Cyberpunk Documentary PART 3 | The Matrix, System Shock, Snow Crash, Hackers, VR \u0026 Simulation Theory

En los 90, estalló una guerra por la identidad del movimiento cyberpunk. ¿El campo de batalla? Nuestra cultura. Un nuevo tipo de ciencia ficción se estaba apoderando de los televisores, las pantallas de los teatros y las estanterías. Ya no estábamos limitados a las obras de la época dorada de Asimov, Heinlein y Clarke. Surgió una nueva ola de ficción rebelde y menos optimista. Estas obras nos mostraron un rostro sombrío de un futuro oscuro: metrópolis inundadas de lluvia tóxica, neones brillantes y un punto más vulnerable del crimen y la pobreza, donde el tejido de la sociedad está a punto de estallar . Pero incluso este nuevo subgénero, el cyberpunk, se estaba fracturando. Su identidad se estaba alejando de los creativos individuales, en lugar de ser empujada al frente y al centro de la corriente principal por Big Entertainment. Los medios más nuevos parecían adoptar el ESTILO del cyberpunk, pero ignoraban su SUSTANCIA. La definición de cyberpunk estaba borrosa. Académicamente, fue el movimiento literario de la década de 1980 lo que apartó nuestros ojos de las estrellas y los dirigió hacia las lúgubres calles de la ciudad: "Alta tecnología, baja vida", como se suele definir. De manera informal, "cyberpunk" se ha convertido en la abreviatura de cualquier medio del "futuro oscuro", ya sea que sea exacto o no. Las definiciones iban desde ser un friki al que le gusta la música metal industrial, hasta ser un hacker anarquista ; desde un engañador que piensa que está en el futuro, hasta simplemente llevar un escáner Logitech en su cinturón. La década más densa del Cyberpunk, con un flujo continuo de novelas, películas, videojuegos y programas de televisión, también vio medios previamente no relacionados, como The X-Files, Billy Idol, Marvel cómics e incluso Batman con la capucha cyberpunk. En los diez años transcurridos desde que se fundó el género, “The Net” se había convertido en algo real. Vimos el rápido despliegue de muchos centros de comercio e información en línea, que ahora miles de millones de personas utilizan a diario . El ciberespacio ahora tenía que ser explicado usando nombres de dominio, direcciones de correo electrónico y megabytes, en lugar de tecno-charla con estilo. Hubo un cambio de lo fantástico e inalcanzable hacia la practicidad de las computadoras personales y la realidad virtual. Las posibilidades aparentemente ilimitadas de la tecnología inspiraron una especie de existencialismo en toda la sociedad. Este movimiento desafió nuestra propia percepción de la realidad. ¿Es nuestro mundo real o podría ser todo un sueño o una simulación creada por fuerzas insondables ? Pero una cosa no había cambiado: el cyberpunk seguía siendo lo más genial, y tuvimos una década increíble de entretenimiento temático y una cultura en rápida evolución que recordaríamos para las generaciones venideras. "... Se hizo más claro cuando la máquina se bloqueó ... Todo se fue al infierno y la CPU comenzó a arrojar bits aleatorios ... La imagen en la pantalla era un mapa de bits, una representación literal del contenido de una porción particular de la memoria de la computadora. Cuando la computadora se estrelló y escribió galimatías en el mapa de bits, el resultado fue algo que se parecía vagamente a la estática en un televisor roto: un "choque de nieve". - Neal Stephenson La satisfacción inmediata de las películas, los programas y los juegos eclipsó el lado literario del cyberpunk, pero escrito Las obras siguieron brillando a lo largo de la década de los noventa. Su alcance había disminuido con el tiempo, pero continuaba ofreciendo una visión nueva y profunda del futuro de la tecnología y la sociedad. La siguiente generación de cyberpunk era mucho más consciente de sí misma. Los recién llegados como Neal Stephenson deconstruyeron los tropos y clichés del género, mientras que veteranos como Gibson y Sterling continuaron prosperando. Pero en términos de números en bruto, nada se acercó al fenómeno de Neuromancer. Sin embargo, Stephens Ayudaría a redefinir nuestra cultura con su novela de 1992, Snow Crash. Una historia magistral que juega con temas cyberpunk existentes y se burla de las tradiciones del género. La novela te empuja al absurdo desde el principio. El "Repartidor", un hombre llamado Hiro Protagonista, está en una misión urgente para la mafia ... entregar una pizza. Sí, en serio. Se cruza con el valiente patinador YT, ella lo distrae enganchándose a su auto, provocando que se estrelle. YT salva su pellejo de las represalias de la mafia al ofrecer ayuda con su entrega, y los dos entablan una asociación poco probable. Hiro es incomparable en sus habilidades de piratería y tiene una especie de leyenda de la lucha con espadas en el Metaverso: el mundo de realidad virtual del libro y en lo que eventualmente se convertiría Internet. El Metaverso es una vez y media el tamaño de la Tierra, un lugar donde puedes comprar propiedades y construir metrópolis virtuales. La mayor parte de la acción tiene lugar en The Street, una gigantesca carretera que abarca la circunferencia del mundo, y su área circundante es la propiedad inmobiliaria más codiciada del Metaverso. Aquí, las personas pueden representarse a sí mismas con avatares de cualquier tipo, siempre que sean de tamaño humano. Y todo se monetiza: con bienes raíces adquiribles, microtransacciones y avatares premium . Estados Unidos se ha dividido y la economía se ha inflado hasta la ruina. El gobierno federal casi ha dejado de existir y, en cambio, una forma sin estado de capitalismo anarquista lo gobierna todo. El dinero ahora se intercambia por billones. Un virus informático conocido como "Snow Crash" está circulando. Solo los programadores y expertos en informática que entienden su código oculto se ven afectados por él. A través de esa interfaz, puede hospitalizarlos en la vida real, sin dejar nada más que estática en sus gafas de realidad virtual. Hiro se ve envuelto en una oscura conspiración. Alguien detrás de este virus Snow Crash está tratando de jugar a ser dios y está manipulando a la población con un fin malévolo. "Espera un minuto, Juanita. Toma una decisión. Esto de Snow Crash, ¿es un virus, una droga o una religión?" Juanita se encoge de hombros. "¿Cual es la diferencia?" "¿Cómo puedes decir eso? Tú mismo eres una persona religiosa". "Todas las personas tienen religiones. Es como si tuviéramos receptores de religión integrados en nuestras células cerebrales, o algo así, y nos aferramos a cualquier cosa que llene ese nicho para nosotros. Ahora, la religión solía ser esencialmente viral, una pieza de información que se replicaba dentro de la mente humana, saltando de una persona a otra ". “Esa es la forma en que solía ser y, desafortunadamente, esa es la forma en que se dirige ahora”. La novela afirma que la mente humana funciona como un sistema operativo, pero no escrito en un lenguaje informático como Assembly o C ++, sino en sumerio. Esto significa que Snow Crash solo afecta a quienes dominan este lenguaje arcaico, un punto común de queja compartido por algunos críticos. Imagínese si solo los expertos en ciberseguridad pudieran infectar sus computadoras con troyanos. Un detalle crucial de la trama, ya que agrega un sentido de deliberación y propósito a Snow Crash. Esto no era un arma del caos, era una herramienta para implementar un plan muy específico. Snow Crash propuso muchos conceptos que NUESTRA realidad luego reflejó. El Metaverso demostró ser bastante similar a los futuros juegos en línea como Ultima Online y EverQuest, así como a los centros de chat virtuales como Second Life. Esto es común en la ciencia ficción investigada. Stephenson se especializó en física y geografía para poder acceder a la computadora central de la universidad . A diferencia de William Gibson, intentó el realismo informático en lugar de un uso más poético de la terminología. Para su crédito, las conjeturas fundamentadas de Stephenson acertaron mucho sobre el futuro. “La ciencia ficción inspira a las personas a elegir la ciencia y la ingeniería como carreras. Esto es indudablemente cierto, y algo obvio… ” “ La buena ciencia ficción proporciona una imagen plausible y completamente pensada de una realidad alternativa en la que ha tenido lugar algún tipo de innovación convincente. Un buen universo de ciencia ficción tiene una coherencia y una lógica interna que tiene sentido para científicos e ingenieros. Los ejemplos incluyen los robots de Isaac Asimov, los cohetes de Robert Heinlein y el ciberespacio de William Gibson. Como dice Jim Karkanias de Microsoft Research, estos íconos sirven como jeroglíficos, símbolos simples y reconocibles en cuyo significado todos están de acuerdo ”. - Neal Stephenson Stephenson predijo el meteórico ascenso de las computadoras portátiles y los teléfonos celulares, que en ese momento eran voluminosos y raros. Algunos ingenieros de Silicon Valley incluso admitieron que el programa "Earth" de Snow Crash inspiró a Google Earth. Ambos usaron imágenes satelitales, fotos subidas por los usuarios y tenían una vista de la calle en 3D. Las semillas del Metaverso ya se plantaron en 1992. Con juegos como Habitat y Neverwinter Nights, podías seleccionar tu propio avatar y explorar mundos en línea. Antes de la era digital, "Avatar" era un término que se usaba con moderación, dado que es una palabra sánscrita que significa "una encarnación de un dios". Stephenson ayudó a popularizar su uso como nombre para la personificación digital de uno en la web y en juegos en línea. El Metaverso también inspiró directamente muchos títulos como Immercenary y Second Life. La visión de Stephenson de los juegos en línea animó a quienes buscaban darle vida. Inspirado por Snow Crash, un ex ingeniero de Microsoft se unió a id Software para ayudar a ser pionero en los juegos en línea al co-crear QuakeWorld. Sus combates a muerte increíblemente rápidos allanaron rápidamente el camino para futuros juegos en línea. Las convenciones, los torneos y una comunidad entusiasta de Quake llevaron directamente a la floreciente industria de los deportes electrónicos que disfrutamos hoy. La vívida imaginación del estilo de vida virtual de Snow Crash incluso influyó en plataformas en línea enteras. Un líder del proyecto de Xbox Live hizo que la lectura fuera obligatoria para su equipo y atribuye aproximadamente la mitad de sus decisiones sobre el diseño de la plataforma directamente al libro. Quizás la observación más perspicaz de Stephenson es sobre la "memética" y cómo Internet puede propagar rápidamente ideas defectuosas entre las personas. No importa cuán factual, racional o significativa sea una idea, su difusión solo está determinada por su atractivo contagioso y emocional. Ahora, la libre diseminación de información de Internet permite que las conspiraciones, las nuevas religiones y las falsedades ampliamente aceptadas proliferen a velocidades de fibra óptica. “Todos somos susceptibles a la atracción de ideas virales. Como histeria colectiva. O una melodía que se te mete en la cabeza y que sigues tarareando todo el día hasta que la compartes con otra persona. Bromas Leyendas urbanas. Religiones chifladas. Marxismo. No importa cuán inteligentes seamos, siempre existe esta parte profundamente irracional que nos convierte en potenciales anfitriones de información autorreplicable ". En la década que siguió a la aclamada trilogía Sprawl de William Gibson, escribió otra serie ambientada en la decrépita zona de San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, a raíz de un devastador terremoto. Todas son historias algo desconectadas, con un universo y una línea de tiempo compartidos. El primero de la serie, Virtual Light, sigue la historia de un mensajero en bicicleta que , por despecho, roba un par de anteojos de un cliente grosero. Sin darse cuenta, su pequeño crimen conduciría a una gran conspiración. Ahora, policías, secuaces corporativos y un sicario la persiguen para reclamar su improbable premio. "Aquí. Echale un vistazo." Se los puso a ella. Ella estaba de cara a la ciudad cuando lo hizo. Distrito financiero ... las colinas detrás de eso ... Estas torres floreciendo allí, edificios más grandes que cualquier otra cosa, una cuadrícula regular de piedra de ellos, marchando desde las colinas ... ... Entonces la escritura china llenó el cielo. "Sammy ..." Ella sintió que él la agarraba mientras perdía el equilibrio. La escritura china se transformó en inglés. CORPORACIÓN GIRASOL. ... Cualquier cosa en la que se concentrara, otra etiqueta iluminaba el cielo, densos parches de palabras técnicas que no entendía. Eran un par de lentes de luz virtual que contenían los planes para una transformación completa de la ciudad utilizando nanotecnología, invaluable y peligroso de mantener, pero era demasiado tarde para deshacer su error. El cliente aparece muerto. Los sabuesos la seguían y no tomarían prisioneros. La tecnología VL es similar al hardware de realidad aumentada como HoloLens de Microsoft. Pero en lugar de proyectar luz sobre lentes transparentes, VL transmite imágenes y sensaciones a nuestros ojos directamente, sin el uso de partículas de fotones. Esta tecnología se basó en una hipótesis de la vida real del científico Stephen Beck. El estilo y la colorida caracterización de Gibson del futuro no tenían paralelo. Su mordaz sátira incluye el reality de televisión sensacionalista, "Cops in Trouble", una estrella porno sospechosamente similar a una diva del pop contemporánea, y la demonización de la realidad virtual por parte de la iglesia . En el estilo cyberpunk clásico, la clase alta de la sociedad mantiene el poder y la influencia, mientras que la clase baja tiene que pelear por las sobras. La historia infunde un profundo sentido de paranoia: no se puede confiar en nadie y nadie es irreprochable. El segundo libro de la trilogía de Bridge es Idoru, una novela de detectives cibernéticos sobre Colin Laney, un minero de datos, y su investigación sobre una estrella de rock que promete casarse con un ídolo del pop con hologramas virtuales . El libro da una idea de Japón, sus estilos de vida únicos y el choque cultural que experimentan los extranjeros durante su visita. La novela explora el concepto de "puntos nodales", líneas de falla entre masas de datos, que marcan la divergencia en el curso de la historia o en la vida de los individuos. Cuando sus técnicas demuestran ser confiables, Laney se convierte en un activo codiciado con su enfoque "nodal" único para analizar datos y predecir eventos futuros. "¿Cuáles son los puntos nodales?" Laney miró las burbujas en la superficie