Uncovering the Big Lie in Cyberpunk 2077

Inside Cyberpunk2077 Johnny Silverhand has a big lie that not even he really knows about. What he recalls happening at Arasaka Tower and what actually happened are two separate things. With in game and outside game information I dive into the theories surrounding the truth in Night City.
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#cyberpunk2077 #cyberpunk2077lore #radaustin27

[@RossOfRoni]

The way Johnny drops the bomb in the elevator then shoots the cable is a big ol' reference to Neo and the Matrix. In the Morpheus rescue he drops a bomb down a shaft that same way. And... you know, when the elevator hit the ground in the movie, the bomb went off. We drop Johnny's bomb down the elevator shaft... and there's no boom. In fact we go do some other damn thing that there'd be no time for! Which is all just more clues that Johnny's memories are entirely constructed. If you dig more, you'll find that Blackhand actually took the nuke downstairs earlier in the whole operation. So it was never dropped in the elevator at all!

[@nathanmead9585]

It's a funny mirror, between Neo and Silverhand - the only link is Keanu Reeves, so it doesn't mean anything as far as Cyberpunk goes, but I still like it. By the time Neo and Trinity are heading up to save Morpheus, Neo is becoming the hero he wanted to be. On the other hand, Silverhand gets gunned down as almost an afterthought, and the memories in the engram depict him as the hero he *wishes* he'd been...Shaitan (who he remembers getting gunned down in the helicopter, which speaks to Silverhand's inferiority complex) and Blackhand kinda rolled together.

[@Cyromantik]

​@@nathanmead9585 Indeed there's nothing to it, but there _are_ lots of fun nods to The Matrix in Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty. The pills, the TV scene, a failed escape from a high-rise, etc.

[@paledrake]

Well the simple explanation would be that the bomb didn't go off, Johnny just did that elevator thing to get it down while the actual bomb/explosion was on a timer.

[@ajdez8871]

If we get more AAA actors involved, Josh Brolin NEEDS to be the one to play Morgan Blackhand.

[@estebansantamaria8729]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

[@ajdez8871]

@estebansantamaria8729 ohhhhh....that's a good one, too!

[@POTATOEMPN]

Josh Hartnett. Go watch Bunraku, and then come tell me Josh isn't the perfect Morgan. Not the cowboy thing, the tough guy / total badass thing.

[@xSavedSoulx]

@@POTATOEMPN Nah, Josh Brolin, baby

[@Demiurge13]

Agreed. He basically already did it when he played cable

[@Sir_Slimbread]

The more I learn about the lore of Cyberpunk the more I realize just how small the game's story is in the series as a whole. Hopefully we get answers sooner rather than later.

[@Augusto9588]

And that's a good thing. This superhero savior of the world trope is cringe and bland.

[@bryce2fadeway]

That's the beauty of it I don't think we will have all the answer anytime soon. Not everything needs to be answered. I think the fact that it opens to theory and speculation is awesome and part of every good lore

[@TommyCubed]

Wait until you find out about the mass drivers on the moon that were used in the space war. One even directly obliterated Colorado Springs.

[@slugma1054]

That's the point of cyberpunk. You're not there to save the world, you're there to save yourself

[@hiddenkoalarage]

As soon as you mentioned Morgan Blackhand, the same reddit post immediately came to mind. It sounds so far-fetched at first glance, yet, after reading into it, makes so much sense- it solves so many missing pieces. It's great how invested the community is into uncovering the lore, and explaining intentional inconsistencies.

[@salk9943]

Glad ya liked it!

[@cf87849]

The dialogue says the engram has been corrupted to something like 86% when Jackie slots the Shard in. We're not seeing Johnny's narcissism; we're seeing a scar across an AI's memory that it's filling in.

[@Far-outfrom76]

I don't think that was about the engram but the case it was in. Rebuilding Vs brain definitely corrupted something.

[@JeffDeLamater]

This theory answers questions that I had about that cutscene. I never understood how Johnny was shot by Adam inside Arasaka, and then flashed to being on the roof.

[@Cool_story_bro_nobody_cares]

Simple he wasn’t shot inside arasaka that scene was said to be when Morgan arrived, through my 12 play throughs of the game I’ve never once seen Adam shoot Johnny inside the tower

[@Zayphar]

@@Cool_story_bro_nobody_cares The sound design implies that the fade-to-black inside the tower is the point when Johnny is shot and killed by Smasher. So, it is not surprisng that Silverhand doesn't 'see' the shot that kills him, because many people never do. One second you are soldier humping it down a road in Iraq, the next moment...nothing; because you are already dead. Three different canon sources say that Johnny died right there, just outside the offices in the upper tower, in a confrontation with Smasher. 'Cut in half' with an auto-shotgun blast and then shot in the head for a coup de grace. The run up the stairs and the confrontation on the roof are NOT Johnny's memories. The question is: How did Johnny find out about the fight on the roof since he was already dead at that point? Answer: They are Morgan Blackhand's memories. The scene in the engram lab with Saburo Arasaka(with the bombing fallout in the background), are also Morgan Blackhand's memories, not Johnny's.

[@potatoman2565]

Makes sense since like said in the video the creator of the tabletop wouldnt allow them to use Morgan blackhand. Which is honestly a good call. Idk if they could do blackhand justice.

[@JLM-y5g]

@@potatoman2565 Honestly? Given enough time and oversight from Pondsmith... I think they could do it. I'd love to watch Blackhand be on demon time, especially after how strongly they flexed their writing muscles in Phantom Liberty.

