I’m probably grasping at straws with this one but it makes sense to me. The comparisons between Lucy and Song are pretty on point. But are exceptional Netrunner’s who skated under the radar, going for smartest not most famous.
The first real look at the Blackwall we see is Songbird’s use. Depicting a red energy that scorches the victim. While the more times she uses it, her eyes become red while under turn black, almost like it’s burning her out too.
Lucy on the other hand was far smarter in not using her own Blackwall protocol connection more seldomly, as she actually seemed to understand that it would strip away her identity, literally from her mind. And I can only count two examples of her using the blackwall that were shown.
The first being when she cornered the Arasaka Netrunner and killed him. The way her eyes looked, the hack she deployed was black with red lightning almost. Where as the second time she used it was on Adam when she hack him. But even with the Blackwall, Lucy was still decades shy of being able to successfully hack that good.
This is also something I just couldn’t put down. The idea has been buzzing around for awhile, I’m also aware Edgerunners came out before the DLC. But it’s just something I like to think of as a head canon at the very least
7 Comments
Well she and a bunch of kids were Arasaka Netrunners who had to deal with Killer AIs on a regular basis. Maybe she picked up some dangerous quickhacks along the way. Or Perhaps there is a more sinister reason why she survived where others did not.
There is no way Lucy would be able to even touch the Blackwall without burning herself. That is what all the tier 5 chrome that Songbird carries is for. Slider, in PL, is arguably a better netrunner than Lucy, and the Blackwall vaporized his synapses when he served as a bridge for just a few seconds.
Lucy is not using the Blackwall, it’s just a visual element. You are overthinking it.
Who else felt weirdly sad and uncomfortable when they saw So Mi’s back for the first time?
One day I’ll post my theory that Lucy and Song and Spider Murphy were all just Alt’s puppets she used to try to get her hands on specific engrams. It’ll take me a whole day to type out but it’s my favorite theory I’ve come up with about Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk.
Lucy is not on the level to even understand songbirds ability. If songbird confronted Adam smasher with you he would know true terror when a rogue ai from the Blackwall would invade his insane mind and burn it up. Lucy is on T Bugs level. Capable and skilled but not hacking into the Blackwall and surviving.
Pretty sure I’ve seen this theory a while ago and there were already some counter arguments :
• Lucy wasn’t trained to use the Blackwall, just go past it to recover data from the Old Net.
• She would need to chrome up like Songbird to handle the load, or else she would INSTANTLY fry.
• Even someone like Adam Smasher wouldn’t be able to survive an attack from the Blackwall.
Its an interesting idea. Specifically red eyes though is just a hacking thing. Blue for data transfer, orange for human communication, red is hacking. When you talk to Meredith and the goon hacks V to determine if they’re telling the truth, his eyes glow red as well.