Johnny's memory mix up doesn't sit right with me.

[Ciaran Zagami]

Why was it done anyway? Just to avoid having Morgan Blackhand in the game so he could come up in the DLC? Or was it to hype the player up for a (super disappointing) boss fight with Smasher?

Anyway, how is a construct able to have false memories? On one hand Arasaka claims Engrams can't be altered once they're scanned. And on the other Johnny says being in Mikoshi is like being asleep, had no awareness of time or anything.

Lastly, why does Rogue react to being reminded that Johnny died IN FRONT OF HER when she was never on that strike team in reality?

[Zebedee]

Assuming Arasaka aren't lying about engrams, which may not be a safe assumption, human memories are distorted by remembering them. Johnny has remembered events as the hero of the story and so that's what his engram remembers too. We also only have fragments of his memory with what V gets to see and there are obvious gaps even without knowing any background lore.

Would have been done in conjunction with Pondsmith, so we may not get full insight until he catches up on the timeline with the TT.

[Silverbane7]

okay, Arasaka is lying when they say Engrams cannot have their memories changed.
they just don't want it to be known.
if you do a quest for Lizzy Wizzy, and watch the security feed, you can hear the Arasaka Rep asking just exactly 'how' the guy wanted to change up the Engram's personality/memories, after the standard company line of 'we cant change an engrams memories or personality'

Johnny's memories are subjective.
he remembers the attack on the Tower the way he does because
1) he's the Hero in his mind, so he's got to be a badass.
2) Mike Pondsmith says the radiation from the attack has scrambled some of his memories too. and
3) yeah, some of it is CDPRs desires to make the events of the attack more....cinematic and fun, if you will, and another part is to remove Morgan from the events because he's not allowed into this game.
(mike said he's using Morgan Blackhand for some CyberpunkRED stuff, so he cant be in the game per say. he could appear in memories but thats about it)

Rogue was 100% at the attack on Arasaka towers. both times.
Alpha Team was there to be bait, to lure out the security, and were expendable.
in the digital game, it was Johnny, Rouge, Spider Murphy and Shaitain.
while in the tabletop it consisted of Johnny, Spider, Rogue, Shaitain, Thompson (the Media guy) and a group of Aldecaldo's called the Los Lobos (most of whom were whiped out, but a few survived) who had been sent by Nomad Santiago (Rogue's old partner from 2013)

there were two other teams. Beta Team (who actualy carried the suitcase nuke. who were the player characters for that module, hence why they tend to get forgotten) and Omega Team, which was headed by Morgan Blackhand.
Morgan was last seen standing on top of the tower, fighting Adam Smasher after calling him a 'pipsqueek' (lol)

the truth about the attack, from a digital gameplay standpoint is..it was not fun.
Johnny's team just shot a few gangoons, planted some plastic explosives in the Soulkiller Lab (on floor 120), tried to extract Alt, and got caught in a firefight with Smasher.
Johnny taunted his cyborg ass into shooting him, to buy time for Spider to free Alt, and to buy time for Rogue and his friends to escape, after getting pinned down by smasher, while Thompson was wounded.
no heroics. no blaze of glory, no Johnny doing all the cool ♥♥♥♥ and being a legend.
he was dead (or close as to) before half the story was done.
so i can understand why they (cdpr) wanted something a bit more...cinematic and interesting.

personaly, i think that Arasaka planned to use Johnny's engram as testimony that it was 'not our fault' that the nuke happened.
that they planned to appeal to the (then) president of the NUsa when she told them to get out of NightCity and the rest of the NUsa, banished them from america alltogether for decades.
that the idea was to have this engram of Silverhand be talked to by her, and his responces would allow them to claim it was 'just that damn terrorist. we lost people too, good people, good workers!'
hence why any mention of Morgan (and the rest of the team) was scrubbed from his memory.
he's also lost some memories from other areas, and his personality is slightly different.

he didn't hate all the Corpo's from the start. never had a hatred for Arasaka in particular until they grabbed his girl.
before that, he had the standard distain for Corpo's and authority of any Rocker. they were usefull for making edgy music, the politics of the day so to speak.
but his first thoughts on waking up in the medbay wasn't 'Arasaka took my girl to get to ME!' is was 'huh, i'm still alive?' followed by 'Where's Alt?'
he didn't start to hate Arasaka till they took the love of his life from him.