[@robinmayr5265]

​@@Zayphar i don't really buy into the Blackhand memory thing. I think it is more like a mixture of Johnnys ego and having soulkiller applied while he was dying or just died, kinda like the Jacki engram we see in the game. He thinks himself so important that Adam Smasher comes personally after him and even Saburo Arasaka is there to interrogate him. Because why should Arasaka let Morgan live? They would try do leash him like a dog and do their bidding or simple make him into an engramm and kill him after he has no use for him. And the scene on the roof could simply be an inverted form of survibor guilt. Like: It is Rogues fault that I died not mine. Finally i think it is more believable that Morgan Blackhand became the Adam Smasher of Militech with the difference that he is far more subtle than Adam and this is the explanation why nobody knows anything about him in 2077.

[@randomstuff403]

I realized Johnny's memories were wrong about 1/2 way through my 1st playthrough because I just happened to pick the dialogue option with Alt where she tells you that the memories you saw were his fabrication that he replayed in his head. That is when it all fell into place for me that the inconsistencies with his memories weren't plot holes but that he is simply either misremembering or deliberately lying.

[@7thsealord888]

I also note that a fair bit of Johnny's advice during the course of the game is ... suboptimal. He distrusts Judy Alvarez, counsels against dealing with the Netwatch dude in Pacifica, tells you Takamura is dead when he actually isn't (yet), and so on.

[@randomstuff403]

@@7thsealord888 Yeah, it really seems that Johnny was, and is as a construct, a grade A screw up. Everyone that remembers him disliked him. He is completely convinced that he is right and everyone else is wrong. At least if you side with Reed during Phantom Liberty if you make the right dialogue choices with him in your apartment he will admit that he screwed everything up and his misguided principles got everyone he cares about killed. The closest to redeemable you can get him that I have found.

[@ravenshrike]

@@7thsealord888 To be fair, he also thinks that the VBs are untrustworthy as hell too and IIRC calls you an idiot for going along with them.

[@robertivey7644]

@@7thsealord888For personal survival going back to save him is a really bad idea.

[@robertivey7644]

@@randomstuff403 No Alt isn’t talking about his memories being wrong she is talking about how Johnny saw their relationship which was delusional at best as we saw in the game. Arasaka obviously did not alter his memories because he still has his irrational hatred of Arasaka.

[@evanlee93]

I'm convinced that Johnny's engram was merged with an incomplete engram of Morgan Blackhand

[@user-xz3us9yy3m]

My theory is that they had started working on Morgan Black hand memories from the original version of the game where you chose between Morgan, Johnny, and Saburo. They just reused it and put Johnny instead of Morgan, and then made it a part of the story.

[@user-xz3us9yy3m]

Hell even the last bit of soul killer with Saburo could have been reused from Saburo memories...

[@syndicalistcat3138]

@@user-xz3us9yy3m What original version?

[@Rrgr5]

Most of it makes sense, but there are additional dialogue about how Johnny died, Grayson actually went into details about his death according to Smasher, which confirms that he was indeed soulkilled, but as it seems, his memories were edited by Arasaka to give credence to their justification for the nuke, which they couldn't blame Militech for the sake of their truce and couldn't take the blame for the sake of themselves, so they used Johnny's memories as a scapegoat, thing is, Yourinobu took the chip to negotiate with Netwatch, so they could reach Alt and slowdown the degradation of the Black Wall, problem was... Thee heist happened and that changed everything, as it seems it was the rogue AIs that made it happening so they could do their own stuff by themselves, which is why Alt pretty much uses V as vessel from that point on, either way she reaches Mikoshi besides two endings, which makes her even more powerful.

[@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062]

Now i see more similarities between the cyberpunk 2077 universe and the Neuromancer Books.

[@Rrgr5]

@@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062 yep, is almost the same plot if you think a bit more, even tho the original rpg wasn't that close to William Gibson's stuff, the newer adaptation from CDPR are.

[@hendrikludwig5303]

@@Rrgr5 While Pondsmith denies having read Neuromancer prior to creating Cyberpunk 2013, there is some compelling evidence that there was at least a very strong indirect influence: Cyberpunk 2013 uses the term "black program" for "black ice" (the term "black ice" originating from Neuromancer), it uses the term "to flatline", it uses "cyberdeck" while Neuromancer calls it a "cyberspace deck". The term "run" for a "cyber heist" originates from Neuromancer and it appears again in Cyberpunk 2013. The depiction of illicit drugs in Cyberpunk 2013 is more similar to "Neuromancer" than to "Hardwired". In Cyberpunk 2020, the influence of Neuromancer is undeniable: It mentions Chiba City together with Tokyo, it uses the term "cowboy" for a netrunner and it uses ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics)..... EDIT: And also, quite interestingly, there is a "Night City" in Neuromancer as well, not on the US west coast but as part of Chiba City........

[@kingheffy9044]

Bro I'm about to cry honestly. Its like seeing an old friend for the first time in years

[@kingheffy9044]

@@N0xRL disappointing

[@jkruse05]

Johnny was also somewhat less narcissistic and worked better with others in the tabletop stories. It's possible that change is part of Arasaka editing. There's also documentation that the engram copies aren't perfect in the first place. I don't remember the exact number, but there's an entry on a tablet or computer somewhere that says the best they've managed is something like 85% accuracy to the original person, and that's 'modern' engrams in 2077.

[@Radaustin27]

I’ll have to try to track down that shard! Thanks for sharing!

