Cyberpunk manifesto

We are those, the Different. Technological rats, swimming in the ocean of information.

We are the retiring, little kid at school, sitting at the last desk, in the corner of the class room.  We are the teenager everybody considers strange. We are the student hacking computer systems, exploring the depth of his reach. We are the grown-up in the park, sitting on a bench, laptop on his knees, programming the last virtual reality.

We are those that see reality in a different way. Our point of view shows more than ordinary people can see. They see only what is outside, but we see what is inside. That's what we are - realists with the glasses of dreamers.

We are those strange people, almost unknown to the neighborhood. People, indulged in their own thoughts, sitting day after day before the computer, ransacking the net for something. We do not have many friends, only a few with whom we go to parties. Everybody else we know we know on the net. Our real friends are there, on the other side of the line. We know them from our favorite IRC channel, from the News-Groups, from the systems we hang-around.

We are those who don't give a shit about what people think about us, we don't care what we look like or what people talk about us in our absence. The majority of us likes to live in hiding, being unknown to everybody except those few we must inevitably contact with. Others love publicity, they love fame. They are all known in the underground world. Their names are often heard there. But we are all united by one thing - we are Cyberpunks.

Society does not understand us, we are "weird" and "crazy" people in the eyes of the ordinary people who live far from information and free ideas. They deny us for we think like free people, and free thinking is forbidden.

Alex Foster chapter 4

Three days later, when we were playing and eating nachos, I got call from army lab. “What`s wrong? I still have four days off from work”, I asked. “I`m sorry Mr. Foster, but we have problems with hybrid. She is physically and mentally perfectly developed, but refuses to perform her tasks in simulation. Can you come and fix her?” Of course I had no other option than say yes, after all I was still just a student.

 

“Hi..”, I began to ask, until I realised that I didn`t know her name. “What`s your name?”

“I`m A`rya”, she said smirking, which looked pretty scary because of her long, snake-like teeth. “So A`rya, I heard you had problems with commanders. Why you didn`t perform your tasks in simulation?”

 

“Why I would kill man that hasn`t hurt anybody, just because they told me so? I don`t even know who they are, I certainly don`t think they are any better. They may have created me, but they don`t own me, and I don`t have any part in their war.” Then I understood, she was good person, and I didn`t want to turn her into murderer. But she was too intelligent and dangerous that they would let her go. I had to save her.

 

After I left work, I started to figure out what I would need to save her and run away. I already had swoop board, stun gas and hacking programme in USB stick that I could use to open electronic locks, but I needed money and some kind of gun. Money was easy, Frank had lot of BitCoins, so I only had to go to automat that changed BitCoins to cash. Then I went to see our friend Janus, who was Harlequin.

 

In Liberty Army,(that was main group of NTAO25), there was two kinds of members. Pathfinders like Frank, Echelon and I were developing better systems and informing others, while Harlequins were kind of like guards. They protected young members who didn`t yet understand the thruth about surveillance and System, and also activists in demonstrations.

Janus in Harlequin uniform

Alex Foster chapter 3

In high school I met Frank, clumsy and manic nerd, who soon became my best friend. He had had growth spurt in summer and was really awkward with his long arms and legs, but he was also best gamer in NTC and beat even many professional gamers. Maybe he could be world champion, had he not stopped competing only 3 years later, when he got tired of being a celebrity and got interested about game designing.

He still loved playing virtual games, though, and had teach a lot to Echelon and I. Last few moths we had played a game called Underground New York, where players were either members of gang or policies, fighting against each other, while trying to take the lead in own side. Best part of the game was that it wasn`t played only in game site, but around the web and in real life. Frank, Echelon and I were gang members, so in game we take part of street races, tuned up cars, shot policies and run away with swoop boards and motorbikes.

But that was only covert to Serious alternate reality game called Never Trust Anyone Over 25. In Never Trust Anyone Over 25, that was created by organisation called Sustainable, Anonymous and Free Economy (SAFE), players are fighting against abuses of authority, internet surveillance, and developing better systems, such as Project Schools, Resource Economy, Free Press... The players search and share information in Deep Web and Xnet, share music, books, games and programmes for free, and use hacktivism and jamming to defeat NSA.


We also had to look for information in Deep Web, use cheat codes and find clues in mysterious websites and streets, but because of Frank was very talented player and hacker, and we had many friends who helped us, we beat everyone.

 

 

Alex`s apartment in Underground eXperiment. I love that Matrix screensaver!

What is the Matrix?

Don't trust 'em as far

As you can throw 'em

Because as strong as you may be

You won't be able to move 'em an inch

But you don't have to believe me

Go ahead and be the corporate stooge

That they trained you to be

And then you'll see what you get for your loyalty

They call it, 'Down sizing'

But that's just a backhanded saying

For the phrase, 'We're gonna screw you

Until you're down on your knees'

In my opinion, The Matrix films provide the best metaphor our society has for understanding why organized evil and oppression are allowed to exist. The Matrix is not the physical world. As far as I'm concerned, the physical world is actually real and is in fact governed  by the laws of physics. Matrix is also not the Internet, despite what many seem to believe. The Matrix covers both these worlds.

So then, what is it? Well, that's complicated. Much like in the movie, it's nearly impossible to convey the size and scope of the Matrix to someone who doesn't already see it for what it is.  The Matrix is the social structure that enslaves humans to its will. It is the machinery of society that exists only to maintain itself, its influence, and its power independent of any human need.

It divides us from each other and ourselves through deception, and transforms us into servile engines of economic and political power. The machines that live off this power are institutions: large corporations, governments, schools, religious institutions, and even non-profit orgs. Every institution will reach a point in its existence where its primary function becomes self-preservation, instead of serving human need.

