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True Cyberpunk 2
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C Y B E R | P U N K
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+ volume one + issue two + summer 93 +
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TRUE CYBERPUNK is a free electronic magazine made for the enjoyment of both
net addicts and bbs hopers. We hope you enjoy and support the zine. We are
very happy that so many people were amused by our first issue. I apologize
in advance for the quick change of tone for issue two. Next time we should
be back to standard insanity.
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[1]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration Block (Introduction)..........................2
How to Subscribe to the TRUTH.............................2
How to SUBMIT to the TRUTH................................2
Richard Willis' Essay.....................................3
Where Time Went Wrong.....................................6
Virtual Style.............................................6
Late Breaking Update......................................6
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Yea yea yea! I know! No cyberpunk e-zine should be so 'organized'! BUT!
I FELT LIKE IT!!! so anyway... it's easier to read now and takes up more paper
than it needs to!
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[2]
Declaration Block
Ok this is the reason behind all the neat and tidy look of this issue!
Here it goes- I figured that with a name like 'TRUE' cyberpunk folks would
soon be looking to this zine for real TRUTH so unlike TIME or OMNI who have
failed to dig up almost any relavent information on CYBERPUNK and what
CYBERPUNK is we are going to bring you the possibly disappointing TRUTH on
cyberpunk!! (Run on sentences still included for that rebellious punk feel)
Subscription Information
Subscription is easy! Just send me your address and some info on yourself
if you like. Make sure your subject heading is TRUE SUBSCRIPTION. Send all
requests to ZZBARTONR@WINTHROP.EDU. This address should be active until the
year 1995 at least! The address will be updated as appropriate in later issues
so please keep up with it! If this issue is over a year old you might want to
track down a more recent copy before you go off and send your info to my
mailbox!!!
Thanks,
Reggie
How to SUBMIT to the TRUTH
To submit to the TRUTH send submissions to the same address as above.
Please mark your submission subject header as TRUE SUBMISSION. Make the first
line of your submission a short description of what your entry is about and be
sure to include if it is fiction or non-fiction.
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[3]
The following is an essay on cyberpunk by Richard Willis. Richard is a
Computer Science major at Clemson University in South Carolina. He has been a
computer user since early adolescence and has grown up in our virtual world.
He has also been an avid reader of cyberpunk fiction. He is also what we like
to consider a 'True Cyberpunk'. Currently he is a semester away from
graduation and all here at TC wish him the best of luck.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Death from Within: Anti-technological themes in William Gibson's Cyberpunk
The theme of technology as the bane of humankind is not a new one, it has
existed in science fiction since it's genesis in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, a
novel of a man's use of technology to create his own destruction. In more
modern works, we find that this theme has been expanded, from expressing man's
destruction as a result of his overdependence on a failable machine in "the
Machine Stops', to humanities destruction of his environment by injudicious
use of technology in "The Sheep look up." Many stories, past and present, tell
a tale of woe and despair and ultimate destruction if man doesn't overthrow
the dominance of technology. However, in the Cyberpunk genre, there exists a
new view to this old theme. It views technology, when seen as a bad thing, as
something man has accepted into himself, in a way closer that any commonly
taken by it's predecessors. It is seen a more personal and less personalized
threat, threatening the substance and perceptions of man, as well as man
himself.
The first of these, substance, is easily seen. Body modifications are a
major symbol of the cyberpunk view. A trip to the boutique to look like a
favorite star is a common occurrence, giving most people 'uniform good looks'
that will probably be like the most popular media star of the season. (Chrome
192) Anyone who can afford it alters their faces to what they perceive as
perfection, such as Ralfi's worship of his favorite star by wearing his face
(page 8), or by Johnny's attempt to disguise himself (page 6-7). We have
natural replacement parts, such as arms and hearts. We see Ratz with a plastic
arm in 'Nueromancer', and Automatic Jack with the myoelectric arm in "Burning
Chrome." The reason given for Dixie Flatline's death is that his heart, a
'surplus Russian heart, implanted in a POW camp during the war.' (Nueromancer,
78). From this, we infer that 'produced' parts are common and cheap. We also
find, however, more exotic parts, such as replacement eyes that have the
manufactures stencil on the iris, sharkskin skin grafts, Doberman tooth bud
transplants, and fingertip scalpel blades. (Chrome 198, Nueromancer 59, Chrome
20, Nueromancer 25) Replacement parts are seen as normal - even a status
symbol. In the story, "Burning Chrome", we find a character named Tiger
bragging about his new, "Sendai's", and Rikki willing to do anything to own a
pair of ZEISS IKON's, the 'Brand of the stars.' (Chrome 192) Other common
modifications include jacked reflexes, grafted muscles and enhanced vision.
