johnny’s engram and could not care about the relic.
I always thought Johnny was gaslighting V the entire time
Well gaslighting implies it was intentional. This iteration of Silverhand honestly believes his memories, having no knowledge of their alterations.
How though, that would assume Johnny's is able to change the hardware, he exists upon.
My assumption was that either Johnny was dead/severely damaged by the time they used Soul Killer, or this version of Johnny (it's just a shard, and so could be copied countless times), was an attempt to either manipulate an Engram or create/recreate Johnny
@dark_fire_ice Arasaka didn't use soul killer on Johnny, it was Murphy he soul killed him by slotting it into his dying body after he was cut down by Adam Smasher.
@@NihilistSolitude then why the Johnny matrix? An identity, that refers to themselves as Johnny Silverhand, and can back that up (to a degree) is implanted into V, at least to a point, but does not convey anything related to Spider. So how would you square that circle?
@@dark_fire_iceShe inserted a shard containing soulkiller into his dying upper half, but wasn't able to extract it because of the urgency they had to leave. This is all detailed in Pondsmith's story for the Arasaka Tower operation, led by Blackhand - not Johnny.
Considering Johnny's substance use, and the fact he was dying in this moment - it's reasonable to suspect that the Engram wasn't perfect.
Then combine that with the fact that Arasaka held possession of that engram, and could have altered those memories - or the engram altered them over time to cope.
This is supported in the "Ballad of Buck Ravers", where Corp V can answer the psycofan's querry with the line that "Arasaka interns are told that if they fail their terms, a ghost of a man torn in half will haunt then. Nobody remembers, they speak about Johnny."
I honestly think V is an engram in a virtual reality. Jonny is the catalyst to push V to do things, so arasaka can collect data and increase its defense systems and strike force.
The dog tags have interesting implications, maybe Johnny has deluded himself so much that he sees Robert Linder and Johnny Silverhand as two separate people. He thinks Robert Linder saved his life. When in reality his old self (Robert John Linder) "died" so that Johnny Silverhand could "live" going forward. You've mentioned "the hand" in the past maybe the catalyst for this metaphorical death of Robert John Linder, was the event that caused Johnny to lose his biological hand
I definitely believe that either Alt messed with his memories so it wouldn’t be possible to gain more information or what you’ve said where he thinks of himself as a completely different person. Kinda like Batman. Either those or his brain is just absolutely scrambled from damage and psychosis.
This actually sound rather plausible. I'm pretty sure there have been cases of people developing fully fledged alternate personalities to cope with trauma, and each alter isn't always aware of the others. It may well be that Johnny managed to wrestle control from the original man after they split, and become the dominant personality, which would have some nice symmetry with how 2077 begins. Plus having "the hand" still around might mean Robert is still in there, just suppressed and angry
Anyone think of Mad Men when this topic is mentioned?
Also, you have to consider that Johnny’s mind was totally destroyed pre-nuke, a drug addict addicted to fighting with unhealing traumas, it is evident that the memory that was extracted from him was not like that of any other human.
@@nateo200Nope
Even without those reasons, memories lie to a person. Your memories are far from perfect.
Memference
Especially when events happened decades ago.
Minor thing, don't think Yorinobu becomes Saburo in any other ending besides the Devil. In every other one he succeeds in dismantling Arasaka as a serious competitor in the megacorp race.
yes afaik, when... mikoshi falls in those endings SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Saburo's copies dies with it, meaning Yori survives
I'm pretty sure in the Blaze of Glory ending Yorinobu is also deliberately goading Militech into another conflict.
@@S3Cs4uN8 it's his achieved goal in any ending except for the devil ending. Also it's kinda clear throughout the game that he's been prodding militech for a war because in the words of Sebastian Ibarra "there's no bigger smokescreen than war"
@@clarencewalters338 Plus it likely plays into his whole 'I want to destroy Arasaka from the inside' thing. What better way to ruin your Megacorp than by pushing into a costly, resource destructive conflict that you'll work to drag out as long as possible.
I watched a lore video that said yorinobu helped militech in the previous war and when you read his emails and hear him talk he wants arasaka to fall.
Given the nature of Mikoshi and how evil Arasaka is, I'm sure the inconsistencies are a combination of Arasaka meddling and Johnny's own narcissism. And psyberpsychosis. This is kind of why I think that the only "canon" endings are The Sun and Temperance. The Sun because it completes V's arc as a "Night City Legend" and will most likely end with them dying assaulting the Crystal Palace, and Temperance because it completes engram!Johnny's character arc into becoming the hero Johnny Silverhand could have been.
I definitely agree, I believe those two endings complete their character arcs the best. Even Johnnys ending completes Vs arc in a way, V learns to stop focusing so much on being some hotshot legend and instead to let himself make his own decision. He chooses a friend over being a legend, which was a mistake him and Jackie had chosen so early on. V was lucky to get out of that situation.
Ok the sun ending is the one that Johnny tricks V he say that he will save V but he goes and put a bomb in mikoshi - arishaka this completes Johnny and the temperance ending is the one that V gives the body to Johnny and if you play as female V Johnny say that he is not going to be female for much longer if i am not wrong . Why any of this two ending is good for V ? I mean in the nomad ending V is alive and she or he can find a way to save her or him self if this is possible and their is the chance that Alt is lying ( don´t trust anyone in night city ) . Made is the way that we play the game when i play i think my self as V and Johnny is a parasite i mean he try to kill V i don´t want that anymore and then if you give control to Johnny to find informations about Smasher he takes the red pills like a sweet something that is killing V faster so he don´t care about V ( i always say no to that quest ) it doesn´t make sense to give you body to a parasite . I think the canon is when V is hating Johnny no one will like a cance..... and Johnny is a cance.... to V
your issue is choosing female V and being mad at Johnny lol
There's no canon ending.
Johnny lying or beeing inaccurate is even visble in game. In his first flashback, when the strike on Arasaka Tower is happening, we can hear Thompson say something and Johnny even replies to it or mentions him, if I rember correctly. After the flashback with Alt he says that he does not know what happened to him and never heart of him again
How is that a lie? Are you mentally disabled?
yeah, i noticed he was there in my what, 4th playthrough?
i feel like people are gonna end up blaming CDPR for the inconsistencies, thinking they were just inconsiderate to bother with accuracy instead of purposely making it that johnny was narcissistic and incorrect
I actually love how these memory sequences were done. To me I think it’s obvious these memories are false. One of my favourites is when Johnny claimed he never saw Thomson again after beating him. However we know he’s there during the raid on arasaka tower as we see him in the memory that takes place prior. All the little inconsistencies. Things out of place such as rouge riding a kusinagi motorcycle which were in production years after 2013. The advertisements you hear as ambience are the exact same ones V hears during current day 2077. These aren’t lazy mistakes on the developer’s part. they’re very intentional. The memories of V and Johnny are so intertwined at this point that they merge elements of each other’s lives within the sequences. It’s the perfect mix of ego from Johnny from time passing and V’s own influence on Johnny’s memories that create these really compelling and interesting segments.
Considering Pondsmith talking about chatting with CDPR about timeline. I think it isn’t going to be so separated, seems to me that they are working together on the lore .
I remember in my first playthrough during a tapeworm section Johnny says they alter your memories and who you are in mikoshi without you even knowing it, I thought to myself so what if they did the same to Johnny and he isn’t aware of it but then to what purpose of editing his memories would it serve, the game never mentions to make V aware that the memories are false or altered after meeting Alt but it’s a cool theory and a rabbit hole to dig into, I just know sometimes it may not be what the devs at CDPR thought of, hopefully phantom liberty throws another bone at this since Johnny is still with V
I think Phantom Liberty without a doubt will. They’ll be aware of the chips existence, claim to be able to help V, and since it’s NUSA and Militech, they’ll know the truth behind the raid. It’s even a possibility that this opens up a new ending of the game for us, where we raid Arasaka with Militech and start a new Corporate War.