At this point it becomes a machine of the Matrix. For example, when they become machines, governments no longer serve people but instead seek to extend their power over them; corporations prioritize increasing shareholder value over producing quality products or otherwise serving the public good; schools view students as a means and not an end;  

and non-profits and charities spend more budget on fund raising activity than on their original focus. Inevitably all large institutions eventually become machines. They become too big for humanity.

You see it every day, everywhere

On the TV screen

Each time a different face or family

But it's always the same

"We worked here all our lives

Gave them everything we had

And now they say they're gonna move the factory

To a Third World country where the labor is cheap

But the fact, my friend, that you don't see

Is the money you spend on the goods they make

Supports their methods of abuse on the Third World scene

And in your very own backyard, yes, your country

So I won't be the consumer that they want me to be

Because the goods I own aren't going to set me free

So I won't buy that crap they want to sell me

Because the goods I own won't set anyone free

Lyrics from Consumer`s song by Anti Flag, ideas from Morpheus, smartest boylover in Deep Web :)

Alex Foster 2. chapter

Alex stared the hospital bed, where the “woman” was sleeping. It hardly could be called human: It had long, poisonous teeth coming out of her mouth, perfect bone structure and muscles, not to mention her wings and scorpion spike. Suddenly woman wake up, and Alex saw her cat-like eyes widened in horror. It screamed, unable to speak, and doctors rushed to calm her down. Eventually they managed to take her to instant learning chair, that would download everything into her brains, and turn her to dangerous weapon we intend to create.

My part was over, and they gave me week off from work, so Frank decided to skip the rest of the day and celebrate. We take high-speed train to downtown and buyed a pizza on the way to comic store where Frank sometimes worked. Why we went there, you wonder? Well, in the staff room, there was stairs to underground tunnels and our loft apartment was just under the comic store.

Frank had lived his whole live in Underground, because his parents wanted bigger apartment than they could have afforded above, and there was also much cleaner air and safer. He had spent most of his childhood reading comics and playing computer games. My sister Echelon and I had lived very different life.

We had moved around the USA and were homeschooled, and after I turned seven, (Echelon was nine at the time), we moved around the world with our mum who worked in sustainable development projects. We lived in Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, India and even Afghanistan, and learnt things you can't learn in school, such as native languages, mythology, martial arts, parkour and kite fighting. By the time I was 15 and returned to USA, I had much more knowledge than average high school student.

Alex Foster

Alex is 22 year old, short and skinny guy with brown hair and dark green eyes. He studies genetics in university, is interested in politics, computers, writing and drawing. He keeps a free press blog, has friends in Underground eXperiment and runs his computer as relay of Deep Web, which has lead to problems with authorities.

He is friendly, hardworking and creative, but he has difficulty of trusting other people and focus what he should do (is often lost in his thoughts). He has lots of ideas and is not afraid of anything, but doesn`t know what he should believe or do.

Then, one sunny beautiful day came, and Alex was forced to make a decision that would not only change his live, but the whole world: Would he dare to become society`s villain in order to save it from nightmare?

 

 

 

Chapter one

 

Alex walked in campus with his friend Frank. Or Frank was flying with his swoop board, scaring other students, but he just laughed to their angry glares. Today he was manic, and there was nothing you could do to make him act like grown up. Alex was actually little jealous about his carefree mood.

 

He was worried about what was happening in army lab where he worked. They had managed to create hybrid animals with genes from at least ten different animals and artificials parts, and he was afraid that they would use the same technology to humans, creating some kind of super-soldiers.

 

Normally any student wouldn`t be allowed to work here, especially when he has friends in Underground eXperiment, but Alex was one of most promising students in university and the lab was only good place to learn about genetic modification and stem cells, so here he studied his two last years.

 

Frank studied game designing, so Alex waved to his red haired friend and agreed to meet him in library during lunch. Alex walked to laboratory, gate read his RFID chip and after he gave his fingerprint, it allowed him to go inside. The team had managed to grew functionable brains from stem cells few days ago, and today they would print a hybrid human with bioprinter and  join the brains in the body, hopefully managing to bring it alive.

 

New Tech Polis

After New York was destroyed in Oil War, the government build New Tech Polis, were lives 15 million people. All energy is produced with solar panels and fuel cells from water, or by burning wastes. Most work is done by robots or immigrants, only most intelligent and creative persons have jobs as scientist or factory manager, the rest spend their either watching TV or doing voluntary work.

The economy is based on resources instead of competition and debt, and everyone has as much energy and food they need, thanks to artificial meat and genetic modification. Everyone are not happy, though. The citizens are under surveillance all the time, there is no privacy or own space because there lives too many people.

That`s why some of people have moved outside the system, to self-sufficient cities like Atlantis, or Underground eXperiment, hacker-artist community under the city. There lives also many of Alex`s friends.

New Tech Polis

After New York was destroyed in Oil War, the government build New Tech Polis, were lives 15 million people. All energy is produced with solar panels and fuel cells from water, or by burning wastes. Most work is done by robots or immigrants, only most intelligent and creative persons have jobs as scientist or factory manager, the rest spend their either watching TV or doing voluntary work.

The economy is based on resources instead of competition and debt, and everyone has as much energy and food they need, thanks to artificial meat and genetic modification. Everyone are not happy, though. The citizens are under surveillance all the time, there is no privacy or own space because there lives too many people.

That`s why some of people have moved outside the system, to self-sufficient cities like Atlantis, or Underground eXperiment, hacker-artist community under the city. There lives also many of Alex`s friends.