Cyberpunk: Fourth Corporate War (Re-Upload, Fixed Audio)

[Music] foreign just a brief disclaimer this is a re-upload of an old video but given how popular that video has become recently and how many complaints about the audio being low I got I decided to up the audio and do a re-upload while also testing out my new thumbnail Style so I hope you like the video now that you can actually hear it enjoy [Music] by the year 2020 the world had become accustomed to the idea of corporate Warfare that the powerful Mega corporations would seek to undermine their Rivals not merely through business strategy but through outright attacks on personnel and assets up until that time three major conflicts between Mecca corporations had occurred but all would pale in comparison to the world shaking nature of the conflagration that history remembers as the fourth corporate War first we need to discuss a few persons corporations and events that ultimately play an important role in this story I'd like to issue a spoiler warning for cyberpunk 2077 at this point since this will touch on some events described there I will also say that you should keep in mind that Johnny silverhand's memories are not necessarily trustworthy sources of information [Music] a warped account of events he locked away in his subconscious and replayed time and again there is no resemblance to the truth first we have Johnny silverhand famous front man for the band Samurai Johnny originally Robert John Linder was formerly a soldier in the U.S military serving during the First Central American war in the 1990s a conflict that cost him his arm Johnny however couldn't accept his government's corrupt actions and deserted back in the States he changed his name and helped start the band Samurai Johnny's message of rebellion and his punk Persona struck a chord in the disaffected generation of the collapse soon Samurai was synonymous with the rejection of authority and Corruption an association that lasted far longer than the band did Samurai broke up in 2008 after their keyboard player pushed her abusive boyfriend out a window and went to prison even then Johnny continued his solo career as one of the most popular musicians in the world telling his story raging against the government in corporations and even revealing that he was a deserter a fact that seemed only to increase his cachet among his fan base and successfully changed public perception about what it meant to be a deserter his life would take a sudden violent turn however in 2013 Johnny Played a show at a nightclub in night City before leaving out the back with his girlfriend alt Cunningham as they cut through an alley alt was suddenly kidnapped by thugs working for the arasaka corporation and Johnny was left for dead after his recovery Johnny gathered a Strike Team to infiltrate arasaka's night City headquarters to Stage a rescue he even called in favors with his old bandmates to hold a free of charge Samurai reunion concert in front of the building to incite a riot and cause a distraction we'll get to the outcome of the rescue in a moment but first altierra alt Cunningham was more than just a celebrity's girlfriend she was a very in-demand Netrunner and programmer employed by the its Corporation she was fascinated by the concept of human AI transference a netrunner's implants allow them to mentally interact with the net but what if a personality could be copied fully and formatted as an artificial intelligence her breakthroughs in this area were weaponized by her employer in the form of Soul killer a digital weapon that would kill any Netrunner it was Unleashed upon and trap a copy of their personality for further interrogation acquiring this technology was why she was kidnapped alt cooperated with her captors even as she planned her own Escape she killed the netrunners tasked with overseeing her and might have escaped on her own had Johnny silverhand's infiltration team not detonated and explosive at the worst possible moment her captor used Soul killer on her but once within their system she seized control of the room's security features and killed most of them she was prepared to transfer back into her body when the explosion happened and her connection was broken trapping her in arasaka's security unable to even communicate with her would-be Rescuers when Johnny finally arrived all he found was her lifeless body completely unaware that her digitized Consciousness had escaped into the net and was at that moment screaming at him from cyberspace Johnny went into hiding with the help of The aldecaldo Nomad Clan I have a brief aside for one rash bhartmas not much to be said about his background but by the time 2020 rolled around rash Bart Moss was reputed as one of the most brilliant and paranoid hackers and netrunners in the world he preferred to spend more of his time with his Consciousness in cyberspace than not hooking himself up to a cryogenic life support system disguised as a refrigerator in his apartment he literally wrote the book on netrunning I'll get back to him because he has a big impact a little later next we have two powerful Mega corporations and their enforcers founded in 1996 as armatek luchesi International the company was renamed militech International armaments when former U.S Marine Corps General Donald Lundy became the CEO by the mid-2010s militech had become by far the largest contractor employed by the American Military producing all manner of vehicles and weapon systems under Lundy militech has promoted itself