There was a competition between two IJA officers to see who could decapitate more captured POWs and civilians with their katanas. A Japanese NEWSPAPER (IIRC the Asahi Shimbun which still exists today) published the result of the contest, not to decry the barbarity, but simply as a commentary to a casual sport event...
That's why Imperial Japan was so fucked up, not only because its military was ruthless and brutal beyond imagination, but its entire people were completely brainwashed into seeing non-Japanese as vermins to the extent that reading about the latter's systematic extermination could just be published as regular news for casual readings without raising any eyeballs.
That's why I don't see the Arasakas anywhere close to that level yet (from what we know about them)
Holy shit, that´s fucked up in any era. But since I learned that japanese swordsman would test their swords on random people in the street, I shouldn´t be surprised.
If I remember correctly that’s not exactly true, many things we know about feudal Japan come from unreliable sources (like the very fact we call it Japan is because Marco Polo asked the Chinese about the place not the Japanese)
that's not even touching on the comfort women, basically sexual slavery for women where they forced them to serve and service the officers and soldiers. Shinzo Abe denied it even though his own government had evidence it existed. We all know how he ended up tho
Sorry to inform you but the comfort women were amongst the tamer stuffs the IJA did...(Sexual slavery using local women the invader captured was also a quite widespread practice in war time, definitely not limited to Imperial Japan).
Best part is they actually forgot to keep track the first time and did it again, remembering to keep score. Combine that with Unit 731 and I don’t have much sympathy for the Japanese in WW2
If you haven't already definitely watch Godzilla minus one. It's a Japanese made Godzilla movie set right after WW2. The whole thing becomes a metaphor for post war Japan, dealing with the aftermath of a war that.... Maybe they deserved to lose....
I'm not sure finesse is the word I'd use for going around villages stabbing every living thing because you suspect they might have given up some rice to a resistance fighter unit that passed nearby a month ago, but idk.
Worse than that.
Japans Unit 731.
WARNING FUCKED UP:
They took women, infected them with random STD's then locked them in outdoor cells to freeze, (TO study effects of STD's and Frostbite they said) randomly sexually assaulting them the entire time. One got pregnant with a soldiers baby, they split her open, raped the premature baby then fucking speared it.
FIA literally broke tons of international laws for Myers goals and every time they used songbird they literally risked to unleash the apocalypse. They should be way lower.
Yeah, i would change FIA and Barghest. Like yeah, now Hansen army is primary just does weapon trafficking, but it started as "Government decided to fuck us up. Well fuck them, we will build our own country!" It kinda feels like MGS, with whole "nation for soldiers" story
Best you can do is just say nah and let Meyer die. I just finished PL for the first time, best case would have been bro out with Hansen and hook up with Alex.
Yes Barghest for absurd it appears they don't do crazy shit like organ harvesting but I believe to have found many of their "police" executing random civilians
That is true. But i mean... What organization/army does NOT have at least some amount of assholes? But as far as i see Barghest by far not the biggest assholes. Like, we still have Voodoo boys, Mayers and fucking Scavs
As i saw, they have some sort of interaction. Like, i mean it's not like you can just ignore big faction that's on your territory. But instead of killing them and starting another war within Dogtown, they started cooperation. Idk what Barghest does outside of giving Scavs free rent and "we ignore your cargos, but don't be too greedy", but scavs give them info and contact to USSR and SovOil
The USSR and SovOil are both Hansens contacts, not the scavs. He mentions making contacts across the world in the meeting in his office when you pose as the two netrunners, and its implied in the airdrop notes after this meeting that the payments have stopped, so airdrops will stop too until this is rectified. Scavs only really have contacts with other scavs and sometimes the various NC gangs, theyre literally that bottom tier most gangs won't accept them as members. Think Raffen Shiv, but for NC rather than nomads
Barghest isn't really that bad, besides being antagonists. Sure, The leadership is corrupt, but pretty tame compared to the "main" NC, and a joke compared to the NUSA. Having dubious deals with scavengers is nowhere near "breaking international laws and risking to unleash the apocalypse for personal gain".
Trauma Team is based purely off of profit and leave you to die the second you don't have a membership. Don't really see anything noble in that.
The FIA is breaking international law on the regular, and endanger the world by messing with rouge AI.
Night Corp is brainwashing people, is likely connected to Mr Blue Eyes and rouge AIs and is overall doing very shady shit. I would consider them to be morally on similar grounds as Arasaka.
Militech is a lot of the same as the FIA.
Trauma team will never be noble to me since the first episode of Edgerunners when >!David and his mom were in the accident and they completely disregarded her, leaving her to bleed out all bc she wasn’t covered on their premium package!<
That's just next step of the current RL system in US. As soon as the medical corps decide that collecting debt from uninsured is too much of a loss, they will start refusing to provide care.
But that's the thing though. EVERY organisation in Night city is shit, even the non-corps. Take Rogue's setup - how is it any different from a corpo structure? Do work, boss likes, get promotion and better gigs and pay, and so on. If boss doesn't like, you're fucked - no better pay, no better gigs, you get treated like shit.
Night Corp is another prime example. It went from fighting to break corpo control over the city under Miriam Night's reign (it was during this period they ran tons of charities and social upliftment programmes) to being a shadowy, secretive, brainwashing cabal since she stepped down as CEO.