[@josephstalin7389]

Could also be damaged from from prologue heist. Which could explain Johnny memories being different

[@Bluewolfzer]

So no one's gonna mention that a part of the engram's personality and the user's personality sort of unconsciously merge together which may cause discrepancies as to how Johnny acts in 2077. Basically as Johnny spent more time being V, the engram sort of adopted some of V's personality into Johnny.

[@Andromeda-lo6lf]

​​@@Bluewolfzertruth is we never got to see the real silverhand, not only from arasaka's tinkering and the relic being inaccurate, but add the damage from the heist and the merging and we got a completely different person in that chip

[@sniperfity2327]

I really hope we get to meet people like spider murphy in Cyberpunk Orion. Hopefully she will tell us about johnny's real body

[@TommyCubed]

The netrunner that pondsmith talks about in his conspiracy radio bits is likely Spider Murph.

[@tickledpickle5671]

I've been telling people this for years I'm glad it's out there. The Arasaka Tower raid went down **MUCH** differently in the game. (But they have to bend it for plot reasons, so I'm okay with that. But answer something for me. Would a Narcissist openly admit to playing second fiddle to a legendary solo like Morgan Blackhand? No way.

[@Godloveszaza]

Yall want johnny to be a narcissist so bad when that narrative doesn't fit his character at all. He only went on the mission because he was sold a dream that alt was there. He didn't care about the operation he simply just wanted to save alt. The writers even came out and said there's multiple reasons why johnnys memories are faulty and radiation damage is one. Yall are just running off with idiotic narratives about a character yall haven't even done any research on beyond the game.

[@salk9943]

Yeah this goes beyond narcissism, part of the reason i made the original post is because "Johnny" can't lie to Alt and he's a construct, a set of data, also he's no AI either so he can't alter his code. Alt was able to read him like a book when V went beyond the black wall.

[@chaoticcuttlefish3655]

This in my feed made my heart drop. I am so glad to see you back Reed. I’d watch a lore video all day long.

[@kevinhower7579]

Mr. Blue Eyes is Morgan Blackhand. It was Morgan that Smasher promised to kill, not Johnny. Johnny saving Alt and the attack on Arasaka tower were two separate events.

[@I.Fumblebee.I]

But Grayson says that the body was buried near the oilfields in the dialogue during Chipping in, and since he's dying unless spite, there's no real reason to lie about that.

[@salk9943]

Prolly also a lie. He could've heard that from anyone tbh.

[@angelavalon8972]

​. True, but you also find Johnny's Silver Hand there.... 🤔🤔🤔

[@stephenaulds]

No way man... Morgan would rather die screaming than cut any deal with arasaka......no damn way

[@time3947]

What about the possibility that the 'nuke' given to Johnny was a fake because he was being the diversion, (or possibly setup by Militech) to take the fall for the actual nuke that Morgan was planting to destroy the tower?

[@Callingcascade]

Damn man. It makes me so happy to see this guy dive into some lore again. Reeds always played games that I enjoy, so to see him dive into some of this stuff in a proper video again is filling me with joy. Please keep uploading, but don't stick to any arbitrary deadlines. I'll take one video per year if they're as good as this one.

[@progeniesofthetoiletpaperh6433]

Naaaw, you got it wrong. V is the greatest solo in canon. V solo'd a full borged out Smasher after soloing the entire tower.

[@Radaustin27]

very true! But I was talking about the greatest solo before our awesome V takes the title! :)

[@deathkage779]

You also forget that V does all of this with one foot in the grave. V for sure is hella busted lol.

[@megachonk9440]

That's typically the weak point of video games like this. They have deep lore with "legendary" characters, but you as the player character easily outstrip all of their skills and achievements as a matter of course, and usually the game either doesn't acknowledge it at all, or still pretends you're just some worthless scrub who still has a long way to go toward proving themselves.

[@ChrisGoldie]

@@megachonk9440 yep you are the one in this game and it took you dying to even get to that 😂 before depending on what story u choose your jus a regular cog in the machine

[@bassekaman8315]

​@@ChrisGoldie i always clear the fixer jobs, cyber psychos and NYPD assault in progress side jobs first tbh so the big job feels earned and i have double jump

[@TheJadeJester]

Morgan Blackhand was the penultimate solo, just as Rache was the penultimate netrunner. Editing Johnny would be matter of course for Arasaka if they had access. As to Johnny/Smasher, Team Alpha (Johnny, Spider, Rogue, Thompson, Shaitan) get cornered by Smasher’s group, as a distraction Johnny steps out of cover shooting Smasher until being cut in half by Smasher’s Helix, giving Shaitan the opening he needs to get in melee with Smasher (p137 Firestorm: Shockwave). Beyond that and Smasher being tool #1 for Arasaka, there was no beef between Silverhand and Smasher. Edit - maybe an important point, but Saburo Arasaka is someone who is convinced that he is infallible and by default correct, no matter what. No action would be beyond approval if it attained his goals, so manipulating and rewriting engrams would be par for the course. Silverhand’s memories do have that flavour, and their inconsistencies could be due to manipulation (note the side story of the Peralez’s and Mr Blue Eyes), or merely janky scriptwriting. It could also be that the Silverhand engram was a composite of data that Arasaka had accrued over the decades, if the story in Red is accurate, of an (the?) Alt clone receiving the Silverhand pod at Los Alamo.

[@darkbeach72]

You probably just mean "ultimate", penultimate means second-to-last. And I had to chuckle about he janky script writing. I've often thought that the "unreliable narrator" card is extremely convenient when you're trying to build a world this complex and end up stepping on your own dick from time to time.

