Johnny is a hypocrite (spoiler!)

[ZanyScum]

He killed a LOT of people and wanted to kill even more. He is responsible for an incredible amount of deaths through his actions too.

Now I "deleted" some 10 or so AIs and he is all whiny about it?
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hypocrite!.

[aidenpiti]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Silverbane7:

Początkowo opublikowane przez CityWidePrism:

Was it not johnny who gunned down Arasaka Security on the roof top and brought a bomb inside the building? I know arasaka had some shady dealings but not everyone who worked there was involved. You had innocent doctors, scientist, and people just doing their job everyday slaughtered because johnny didn't like the head of arasaka basically...

nope. the Johnny in our heads 'remembers' doing that yeah. but the Johnny who was at the AHQ was not the same Johnny.
Arasaka have changed his memories. he even knows they did *something*
'Did what they wanted with me' he says (if you actually talk to him one of the times you get scripted into a conversation)

Johnny Silverhand died on floor 120 of Arasaka Tower on the night of August 20th 2023, due to being ripped in half almost by Adam Smasher's weaponry.
he did not take a home made nuke in a duffle bag in with him, nor place it in the elevator, rigged to blow.

yes, Morgan Blackhand was there (he was leading Omega Team, Johnny was leading Alpha team)
Beta Team was the ones who had the briefcase nuke. They were Player Characters of the Tabletop game.
They were supposed to get to the basement, to steal the last intact database of world history, and plant the nuke then delta.
something goes wrong tho, and the last anyone saw was Adam Smasher and Morgan Blackhand facing off ontop of the tower, as they are evac'd away.

But when you go again to Arasaka with Rogue, you're in the helicopter and almost fall backwards she says "not this time" so it does imply that Johnny dies in the rooftop

[Silverbane7]

yeah.
it's little things like that which bug me, too.

('not this time')
tho it could simply be he's prone to falling out of things.
(now ya got me racking my brains to remember if he fell out anywhere else lol.)

i think that some parts of the mission we see are correct.
leaving the Hammer and flicking your cig. being carried away on a stretcher might even be a true memory.

but there are a lot of discrepencies.
Alpha team was Rogue, Johnny, Thompson, Spider, Shaitan and a bunch of Aldecaldo's known as Los Lobos.

Shaitan did not get taken out right at the start. in fact he lasted longer than Johnny iirc.
he actually faced off against Smasher lower down, lost an arm and grappled him.
Smasher ripped his biopod (the brain cannister) out of the body and was waving it at Morgan on the rooftop, taunting him.

Alpha team was just there to make (a LOT) of noise, grab Alt from the Soulkiller lab on floor 120, destroy the Mrk3 version of Soulkiller Alt was being forced to make and rig the lab to blow with plastic/C4. Spider was there to free Alt, she even jumped in to the mainframe there to talk to Alt and tell her what was going down.

while Spider was frantically trying to load Alt into her personal cyberdeck (which did not have enough RAM to take her, unfortunately) Johnny, Rogue and Thompson were planting C4 and watching for security.
Smasher turned up and had em pinned down.
Thompson got winged by a stray ricochet or bullet and went down.
Spider was trying to package Alt up but again, she was too big so started to dump her into the CityNet, which was still around.
(when the mission was written originally, Rache was gone but the Net was still intact, as were the City Subnet's iirc)
Rogue, Johnny and Shaitan didn't have the firepower to stop Smasher.
so, Johnny decided to taunt Smasher (yeah, dumb move but 'the Hand' suggested it lol)
stood up, pumped a full clip of bullets from his Malorian into Smasher and then looked surprised when he got ripped almost in half for his trouble by Smashers big gun.
Shaitan (iirc, its been a while since i read it. like 3 years almost i think) stood up, started grappling Smasher, told everyone to run.
Rogue and Spider grabbed Thompson. Spider had just finished dumping Alt into the CityNet so slipped a chip into Johnny's head as they helped Thompson out.
Last thing Rogue and Spider saw on the roof as the chopper evac'd as Smasher and Blackhand facing off.
Morgan had called Smasher a 'pipsqueek' lol
those two were deadly opposites and this fight had been brewing for years.
Smasher relied on chrome while Morgan relied on flesh.
both thought they were the one in the right.
the MiliTech nuke went off just as the chopper was away and they saw Smasher and Blackhand falling down with the tower.