with patriotic rhetoric of providing the U.S military with Quality Equipment for reasonable prices while positioning itself as one of the most potent corporate powers on the planet aside from selling its products to corporations and Nations far beyond the United States militech expanded its business into providing security and policing Services making them a direct competitor to Japan's arasaka Corporation for tough jobs militech's preferred contractor is a solo known as Morgan Blackhand called such for his signature cyborg right arm Morgan Blackhand was a military veteran a former member of an all cyborg Special Forces Unit after leaving the military he spent a few months on the streets before a militech recruiter saw him lay out a gang leader with ease and was suitably impressed militech made him an offer and from that time he became militech's problem solver he has also earned his reputation through other contract work most notably by solving the kidnapping of Kerry uridine one of Johnny silverhand's bandmates from Samurai resolving similar high-profile incidents while keeping his targets alive made him arguably the most famous soldier of the 21st Century and then we have militech's business rival and the most powerful megacore on the planet arasaka the arasaka corporation was founded in 1915 by sesai erasaka as a manufacturer he capitalized in the build-up to World War II by supplying the Japanese Imperial Army for seeing Japan's defeat sasai Diversified his Holdings and hid assets overseas and thus the company survived his son severo arasaka who had been a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy and a pilot took over the company in 1960 possessed of a vision of renewed Japanese Military and Commercial dominance Subaru started the security division of his company and within decades arasaka security guards were protecting thousands of individuals and corporations worldwide it became one of arasaka's three largest divisions along with manufacturing and banking severo foresaw the economic crash of 1994 and was one of the only people in the world to actually profit from it he moved the security division into paramilitary Contracting expanding the company's influence over Japan's government and ruthlessly moving against his competition by 2020 arasaka had expanded itself immensely to become the richest and most powerful Corporation in the world seborough then 101 years old was the wealthiest man in the world though he had officially ceded the position of CEO to his eldest son Ki arasaka all major decisions still ran through him arasaka maintains many security assets some more secret than others in the United States one of those assets is a man named Adam Smasher Adam was a gang member from New York that enlisted for the military after the rest of his gang was wiped out he was discharged for poor conduct after a few years and quickly fell into the life of a Hired Gun back in New York Adam's Body was essentially destroyed by explosives during a job but then a mysterious benefactor made him an offer that benefactor of course being a covert branch of arasaka security Adam was converted into a full-body cyborg or a full Borg if you will he's essentially a brain in a jar at this point he was arasaka's tool when they needed it but his corporate Masters allowed him time for freelancing and whatever job he took collateral damage and civilian casualties were guaranteed in fact he insisted upon it Adam developed a one-sided rivalry with militex Morgan Blackhand but Morgan ignored him and denied his every request for a duel which of course only inflamed his Psychopathic rage now let's get to the events of the war 2020 saw the failure of ihag a corporation specializing in underwater shipping and Technology 2021 would see ihag file for bankruptcy with two parties interested in a hostile takeover of its remaining assets the French Mega Corporation Cino and the American Mega Corporation otec Cino moved first to secure a deal to buy out ihag but The Negotiator was kidnapped outside ihag's headquarters while the company's head killed himself as another team attempted to kidnap him at the same time otec denied responsibility for the attack but Cino retaliated by hacking the stock exchange to devalue their stock the situation began to spiral towards chaos from there this marks the start of the fourth corporate War foreign C made the Fateful decision to escalate by hiring the services of militech security forces Cino hired arasaka in response thus the two largest paramilitary organizations in the world were set into conflict against each other on what would quickly become an unprecedented scale they had been spoiling for a fight for a decade and now finally had their excuse at first their forces would offer support and security to the facilities and operations undertaken by the two nautical corporations Over time however the conflict would begin to shift away from their clients to a fight between the two paramilitary giants themselves in addition otec and Cino spent a great deal of money hiring Freelancers and Specialists to take actions against their enemy around the world the initial stage of the war termed the ocean War lasted about four months and was surprisingly destructive both in terms of lives and resources in an effort to attack one another's corporate assets and supply lines the combatants managed to disrupt international shipping both sides ultimately deployed autonomous weapons that wandered the sea Lanes looking for targets to sink with