(Nuro 147, 10, 32) We also see that these 'things' become more important than
the people. Tiger wears his Sendai's in an attempt to break into hollywood,
risking blindness because of their reputation of inferiority (Chrome 192),
and, when a major star dies, her 'eyes' are removed and returned to her studio
because, 'They belonged to [them] it was in her contract.' (Count Zero, 108)
As we descend deeper, we find that people have wires placed inside their
brains to allow technology to directly access their thoughts and vice versa,
and that companies place items in employees that produces substances in the
body to prevent them from leaving. (Count Zero, 79) We even begin to see the
human body itself as a 'thing' as shown in the description of an operation in
Count Zero, perceived by the patient:
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[4]
White curdled to gray cloud, objects taking form.... He
was flat against a padded ceiling staring straight down
at a blood stained white doll that had no head at all,
only a greenish blue surgical lamp that seemed to sprout
from its shoulders. A black man in a stained green smock
was spraying something yellow into a shallow gash that
ran diagonally from just above the doll's pelvic bone to
just below its left nipple....There were pink and blue
dermadisk stuck to the skin on either side of the doll's
neck. The edges of the wound seemed to have been painted
with something that looked like chocolate syrup...
This also can be seen by an incident at the beginning of the book, where a
person blown apart by a bomb is literally reconstructed from the ground up,
using pictures.
People avoid defining themselves by using a predefined model, covering
their fear of 'who am i?' by becoming someone or something else. They modify,
instead of learning and accepting, either wearing a mask or hiding behind
hardware. In many cases, the most complete people in the novels are people who
rely on their selves, such as Hideo the ninja and Case after he deals with his
emotions. We also see characters who use technology to define themselves, such
as Case's 'worship' of Cyberspace, and Molly's devotion to being a Street
Samurai, because they consider that they are what they do. Both cause them to
seek the possibility of their own destruction. When Case looses his ability to
function in cyberspace, he goes into a suicidal spiral. At the time of the
novel, he was estimated to live less than a month before he coned 'the street
into killing [him] when [he wasn't] not looking.' (Nueromancer, 28) Molly
takes on an assassin because he's 'one of the best' and she 'had to see', to
test herself to see if she could beat him, her self image forced her to.
(Nuero 218) We also find even more subtle manipulations. In the story,
'Johnny Mnemonic', Johnny has had implants in his brain to allow him to store
information that he cannot access, only transport and recite like an idiot
savant. This leads to his problems and eventual death as told in Nueromancer
by Molly. In Count Zero, we see Bobby's mother, Marsha, addicted to simstim
soaps, experiencing someone else life over the magic of cyberspace. Although
it isn't mentioned directly, we also get the feeling that almost everyone
'watches' simstim, loosing themselves in the being of their favorite stars,
even as their stars define themselves by being that definition.
The second threat that technology may be seen as posing to humanity in
Cyberpunk through it's alteration of perceptions. As mentioned before,
simstim is the replacement for television, the pablum for the masses. You plug
into a box, and suddenly you are experiencing the recording of someones sense
- sight, smell, sound, movement. People find escape into this new reality,
where they can be a successful star, at least for a few hours or so. In Count
Zero, Bobby relates how his mother lives:
she'd come through the door with a wrapped bottle under
arm, not even take her coat off, just go straight over
and jack into the Hitachi, soap her brains out good for
six solid hours. Her eyes would unfocus, and sometimes,
if it was a really good episode, she'd drool a
little....She'd always been that way, as long as he
could remember, gradually sliding deeper into her
half-dozen synthetic lives....(Count Zero 38)
Cyberspace is a trap in much the same way. People will even create their own
little worlds, as shown in our glimpse into Slide's 'apartment' in Count Zero,
and Bobby's 'mansion' in Mona Lisa Overdrive, both of them constructs in a
computer where they 'live' apart from reality. The only difference is that it
sucks up the creative and the misfit, the uncommon people who become deckers.
