Midwest Cyberpunk 2050 - Turbidity Universe

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>>236046
To help you understand your place in the Turbidity Universe, a short summary of the starting setting and known factions is in order:

Setting
Your characters enter this storyline in the American Midwest, in the city called St. Louis. In 2050, the world is a somewhat different locale from what we might be familiar with in our present time. While the USA still exists as a federal polity, extreme factional differences in political parties, massive corporate influence, water and energy rights conflicts, and a crumbling world economy that serves only an elite 1% - mostly located in Russia and China - have resulted in vastly increased powers being handed to the states and cities of America. Deregulation and disbandment of many services and standards normally provided by federal organizations have resulted in a patchwork of byzantine laws, economic zones, corporate statehood, and murky interrelationships between local governments, syndicates, and federal authorities. Misunderstanding, criminal behavior, corporate ambition, and interstate disputes occasionally lead to outbreaks of open violence, but more often conflicts are resolved via sabotage, hacking, assassination, and hostile financial takeovers.

Journalisitic coverage is bought and sold on markets openly, and ISP censorship of citizen communications is routine. The internet itself is evolving - quite literally. Backbone operators, anxious to provide sufficent bandwidth for a hypervolatile, almost all-digital economy, have desperately come to rely entirely on genetic network paring algorithms to determine the architecture of their trunks - algorithms which sometimes ruthlessly cut entire cities off from the net in order to preserve bandwidth for more prosperous clientele, forcing users into a zero-sum game to retain access to the digital lifeline that is the net - or else face the devastating economic hardship of "offlining."

There is no organized resistance, there are no countries on Earth better off. There are only factions vying for bandwidth allocation in a system run for profit by individuals unknown to the common man, no longer at the helm of their own machinery. In St. Louis, these local movers and shakers are known to preside:

The Librarians
Former employees of the now defunct public library system in St. Louis, curating and analyzing their remaining databanks and media libraries. While technically no longer associated by common employment, local rumor has it these individuals share a common goal and meet regularly as some kind of secret society. They are very protective of the ruins of the main branch, down by the river's edge, and its now defunct uplink.

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>>236051
Reactors
A nationwide loosely-knit group of 20th and 21st century war reenactors. The local branch of this society used to be sponsored by the library; now it is looking for funding as a mercenary/security outfit. They draw attention for their willingness to employ outdated gear and a decidedly "old-school" approach to their trade.

Tribals
Disenfranchised, stripped of all educational and economic capital, many poorer "citizens" have nothing to lose from cutting ties with the system entirely; and much to gain. Usually making their livings via criminal activity or scavenging, Tribals are so-called for their codified belief systems and fierce sense of loyalty to their in-groups. Infighting, feuds, and raiding - portrayed in the mass media as gang warfare and mob violence - are not uncommon among Tribals, much to the chagrin of local security forces, who have largely stamped out street-level crime elsewhere in society. In St. Louis, Tribals maintain a strong presence in shanties, trailer parks, and boat towns all along the west river bank.

Commodore Networks
The Internet Service Provider that presides over the network trunks in the Midwest. Massively powerful, unimaginably wealthy, it is nonetheless considered a small fish in a big ocean of larger competitor syndicates eager to control as much of the net's "flow" as possible. Local anxiety is running high in light of rumors that Commodore Networks' GA routing algorithm may soon cut several small towns near St. Louis out of its network in order to maximize throughput from St. Louis to Chicago and Kansas City.

St. Louis City Government
Headed up by the City Council of St. Louis, composed of an elected board selected from the boards of the city's most economically important corporations. Tasked with making the city profitable and compliant with corporate, state, and federal regulations. Currently in a state of covert hostilities with Memphis, East St. Louis (and by proxy, the state of Illinois), and thus most tax and fee incomes have been diverted to fund paramilitary and private security firms to bolster the already significant corporate security apparatus and Missouri National Guard units garrisoned here.