@@LayedBackGamers Don't.....don't give me hype
@@couchpotato2222 Haha I just made a video covering what I talked about in the comment…I think there is hype to be built
@@LayedBackGamers Well we know Morgan Blackhand won’t be showing up, but the teaser does make it look like V will be joining the military and Johnny seems to be there skeptical of my choices as usual.
@@LayedBackGamers bro back to Today and you was right about everything, only last sentence was not right with new war and storming arasaka but the rest is 👍
Amazing collection of information. As someone who loves CP77 but never got into tabletop games, its really cool to have a resource like this, to fill in some of the lore and give even more depth to that story. much appreciated!
My pleasure choom! Glad I could help
Really glad you actually made a video further expanding on this. Having all of this slowly clicking to place realizing it’s not supposed to be a different Canon entirely has been interesting
Thank you for the support! I hope I was able to make it all organized and informational as best as possible. Silverhand story in RED and 2077 has been made much more of a focus of importance. Seeing as Never Fade Away, Fall of the Towers, and Black Dog were all placed into RED to bring focus to Silverhand in 2077.
The Adam smasher encounter just made even more sense it always haunted me first time around and not being aware of the deeper lore while aware of Morgan Blackhand now it's become clear why he didn't care.
The first 10 seconds almost say it all. Also, Johnny tells you how Arasaka messed with his reality and his memories to torture him. His memories also do not follow the canon in the rulebooks or paperback book stories from the 80s. His is a broken soul trapped in a world of his and others' making. There also has to be a reason Alt does not want Johnny as an AI past the black wall with her.
I think the missions with the monk are meant to prove to V that the reality they are aware of may not even be actual reality at all, so by extension literally everything in Cyberpunk 2077 from the people to the events had the potential to not even actually happen, or not in the way that we as the player experience them happening as.
There are many clues throughout Cyberpunk that what you are seeing may not be real, but the Monk I truly believe is the key to it all. If Johnny and V were experiencing everything 1:1 as the game tries to lead you into thinking, Johnny should be aware of the Monk but he never is! V is the only one to acknowledge and gain anything from the interactions, and Johnny in his psychosis and narcissism brushes V off when they bring the Monk up in conversation after the missions. Also, I have no idea what the Buddha like statues and their mysterious numbers have to do exactly with this, but I am 1000% convinced that they are related to that Monk.
I took that quest as the monk showing V that the soul is real and the fact Johnny has no clue what he experienced when he should shows the engram ain’t a copy of a person’s soul they are a AI that thinks they are the person they are programmed to be. But there is for sure more. As you said there’s too many clues that suggest more is going on
alright, this one's a doozy. One of the monks in-game talks about how if something can experience suffering, than it is alive, and subject to death. That is a clue towards the engram's true nature, but not a definitive answer, since any annoyance, anger, sadness or regret expressed by the engram may just be tech copying what it knows about those emotions.
What IS an answer is that Johnny doesn't experience the meditations. Meditations in buddhism often aren't about a higher self, or a soul. They are about conscience, the thing we all have that allows us to observe our own thoughts, perceptions, feelings and body. If the engram can't have this experience, that means it is not a conscience. While V enters a meditative state, the engram doesn't come along for the ride. This is more than enough proof that, as he is inside the chip, Johnny doesn't count as a real person
Have you ever talked to a monk? They always make you question what's real and what is not.
I mean it's straight out stated that Ai are basically sentient beings even with immigration laws forbidding them to cross the blackwall delimanes quests straight out say that there is free thinking AI. The project is called soulkiller because it doesn't preserve the soul, it kills it in favor of replicating your memories into Data.
Ai Alt even says that she's not the same person as human Alt, and human Alt died when her memories were transferred to the net. It's always been hinted the engram Johnny is not the real Johnny silverhand.
I don't think the Monk is key, but he is a guide that allows V to accept his own self his "soul". You're focusing too much of the surface level, not enough into the deeper meaning.
Monks are guides to enlightenment they are not keys.
@@citizenvulpes4562 The best monk swill even make you question the words used to define such things... XD What is real if it isn't a vibration....
Theres a point about narcissism that most keep missing due to a lack of knowledge on NPD, the self obsession and aggrandising is an outward coping mechanism of severe self hatred and insecurity, inwardly they torture themselves with twisted memories, one left with nothing but memories for fifty years would absolutely have descended into a mess of painful false memories
You also need to take into account that other personalities and memories might have been added to further alter the truth within the engram. There is a good theory that Morgan Blackhand is on that Chip as Adam Smasher wouldnt acknowledge Johnny's existence as a threat unlike Morgan.
I don't know if all of the memories of the concerts are fabricated, considering what Johnny remembers as his final words to Kerry are in fact the final words he said to Kerry. When you meet up with Kerry near the start of Johnny's adventures in righting his wrongs through V's body, Kerry asks what the last thing Johnny said to him was and when he answers whatever you chose, Kerry confirms that to be true. So unless Arasaka hacked Kerry to specifically alter his memory to match up with Johnny's, which I find highly unlikely, that does seem to have actual been his final words to him.
Doesnt't Saburo fail his plan in the "Blaze of Glory" ending where you storm Arasaka tower alone, since it is mentioned, that Arasaka is on the edge of going under ?
Well they are in a state of chaos but delamain also phrases it as they’re recovering but won’t go away. As he said V and the afterlife are only safe from them for now. We don’t have much word on Saburos plan. It’s a possibility it has completely gone under unless they’re able to put together their research again, or they’re putting off a reveal until a safer time seeing as public opinion on Engrams are negative at that time. So revealing that Saburo has come back in a new body might make things worse or it’s just overall not the right time to reveal it. You’re right though it’s very possible Saburo failed so I shouldn’t have stated it so conclusively.
Saburo's plan fails in every ending besides The Devil.
@@LayedBackGamers in the dont fear the reaper ending im pretty sure they mention saburo coming back in yorinobus body
@@Imnothere132but dont fear the reaper ends up the same way as the Panam or Rogue ending, you meet with Alt in Mikoshi and Alt takes all of Mikoshi into cyberspace becoming one with her (or whatever the fuck lol) so Saburo’s engram prolly seizes to exist
I’ll always subscribe to how it went down in the TTRPG source books. Always. Johnny was always a dill weed and he died one. He was Blasted in half by Smasher, and Spider Murphy took pitty on Johnny and put the Soulkiller engram in him as he lay there bleeding out. The Johnny we meet in 2077 isn’t even the real thing, it’s a copy of his brain. He’s convinced himself that the plot was all his plan, not Militech’s. That’s why Blackhand never shows up, Johnny’s got to be the star. The OP was Blackhand’s plan, as ordered by Militech to carry out.