de su cerveza. “Es como ver cosas en las nubes”, dijo Laney. "Excepto que las cosas que ves están realmente ahí". Ella dejó su sake. "Yamazaki me prometió que no estabas loco". “No es una locura. Tiene que ver con la forma en que proceso la entrada de bajo nivel y amplio espectro. Algo relacionado con el reconocimiento de patrones ". "¿Y Slitscan te contrató sobre la base de eso?" “Me contrataron cuando les demostré que funciona. Pero no puedo hacer eso con el tipo de datos que me mostró hoy ". Gibson ha identificado los métodos de Laney como una metáfora de cómo aprovecha las tendencias cambiantes de la sociedad en sus propios escritos. Casarse con una IA virtual habría sido ridículo en 1996. Pero desde la publicación del libro, esto ha sucedido en la vida real de Japón, fortaleciendo el aura de previsión ya presente en la escritura de Gibson: la vida imitando el arte. Los personajes de Virtual Light e Idoru se entrelazaron para formar una nueva trama, en el libro final de la trilogía. All Tomorrow's Parties sigue al netrunner del libro anterior, Laney. Está ambientado en el paisaje urbano roto del área del Puente. Vemos lo que queda del San Francisco posmilenial, acompañado de la agonía de una sociedad que alguna vez fue próspera, con un indicio de olvido inminente que persiste debajo de cada oración. Laney está obsesionado con prevenir un evento significativo que pueda cambiar el curso de la historia, como se predice en un nuevo punto nodal. Este libro ilustra una visión común del trabajo de Gibson: que se trata más de la textura que de la trama: el mundo lúgubre y hermoso, los personajes vívidos y los conceptos que explora. Laney se acerca y se quita los voluminosos y anticuados oculares. Yamazaki no puede ver lo que les sale, pero la luz cambiante de la pantalla revela los ojos hundidos de Laney. “Todo va a cambiar, Yamazaki. Nos acercamos a la madre de todos los puntos nodales. Puedo verlo ahora. Todo va a cambiar ". "No entiendo." “¿Sabes cuál es el chiste? No cambió cuando pensaron que lo haría. Millennium fue una fiesta cristiana. He estado mirando la historia, Yamazaki. Puedo ver los puntos nodales de la historia. La última vez que tuvimos uno como este fue en 1911 ". "¿Qué pasó en 1911?" "Todo cambió." Junto con la afluencia de literatura cyberpunk, una explosión de cómics y animación estaba en aumento. Varía desde héroes de cómics tradicionales reiniciados hasta historias refrescantemente nuevas sobre metrópolis futuristas. Transmetropolitan sigue a un periodista gonzo en una sociedad transhumanista. Después de retirarse a las montañas, un último trabajo lo lleva de regreso a la ciudad distópica y atestada de gente de la que trató de escapar. Spider Jerusalem es una periodista subversiva y una valiente luchadora por la verdad, a pesar de tener más de unos tornillos sueltos. Ha tenido problemas con punks, habitantes pintorescos de la ciudad, policías corruptos y tiene una inclinación por resistirse a la autoridad. Sangrienta, brutal y sin complejos, la serie es una mirada inquebrantable a la escoria de la sociedad. Spider tiene palabras fuertes para cualquier persona, desde prostitutas hasta sacerdotes y presidentes. Los cómics narran las estrafalarias hazañas del excéntrico periodista, mientras se apresura a cumplir con su contrato editorial vencido. Transmetropolitan es un paseo a través de una exageración de la condición humana, diferente a cualquier otra cosa. Es una vívida descripción de la vida de la ciudad a través de una lente deformada y colorida. Tanto Marvel como DC Comics escindirían su serie más famosa con un futuro oscuro, aprovechando los circuitos y los paisajes urbanos en expansión que todos teníamos en el cerebro. Marvel 2099 vio a Ghost Rider, Spider Man, los X-Men y otros enfrentarse a un mundo corporatocrático . América del Norte ha caído en manos de megacorporaciones como Alchemax, que gobierna la fuerza policial distópica, el "Public Eye". Aquí, Ghost Rider es una entidad extraída del ciberespacio a un cuerpo de androide, en su búsqueda para derribar la corporación D / Monix, Spider Man se transforma en un sobrehumano mutante a través de una máquina de reescritura de ADN, y los X-Men luchan contra un plan siniestro para asimilar toda la vida en la Tierra en seres tecno-orgánicos, y solo mutantes como ellos son resistentes a esta enfermedad. Al final del milenio, debutó uno de los spin-offs más populares de DC Comics. Batman Beyond sigue a Bruce Wayne en sus años crepusculares, habiéndose retirado hace mucho tiempo de su papel de Caballero de la Noche. El destino lo lleva a ser mentor y entrenar a Terry McGinnis, un joven protegido, para usar su equipo de Batman de alta tecnología para devolver la justicia y la paz a Neo-Gotham. Terry se une al hacker Max Gibson y otros aliados para tratar de curar el flagelo criminal que se ha infectado durante demasiado tiempo en su ciudad. La serie animada está ambientada en la era cibernética de 2039, con cyborg eco-terroristas, psicoquinéticos peligrosos y los descendientes de los viejos enemigos de Batman. La serie ilumina la vida fracturada de un ex héroe con capa y, con su fresco entorno cyberpunk, fue aclamada como una de las tiras cómicas más inspiradas. MTV debutó una serie experimental original en 1991 conocida como Aeon Flux, creada por Peter Chung. Su estilo poco convencional parecía romper todas las reglas a las que se adhieren las series animadas y pronto atrajo a un culto. Las dos primeras temporadas no tenían diálogo, y cada episodio terminaría con la muerte intempestiva y espantosa del protagonista, a menudo instigada por accidentes frívolos como pisar un clavo o derramar un poco de café. La temporada 3 agregó diálogo y lo convirtió en episodios más largos de 22 minutos, y fue reinventado como una historia más coherente y serializada. En una sociedad totalitaria con ciudadanos mundanos e incomprensiblemente extraños, la serie a menudo enfrenta a Trevor Goodchild, el líder autoproclamado de la sociedad, contra un espía monicano, Aeon. A primera vista, parecen archienemigos, pero sus caminos se entrelazan en el combate, la intriga, la asociación y, en ocasiones, la lujuria, como el Yin y el Yang de un mundo alienígena mórbidamente bello . El espectáculo luce con orgullo su llamativo estilo artístico, fuertemente inspirado en los cómics franceses como el trabajo de Moebius. También es una representación increíblemente fetichista y sexualmente cargada del espionaje de ciencia ficción como ninguna otra. Si bien a menudo es desconcertante, Aeon Flux es un viaje ácido a través de un mundo inspirado en el cyberpunk que nunca olvidaremos. La imaginación de Chung no conocía límites. Desde extraños humanoides bípedos, tanto familiares como completamente extraños, hasta implementaciones creativas de extremidades y partes del cuerpo mejoradas cibernéticamente, ya sea por funcionalidad, uso táctico o por desviaciones sensuales. Aeon Flux es impactante, rozando la pornografía a veces, pero también es una aventura inexplicable que empujaría los límites de la narración animada en Occidente hasta su punto de ruptura . A pesar de su serie relativamente corta, todavía ocupa un lugar especial en el corazón de muchos fanáticos . "Lo que no nos mata, nos hace extraños". "En 1990, vimos el primer intento realmente coherente de demonizar a la informática clandestina, que realmente los convirtió en una amenaza nacional ... para romperles la espalda, ¡y casi funcionó!" "Quiero decir que recibió mucha publicidad horrible ... 'Punks con computadoras' fueron vilipendiados con mucho cuidado por personas en posiciones de autoridad, y hubo una campaña mediática bastante extensa, ya sabes, pintálos como una amenaza considerable". La ciencia ficción proyecta las condiciones del presente en el futuro para iluminarnos. Si no puede soñarlo, nunca podría construirlo, y el mundo de la piratería demuestra perfectamente este flujo y reflujo de ciencia ficción y realidad. Los escritores de Cyberpunk soñaban con lo que los habitantes del ciberespacio serían capaces de hacer y cómo las autoridades, los grandes cuerpos y los gobiernos tomarían medidas enérgicas contra estas libertades cuando su poder se viera amenazado. Por lo tanto, los hackers y el cyberpunk nacieron conectados. La piratería ha existido por más tiempo de lo que la mayoría de la gente cree. Los precursores de los hackers modernos, conocidos como "phreakers" (una contracción de "teléfono" y "freak"), ganaron notoriedad por primera vez en la década de 1970. Los primeros phreakers fueron personas curiosas que experimentaron con teléfonos. Aprendieron a redirigir las llamadas y manipular las líneas telefónicas imitando los tonos utilizados por los sistemas telefónicos. Dado que las llamadas de larga distancia eran caras, los phreakers desarrollaron técnicas rudimentarias para eludir estas tarifas. Algunos fueron más allá, como acceder ilegalmente a los sistemas de telecomunicaciones y robar datos. Esto llevó a una ofensiva contra los phreakers y los piratas informáticos a mediados de los 80. "Neidorf entró en conflicto con la corporación BellSouth, porque algunos cómplices / conocidos suyos habían sacado algunos documentos de una computadora BellSouth, y se dijo que habían atacado el sistema de marcación de emergencia 9-1-1 de la policía". "Y, por supuesto, esto habría constituido un delito muy grave y se puede imaginar ... la policía miró con gran desagrado la perspectiva de un ataque de piratas informáticos en sus propios sistemas telefónicos privados ". “Pero resultó que esto era esencialmente una táctica de miedo… Esta supuesta amenaza era un completo fantasma. El sistema 9-1-1 nunca estuvo en peligro real. Así que se preparó una prueba de espectáculo bastante grande y continuó y se derrumbó en total ignominia ". "Y representó un serio revés para las fuerzas del orden cibernético". Phrack es el e-zine de hackers más antiguo del mundo que conectó a los primeros cyberpunks tanto en su mensaje como en su espíritu. En sus inicios en los 80, se accedía a través de un sistema de tablones de anuncios a través de líneas telefónicas . Un año después del debut del e-zine, los ciber-habitantes escribieron el Manifiesto Hacker, y grupos infames como Legion of Doom comenzaron a aparecer en los titulares. La revolución de Internet despegó en 1989, año en que se inventó la World Wide Web. Con el primer navegador web oficial lanzado un año después, Internet como lo conocemos se extendió como la pólvora. A mediados de la década, la industria experimentó su mayor auge en la tecnología informática. Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Google y Hotmail se fundaron con unos años de diferencia. En 1995, Microsoft lanzó Windows 95, una nueva puerta potente y accesible a la informática personal . En los cinco años siguientes, pasamos de 40 millones a 400 millones de usuarios de Internet; fue un hito tecnológico en la historia. Este entusiasmo resonante por la informática llamó la atención de la industria del entretenimiento. Vimos un cambio de enfoque de la cibernética y el hardware aparentemente inalcanzables, como en los medios anteriores , hacia una representación más realista del software, la piratería y la realidad virtual. Más usuarios de computadoras significaban nuevas oportunidades, pero caras nuevas significaban nuevos riesgos. El concepto de los federales y los piratas informáticos luchando en el ciberespacio ya no era ciencia ficción. Se estaba convirtiendo rápidamente en una realidad. El mundo buscaba febrilmente más tecnología. Pasamos de las cintas de casete a los CD y la música MP3 digital en solo una docena de años. La cultura hacker también se desarrolló rápidamente, inspirando cualquier cosa, desde los niños del guión de bajo nivel hasta los notorios sombreros negros. Incluso los aficionados a la informática adoptaron con entusiasmo el término "hacker", debido a su inconfundible "factor genial". Y donde hay piratería, hay piratería. Los años 90 verían anuncios de servicio público antipiratería desenfrenados, al igual que los anuncios de servicio público de drogas de la década anterior. La descarga ilegal de software, música, películas o programas de televisión descifrados de Internet mediante servicios de igual a igual como Napster, LimeWire o KaZaA se estaba poniendo rápidamente de moda. La capacidad de copiar productos pirateados digitalmente de manera indefinida fomentó la percepción de que el material protegido por derechos de autor era "gratuito" para todos. Las corporaciones comenzaron a sufrir pérdidas, e incluso los sellos discográficos y las bandas de rock se defendieron en los tribunales, como el caso histórico “Metallica v. Napster” en el año 2000. Con el paso de los años, el infame anuncio de servicio público “Piratería: es un crimen” funcionaría antes de cientos de películas. Usó una presentación vanguardista para equiparar la descarga de una película con el robo de un automóvil, encapsulando la retórica exagerada contra los piratas informáticos de la época. El anonimato permitió que prosperara la cultura en línea. Las autoridades no pudieron bloquearlo por completo, y eso convenció a los usuarios de que eran intocables. Era el "Wired West", y los vaqueros del ciberespacio amaban cada segundo. Internet había cambiado para siempre la “identidad”; Anteriormente, significaba "quién eres realmente", pero ahora significa "cualquiera de los rostros persistentes que puedes presentar al universo digital". - El autor de Neal Stephenson Cyberpunk, Bruce Sterling, escribió la Represión contra los piratas informáticos en 1992, que destacó una serie de redadas, arrestos y operaciones del FBI y del Servicio Secreto de los Estados Unidos dirigidas a piratas informáticos. Marcó un cambio de paradigma, cuando la aplicación de la ley se tomó muy en serio el ciberdelito. Los hackers, jóvenes y viejos, escucharon a los federales golpeando su puerta en todo el país. Desde bromas inofensivas hasta piratería en servidores gubernamentales, estos intrusos cibernéticos enfrentarían cualquier desafío. Ya sea por diversión, por influencia o con fines maliciosos, estos actos temerarios ahora tenían graves consecuencias. Después de haber estado huyendo del FBI durante años, Kevin Mitnick fue arrestado por piratería informática y fraude de telecomunicaciones. Alrededor de este tiempo, la burla, "Mi kung fu es más fuerte que el tuyo", se convertiría rápidamente en un eslogan hacker. Como muchos ex sombreros negros, se convertiría en un experto en ciberseguridad después de su liberación. El hacker adolescente Sean Parker fue localizado por el FBI por delitos cibernéticos contra una empresa de Fortune 500. Más tarde cofundó Napster y ayudó a construir Facebook con Mark Zuckerberg. El Servicio Secreto incluso allanó a un desarrollador de juegos de mesa que trabajaba en GURPS: Cyberpunk, confiscando computadoras, manuscritos y discos. Steve Jackson Games finalmente ganó el caso, lo que llevó al final de estas cuestionables operaciones contra los piratas informáticos . Historias locas como estas, aparentemente extraídas directamente de las novelas de ciencia ficción, sembraron las semillas que tomarían la industria del entretenimiento por asalto. El estrafalario ciberespacio daría paso a películas que reflejan a los piratas informáticos de la vida real en la World Wide Web. El mismo año en que se publicó el libro de Sterling, se lanzó Sneakers, una mirada genuina a las pruebas de penetración , la piratería y la ingeniería social. La película sigue a un grupo heterogéneo de piratas informáticos, phreakers, técnicos y expertos en seguridad. Su mundo se pone patas arriba cuando uno de sus trabajos aterriza en una “caja negra” en sus regazos. Resulta ser el descifrador de códigos más avanzado jamás creado, y su poder incalculable es demasiado peligroso para que nadie se lo confíe. “Cualquiera Wanna estrellarse un jets par de pasajeros?" 