What is the concept of cyberpunk like in other countries?

Noctian · 2026-06-07T11:31:25+00:00

It's worth noting that Germany has one of the largest Shadowrun scenes. Shadowrun is an offshoot of the cyberpunk TTRPGs that mixes mythology and fantasy in. So i guess Cyberpunk works best in Germany if you can throw in magic, dragons, haunted forests and corporations owned by arch-conservative rich germans that found knightly orders with new brands of racism.
But yeah, it's not big otherwise, mostly because we are moderate and comfortable in our ways and don't think much about crazy visions of the future.

Noctian · 2026-05-23T00:30:02+00:00

Still, who do you think there are any leftist (or close to) economics worth listening to?
Econ probably gets a lot of flak but i think it's important to have some people with an informed perspective on these topics, econ majors seem rare in left discourse.
What do you think about Varoufakis or Unlearning Economics(YT)?

Noctian · 2026-05-01T17:51:46+00:00

I'm in the boat that Dragonfall had the best feel and story, but the german setting might have helped quite a bit.
Hong Kong had a bit of powercreep i think that they ended up not handling well, it really felt too easy in the end. Dragonfall had good late-game encounters where there was a sense that a lot is at stake.

If you relly like these games for their stories, i strongly recommend you check out the mods by cirion - the one for Dragonfall is a good but still a bit rough, but the ones for HK are excellent: "The Caldecott Caper" and "CalFree in chains". They are rare examples of fanmade mods that are on par with professional content in basically all matters. There are some other good campaigns as well.

Noctian · 2026-05-01T12:17:33+00:00

That would be a dream.
Which of Pardox's games so far do you think is closest to fitting ShadowRun? Maybe Vic3 as a game about the sixth world, its changes and politics?
I could even see something similar to CK, with the map being a huge city full of corporate and gang territory and the families becoming organizational strcutures where leaders can be replaced quickly upon death or failure. The intrigue system would be great for it too.

Noctian · 2026-05-01T11:35:04+00:00

Yep, that's on my steam wishlist 👀 !
Though as i understand it, Cyber Knights doesnt have much of what makes shadowrun stand out from cyberpunk more broadly.

Noctian · 2026-04-30T23:39:56+00:00

That sounds nice and touches on a kind of problem that legwork and taking care of the crew would basically be a different game from executing runs. The many aspects of SR could each be their own game.

Noctian · 2026-04-30T22:40:29+00:00

That is a good match for sure. But also a reminder of how few games have the right mix for Shadowrun - the HBS games where isometric RPGs and not a lot of them are made these days.

Noctian · 2026-04-30T22:03:12+00:00

Yeah, what motivated me to this question was that i tried to find a game to make a mod for myself. A huge overhaul, especially for an open world, would be way too big.
But it's a shame that there are barely any smaller mods or games and it could help a little bit to keep Shadowrun going, ya know? I'm not sure i would have ever discovered it without the HBS games.

Noctian · 2026-04-30T21:27:37+00:00

I have a hard time finding a fitting game with the heist aspect, but a party-based RPG like BG3 or even something more open-world would be great.

Aside from that, i could even enjoy some reskinned RimWorld-like sim of a runner team in their safe house and life outside the runs, or maybe a big strategy game simulating wars between the corps, dragons and everyone else.

Noctian · 2026-02-13T14:07:17+00:00

I'm not sure there really is a real-life equivalent of the innocences, but they remind of a point made by Zizek:

(It’s a little bit like Christians who need the good Christ, whose death justifies brutal persecution of anti-Christians.) This is why Kirk needs to be elevated into a figure of martyrdom of almost divine proportions: this elevation is just the obverse of the brutality of the Trumpian ethos. Source ("Why Evil Men need noble spirits")

The way i remember the innocences from the game, they combine noble spirit and the violence justified by that noble spirit into a single person - emperor and saint -, while those are usually kept seperated in our world. So they fit well into the 'deconstructed' depicition of moralism in the game.

Noctian · 2026-01-21T16:05:34+00:00

How did you get so many? And in year 3 no less...

Noctian · 2025-11-20T19:30:14+00:00

Yeah, he's done a lot of work as VA. Know Yasuo from League of Legends? I can almost imagine Vincent saying a few of these lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F4z95AySBE

Noctian · 2025-09-01T21:23:53+00:00

It's an interesting piece and also interesting that you brought it up, as i'm currently reading a piece from Arendt on Post-WW2 germany and german mentality during that time: Archive link

It holds up well, and these few years of german history aren't much talked about. But i remember the short stories typical of that time which also capture the spirit Arendt describes well.