Alt is always the target for Arasaka, they mention it multiple times. What if they made the relic into a kind of inhibitor for Alt. All Johnny talks about is getting back to mikoshi over and over again and seeing alt, as his memories show these are still the most prevalent on his memory. the relic was in Yorinobus apt during a time that we know he stole it from Japan 'against' the family's wishes. When Saburo comes into the room he doesnt seem angry at all and is so calm that it maddens his son to killing him meaning nothing wasnt going according to plan. We can infer that arasaka were most likely the ones who asked for the relic to be stolen as even adam smasher isnt suprised that we are there (he knows). So they wanted the relic stolen, they wanted the theives to upload the chip knowing it wouldnt last in its container without someone chipping it it, knowing they would be someone who would be prone to having sympathy to a figure like johnny and though not trusting would still be curious enough to listen and even maybe fullfill silverhands plan. They know that the relic only works on a braindead host theyve tested it thoughly on multiple subjects, as we read through the games dataslates, and they were counting on being able to kill those thieves before leaving or let Dexter kill him as the figure he would do and of course we have Arasakas number one lapdog, Takemura, go back and see if the relic is still intact who we know, from the devil end and how he directly lies to us, has never been fully honest with us at any step of the journey. This was all an elaborate plan to stop their greatest threat, Alt.
Saburo doesn't see angry? Did you read his databank mentioning him to literally nuke NC if he doesn't recover the Relic from Yorinobu?
Dude, why do all this only to test the most expensive tech with the most absurd technology if they can have unlimited amount of bodies for them to test?
Saburo was trying to make this technology so he could transfer his engram to Yorinobu's body, but it was DEFINITELY not according to the plan since Saburo can only transfer his engram to Yori's body if V chooses to side with the Sakas.
@@rogue2742 its not about testing its about stacking the dominos to what he wanted to happen
@@rogue2742 thats addressed, we dont know what happens after choosing the options. My guess is they managed to transfer.
Alt and Johnny being a couple is the most unbelievable part of Cyberpunk. I will die on that Hill.
J was a digital construct in the hands of super-hackers that specialize in mind F'ing for 50 years. Now that I think about it, I seriously doubt there's much of the original J left. Which explains why he's so different from the books, where he's a rockerboy freedom fighter, not a psycho nuclear narcissist.
That being said, I think pre-Alt's Death he was that rockerboy freedom fighter, but after the death of the woman he loved he snapped, became the psycho. Then he was killed, digitized, and who knows what Arasaka did to him.
As to 2023, I think there was more to it than we know. Like, why was Spider working for Militech? Where'd Johnny get the nuke? Why not nuke the servers if they were after Soulkiller? Why'd a pro like Smasher not just kill him? A lot there isn't consistent. The entire 2023 sequence is sus as hell.
Video explains that Johnny wasn't the one to handle the nuke, it was militech/blackhand, and that smasher DID kill johnny, leading to spider being the one to make his engram
Ah man, this is the perfect Christmas gift. Thank you and Happy Holidays
Happy holidays! I’m glad you enjoyed!
I find it fascinating how many people think that memories are something that is accurate. Even if you disregard the fact, that the relic was never at 100% integrety when it was placed in Vs Head, Memories are literally just people remembering core-feelings and impressions and your brain making up the scene around that.
This why memories change over time and you can literally start noticing it when you pay attention (for example the Size of people changes for Childhood-Memories, when you grow up, because if it was not ciritical to that memory your brain will just adjust for your current heigth).
And now take into account that Relic was damaged and the personality on it was a half-cyberpsycho.
It does not get a lot less reliable as that when it comes to narration.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all enjoy the video and have a great day no matter where you are and who you're with. Let me know down below what you all thought about the video and if you have anything to add. Thanks for watching!
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with the upcoming DLC, I think we find out the real truth of what actually happened to Johnny silverhand.and other characters like Morgan blackhand . Good video
@@connorthomas3919 Thank you I appreciate it! I agree, with the involvement of NUSA and Militech, with what we can assume is a promise of fixing Vs condition, I’d find it weird we don’t discover more.
in game after playing through Johnny's memory of the arasaka raid.when v he first meets him, it is in a recreation of the arasaka Towers, and when we first .Hava first interacts with him, and he says, "Who are we it is in the hallways of the arasaka Towers .maybe Hinton towards where he actually did die,
This is the most comprehensive list of fact seperated from the fiction of Johnny Silverhand's life I have seen. I also like how you handled some of the difficult to answer plot holes.
I always interpreted that what he meant by saying that the dog tag is from a friend that died and sacrificed his life. That a ‘part’ of Jonny died in this war, what I mean by that is that he was formed by this war, he was destroyed by this war, he was altered because of this war.
Reading comprehension is difficult for you.
This definitely fits in with the theme of the game. If you take into account all the main interactions you have as V in night city there were probably 3 people (max) that didn’t string you along and attempt to use you. Those three being Jackie, Judy, and Panama. Moreover Johnny never gives a clear explanation as to why he suddenly wants to work with V. the only thing I could think of was that through convincing you to get him to Mikoshi alt would disentangle both of them allowing Johnny to continue to live on in some form beyond the black wall and out side of the control of the relic device, while simultaneously cutting V loose with a body that would actively reject him.
So... The reason why Johnny is publicy known as the terrorist who blew up Arasaka Tower, when in reality it was an act of war by Militech...
Is because of Arasaka propaganda?
Kinda ironic that Arasaka of all factions, would be the one to corroborate Johnny's memories of events.
If it's true, that is.
possibly to save face, to avoid looking weak and fragile to the NUSA
Militech, NUSA, and Arasaka are practically in a cold war. They are beginning to nudge at each other but aren't read to go back at all out war. So Arasaka would both not want to reveal the information they know, and save face from being looked at as weak by being defeated by another security corporation.
is it really a lie if his own memories were manipulated by arasaka take into account they extracted his engram a copy of his memories before killing him its very believable that arasaka cut his memories to pieces to analyze his whole life after all rogue was the only survivor of the atlantis crew its very likely they extracted much of his personality and rewrote other things and experimented on his engram like a damned guinea pig the worst part is we dont know that ambiguity is what makes the world of cyberpunk so damn good either he lied which he probably can or has OR arasaka fucked his engram up pulling it apart either way its how you interpret how you interact with johnny that determines where the story goes.
dead right, trying to understand what mistakes arasaka made to defend itself, to understand alt's motivations and inner workings to have a better chance to catch her and find who kick them in the balls
I have a strong feeling Phantom Liberty will reference Johnnys dishonesty.
I find it hard to believe it wouldn’t with NUSA and Militech involved. Especially because they must be claiming they can fix Vs condition.
It won’t lol
Fantastic job with the video!
I must say I loved how in-depth you went and how nicely you included all current theories from the arasaka bombing theories up towards the post-blackdog theories! I think you summed up all the thing we have to work with very nicely and I can’t wait for more content from both 2077 and the ttrpg.
I would like to add that the Robert John Linder connection is heavily hinted to be a disconnect from his past life, and how he was sacrificed so that Johnny Silverhand could begin - just like say - Bruce Wayne and Batman. But it is very possible that the corrupted engram has went so far as to think of them as 2 different entities.
Another thing that I would like to like to note is the theme of immortality with Johnny, even in Cyberpunk 3.0 and Cybergenerations the rocker’s whole shtick was immortality but at the cost of very slowly losing himself (he would be saved and revived by Alt every time he’d get killed by using her soulkiller-esque software) so I would keep a keen eye on the post Black Dog theories regarding him and Alt. Just as you mentioned, the fragmented Alt in 2077 could be a piece of her that survived or evolved, the rogue Alt fragment even doesn’t refer to itself as Alt but merely appeases Johnny in that regard.
Something I am working on researching more that I have read on the wiki is the rumor that if V treats Johnny’s engram as just code, without a dose of humanity, in the endgame Johnny’s engram admits that he is nothing but code trying to honor the man that he is supposed to simulate as an engram and inspiring the rebel inside of V. If I find anything more in that regard I will update you all but until then it’s just an interesting rumor.