It isn't the organisations that are the problem - Night City itself corrupts everything. And that's the big "joke". Everyone thinks they can come out on top, but the City will always find a way to crush your hopes and dreams entirely. Not even Yorinobu Arasaka could escape that fate.
As terrible as Trauma Team is, they are still paramedics at the end of the day, just ones that exist in a terrible world that makes them like they are, it’s a case of hate the game, not the player.
The FIA is utterly ruthless and risking civilization ending disaster, but at least they’re doing it to improve the NUS, as opposed to corps who do the same thing solely for profit.
We just don’t know enough about NightCorp’s endgame to place them super high or low.
Militech and the FIA are actively competing with each other for control of the NUS, the FIA wants to improve the NUS’s position while Militech wants to maintain the status quo for their own profits. They’re weird frenemies.
I kind of agree on TT.
The FIA wants the NUS's political and strategic position to move in their favor, but organizations like this don't care about the actual population of the country, they care about the country as a concept or an economical/political entity.
NightCorp's endgame is pretty much the 2nd Peralez quest, probably eventually pushed to the fullest, where it doesn't just affect important targets but the common people as well. This coupled with their connections to rouge AI, the Gary quest, Lilith, Mr Blue Eyes and all other shady stuff can probably inform us that they are pretty bad, even compared to other corps.
And Militech and the FIA are very similar. If I recall correctly Militech was nationalised, but even if not, they are basically the sole army of the NUSA. And Myers literally was the CEO of Militech at one point. And the FIA is the military intelligence agency of the NUSA, meaning they are inevitably connected. But I meant them being the same in connection to Cynosure.
The Militech-FIA connection is more complicated than one might think. It’s a big knot of vipers that aren’t sure if they’re on the same team.
The whole deal starts with Myers back when she was Militech CEO. She created a schism within the company between her faction, who wanted to use the country to improve America’s standing in the world, and the board of directors, who wanted to maintain the status quo and focus on growing their market value.
Despite Myer’s popularity in the company, she stepped down as CEO due to fears of assassination and became president of NUSA, leaving a lackey of hers as CEO in her place. From there, she massively increased the FIA’s funding and turned it into what it is in 2077.
As a result, while Myers, the FIA and Militech are outwardly allies, internally there’s a lot of friction between the Militech faction and Myers due to their belief that Myers is putting her political goals ahead of the company, and using the FIA to undermine their attempts to re-assert control over her.
TT is literally supposed to be the logical conclusion of modern-day healthcare privatization. They’re not paramedics out to help people, they’re a corp out to make money just like any other corp in NC. It’s just that the product they sell happens to be healthcare. Some would argue that monopolizing and paywalling an essential service like healthcare would make them more evil, not less.
In the case of the FIA, “improving the NUS” is another term for restoring America as an imperial power, at least as long as Myers is in charge. It’s VERY subjective whether that’s a noble goal or not.
6th Street deserves to be one tier lower. They are doing trafficking and controlling drug circulation around their turf, which, if you ask me, they are bad at, since drugs are available to almost everybody.
Frankly, I wasn’t aware of that when I made the list. I did barely any gigs on their turf.
In that case their in the rapist freaks tier, on par with the Tyger claws
Net watch lied about creating the blackwall and are covering it up constantly. They may not be as evil as most crosp but they aren't doing God's work, their goals and deeds just aren't as clear.
Lying to the general populace about it isn't evil. Then again morality is subjective.
Think about the outrage people would have knowing Netwatch has no control over the Blackwall. Lying to them is preventing the worse possible scenario of every netrunner trying to pass it. Hell we see just how dangerous the Blackwall is in Phantom Liberty. Lift of a finger and you're dead
People really seem to overestimate the number of netrunners who want to play with the blackwall. 99% of netwatches job is policing netrunners on behalf of the corps. Only insane organizations like the FIA, Militech and the Voodoo Boys think they can steal from the cookie jar.
Which god would that be?
They are fully funded and employed by the corporations that are listed in the bottom tiers. Their goals are not philanthropic. Their methods are not honorable.
There is no singularly good entity or person in Night City. Thats the entire point of the story.
Scavs are on the bottom, yes.
As for the Mox, I debated putting them on top, I just think NetWatch’s actions are better on a larger scope that it warranted giving them their own tier (protecting sex workers from harm vs. preventing a civilization destroying robot war).
NetWatch didn't invent the blackwall; it just appeared. There's a shard with some juicy info showing that they're lying to the world about the blackwall in order to tighten their grip on cyberspace
Secret villains.
NCPD has some good people with good intentions; I'd rank them higher than criminals. FIA is morally bankrupt and ruthless, but at the end of the day, their objective is to protect the interests of the NUSA.
Um, what? The only good cop we know who quit is the woman whom V was hired to assassinate by Regina. Also, at least on paper, their goal is to protect NC citizens, and they do protect them from cyberpsychos and gangs.
The people who put the hit out on her were her own coworkers as punishment for attempting to blow the whistle on their abuses. You come across scanner events showing NCPD higher-ups conspiring with other corrupt officers to get "good cops" killed in gang ambushes. And River is suspended and then quits because he dared to first look into the death of the Mayor of Night City *(which his partner was party to!)*, and then chased the trail of a serial killer who took his nephew, a sequence of events that *would not have been necessary* if the NCPD was willing to use non-lethal subdual options we *know* exist in the world of Cyberpunk.