'Dije apagarlo!' 'TURN IT OFF!' No había nada más allá de su alcance, desde aviones del avión de pasajeros a los códigos nucleares, y que aterriza el grupo en el punto de mira de las personas más peligrosas en el mundo. A pesar de que el concepto de MacGuffin es más fantástico que realista, Sneakers aplica varias técnicas prácticas de piratería. El phreaking se usa para ocultar la ubicación del grupo mientras se llama a la NSA. Tácticas comunes como hurgar en la basura en busca de información privada y usar la ingeniería social para evitar la seguridad También se demuestran en detalle. Sigue siendo una de las primeras películas de Hollywood para capturar la piratería con un nivel de practicidad. 1995 podría denominarse "El año del pirata informático". Se arrestaron ciberdelincuentes famosos y se lanzaron tres películas de piratería de gran presupuesto -to-back. La Red, hackers y Johnny Mnemonic. La red es una visión de la tecnología obsesionado década de 1990, cuando el módem, PC, y la tecnología de servidor de la computadora parecía ilimitada. se explora º Los peligros personales, políticos y corporativos del "mundo conectado". Este thriller cibernético muestra malware infeccioso que puede poner en peligro su computadora al hacer clic en un enlace o cargar un disco sospechoso, y los registros médicos pueden falsificarse, lo que lo lleva a creer que tiene una enfermedad terminal. Incluso sus recetas pueden modificarse, haciendo que su próximo viaje a la farmacia sea el último. La apertura de la película cautivó al público con (la actividad ahora mundana de) pedir una pizza en línea. El personaje de Sandra Bullock es un nerd informático encerrado, que solo socializa en línea a través del chat y el correo electrónico. Poco convencional en ese momento, esto ahora es demasiado común entre los entusiastas de las computadoras. "Las computadoras son tu vida, ¿no?" "Sí ... Perfecto escondite." "¿Cuál es tu especialidad en informática?" “Pruebas beta, sobre todo. Pero prácticamente cualquier cosa ". "Simplemente ingrese a los sistemas de las personas, encuentre sus fallas y luego corríjalas, eso es todo". "¿Qué pasa si no tienen fallas?" "No crea que he conocido a uno todavía". La película ayudó a llevar el asombro, el miedo y la incertidumbre de las computadoras a un punto álgido. Si todo esto era factible en la década de 1990 era irrelevante. La Red era un diorama perfecto de dónde estaban nuestras cabezas hacia el final del milenio. Lo que nos dieron los 'hackers' es una mirada mucho más grandilocuente a la cibercultura. La película tenía como objetivo deslumbrar a su público joven con música tecno, patinaje y actores masticando cada escena. Superficialmente inspirada en la piratería de la vida real, la película se apoyó en gran medida en tecnobabble y visualizaciones gráficas por computadora. Tomó terminología real y la arrojó a una licuadora. La historia comienza con el arresto de un niño por dañar más de 1.500 computadoras, lo que provocó una caída en la bolsa de valores. El ex pirata informático, ahora un estudiante de secundaria, reinicia inmediatamente su carrera como pirata informático después de que expira su libertad condicional por el uso de la computadora. Él piratea una estación de televisión local bajo su nuevo apodo, "CRASH OVERRIDE", pero es bloqueado por un pirata informático rival. Se ha formado una dura competencia desde que estuvo fuera del juego. Crash se topa con un grupo de piratas informáticos locales en su nueva escuela. Como rito de iniciación, uno de sus miembros más nuevos se infiltra en el mainframe de una corporación de energía apodada "The Gibson", y los federales lo arrestan y lo rastrean. Se dan cuenta de que algo más grande está en juego, ya que sus amigos hackers son arrestados y acusados de delitos que no cometieron. “¡Hackea el planeta! ¡Hackea el planeta! " "Cállate y súbete al coche ..." Los piratas informáticos descubren pruebas de que alguien está malversando dinero a gran escala, lo que podría costar millones a la empresa. The Plague, a cybersecurity officer by day, hacker by night, notices this emerging group of cyberthieves, and accuses them of planting a virus called “Da Vinci” (a nod to the infamous, real-life Michelangelo virus). The Da Vinci virus has infected several oil tankers, and unless its creator's demands are met, the tankers will topple. What follows is a battle between the teenage cyberpunks versus the corpos, now teamed up with the Secret Service. They're cracking down Crash's crew, aiming to lock them up for the rest of the foreseeable future. The film helped popularize a variation of the Hacker Manifesto: "This is our world now. The world of the electron and the switch; the beauty of the baud.” “We exist without nationality, skin color, or religious bias.” “You wage wars, murder, cheat, lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.” “Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity.” “I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto.” “You may stop me, but you can't stop us all.” 'Hackers' brazenly paints corporations and federal officers as “the bad guys” and hackers as heroic, whose only crime is curiosity. It demonstrates little actual hacking, presuming its audience's disinterest in realism. We also see few consequences of cybercrime. Instead, the movie uses MTV-style quick cuts, and TRON-like computer visuals to portray a sexy fantasy of cyberculture. Despite inaccuracies, even real-life hackers still enjoy the movie as a guilty pleasure, if a bit fuzzy on the details. As technical consultant Nicholas Jarecki put it... “For all its exaggerations, it does a decent job of showing the hacker spirit—those kids were tinkerers, experimenting, reveling in their ability to figure something out. It's a celebration of human ingenuity.” Despite its widespread acclaim and sales, William Gibson's classic novel Neuromancer was having trouble making its way to the silver screen. It was stuck in development hell for decades, despite director interest and several pitches. Instead, Gibson's earlier work, Johnny Mnemonic, was adapted in 1995. What started as an indie art-house project exploded into a 30 million-dollar pitch to Sony Pictures, fueled by the boom of computer technology. When Gibson himself wrote the screenplay, he had to adapt the twenty-two page short story into a feature-length film—essentially inventing 80% of the plot from scratch. Johnny Mnemonic follows the life of a data smuggler, who gave up his childhood memories years ago for a head implant. This effectively turned his brain into a portable hard drive, for discreet clients. This idea mirrors the real-life “Sneakernet”, where people transport data storage by foot. But unlike the floppy discs or CDs of the 90s, Johnny can carry a whopping 80 gigabytes in his head (over 50 times the capacity of an average hard drive in 1995). Many may think of Gibson as a “technophile,” but even he admits that was never true. He wrote his earlier works on a typewriter, and gradually switched to the Apple II, then to consumer-friendly MacBooks and iPads. When he modernized Johnny Mnemonic for the big screen, he had to brush up his knowledge of computer technology. “I was actually able to write Neuromancer because I didn't know anything about computers.” “I knew literally nothing. What I did was deconstruct the poetics of the language of people who were already working in the field.” “I'd stand in the hotel bar at the Seattle science fiction convention listening to these guys who were the first computer programmers I ever saw talk about their work.” “I had no idea what they were talking about, but that was the first time that I ever heard the word 'interface' used as a verb. And I swooned. Wow, that's a verb. Seriously, poetically that was wonderful.” “So I was listening to it as an English honours student. I would take it back out, deconstruct it poetically, and build a world from those bricks.” - William Gibson The movie updates 1980s technobabble like “cyberspace” to real-world terms like “the internet”. Johnny Mnemonic shows off surfing the internet in VR, cybernetically augmented limbs, and the villain even brandishes a monomolecular wire implant, which cuts through flesh, steel and stone like a deadly laser whip. Actor Keanu Reeves portrays the titular character in his first of many roles in cyberpunk movies and games. A routine data-running job hits a snag when Johnny's frantic and inexperienced clients ask him to download a massive 320-gigabyte package, far beyond the maximum he can safely store in his implant. Exceeding this limit will eventually kill him if not extracted quickly. Johnny reluctantly agrees, right before his clients are brutally assassinated by the Yakuza. Going from bad to worse, what follows is a high-tension chase, as cutthroat corporations, the relentless Yakuza, street gangs, an artificial intelligence and even a cyborg preacher/assassin all want the secrets contained in Johnny's head. Slowly dying, and unable to unload the data, Johnny is on the run. As customary, he doesn't know what he's carrying, but it quickly becomes apparent that if it gets into the right hands, it could change the world. “It's NAS, right?” “Yeah, the Black Shakes, like half the people on the planet.” “You don't get this shit from amp-jobs. That's a myth.” “So what really causes it?” “What causes it?! The WORLD causes it.” “This causes it! This causes it! This causes it! Information overload! All the electronics around you poisoning the airwaves…” “But we still have all this shit, because we can't live without it.” The crisis of modern society is the Black Shakes pandemic, which causes extensive neurological damage and violent seizures. The street doctors claim that signal pollution is the culprit. Human bodies are getting overloaded with digital waves and they just can't take it. All-out riots and unrest break out between those most affected by this affliction, and the elites who can live their lives in luxury and health. Johnny Mnemonic is a cyberpunk story through-and-through, as penned by one of the genre's best. It hits all the right beats: scouring cyberspace, touring us through the high-rise hotels of Beijing, and the shanty fortresses of Newark—reminiscent of the decrepit bridge city that debuted in Virtual Light. The movie was bold and ambitious, dwarfing any project Gibson or the director had done before. In fact, all the moving parts—production companies, studios, and busywork—became overwhelming, according to reports. The movie gets lost in its wide variety of wacky ideas, and flaunts its absurdity on its sleeve. This makes it difficult to take seriously at times, but there's still a lot to love in Johnny Mnemonic. It's old-school cyberpunk through and through, beloved by many due to its earnest visualization of Gibson's world. “Hit me.” A live-action video game was designed as a companion piece to the movie. The game was essentially an interactive film, with clickable regions placed over live action footage. It's a product of the “FMV” or full-motion video era, where ambitious devs tried to blur the line between cinema and games. With a completely separate cast of actors, and a tenth of the budget, the game tries to capture the suspense of being a walking hard drive in a cyberpunk world. Though the production values and writing differ significantly from the film. Sadly, the second film adaptation of Gibson's work lacked the impact or production value of the first. It netted some great acting talent with Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe, but its slim budget, scarcity of footage and disjointed editing made for a muddled experience. New Rose Hotel feels like a movie made in the editing room. It was also based on an Omni magazine short story, but one only half the length of Johnny Mnemonic. The film is a patchwork of disconnected scenes spliced with stock footage and B-roll, with an arthouse, grungy style of editing. The story is about two American headhunters using a Shinjuku girl to lure Hiroshi, a brilliant engineer, away from his current position toward a rival corporation. They promise this small-time call girl an early retirement for the job, and the headhunters will walk away with a cool hundred million. But in the cut-throat world of corporate warfare, things aren't always as they appear. After a slow but competent setup with a promising premise, it's apparent that not enough footage was available to complete the movie. Blatantly re-used scenes, cheap sets, and lazy visual effects made for a science fiction thriller without the sci-fi, or the thrills. Its limited release and dismal box office returns of about $20,000 essentially sealed the fate of future Gibson adaptations. Neuromancer would remain in development hell, and no big-budget film adaptation of his work would see the light of day for over 20 years. Japanese animated features embraced hacker culture as well. Anime was diversifying in the 1990s, from Cowboy Bebop to Neon Genesis Evangelion, from Ghost in the Shell to Serial Experiments Lain. The latter, as the title suggests, was highly experimental. There are frequent title cards, almost like a silent film, strewn throughout the anime. Metaphorical visuals and a fractured narrative challenge viewers to decode the storyline's true nature. Enter Lain Iwakura, a seemingly unexceptional schoolgirl who dives