They call it the “AIDS of the new century”.
Someone says that it comes from an overload of the implant’s signal to the human brain. Someone else says that we are running too fast, that we’re pushing to the edge too hard, and our biological body simply can’t keep up.
Don’t believe them.No one really knows exactly why it happens, but everyone knows what it will cause. Have you ever heard of massacres made by a heavily-implanted guy, covered up by the government?
Yeah. It’s not a rumor. So far, I’ve seen it two times. I was lucky, both times. Others weren’t.
How to avoid it? It’s easy. Don’t augment yourself. Yeah, that could be a little problematic in a society like ours, where the only job that un-augmented people can find is to beg at cross-roads.
A cure? Don’t have one, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, I would be selling it to the highest bidder.
Just beware. Each new implant you install is a new step toward Cyber-psychosis. I really hope you won’t have to know what happens when you reach it. I really like you, I would hate to see you dismembered on the street before you kill someone.
Cyber-Psychosis is the Plague of the cyberpunk’s setting. A mental illness caused by an overload of cybernetic implants in the body whose symptoms gradually worsen with each new implant installed.
Cyberpsychos are not all the same, and each of them exhibits different symptoms: some of them become more distant, showing a loss of empathy and contempt for life; others gradually begin to identify themself more as a machine than a person and stop doing things that gave them pleasure (eating, sleeping, socializing, having sex, etc.); others start to hallucinate, see things that are not there, hear voices in their heads or become trapped in memories from their past, sometimes sweet dreams – but more often nightmares.
As the condition worsens, the cyberpsycho’s behavior becomes more erratic and evident to others.
If, at first, one can try to hide the disease, it is impossible as it enters its final stage.
There is no cure except a bullet in the brain, but as we know Choom, hope is the last thing that always remains for humans.
You will be in control on how to play this illness for your character. As organizers we’ll provide two elements:
Just remember: once the disease presents itself, you will be left with a choice. Either disregard your well-being, chuck your body full of implants and go out as a legend burning like the sun itself – or cower in a corner trying to keep your fragile humanity intact. Choose well, choombata, but remember that no one gets to be a legend and remain alive.
In the setting there is no known cure. And when you say none, you mean the “none” you take note of after dozens of Corp have thrown billions of credits into unsuccessful cure research. If a character during the event promises to have the cure, you will think that they are clearly trying to steal eddies from you.