[@Skyblade12]

Saburo had no reason to edit Johnny’s memories, though. Why would he bother?

[@TheJadeJester]

@@Skyblade12 Saburo Arasaka is masterminding a plan spanning continents, bodies and centuries. He considers himself the only true power. And anything to assist in spreading that power is a bonus. Maybe like manipulating the mind of one of the most famous adversaries of Arasaka?

[@ravenshrike]

@@Skyblade12 Possible they had partial Blackhand memory scan from somewhere (see Morgan Blackhand Mr. Blue Eyes theory) and needed to merge it with a full engram in order to try and get any coherent information out of them. Johnny was the only engram they had where the memories would make any sense.

[@jamesbrooks9321]

you keep saying that word, i don't think you know what it means

[@Kainlarsen]

I put it down to him being trapped as an engram for over 50 years, and his memories getting all jumbled up.

[@Silver_Spectre]

So happy to see you upload again

[@barbarossarotbart]

The real mystery is, how does Arasaka got hold of the Silverhand engram? We know that they never get hold of his body and they never soulkilled him. I believe that Johnny's memories are just his imagination. That's how he wanted it to happen. His engram did not merge with the Morgan Blackhand engram. He constructed these memories to give his death sense. I also believe that Angel is Alt. She looks like her in the illustrations. And she called Johnny "my love".

[@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062]

Angel IS not Alt, but gets controlled by Alt, is what you mean, i guess?

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062 No, she IS the real Alt, her engram returned to her body. We know from the source material that this is possible. She would have done it sooner, but she was in custody od Arasaka. There are also many hints that Alt's behavior is very off in the game suggesting that this is not the real Alt but some AI posing as Alt.

[@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062]

@@barbarossarotbart Some Altered Carbon type shit then? I thought her body is gone for good, and she is an AI engram forever.

[@antoniopedrobittenco]

I don’t know if the eng rams are just copies of their former selves who behave similar to the person who provided it. In one of the documents they say that Arasaka managed to extract the I of the person( whatever it is, a brain synapse or something else) and put into the relic. So Johnny’s and Alt’s engrams are Johnny and Alt.

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@antoniopedrobittenco Read the short story "Never Fade Away". It explains the origin of Soulkiller. One of my theories is that the Alt we meet in the game is not the real Alt but either a copy of the real Alt or an AI posing as Alt. Another theory is that Alt also lied to V, because she wants Johnny. In the short story "Black Dog" the son of Rogue and Santiago met a woman named Angel, who looks like Alt and called Johnny her love. We also know from other sourcebooks that Alt is not interested in absorbing other SPIs but created safe havens for them.

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

"Johnny's memories aren't accurate and you'd need to dig deep into the lore to find this out" Uh, no. Alt specifically calls out Johnny's memories being wrong when you talk to her...in the game...as part of the main storyline... It's also worth noting that the version of Soulkiller that is able to create an engram without killing wasn't developed until at least the 2040's, so it's _extremely_ doubtful that Arasaka created this hypothetical engram of Blackhand at the same time as Silverhand's engram. It's, honestly, just another case of Occam's Razor when it comes to media literacy. What's more likely? 1. Johnny's engram has some faulty memories from a mixture of his own ego and damage done to the chip during the heist, or 2. Arasaka created a secret engram of Morgan Blackhand, using a version of Soulkiller that wouldn't be developed for about 15 years, didn't execute Blackhand for his terrorism, instead letting him go, and then, for reasons unknown, merge the engrams of Silverhand and Blackhand together

[@Zayphar]

That lab scene with Saburo might not have been Soulkiller, it could have just been an interrogation of Blackhand where they recording some of his pertinent memories as he recalled them. In this case it would not be a complete memory/emotion/personality download, thus it wouldn't kill Blackhand. The Silverhand narration overdub is clearly pure BS and probably doesn't have anything to do with the scene at all. I agree that Silverhand was not deliberately merged with Blackhands memories. It could have just been data in Mikoshi that Silverhand saw and then Johnny integrated/hijacked the interrogation info it into his own memories because he is a jackass.

[@SURGEONAA2]

You’re not as smart as you think you are

[@cwsigmund]

irl I believe I heard/read that the reason Blackhand was not in CP2077 is because Mike Pondsmith wanted to reserve the character for his own CP projects (and I don't blame him). I also think that Silverhand was not meant to have so much importance in the story until Keanu got involved, but once he did I think the choice was made to focus on Silverhand over any other characters. I'm more than ok with that choice, because when the company hires top-shelf talent and a genuinely good guy like KR, he's what I, the consumer, want to see :) All that said, I think the in-game lore theory put forth here and the reddit post are excellent ideas for all this to make sense with all the rest of the in-game lore, kudos :)

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

There's been enough stories shared by members of the CP2077 team about rewrites happening after they got Keanu to lend credence to the theory. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen the game _without_ the rewrites made to stroke Keanu's ego (sorry, not a fan of the guy, he's a plain _bad_ actor and I just get weird vibes off him)

[@coolguy845]

@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 to add to that, the 48 minute demo. character creation at 1 minute in you had options of 3 childhood heroes samurai rockerboy johnny silverhand, solo of fortune morgan blackhand and corporate god saburo arasaka. others speculated those 3 would have potentially have been the engrams you were to have during the game until keanu took role of silverhand and then that was potentially scrapped even in the demo again. 8 minutes 30 seconds into the video the radio dj was saying it's been a year since silverhand went on his last ride. i like keanu, but overall i just dislike that they scrapped a potentially more open rpg in favor of silverhand due to massive star taking on the role i blame cdpr a bit for being massive fanboys there.