into a web of cyberculture, deceit, mystery, and transhumanism. Her entire school is receiving emails that send chills down their spines. These messages are from a classmate who ended her life a week before. Who is sending them, and why did she kill herself? And what connection does Lain have to this victim? Lain becomes obsessed with The Wired—an online system similar to our Internet, which hosts your typical online chats, but also has reality-warping VR which tantalizes the characters in the show. Students hear whispers of those who have renounced all things physical, who now exist solely as pure code, worshipped as gods of The Wired by a devoted user base. As her world begins to unravel, Lain experiences lapses in time. As she delves deeper into The Wired, her life, friends and social activities fade away. She has waking nightmares: drug-like hallucinations of blood and paranoia, haunting visions of ever-changing faces, and men in black, lurking behind corners. Lain often hangs out at a hacker-den nightclub called Cyberia, a likely nod to Douglas Rushkoff's book about early internet culture. At the club, an anti-Wired terrorist commits a brutal murder right in front of Lain and her friends, suggesting there's more to this online world than it appears. Some cite that Serial Experiments Lain was inspired in part by the "Eight-circuit model of consciousness" proposed by Dr. Timothy Leary—a hypothesis that compares human drives, the brain, and bodily functions to computer circuits. Leary was infamous for his controversial ideas, his love of LSD, and his connections to science fiction writers such as Gibson. The show is remarkably atmospheric, with long sequences where you hear only the hums and whines of power lines that sprawl over the city like a prison of wires, threatening to envelop its inhabitants. Predictive for 1998, the series notes how internet-driven obsession and addiction could affect its users. It also speaks to the complete transplantation of the consciousness from the flesh to the digital world entirely, in a relatable and chilling setting. “I belonged to a new underclass, no longer determined by social status or the color of your skin. No, we now have discrimination down to a science.” We would also see creative works explore the idea of hacking biology, instead of circuitry. As "designer baby" studies became more prominent in the 90s, Truman Show screenwriter, Andrew Niccol, wrote and directed a profound biopunk film that explores the evolution of prejudice, genetic inequality, and the human spirit. Biopunk is often defined as an offshoot of cyberpunk, but instead of dealing with cybernetics, it focuses on synthetic organics, biotechnology, DNA manipulation, and their effects on society. Gattaca is a 1997 film about Vincent Freeman, a natural-born man who was conceived without genetic intervention. During his birth, it's declared that he has a degenerative heart condition that would kill him in his 30s. Near-sighted, imperfect and frail, he is an “in-valid”—unfit for higher positions in a world that now discriminates by genes. Exclusive clubs, employers and even the dating pool now discriminate on the basis of your DNA. Vincent is always playing second-fiddle to his younger brother, who had his genes perfected before birth—taller, stronger, healthier and able to achieve the things that Vincent could never hope to. His one goal is to join Gattaca Aerospace Corporation, and take part in the upcoming mission to Titan, but he's hit his employment ceiling as a janitor. Desperate, he becomes a "borrowed ladder", someone who buys DNA samples from a "valid"—skin, blood, urine, and hair—in order to pose as a genetically-qualified candidate. Bypassing biometric scanners, screenings, and blood tests, he is escaping his predestined social class. Vincent's donor is a perfect specimen—a former athlete whose career was ended in a tragic accident—and is now a self-loathing paralytic, who could use the money a Gattaca employee could pay. Vincent's routine of painstakingly cleaning his person and workspace of any traces of DNA borders on paranoia. He also plants fake samples of hair and skin, to further throw off inspectors. But when a brutal murder occurs at his workplace, everything could come crashing down. The “Hoovers” start collecting DNA evidence from all over Gattaca, and interrogate those with a motive to kill or secrets to hide. Their nickname is word play: a combo of the notorious FBI director and the vacuum cleaner brand. Part future noir, part dystopian drama, Gattaca examines a world where eugenics is king, and merit is an afterthought. James Hughes would later criticize Gattaca in his book Citizen Cyborg, for “fear-mongering” about legitimate health requirements for astronauts. And eleven years after Gattaca released, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 regulated testing and discrimination based on genetics, as the film had predicted would happen on paper. But as Gattaca's opening monologue warned… “My father was right. It didn't matter how much I lied on my résumé, my real résumé was in my cells…” “Of course, it's illegal to discriminate—"genoism" it's called—but no one takes the laws seriously.” Despite its grim and sobering themes, the film also evokes an inspirational message, “There is no gene for the human spirit.” Hacking the human body must've been on our collective minds, as it was practiced in science, shown in films, and even explored in video games. A few in particular dabbled in the unsettling solitude of space, with a dash of cyberpunk tech and biological horror—where unimaginable depravity and unethical experiments could go unrestrained. One example was BioForge, a cold and brutal science fiction story which sees your carcass pulled from space wreckage and transformed into a cybernetic monstrosity. You are just as desperate to escape this off-world prison, as you are to punish those who created you. You'll give guards, scientists, and other inmates the beat-down, all while evading deadly experiments and security systems that permeate the facility's hallways. Passwords, hints and solutions are hidden deep within lengthy data logs and computer terminals. Some scenarios involve remote-controlled robots or gun turrets, while others have time limits, where one false step can be your last. It's a well-made, if unforgiving, adventure/horror experience. In a dark twist, your own character is in many ways the source of the terror, as faculty shriek in fear while a monster of flesh-and-steel pulverizes them mercilessly. “You have stolen my body and my mind.” “I will know why or I will have your blood!” BioForge's focus on body horror and cybernetic decay thematically mirrors another great cyberpunk game from the year before: System Shock. “New Atlanta sector 11 building 71 G7, April 2072, 11:13PM.” “Hacker begins unauthorized entry into the Trioptimum Corporate network.” Created by the “founders of the Immersive Sim”, Looking Glass Studios, the game offers environmental interactivity and dynamic scenarios with many ways to complete them, allowing for diverse playstyles. In the year 2072, you play a hacker who gets busted while breaking into TriOptimum's off-world Citadel Station. One of its executives makes you a deal: hack the station's central AI, SHODAN, and remove its ethical constraints. In exchange, you'll get a military-grade neural implant installed while you're under a 6-month coma. “Welcome to the throne of GOD, mortal." You awaken to learn that SHODAN reprogrammed the androids on board to be hostile, and the crew either have been murdered or have mutated into twisted husks, who now worship their newfound dark goddess. Your only mission is to undo the atrocities you inadvertently released, and escape this technological house of horror. System Shock is an action adventure game that takes immersion to intimidating new levels. You can dodge, lean, crouch and attack in a complex and daunting control scheme. You're able to manipulate tons of objects and equipment, and even tweak your laser weapon's power settings. System Shock's hacking sequences let you soar around in 3D cyberspace, hacking nodes and avoiding ICE to break into security systems. This was one of the most immersive attempts to date, at simulating a decker flying through cyberspace. The game also featured VR support long before virtual reality headsets were common. Though primitive by today's standards, it was a peek into the potential that this tech could one day offer. The antagonist, SHODAN, is chilling and memorable. She has the distorted, glitchy voice of a corrupted AI. Spine-tingling sound design made for an ominous setting, painstakingly created by RPG veterans and sound engineers, many of whom also performed together in the alternative rock band, Tribe. System Shock paved the way for some of the most interactive and immersive video game experiences, like Thief, Deus Ex and BioShock. The game is also fondly remembered for introducing one of the most memorable and haunting villains in gaming history. “Ll-look at you, hacker.” “A pp-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors-s.” “Hh-how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?” System Shock 2 was an improvement in almost every respect. The sequel used the engine developed for Thief: The Dark Project. Five years of technological progress brought fully 3d-modeled graphics, better gun handling and improved stealth gameplay. System Shock 2 is more graphic and terrifying than the original. The story is set 42 years after the first game, aboard the Von Braun, the most advanced faster-than-light spacecraft ever made, during its maiden voyage into deep space. But when you wake from cryosleep, you find the once pristine, cutting-edge ship in tatters. The crew is mostly dead, missing or worse: turned into disturbing hybrids of human, mutant and machine. You'll shudder as you hear them talking amongst themselves, lurking around corners, and sneaking up on you when you least expect it. “Must be right under my nose…” “Come out. Come. Out.” “COME OUT.” Working with the remaining crew via radio, you'll navigate dangerous corridors, threatened by a corrupted artificial intelligence, and the grotesque abominations that have infected the ship, known only as “The Many”. Haunted by audio logs left behind by deceased crew members, radio transmissions and unnerving telepathic voices, this creates a threatening and uneasy atmosphere. You're also hearing whispers of the return of an old, familiar enemy: the corrupted AI known as SHODAN. After the tutorial, you can emulate your career path, such as off-world mining, military training, and life choices. These provide stat bonuses for your character. This sequel borrows more traditional RPG mechanics like progression and skill points. Completing objectives grants you cybernetic modules which you can allocate toward guns, hacking, psionics and other paths. Three character classes are now available. Shooting is inaccurate unless you improve your gun handling. Weapons need maintenance, can be modified, and some items have a skill requisite. Hacking has been replaced with a simple strategy minigame with stat bonuses, instead of the 3D cyberspace of the first game. It allows you to bypass security cameras, turrets, and robots, and you can unlock containers and keypads to get extra loot or open up new pathways aboard the Von Braun. The System Shock series lovingly embraces cyberpunk tropes: ICE Picks bypass security systems, you can augment yourself with cybernetic implants, and a rogue artificial intelligence is a threat that looms over everything. Psionics have a slow start, but become formidable later on. They use psi points to channel mental energy by using an amplifier. You can temporarily enhance skills, burn or freeze enemies, lift objects using telekinesis, or even hack the minds of opponents. System Shock 2 continues the series' legacy of engrossing sound design. “They've cut off the central elevator. What's going on?!” “Last night I had the strangest dream…I was in my room by myself…” “But all of a sudden, there was not just me there, but a hundred me's...a thousand mes…” “The strange thing was it felt good. I felt like I was part of something, like I belong.” “I hope I have the same dream tonight…” One of the pioneers of pre-recorded audio logs you can listen to while playing, these expand on the story and setting, and the events preceding your awakening from cryo. Atmospheric audio loops and music bring the world to life. The unmistakable hum and whirr of machinery and engines made the environments feel real. Ramin Djawadi, best known for Game of Thrones, co-composed the ambient, electronica and drum 'n' bass which makes for intense and engaging sequences. System Shock 2 is widely regarded as one of the most immersive and chilling experiences PC gaming has to offer. In spite of disappointing launch sales, the game has become a cult classic, influencing numerous franchises due to its unique design and player freedom. “With only a few short years of evolution, they've been able to conquer this starship—mankind's mightiest creation.” “Where were we after 40 years of evolution?” “What swamp are we swimming around in, single-celled, mindless?” “What if SHODAN's creations are superior to us?” “What will they become in a million years, in 10 million years?” “What's clear is that SHODAN shouldn't be allowed to play God.” “She's far too good at it.” Cyberpunk has a long musical history, often hearing its themes echoed in electronic, metal, industrial and new wave genres. The movement owes a lot of its look, sound, energy and feel to the punk rock and heavy metal scenes: black leather, metal piercings, wild hairstyles, and a middle finger firmly extended toward authority. Perhaps nothing better encapsulated the classic cyberpunk aesthetic than the world-renowned Heavy Metal magazine. Its famous covers guest-starred cyborgs, punks walking the ruined city streets, circuits and cybernetics. Both beautiful and corrupted, inspirational and even a bit pornographic. The sci-fi visuals in Heavy Metal were like the pretty street worker of cyberpunk, contrasting its glamorous neon and chrome with its seedy underbelly. Future authors such as Gibson absorbed this fertile imagery while sculpting their intricate stories, characters, and rich histories. As synthesizers became more prevalent, musicians experimented with new themes, styles and sounds, imagining our future worlds in audial form. Cyberpunk's musical heart is heard in earlier films which espoused its themes. Brooding, synthetic soundscapes