Back to the Beginning - Cyberpunk 2020

Show notes, Night City Secrets Episode 3

Game Session 3, Part 1 – Back to the Beginning

Cover Art for the podcast from “Cyberpunk madness,” by the artist Eddie Del Rio.  

<https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yW0R3>

Intro and closing music is from Amoebacrew, called simply "Cyberpunk royalty free music.”  It is available on Youtube:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju8z7Ecp1iY>

Background ambient music is from RoyaltyFreeSounds, called “Soundscape Ambient, Cyberpunk Music. Royalty Free.”

It is on Youtube:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVVz6FUxbBc&list=RDJu8z7Ecp1iY&index=2>

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

REF = The Referee

Antigone = Corporate.  Director of Public Relations for the Paupau Collective (PPC in Night City.  PPC is a family autonomous corporation floating out on ships in the Pacific Ocean.  Half-Greek half-Polynesian.

“Chewie”= (NPC) Medtech.  Officially, Consuela Jarillo, a Costa Rican doctor currently dating Han.  She is played by the REF. She’s also a pilot.

Hako = Fixer.  Aohako is also Hawaiian, but not related to Han or Antigone. He grew up in Night City and has connections all over the city.  He and Antigone met through their common mentor, Derek Trammel, a former Night City Police Department detective, now a private investigator.

Han = Solo. Full name is “Hanakahi Lonoehu.”  The team Solo and pilot, bioscultped to look like Harrison Ford, though he also has spiky short hair. Native Hawaiian, half-Polynesian, cousin to Antigone.

Stahl = (NPC) A pilot for hire, short but very capable Japanese Solo and former fighter pilot.  Used to do odd jobs with Han. Frequently hired by Petrochem.

Surány = Netrunner.  A young and nerdy Czech fame-seeker. Raised in Night City, and went to high school with Chewie. Attained some fame for his “March of the Ents” program: he names all his programs after people, places, and events in the Tolkien Mythos, and has been trying to grow a Gandalf beard.

Tatiana = (NPC) A former employee of Han, a dangerous Solo currently working for the Willow Sisterhood - a Poser Gang who bioscult themselves to look like famous women from media and pop culture who played the roles of bad-asses. Tatiana is currently sporting the look of Scarlet Johansen from the Ghost in the Shell movie adaptation.  Tried to kill Han once when he tried to come onto her.

 

TOC and Timestamps:

** Introduction  @00:26

** Play begins:  @5:11

The team assembles…

** REF gives a quick synopsis of the last session: @9:09

** The team flies into Night City in their AV, trying to figure out how to find Stahl:  @10:52

** The team flies into a secret rendezvous location to hand off the goods to PPC:  @21:45

** The team heads to Club Atlantis:  @23: 32

** They discover that Stahl is at the club with Tatiana:  @28:45

** Han pontificates on Tatiana:  @33.00

** Chewie tries to break it downL  @34:20

** Surány and Antigone enter Club Atlantis:  @37:20

** Stahl and Tatiana discuss the night:  @48:45

** The team tries to figure out what to do:  @52:20

** Surány tries to break into Stahl’s AV:  @1:00:00

** Tatiana realizes Stahl can contact Han:  @1:02:05

** Closing of Session:  @1:05:00

 

INTRODUCTION TEXT:

Welcome back to Night City Secrets.

The podcast of five gaming friends playing the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020.  

This is episode 3, which is actually part one of our third gaming session.

If you’ve listened thus far, you know that I started our first show in the middle of the game.  

This episode takes us back to the beginning of Game Night #3.  When I watched the reboot of the Battlestar Galactica TV series that aired in 2005, I was blown away by the season one, episode one show called “33.”  The creators Glen Larson and Ronald Moore    threw us right into the harried ragtag escape of the human fleet.  It was extremely disorienting, and yet I found it riveting. It really forced us to engage our imaginations to suss out what the heck was happening.  

At the same time, I know there are people who hated it.  I think part of that taste discrepancy is simply how we neurally process narratives, and when our expectations are not being met, we can shut out experiences that are too unexpected or too unnerving.  

I’m currently listening to a podcast series called “Dark Future Dice.”  It is run by three artists who walk through playing their first table-top role-playing game.  It is filed under the handle “Rocket Adrift” on youtube. They start from the very beginning of character creation and walking you through the gameworld.  This episode will be more akin to that style.  

It was by listening to their show that I got the idea to start recording our game nights, so… thanks to Dark Future Dice for putting out that content!

There is less action in this episode, but more time spent on set-up.  I’m releasing this footage in case there are people who want some of the holes filled in if you felt unsatisfied not having enough background information in the first two shows.  In the future, I’ll continue to release short content snippets that dive into the worldbuilding and the specific characters by doing interviews with the other players, and that will serve as brief filler content.

If you’re happy to continue on with the story and what happens to Antigone, Hako, Han, and Surany, the next show will be coming very soon.

But if you want a little clarity…

Antigone is a Corporate in a family-based business we call the Paupau Collective, or PPC.  This is an autonomous, sovereign non-governmental entity floating out in the Pacific Ocean.  It is somewhat akin to “The Raft” from the cyperpunk novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.  

PPC was founded by her grandfather, Matareka “Frankie” Paupau.  He is a world-renowned botanist/biochemist who helped create the strain of grains used in the manufacture of CHOOH2, the biofuel that everything runs on in the world of Cyberpunk.  He did that while working at Biotechnica Corporation, described in the Cyberpunk 2020 2nd edition book, page 212. His daughter married a Greek scientist, so Antigone and her brothers and sisters are all half-Greek, half-Polynesians with various roles in the PPC structure.

Frankie disagreed with Biotechnica’s decision to license out the formula to other agribusiness and petro- and hydrocarbon corporations, so he left the company, returned to his native Polynesian Islands, and took to the water with a congregation of fellow Islanders and refugees of the South American Drug Wars.

PPC lashed together a flotilla, or more likely a flotsam, of tankers, yachts, sailboats, cruise liners, aircraft carriers, container vessels, barges…. anything that could float - and declared themselves an independent “country” not subject to the laws or taxes of any nation-state.  On those re-purposed boats they built aquaponic facilities to grow fresh fish, food, and bioengineered wheat. They turn this into a better and cheaper version of CHOOH2 that Frankie Paupau continued to improve. He also developed a new strain of cocaine that is resistant to the virus introduced by the US government that blighted the original plant.  They call this “New Coke,” and smuggle it into various cities around the Pacific Rim.

Antigone is the Director of Public Relations in Night City for the PPC, looking to expand operations by selling the improved CHOOH2 as well as fresh, clean vegetables and fish.  And also, of course, smuggling in New Coke. So they have some natural enemies in Petrochem corporation (manual page 213), the world’s largest producer of CHOOH2.

The crew is her cousin Han, the team Solo, his girlfriend “Chewie,” a medtech.  Aohako, “Hako” the Hawaiian Night City Native and Fixer, and finally Surany, a nerdy Czech Netrunner who is trying to grow a Gandalf Beard and names all his programs after things from J.R.R. Tokein’s Middle-Earth mythos.

And…. scene.