Lastly I’d point to the similarity of the fake memories we see in 2077 with the stories of Morgan Blackhand or perhaps one of the Lobos during the assault - pointing towards the idea that Johnny’s engram might have already merged with memories of previous victims of the relic - although that might just be a far fetched stretch as it doesn’t leave much room for such merges because his body was recovered soon after the bombing albeit in the bunker…
The most interesting part to me is the error we find in what Greyson tells us about Johnny’s body and death - it seems completely false in comparison to what we know from the ttrpg cannon, even if Silverhand was revived by Alt/Angel after Black Dog and recaptured, interrogated and killed by Arasaka - his engram wouldn’t be as flawed and damaged as we know it is - it would be fresher.
I feel we will yet see more of him, Alt and Morgan Blackhand in the content to follow.
~A thing of beauty will Never Fade Away…
Merry Christmas! (I’m orthodox christian so christmas to me is on 7th January but I wish happy holidays for all!)
Well Merry Christmas today and when you’re celebrating! I definitely find it interesting that v3 and cybergenerations still use the idea that Silverhand is continuously brought back. Shows that no matter what he was always meant to stay alive. I believe in the possibility that he has memories from a lobo or Militech that was soulkillered and stored within Mikoshi. I’m always interested to talk so comment or whatever you’d like if you find more!
@@LayedBackGamers Honestly I'm just very curious as to where the story goes next!
The whole arasaka bombing conspiracy points to 4 things:
-A borged up Adam Smasher getting all but destroyed (either by Morgan Blackhand or the explosion) and getting put into an exoskeleton
-Morgan Blackhand disappearing but probably not dead, Adam Smasher would be gloating about it all the way to 2077 if he killed him
-The uncertainty of who triggered the bomb (this is such a wildcards as it could be anyone or anyTHING)
-The bomb detonated prematurely, approximately at the 120th floor of the southern tower
We know alpha team's AV got away from the explosion so a fair amount of time passed before the explosion, that leaves lots of room for more things to happen at Arasaka Tower before the explosion. Might have been Militech, might have been Blackhand himself (thought I doubt it) or any other secret netrunner (might have been Rache or even Alt fragments).
Only thing we can say for sure is that Smasher didn't win as his borgo brain is the only thing to survive.
And the Black Dog story points us to a few more important things:
-Angel is heavily hinted to be Alt (that possibly succeeded with her original ITS Soulkiller program to transfer an engramed mind into a clone body - this principle was similarly done a lot in Cybergenerations)
-Johnny's body is with Angel
-Arasaka (or at least Michiko's segment) knows about the nuke and Samantha's discoveries
And some pointers from Cyberpunk2077 are:
-Rogue worked with Arasaka to help establish them within Night City after The Big Lie by Trace Santiago "cleared" their name
-Johnny's belongings were scattered throughout Night City (except one of the Malorians and the Porsche which we know Adam Smasher took)
-Much is forgotten in the passing 50 years with almost all of the nuclear fallout clearing fully (except all the waste in Del Coronado Bay)
-Grayson's lie about Silverhand's body and death is either a mistake by the devs or a very nice ploy to confuse us and add further mystery into the story
I feel like everything is pointing towards a whole story that we are not seeing but one that is cleverly hidden behind lots of false stories or subjective truths and I love that so much! In narrative we sometimes believe the narrator as if it is the absolute truth but here we only have certain perspectives just like in real life. It makes piecing together to whole story so much more fun!
My question to you is: Where do you think the stories is leading us towards? What comes next?
The Phantom Liberty DLC feels like it will be a step in the wrong direction STORYWISE as I feel that it will open a whole new story that doesn't have much to do with the mysteries that we are left with. I think the DLC won't answer any questions nor add anything to the discussion, I just think it will do it's own thing if you understand what I'm trying to say?
But I sure do hope that I am wrong.
@@Reljadin101 I feel that the Ingram is separate from Johnny .that the Ingram to the personality of Johnny silverhand. it believes that Robert John Linder died in the Halls of the arasaka Tower.and the two of them are two different people .but I believe that Robert John Linder. isn't dead.then and that Johnny silverhand was Robert John Linder's cyberpsychosis, and Rober John Linder's body was frozen and revived .Robert John Linder being alive in separate from Johnny silverhand kept a low profile. it's just a theory that I had
@@Reljadin101 I believe while the overall story will lead us into a 5th corporate war for Cyberpunk Orion, which will more than likely be setup in Phantom Liberty due to NUSA and Militech. However in relation to Silverhand and Alts story, I believe it could even be revealed eventually (kinda like cybergenerations) that Silverhand and Alt literally went and lived their lives together with their second chance. I doubt Alt had so much planned out to get Silverhand outside of Night City just to get stumped by Arasaka again. That would probably be a new story for the TTRPG similar to how we’ve gotten a Silverhand story for each pretty much.
In Phantom Liberty however, I feel that the setup will be another one of those “If you help us we can help save you V” from Militech and NUSA. Which heavily hints at another corporate war seeing as no matter what Arasaka is attacked. Now if they add a new ending with Militechs aid? (Which I’ve heard ending options/dialogue will change because of the DLC)We can all take a gander at where that leads. Since it’s Militech and NUSA messing with the engram, I wouldn’t doubt that they point out inconsistencies within the engram or just give us general information that will directly prove Silverhand wrong. I’m going to be making a video on the fifth corporate war possibly being setup and the possibilities Phantom Liberty contains and are leading us. I’ve just gotta think and look into it some more before I do.
Man these comments are over a year old now but still so very helpfull and relevant for a lore n00b like me. Thank you guys so much. 🤜🤛
Playing the game with no prior reads into the lore left me with a few brain gremlins after certain plot points in Johnny's memory. Especially after looking up Black Dog. Somebody must have frozen him before the bombs went off to preserve the body right? (Could it be Blackhand, Rache, Alt?) Angel resembles Alt so much in Black Dog, seemed like Samantha finding the nuclear case doesn't seem a total coincedence to me. Also for her being a huge Silverhand fan feels like a trol from Alt in some way after their relationship was so toxic.
Grayson does not make much sense unless it were some random human bodyparts or maybe they left the arm there for it to seem like it was Johnny. Always found it pretty weird how they wanted to patch that out at some point. So many questions still. 😂
Super excited for Orion to hopefully expand a little on the Black Dog story, rogue AI's, Rache Bartmoss and hopefully Morgan Blackhand. 😎
Great video. If Pondsmith stated Johnny wasn’t a reliable source, I believe him. Even more so that from Johnny’s first encounter of Smasher.. to the rooftop.. and then being taken out of arasa tower all the way to talk to Yorinobu & then directly into soul killer. It states Johnny was split in half by smasher & died, and in the game there isn’t a piece of Johnny missing from smasher even up to his convo with Yorinobu. I believe Johnny’s memories were tampered or he re-wrote it to cope with the parts of himself he was not proud of.
It's Saburo. Johnny talked with Saburo. Yorinobu is the guy V and Jackie steal the Relic from
I actually just found in game confirmation that Jonny is full of it. When you do the side job "The Ballade of Buck Ravers" you talk to a man named Karim running a music stand. You ask him for bootleg Samurai tapes from their first gigs. He wants proof that you are a real Johnny fan. If you play Corpo V a dialogue option will apear "Corpo| I know what they say about him at Arasaka" in your full response you tell Karim that they tell new suits at Arasaka that if they don't make quotas "the ghost of a man cut in two" will get them. In Johnny's memories in the game it shows him shot to death by Adam Smashers projectile launcher mod not cut in two. But in the source material Johnny was cut in two by Smasher using a shotgun. Confirmation in the game that Johnny's memories don't match.