[Falaris]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Silverbane7:

yeah.
*stuff*

Just to let others play in the same club, some links/sources:

https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Cyberpunk_story
https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Never_Fade_Away_(adventure)
https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Countdown_to_the_Dark_Future

Of course, while CP Red and CP 2077 did compare notes before release to make sure they were on the same page, some pages were written separately. Then again, some - particularily historical references - may be off by a great deal because in this setting history is marketing; the 'true' history is lost and only competing propaganda remains. (Like reality, only more so.). At no point in 2077 is history told by the 'narrator' - they are all individual accounts who may or may not be well informed (Except, I understand, the end credits?).

Then you may say Johnny's memories are true, but he's a delusional rockerboy - making his eyewitness account highly dubious - whose memories may additionally have been edited.

[Silverbane7]

Oh. It's 100% likely that his memory of that night is altered.
I think the only parts that are accurate are leaving the club, and maybe getting carried away on a stretcher.

Even HE knows something was done. Just not what, exactly.

Personally I think Arasaka planned to make him a scapegoat. They just never got the chance, as President Kress used the attack to not only force MiliTech into becoming NUsa property but to also kick Arasaka out of the country.
They tweaked his memories and his personality just enough to make him seem like an Arasaka hating wackjob.
He didn't hate them specifically till after Alt was gone in the tabletop. He just had the general 'corpos are bad, m'kay?' dislike most Rockers had back in the 2010's.
His first thought when waking after Thompson called in Trauma was 'i'm still alive?'
Then to ask for Alt. He didn't think they took her to make him mad. He didn't think of them at all till Thompson told him.

Yet suddenly, he's sure the corp was after her because of him.
He's getting into an argument with Kerry over some stunt he pulled using a gun on a Arasaka suit on stage.
He's part of a band playing dive bars still when Alt and him are together.

As impressed as I was that cdpr had actually added 'never fade away', I knew some parts were off.
I just wish Mike and co would clear things up.

[psionyx]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ZanyScum:

He killed a LOT of people and wanted to kill even more. He is responsible for an incredible amount of deaths through his actions too.

Now I "deleted" some 10 or so AIs and he is all whiny about it?
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hypocrite!.

Johnny's position on pretty much ANY topic is the exact opposite of whatever choice you pick as V. I've replayed the same scenes and chosen dialogue choices that are directly opposite in tone and moral/ethics on whatever topic you want, and Johnny will pretty much always choose the opposite response. Even when that response is opposite to what he previously said. They built him to perpetually be the counterpoint to V for the entire game.
He's also a construct that likely had his memories altered while he was in Arasaka's clutches for 50 years, and working off incredibly faulty information. So yeah, don't really listen to anything Johnny says, he's mostly full of it, and that's on purpose.

[Lapom]

Engram Johnny is an unreliable narrator. You can't trust his memories. Arasaka messed with them and make him take credit for what Morgan Blackhand did. If you take down what he said and details in his memories, you'll notice a lot of inconsistencies. Alt Cunningham's AI tells you this in the game.

[psionyx]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Lapom:

Engram Johnny is an unreliable narrator. You can't trust his memories. Arasaka messed with them and make him take credit for what Morgan Blackhand did. If you take down what he said and details in his memories, you'll notice a lot of inconsistencies. Alt Cunningham's AI tells you this in the game.

