Cyberpunk is dead. We want to save her! Bring her back.Post your thought, ideas, works in process design documents and anything about the project in here! The competition closed for entries at the end of June 2010.
A few years ago, human beings were alone: the only sentient species; the only beings with rights, names, speech. But things have changed.
It all began with the first experiments into Access: the technology which allows the mind to communicate directly with machines. It was necessary to perform experiments: to design and implant chips in the brains of infants; to write the software that would interact with them. These were experiments far too dangerous to be performed on humans, but which needed human brains – or some close equivalent. For test subjects, a new breed of rat was engineered. They were given human DNA to alter the shape and functioning of their brains and make them more humanlike in responses and abilities. Most significantly, their brains were made larger and they were given a speech-centre like that of the human brain.
The experiments met with great success: the rats, implanted with Access chips (later known as Wisdom chips) as infants, quickly learned to use their wireless capabilities and interact with the computers around them. They soon surpassed manual human operators at the artificial tasks given them, and within two generations were using their abilities to communicate amongst themselves.
But the true significance of these developments was not recognised until the subjects escaped from the lab.
For the first time, mankind was suddenly faced with another species as intelligent as itself; other beings with which it could communicate, living freely. It did not face the challenge well. At first, a quiet war was waged against the rats. Governments realised first, before the rats' existence was made public, and the danger they presented seemed clear. They could use computer systems with greater speed and adaptability than the most skilful human operator and so posed a risk to all the world's computer systems. The rats were hunted both physically and digitally: specially written viruses were unleashed to search for the distinctive usage patterns associated with Access and infect the hardware implanted in their brains. Individuals could then be tracked, or the viruses could scramble their Wisdom chips and leave them brain damaged or dead. Hundreds of rats were killed.
But rats breed fast and are hard to find, and the war slowed to a halt before they could all be eradicated. With the improvement of human Wisdom chips and improving digital security, the rats posed less of a threat. At the same time, as the public became aware of their existence, genocide became less and less politically viable. In the end, an uneasy stalemate was reached: the majority of rats were rounded up and settled in Enclosures, little more than internment camps. It was planned that a place would be developed for them in human society and that soon they would be given freedom of movement, speech and thought.
But somehow these changes never came to pass. Humanity is xenophobic at heart, and the political will never existed to allow the integration of their new neighbours. The rats remained in the Enclosures, their food, water and hardware supplied only in an unpredictable trickle by their captors. Those especially co-operative with human beings and willing to work were favoured, but no true escape was offered.
Today, society is split into two distinct groups: the rats within the Enclosures, and humans without. Human society is making great leaps forward: life can be extended nearly indefinitely, fewer and fewer people live in poverty, and technology makes society progressively richer. However, few of these benefits filter down into the Enclosures where the rats live disenfranchised in growing chaos and deprivation, and while the human masses enjoy greater and greater material wealth, they are slowly deprived of their powers of choice and independence. In a world where governments are merely one more type of organisation, no more powerful or significant than corporations, charities or NGOs, democracy is of little relevance, and rights apply only within a shrinking domain. The few humans who see danger in these changes – mainly criminals and others on the edge of human civilisation – are the only ones willing to deal with the rats, delving into the fringes of their strange and volatile society.
What keeps the rats trapped within their dwindling Enclosures? What are the shadowy Connection Makers, and who are the mysterious ratkings? Are the myths of independent rat colonies true? Should the rats accept the subordinate roles offered them in human organisations? Will the warring tribes ever unite to fight for their rights? For freedom? For survival?
So yes. The idea is cyberpunk with sentient rats, who also happen to be particularly proficient users of digital devices. It'll be looking at themes such as: mysticism, ignorance and preconceptions on both sides of a divide conspiring to perpetuate inequality and deprivation; the boundaries between real experience and simulated experience with a focus on non-visual experience (the rats experience the net more through smell, touch and taste than sight); the dangers of arming non-governmental organisations; and the erosion of traditional societies through exposure to the post-industrial global society.
I realise that the art is a bit dodgy - it was the first bit of art I've done for a few years, and I was using GIMP which I don't really know very well yet. I may ask around and see if I can get friends to contribute artwork rather than struggling to do my own, if this would be acceptable within the parameters of the competition (artists would obviously get credit). Inspirations include primarily a short story written by a friend which was steampunk horror with anthropomorphic rodents, the film District 9, and various factual materials I've read/watched, mostly linked from threads here. I intend also to include a very simple, thematic rules system, though I haven't got many ideas on that front as yet (except quite possibly it will include a dice pool and colour-coded dice. I like colour-coded dice). I actually probably won't do that much work on this until after my uni exams and dissertation hand-in, so it'll probably end up being rather rushed - but better rushed than never ^^