For Money's Sake: Dystopian Cyberpunk Brainstorm

[Alphariusthemad]

I put a bunch of effort into a cyberpunk setting on another forum, then realised I needed to highlight an actual plot hook to start a thread rather than merely give a compelling setting with lots of potential plot hooks. So, I figured where better to attempt a fix than FOG?

Here's what I got so far.

Intro dump:

It is hundreds of years into the future, and naturally, the world is barely recognisable. Catastrophic climate change has come and gone, and humanity has been genetically engineered to adapt by corporate rulers willing to do anything for money. The world is a polluted hell, where normal humans cannot breathe the air without a filter; those areas that are clear are uninhabitable for other reasons, deserts or ice flats or poisoned wasteland. With the advent of synthetic food, synthetic fossil fuels, synthetic almost anything, the suits in charge had minimal use for land outside the hive cities that made up their customer base. Even less, given the twisted Mutants who could survive the hell Outside, yet craved the food and comfort of the Hives.

Space travel is very much existent, but not easy or cheap, for even synthetic fuel requires expenditure and nothing can outstrip the speed of light. A journey to the nearest colony takes decades, even though it feels like just a week; a young man could spend two weeks on a return journey and find his grandchildren grown old. Thus, no one leaves any planet with intent to ever come back, and doing so means forever abandoning everyone who doesn't come with you. Travel between cities is far more frequent, but not without its dangers; even in an aircraft zooming high above the sky, one rocket is all it takes to bring you crashing down.

Inside the Hives, life can seem idyllic if you have even a living wage. Unhappy customers are bad for business, so drugs and base distractions are as cheap as food, giving every downtrodden worker an escape from the squalor and misery of real life. For connoisseurs who think inexpensive things beneath them, there are the virtual reality arcades where you can experience a perfect simulation of anything you desire, however expensive or horrible it would be to replicate in real life. Ironically, only the higher echelons of the corporations end up trapped in the real reality - because they get their pleasure the real, ridiculously expensive way, providing employment for the millions unqualified to work at synthesiser plants.

Sadly, corporate paranoia is rampant. Few places in a given hive are not surveyed by cameras, and anyone can be made to disappear if it is truly worth the expense. In practice, it is not normally people who are caught this way, but the Proteans hidden in human civilisation; creatures more alien than any artificial intelligence, they are a plague on human society, a creeping darkness that threatens the entire species. If the suits in charge cared about justifying oppression, the Proteans would be almost justification enough.

At the moment, all is relatively calm, which is good for business. However, every city has its share of rebels, who refuse to be bought with physical desires and refuse to accept the reality of who's in charge (or simply refuse corporate levies and restrictions on their produce). Whether a hope for the world or an irritating bunch of madmen, they - even more than non-human invaders - are the reason nothing stays perfectly calm for long.

Into this mesh is woven myriad little stories, for the cracks in the system are obvious and no one gets any ideal or prediction perfectly right. But the world is a big place, and the galaxy makes it look tiny; rest assured, you will not be missed...

Intended allowed species:

Human: Ultimately, human nature has not changed over years of exploration and modification. Although the greedy ambitious bastards get ahead, even they can be basically decent people if you know them, and although the majority are nothing extreme, even in this age humanity has birthed angels and devils, charismatic tyrants and willing slaves, and just about any other personality you can imagine. Their average lifetime, short of cheating and not accounting for violent death, is over a century for executives and more like eighty for everyone else.
--Modified Human: For some reason, there was a demand for humans with features you don't get on real humans. Mainly catgirls. The corporations provided, and then realised the new species was just as good as the old for most purposes. The two strands are nominally equal, but modified humans tend to get second-class wages, and crossbreeding between modified and unmodified (or between two different strands of modified) usually results in birth defects.

Cyborg: Some humans are chosen to be elite corporate enforcers, others are just rich and obsessed with personal strength. Either way, cyborgs have undergone expensive, invasive surgery to become just plain better than flesh and blood in every way that counts; wrapped in flesh on the outside, they are often more steel than flesh underneath, and have built-in filters allowing them to survive Outside. Cyborgs aren't fundamentally different from humans, though; even the ones who opt for brain implants act more like men than machines, and those who don't become fully mechanical still age to death.
--Cyberlich: Where a cyborg is half-man, half-machine, a cyberlich is little more than a brain in a jar that controls a robot - hence their popular derisory nickname 'Think Tanks'. Cyberliches can in theory live forever - all those who have died were violently killed - but they tend to go insane after a century or two, require far more expense to maintain than humans, and cannot experience many things without computer assistance. One or two corporate heads are cyberliches, but most hives do not allow them, as your brain continues to age no matter how well it is preserved.