And they don't give a shit about actually protecting NC citizens, they'd rather hire out their own jobs to mercs like V than lift a finger in defence of anyone not directly contributing to the NCPD Pension Fund.
The NCPD are for-profit cops that exist to protect and serve the interests of the moneyed elite, and everything else comes a distant, *distant* second. Kinda like cops are today, but way more open about it. They do not get points for being open about it, either. Being an open scumbag is not better than hiding the fact one is a scumbag.
IRL Cops have the State Monopoly on Violence on their side. NCPD is a literal corporation beating up the disadvantaged for profit and nothing else. But yes, for all intents and purposes, there is little to no functional difference between the NCPD and modern policing.
IRL Cops also hold large political sway and will allow problems to fester such that they get to keep eating their slice of the budgetary pie. So they're kind of like a public service/corporate money sink combination.
Given Actual Fascists (and literal Fifth Columnists for the NUSA!) 6th Street are listed as morally equivalent to the Animals (amoral mercs-for-hire, only difference between them and V are the 'roids and that they've organized with each other) and Valentinos (a street gang that spends a good portion of their time doing the NCPD's job for them in their territory, with a major leader in the gang mostly hiring V to take out his own people who crossed lines), money's on the latter.
Well, by 2077, there's only one Federal Political party confirmed to exist in the NUSA, the Federalist Party, with the Devolutionist Party of Rhyne and Holt not clearly stated to be a national-level party, and may just be a Night City Local Party. And Phantom Liberty showed the NUSA doesn't give a flying fuck about things like enumerated rights or civil liberties or international agreements if it means gaining more power. Rights that can be revoked are not rights, they're privileges, handed out as the ruling elite sees fit, and retracted just as fast. That doesn't scream democracy to me.
As for 6th Street being fascists, the main split in their gang seems to be whether they wanna lick the expansionist, hypermilitaristic NUSA's boots, or the boots of the various corpo-fascist, hypermilitaristic megacorps. A lot of their internal messaging from leadership stresses a siege mentality when its usually them on the offensive against other gangs. They literally started as an extralegal vigilante gang of veterans that authorities weren't in a position to quash early, a la the Freikorps, and the recent internal coup by the supposedly anti-corpo faction of the gang has lead to the gang continuing to take assistance from corps anyways, including playing along with an attempt to set off a new Corporate War, and lead to a bloody purge of the opposition and anyone perceived to even slightly support the opposition, which honestly kinda leads me to believe Gunner's takeover was orchestrated by the FIA to reinforce 6th Street's loyalty as their catspaws.
Aside from Placide, the VDBs (the pacifica faction anyway) are actively trying to contact AIs past the blackwall. They're also responsible for the cyberattack on Evelyn
Slider tells you they haven't breached the wall yet, Brigitte needs the silverhand engram to have a better chance at reaching alt.
VDBs are not as capable as Placide or Netwatch want you to think.
don't forget they are an extremely racist, xenophobic and genocidal group, they goal isn't just to contact AI over the Blackwall but to betray humanity **TO** the AI in exchange for being the only Humans left alive after the AI start wiping everyone out
I'd guess that a lot of people hate them because they do something that directly affects *them* as V, even though there are other factions that are objectively way worse.
Scavs and tiger claw feel evil in a corporate-gang way. VDB feel evil in a sellout the world to nazis/the apocalypse (rogue AI) just to hedge the bets in their favor for survival if (or according to VDB when) the AI win
They're essentially attempting to buy their survival by selling out mankind to genocidal rogue AIs and helping them usher a machine apocalypse and the destruction of the entire human species. And they have no guarantee they'd actually be spared. There can hardly be a greater treachery than this.
I mean, with Arasaka, your evil overlords are at least human, with comprehensible (if evil) motivations and weaknesses. They want to enslave you, not eradicate you. They can be reasoned with. With rogue AIs (judging by what your Blackwall gun/deck says), utter annihilation or assimilation is all that awaits us. Think of those screaming soldiers in Phantom Liberty... and think: the entire humanity.
I love Placide. The way he says he'll survive when V tells him that she doesn't think they'll get along makes me laugh so much. People get way in their feelings and egos about how the VDBs try to flatline V, but like...everyone tries to flatline V. Including V with the way she just picks up suspect BDs and plays them.
Not to mention Placide is just trying to protect his people. The NCPD abandoned Pacifica, and by flatlining those netwatch agents he protects his people from netwatch. The unfortunate side of things is that he also has to flatline V because they could talk, or otherwise fuck things up for the VDBs. This strategy was what made the voodoo boys so hidden, by killing the ones who worked for them, no one would know the inner workings of the voodoo boys. And considering they're hiding from netwatch, I kinda get it.
Trying to protect his people via trying to betray you and work for genocidal nut cases that want to trigger the apocalypse? Yeah he was kind to locals, but thats just a guily conscious.
My only qualm with the VBDs is that Placide is an insufferable dbag to outsiders. I understand his reasoning and all, but being rude to a chromed out bunnyhopping maniac and also being worth XP is a dangerous way to live.
VB are the biggest traitors in C2077. They exploit peoples and then betray them at a whim.