many casualties even among unaffiliated ships even worse both sides targeted major seaports with engineered plagues to deny the other access to supplies including Hong Kong Shanghai Busan and Long Beach a total suspension of international shipping led to a worldwide economic crisis ironically both of the companies that had started the conflict in the first place lost most of their assets as their subsurface bases were destroyed by the opposition otec and Cino were forced to the negotiating table to hammer out a deal at the start of 2022 but by this point arasaka and militech had little interest in ending the fighting to Saburo arasaka who had developed his view of the world during the rise of Imperial Japan in the 1930s and 40s this conflict was becoming the springboard for his holy war to advance Japanese dominance worldwide militech was not merely a rival Corporation it was a totem for the Western World Order he sought to supplant to militech's CEO retired American General Donald Lundy the fight was not so personal or quite as megalomaniacal but he did regard arasaka as a barrier to militech success by steamrolling arasaka militarily and economically he hoped to establish militech as the premier supplier of military equipment and mercenary forces in the world he was determined to come out on top even as Cino and otec began to end the fight over ihag arasaka and militech were escalating a series of increasingly lethal covert attacks against one another's International facilities and assets these continued even after their clients terminated their Security Contracts it was becoming a war unlike any other both companies were International corporations with offices and assets all over the world this was not a war of Borders or holding territory it was about who could do the most damage to the other's resources this stage would be called The Shadow War this is where rash bartmoss and ALT Cunningham re-enter the story alt's virtual self was contacted by militech for her help in finding and neutralizing arasaka's soul killer weapon with her help they recruited rash Bart Moss with a promise to stay out of his way and give him free reign he would succeed but his interference would lead to his death rash bartmoss was killed by an assassination team a rock dropped from an arasaka orbital artillery satellite destroyed the entire block just afterwards an event that probably flew under the radar to most people at the time given everything else going on in the world but rash bartmoss had a secret quite possibly the most destructive Suite of virtual Weaponry devised waiting on a timer to be let off the leash if he failed to reset it meanwhile the shadow War became a lot more overt the hot War as it is called started in June 2022 when arasaka and militech started Fielding openly uniformed forces against one another to attack each other's Holdings they deployed aircraft autonomous vehicles tanks powered exoskeletons and combat cyborgs in pitched battles that on top of a massive recruiting effort for Freelancers and contractors on both sides they even began intelligence operations in one another's backyards to tarnish their opponent's image notably militech encouraged local revolutionaries in Chile to attack arasaka equipped government Security Forces each company became more and more desperate to end the war decisively as the strains of having to make a profit and wage a War began to affect both companies Hardware that nobody had expected to see continuous use began to break down disciplinary problems emerged and supplies ran low the fighting was worldwide with militech in particular staging offensive operations in Indonesia Nairobi Europe and any major American city where arasaka had a presence night city was no exception arasaka responded in kind and in particular targeted militex training facility the conflict undid much of the work done to restore Chicago as both companies attempted to deny the other any sort of foothold in the city Rio de Janeiro saw some of the heaviest fighting of the war nationalistic factions in Brazil and Colombia sought to use the war to further their own agendas Brazil being arasaka's biggest foothold in South America militech attacked Rio de Janeiro with Colombian troops the resulting battle dragged on for weeks and reduced much of the city to Rubble one of the most disturbing but subtle problems was the inaccuracies and flat out absurd errors that began to appear in net connected systems and databases worldwide at first both sides suspected enemy netrunners were to blame but as time went on and Corruption escalated it became clear that there was no Rhyme or Reason to who was affected the data crash rash bartmas final play had begun he had spent his time working for militech seeding his viruses into the base protocols used by every device connected to the net every connected device was infected yet the war continued the corporations began using satellite-mounted orbital artillery weapons to attack one another and Destroy other satellites this in particular created tensions among the high Riders people who lived in orbital facilities and stations then one day a kill satellite firing at another satellite missed its Mark and placed its ordinance into the orbital path of the Crystal Palace one of the largest space habitats ever constructed three High Riders died intercepting the projectiles two days later the high Riders of station O'Neill 2 another of the Earth's major orbital habitats declared independence starting what is known