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>>236051
ABev Refreshments and Holdings
The single largest corporate employer in St. Louis, ABev operates massive fully automated breweries, ethanol refineries, and marketing office-keeps in the metro area. An industry leader in the growing digital food market space, ABev holds several lucrative patents and licenses related to genetically-modified yeast strains which can be served to subscribers over the net for in-house production in cell fabrication labs worldwide. Although an international conglomerate, ABev has a well-known reputation for treating St. Louis as its own territory and a "capital" of sorts, operating a local darknet that penetrates into most other local networks, policing its own campuses and their peripheries with a security force of its own, and owning the largest (though not a controlling) number of seats on the local city council. Rumors suggest ABev is waiting to see what the paring algorithms of Commodore Networks do to the local backbone before deciding where to locate its next big datacenter, which could make or break any of the local polities.

Are you a member of any of these groups? Are you a freelancer? A citizen of the city? An outsider? The choice is yours, but regardless, you find yourself standing along the river's eastern bank at 9:56 PM on the 1st of June, 2050. The sky is patchy like an eroded film of thermal paste over the silicon lattice of the darkness beyond, and the turbid waters of the Mississippi glisten sullen and opaque beneath the oppressive glow of the city on the far bank, her arch silhouetted in neon and the infinitesimal flicker of small arms fire from side streets nearby: St. Louis, crown of the American Bottom, gateway city.

Why are you here?

I am interested so far op. I just have a couple questions b4 I proceed to make my character. is it possible to change the world for the better? solve it s problems etc? free the people and all that revolutionary jazz?or is it going to stay like this for the sake of getting more stories out of it?

is there transhumanism? can we "upgrade"?

>>236201
yes to all of that, but an exceedingly unlikely yes.

while we're at it, here's a playlist to get in the mood: https://open.spotify.com/user/leadprophet/playlist/4Q9UeASj3aOWtoGWlnOfQu

name: Holton garvey
gender: male
age: 26
ethnicity:irish/german/caucasian/south Asian
height 5'6
weight: 180
skin color: light brown

description: born to an south Asian software engineer and a caucaisian computer scientist, Holton was raised in a lower middle class family. he had above average intelligence but couldn't find motivation to do anything with his life till he realized he needed to help his family with money. he went into software engineering due to his father's urging. his real passion was enginnerring and applied sciences. he eventually ended up as a cyber security tech at a firm whose main client was abev. he helped his family until at the age of 21 his family passed away in a car accident. 5 years later his firm went under when abev decided no to renew their contract and found a way to outsource the work. he decided to use the money he had saved up and through his meagre inheritance to purse his passion of enginering and applied science. has close connection with the librarians due to him spending most of his time at a library and his repect for preserving and passing on the knowledge. live in his parents house. hates it there because of the constant reminder of his parents but cannot afford to live in an apartment and lives there since the house has been paid of by his parents

goals in life: wants to become rich, help innovate and make the world a better place through his inventions

affiliated but not a member of the librarians.

hates commodore, abev.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my character.

>>236236
Welcome to Turbidity, Mr. Garvey. Please enjoy your stay, and feel free to describe your first thoughts/actions from here, on the East bank of the Mississippi, looking West, as described beforehand.

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[red]Just a quick note: i will be back to continue this quest at 7:30 CST[/red]

I will also be checking the thread slowly throughout the day, so feel free to post characters, actions, etc.

(sorry for not posting this from my home IP or proxy)

I'm back. Anyone wishing to play will get a pretty decent rate for updates from the QM until around 12 AM CST.

nobody else? damn, not sure what I did wrong.

alright, well there's zero interest so I'm calling it off early. Sorry to anyone who got here between now and 12. I'll check back to see if anyone explained what I did wrong, but damn, I kinda hate how much effort I put into this, and how little interest there was. don't think I'll be doing this again.

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>>239235
Don't be bitter if people aren't interested. You chose to make this thread don't expect people to instantly fly to it just because you wrote an essay for the setting.

Give it time to let the thread grow and you'll be fine. This thread has only been alive for a day so just give it some time to build it up. Try and keep your main description short enough to grab the readers attention so reading through everything doesn't become a chore. Once enough interest is gathered then you can go in further detail about the setting.

Also its better to start a large campaign like this in the weekend when people have more time than in the middle of the week.

>>239967
OK, thanks for the advice. This shit is just way too slow for me, lol. Sorry to have thrown a fit