It's debatable if it's Arasaka who messed with his memories, or if he self-edited them while in limbo for 50 years to help sooth his guilt and trauma. IRL we rewrite memories all the time, including what they call "flashpoint or flashbulb" memories. Those things like "where were you when 9/11 happened?" or "Where were you when JFK was shot?" They've done studies for decades and had people come in regularly (like once a year, then once every few years, etc), and write down, in as much detail as they can, X event that they say "I remember it like it was yesterday". And the reality is that it's almost always different. Sometimes significantly different. Similar to the details being different in Johnny's memory, compared to the events as listed in the ttrpg module. So yeah, it could be Arasaka tinkered, or it could just be what passes for normal memory editing for a digital being kept in limbo.
Either way, yes he is very much an unreliable narrator, who has a compulsion to make himself the center focus of every event, and the hero of every incident.
About the only thing he says that I believe 100% is that he HATES Arasaka, and hates the engram program, and feels it's the single most dangerous thing to the concept of freedom for humanity. He's living proof of how dangerous the project is, and Yorinobu's fate under his father is further evidence of how dangerous it is. To allow the oligarchs true immortality. So when he says that he's motivated to try and stop that, it's not just the emotions of a 50 year dead rockerboy, it's the emotions of an actual victim of the program, determined to not let anyone else end up like him. THAT i do believe, everything else? Suspect af

[Falaris]

Początkowo opublikowane przez psionyx:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Lapom:

Engram Johnny is an unreliable narrator. You can't trust his memories. Arasaka messed with them and make him take credit for what Morgan Blackhand did. If you take down what he said and details in his memories, you'll notice a lot of inconsistencies. Alt Cunningham's AI tells you this in the game.

It's debatable if it's Arasaka who messed with his memories, or if he self-edited them while in limbo for 50 years to help sooth his guilt and trauma. IRL we rewrite memories all the time, including what they call "flashpoint or flashbulb" memories.

While I fully expect him to 'massage' his impression of things while he has a meatbrain, I am not so sure he CAN when he is an engram. That would defeat the purpose of storing their engrams for interrogation and exploitation, as it's assumed is Arasaka's purpose for the initial versions; if your prisoner can just delete the information you want from their own head - or turn it into misinformation - it would be foolish to assume they wouldn't. Johnny did mention that while he was 'alive' during the time's passing, he had very little volition.

[psionyx]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Falaris:

Początkowo opublikowane przez psionyx:

It's debatable if it's Arasaka who messed with his memories, or if he self-edited them while in limbo for 50 years to help sooth his guilt and trauma. IRL we rewrite memories all the time, including what they call "flashpoint or flashbulb" memories.

While I fully expect him to 'massage' his impression of things while he has a meatbrain, I am not so sure he CAN when he is an engram. That would defeat the purpose of storing their engrams for interrogation and exploitation, as it's assumed is Arasaka's purpose for the initial versions; if your prisoner can just delete the information you want from their own head - or turn it into misinformation - it would be foolish to assume they wouldn't. Johnny did mention that while he was 'alive' during the time's passing, he had very little volition.

Right but what would be the purpose in altering his memories in the way they are presented to V and the player? I mean if we're just saying he's a test subject, and disposable, and so they wanted to see if they could make minute changes to his memories without corrupting the full engram, then ok, that WOULD make sense from a corpo R&D perspective. But nothing of that is presented in the game. It's only vaguely hinted at in-game that his memories don't synch up with reality to anyone else involved in those events. V never questions the validity of what they're being shown, and discrepancies never come up as a significant plot point in the game. The only real way to establish the differences, is to source outside material for comparison. So, from a game perspective, why do this? It just seems like a big waste of time that ultimately never gets addressed in game? I know Mike has gone on public record saying they went to a LOT of effort to make the story/events presented in 2077 make sense and be lore accurate, so I don't think it's simply someone misrepresenting the Arasaka attack and it slipping through testing (though I guess Mike could be lying to save face, but I dunno, seems odd). The only other engrams we potentially see in game are Jackie, and his is incomplete, and Suburo, who seems more cognizant, but we also don't really interact with him in any significant way.
So I dunno, it's a big question that is basically given a shrug and "meh" response from the game itself. I can see it either way, as 2077 is pretty on board with the idea that A.I. can/are sentient beings, what with how many mini-stories about sentient programs exist. So the idea of engrams being sophisticated enough to actually engage in self-delusion (like organic beings) is entirely feasible. But also some Arasaka lab nerd saying "hey let's run those new memory protocols on the ♥♥♥♥♥ out rockerboy engram" is plausible too. There's just not enough either way to say for certain.