[@cwsigmund]

@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 All good, he really isn't all that great when it comes to delivering lines. I'm also blessed with a great degree of tolerance for that :) I wouldn't mind seeing what the story was like before as well. I forget her name, but there's a youtuber that does deep dives into all the lore and has done vids on what the story might have been like through remaining tidbits and looking at the game code. It's very likely T-Bug and Meridith Stout and Militech all had much bigger roles initially. It also seems that PL incorporated at least some elements from that original story, according to the vids I watched.

[@jasonmcquain7821]

Pretty sure Mike Pondsmith has said that Blackhand is still alive, so I don't think Arasaka ever got his memories, but they could have created a reasonable facsimile, and I definitely believe they tailored the Silverhand Engram to be the "terrorist" that they needed him to be. The TTRPG Silverhand wasn't a saint but he was nowhere near the narcissistic A-hole the Engram is in 2077.

[@salk9943]

YO HOLY SHIT!!!!!!! THIS IS MY POST!! I'm so incredibly happy to see this getting attention. Mind you i was hoping Phantom Liberty would shed some light on a lot of stuff i was theorizing, sadly it didn't BUT it was still a great DLC. It feels a little surreal seeing my post being dissected like this ngl. Awesome video btw!!!

[@Radaustin27]

Thank you so much for the time you put into the post! You helped get me excited about the series to start posting about the lore! I love lore a lot so this was an awesome rabbit hole to fall down. I was hoping so too, but the DLC was so good for me that I didn't mind waiting on these questions. Thanks again for the post!

[@keflas3842]

johnny never lied he straight up tells you that they change a person into what they want and the worst part is that they dont even know its been done . This is told to the player several times in different ways , maybe the general audience just isnt able to comprehend basic writing its called foreshadowing.

[@Tekkaman1994]

I never played Cyberpunk 2020, but I have read the core rule book my brother had. It was very cool lore. Now when Cyberpunk 2077 was released, I knew I wanted to play it. I remembered that was a character named Johnny Silverhand who was a Rockerboy, but not a terrorist though. I also remembered a character named Morgan Blackhand who was a Merc. Given this information I never had; since I never owned the Shockwave book and I don't own Cyberpunk Red either, but with this information you mentioned from both, it makes sense that Johnny's memory of storming Arasaka Tower and confronting and nearly being killed by Adam Smasher is inaccurate . if players chooses to V fight and kill Adam Smasher(instead of going with The FIA), Adam ask V who Johnny is. They never fought each other! That's Morgan Blackhand's memory of fighting Adam merged into Johnny's mind with Soulkiller having used on both Morgan and Johhny to keep thier minds "alive", but it backfired Arasaka got a hold on both their engrams. I totally accept this as what happened.

[@MCPunk55]

Various characters tell us that those memories are subjective to Johnny's construct.

[@VchaosTheoryV]

I wonder if Adam Smasher thinks V is more manic than he is all chromed out due to the convoluted memory recall "Wtf are you talking about".

[@ConorOG]

Cheers to a new era Reed.

[@theMedicatedCitizen]

My new name for this amalgamation of personalities is Mojo Greyhands

[@reedstrickland7952]

RADAUSTIN UPLOAD IN 2024!!! We’re eating good

[@warrenarden1681]

you shitting big

[@biznisman7049]

The fact that they both have HAND in their surname, is something else. Silverhand and Blackhand whose memories are they? It is almost because they didnt have a GO for Blackhand they used a guy named Silverhand

[@LifelessTooth]

My personal headcanon is that Johnny took some kind of drugs before the raid to calm his nerves, and that inebriated state is immortalized in his haze of memories.

[@marjoe32]

Spider Murphy was/is the best of us!

[@PilotMoonDog]

Interesting theory. The raid was an army operation though and the nuke is an army demolition charge. Any Militech people had been pressed into service by them when the CEO gets his Marines commission re-activated by the president shortly beforehand.

[@ciphermatrix]

Nicely deconstructed and I love this theory - it's more than hinted at that Johnny is an unreliable narrator but if this is how CDPR weaved Blackhand's lore into the story without implicitly doing so (to meet Mike Pondsmith's wishes) it's very clever, he's actually not unreliable, he's been edited and spliced to suit Arasaka's ends. Hoping we get more of this clever narrative style in 2077 Pt II.

[@stevenacosta9812]

Even the AI vending machine Brendon says in his final joke “where was Johnny when the bomb went off?” “All over the place… literally”

[@JojoTheVulture]

Ohhh, yea.. That explains why Johnny is so OP in the memories It also explains why those flashbacks are so disconnected. Johnny gets shot like 2 different times during the raid yet still survives

[@Skyblade12]

I don’t buy the Blackhand memory merge, because it relies on Blackhand. Ring dead and in Arasaka’s hands, which I don’t think has any possibility of happening. Johnny was ripped in half by a single shot from Smasher’s shotgun, and as he lay bleeding out, Murphy inserted the shard that Soulkilled him as a way to save his life. Arasaka later got the engram from her (likely unwillingly, though the full details aren’t known). The meeting between Silverhand and Saburo after the detonation was almost certainly Saboru speaking to Johnny in Mikoshi, interpreted as a memory of after the bombs by Johnny. Also, it’s unlikely that Arasaka edited Johnny’s memories, as they’d have no reason to. The engrams were mostly used to get information or acquire particularly skilled netrunners. They already had difficulty fully mirroring a human with 100% accuracy, and their next focus was on the 2.0 project to reactivate one. Editing one offers very little, if any, benefit to the corporation. Why would they mess with Johnny’s memories? Johnny’s engram was only chosen for the Relic 2.0 test because it was disposable.