so im also wondering if they altered his personality a bit to make him more of the terrorist they planned to paint him.
but, they never got the chance, the president of the NUsa didnt give them any. she manipulated MiliTech into becoming a governmental company, and tossed Arasaka out of NC and America for years, till it came out that MiliTech had a suitcase nuke with them when they went into the tower.
(though it was never general knowledge that Arasaka DID have their own nuke , refered to as an ADD, or Area Denial Device, in the basement of the tower, incase of a hostile takeover.)

[Zebedee]

Thing with the Arasaka rep about Lizzy Wizzy is that the first thing she says is that it can't be done. And when Lizzy Wizzy's boyfriend says why he wants it done, he then quickly changes subject as if it's not something worth pursuing. It's at best inconclusive either way.

[Tokenn]

I wouldn't count on the story of the game being exactly the same as the Lore. If you are a fan of the TTRPG I can understand the confusion...

[Ciaran Zagami]

Originally posted by Tokenn:

I wouldn't count on the story of the game being exactly the same as the Lore. If you are a fan of the TTRPG I can understand the confusion...

That would make more sense than what we got but the game actually takes steps to say this is not a retcon and the inaccuracies are part of the lore. Which just makes them feel weird and out of place.

It brings Johnny's character down a lot imo

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by Tokenn:

I wouldn't count on the story of the game being exactly the same as the Lore. If you are a fan of the TTRPG I can understand the confusion...

Heh heh. Its murder.
I was watching everyone play (didn't have the digital game then) and first, I was seriously impressed they (cdpr) added 'never fade away' which is the introduction module to play for your first tabletop. But confused about the second Arasaka tower (chronologically speaking) since I didn't think that was how things went.
Had vague memories trying to resurface about it.
Then, I got the cyberpunk RED book. Read the tale in there.
Remembered finally... Standing in my local games/comic/anime shop, reading it. Being so sad as to the ending. (Since I had just 2013/2020 and cybergeneration... Which kind of gave Johnny and Alt a happy ending...or the closest they would get, I guess) putting the book back and spending my money on something else (lol....I should have got it, its seriously hard to find nowadays)
I had three different tabletop timelines, crashing about in my head like a game of bloodbowl XD with the digital games stuff sitting on the sidelines like a chainsaw wielding cheerleader, cheering all three teams on.

[Tokenn]

Originally posted by Ciaran Zagami:

That would make more sense than what we got but the game actually takes steps to say this is not a retcon and the inaccuracies are part of the lore. Which just makes them feel weird and out of place. It brings Johnny's character down a lot imo

One of the things I focus on is that the thing in game V's head is _not_ Johnny Silverhand, but rather a cybernetic software construct based on the 'real' Johnny's memories/dreams/fantasies whatever. There's no reason to assume that it's an accurate view of the reality/history of what happened. But it's what V[and we] have to work with, so on we go.

[Dr. Parafox]

Originally posted by Tokenn:

Originally posted by Ciaran Zagami:

That would make more sense than what we got but the game actually takes steps to say this is not a retcon and the inaccuracies are part of the lore. Which just makes them feel weird and out of place. It brings Johnny's character down a lot imo

One of the things I focus on is that the thing in game V's head is _not_ Johnny Silverhand, but rather a cybernetic software construct based on the 'real' Johnny's memories/dreams/fantasies whatever. There's no reason to assume that it's an accurate view of the reality/history of what happened. But it's what V[and we] have to work with, so on we go.

Although that's true. I think we also need to take into consideration that Johnny also doesn't always tell the truth. Rogue has mentioned this to V before. He remembers what he wants to remember, but it doesn't mean its accurate. However, it could also very well be that the manipulation of the memories did in fact happen, despite Arasaka claiming it's not possible. This can be proven with the whole Peralez quest in Cyberpunk where there is prove some secret organization is able to change your memories. I think Mr. Blue Eyes, who spies on you in the quest, is the man behind this. Either way, the game left endless possibilities to theorize and all sound possible.