So this is going to draw on a little bit from one of your more recent videos, but I think the engram that we have from the relic is what was left over for the second application of soul killer after what spider did during the raid at least according to her story. So the relic engram may not be intentionally lying to us. It may just be piecing together a personality from whatever was left over after Murphy's shard did its work. Between that and the circumstances in which it was made a lot of the relic engram's actions make a bit of sense.
there's also how the biochip's integrity was rapidly falling before V could get it in their head. Mix all these factors in together and it's a wonder it functioned as well as it did.
Man...thats rough knowing that Alt didn't actually need saving but in trying to save her, Johnny fucked it up and more or less got her killed.
So glad I found your channel, it's helping me untangle this story and enjoy the experiences even more thank you!
I'm glad that you found my content and that I have your support choom. I love sharing my passion for Cyberpunk
Our memories often betray us. We are sure we remember somthing correctly but we don't.
I believe that part of it comes down to falling down the penthouse during the heist, damaging the biochip to like 82% I think it was making his memories unreliable as well.
I love that the Silverhand sequences show him as this one-shot deadeye badass lol that's the first tip off I got that he's an unreliable narrator. But also that's roughly how human memory works, it was a quick raid, of course he wouldn't remember a drawn-out firefight. (Also Johnny is literally "just some guy" he was so delusional he had no idea there were other teams that night, hell he thought it was his idea)
Quick question about the “Robert John Linder” part, isn't that his site at the columbarium next to Alts?
I believe so
What time of day exactly did the bomb detonate on Aug. 20, 2023?
After V gets shot in the head and dies, we see a flashback to Johnny's participation in the raid on Arasaka tower. During the whole flashback, a time of day can be seen in the upper right corner of Johnny's scanner HUD (hold down LB).
The scanner HUD’s displayed time doesn't say AM or PM - it is displayed in a 12-hour format, but we can assume it starts off as PM, since it's clearly night time when the raid starts. Also, the time doesn't update minute-by-minute, but only changes at three of the six key transition points during the flashback.
1, 9:00: The flashback initially shows Johnny playing a show with his band.
2, 10:00: The show is over. Johnny says goodbye to Kerry and gets onto the helicopter with Rogue.
3, 12:10: Johnny gets off the chopper with the nuke, having landed on Arasaka tower. He drops off of the nuke, hacks the network with Spider Murphy, gets confronted by Smasher the first time. He gets shot and the screen goes black.
4, 12:10: Johnny exits the building to go up the stairs back to the rooftop. Some text flashes briefly on the lower left of the screen stating, “ARASAKA TOWER, 11:45 PM, AUG. 20, 2023”-however Johnny’s scanner HUD still says “12:10”. He goes upstairs and tries to get on the helicopter with Rogue, only to be pulled down by Smasher and shot. Screen goes black.
5, ??:??: Johnny regains consciousness briefly while being loaded into the back of an Arasaka van. He sees the top of Arasaka tower in flames, but it doesn’t seem the nuke has exploded yet. You cannot activate his scanner HUD during this sequence, so it’s unclear what the time of day should be.
6: ??:??: Johnny regains consciousness while being interrogated by Arasaka. Again, the scanner HUD cannot be activated, so we can’t see what time it’s supposed to be. In the distance we can see a nuclear mushroom cloud.
There are two anomalies here that support the idea Johnny’s memory is corrupt. Firstly, there is no way it’s 12:10 AM when they first land on Arasaka tower, since if that was the case, then the bomb would have detonated on Aug. 21, not Aug. 20. Secondly, there is no way the mushroom cloud is real, because real mushroom clouds rise quickly-the fireball from the nuclear explosion is extremely hot, and hot air rises. The extremely fast rise of a nuclear fireball after a nuke goes off is, in fact, what creates the “mushroom” shape.
What's strange is that the Soulkiller data slug that was inserted into Johnny by Spider Murphy to create an engram of Johnny lasted so long outside of an uncontrolled environment to later be found intact by Samantha. In comparison during the Cyberpunk 2077 engram heist with V and Jackie, the engram seems to be extremely volatile, sensitive to temperature and physical disturbances.
As i've listened to these things and even read the lore exerpts in the sourcebooks, one inconsistency still remains (IMO) about the 2023 assault on Arasaka tower: Adam Smasher is said to have used a Samson up to the point he fought Morgan on the roof, when he is in a Dai Oni. The Dai Oni according to its entry in the black chrome books needs HOURS of preparation before being fielded, all which are done with the biopod inside. But the timeline of everything happening that night is too short for Smasher to have switched bodies AND be run through all Dai Oni stages of activation. Leaving aside the fact that the biopod in a DaiOni is drugged up to the gills as a matter of procedure to keep it from going completely berserk.
Well I'd need to look more into myself on this specific occurrence, but I've always assumed it's a possibility that Smasher is already a construct so is capable of just being data transferred between bodies or something along those lines.
@@LayedBackGamers well, about that..... I remembered something a few months back. The temperatures and sheer amount of radiation at ground 0 of a nuke are unsurvivable. In the range of 1000 degrees celsius past the melting point of tungsten for the first mile or 2. A biopod cannot survive that. So Smasher and Shaitan (if not retrieved) would be 100% deceased. Now, 2077 and Edgerunners Smasher by this logic is definitely an SPI. If Yorinobu was able to be refleshed (assuming that it was done by let's say Hanako or on her orders between september 2022 and august 2023), so to a degree can Smasher's engram be put into a new biopod or even body to get borged again.
@@alexhulea2735 I'll probably make a video on this soon. It's a really interesting topic to dive into
I had goosebumps throughout the whole video. Wow
Could the nuke have been detonated by AIs from beyond the black wall? After all alt Cunningham without her body may have been seen as some type of hazard or threat to the rouge/free AIs... Maybe her merging with a rogue I was part of some deal or condition to escape makoshi.
Also in that process, Morgan blackhand's mind was saved or transferred to a new or different body either by alt alt or via the involvement of rogue AIs... Maybe he merged with an AI too in the process in order to survive... Hence why we have Mr Blue eyes and potentially a Morgan black hand character coming up in the next DLC.
That’s an interesting take! I’m not too sure on the AI detonating the nuke, it’s a possibility but honestly I believe Militech and NUSA chose to sabotage the nuke without anyones notice. Nobody would’ve participated in the raid if they knew it would destroy night city. Even Blackhand assumed it would be more controlled since it should’ve detonated much lower in a secured part of Arasaka. I think Militech and NUSA just hated night city since they wouldn’t align with them.
Blackhand as well since he didn’t have much cyberware installed, he probably was in the nuke radius since he was fighting Smasher. So he definitely had to be saved and “put back together” in a way. Wether by engram or just cyberware who knows. Maybe he even reached an Arasaka bunker before the blast though.
@@LayedBackGamers about blackhand... I've been thinking about that too.. though Morgan blackhand did not have much cyberware, I'm not sure soul killer had a minimum cyberware requirement...
I do think Alt had to merge with some free/rogue AI because I don't think it was humanly possible for her to escape makoshi. She had to evolve.
Maybe in that process of her evolving either she or some other entity rescued or evolved Morgan blackhand.
I am starting to suspect that Morgan blackhand cyber arm was recovered and might be what we see in the upcoming DLC.
@@domtef347 I doubt it since both Mike Pondsmith and CDPR have agreed that Morgan Blackhand will not appear anywhere in 2077 or Phantom Liberty.
@@MrPikaGammer I think I was not clear enough.
Morgan blackhand in his entirety doesn't need to appear... However the continuation of Mr Blue eyes and/or any other character sporting a black cybernetic arm or hand might be methods by which he is referenced.