[@sgg3586]

Mike Pondsmith has also openly stated that Johnny Silverhand is/was a CyberPsycho. Although Pondsmith has also said that Cyberpsychosis is not a specific "you are 100% insane" condition like depicted in the game, but more like a gradual decline of your mental cognition as you cut away more and more of yourself. So in like the Edgerunners, the main character slowly began losing his mind more and more as he became modified, but the main reason he was able to hold on so long was because of his emotional connections. Which is meant to show how some folk who have like strong mental/emotional supports (family, friends, etc.) can handle modifications a lot better. But losing his mum, friends, and nearly his love, David begins to suffer the effects more heavily. So if you take someone like Johnny who is a narcissist, abuses drugs, and loses the one person he actually loves (Alt), you could see how he goes straight off the deep-end despite only having a handful of modifications. Which is why even IF his engram does have his actual personality on it, you basically have a semi-cyberpsycho with altered memories/data slapped into your head. Meaning that you can't/shouldn't trust anything you see or hear from him.

[@Mohmar2010]

We are so SilverHandback chooms

[@linktojinx]

I'm deducting 11 points for that Disney shirt. You will receive two points for your love of cyberpunk.

[@animusynthetika]

Fun Fact: Nibbles is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Rache Bartmoss' cybercat named Deathwish. I personally always thought Rache was FAR too smart to not have a contingency plan and is beyond the Blackwall much like Alt. My friend thinks this explains her strange and random appearances (the eyes are different from the rest of the cats found in Night City) and that Rache is keeping an eye on things from behind the Blackwall.

[@Redswipe]

@01:43 I've played the game 4x now and that bit always confuses the hell out of me. I was always baffled how he got away from Smasher there.

[@JLM-y5g]

I like this. V is a random merc, Johnny is a Legendary Rockerboy... and Morgan Blackhand is the greatest Solo to ever live; capable of going toe-to-toe with every major player without breaking a sweat. V is almost dead by the time you fight Smasher, Blackhand hated Smasher, so V could have a bit of that Blackhand dog in them. Which is a really cool twist if it's true.

[@citrusity222]

Honestly, when Adam Smash said "what the fuck are you talking about" I always found that weird almost like he genuinely had no corelation with Silverhand

[@Storm_Dev]

RADAUSTIN27 coming back, AND IT'S A CYBERPUNK VIDEO? This is the greatest crossover-comeback I have ever seen.

[@branchoffbush3838]

Another key thing too about the relic, is that it is essentially a data shard that can host an ai consciousness construct, much like the conscious ai personalities of Delamain when they split. Akasaka did alter what his memories were when they were in construct form. But these consciousness constructs on the relic's do have a conscious and emotion, unlike Alt's construct. She even states when you are in the quest line with the voodoo boys that the alt we see beyond the blackwall just uses Alt's engrammatic data. Meaning the Alt we see there also isnt really Alt. Or johnny pulling the plug on Alt when he "saved" her in his memories. Likely interrupted the process of her being a fully fledged sentient construct, and now its just a copy of alt missing some parts of her. Johnny being the ego centric person that he is. This means likely his own consciousness of the ai construct changed the memories beyond what even arasaka altered them to be. As his emotion tends to get the better of him, as when he remembers one thing, his brain will change it and have it become a memory that benefits his ego. Another way to tell the difference is that Johnny experiences emotion. Where when you meet and see Alt. She doesnt seem to have any. Even johnny says when you first meet her is that she retained the "icy b**tch" attitude.

[@TheJoker-bz2uz]

Ummm, been awhile since I played but Johnny's old fling that he got killed and has now become sentient AI behind the black wall literally tells us his memories are corrupted in optional dialogue in a non-missable quest.... This isn't some big secret, and it's not that he lied, more that he remembers wrong after an eternity locked in soul killer and the head games he must've ensured while a prisoner of Arosaka. Remember, he thinks we're some kind of trap or them messing with him when we first encounter, as he points at us in our room he says, "Who you work for?!? Start talking!"

[@lekillerfou]

All the 2023 events around the assault against the Arasaka towers are available on Cyberpunk Red (TTRPG game from R.Talsorian in collaboration with CDPR). "The Fall Of The Towers" and "Black Dog"

[@exemplar7205]

This is a really great summary of a big reason why i adore this games story and world, i already loved it when i played it originally, then i dove into the lore and found all this info and it added so many amazing layers to it that i loved it even more.

[@yo_Av]

The DLC is full of that lies, but not in the dreams or flashback, just in front of your eyes !

[@shinankoku2]

The fact that Johnny is an unreliable narrator makes CP2077 even more interesting.

[@h3ndershot]

If you watch with CC on at 8:00, Alt says "Your death was Genghis Khan's faults."

[@doge4818]

In lore sliverhand got his brains splattered

[@Zayphar]

Yup. Cut in half with an auto-shotgun, then capped in the head for a coup de grace. It happened just outside the offices near the top of the tower. Running up the stairs and the confrontation with Smasher on the roof could not be Johnny's memories, because by that point he was already dead.