as The Seven Hour War the European Space Agency deployed forces to quash the Rebellion but with many of their resources down the gravity well on Earth they were outnumbered and repulsed the governments of the United States Japan and O'Neill one a sister station that had gained independence in 2019 quickly acknowledged the new government of the station the high Riders wiped out most of the remaining corporate artillery with their own and declared themselves neutral to the groundside conflict just a few weeks later a new orbital War occurs when Soviet and American ships start vaporizing any satellites not belonging to their Nations orbiting over their respective hemispheres in an effort to eliminate remaining corporate military assets the esa responded by deploying interceptors to clear out any non-aligned orbital hardware near the Crystal Palace while they tried to stay away from each other accidents happened and soon it became a Feeding Frenzy with ships firing on anyone without a friendly iff low earth orbit was effectively cleared of every piece of orbital Hardware that wasn't a Communications or purely scientific corporate satellite by this time netwatch had finally understood the true nature of the data crash and realized it was too late repairing bartmoss's handiwork would require stripping out the operating system of virtually every computer on Earth to make matters worse the nature of the data crash had somehow made it easier for emergent artificial intelligence and soul-killed pseudo-intellects the digitized victims of Soul killer to travel what remained of the net unimpeded possibly a favor from Bart Moss to his old friend alt Cunningham they had also realized Bart Moss had seeded the net with another self-replicating virus later dubbed roving autonomous bartmoss interface drones or Rabbids which roamed the net first attacking bartmoss's personal targets like arasaka but gradually coming to attack any user or system they encountered with lethal Force by the time the war was ending the net had been reduced to a death trap of corrupted data and uncontrolled attack programs there was no way to secure records organize over long distances or track economies governments and mega corporations alike floundered as the foundations of the information age collapsed on March 5th 2023 netwatch activated igta dissolution Prime propagating a code wave that crashed the protocol's all net capable computers used to reach cyberspace access to the old net was effectively dead though many nodes remain operational the world's government had finally had enough the eec created a pretext to start nationalizing arasaka and militech Assets in Europe then deployed National Armed Forces to destroy corporate forces that did not comply Japan followed suit nationalizing arasaka's Holdings within its Home Country after the company attempted a coup and negotiating with management to end the fighting elsewhere in the world everywhere laws and regulations that Mega corporations had flouted in the pre-war era were now ruthlessly enforced to bring them to heal U.S president Elizabeth krass used an obscure Clause to reactivate General Lundy's Reserve status making him subordinate to the United States military chain of command and herself under threat of court-martial and execution Lundy ordered all militech Personnel to cease offensive operations and comply with local governments apparently consumed by regret for his actions in the past year Lundy spun off many of militech subsidiaries into smaller corporations and divested the company of many of its assets the fight was not done however even as the U.S military Advanced on all arasaka assets in the Continental the United States arasaka's last Bastion in the States was its Regional headquarters in the free state of Northern California night City severo arasaka's son Ki arasaka filled the city with his troops as he tried to negotiate some sort of settlement rumors started going around that arasaka was threatening to unleash the soul killer weapon on the residence of night City and mass and the U.S military if a truce was not achieved Furthermore with databases worldwide becoming corrupted and unreliable arasaka had started storing vast amounts of data on an isolated server in night City that they hope to use as a bargaining chip the free state of Northern California's governor gave Elizabeth krass permission to move troops in and they quickly surrounded the city settling into a stalemate the U.S military put together a strike force led by militech's favorite enforcer Morgan Blackhand that included of all people Johnny silverhand emerged from hiding to take another stab at beating arasaka and rescuing alt Cunningham whose digital ghosts had been recaptured by the corporation to work on Soul killer the team infiltrated arasaka Tower even as the U.S military staged a diversionary attack with two objectives first to rescue alt Cunningham and wipe out all trays of Soul killer second to acquire a copy of arasaka's secure database bargaining chip and leveled the whole structure with a small nuclear bomb what exactly happened over the course of this operation is not perfectly clear except for the end result the last anyone saw of Morgan Blackhand he was swearing off against arasaka's enforcer Adam Smasher atop the building's North Tower as it began to crumble but instead of detonating at the Target location at the base of the structure the nuclear bomb detonated on the 120th floor in the soul killer lab the massive arasaka Towers