I am personally inclined to believe Mr Blue eyes is the evolved AI version of the original Morgan blackhand... Or some type of doll to the same effect.
@@domtef347 Mike has already said that Morgan isn't Mr. Blue Eyes. CDPR modified their 2077 Blackhand model to be Mr. Blue Eyes so they didn't have to make a whole new model.
There were no plans to use Blackhand in 2077 in any way shape or from after they were scrapped. It is so that his story can be expanded by the Sourcebooks.
Was it ever explained why Alt created soul killer? That would be really interesting to learn about. Curious what would prompt someone to make a tech like that.
I've always read Johnny memory montage as a very sped up version of what happened, I never once believed what was happening was back to back to back
If you're familiar with the original Cyberpunk TTRPG lore, you'd now Alt altered Johnny's memories when she created his engram right before he died after Adam Smasher cut him in half in 2023. Spider Murphy connected Johnny to the Arasaka Mainframe for Alt to be able to run Soulkiller on him.
"Never Fade Away" plays out pretty much in 2077 as is did back when the original story was released in Cyberpunk 2013. Check the "All Things Dark and Cyberpunk" section of the Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook. It's all there.
By the way, Johnny Silverhand never worked for Militech. He used Militech to get the nukes for the Arasaka building.
I haven’t seen anything in 2020 mentioning that he was connected to the mainframe for Alt to run soulkiller on him. Only seen that Murphy was given the Soulkiller program, stating the chip she inserted was given to her by Alt a long time ago. Especially since she let the head of Arasaka use soulkiller as Supuku. I do believe though that Alt changed his memories as Angel, which makes more sense on the timeline. He technically didn’t work for Militech, but it was a Militech op. He was just there for his own reasons, to save Alt. Not to nuke Arasaka. I’m not sure where you get that information, as even the TTRPGs of 2013,2020, and RED never state he planted a bomb. They only ever state that Blackhand was seen bringing a heavy briefcase to lower levels, which makes sense since Blackhand didn’t go for the kill on Smasher, he just wanted to save Shaitans Biopid and ditch. (Not trying to be rude. Just confused since I’ve scanned the TTRPGs pretty well. So I’d like to see where specifically if I missed something that major)
@@LayedBackGamers I'm reading my 25-year-old "Shockwave" hardcopy as I answer to you. Johnny Silverhand didn't know about Alt being still alive and trapped within Arasaka's mainframe, he just wanted revenge for 2013. The nukes serve him well for that purpose even if their existence is not revealed until the failed Cyberpunk 3.0 was released for storytelling purposes. There was a third "Firestorm" series book planned to wrap the 2020 edition and explain all this that was going to be called "Firestorm: Aftershock". Never saw the light if day.
As for Johnny being connected to the Arasaka mainframe when his mind was ripped away and turned into an Engram, I was talking out of the top of my head. You're right, Soulkiller was given to Murphy as a demon. A Demon in the Cyberpunk lore is a series of programs that run at the same time when released on a computer system. The version used on Johnny was the 3.0. For the game's purpose this version of the Demon is, and I quote: "Nearly an AI in its own right, with a cunning and intellect that rival some netrunners", the most powerful version of the program ever.
As for the sake of Kei Arasaka commiting "Seppuku" with Soulkiller...He did, but only because Rogue and (Possibly Shaitan in an Alpha Borg as somehow his biopod was apparently rescued from the wreckage and inserted on a basic Alpha Borg body) were there to prevent him from using his wakizashi.
My bad for doing a bad exposition of the facts, haven't run a Cyberpunk session for more than a decade. I have every single book of both Cyberpunk 2013 and 2020 published by either R.Talsorian or the now defunct Ianus and Atlas Games, but like Johnny's, my memories don't recall the facts as accurately as they used to 😁. Keep up the good work. Been into this lore since 1990 and I still find it very compelling.
I think you broke my brain with this one fantastic video
Thank you I really appreciate it! I hope you had a great holiday
Hold on a moment. Angel is Alt? One of the two Dolls offered at Clouds is named "Angel" and the other "Skye." The etymology for Skye is believed to be Old Norse for "cloudy." Or could be a reference to the English word "Sky." "Alt" is a prefix from an Indo-European word for "High" or "tall hill."
Could V's Cloud Doll have been Alt's AI?
This was really interesting. I could never figure out how in Johnnys memories he gets fucked up by smasher but then the next scene is him back up and running or how after the nuke he somehow survives and is being pulled from the wreckage but in the next scene the nuke looks like it’s leveled the whole cite from afar. This was really insightful into this character and the world building put into the game.
He wasn’t hurt badly just knocked down. All he had to do was get up and run. We have had time skips like that before in the game.
It’s because that point is where Johnny actually died for real. He got ripped apart almost instantly by smasher while Murphy and Rogue watched it happen. The “memories” that happen after that never actually happened. It’s probably a mix of Johnny coping with the fact he got one tapped and Arasaka invading his memories to find the reason he attacked. Johnny just visualised it as an interrogation.
@@boglurker2043 ok fair enough. But arasaka tower still had a nuke detonated at some point so what happened there and how’s Johnny connecting A to B?
@@boglurker2043 like if I’m not mistaken he’s attacked before they finished detonating it or was it after and I’m just not remembering the order of things correctly?
@@FeartheOldGods There were actually 2 nukes that went off. There were 2 teams doing the Arasaka raid. Johnny says it’s his op, but it wasn’t. It was Morgan Blackhand’s. Militech hired them to do it. Johnny tagged along because he wanted to free alt. He wasn’t a major part in the operation like his memories make out. Why doesn’t Morgan show up? Don’t really know, could be Johnnys ego or just Arasaka fuckery.
Johnny died before the nukes went off. During the heist though Johnny already had a relic with Alts original version of soulkiller on it, given to him by Alt. When he got shot by Smasher, Spider ran the soulkiller program to try to save him before he died. She succeeds but then the nukes detonate, so they have to leave him behind. During the clean up Arasaka find his body in the rubble, and that’s when they take the relic with his engram on it and plug it into Mikoshi. They mention that the copy is corrupted because of the radiation his body was exposed to.
The voice started and I fell asleep. Thank you!
I can't believe I've read a ton of the TRPG lore and have 300+ hours of gameplay in 2077 and never realized the inconsistencies between the two were intentionally placed by the writers to show how Johnny is lying to us all the time.
One small detail still annoys me, and I think it just got overlooked but in the ending with Rogue, when you get dizzy and nearly fall out, she grabs you and says ‘not this time’ which is very similar to memory of Johnny on the roof
It’s funny I didn’t know much about any lore. But this makes so much sense. In 2077 Adam shoots Johnny’s metal arm off then it cuts and his arm is back on when they are interrogating him. I chalked it up to a mistake by the game developers. Maybe it was or maybe it was a mistake by the Corps?
See this video needed to be done!! I cant wait for the dlc and future installations! Great work choom!
I highly do believe they used johnny to get at alt and control of the dark net but like weve discussed i highly believe theyre underestimating alt and her capabilities....
@@JohnnySilverwrench They definitely underestimate her. I mean especially the AI Net “Alt”. Seeing as the moment she entered the Arasaka network she was frying all their troopers, netrunners, and systems. If Alt is still around though, persay the Angel version, she definitely has something big being planned. There’s a lot they can do in Phantom Liberty and the Edgerunners kit, it’s the best time to be invested in Cyberpunk. Thanks for watching and always checking in, I always appreciate it and like talking about these topics! Hope you had a great holiday.