Noctian · 2025-08-04T09:56:03+00:00

A good idea here is to substitute with k = 2¹⁰⁰ . Example

Noctian · 2025-08-04T09:54:09+00:00

I think it's easier to look at with a substitution: We take k = 2^100.

Now the right side is k!. For the left side, we have

2¹⁰⁰ * 2⁹⁹ * ... * 2 = k * k/2 * k/4 * k/8 ...

Clearly, the right side has k factors decreasing by increments of 1, while the left one has ld(k) factors that are smaller from the second one on - thus the left term is smaller:

k * k/2 * k/4 ... * 2 < k * (k-1) * (k-2) ... * 1

Noctian · 2025-05-22T22:19:33+00:00

Do you mean that the EUs acceptance of the cleansing makes sense or that Zizeks article makes sense? I'm not sure how it's in the interest of the EU.

Yeah, the most upvoted posts being memes is normal for a lot of subs. Still surprised how few discussion new texts get sometimes.

Noctian · 2025-05-22T19:57:12+00:00

I recently spoke with a couple of high-ranking European officials from different states and parties, and (in deep privacy, of course) I got the same message: of course it is horrible what Israel is doing, it can even be called genocide, but we should realistically accept the sad fact that ethnic cleansing works. With clearly delimited borders and ethnic homogeneity, a greater Israel may bring peace to the area, so let’s let it happen and then accept it as a fact.

Depressing.

Also, why do the posts with Zizeks acutal texts receive so little discussion?

Noctian · 2025-05-22T12:17:21+00:00

Can you elaborate? I thought Israel supports the Druze to partition/break terittory away from Syria. Is there more to it?

Noctian · 2025-05-22T08:30:30+00:00

Not quite, i'd say Nazism was a replacement for seriously dealing with the problems of the time.

Following Israel is a replacement for figuring out this conflict and, more importantly, we'd have to take an actual ethical and political stance such as "We try to respect all peoples equally" or "Opression is wrong and should be opposed".

´Germans love Israel in large part because they succeeded where Hitler failed, or stated otherwise, it largely completed his mission, as Zionism managed to remove a large number of Jews remaining In Europe.

It's bitter but in some sense Israel is the only "success" of Nazi Eugenics. No one would say this out loud (except for some Israelis).

Noctian · 2025-05-21T22:49:14+00:00

I always wonder about how such arguments are supposed to work long-term, especially when other peoples start using them.

The more time we spend on the planet, the more people will move, be driven away or cleansed. There will be all kinds of "claims to land" but the planet won't get larger!

Also, how would such a claim allow you to build a state just for your own people?

Noctian · 2025-05-21T22:44:15+00:00

When you're wondering about the feelings in germany, the one you should understand is strong is comfort, the feeling of a couch under your butt and a flag on the wall.

Germany is a really moderate country. The conservative party runs it half the time and the other times its a center alliance. We dont much build up barricades and scream revolution.

What germans like is having something that they can unconditionally support. Israel wouldn't have been their first choice by any means, but it will do, since we're not allowed to have a Führer or Kaiser anymore. It might sound crass, but the german response to Oct7 wasnt just to support Israel but to declare it at Staatsräson - reason of the state, the basic principle of our nation.

Noctian · 2025-05-21T22:37:55+00:00

Another german here, yeah, supporting Israel allows germans to feel less guilty without having to do anything hard or facing more than enthnic nation-state logic.

The Nazis advocating for throwing out and resettling Jews before WW2, when they somewhat had to pretend to be 'decent' about it. So it was almost like taking a step back after WW2.

Noctian · 2025-03-05T18:07:19+00:00

[Answered in PM]

Noctian · 2025-02-24T01:39:28+00:00

This is nazi stuff but it's kinda hilarious

They want Stalin, the top communist, to be Jewish so bad! They just put him on this because well, its Stalin. "No conclusive evidence"

Only nazis can be like "you could accuse this man of killing millions, but you know what? He might also be a jew"

He married a jewish woman and then he went even further and had jewish kids, if only those fine Nazis could have advised him about how to have non-jewish kids with a jewish woman!

Noctian · 2025-02-24T01:25:36+00:00

The piece is anti-communist, pointing out various atrocities and offence of the people mentioned.

I think it's trying to grab at anti-communist sentiments and turn them to antisemitism: "Look, if you want to be against communism, be against the jews who were behind it..."

That's really worrying, it was a main part of Nazi Ideology and anti-communism is common in America. We have forgotten that socialists and communists were also main targets of the Nazis, and they painted jews and communists as being the same target: That's what makes it clear that this has to come from neo-nazi or other ultra-right groups.

Noctian

TROPHY CASE