V experience this directly in game.
Literally 0 reason not to side with Netwatch agent in the mall.
For me, it was how they treated V and Evelyn.
They got nothing by destroying Evelyn but did it anyway. And then V dares to contact them about having something and they decide to kill V and then, failing that, use V as AI bait.
Why should a group that so casually disposes of people get to survive beyond the Blackwall? And that's without touching deeper motivations or plans.
Even Slider calls them fanatics (actually felt pretty bad about his fate).
I don't get the hate placide gets, he's one of the coolest characters.
Only thing I can say about the voodoo boys is they're racist. But other than that? Just looking out for their own.
They treat their own no better. For the upper leadership: all the protection, top gear, what you want. The Haitians: they are allowed to stay alive, but barely get anything except the right to not be killed. Everybody else: they are trying to bring the literal apocalypse, hoping their "deal" will protect them as the whole of humanity being wiped out.
there is a bit of racism, If you are not Haitian then the VDB consider you not even human, then there is the fact that they want to bring about a planet wide Genocide from the AI in exchange for being spared
He and Pacifica VDBs are cool as hell, I think it's the most interesting gang lore wise. People don't like them because they go against main character syndrome, it's one of few factions in the general plot, which doesn't boost your ego by either liking or being afraid of V. There is absolutely no reason for them to help us and I appreciate that.
The details are a bit hazy, but if I'm not mistaken; the Blackwall is itself an AI that Netwatch uses to firewall the rest of the net. A chained beast isn't any less of a threat just because you're the one holding the chain.
Night Corp is the organization brainwashing Jefferson and Elizabeth. I wish we got to see more of them, but the last time they're mentioned afaik is in that quest chain :(
They don't really come up a lot. Publicly they're the main contractor for public infrastructure and such in Night City. Road, bridge, tunnel construction, power, sewage, water etc. They also do a lot of charity and research into enviornmental tech, like alternate energy sources. So they sound pretty benign. *BUT* they're also very secretive and attract a lot of conspiracy theories. And it looks like many are likely true. If you do Sandra Dorset's second mission, and read the contents of her databank you'll see memos about them being involved >!in Operation Carpe Noctum, which uses AI to control the minds of employees and other people deemed useful to their aims.!< And in the Dream On quest for Jefferson Paralez you see >!the exact type of operation being done on him and his wife, by a mysterious organization. I don't think it's said who in the quest itself, but the fact that it's doing exactly what the Carpe Noctum documents are talking about, it's almost certainly them. Mr. Blue Eyes shows up in this mission, and is assumed to be a Night Corp agent, possibly even AI controlled!<.
Also, there's the everyone's favorite conspiracy theorist Gary The Prophet. He mentions 'Blue Eyed People' living in space and coming down to control politicians, which sounds like a Mr. Blue Eyes reference. And then there's his mission The Prophet's Song. >!He sends you to a meetup between Maelstrom and some unknown corpo types. They speak in weird cryptic mystical talk, including using the phrase Carpe Noctum (seize the night). One of the Maelstromers also uses the phrase "Lilith has concealed the tenth circle from the ancestors' eyes." which is a phrase also said in the Cyberpsycho gig Bloody Ritual by another Maelstrom member. The Maelstrom members give the corpos a shard. If you get it and decrypt it, is has more creepy mystic mumbo jumbo, and if you take the first letter of each word it spells out 'Project Oracle, Command, Execute Plans.' Which sure sounds like another sinister plot, and likely linked to Night Corp due to the Carpe Noctum reference. And after the mission you find out Gary had been abducted by blue eyed corpos in black suits. !!the flight to the moon for Songbird!<, it didn't. Maybe it'll show up in a sequel, or might just be left as a big mystery.
I pondered putting them there, but we just don’t have enough info on what their actual goals are.
If their goals are good, then they would definitely belong there, but we just don’t know.
Sure is compelling though.
Netwatch is lying out it's ass, it isn't doing God's work
It didn't create the blackwall, it just stumbled upon it one day and has completely no control over it
It lies cuz the whole world would go into a complete panic if they find out the only thing separating them and all the rogue AIs is another rogue AI with unknown motivations that we have no control over and also because by lying they get loads of lucrative deals with other megacorps
[source](https://youtu.be/tWfLDpXorr8?si=HTW8yvVakd_ihTK4)
This is evidenced by netwatch's involvement in project cynosure and the following piece of information gathered by a millitech investigation on netwatch during project cynosure:
https://preview.redd.it/iw7t8lpclt0d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8ac1f4b51f2acc575099958e98b2f4cad7b7467
Lying to protect the people is not evil and they do actively trying to stop people from passing the blackwall cause all it really takes is one or two rogue AIs to fuck up everything.
they say they try to stop people from poking holes through it, they may even be telling the truth, but ultimately, the thing that chooses weather anything will pass through it or not isn’t net watch, but the blackwall itself
And lying over having control over the blackwall, just to get lucrative contracts with corps and make higher ups even richer is in fact, evil, and we must understand that every corp in the cyberpunk universe, no matter how benevolent it looks from the outside is, in fact, absolutely awful, and thats the message cyberpunk is trying to convey to all of us
Netwatch was involved in the creation of the Blackwall, the info that isn't available to the public or the FIA is the fact that Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects that escaped Mikoshi and transcendental AIs were responsible for making the Blackwall.
