So here at IllOp, we like to play games, and sometimes games tell us more about the world we live in that we’d like to admit. Take Cyberpunk for example. In Cyberpunk 2020 you have 9 basic classes to choose to play. They are as follows:

What is striking about this list is how many of them are really active today in the modern world. We have heavily militarized police forces in American, the EU, China, Russia and Japan [Cop]. We have mega-national corporations who attempt to control the flow of resources. One could specifically reference Monsanto and their attempt to bio-engineer seeds that produce plants with no new seeds, forcing the farming community to purchase all their seeds from Monsanto [Corporate]. With the creation of the blogosphere and less credibility seen in “old media,” bloggers like Alex Jones have brought themselves more credibility and truly do go to great lengths to spread their message [Media]. While we are still only beginning to get the hang of Cybernetics, (we have a few solid experiments.) we definitely have a huge community of “hackers” who constantly produce new tactics to destroy internet barriers [Netrunner]. When it comes to the Solo, the first thing that pops into mind is, of course, Blackwater.

Now we have yet to have any Fixers, Techies, or Nomads in their Cyberpunk defined sense (we have similar things, but not quite close enough.). I think than more than half the list defines us as being in the future. Also, when the book of the game can cause a government raid due to its “dangerous” nature, it shows how far the censorship society has come (from Wikipedia):

“In 1990, in an odd convergence of cyberpunk art and reality, the U.S. Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games’s headquarters and confiscated all their computers. This was allegedly because the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook could be used to perpetrate computer crime. That was, in fact, not the main reason for the raid, but after the event it was too late to correct the public’s impression. Steve Jackson Games later won a lawsuit against the Secret Service, aided by the freshly minted Electronic Frontier Foundation. This event has achieved a sort of notoriety, which has extended to the book itself as well. All published editions of GURPS Cyberpunk have a tagline on the front cover, which reads “The book that was seized by the U.S. Secret Service!” Inside, the book provides a summary of the raid and its aftermath.”

Oh, and one more thing.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if Rock and Roll was actually rebellious and revolutionary?