were cut in half and collapsed the nearby skyscrapers were obliterated with tons of raw concrete and steel reduced to particulate debris that would rain down on Northern California for many months almost half a million people in the center of the city were killed instantly and the earthquake it triggered liquefied much of the fill the city was built on causing vast flooding the city's infrastructure power water and gas was effectively shattered the blast also ignited a firestorm that covered thousands of Acres outside the city another quarter million people died in the aftermath some members of the Strike Team evidently escaped the destruction but neither Johnny silverhand nor Morgan Blackhand have been seen since that day for the next two years debris from the nuclear blast orbital strikes conventional explosives and the wartime burning of cities tinged the sky's red worldwide eventually it faded to Mere brilliantly Crimson sunrises and sunsets so people started calling this post-war era the time of the red president Elizabeth Cress seized control of the narrative declaring the blast had been caused by arasaka as part of an area denial strategy arasaka had such a contingency though it had not actually been used Kia arasaka was found to have committed suicide at another location after the blast the Japanese government narrowly averted collapse and repudiated arasaka allowing them to save face arasaka is reduced to a japan-only company until 2035. the remains of militech were largely nationalized though some Executives were given positions in the reformed Department of Defense as a whole this began a period of both technical stagnation and an international refocusing on internal affairs Federal and local governments focus on rebuilding their infrastructure and economies from the devastation of the war the survivors of night city were some of the worst off with the street to street fighting having devastated much of what wasn't destroyed by the nuclear blast most of the 2 million people rendered homeless were forced to flee to the suburbs of the former city center forming vast tent cities it would take a decade for night City to truly start the process of recovery and rebuilding from this event or at first they looked to a president Elizabeth krass as a potential savior they were disappointed Cress wrote night City off as unsalvageable and offered sanctuary in the new United States to the refugees she saw this as a way to bring the free state of Northern California back under the sway of the federal government instead the people of night city became more determined to rebuild without shackling themselves to the government in Washington DC worldwide the status quo had changed for make corporations and National governments where before the war they could operate almost heedlessly of any national law now National governments were far more restrictive some corporations could still wield Regional influence but nothing like the sweeping International reach they had before the primary combatants militech and arasaka were almost completely defanged and would take decades to claw back some of their old influence meanwhile the worldwide net had been effectively rendered impossible to use safely instead more closely policed local networks would start to replace its usage in the coming decades a few years after the war alt Cunningham would re-emerge in the remains of Hong Kong's net infrastructure the city having been evacuated due to a bioplague attack during the war there she established the Ghost World a Haven for rogue AIS and the victims of Soul killer supposedly alt has used many other abandoned corners of the old Nat to create such Havens in the decades since so there you have it a world reordered by the overreaching Ambitions of two men with too much power greed and sheer egotism hey there so this video is basically the result of my writing a script for my timeline video that was way too detailed and would have been excessively long this video May itself be excessively long but I didn't want to throw it all out I reworked it a bit and gave a much smaller summary in the timeline video this information was derived both from some of the old fourth corporate War Source books and the cyberpunk red Source book but I tried to keep everything in line with the war as represented in the cyberpunk red Source book more or less I did want to bring up a discrepancy between the cyberpunk red Source book and Johnny silverhand's memories in cyberpunk 2077. there seems to be a big difference in how he was turned into an engram in the narrative section in the book versus his memory as displayed in the game in the book Johnny is shot nearly in half by an auto shotgun blast by Adam Smasher Netrunner spider Murphy then slots something into his neural implants as he lies there dying which is implied to be a copy of Soul killer that alt gave her a long time ago Johnny isn't actually conscious for this in the game Johnny has a memory of being kidnapped by arasaka and meeting sebro arasaka himself before being subjected to Soul killer as punishment I'd say it's possible this scenario is just a grandiose delusion Johnny came up with to fill in the blanks in his memory though it does leave open the question of how exactly arasaka got a hold of his engram well that's all I have for today see you next time [Music] [Music]

Channel: Watchman Gaming

Views: 32,015

Keywords:

Id: lSVJLw5Tkhk

Length: 33min 38sec (2018 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 18 2022