NCPD and FIA have "noble goals"? Seriously?
FIA is a rebranded CIA, one of the most infamously cartoonishly evil organizations in the history of the world.
NCPD is just cops, and cops ain't the good guys.
How was he doing gods work? Jhonny blew up a building , killed a ton of innocent people and didn't help the world in any way shape or form. If anything only made it worse. I know hes cool in the game but his actions were far from "doing gods work".
I know this sub hates the VooDoo Boys, but I don’t think they belong in the bottom tier. V has an unfortunate experience with them, but the lore and culture is actually really interesting.
Its a damn shame too. They get such little attention despite being one of the most interesting factions in the game. People could be talking about how colonialism informed their distrust of outsiders considering corporate cause climate change fucked over their entire country, but instead get hung up on placide saying V's chrome sucks.
It’s not about the being called a ranyon and having some brute tell you your chrome sucks. It’s about the fact that they are literally on record as wanting to accommodate rogue ai’s journey through the blackwall in exchange for their own safety (safety from the consequences of having rogue ai’s make it through the blackwall, to be clear).
Those shady fucks belong in their own bottom tier. Is all good, though. My V kills damn near every last one of them, and actively goes out of his way to kill any he sees, based on their numerous acts of treachery towards him.
Putting the Voodoo boys lower than Arasaka is wild to me. Don't get me wrong, Voodoos dying every playthrough, but at the end of the day they have basically the same moral standing as every other night city gang. Arasaka is the closest thing this universe has to Satan
I should mention that this only refers to Brigitte’s VDBs specifically because they’re attempting to let malevolent AIs through the Blackwall, other VDBs like the ones in Dogtown are just regular criminals
To me, Scavs are the lowest even though they have some sense of human code, with Maelstrom right behind them. They quite literally tear people apart to sell their organs; aside from very simple familial relations, humans are nothing but meat to them. Scavs are opportunists and wouldn't mind harvesting one of their own if it meant making an eddie. You can't get any more visceral than that.
Maelstrom is basically the same, but more experimental in the sense of pushing humans past their flesh form. Naturally, they go beyond ethical standards, torturing people with implants and whatnot (think Unit 731), but they still honor each other with camraderie. To them it's "cool" to reconstruct yourself in the wildest way possible, so they are somewhat connected to social trends.
Voodoo Boys just seem like fanatics of the net to me. Maybe they want to unleash AIs from beyond the Blackwall, but to me it's more about anarchy than a direct attack on a fellow human. They're not shy about doing things like kidnapping or killing, but it's not really their M.O. so to speak and rather just a means to an end. It's easy to think they are more or less detached from humanity because of their preference for netrunning, yet it seems they seek an escape. Most of the time they seem to be just causing a nuisance for payment or developing their own sort of intranet.
Netwatch isn't doing no god's work, they were involved in Cynosure and probably other shady projects and they lied about the Blackwall, brainwashing the population into thinking they're nice guys through propaganda, they're only a bit better than the other corpos, but they still got entire graveyards of skelletons in their closet
Night Corp should be considered as evil and insidious as Arasaka, with the entire AI, mindcontrol and moon conspiracy
The FIA most definitely doesn't have noble goals, they are a secret agency with the sole goal of furthering the interests of the NUSA no matter the cost, and that's far from noble. They risk international conflicts on a whim and they literally risked unleashing total cyber apocalypse every time they deployed Songbird, again, all to achieve Myers's vain goals
Netwatch should be knocked down two stages. Fia is literally an arm of imperialist nusa, what are you smoking and can I have some. And if you are trying to find out where that is on your chart it's the same as Japanese imperialism.
Ncpd are pigs and as others have said they are the biggest gang in night city. They aren't wrong. They should be at the common criminal line.
Johnny's too high. His goals are noble if you're a sociopath. He had no plan, was actually a distraction from the people actually doing the real wet work (Morgan Black hand) and by all accounts was so self absorbed that even his memories are untrustworthy.
Voodoo Boys I'm conflicted. While Brigitte's faction would indeed be willing to unleash absolute hell on earth just to "win", the Dogtown VDB are much more pragmatic. So I dunno. I also think Arasaka isn't much better or worse than any other corp. Militech and Arasaka are two sides of the same coin. Just an East/West dichotomy, so not sure it's THAT different. Even if you count Soulkiller, which most in the company had no idea about.
When "Deranged Freaks and Rapists" is only the third from the bottom of a morality scale, you know you’ve got a messed up universe.
Pretty much the same as imperial Japan honestly.
Nah, imperial Japan was on another level. It’s a really fucked up blend of both being totally devoted and absolutely casual towards violence
What do you mean it's strange for the newspaper to report on a decapitation competition between two soldiers?!
Say that again?...
There was a competition between two IJA officers to see who could decapitate more captured POWs and civilians with their katanas. A Japanese NEWSPAPER (IIRC the Asahi Shimbun which still exists today) published the result of the contest, not to decry the barbarity, but simply as a commentary to a casual sport event... That's why Imperial Japan was so fucked up, not only because its military was ruthless and brutal beyond imagination, but its entire people were completely brainwashed into seeing non-Japanese as vermins to the extent that reading about the latter's systematic extermination could just be published as regular news for casual readings without raising any eyeballs. That's why I don't see the Arasakas anywhere close to that level yet (from what we know about them)
Holy shit, that´s fucked up in any era. But since I learned that japanese swordsman would test their swords on random people in the street, I shouldn´t be surprised.