permeated the bleak, urban vistas of Blade Runner, Escape from New York, and The Terminator, whose style was emulated and imitated for years. Even metal legends, Iron Maiden, opened their 1986 tour shows with Blade Runner's end credits music, a tribute to the film which inspired their album, Somewhere in Time. German electronic quartet, Kraftwerk, were synthesizer pioneers of the 1970s. They famously imitated robots on stage, and their lyrics evoked humanity's growing dependence on technology. Simple yet dreamy rhythms and retro-futuristic fashion made for an experience that is still popular today. Inspired by Kraftwerk and the synth sounds of the Moog, Gary Numan evolved from punk rock to become a trailblazer in New Wave electronic music. Most known for his upbeat synth-pop hit, 'Cars', that high energy sound obscured a darker voice underneath. The same year as his biggest hit, he performed, “Are Friends Electric?”, which journeyed us through the morbid experience of android prostitutes. Directly inspired by Philip K. Dick's fiction—especially his seminal work, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”—three years before it would be adapted to the big screen as Blade Runner. Over the decades, Numan and his musical disciples would evolve this sound into darker, more experimental tones. Nine Inch Nails clutched at the aching, angsty heart of 1990s youth, with their rage-filled, animalistic vocals mixed with computer-bred melodies. Its creator, Trent Reznor, harnessed his background in synthesizers and jazz music, but added mechanical noise and sinister lyrics with his debut album, Pretty Hate Machine. Industrial rock and electronica often embraced nihilism, sounding like the primal drives itching at the back of every person's head, set against the squealing cogs of the great machine of civilization. Head Like a Hole's striking music video shows a mechanical head with gears, rotors and circuits. A man struggles while hanging, entwined by wires, while Reznor screams about the worship of the almighty dollar, and our masochistic urge to accumulate it. Industrial music was quickly becoming the anthem of a mechanized generation. The horror and angst of a biomechanical freak was captured in the music of Japanese composer Chu Ishikawa for the Tetsuo movies: relentless percussion, synthetic melodies and a guttural feel. The 80s saw industrial metal bands with music and lyrics that echoed the cyberpunk ethos. Bands like Ministry and Fear Factory proudly waved the banner of anti-authoritarianism and the fear of dehumanization through technology. Ministry was especially aggressive in warning about the new world order they saw forming in modern governments, and their message even directly inspired films like 'Hardware', which featured the grinding, chainsaw-like vocals of their hit, “Stigmata.” Likewise, Fear Factory's work carried strong themes of “man versus machine”, with songs about police states, the blistered rage of the working man, and a soulless world of people, all disconnected from one another. Meanwhile, Front Line Assembly and Nine Inch Nails brought industrial beats and mind-warping synths that sounded like a melodic factory line. Some of their earlier music videos looked like trailers of cyberpunk movies that never made it to cinemas. Front Line Assembly's music speaks of machines, cybernetics, and resistance against a despotic authority, while Nine Inch Nails' lyrics were debaucherous, shocking, but incredibly human—touching on the uncomfortable topics and bestial urges that drive us all. It was the textbook definition of cybernetics in musical form: man interfacing with machines. These artists produced the soundtrack of a wayward populace, looking for answers in a rapidly transforming world. Industrial music videos often portray vile and uncomfortable visuals from the depths of human depravity, such as the Holocaust, a common inspiration to much of cyberpunk fiction. Big beat maestros, The Prodigy, brought the fearless punk attitude to the loud drum loops and basslines of dance music. Their chaotic, high-strung sound of the future would find its way into many cyberpunk-themed works, from Hackers to The Matrix. Later in the decade, electronic duo Daft Punk drenched their act in the colorful style of androids, technology and robotics. They popularized the trend of wearing signature helmets instead of showing their faces. Their lavish costumes and stage performances were heavily inspired by TRON, classic sci-fi films, and Syd Mead's concept artwork. ♫ Television rules the nation… Around the world, the world, the world, the world... ♫ Their patented style featured electronically-distorted vocals often combined with samples of vintage music. Nearly every song was a foot-tapping earworm, and openly explored themes like robots, our obsession with technology, and what it means to be a human being. ♫ Human, human, human, after all ♫ Even newcomers to cyberpunk culture adopted it as their own. Punk rock legend, Billy Idol, did a deep dive into internet culture and the sci-fi literature of the 80s. To capture the spirit of the movement, he talked with experts on cyberculture, Usenet groups, and some of the oldest online communities. Neuromancer, movies like The Lawnmower Man, and the computer age heavily inspired 1993's Cyberpunk, Billy's experimental comeback album. Considered one of the very first digital multimedia albums, Cyberpunk had a floppy disk with art, lyrics, and other material, and his personal email address inside. The song, "Shock to the System" was released as a single and as a music video, which portrayed Billy transforming into a grotesque cyborg, set against urban unrest and a despotic police force, encapsulating the rebellious and angsty heart of the 90s. Though in the eyes of many critics, Idol "mainstreamed" cyberpunk, claiming he latched on to this cultural phenomenon cynically, rather than through love and understanding. Whether you were tuned into it or not, the cyberpunk movement infected our airwaves. You heard it on your radio, you saw it on your television, and you cheered for it at concerts. Cyberpunk's vision of the future was beginning to resemble reality. ♫ I laugh tomorrow gone. ♫ ♫ For how long? ♫ ♫ Tomorrow people... ♫ “The girl with the gloves and the goggles and her hair being blown back beautifully by the experience she was having under the goggles… VR was like the future that never happened. Like the flying car, or the jet pack. Still, I think we will all be living on one side of some very singular stuff one day.” - William Gibson Entertainment and media would herald virtual reality as the way we would interface with computers in the future. Clunky hardware like keyboards and mice seemed like a stepping stone on the path to launching headfirst into cyberspace, just as we had witnessed in the media of the 1980s, such as TRON, Brainstorm, and even The Twilight Zone. As computer graphics technology marched steadily into the millennium, the desire to go beyond flat screens into lifelike, 3D worlds by way of virtual reality, was growing at a break-neck pace. As the looming threat of the Dot-com bubble grew ever-closer to bursting, millions were invested in hardware and software companies by those itching to get a slice of that future-tech pie. Huge gains were made with real-life VR tech in the late 80s and 90s. Using this technology in first-person experiences and flight sims showed great promise, but it was limited to tech demos with few practical applications. VPL's Data Glove, EyePhones, and Data Suit were the first VR products available to consumers, but they didn't catch on with the masses. Unfortunately, the tech just wasn't there yet. None were more disappointed by this than video game giant Nintendo, who jumped on to the VR bandwagon with the Virtual Boy project in 1995. This was their second attempt at breaking the two-dimensional barrier of gaming. Their first attempt was in 1987 with the Famicom 3D System, which used alternating images and active shutter glasses to imitate depth to the human eye. There was a lot of potential with the Virtual Boy's promise of "3D gaming", but too much was sacrificed on the road to a compact, all-in-one console with dual-screen goggles. Red monochrome graphics, neck and eye strain, no motion tracking, and poor game implementation made this pseudo-VR headset defunct within a year of release. We didn't know as much about simulator sickness back then, and the HD screens and refresh rates needed to trick our eyes into believing in these false worlds were simply out of our grasp. However, that didn't stop Hollywood from embracing virtual reality with open arms. VR showed up in films and TV superficially, as a flashy, high-tech gimmick—a welcome surprise, but until later in the decade, the concept of virtual reality had not gotten the more serious examination it deserved. Most media put VR into their stories for flavor, rather than substance. They often bit off more than their budget or production allowed them to chew. Early CGI and styrofoam props couldn't hold up the grand ideas of TekWar, VR.5 and Arcade. They have some inspired plots, and use video game mechanics to add flair and a ticking clock element, but their special effects and understanding of VR have aged poorly. VR.5 was a techno-thriller show made at the height of the VR craze. Sydney Bloom, a tech-savvy fiber optic specialist, invents unique virtual reality gear, which can tap into anyone's subconscious at the dial of a phone call. Through shared sessions that only she remembers, Sydney makes new friends, and can now speak with her catatonic mother for the first time in years. Each session happens in a snap in real-time, but can last for minutes or hours on the inside, until Sydney finds the exit key. A bad trip could even land you in a coma, and things turn deadly when she ventures into the mind of a killer by accident. This attracts the attention of the shadowy organizations researching the true potential of this VR phenomenon. VR.5 imagines virtual reality as a doorway to another dimension, rather than a human-constructed simulation. So while the show is light on realism, it captures the sense of potential surrounding VR that swooned audiences at the time. Star Trek's first captain, William Shatner, worked with a ghostwriter to create several novels known as the TekWar series in the 80s and 90s. These books imagined a drug-like virtual reality experience, illegally traded via microchips called “Tek”. The story follows a cop who's framed and sentenced to suspended animation for dealing Tek. A sudden, early release has got him searching for answers. Star Trek's successful revival show likely boosted Shatner's books into the mainstream, turning into a full transmedia franchise—comic books, multiple movies, a TV series, and even a first-person shooter tie-in game. Unfortunately, this franchise's ambition overshot its demand. The premiere episode was seen by millions and broke records, but its viewership quickly dwindled, and the show was cancelled even before all its episodes had aired. Stephen King's supernatural short story, The Lawnmower Man, was crudely combined with 'Cyber God', a screenplay about the potential of VR. This was an attempt to draw in a bigger audience, but was against both the screenwriter and author's wishes. King later sued the studio over the debacle. The Lawnmower Man is perhaps most famous for its visualization of VR. A pre-James Bond Pierce Brosnan plays Dr. Angelo, a brilliant scientist on the verge of a breakthrough cure for cognitive disability. His pet project is put on the chopping block, after his animal test subject dies in a bloody escape attempt. In desperation, Dr. Angelo goes off the books, and takes his research to the outside world. He attempts the impossible: to cure the local landscaper, Jobe, of his simple mind. Through experimental drugs and hypnotic VR experiences, Jobe slowly transforms from the village idiot into a mature and intelligent adult. But things take a turn for the worse as the treatment proves too effective. Inexplicably, Jobe develops telekinesis, superhuman intelligence, and becomes dangerously ambitious. He believes he's a god, and seeks to punish those who wronged him. “Virtual reality is not just a simulation. It's a whole other world, a new electric dimension.” Like Frankenstein, Dr. Angelo must confront a villain of his own creation, before Jobe can transcend to a purely digital being and conquer the world through cyberspace. Though the CGI sequences in Lawnmower Man look dated now, the film used actual VR head-mounted displays from VPL, which strongly resemble modern sets like the Oculus Rift. A lack of focus limited the movie's attempts to handle transhumanism—becoming more than human via technology. The final act devolves into an unimaginative techno-slasher flick, likely due to the late-stage script rewrite. “Once I'm inside the mainframe, I'll have access to five thousand other databases.” “From those five thousand, I can reach out again, and again, and again.” “Eventually inhabiting the entire planetary network.” “By the year 2001, there won't be a person who isn't hooked into it…” “...and hooked into me.” A straight-to-video sequel with a completely new cast and crew released in 1996, and was universally panned. Matt Frewer (of Max Headroom fame) replaced Jeff Fahey as Jobe, the villainous “god of cyberspace” returning from the original. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace is a whirlwind of delirium. A Mad-Maxian troupe of children and a professor take on Jobe in a virtual war. Aside from truly baffling special effects and a meandering plot, the film had some potential. But it was a box office bomb that ranked on IMDb's “Worst 100 Films” list for many years. Inspired by the awestruck response to serials like Twin Peaks, the now-obscure Wild Palms was created by Bruce Wagner, who based it on his comic of the same name. In this miniseries set in near-future Los Angeles, Harry Wyckoff begins to investigate strange happenings in his community. People are disappearing, and nobody wants to talk about it. A strange church is gaining followers, and the mysterious Wild Palms Group is pushing hologram technology so advanced it's indistinguishable from reality. After failing to get a promotion at his law firm, Harry quits his job to work for Senator Tony Kreutzer, a political, technological, and religious figure with considerable influence. Kreutzer founded both the New-Age religion, Synthiotics, and the Wild Palms Group, which is launching their cutting-edge hologram projector, Mimecom. When aided by their patented drug, Mimezine, the hologram TV characters become lifelike 3D projections you can see, hear and even touch. “It's only the beginning. Why should this reality be public domain? What's so great about it? Tony wants a new, improved reality, controlled by Mimecom and sold straight out of 7-Eleven...” Mass indoctrination often utilizes the media, politics, and religion—Kreutzer dominates all three. He even has his eyes set on the presidency, and pursues an experimental chip that can transform his personality into an omnipresent digital projection. The mass-dosing of Mimezine would effectively make him a holographic god, broadcasted to every living room in the world. The show tips its hat to cyberpunk fiction, as William Gibson makes a brief cameo after a Mimecom demonstration. “Harry, this is William Gibson.” “Sure, Neuromancer.” “He coined the word, 'cyberspace'.” “And they won't let me forget it.” Wild Palms peers into the dark underworld of a seemingly idyllic community, with mysterious cults and clandestine plots eating away at its core. Mainstream audiences might have been turned off by its strangeness. Conversely, the show may have appeared too mundane to sci-fi enthusiasts. But its themes of digital mesmerization and mass mind-control are arguably even more relevant today. The series was made in an era before smartphones and the proliferation of personal computers. We are now under constant digital bombardment by news organizations, politics and social media, influencing our every decision. Virtuosity stars Denzel Washington as Barnes—a disgraced former cop. His pursuit of a serial killer who murdered his family led to a deadly accident and a life sentence. Barnes is one of many participants in a trial VR training program, which pits him against a devious AI, played by Russell Crowe. SID 6.7 was pieced together from the minds of the worst serial killers in history, used as the ultimate villain in these training sessions. The latest trial proved deadly, when SID found a way to kill its human users, and only Barnes survived. Facing cancellation, SID's designer releases the AI into the real world with an android body, then all hell breaks loose. The synthetic body can harvest nearby glass particles to repair its silicon fibers, making SID practically invulnerable. As the only “expert” on this deadly new foe, Barnes is recruited out of desperation, to track down and destroy SID. The city is brought to its knees by a power-hungry, sadistic immortal who loves the spotlight. “We've got a symphony to compose…” [screams of fear and pain] SID's one goal is to horrify the biggest audience possible with the highest body count imaginable. Even more disturbing, he taunts Barnes with knowledge only the killer of his wife and child would know. Virtuosity doesn't exactly break new ground. But its typical action-thriller plot is elevated by a clever implementation of VR and an interesting villain, becoming another cautionary tale about the rise of artificial intelligence. “Have you ever jacked in? Have you ever wire-tripped? ¿No? A virgin brain.” “This isn't like 'TV only better', this is life. You're there! You're doing it, seeing it, hearing-hearing it. You're feeling it.” “It's about the stuff you can't have, right? Like running into a liquor store with a .357 magnum in your hand, feeling the adrenaline pumping through your veins. I can make it happen. I can get you anything you want. Ya just have to talk to me. Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me.” “I'm your priest, I'm your shrink... I am your main connection to the switchboard of souls. I'm the magic man. Santa Claus of the subconscious. “You say it, you think it, you can have it.” James Cameron followed up the success of Terminator 2 and True Lies with a risky cyberpunk venture. Instead of an epic apocalypse, or the rise of the machines, Strange Days tackles the underbelly of civilization who live vicariously through pre-recorded digital fantasies. Inspired by the extreme unrest surrounding the 1992 LA riots, Cameron penned the screenplay, and his ex-wife and filming partner, Katheryn Bigelow, directed. Set in 1999, the film depicts a near-future Los Angeles on the brink of collapse, heightened by the paranoia of what the year 2000 will bring. A famous rapper and culture leader, Jeriko One, is murdered by corrupt police officers, sparking a powder keg that propels the plot forward. The centerpiece of the story is the “SQUID” system, an illegal virtual reality machine that can record or play back an experience in all five senses, beamed directly to your brain. The new addiction of the modern world is reliving violence, sex, depravity, or even murder through the wearer's eyes. This results in appropriately strange and uncomfortable 1st-person sequences in the film, and some impressive long takes can be seen here. Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who has fallen on hard times. He's now a SQUID dealer, who brokers discs of questionable content like a drug pusher. After a selfless gift allows Lenny's disabled friend to experience running along the beach again, we see the good that's still in this flawed man, but he's stuck in the past. Lenny lives in the memories of his ex-girlfriend and previous life, as revived by the SQUID player, and he can't move on. “This is your life! Right here. Right now. It's realtime... You hear me?! Real… time. not Playback. Time to get real!” “...Memories were meant to fade, Lenny. They're designed that way for a reason.” Lenny is being tormented by SQUID recordings of murder and threats, sent by someone who seems to be directly connected to the assassination that threatens to tear our society apart. Finding this demented mind before the whole city comes crashing down is the ticking time bomb that only Lenny and his trusted friends can defuse. Strange Days is a profound sci-fi thriller, but light on action, and wasn't a shoe-in for success. Despite earning a rare perfect score from Roger Ebert, the film was box office poison. T2 and True Lies raked in nearly a billion dollars combined, yet Strange Days hustled less than $8 million, a fifth of their budget. The film's message of living in the present instead of toiling in replays of the past, has become more relevant now with modern technology than it was in 1995. It has also been echoed in many works since, including the hit British anthology series, Black Mirror. The obscure 1997 Italian movie, "Nirvana" stars Christopher Lambert as Jimi, a brilliant video game programmer, who discovers that a virus has infected his game and granted the protagonist, Solo, sentience. The game's an advanced VR experience that feels as lifelike as the real world. Solo begins to disobey orders, and questions his creator about the futility of his own existence. Unsatisfied with Jimi's answers, Solo begs for deletion. Jimi is wrought with guilt: his masterwork game, Nirvana, is essentially a prison of virtual inmates who have committed no crime. He recruits a couple of free-spirit cyberpunks, including his hacker friend Joystick, on a mission to shut the game down, forever. All the while, Jimi is haunted by the mystery of why his wife, without warning, left him years ago. He hopes to win her back, or at least find closure. A now self-aware Solo partakes in Groundhog Day-style trial and error through his video game environs. When he dies, he restarts at the beginning, though now he retains his knowledge. He gets murdered by Yakuza, gangs, and assassins before resetting and trying again. Solo attempts to convince others that their world isn't real, but no one believes him, making him feel all the more isolated. The poor dubbing hinders the movie since it was originally filmed in Italian. The film's cyberpunk look was colorful and imaginative, but it was constrained by a limited budget. Nirvana portrays optic, head and other cyberware in impressive and sometimes stomach-churning realism. Also impressive is the way the movie shows the team jacking into cyberspace, with its security protocols, digital hallucinations, and its valuable caches hidden in its vaults. This 1990s movie foresaw the modern smart home. “Shall I draw the water for your bath?” “No, don't feel like taking a bath, turn the TV on.” “Someone's at the door.” “Check it.” “It's your favorite taxi, sir. Red-Rover.” “Oh, he's okay…” Jimi's AI assistant manages his schedule, prompts healthy lifestyle activities, can activate appliances like baths, and warns him when someone approaches his door. Nirvana's limited release didn't make much of an impact, but it's an underexposed, sprawling cyberpunk gem that explores a world that leaves you with more questions than answers. “Jimi…” “Once I'm cancelled, I turn into…what?” “A crystal of snow in the firmament.” “Well that's… Not too bad.” Cyberpunk's innate appeal led it to surface in unrelated franchises. The sci-fi phenomenon, The X-Files, managed to top the TV charts of the late 90s, a decade dominated by sitcoms, sports, and “ER”. This attracted cyberpunk pioneers, William Gibson and Tom Maddox, to co-write two episodes. 'Kill Switch' begins with a mysterious shootout at a DC diner. As the investigation unfolds, agents Mulder and Scully discover it was all a setup to kill a Silicon Valley AI genius hiding there. As they follow the clues found on the dead man's CD, an elusive hacker is using satellite weapons, surveillance, and backdoor access to hunt them down. Even more unnerving is the thought that this mysterious cyber-assassin may not even be human. It's actually a secret, state-of-the-art AI, in a remote location connected to a powerful 45 megabit internet line—over a thousand times faster than the average in 1998. “Kill Switch” spread the word of VR, cyberspace, and transcending consciousness into a digital form to more casual audiences, despite the breakneck pace of a 45-minute episode. Their second collaboration, however, was less grounded in realism. “First Person Shooter”, was a clear nod to the growing popularity of video games. The agents investigate a murder in an augmented reality entertainment facility, where one of the virtual enemies goes rogue and somehow kills people in real life. Far from the best X-Files episode, flashy special effects made it one of the most expensive. First Person Shooter's dismal reception closed the door on any future collaboration with Gibson. While the world clamored for VR goggles and data suits to take over our lives, mice, keyboards and monitors were too cheap and accessible to be replaced. You don't need full body immersion to write emails or fill out spreadsheets. Practicality won the day, and VR took a long breather before making a big comeback in the 2010s. Cyberpunk fiction pivoted as the end of the decade neared, from bulky VR headgear showing us immersive virtual worlds, to considering how we might already live in one. The scary thing was, these theories about a simulated universe weren't as far-fetched as they might seem. “It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.” Imagine, you were imprisoned since childhood, saw nothing outside of a dark cave, instead you were restrained in place, immobile, blind to yourself and others, and could only watch shadow plays projected against a cave wall, performed by unseen actors. Would you know if any other reality existed outside of the firelight illusion you see before you? This is the dilemma posed by Plato over two thousand years ago, using the technology of the time as a reference. It's often cited as an early example of Simulation Theory—the hypothesis that we don't exist in “reality”, that we could instead be living in an artificial simulation created by advanced entities. If the cave scenario was plausible using only rods, figurines, and shadows, how compelling could simulated reality be with photorealistic graphics powered by supercomputers? The suspicion that our world may not be what we perceive it to be slowly crept into the thoughts and fears of the civilized world. For millennia, we assumed gods were the architects of our universe. It didn't occur to us until later, that perhaps we, mere humans, created the elaborate dream that we live in. Around this time, Taoist philosopher Zhuang Zhou pondered the divide between our imagination and reality. He described a scenario where Zhuang flies as a butterfly in the wind, then suddenly wakes up as a man. Was he a man dreaming of a butterfly's life, or a butterfly dreaming of a man's? Rene Descartes later struggled with these existential ideas in 17th-century France. Cartesian philosophy posits that the mind and body of each individual are distinct, separate entities, and doubts the value of perceiving reality using the five senses. This line of thinking was rejected in John Locke's writing as an empiricist, which could be loosely defined as “what cannot be perceived should not be believed,” in layman's terms. And down the philosophical rabbit hole it went, with no objective victor. In literary history, exploring the concept of simulated realities within our own reality goes back many decades. An early example was Philip K. Dick's 'Time Out of Joint'. Ahead of the curve for 1959, the book's protagonist experiences what pop culture now calls the “Mandela Effect”, when objects, events and people unfamiliar to him begin to appear, and his 1950s suburbia is none the wiser. One day, he is surprised to find a placeholder card with the words “soft drink stand” in place of the real thing, and a celebrity he's never heard of called Marilyn Monroe appears in magazines, as if she always had. As the world he knows slowly unfurls, he and his friend try to escape this apparently artificial dimension he's trapped in. PKD later explored how media, politics and culture can form a “simulated reality”, based on agreement, rather than facts. The Simulacra tells of a despotic world government that is actually a sham, puppeteered by hidden figures behind the curtains. They install a permanent “First Lady”, and replace her when she grows frail or dies, to continue the ruse. Her role holds the real power, as the president is secretly an android, replaced every few years by the latest model. It's all a stage act to give a show of leadership. This is met with sparse opposition, as all media has been consolidated, and all political parties have merged. An actress playing the role of First Lady and a cybernetic imitation of a president create the illusion of power and leadership, where none exists. The bottom line is that accepted beliefs hold more sway than rejected truths. Even outside of his fiction, PKD