[Vela Darney]

1) Arasaka probably DOES experiment with altering engrams/memories. I mean, why wouldn't they? Wouldn't it be great to, say, kidnap some important, infulential person who's on the fence about some Arasaka stuff, Soulkiller him, change his engram so he's pro-Arasaka now, toss him back into his body and release him again? Also, if you were doing that kind of ♥♥♥♥ for stated reasons - would YOU tell people? Or would you lie and insist it's impossible?

2) If you do experiment on engrams, which ones do you use? Those of the really important people? Or some old junk engram of, say, a washed-up has-been rockerboy who didn't even manage to blow up 'Saka Tower? (Sorry, Johnny, but fact is - you're just not that important to 'Saka - they barely know who you are, except for Yorinobu maybe. Your only value lies in using you as bait to lure Alt out into the open ...)

3) A Youtuber once used a very good example on how that remembering things wrong works. Say you're a kid and you got your favourite orange ball that you play with all the time. In all your memories, that ball would be orange. So everyone who sees your memories would also see an orange ball. Plot twist: In reality, that ball was red. You just remember it being orange for whatever reason. Johnny speent 54 years hanging in Mikoshi, he had plenty of time to re-invent what went down in/on 'Saka Tower that night and tell himself that's what really happened to permanently alter his memories.

4) Alt explicitly does say Johnny does remember things wrong IN THE GAME so I really don't know why there's still people out there taking everything they see in his memories at face value. Personally, I'm going with the tabletop versions of events as the REAL events and everything that diverges from those events in Johnny's memories is something he remembers wrong for whatever reason (radiation damage, him telling himself that's what really happened until he finally believed it, him remembering stuff wrong, etc.)

[Doctor Idgaf]

Originally posted by Vela Darney:

1)
4) Alt explicitly does say Johnny does remember things wrong IN THE GAME so I really don't know why there's still people out there taking everything they see in his memories at face value. Personally, I'm going with the tabletop versions of events as the REAL events and everything that diverges from those events in Johnny's memories is something he remembers wrong for whatever reason (radiation damage, him telling himself that's what really happened until he finally believed it, him remembering stuff wrong, etc.)

I think a big hint to this is the helicopter scene during the first Johnny flashback in the game. Look at how Shaitan is kind of lamely firing the HMG at a ludicrous number of guards on the roof of the tower and contrast that with how Johnny heroically mows them down without breaking a sweat. Upon repeat viewing this really stands out and was the first thing that made me realize how unreliable of a narrator Johnny is.

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by Doctor Idgaf:

Originally posted by Vela Darney:

1)
4) Alt explicitly does say Johnny does remember things wrong IN THE GAME so I really don't know why there's still people out there taking everything they see in his memories at face value. Personally, I'm going with the tabletop versions of events as the REAL events and everything that diverges from those events in Johnny's memories is something he remembers wrong for whatever reason (radiation damage, him telling himself that's what really happened until he finally believed it, him remembering stuff wrong, etc.)

I think a big hint to this is the helicopter scene during the first Johnny flashback in the game. Look at how Shaitan is kind of lamely firing the HMG at a ludicrous number of guards on the roof of the tower and contrast that with how Johnny heroically mows them down without breaking a sweat. Upon repeat viewing this really stands out and was the first thing that made me realize how unreliable of a narrator Johnny is.

i don't think its 'lamely firing the HMG' more that he is using short controlled bursts of fire.
the equivalent of 'five rounds rapid'
WE 'heroically' mow them down (lol) as Johnny without breaking a sweat.
(though that was how I did that the first couple of times. then i started using the same method of bursts, not because the gun would overheat, but because it felt better. unless i just want to MDK things in which case its 'DakkaDakkaDakka' XD)

not saying that you are wrong about how Johnny wants to remember things, though.
Alt says his memories are wrong (though i think she means about how she 'died' more than anything else) but then, her own memories of the event will be subjective too.
the only way to 'see' the truth would be to observe it as an outsider, the 'fly on the wall' type of thing.
(which was, incidentally, how the players saw the story parts of the 'Never Fade Away' mission in the tabletop.)