[Silverbane7]

I saw it as some low level intern had the project dropped in their lap.

"Bill, we need you to fix this engram so it looks like it's responsible for the AHQ attack. Can't let anyone know it was our ADD that blew, and the higher-ups want it to look like it wasn't us and MiliTech fighting again. No, I dont care if things are sh*try where you are, get. . it. . done"

At first they thought it was their own nuke. Yes, Arasaka had one tucked away in the basement, right next to the Mikoshi facilities they were building, and the place they had that one last digital database of intact history of the world.
(This is why you do not destroy the hardcopy data after you digitise it all)
The Arasaka Area Denial Device was still there, tho it took years for that info to surface.

I think the plan was to use Johnny's engram as a scapegoat.
But the person or people who worked on him didn't know much about him, the band or why he would even be there.
Arasaka records would show the connection to Alt, which would connect to Soulkiller. So, got to make him seem like he already hated the corp even before they 'hired' Alt.

(Kidnapping is a death sentence if proven by law in NC, but the big Corpo types use it to 'headhunt' the best talent sometimes. They ether truly hire the person, or they dump their body someplace like it was a gang.)

Whoever went in and changed him didn't do that good of a job tho. They went with 'mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain' levels for some parts they changed.
One moment he's pretty normal, rational even.
Next, he's saying things that seem totally insane, suggesting stuff that's at odds with things he's already said.

One moment he loves the city (like when your nomad keeps the car) the next, he's for dropping another nuke on it (gig to kill a 6th street server, for politics)
Yes... Mike said some of it is Johnny deluding himself. Everyone is 'the main character' in their own memories sure. And you don't get to be a famous Rocker with a label if you don't have a certain level of narcissism.
He also said Johnny's engram is damaged.
Party our fault from the heist, partly the rads he took both as he was carted away and as an engram.

But there are just too many differences (to my mind) to say he hasn't been tampered with.
And having Saburo show up, talk to him, making Saburo seem like the victim.
Him saying how the dead do not lie. That's a way to trick anyone watching the engrams memory into believing they can't be altered.
(Making it seem like the 'testimony' is true and cannot be falsified)

If you help Lizzy Wizzy with her boyfriend problem and wait to see the full convo between her manager and the Arasaka sales woman, he asks if it's possible to 'fix' the engrams personally. To make her more like she was before going full Borg.
The woman instantly denies it, then asks 'what kind of personality changes?'
Like it's a reflex that it can't be done...can't have the lower classes thinking it can...but...fir a price....maybe....

So, that tells me it CAN be done. They CAN do it to engrams.
And someone else is doing it to living minds with the Peralez couple.
It's much easier to just change digital memories than meatware synapses I think lol.

So they went in, covered their corporate arses by making Johnny seem like some whackjob ranting on a street corner, who had a reason to hate them from before (the real reason) they 'hired' his output.
That way, anyone looking would see him and a few crazy people attack the tower.
Scrub all mention of MiliTech. All chances of seeing Morgan Black hand too, which is why we don't see him there.

(He has an early npc model still in the game. Mr Blue Eyes. They repurposed it after Mike said he's off limits, he is Mike's own personal character and he's got plans for him we think, in the tabletop)

For Arasaka at the time.. better to have some jumped up terrorist with a whacked agenda blow your towers up, than it gets out it really was just corp on corp warfare yet again.

[Lapom]

Początkowo opublikowane przez psionyx:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Lapom:

Engram Johnny is an unreliable narrator. You can't trust his memories. Arasaka messed with them and make him take credit for what Morgan Blackhand did. If you take down what he said and details in his memories, you'll notice a lot of inconsistencies. Alt Cunningham's AI tells you this in the game.