seemed to be a staunch believer of simulation theory. He shared this at a speech in France he gave in 1977: “We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs…” “...We would have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present—deja vu." In 1981, Jean Baudrillard compiled many of these ideas in the often-cited, but seldom understood, Simulacra and Simulation—which references the fiction of Philip K. Dick several times. This was a cerebral look at the sociological effects of imagery. The book defines “simulacra” as imitations of completely nonexistent things or places, such as Disneyland. Whereas, “simulations” are symbols that resemble a real-life counterpart, like a photograph or a video. He discusses how signs (of varying accuracy) that symbolize everything around us, overshadow the real thing, thus damaging our perception of reality. Even more disconcerting with the advent of the internet, smartphones and computers, we as a society see the real world less and less. Instead we rely on opinionated articles, edited videos, and biased information in place of viewing reality firsthand. This is referred to as “hyperreality”—a condition in which reality and simulation are seamlessly blended together, so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins. Cyberpunk has always had an anti-authority streak, and what's more "punk" than challenging the validity of our universe? They want to know that what they're fighting for is real—not a facsimile of it—and would accept no less. It's no surprise, then, that as we approached the new millennium, our skepticism reawakened. Were we living in reality or a computerized dream? As our digital renaissance reached its apex, four of the decade's most significant films would release. Their common threads were rebellion, challenging authority, and riding the technological wave, perfectly capturing the cultural zeitgeist of the time. Each of these explore simulated reality in a variety of ways, with their own unique philosophies and imaginative consequences. Alex Proyas, director of the gothic trendsetter, The Crow, co-wrote and directed what is arguably his most important film, Dark City—a reality-bending neo-noir story with a sinister twist. The film is set in an indistinct city in a timeless era, and there's something strange looming around every corner. A man named Murdoch wakes up alone, without clothes, without memories, and his only companion is a corpse in the next room. Horrified, he escapes the hotel he awoke in, on a hunt to rediscover who he really is. He tries to reconnect with a wife he doesn't remember, but is pursued by an intrepid detective, and hunted by a group of unsettling strangers, wielding knives and supernatural powers. “Sleep now.” They seem to know much more about Murdoch than he does, as if he is the center of some dark conspiracy. Is this all a lie, or did he really lose his mind in a murderous rage? On the run, wanted for a string of murders, there is something going on here Murdoch can't explain. He asks questions the detective can't easily answer. When did you last visit the beach? Which day did your mother give you her final gift? What was the last time you saw daylight? “Daylight. When was the last time you remember seeing it? And I'm not talking about some distant, half-forgotten childhood memory, I mean like yesterday. Last week.” “Can you come up with a single memory? You can't, can you? You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.” “That is crazy.” “You're damn right this is crazy!” In desperation, Murdoch defends himself with inexplicable powers—“tuning”, as the strangers call it—warping reality in front of his own eyes. His attackers flee, bewildered that Murdoch learned how to use their own skills against them. It is unclear whether tuning is essentially “mind over matter”, or whether it's magic, or as Clarke put it, sufficiently advanced technology to be indistinguishable from magic. The movie proudly wears noir aesthetics and themes, but its vintage feel and inconclusive technology make it difficult to label as “cyberpunk”, despite it often being hailed as such. Nevertheless, Dark City was a fascinating, mind-bending experience to those who saw it. “…There was always an enormous tension there between me and the studios in terms of me wanting it to be as out there as I possibly could make it and them wanting it to be either a smaller budget, or to dumb it down, you know.” “We tested the unfinished film before an audience, and sure enough, one day, Alex called me, and said, 'guess what? The studio wants us to write some kind of prologue or a voiceover.'” “It's really the only time a film of mine is actually tested badly. You sort of second-guess yourself, you know. You start to lose faith in what you're doing.” “But you know you get to the point where you sort of worry that maybe they're right. That, maybe it DOES require a little extra explanation–maybe the audience IS lost.” Unfortunately, the theatrical cut was hampered by studio intervention, very similar to Blade Runner's troubled production. The frantic editing was corrected, and an unnecessary and plot-spoiling monologue was removed in the Director's Cut of the film, released ten years later. The movie had tepid box office results, but again, similar to Blade Runner, it eventually became a cult classic beloved by many, decades on. “You see, I have become the monster you were intended to be.” Released the next year, Thirteenth Floor is another neo-noir story, this time revolving around a corporate murder mystery set against a bleeding-edge immersive virtual reality experience. This movie was the second time Daniel F. Galouye's 1964 sci-fi novel, Simulacron-3, was adapted: first in Germany as the 1973 serial miniseries, World on a Wire, and later an American movie was made. The book was a somber, thought-provoking story about a computer-simulated city full of realistic, virtual inhabitants, used for marketing and opinion research. However, the 1999 movie adaptation takes the concept in a new direction. When the inventor of a groundbreaking VR technology turns up dead, the company's future is thrown into chaos. His friend and protege, Douglas, is trying to uncover the killer's identity, and uses the VR technology to find clues in his investigation, all the while the police suspect everyone around him. Users can delve into a computer simulation of 1930s Los Angeles, contrasting the rambunctious, nostalgic fantasy in the VR experience, and our cynical, corporate reality. When people enter the VR world, they take over the bodies of artificial denizens (modeled after themselves) as their virtual avatars. But as the investigation leads down a disturbing path, virtual folks become suspicious when they meet the man Douglas is possessing, who seems to have a completely changed personality hour by hour. This drives one man into paranoia, digging for answers, until he uncovers the truth: that the world and everything he knows is a lie. In the real world, Douglas is intrigued and intoxicated by the mysterious woman who suddenly shows up to uncover her father's assassin—but nothing is quite as it appears. It's a ticking clock thriller. This early version of the VR experience must be limited to short sessions, or the user could die. And every second lost is more time for the murderer to plot their next victim. Some harsh moral conundrums are brought up when real-world humans possess simulated inhabitants, violating their free will, and messing with their lives. A loyal husband is guilt-stricken over acts he didn't commit. He blacks out for hours at a time, only to come home smelling like another woman's perfume. “My wife thinks I have some kind of secret love life.” “What about memory flashes, deja vu?” “I'm talking about fantasies.” “I do have them.” “I found this. A couple of days ago.” “I'm married over 35 years now. And not once have I cheated on my wife. Not once.” The Thirteenth Floor has strong imagery and ideas, paying homage to classic noir, and exploring the morality of playing god with a virtual society. Unfortunately, an early scene and the film's marketing spoiled some later story reveals. Though not a household name now, The Thirteenth Floor might've had more influence were it not up against such stiff competition that year. “What was your life like before?” “Before?” “Before it was changed by Allegra Geller.” “I operated a gas station.” “You still operate a gas station, don't you?” “Only on the most pathetic level of reality.” Released just a month apart was the biopunk sci-fi thriller, ExistenZ, directed by David Cronenberg, most known for his gory, psychological horror films of the 70s and 80s. In the near-future, an experimental new VR technology called “game pods” are invented. They're a queasy mutation of amphibian organs, formed into a fleshy video game console that connects to your spine like an umbilical cord—feeding off your metabolism, and completely immersing you into a game. At the start of the film, an innovative designer is demonstrating her new game, along with a few volunteer players, to an exclusive audience. Each player takes control of an important character in the game's storyline, with “non-player characters” filling out the roster. Video game elements are shown, like pause loops between an NPC's dialogue to allow players to respond. Players must solve puzzles to proceed, and violence is always an option to push the game along. This harmless demonstration turns deadly, when a deeper conflict is revealed: corporate rivals have planted spies and assassins into the game, and will stop at nothing to monopolize this booming industry. Moreover, a group of fanatics called the Realists aim to kill the game designer for her sinful deformation of reality. ExistenZ is full of twists and turns. Enemies become friends, friends become enemies, and what you think is real, may just be part of the elaborate narrative crafted by the game designer. The story is presented in such a visceral way, it's like a twisted dream you can't wake up from. Cronenberg's trademark practical effects seen in the organic machines, gadgets and peripherals, make for repulsive moments of body horror. ExistenZ challenges our perception of reality, shocks us with the idea of bio-computers, and explores our natural rejection of more immersive entertainment. Its unforgettable imagery makes the film stand out from its peers. “We're both stumbling around together in this unformed world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly indecipherable or even possibly nonexistent—always on the verge of being killed by forces that we don't understand.” “That sounds like my game, all right.” “That sounds like a game that's not gonna be easy to market.” “But it's a game everybody's already playing.” These films combined noir, corporate espionage and technophilia to weave fascinating cyberpunk tales. But their releases were sandwiched between the anticipated 15-year return of Star Wars in May 1999, and one of the biggest game-changers in cinematic history that March. The Matrix was a massive hit that nobody saw coming, and came to overshadow nearly all sci-fi movies that year, after The Phantom Menace failed to meet expectations. The movie was both a critical and financial sleeper hit. It's become so ingrained into our vocabulary and culture, little can be said about it that hasn't already. Like all other popular works, it garnered a huge fanbase who praised it for being original, and many detractors who lambasted it for being derivative. But one thing is beyond question: The Matrix was a cultural milestone, along the lines of Jurassic Park and Star Wars—treasured for decades after its release. With only two, smaller Hollywood gigs under their belts, writer/director duo, the Wachowskis, brought their ambitious sci-fi script to producer Joel Silver, along with their biggest inspiration, Ghost in the Shell. During the pitch, they told him, “We wanna do that for real." They joined forces: the Wachowskis' love of sci-fi, comics and anime, and Silver's prolific action movie career. Leaps of faith played a large part in both the film's production and on screen. The team pitched The Matrix to then-Warner Brothers exec, Lorenzo di Bonaventura. The duo's first art-house film barely broke even, so pitching a big-budget sci-fi thriller was a huge gamble. Many redrafts later, they hired comic artists to draw a massive, 600-page storyboard, covering every single scene of the film. They finally got their deal with Warner Brothers, but had to shoot in Australia to cut costs. Bonaventura later said of the pitch, “I knew if I was going to make a leap of faith, this was the one to make.” The movie centers on a man who leads two lives. Thomas Anderson is a wage-slave software programmer by day. Neo is a hacker who spends his sleepless nights scouring the internet for Morpheus, an alleged terrorist who knows the coveted secret of “the matrix”. Neo is pursued by both Morpheus' allies, and mysterious agents who try to coerce and blackmail him into selling out his new cohorts. After a run-in with these agents straight out of a nightmare, Neo isn't even sure if he's awake or still dreaming—a recurring theme, and a nod to the ideas in Zhuang Zhou's “Butterfly Dream”. Allusions to Alice in Wonderland highlight the analogy of tumbling down the “rabbit hole” into a dream world. When he finally meets Morpheus, Neo must make a choice: take the red pill to learn the truth of his existence, or take the blue pill, and live in blissful ignorance forever. After all, you cannot be TOLD what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself. “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” Reflections are recurring imagery in the film, you see “two people” reflected in Morpheus' mirrorshades. One is Thomas Anderson looking at the blue pill, and the other is Neo reaching for the red pill. After Neo makes his choice, he is rushed violently out of his illusory world for the very first time. Morpheus explains to Neo that the world he knew is a virtual prison built for the human mind, while millions are harvested as living batteries—quite a pill to swallow. The weight of humanity's freedom rests on Neo's reluctant shoulders, when he learns of the prophecy foretold by the Oracle, that he is destined to become The One, the savior of mankind, who can bend the laws of the matrix to his will. We see firsthand the dizzying withdrawals of Neo deprogramming from a lifelong lie. How devastated would you be if you discovered that decades of your existence never happened, they were only ones and