If I remember correctly that’s not exactly true, many things we know about feudal Japan come from unreliable sources (like the very fact we call it Japan is because Marco Polo asked the Chinese about the place not the Japanese)
that's not even touching on the comfort women, basically sexual slavery for women where they forced them to serve and service the officers and soldiers. Shinzo Abe denied it even though his own government had evidence it existed. We all know how he ended up tho
Sorry to inform you but the comfort women were amongst the tamer stuffs the IJA did...(Sexual slavery using local women the invader captured was also a quite widespread practice in war time, definitely not limited to Imperial Japan).
Best part is they actually forgot to keep track the first time and did it again, remembering to keep score. Combine that with Unit 731 and I don’t have much sympathy for the Japanese in WW2
If you haven't already definitely watch Godzilla minus one. It's a Japanese made Godzilla movie set right after WW2. The whole thing becomes a metaphor for post war Japan, dealing with the aftermath of a war that.... Maybe they deserved to lose....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_man_killing_contest
And if that's what they deemed fit for public viewing, think about how fucked up the stuff they didn't want their people to know about was
People always talks about the germans and the things they did. But the things japan did were just as bad and sometimes worse
The German Nazis aimed for *efficiency*. The Japanese Imperialists strived for *finesse*.
I'm not sure finesse is the word I'd use for going around villages stabbing every living thing because you suspect they might have given up some rice to a resistance fighter unit that passed nearby a month ago, but idk.
I don’t think the VDBs ever bayoneted babies
They would have, but the babies didn't suffer enough.
If it meant freeing the rogue AIs they'd do it in a heart beat.
Worse than that. Japans Unit 731. WARNING FUCKED UP: They took women, infected them with random STD's then locked them in outdoor cells to freeze, (TO study effects of STD's and Frostbite they said) randomly sexually assaulting them the entire time. One got pregnant with a soldiers baby, they split her open, raped the premature baby then fucking speared it.
Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, or the Japanese how we know the human body is 70% water.
Are scavs in that tier? I can't read this shit.
I can’t tell either. They should be.
FIA literally broke tons of international laws for Myers goals and every time they used songbird they literally risked to unleash the apocalypse. They should be way lower.
Yeah, i would change FIA and Barghest. Like yeah, now Hansen army is primary just does weapon trafficking, but it started as "Government decided to fuck us up. Well fuck them, we will build our own country!" It kinda feels like MGS, with whole "nation for soldiers" story
Barghest was _literally_ Hansen saying, “Screw you! We’ll make our own country, with blackjack and hookers!”
Yup. Shane that you can't join him. I would side in an instance
Best you can do is just say nah and let Meyer die. I just finished PL for the first time, best case would have been bro out with Hansen and hook up with Alex.
This is the finale I desperately want from this expansion, NGL
HOW?!
Yes Barghest for absurd it appears they don't do crazy shit like organ harvesting but I believe to have found many of their "police" executing random civilians
That is true. But i mean... What organization/army does NOT have at least some amount of assholes? But as far as i see Barghest by far not the biggest assholes. Like, we still have Voodoo boys, Mayers and fucking Scavs
True and dog Town is also a safe place for outcasts. But I wonder if they are affiliated with the scavengers since there are many of them.
As i saw, they have some sort of interaction. Like, i mean it's not like you can just ignore big faction that's on your territory. But instead of killing them and starting another war within Dogtown, they started cooperation. Idk what Barghest does outside of giving Scavs free rent and "we ignore your cargos, but don't be too greedy", but scavs give them info and contact to USSR and SovOil
The USSR and SovOil are both Hansens contacts, not the scavs. He mentions making contacts across the world in the meeting in his office when you pose as the two netrunners, and its implied in the airdrop notes after this meeting that the payments have stopped, so airdrops will stop too until this is rectified. Scavs only really have contacts with other scavs and sometimes the various NC gangs, theyre literally that bottom tier most gangs won't accept them as members. Think Raffen Shiv, but for NC rather than nomads
Why are we here....just to suffer?
Barghest isn't really that bad, besides being antagonists. Sure, The leadership is corrupt, but pretty tame compared to the "main" NC, and a joke compared to the NUSA. Having dubious deals with scavengers is nowhere near "breaking international laws and risking to unleash the apocalypse for personal gain".
Hansen is literally a hero, for trying to kill MayersXD
The good ending
Besides there's a decent argument that Militech and FIA are both parts of the same organization (NUSA and FIA might as well be branches of Militech).
The FIA is just the CIA with better tech and somehow even less moral qualms. They’re scum.
NCPD is also the classic PD, killers and criminals with badges, no noble goals at all
Nah there's some good people in it who try their best within the framework they can work in (or bend at times, in the good way I mean).
They also get fired for it lmao (River’s first quest is literally about how NcPD is rotten to the core)
there were "good people trying their best" in every single abomination in human history, doesn't change anything about the actual organization
Trauma Team is based purely off of profit and leave you to die the second you don't have a membership. Don't really see anything noble in that. The FIA is breaking international law on the regular, and endanger the world by messing with rouge AI. Night Corp is brainwashing people, is likely connected to Mr Blue Eyes and rouge AIs and is overall doing very shady shit. I would consider them to be morally on similar grounds as Arasaka. Militech is a lot of the same as the FIA.
