I was under the impression that JS was a cold blooded mass murderer. But people are talking about falsified memories and evacuations and apparently the bombing ended the war?
I’ve only finished the story once and I won’t pretend that I was paying careful attention by the end, but I guess there were a lot of details I missed.
I thought the war had ended by the time of the bombing, and JS was just a jilted vet. I thought the main conceit of the story was trying to get me to go along with JS viewpoint despite all that. Which I thought was a bold move. Like is JS story supposed to represent a moral dilemma? Or is it more straightforward?
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So, if you didn’t already know, cyberpunk 2077 is based on a tabletop rpg and the raid on arasaka tower is an actual premade adventure players can go through. While some details can alter depending on what the players do, there are several scripted/hard set canon events that transpire.
Namely, johhny dies, the bomb goes off and morgan and adam smasher have a final showdown. The memories you experience as johnny ultimately contradict what is described in the tabletop version which is what is considered canon.
Johnny is a known narcissist who was stuck in a digital prison for decades. The memories you experience are distorted both by the trauma of his death and his own desire to feel important.
Johnny wasnt a rival of smasher, he wasnt even on the main infiltration team, just the backup. When things went sideways, he charged adam smasher to buy time and got killed immediately. Afterwards, arasaka got ahold of his engram and interrogated it and then left it in storage. No one knows who actually set the bomb but johnny was a convenient fall guy since he was a known anti-corp extremist.
There is a lot to unpack but I’m just going to focus on Johnny as a character, and his role on Cyberpunk 2077. But first some backstory to understand him.
There are a lot of wars, the war Johnny was a part of was in South America. Johnny loved the Government, he worshiped the U.S, so he inlisted.
The U.S government (gang of four) declared war on the south American drug Cartels, and basically soldiers to fight cartel gangers. Johnny was one of them.
Johnny was forced into an experimental program where he was forced to undergo combat implants. After he was unfit to serve, they dumped him and he was anti establishment ever since.
He made a band called Samurai, and was actually extremely popular, in fact Samurai was Beatles level popular. They were separated in 2008, long before Alt’s kidnapping
He fell in love with Alt, when Arasaka captured her in 2013 for soul killer, she fled into the net, and that’s when he really started to hate Arasaka.
In 2023 Johnny was hired to be part of Millitech’s team to bomb Arasaka tower. How he was captured was unclear, but he somehow was kidnapped and turned into an engram for 50 years later.
The point of the story from my perspective, is that Johnny is a wounded veteran trying to figure out how to put his demons behind him.
Johnny was always a “good person”, he had good intentions at least, however he was abused and thrown away by the government he worshiped. He treated everyone around him terribly. That all changed when Alt came into the picture, he treated her terrible as well, but she understood him, she knew who he really was, and understood how he is a crazed veteran.
When Arasaka killed her, it was like he was abandoned again, he lost everything, and hated Arasaka for it.
Although he hated Militech for being a corp, he still worked for them, to bring down Arasaka.
The scene when you get to his burial site, gives a lot of insight. He was given a second chance to forget about his demons and just focus on helping his friends.
Keep in mind, when you help Rouge, and Kerry, it takes place after you finish your three main quest leads.
He is actively avoiding looking for a way to destroy Arasaka, to help his friends, and it shows his progress.
He even agrees to working with Arasaka themselves if you pick that ending, valuing your life over his vendetta.
Johnny’s story is a redemption, from a beaten veteran, to a wise man who gives up his revenge for his friends.
that’s wrong… morgan blackhand rival was kenichi zaburo. It was adam smasher who convinced him self to tbe morgan’s rival
V doesn’t even know Smasher and only faces him at the very end in Arasaka tower.
Blackhand was Smasher’s rival, but Smasher wasn’t Blackhand’s. Blackhand pretty much ignored Smasher their entire lives until the raid
Blargan Morhand
Imagine Morgan Blackhand when he heard V beat Smasher.
Imagine Morgan Blackhand when he heard V beat Smasher.