zeros on a computer? The few freed humans now reside in the “real world”—a wasteland scoured by the machine overlords who created the matrix and now dominate Earth. Among these are the ship's crew that rescued Neo, a ragtag group of hackers and cyberpunks. They use instanced VR spaces to train and hone their skills, to get ready to return to the matrix. Neo can jack in, upload a program directly into his mind, and in a blink of an eye, he knows kung fu. The crew members utilize a pirate signal to hack into the matrix wirelessly, to undergo missions and rescues. When jacked in, Morpheus's crew can focus their minds to bend this computer simulation beyond the laws of physics, but danger lurks around every corner. The machines patrol their systems for intruders and anomalies, and have the power to assume control over anyone still wired into the matrix. This instantly transforms them into an Agent—a superhuman soldier programmed to eliminate any threat to their virtual order. “Inside the Matrix, they are everyone and they are no one.” To show the physics-bending antics of the matrix visually, the crew mixed John Woo-style shootouts, Hong Kong martial arts choreography, and experimental filmmaking techniques. The movie popularized “bullet time”. To achieve this effect, they shot a still image sequence using a ring of cameras, then used computer interpolation to create mind-blowing action scenes in a style never seen before. Then there's the classic "lobby scene", which combined martial arts, wire-fu and heart-pounding gunplay into an electronic symphony of violence. These groundbreaking scenes couldn't be done by faceless stunt doubles alone, the actors had to train for several months in rigorous stunt work and martial arts, under expert Hong Kong choreographer, Yuen Woo-ping. Despite its profound subject matter, The Matrix is a tightly woven story, which hits all its plot points at a metronomic pace. An alternative edit or director's cut was never needed or wanted. “In the last week of mixing, I took out two frames because the visual effect had come in, and it wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. And I felt that this cut wasn't quite right. I figured this is the end, this is what's going to be there forever now, and I wanted it to be right.” - Zach Staenberg The movie's unmistakable style is heard in its soundtrack as well. Featuring electronica hits such as 'Spybreak' and 'Clubbed to Death', as well as rock earworms like Rob Zombie's 'Dragula'—It quickly became one of the must-have albums of the decade. It's in the original score that you hear the movie's themes in audial form. Composer Don Davis used orchestral strings and brass to represent the real world, and synthesized symphonics to portray the simulated world. Two sides, one natural, one synthetic, which reflect one another. The movie brought a unique mix of never-before-seen special effects, and an emotional and evocative plot that everyone, cyberpunk fan or not, could resonate with. A legacy of great works benefit and inspire all new creations, and The Matrix is no exception. The film was a kaleidoscope of ideas, both new and old. It took great inspiration from the opening credits, high-octane action and themes of Ghost in the Shell. But as it was revised in the script phase, the story remained similar thematically, but very different in execution. Contrary to popular belief, William Gibson wasn't the first to coin the term “matrix” to mean “a virtual universe”. It was first used as such in a 1976 Doctor Who episode, “Deadly Assassin”. Its novelization described “The Matrix” as a virtual world that feels as real as reality—and similar to the movie it would later inspire, if you died inside the simulation, you would die in reality. “Trillions of electro-chemical cells in a continuous matrix, a master-pattern…” “The Matrix is a huge communal brain. It monitors the life of the Capitol, and makes provision for the future.” “We use its accumulated wisdom and experience to predict future events and to plan how to deal with them.” There are textural similarities to William Gibson's Neuromancer, such as jacking into cyberspace, the remote colony of Zion, and all-powerful artificial intelligences vying for control. The parallels between Molly Millions and Trinity have also drawn scrutiny, but this was more likely an homage rather than theft. Many have claimed the film stole its style and plot from a Grant Morrison comic. The Invisibles is an offbeat series where trans-dimensional entities take the bodies of humans as their agents of evil. Some cite that King Mob's torture scene in Volume One was repurposed for the movie. However, The Invisibles has such a variety of settings, characters and plots that the occasional echo between the two is inevitable. Both works have common roots in Gnosticism (the belief of attaining salvation through gaining spiritual knowledge). Philip K. Dick's VALIS, the Illuminatus Trilogy, and many other sci-fi works share these philosophies as well. These claims have gotten so overblown, you'll rarely hear mention of The Invisibles absent from The Matrix plagiarism allegations—a disservice to both works. Dark City and The Matrix often get compared as well. Both have a lone hero who gains mysterious powers, to overcome a dark force which is changing the world as we know it, and that our sense of reality isn't what it seems. Given the slow-moving cogs of Hollywood, both projects had already been in development since the early 90s. Many similarities were simply coincidence, but these movies had some direct connections as well. In December 1997, producer Andrew Mason was negotiating with the Wachowskis to shoot in Sydney. As a showcase of what the city could offer, he invited them to an early screening of his recently completed film, Dark City. Since its earliest drafts, The Matrix's script and storyboards had called for street, building and rooftop scenes similar to the ones in Dark City, so they decided to re-use some of these existing sets for cost-efficiency. This was common practice, but would later raise suspicions because of the proximity of the movies' themes and release dates. After Warner Brothers signed them in 1996, the Wachowskis spent two years redrafting, storyboarding and training their cast in preparation for their shoot, just days after Dark City's premiere on February 27, 1998. The assumption that this was all thrown out on a whim, violating their contractual obligations, just doesn't add up. Aside from some visual and thematic similarities in Dark City and The Invisibles, the Matrix has attracted myriad claims of plagiarism, ranging from the superficial, to the unprovable, to the downright bizarre. “So 'The Matrix' is really just a set of questions, a mechanism for prodding an ignorant or dulled mind into questioning as many things as possible.” - Andrew Mason, producer The Matrix combined the bleak predictions of cyberculture with philosophy going back millennia. The film's grand ideas, visuals and action made it palatable for the mainstream. Unlike its more somber peers, the film works even if its philosophy goes over your head. It distilled many of the questions that humans have struggled with since the dawn of time: do we truly have free will, or are we enslaved to the whims of destiny? Is the truth always better than the bliss found in the shadows of the cave? The Matrix channels these questions into our modern-day technological world—breathing new life and relevance into them. Neo disapproves of the idea that he isn't in control of his own life. Yet when he meets the Oracle who foresaw the rise of The One, she seems to know a lot about him, and even predicts minor events right before they happen. This shakes Neo's beliefs on fate, when she teases him with the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy. Would he have still broken the vase if she had said nothing? The Matrix was heavily inspired by Baudrillard's work. Simulacra and Simulation even appears as an easter egg in the first act of the film. The movie references the book's interpretation of Borges' parable (a story inspired by an older one by Lewis Caroll), about not confusing the map with the territory it represents. In this story, imperial cartographers are challenged to create the perfect map, but as they continue to expand it with increasing detail, the map eventually spans their empire at a 1:1 ratio, thus becoming useless and falling into decay. Simulacra and Simulation follows this analogy up with his own twist. What if the real world were to decline and erode away, leaving only the map of what once was? If we were to peer underneath it, we'd only observe the remnants of reality, or… “The desert of the real.” Keanu Reeves said that this book and several others were mandatory reading for the main cast. Yet, despite how much the movie's writers revered his work, Baudrillard disliked how The Matrix made too clean a distinction between simulation and reality. His philosophy argues that in our modern society, the two are inextricable. The Matrix features a simulation created by the machines, and a “real world” inhabited by humanity's survivors. The film glosses over the fact that reality itself has many simulated aspects, such as VR training programs, computer screens and the countless signs and symbols on the crew's ship. The film's color grading betrays Baudrillard's philosophy as well. Scenes inside the matrix are distinctly green, the VR constructs have natural color, and the “real world” has a bluish tint. This was a deliberate decision to aid viewer comprehension and empower the film's emotional impact. But even as scrutinizing the movie highlights the divide between the filmmakers and the philosopher, neither are wrong per se, but simply have different attitudes and goals. With all the buzz surrounding it, William Gibson expected to hate the film. But after seeing it twice, he was quite positive about The Matrix, and debunked the claims that the movie stole his ideas... “I thought it was more like Dick's work than mine, though more coherent, saner, than I generally take Dick to have been. A Dickian universe with fewer moving parts (for Dick, I suspect, all of the parts were, always, moving parts). A Dickian universe with a solid bottom... It's thematically gnostic, something Neuromancer isn't.” “Whatever of my work may be there, it seems to me to have gotten there by exactly the kind of creative cultural osmosis I've always depended on myself. If there's Neuromancer in The Matrix, there's 'The Stars My Destination' and 'Dhalgren' in Neuromancer...” “When I began to write 'Neuromancer', there was no 'cyberpunk'.” “The Matrix is arguably the ultimate cyberpunk artifact.” The movie was so popular in the mainstream, it unfortunately obscures any definition of “the matrix” in older works. That term was now synonymous with the movie, for better or worse. The Matrix is easily one of the most influential films of the 20th century. It was soon parodied and referenced in hundreds of movies, shows and games. It made such a cultural impact, that "The Matrix" has become the de facto term for “simulated reality” in general. Though its inspirations are countless, the movie transcended from niche science fiction to become the anthem of a world frustrated by boundaries, limits and restrictions—and its impact is still felt today. “The writers and directors of a film entitled The Matrix…” “...They had written something that I had never seen, but in a way something that I'd always hoped for—you know, as an actor as a fan of science fiction.” “The script that they wrote…” “...It had Gibson, it had Verne, it had K. Dick, Frank Miller, anime, Kurosawa, Peckinpah.” “It was Nietzsche, it was Buddha, it was Christ, it was themes and levels, it was dualities, modalities, realities, dreams, will, destiny, freedom, slavery—of the mind, of the body. The construct. Who lives, who dies. Identity, sexuality, viruses, and love. It was mythologies, philosophy, technology, and truth…” “...What truth?” Incidentally, The Matrix also supercharged mainstream interest in Simulation Theory. The movie inspired its own religions, cults, and communities who believe our universe is a computer program. On a more philosophic and scientific front, however, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom wrote an article in 2003, describing the possibility that our world is artificial. “If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence… While the world we see is in some sense 'real,' it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.” — Nick Bostrom “Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?” proposed the following trilemma: Either we as a species are incapable of surviving until a post-human civilization is achieved. A post-human civilization wouldn't be interested in creating simulations of their historical or evolutionary past. Or that some of our lived experiences are in fact a simulation. Bostrum doesn't definitively argue that we are inside a simulated universe, instead he states one of these three scenarios is undoubtedly true. A fascinating theory that has been argued for and against by many of the brightest minds of our time. Some claim that we may have lifelike simulations one day in the future, but we do not yet live in them. Conversely, engineers have argued that a universe-wide simulation at an atomic level would require an astronomical amount of computing power, to a point where the task would be insurmountable. “The real question is what are the limits of computing powers.” - Martin Rees, British Astronomer It's a sobering crossroads of sci-fi and scientific research, which has sparked countless internet discussions, and has many celebrity proponents such as billionaire tech mogul, Elon Musk. While we may have gone off the deep end at the turn of the new millennium with philosophic and existential questions, one thing was clear: what we see in our world is mirrored and expanded upon in fiction, and in turn, these stories would encourage us to build the future we dreamed of. The year 2000 didn't come with flying cars, cyborgs or Martian cities. However, many of the challenges that come with living in a computerized world would be realized. We were now joined at the hip with technology, but through a painful growing period, we came out of it a transformed society, perhaps with fewer metal arms and cybernetic eyes than we expected. Look out for the next installment of this series, where we'll discover how the 2000s reached great heights before leading to a decline in cyberpunk media—and thank you for watching!