[@DW316]

I wouldn't be surprised if the sequel goes into the truth of what happened and brings in blackhand in a similar role

[@jeffoberg772]

We are unlikely to see Morgan in the game as Mike is protective of the character he loves deeply. That’s ok. I’ve always pronounced Rache as “Ray-sh” Things to know about Rache, Alt, and Spyder: Rache is/was the destroyer Spyder is/was the operator Alt is the creator In some ways they are the reason anything Cyberpunk exists. According to CP:Red Johnny’s body was used by Alt to “clean” his engram. Alt exists either as a clone or a full conversion (Gemini chassis) with Alt’s consciousness running it. You need to go all the way back to the CP2020 book to get some of this.

[@LoneRogue96]

On a side note, I would agree that johnny has issues such as narcissism, but being around v and being mine melted together might actually fix him somewhat, because if you choose the ending where johnny gets the body and you two had a good relationship, he's not the way he used to be

[@michaelgutierrez8072]

OMFG that's nuts. That level of deception, I never thought about the tower flash back. Crazy.

[@linktojinx]

This is by far the greatest video game ever made and the only lore I have ever even remotely given a chance to audition to be better than fallout, and I can't believe I'm saying this but it is better than fallout and fallout is the only game I have played for the last 15 years other than starfield right before I started playing cyberpunk. There's so much to dive into in this game, and I've absorbed about everything I can find on it without going out and buying these books but I can just watch videos about it for free. So anyway, it is too bad that figuring out these lore mysteries and analyzing this has absolutely zero application to real life and will not assist in gaining anything at all, getting anywhere, or fulfilling any goals but man it sure is fun to think about.... But I say all that the point out this fact, we go to fiction like this to find these good stories, to get lost in an immersion about conspiracy and chaos and power struggles etc, but real life is actually not much different.... Now real life looks a little different and the people who do have cybernetic implants are either few in number, unknown, or intentionally obfuscated from the public, but come on we know this is already going on, right? They say there's more truth in fiction, and this whole idea that science fiction especially this game has been showing us but also starfield and fallout have shown us about this idea of a corporateocracy owning the best tech and having the most resources... News flash that is real life that is literally happening now and we're watching it rise. It didn't just start either, we're like in act 2 already at least, we might even be fairly close to the climax before act 3. Now I don't say all this to have anything to do with alleging or trying to prove anything about alien life, reptilians, Vatican conspiracies or anything specific. The only thing I claim is fact is that there is a there there.... They're absolutely is what is sometimes been called a breakaway civilization. It doesn't have to be alien, ultra-Terrestrial, reptilian, or interdimensional... In fact it's most likely just regular humans that have access to knowledge we do not. If you have access the knowledge no one else has by default you will gain access to technologies no one else has or maybe even thought of. At this point in society if you think what you see on the surface with smartphones, the internet, fighter jets, politics etc is what there really is here... I hate to say it but you're just a fool. Likewise if you realize this but then you claim to have the answers or claim to know everyone behind it or exactly what it's going on you are just as much a fool. But if you entirely dismiss this idea for the notion that mainstream narrative of technology and power structures are legitimate you are the biggest fool of all.

[@Shyy_Guyy]

Hearing this theory over and over makes me more wonder if CD did this intentionally or sorta ended up making their own version of what happened during the araska tower raid since they requested to not use Morgan Blackhand as little as possible to the point I wish I could personally ask the devs or find answers for it.

[@megachonk9440]

I never really thought about the Blackhand connection, but then I've never played the tabletop RPG, and CP2077 is the sum total of my knowledge of the "Cyberpunk" universe. It makes sense, though, and I suspect we (the player) were probably supposed to become more aware of this connection, but that CDPR ended up being unable to do so, since they were unable to secure the full rights to the Morgan Blackhand character, and could presumably not include him as a character. It would explain why Alt and Rogue both easily tell you that the memories you experienced as Johnny Silverhand are inaccurate, but stop at that and the game gives you no option to pursue it. A lot of this game feels like it's a truncated, abbreviated, and lesser version of what was originally intended. Probably because that's exactly what it is. CDPR had to scale back the scope of the game to make something that they could develop and publish, and even so, they just barely pulled it off and then still had to put in an enormous amount of work into saving their broken creation. It wouldn't come as a surprise that there was originally a lot more nuance to the Silverhand engram character than what made it to the final game.

[@b.thomas8926]

Johnny is a clinical Narcist. As in, he needs real help. He sees things the way he wants them to be. If its good for Johnny, its left alone, if its bad for Johnny, he changes it to make him look good. But yeah, I kept wondering about the whole nuke in the elevator thing. It didn't make sense. The whole arm thing bothered me, too. Him being wheeled into the ambulance didn't make sense.

[@megakaspe]

So in the next Cyberpunk game we will meet Blackhand played by Clooney, that would be awesome.

[@Physix_XO]

RadAustin return and TheGamingLemon return in the same day is crazy someone pinch me

[@Grimulfr]

I don't think that's correct about Adam Smasher having no beef, I think he just has no clue wtf V is talking about at that moment. Those lines sound like a crazy person, ROFL.

[@OniNoFro]

My old tt group got back together after the launch of 2077. We all caught, fairly quickly, what happened in the videogame as we had been playing since 1st Ed 2020, through the 4th War, through CyberGen with old characters making cameos and being distant mentors who ultimately failed to keep them alive (mostly due to PCs being essentially suicidal murder hobos) and even V3. That said, it has been fun watching people new to CP go "whhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaa?" when talked through what is written and what is left to interpretation. Haven't played through "the Red" officially but have talked about starting a new campaign with elements and consequences from the old ones because of some of the threads in Red. Anyways. Good video choom.

[@PandaGamingPodcast]

I used to play CP2020 table top back in the day and have used Sliverhand many times as an NPC. The golden rule of being a storyteller even inside of someone else's Universe is there is no rule. CDPR took some liberties on the story, it still was lit AF and they did such a good job with NC it was pretty much how I envisioned.