It's debatable if it's Arasaka who messed with his memories, or if he self-edited them while in limbo for 50 years to help sooth his guilt and trauma. IRL we rewrite memories all the time, including what they call "flashpoint or flashbulb" memories. Those things like "where were you when 9/11 happened?" or "Where were you when JFK was shot?" They've done studies for decades and had people come in regularly (like once a year, then once every few years, etc), and write down, in as much detail as they can, X event that they say "I remember it like it was yesterday". And the reality is that it's almost always different. Sometimes significantly different. Similar to the details being different in Johnny's memory, compared to the events as listed in the ttrpg module. So yeah, it could be Arasaka tinkered, or it could just be what passes for normal memory editing for a digital being kept in limbo.
Either way, yes he is very much an unreliable narrator, who has a compulsion to make himself the center focus of every event, and the hero of every incident.
About the only thing he says that I believe 100% is that he HATES Arasaka, and hates the engram program, and feels it's the single most dangerous thing to the concept of freedom for humanity. He's living proof of how dangerous the project is, and Yorinobu's fate under his father is further evidence of how dangerous it is. To allow the oligarchs true immortality. So when he says that he's motivated to try and stop that, it's not just the emotions of a 50 year dead rockerboy, it's the emotions of an actual victim of the program, determined to not let anyone else end up like him. THAT i do believe, everything else? Suspect af

I don't think Johnny had any agency while he was in limbo state in Mikoshi. He was essentially in storage. Engrams are basically just save data of humans and won't run without some program accessing them. So the idea that Johnny self-edited his own memories seems unlikely to me.

[psionyx]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Lapom:

I don't think Johnny had any agency while he was in limbo state in Mikoshi. He was essentially in storage. Engrams are basically just save data of humans and won't run without some program accessing them. So the idea that Johnny self-edited his own memories seems unlikely to me.

But then again, why? Why would they do it in the way they did it? If we are assuming that every memory we see in-game, is an altered memory of Johnny's, done by Arasaka, why? To what end would they alter them the way they did? Why tweak him so that he's more of the superstar in his own narrative? Why give him a memory of not dying to Smasher, and instead having this dramatic 1 on 1 conversation with Saburo Arasaka himself? Why alter his memory to have him being carted out of a building where the blast was at the top, instead of at the base where it actually blew up? Why alter the memory where he punches the newsboy when they are at Alt's body? (something I've heard others say is not accurate to the canon content)? None of it makes any sense from an in-universe perspective, except for my previously stated "to see if we could" rationale. But again, why do that in the game, if it's not going to actually matter to the narrative in any way? Why establish Johnny as an unreliable narrator, and then do nothing with that plot point throughout the entire game? We don't learn that he's remembering things wrong, and discovering the true memories don't reveal any new insight that allows V/Johnny to continue their fight for life against Arasaka. It's just....a really weird discrepancy. It's a chekov's gun that never gets fired, and doesn't even really get pointed out in the story. Just people noticed it in passing.

[Silverbane7]

Początkowo opublikowane przez psionyx:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Lapom:

I don't think Johnny had any agency while he was in limbo state in Mikoshi. He was essentially in storage. Engrams are basically just save data of humans and won't run without some program accessing them. So the idea that Johnny self-edited his own memories seems unlikely to me.

But then again, why? Why would they do it in the way they did it? If we are assuming that every memory we see in-game, is an altered memory of Johnny's, done by Arasaka, why? To what end would they alter them the way they did? Why tweak him so that he's more of the superstar in his own narrative? Why give him a memory of not dying to Smasher, and instead having this dramatic 1 on 1 conversation with Saburo Arasaka himself? Why alter his memory to have him being carted out of a building where the blast was at the top, instead of at the base where it actually blew up? Why alter the memory where he punches the newsboy when they are at Alt's body? (something I've heard others say is not accurate to the canon content)? None of it makes any sense from an in-universe perspective, except for my previously stated "to see if we could" rationale. But again, why do that in the game, if it's not going to actually matter to the narrative in any way? Why establish Johnny as an unreliable narrator, and then do nothing with that plot point throughout the entire game? We don't learn that he's remembering things wrong, and discovering the true memories don't reveal any new insight that allows V/Johnny to continue their fight for life against Arasaka. It's just....a really weird discrepancy. It's a chekov's gun that never gets fired, and doesn't even really get pointed out in the story. Just people noticed it in passing.