If his memories were altered, whether while in mikoshi or by alt, why would they add the footage after where his death should have occurred? How would it benefit either party by making Johnny have another standoff with smasher and also see night city being bombed before the sequence ends with a him being soulkilled?
Because this theory is dogshit and redditors latch onto it and endlessly repeat it.
Human memory is so fragile with most people rewriting their own memories accidentally over time, so it makes sense.
I started playing this recently, as I acquired the Phantom Liberty DLC. I watched this video a while back, but now I can't play the game without noticing the inconsistencies in Johnny's recollection of past events. It would make sense to me that Arasaka altered Johnny's memories in some way so as to be able to interrogate him better. It would explain why you witness two death scenarios: One on the roof of the plaza where he gets his arm blown off, and one in the zen garden after uploading his manifesto, both at the hands of Smasher. The way Johnny tells it, the first scenario he survived somehow in the Zen Garden, but then fell from the chopper and had his arm blown off. So in the later scene when he's being interrogated before he got hit with soul killer, his arm is magically back. This led me to believe that the scene with soulkiller was a sort of edited enhanced interrogation, and Johnny was already dead and deposted in an engram storage chip maybe, or maybe Mikoshi.
In past runs, I always sort of took everything at face value because "It's a game", but this run I am starting to find myself noticing things I didn't notice before regarding narrative, and the plethora of sub-stories in the game (Like who killed the Mayor, the Peralez bit, Johnny's "lies"). This channel, and this video and videos like these, have changed the way I play this game, and how I view the marrative as a whole.
This was very interesting to know
Red is at a really exciting place
Anyone think of Mad Men when this topic is mentioned? I mean the Robert Linder + Johnny Silverhand topic reminds me of Mad Men sooooo much!
This is what we saved lizzy from... Crazy
So really the "never fade away" sequence was more or less accurate, in spite of what Alt says. Alt was taken, Johnny (wrongly) insisted Arasaka wanted him, Johnny gathered a team to rescue Alt. Alt's body died in the end and her mind was trapped. All perfectly in line with what we saw. Where things differ are mainly in the details of who did most of the shooting (ie in Johnnys memory he's practically a 1 man army, in reality Rogue is the one pulling the most weight), and how EXACTLY Alt ended up disconnected and when the Arasaka guy ends up dying.
Ironically AI-Alt seems to blame Johnny for killing her, when the real events suggest she was dead before he got there. At worst, he didn't try to save her properly (reconnecting her), IF that even would have worked he probably didn't know any better, and apparently neither did anyone else involved.
So glad I found your channel from the first silverhand video. Keep it up man. The vids explain the lore really well, have been thoroughly enjoying learning from them.
Edit: and Merry Christmas
I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos and I hope you continue to! Have an amazing Christmas my friend
Brilliant video.
I look forward to seeing what comes next in the CP2077 universe.
I appreciate it, thanks for always watching and checking in. I’m excited to see what Phantom Liberty and the Edgerunners kit bring. This is the best time to be a cyberpunk fan.
@@LayedBackGamers Completely agree. Best timeline.
You should have million subs by now. Thank you for this video.
I'm just thankful for all the chooms I have watching my content. Couldn't be happier doing this as my get away!
In the Phantom Liberty DLC, the Relic 2.0 blueprints now have a datashard with it, from Hellman.
Details lead credit to this theory.
After listening to this theory and reading some conversations here, I feel like the whole depth of Cyberpunk is really starting to sink in. I'm starting to actually dig the "no happy endings" thing.
This is probably the thickest dystopia I've experienced. In the real world, we strive for a steady income, abundant access to food, water, healthcare, time and money to support hobbies, raising kids in good schools.
In the real world in a 1st world country, those things feel achievable if you just work smart and hard enough for it, hopefully not too much luck required. Variables to your success being whether you grew up with a good education, how much parenting your parents do, etc.
(Gonna use fake numbers here)
Without any of these life variables, let's say your chance of success is 10% by default. With a perfect life & support network, that pushes your chances of success to say ... 90%. You'd have to try real hard to screw it up. Rich parents bribing you into Harvard kinda thing.
In Cyberpunk, these goals are seemingly on the same level as riding a magic dragon. More is stacked against you, and the things working in your favor are nearly meaningless. If we're using my fake numbers, instead of 10% chance of success by default, in Cyberpunk you have ... 0.1% by default. And a perfect upbringing & support network maybe push you to 1% at best. Even if you land a dream corpo job, chances of being literally killed by your rivals is pretty damn high.
So if the real world's challenge was "How are you going to live?", Cyberpunk world's challenge is, "How are you going to die?".
Just my sentiment. This dystopian world is fascinating.
Makes sense that Arasaka tampered with Johnny's memories because there are many inconsistencies from the tabletop books but that was most likely done on purpose. The question is, was Johnny still alive when they made him an engram because the tabletop lore said he died during the tower.
Spider Murphy made an engram of him while he was dying (cut in two). This is talked about in this video ;)
@@DevaChriss Mike Pondsmith stated that Silverhands engram is damaged from radiation damage his BODY took. Meaning the engram we meet on the biochip was made after the nuke went off.
It honestly just could be Johnny exaggerating/not remembering correctly/purposefully leaving details out. He is a bit of an egomaniac after all.
@jefflovesfishing2002 That could be true as well. He was an engram for 50 years so his memories could be foggy, but Arasaka had his engram for decades so they could have tampered with his engram as well. Also during the heist, the relic got damaged so that could affect his memories too. So many possibilities, but I think it will be made clear in the Cyberpunk sequel hopefully.
The flashbacks from the engram are super obviously embellished. While I imagine that the true Johnny Silverhand was a capable fighter considering he served in a war, him one shotting every 'saka goon with his malorian (also the way he reloads the weapon is incredibly over the top), how he somehow found enough time to upload some manifesto when his nuke was tumbling down the elevator shaft primed to detonate are plainly not possible, it's like he's constructed an action movie from his memories. Man is lying to us from the word go, about everything. Also an interesting detail perhaps is every time we interact with him in cyberspace we visit the digitised version of where he met his end with Smasher.
As a Keanu Reeves fan, If Johnny told me that the sun is blue and the sky is purple, I'll believe him xd
"I am John Wick"
Johnny Silverhand is what he's always been, a narcissistic, manipulative scumbag trooper with PTSD and unhealthy coping strategies living in the now. He's the ultimate unreliable narrator because he was there, but his own shortcomings and issues prevent him from remembering things the way they went down. Even without memory editing, he'd be super unreliable.
Amazing video, merry christmas… sorry i havnt commented on other vids keep up the amazing work ❤
Merry Christmas, thank you for watching and leaving the kind comment. I’m always happy to see you when you do!
Well of course, he remembers everything in the way it most suits his agenda, and his mind fabricated the gaps and exaggerated the exploits.
When you play as Johnny, he one-shots everybody he fires at and has time to spit witty quips.
He is a narcissist.... so he is the hero and the victim. The best guy on the team. And in failure, he will do mental gymnastics to twist it into success or achievement. His ego will dismiss and discard failures, shortcomings and humiliations.
Is it just me or was Johnny the vocalist in the memories but when you reunite the band it's Kerry?
Here is something I started to think today: that's not Johnny. That's an actual construct made from a dead engram just like Jackie's. Hironobu is accounted by his father with the Relic steal, but never mention an engram. What if the Steel Dragon had the defective engram from a cut in half corpse his father made to try to extract the responsibles for the nuke? And then the son built a functional Johnny to sell to the Voodoo Boys attract Alt? That would explain the differences on the freshest memories, which weren't well fixed for proper extraction.
Id like to add minor detail here.