[@crush3rgaming419]

From zombros to CP2077 its really refreshing to see u on YT again. Hope life and everything outside has been going good and you are welcomed anytime back.

[@kuro19382]

Just started watching the video, so not sure if that is gonna be discussed, but I kinda guessed it wasn't accurate because you can make decisions on what to say in some of his memories. I didn't bother checking if they made any actual difference, but at least it hints that V's mind might be slightly altering Johnny's memories.

[@kimberlyhome228]

it's also possible that they simply didn't have enough left of Morgan and Johnny's data to do a proper engram and Johnny is the lesser of 2evils vs blackhand so they make him the main character of the situation

[@dessertstorm7476]

maybe they were forced to write everything in ambiguity because they didn't have 100% control of the rights. Merging the characters serves the narrative since they couldn't use blackhand as a character. They used the writing restriction to actually enhance their story.

[@motivateddad]

We know the Johnny's intro is fabricated because Shaitan was acting like fodder. Morgan Blackhand is the Solo of Solos, and Shaitan is the close second, and he is as borged up as Adam Smasher.

[@dalelesoway2962]

Yes, I notice that Johnny's silverhand memories are a lie because there's 2 different stories. Johnny, wet with rogue. And what are the people into the server room I've ever And that's what Johnny was killed by Adam. Smasher. The memories that johnny's got other memories of morgan blackhand fighting adam smasher on top of the building . It took me a while to put the pieces together. I was listening to a lot of people who were doing lower on cyberpunk, and they came up with exactly the same conclusion. That johnny's memories is a lie to cover up what really happened at the tower

[@AnonIllumi]

here is a simple thing that you have forgotten this is CDPRs take on the cyberpunk universe so it not going to mirror the source material, same scenario with the witcher.

[@Radaustin27]

It is the same universe and timeline as confirmed by the creator mike pondsmith. It isn't a spin off it is part of the main story.

[@fanofentropy2280]

No ones memories line up with reality. If you don't think that applies to you, you are just remembering your memories, not reality. We are all the main character in our story. Reality begs to differ.

[@GuntherRommel]

"Mike Pondsmith says he looks like George Clooney" And I always pictured him looking more like Wesley Snipes.

[@MeantSolid44]

The King has returned!

[@emiliomorales8507]

How did I completely miss you uploading 4 days ago? It's good to see you Reed.

[@Pimientoist]

Man, it's good to see you again Rad. Glad that you're tackling the Cyberpunk series. And again glad to see you again

[@tritebs1673]

I'm glad to not be the only one who thinks Blackhand and Johnny are both on that chip.

[@Kristers_K]

The soulkiller, how it works and the gameplay/story also creates a sort of internal psychological conflict for me as a player. Realizing the Soulkiller doesn't actually ''save'' a person, but merely creates a copy on a form of data that mimics the person it's used on, and that in itself is demoralizing because you'd think you are talking to an actual person but in reality it's more like an advanced form of AI. And it's just so damn sad and depressing, through out the whole story of CP2077 you form a connection, even sympathize with Johnny and people he had connection to and it all feels like a big lie. Like really, the only part of the whole game that feels genuine now is the Kerry Eurodyne one, but even those memories of Johnny's past are questionable. It all really devalues the story and really makes me question what is even the point of anything V does...besides trying to get the chip out and survive when everything revolving around Johnny feels fake.

[@ZAllen-bt6kb]

Seems like a great twist that doesn't have to undo everything we thought we knew. Hope its cannon!

[@UncleJoey]

Great thumbnail, great video, great commentary! Such a joy seeing a radaustin vid in my inbox!

[@Bull625]

was so surprised and excited to see that you've uploaded again. Welcome back.

[@Spectresilencer]

RETURN OF THE KING

[@ZombieaidZ]

Was not expecting to see this channel in my upload feed. A very welcomed suprise. Welcome back

[@dancing_rock]

Came across a couple of odd shards in the game, one is a short story about johnny and kerry pinned by a girl called lilly silverhand, second shard was discussing the success rate of the new chip in transfering personality constructs to a new body, the theory being there had to be a genetic component where the shard and the body had to have shared DNA, hence yorinobu being araska's heir for his shard to work. From this i jumped to the conclusion that V must somehow be related to the construct on the chip. Since the nanites are programmed with a particular DNA, and the success rate would be higher if the nanites had something to work with rather than rewriting an entire body.

[@leocorbino2922]

nice but if i rember correctly if you go to arasaka tower as v they told you that johny was responible for the bombing and there is no mention of morgan blackhand

[@4pmonathursday]

About time someone covered this

[@nnnneeeeuuuu]

You can see how unreliable his memories were just by using his weapon with V

[@rclemons95]

It's seriously so good to see an upload from you, Reed. It's been far too long old friend ❤️

[@_imV]

I completed a game on its very first version, and never cared about it again..

[@Eyeslayer]

I knew about johnny's memories but didn't know the full extent of how messed up johnny was. I do know that under no circumstance should you trust him.

[@sirashtown902]

This is the first video I've seen from you (on my recommended on YT homepage) and I think it was brilliant. Editing was great, voice over was amazing. It looks like you did a ton of research and presented it amazingly. Keep making videos like this and you'll def get there. Can't imagine how long this took to make either.

[@anukranan]

2:38 I suppose there really is quite a bit of argument about that within the context of Cyberpunk (forgoing any "real world" information and relying only on Cyberpunk.)