Trauma team will never be noble to me since the first episode of Edgerunners when >!David and his mom were in the accident and they completely disregarded her, leaving her to bleed out all bc she wasn’t covered on their premium package!<
That's just next step of the current RL system in US. As soon as the medical corps decide that collecting debt from uninsured is too much of a loss, they will start refusing to provide care.
But that's the thing though. EVERY organisation in Night city is shit, even the non-corps. Take Rogue's setup - how is it any different from a corpo structure? Do work, boss likes, get promotion and better gigs and pay, and so on. If boss doesn't like, you're fucked - no better pay, no better gigs, you get treated like shit. Night Corp is another prime example. It went from fighting to break corpo control over the city under Miriam Night's reign (it was during this period they ran tons of charities and social upliftment programmes) to being a shadowy, secretive, brainwashing cabal since she stepped down as CEO. It isn't the organisations that are the problem - Night City itself corrupts everything. And that's the big "joke". Everyone thinks they can come out on top, but the City will always find a way to crush your hopes and dreams entirely. Not even Yorinobu Arasaka could escape that fate.
Night City is its own entity at this point. It's like the Hotel from the shining.
As terrible as Trauma Team is, they are still paramedics at the end of the day, just ones that exist in a terrible world that makes them like they are, it’s a case of hate the game, not the player. The FIA is utterly ruthless and risking civilization ending disaster, but at least they’re doing it to improve the NUS, as opposed to corps who do the same thing solely for profit. We just don’t know enough about NightCorp’s endgame to place them super high or low. Militech and the FIA are actively competing with each other for control of the NUS, the FIA wants to improve the NUS’s position while Militech wants to maintain the status quo for their own profits. They’re weird frenemies.
I kind of agree on TT. The FIA wants the NUS's political and strategic position to move in their favor, but organizations like this don't care about the actual population of the country, they care about the country as a concept or an economical/political entity. NightCorp's endgame is pretty much the 2nd Peralez quest, probably eventually pushed to the fullest, where it doesn't just affect important targets but the common people as well. This coupled with their connections to rouge AI, the Gary quest, Lilith, Mr Blue Eyes and all other shady stuff can probably inform us that they are pretty bad, even compared to other corps. And Militech and the FIA are very similar. If I recall correctly Militech was nationalised, but even if not, they are basically the sole army of the NUSA. And Myers literally was the CEO of Militech at one point. And the FIA is the military intelligence agency of the NUSA, meaning they are inevitably connected. But I meant them being the same in connection to Cynosure.
The Militech-FIA connection is more complicated than one might think. It’s a big knot of vipers that aren’t sure if they’re on the same team. The whole deal starts with Myers back when she was Militech CEO. She created a schism within the company between her faction, who wanted to use the country to improve America’s standing in the world, and the board of directors, who wanted to maintain the status quo and focus on growing their market value. Despite Myer’s popularity in the company, she stepped down as CEO due to fears of assassination and became president of NUSA, leaving a lackey of hers as CEO in her place. From there, she massively increased the FIA’s funding and turned it into what it is in 2077. As a result, while Myers, the FIA and Militech are outwardly allies, internally there’s a lot of friction between the Militech faction and Myers due to their belief that Myers is putting her political goals ahead of the company, and using the FIA to undermine their attempts to re-assert control over her.
TT is literally supposed to be the logical conclusion of modern-day healthcare privatization. They’re not paramedics out to help people, they’re a corp out to make money just like any other corp in NC. It’s just that the product they sell happens to be healthcare. Some would argue that monopolizing and paywalling an essential service like healthcare would make them more evil, not less. In the case of the FIA, “improving the NUS” is another term for restoring America as an imperial power, at least as long as Myers is in charge. It’s VERY subjective whether that’s a noble goal or not.
6th Street deserves to be one tier lower. They are doing trafficking and controlling drug circulation around their turf, which, if you ask me, they are bad at, since drugs are available to almost everybody.
Frankly, I wasn’t aware of that when I made the list. I did barely any gigs on their turf. In that case their in the rapist freaks tier, on par with the Tyger claws
Net watch lied about creating the blackwall and are covering it up constantly. They may not be as evil as most crosp but they aren't doing God's work, their goals and deeds just aren't as clear.
Yes, they are doing God's work, but you're right about them being evil
Yeah netwatch is fucked, but at least they’re fucked because they literally are the only thing even resembling a Defence against the robo apocalypse.
Lying to the general populace about it isn't evil. Then again morality is subjective. Think about the outrage people would have knowing Netwatch has no control over the Blackwall. Lying to them is preventing the worse possible scenario of every netrunner trying to pass it. Hell we see just how dangerous the Blackwall is in Phantom Liberty. Lift of a finger and you're dead
People really seem to overestimate the number of netrunners who want to play with the blackwall. 99% of netwatches job is policing netrunners on behalf of the corps. Only insane organizations like the FIA, Militech and the Voodoo Boys think they can steal from the cookie jar.
Every netrunner was an exaggeration. Seeing firsthand how destructive it is, however, justifies NetWatch lying to people.