Game wise it's simple.
It's not fun to die in game like that.
Where is the fun in standing around waiting for an hour for the drop, jittery and making smalltalk with old friends. Then flying to the drop and watching Spider do the tech stuff, shooting an occasional mook on the way in.
Then getting pinned down by Smasher, only to have a mental conversation with yourself (and 'the Hand' ) and choose to jump up, shooting a gun that you know will not hurt Smasher, getting flatlined for your trouble and maybe your in game last visual being the big chrome guy wrestling with Smasher.

Contrast that to seeing yourself take over a Gatling gun and clearing the rooftop. Then placing a bomb in a bag, shooting the cables. Getting your friends to wait while you run a gauntlet of Corpo suits, getting 1 shot kills and feeling super human (even exploding heads with some headshots)
Uploading a virus that can release your ex girlfriend, while seeing the propaganda on the TV then that big reveal of Smasher. Him targeting you and you feeling like the hero as you escape....only to get hit on the way up and see your team's chopper spinning away with a busted rotor as your personal nemesis stands over you, delivering what has to be a kill shot.
Yet you wake to find yourself unharmed, on some flying thing or in the distance of some skyscraper, watching the nuke YOU planted, blossoming in the sky, while the Corpo boss you HATE stands before you and you, the hero, crack jokes like you aren't gona die.

Which is more fun? Exciting?
I'll take door number 2 please, Bob.

Lore wise, Arasaka (probably) planned to use his engram to testify that he, Johnny Silverhand, was responsible for the attack.
'it was MY nuke, MY attack, My plan' sorta thing.
Saburo was there at the 'interrogation' to show and tell.
Show that Johnny had a beef with them, tell that 'the dead do not lie'
Having Saburo reinforcing the idea that engrams cannot lie, their memories cannot be changed (even when they can)

The official line at Arasaka is engrams cannot be altered, their memories cannot be changed and their personality cannot be 'tweaked' to others liking.

The truth is we know they can be, by inference.
We know their personality can be 'adjusted' by how the Arasaka rep responded to Lizzy Wizzy's manager and boyfriend after he asked if they could make her 'more like she used to be' before going full borg.
We also know living minds can be altered, their personality changed due to the Peralez case. Their memories edited.
(It's possible this is new tech, new techniques learned via engram editing)

Why would Arasaka want to make everyone believe engrams cannot lie, that their memories cannot be changed?
To use ether to pass the blame (in this specific instance) or to make legal statements that lawyers use to get Arasaka out of trouble.
But President Kress never gave them time to make that legal argument.
Blackhand dropped the info on what happened on her desk. The failed MiliTech raid (what they were after, what they did and what went wrong) the outcome and aftermath. Then Delta'd the hell out of there, never to (officially) be seen again.

She used that info. First to pressure MiliTech into becoming a presidential/government owned corp. The NUsa would own MiliTech. In turn, THEY would take on all NUsa military contracts and work. Provide support and gear for all NUsa military missions. Be the backbone of NUsa research and development. Be their black ops teams and so on.

She also used this, and the public outrage, to send Arasaka packing, claiming that it was their device that went off I think , at least initially.

Alt says Johnny's memory bears no resemblance to the truth, because she only remembers HER side of the story (of her body's death)
We can read how it originally happened in the story/mission in the 2020 sourcebook.

The differences are that we never see them fighting nor breaking up before the attack outside the Hammer. That the guy who hit Johnny didn't have mantis blades, but wolvers. (Wolverine style claws)
Johnny's first thoughts were 'I'm still alive?' then 'Where''s Alt?' and he didn't think it was Arasaka doing it to make him mad. He had no idea till Thompson told him, that Arasaka were the culprits
He also had no specific hatred for the corp untill after Alt died.

We get to read about Alt's side of things.
Waking up after being dropped off at AHQ and realising she's been 'headhunted' by them. (Aggressively hired). Realising what they want, knowing what they likely plan to do to and with her. Being forced to create a new, mobile version of Soulkiller and also knowing they will plan to test it on her the moment she's done building it.

