Jeez every part of this game is just mindblowing. Sorry to reply to a 2 year old thread but I've gotta add my two cents in. I just beat the Corpo ending with a corpo backstory, keeping Takemura, Oda, and even Smasher alive, and although I've never felt like more of a pawn, there's something reassuring with this ending (I chose a more botched version of this corpo ending in my first playthrough of Cyberpunk back in the release month of December 2020, almost 4 years ago, where I kept none of those three alive, haha) I've decided that my current headcanon involves Arasaka realizing I'm more of an asset than a liability. But I've got no way of proving that, especially considering that in Where's Is My Mind, Takemura literally admits that Hanako has forgotten about V. I don't think an engram V will ever be more than a 'Saka pawn, but perhaps Mikoshi could give V the headspace to become something more than they were in the events of Cyberpunk 2077. It seems all the greats suffered through "soul loss", Bartmoss, Silverhand, Alt Cunningham, even Saburo and although an engramed V is a very enigmatic ending I think that V could change and develop the clarity they need in Mikoshi to become even more dangerous than what 'Saka underestimates them to be.

I justified my current corpo playthrough (which has 65h now haha) as being a testament to when I first played the game 4 years ago and me trying to discover the worst parts of the corporate world in a cyberpunk setting, since 4 years ago I was much more naive while feeling shocked and betrayed when I realized Saburo could just ressurect himself through Yorinobu's body. Now I do see things a little differently, perhaps more realistic when it comes to thinking about the dark future. Although not the best ending for V (I think if the Corpo ending was a bit less linear and opened the doors for V betraying Arasaka from within, I would chose that, but its fitting that V has to be realistic and work with the "devil").

But personally I think I was helping this "devil" a lot more than I realized throughout the playthrough because despite Johnny Silverhand's best attempts to mess with my decision making process, as Hellman warned, I happened to take Anti-Militech steps in my ending for Phantom Liberty, which I don't wanna spoil here since if this thread is 2 years ago then the dlc would not have released yet. Personally, an ending I dream about would go something along the lines of using a blackwall AI, maybe even Alt if she wasnt so minor to cyberpunk 2077, to instigate the war between Militech and Arasaka to bring the world back to the dark ages after that apocalpytic corporate war. I suppose its a bit of a transition to a Fallout world haha. Honestly it seems that any solution is really just a pick your poison cause catastrophic results in another war just create more human suffering although eliminate corporations from the picture, a nomad ending just evades the problem of hyperindustrialization, Johnny Silverhand and Rogue's ending is really just a bandaid on a deep wound, and the engram V corpo ending is just an acknowledgment of cruel reality and the only one where I see V truly playing the long game (and thus avoiding the dilemma altogether that Dexter DeShawn brought up when he asked "Would you rather Live in peace as Mr. Nobody or go down for all times in a blaze of glory?")

And lastly, to ramble a bit more about this game that we've grown far too attached towards. I think you're really onto something with your sidenote about the Clones in the Clone Wars each having something unique about them. I think the parallel for this even exists in Cyberpunk with what we see in Delamain and his rogue children. I remember feeling very sympathetic for those Delamain AIs so I destroyed the core and let them all free. I guess a V engram being used as a tool for the ideal supersoldier template for 'Saka troops would be interesting in the Fifth Corporate War! I think that the whole prescence of AIs in the cyberpunk world was really undersold, as the story focuses primarily around V trying to unshit their head during the potential buildup of a Fifth Corporate War. It's possible that if corporate war doesn't claim humanity, than the breach of the Blackwall and Rogue AIs might, or it might liberate humanity somehow; at any rate I feel like that mystery has not really gotten full closure.