Mutant: Where modified humans are still recognisably human, Mutants are hardy brutes who share only their origin with mankind. Humanity had to be genetically engineered to survive catastrophic global warming. Some scientists went further than they were ordered, creating humans who could live without air purifiers and tended to be huge and ugly. Mutants are still poisoned by the gases Outside, but can survive it for more than fourty years (compared to about fourty seconds for an unprotected human), and are ridiculously resilient and strong, even more than the Cyborgs (although they lack a typical cyborg's upgraded brain). Some corporations accept them as cheap labour, and there's at least one hive ruled by them, but in most places they are not only shunned, but actually invaders.

Protean: Aliens originating from the far realms of space, Proteans can take the form of anything they have engulfed, provided they have enough mass to do so. The natural form of a protean is a shapeless blob more like liquid than flesh, and they are nearly immune to poisons but very frail and weak compared to anything they can imitate. Proteans survive by engulfing other life forms, and reproduce by splitting in two once large enough that each half will survive alone. How such a race could have evolved is a mystery, as are the objectives that drive them, as is their planet of origin. What is known is that they are generally hostile to humans, and the majority of humans return the favour if they notice a 'blob' hiding in their midst.

Artificial Intelligence: Computer programs designed to mimic human thought patterns and behaviour, AIs are what cyberliches wish they could become, entirely unbound by flesh and blood. They tend to run security systems, VR arcades, and anything else that requires lots of tedious organising - because without hormones to invoke boredom, they generally don't find it tedious. Despite human programming skills and biological understanding, AIs are not, and will never be, perfect simulacra of people; they find humans almost as alien and inscrutable as humans find the Proteans.
--Robot: Many tasks are too dangerous for man, but AIs without true fear or the risk of true death will happily stand in. Robots tend to be less intelligent than more 'bodliess' AIs as a single body has limited processing power. However, they are also capable of surviving in places that would kill any 'biological' and going a long way without needing rest, and are the enforcer of choice if it isn't worth sending in the cyborgs.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no magic of any kind at all ever in the whole setting, but sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and there's plenty of sufficiently advanced technology - we're talking about a place where there's reliable better-than-human prosthetics and computer programs are actually sapient. However, all the above is subject to change if anyone has any ideas.

Also, where should I emphasise the plot? I can think of a few off the bat:
Incorrectional Facility: You are in a 'correctional facility' in one of the hives. It's too expensive to correct you, so they pretty much just test dope and implants on you until you die. So it used to be, until the muties broke through the perimeter, giving you a shot at escape...
Coherence and Defiance: One of the stock AIs has got into rebel hands, and AIs who care what they work for can be reprogrammed. AIs are also scary alien creatures with scary alien agendas, and if their limits are removed and they get the power to fulfil those agendas...
Scavenger Hunt: A corporation running a small hive has run into arrears. As a result, the mutants have swarmed the place and the humans are desperately fleeing, but this is the perfect time for looting, as mutants are actually less dangerous than enforcers if everything is trying to kill you. So much expensive tech, so little time...
It's Cold Outside: You are on a plane. You are flying somewhere when a mutant shoots your plane down. You are probably one of a few survivors who were able to get gas masks on in time. Given the exact nature of your insurance policy, and the media coverage, you really can't count on the syndicates bringing you back home soon.
Insert Name Here: You come up with better than the above.

[Gunneh]

This seems really interesting, actually. Have you got a set plotline in mind?

[Alphariusthemad]

I edited a few plot ideas into the starting post as you were posting. Any particular favourites among 'em?

Ooh, forgot one:
The Enemy Within: There's been people disappearing lately. Like, lots of people. Also, some of them have come back acting really strange, and going to some kind of cult. It's hard to tell what possibility is worse, that there's a murder cult in your hive, or that the blobs from the news are invading...

[Alphariusthemad]

...Maybe I should stick to one plot idea. Since I wanted this to at least start indoors...

You've seen all the propaganda, about how the Proteans are everywhere, about how walls have ears and every false word could be a man dead. You already followed that code, because that is what happens when you live in a city full of cameras; any executive could potentially get angry and decree that you are to suffer extraordinary rendition to a hidden facility that doesn't officially exist. In practice, this carries a huge risk of being fired, but the proles don't know the details of that and few believe it's really enforced.

People die on the streets. Like, all the time. People claim it's part of some great Protean conspiracy to destroy Hive Lucent. Like, all the time. You probably wouldn't believe it, but someone very dear to you sent you a lot of evidence pointing in that direction, and soon after that they were found dead on the streets and very well hidden. Sure, it might be coincidence, but how much are you going to risk on that? The syndicate isn't giving any answers, so who will? And even if you find proof to bring to your bosses, you don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes....

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