How Johnny hates having to bother Rogue with this, but she's the best in the biz.
Getting the Malorian from the goon he glasses with the bottle. Them fleeing outside, only to be cornered near the car by a chopper. Which Thompson blows out if the sky with heavy ordnance (saving Rogue's life to boot, as she was their first target in line)
Sitting for hours on a fire escape while waiting for Rogue's contacts to pass deetes along, doing maintenance on his Hand.
Then planning the 'concert' a free Samurai concert in the park just across from the first Arasaka building.
(Yeah, the rioters trashed the place good. Arasaka remodeled afterwards into two towers, something everyone has to forget about)

Alt actually accomplishing her task, giving the new programme it's orders, while Toshiro Arasaka strips her implant jacks (the point where old netrunners jack into their external cyber decks) so he can bypass her personal protections and use her own programme against her, while she is still in the Arasaka tower mainframe.

The concert, with the guards standing outside the front doors, being nervous. Because back then, Arasaka didn't have the same iron grip on the city's politicians they do in 2077.
So they can't just shoot everyone and ignore it.
Johnny manipulating the crowd, feeling the surging emotions and directing them towards the guards and the tower (yeah, that's what Rockers did back then. Sing up a storm, use the lyrics to make people angry. Angry enough to riot like one big mad animal)
One dumb guard getting trigger happy and letting off a shot, which started the crowd.
Rogue using her rifle (Prejudice) to pick off specific targets once the violence started, and the team going in.

Them getting to the lab, finding Toshiro waiting there because Alt had already taken control of the lab, used the turret defences to take out Akira (the goon in the suit that zips about with the sandevistan) but them not being able to get inside.
Alt having already taken about 20k in eddies from the corp, making it look like embezzlement from Toshiro, and sending it to a hidden account. Then, holding him prisoner while she prepared to jump back into her body.
Only to have the communications disrupted by Thompson's C4.
So not being able to yell to Johnny NOT to disconnect her.
Him shooting Toshiro via the Malorian by saying 'Bang' (the way V can do to Royce...a little Easter egg there) then disconnecting her body while she screams at him from behind the walls, stuck in the tower mainframe.

We, the reader get both sides. But Alt only knows her side of the story (and so far, we have yet to see HER memories of it.) maybe if we are lucky (or unlucky) we might see her side of it next game (tho I doubt it, unless they are going to use Alt in that as a playable character, which again, I doubt)
Her own memories will be just as subjective as his. Tho her memories may not have changed, because she won't have spent ten years going over and over them in a spiral of anger, grief and self damage like Johnny did.

Yeah, it's possible he tried to tell himself they were breaking up, as a way to stop feeling the pain of loosing Alt.
But the game paints their relationship more toxic than the tabletop ever did. Tabletop Alt and Johnny were the 2013/2020 Romeo and Juliet of their decade.
(Just like Gustavo Orta and his 6th street girl are 2077's)
Johnny spent ten years trying to get himself killed by drinking, smoking, fighting and singing songs that made people mad at him.
In other timelines (Cybergenerations) he made BioTechnica so mad at him, they blew him up. Blew his AV into bits, leaving him in two bits (he really has this problem of getting cut in half lol)
And Alt spent that time gathering data, shifting money, tech, information and equipment around. If she was doing the same things she had been in Cybergenerations, she was making money, building Shangri-la (not for Kang Tao, but for herself and people like her, who 'survived' getting Soulkilled. And being mad at Arasaka for changing her version of Soulkiller to make it fry the body of it's victims. Something it never originally did.
Collecting a sample of her own DNA to make a clone body for herself, planning to get back to her body and using proxies and remotely hired folks to do this. Building a secret lab to do this in (or planning for it)

There is a lot that the game does not show or tell the player. Even tho it gives us a massive amount of information via shards, website BBS's and in game set and world building.

[Falaris]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Silverbane7:

Why would Arasaka want to make everyone believe engrams cannot lie, that their memories cannot be changed?

The other reason would be because this directly references Arasaka's brand new flagship product line: Relics and how safe they are.

If you buy something like that - for the price of a small country - you want to be damn sure you are still 'you' and that they can't mess with your head; that would be just a bit more trust than many would be willing to give, otherwise.

I mean, this is one of the major plotlines of the game, and Johnny's personal hobby horse - how corporations redefines humanity to their own advantage.