He wasnt going to sell the engram to voodoo boys, but to Netwatch and then voodo boys learned about this deal and commisioned the heist to snatch the engram before its sold to netwatch.
You're wrong, simple as.
@@loserinasuit7880 Yes, about selling to the Voodoo boys, which Tavastian already corrected.
@@Optimusj1975 No all of it, your entire theory is shit.
What fucks me up the most is that he thinks he trapped Alt in the net by unplugging her when he tried to save her.
If his memories are lying, it certainly explains why his pistol isnt as good when V gets it.
I personally would love another flashback to 2023 arasaka tower assault in Phantom Liberty where we learn the real truth with Johnny witnessing this flashback.
Great lore vid man. First video of yours i've seen but definitely gonna check out some others.
Okay...let's create a CP77 conspiracy theory here: Why his memory is fake? What is the gain tho the one who did it?
- Hyp1: Silverhand engram can change his own memories as perceived by V, manipulate V - Why? A mercenery to attack Arasaka? So V delivers his body willing in the end? Because V is a lowbie and he wanna help him grow?
- Hyp2: His memories were altered by Saburo's order - To torture Johnny? Because he was going to put this engram into someone's body and to what end to that someone? In Yorinobu? In a common proxy to do what? Was he trying to also reach Alt and planned or hired for the VB try to steal it and try to reach beyond the black Wall? Why? Why he still needs Alt? What does ALT stole or discovered while she became and Engram herself and fled beyond the Black Wall that Saburo wants back or silenced? Also, did he ordered Helman (see below) for those reasons? And why Saburo wrote that he could nuke and end NC, but decided to get back... well, Hanako stopped him, does it means it is all her doing???
- Hyp3: His memories were altered by Yorinobu's order - Because he wants to be Johnny, and probably Blackhand as well, since both memories are kinda mixed? Maybe so he can really annoy his father? Or even takeover Arasaka and reaching the secret Mikoshi, where Saburo's own Engram is kept? Also, did he ordered Helman (see below) for those reasons?
- Hyp4: Silverhand cyberpsycko delusions - Pondsmith already stated that Silverhand is a CPsy. So this is the result? But why does he has Blackhand memories as well?
- Hyp5: Ander's Helman did it - Did he really merged Blackhand and Silverhand? And does this means he has something to do with Mr.Blue Eyes, since Blue Eyes body is named Blackhand in mods? And does it means that Helman or someone he obeyed (Arasaka, Yorinobu, Saburo, or even an Rogue AI that now controls Blackhand body as Mr.Blue Eyes)? Does it means that they werre trying to control NC, a free city, who is out of any other country jurisdisction? Does it means they had plan to use such free city for any other secret project? Was that what Sandra Dorset found out and got so scared of?
-Hyp-others: Rogue AI's did it - As stated on Hyp5, a Rogue AI can also create an AI controlled city finally. The mayor is reprogrammed... maybe and Engram himself, since he was raised by Knight Foundation?? Is Knight back in the shadow against big players like Arasaka? Or is Mr. Blue Eyes the Rogue AI taking over NC? Or even hitting Arasaka back, as another Engram or enfuriated AI, and that's why maybe hired VB to free Silverhand and Blackhand and HAD to merge both because there was just one Engram to make?
also, the Lucy's Arasaka's child netrunner program to hunt Alt support that Silverhand (and Blackhand merge?) Engram was maybe another initiative to bait Alt... and that's why Saburo didn't nuked NC (or Hanako)... and maybe he (or Hanako) even hired the VBs, to make the Engram believe in what happened so Alt wouldn't suspect... and in this case, yes, Adam Smasher, knew about the Heist and really saw V and Jackie, and let them go... also, that's why they (Saburo, Smasher) were in NC EXACTLY at the day where the Heist happened... and maybe they just didn't saw Yorinobu's kill coming... or even have that planned and staged in front of V, so the World would believe Saburo's death... maybe even further lure Alt, or a specific move against other opponents (coorps, governments)???
This is also further pushed too because of Jackie Welles' body if he was sent to Vics. Being dead or on the brink of can result in very mixed results or just utterances of who they were.
This makes the flashbacks and Johnny's story as a whole make a lot more sense, so this is a tank you from all of us too lazy to read the books 😂
Damn, I love the lore on CP so much.
Shows how much the creators care about it. Long live Mike Pondsmith!
The funny thing is though Johnny flawed he isn’t wrong about the corpos and what he says should be done.
Even if you dismiss Militech TTRPG even the game shows you that Johnny was being manipulated by Yorinobu even before you get him.
So it wouldn’t be surprise if they do in the Phanton Liberty story the reveal of the true story he was being run by Militech. It matches the whole trajectory to make out his liberty is a phantom . It then also could reveal how Blackhand and Militech turned him into the scapegoat for the bombing.
I took the dog tags being his as his old self had to die for his new self Silverhand to come about
There is a very good reason why his memories are off.. For one. His Engram was damaged. For two, the system was not exactly perfect yet when he was initially hit with soul killer in order to create his Engram.
Even by the time your character, V comes into play. The Engram system is still not fully working right. At least not to the same level as one would hope. But one would be understood if you where not paying attention to a few things you can find out during the Cyberpunk 2077 game's storyline as, in order to put a full and complete picture of the problems.. You have to pay attention to every variation of Cyberpunk 2077's Storyline... And also have some knowledge of the tabletop game as well. In the ending where a engram of Saburo Arasaka got created and put into his son. IE. His son is now dead, and the engram of his father now exists in his body. ( Disturbing, but in a way it is justice for what the son did to the father, while also sort of bringing back Saburo. ) The new version of Saburo Arasaka though..
Is not perfect. As is they had to both use soul killer, plus data they extracted from the brain, and also used information/documents they had on him in order to recreate said engram. Soul Killer is not capable of really obtaining the "soul" or all of a person's knowledge/data from their brains in order to replicate them even at that point. It was still an experimental piece of tech. One that the company felt that they had to risk using in order to bring Saburo Arasaka back in any way they could.. But of course they could not announce bringing him back without also releasing the the whole Eternal Life thing being announced to the public. So they basically released a product to the public early, while announcing it earlier.. All due to the fact that the company was afraid of this war in the company and seen resurrecting him to be the best alternative.
So,, Yea a lot of the issues could be easily for several different issues, or a collection of them. Regardless.. Yes. The things that Johnny Silverhand tells you are not necessarily true, and they are also not necessarily something he made up himself but some/all of it could be made up by him.
*EDIT*
PS
I am talking about the PC/console game and why some of it explains why it alone explains why Johnny's "memories" are lying to us. in the game. Adding this part into the comment JUST in-case it was not obvious before I added it.
Rogue backs up his memories, though. At least with what happened in Arasaka. As well as Grayson. And with the concert in 2023, he pushes his way on stage and takes over Kerry's set with band.
so alt couldve placed her digital self in her organic body if johnny hadnt disconnected it?
Uh yeah, When the older Arasaka asked him why he did it the man drew a blank.
Not saying Arasaka is a Saint but the man burnes down his house.
hmmm arasaka possessing memory altering technology makes me wonder what/if they have ties to the mayoral candidate and mr.blue eyes.
I'd like to see this reassessed post phantom liberty. Some of this breaks down a bit but it can also be re-analysed. like, he outright says that his actual name is Robert John Linder, which erases the dogtag engram inconsistency.
My theory: Morgan Blackhand asked Spider Murphy to break into the Johnny's engram and temper with it to delete all mentions of Blackhand.
honestly i would go with his memory betraying johnny himself and also quite possibly wiht him filling the holes