In either case, both media become escapism from 'reality'. In Mona Lisa
Overdrive, we even see one of the characters has a black oval that contains a
'companion' which only she can see as she claps it, so she can carry a
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[5]
portable reality with her. On top of this, we find many people addicted to
drugs, designer drugs, with names like octagon and betaphenethyhamine, to
cope.
Thirdly, the technology threatens individuals directly, with 'slamhounds'
that track a person by his phonemes and hair color to find and blast him out
of existence, helicopter drones to guard people, neural disrupters that would
disable a persons nervous system temporally, Black ICE in cyberspace to fry a
deckers brain, and designer drugs and mycontoxins to target and destroy parts
of their body and body functions. (Count 1, Mona Lisa 17, Nuero 5, 252-3) Many
of these devices and gimmicks are not unique to Cyberpunk. Simistim exists in
a conceptual form in stories such as "The Machine Stops" and "Fahrenheit 451",
designer drugs and virtual reality are elements of our own reality, as is
humanities dash for the cash and for their emulation of their stars. Today,
there exists a computer network spanning much of the globe which people will
explore for hours on end via keyboard and monitor. Even the various items
produced by technology in these novels exist today. What is different is
the reduction of the human body and psyche to simply 'meat', as Case puts it,
and data. Humans stop being controllers of our world and start to become part
of the substance of the 'world', that dish out and accept manipulation
casually as a matter of life. Gibson novels and stories in particular consist
of levels upon levels of manipulators, which, in Mona Lisa Overdrive, extend
into the metaphysical realm of demons in Cyberspace. In this point of view,
we see the same problem that we see in the beginning of "Earth", too much
freedom of every individual leads to the restriction of everyones freedom.
Freedom becomes an item on the free market, which you can take or 'buy' from
others until someone takes or buys it from you. It is a perpetual Darwin
system, with the survival of the fittest, but what is the definition of the
fittest? The fittest are those who can best use and best be used by the
technology, which continually evolves independent of human evolution and much
faster, thus overpowering it, Humanity becomes a small cog in a very large
machine of it's own design.
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[6]
Where Time Went Wrong
Magazines Like Time and Omni have over romanticized the cyberpunk
movement. All real cyberpunks know it! Some call cyberpunks matrix cowboys
defending the frontier (I like that one). Others say they are two bit hackers
and terrorists, and still others feel that they are a legitimate national
threat that needs to be wiped out. Ok here's the scoop from our corner of the
net! According to most people I've talked to MOST cyberpunks would agree to
the following description: That Cyberpunks are people who have made the
virtual community of networks their homes. They are eager (perhaps overly,
maybe obsessed) with trading information and data of all kinds. Above all
cyberpunks detest boundaries the credos of free access for all are real.
Cyberpunks don't put a price on info, it is free interchange all the way.
While most do feel that way there are of course cyber opportunists and jerks.
There are also cyber-hackers and other varieties. More than anything else
remember this CYBERPUNKS ARE WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY WILL BE. Place no
boundaries on them, they won't stick.
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Virtual Style
Here is our "Hype list" for all those "wired" individuals.
Jacked Drek
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Front 242 Time and Omni's Cyber WHAT?!
Front Line Assembly XTC
Wired VSL
3D0 Wild Palms
Speed Racer AT&Ts new "You Will" Commercials
Codes and Cyphers TRUE CPs new format
Literacy Literacy
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Late Breaking News
According to the latest issue of Sega's Visions fanzine their is a company
called Dimensional Foods Inc. that will be marketing Holographic Candy. That's
right we're talking about food with a 3-D images on top of them! Not on the
wrapper but on the top layer of the product itself, you EAT the hologram.
Although it sounds really nifty I just don't understand it! The cost of
this sweet has got to be high to cover the cost of the image production. I
don't know about you but if I'm going to pay $1.50 (my guestimated price per
pck.) for chocolate with a groovy hologram on top I'm not going to want to eat
that neat picture. So what will we do? Refrigerate them? Maybe cryogenics
holds the answer?
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Stay Tuned Boys and Girls TCP will return this fall with it's original insane
format. So put all this truth behind and enjoy yourself! Don your Mirrorshades
pull up a terminal program and jack in!
Reggie
P.S. SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!! SUBMIT!!