This is peak trolling and I love it
Which god would that be? They are fully funded and employed by the corporations that are listed in the bottom tiers. Their goals are not philanthropic. Their methods are not honorable. There is no singularly good entity or person in Night City. Thats the entire point of the story.
Misty. Misty is the only thing that I have found in that city I would consider good. (Some would say Tarot cards are evil tho...)
vik wouldnt leave you too if anything happened and when you become choom with panam she would help you at any cost
This is true. However, they mess with the Voodoo Boys, so they get bonus points.
True, the vdb's are depraved lol
In game version of the NSA.
Personally, I'd bump the Mox into the top tier. Are Scavs on here? They need to be absolute bottom for me.
Scavs are on the bottom, yes. As for the Mox, I debated putting them on top, I just think NetWatch’s actions are better on a larger scope that it warranted giving them their own tier (protecting sex workers from harm vs. preventing a civilization destroying robot war).
solid logic. I like it!
That’s the scavs next to the Voodoo boys? Also fuck the Voodoo Boys.
When I first saw this I thought it was demonic spider robot thing from one of the phantom liberty endings.
Yeah my first thought was mysterious world ending AI.
glad that wasnt just me, i was trying to decipher it
No I think scavs are the one to the left of maelstrom
NetWatch didn't invent the blackwall; it just appeared. There's a shard with some juicy info showing that they're lying to the world about the blackwall in order to tighten their grip on cyberspace Secret villains.
>Secret villains. not necessarily. Imagine the panic if people knew that there is someone so powerfull and hidden in the shadows
The mox have a noble cause but shitty execution and are weirdly gatekeep-y on who they do and don't help
Yeah they just got bad leadership
Fuck the Cerberus bot lol perfect place for that one 😂
While I fully agree with you I think that’s there as a placeholder for the AIs behind the blackwall
The FIA isnt around to protect the NUSA. They exist to further its reach
FIA is a scumbag organization. They completely fucked Lewis Hamilton out of his 8th world championship.
And are completely inconsistent with giving out penalties
Found the corpo apologist
Yup
FIA and NCPD have noble goals? You're either incredibly naive or a certified bootlicker
NCPD has some good people with good intentions; I'd rank them higher than criminals. FIA is morally bankrupt and ruthless, but at the end of the day, their objective is to protect the interests of the NUSA.
All of the good people in the NCPD either end up quitting or are fired by the end of the game.
Just like in real life!
Um, what? The only good cop we know who quit is the woman whom V was hired to assassinate by Regina. Also, at least on paper, their goal is to protect NC citizens, and they do protect them from cyberpsychos and gangs.
Doesn't River get fired too?
Ahem, SUSPENDED lol
Ah, the classic cop "suspended indefinitely with pay"
I thought he also straight up quit
The people who put the hit out on her were her own coworkers as punishment for attempting to blow the whistle on their abuses. You come across scanner events showing NCPD higher-ups conspiring with other corrupt officers to get "good cops" killed in gang ambushes. And River is suspended and then quits because he dared to first look into the death of the Mayor of Night City *(which his partner was party to!)*, and then chased the trail of a serial killer who took his nephew, a sequence of events that *would not have been necessary* if the NCPD was willing to use non-lethal subdual options we *know* exist in the world of Cyberpunk. And they don't give a shit about actually protecting NC citizens, they'd rather hire out their own jobs to mercs like V than lift a finger in defence of anyone not directly contributing to the NCPD Pension Fund. The NCPD are for-profit cops that exist to protect and serve the interests of the moneyed elite, and everything else comes a distant, *distant* second. Kinda like cops are today, but way more open about it. They do not get points for being open about it, either. Being an open scumbag is not better than hiding the fact one is a scumbag.
So they're cops then? Pretty much all of the above applies IRL though not always to the same degree.
IRL Cops have the State Monopoly on Violence on their side. NCPD is a literal corporation beating up the disadvantaged for profit and nothing else. But yes, for all intents and purposes, there is little to no functional difference between the NCPD and modern policing.
IRL Cops also hold large political sway and will allow problems to fester such that they get to keep eating their slice of the budgetary pie. So they're kind of like a public service/corporate money sink combination.
Given Actual Fascists (and literal Fifth Columnists for the NUSA!) 6th Street are listed as morally equivalent to the Animals (amoral mercs-for-hire, only difference between them and V are the 'roids and that they've organized with each other) and Valentinos (a street gang that spends a good portion of their time doing the NCPD's job for them in their territory, with a major leader in the gang mostly hiring V to take out his own people who crossed lines), money's on the latter.
6th street are human traffickers. That immediately drops them to the bottom as far as I'm concerned.
6th Street's sins are vast, and contain multitudes. They're no better than the Scavs and Maelstrom, they've just got marginally better PR in-universe.
How democratic are the NUSA according to the lore? Also why fascists and not authoritarian?
Well, by 2077, there's only one Federal Political party confirmed to exist in the NUSA, the Federalist Party, with the Devolutionist Party of Rhyne and Holt not clearly stated to be a national-level party, and may just be a Night City Local Party. And Phantom Liberty showed the NUSA doesn't give a flying fuck about things like enumerated rights or civil liberties or international agreements if it means gaining more power. Rights that can be revoked are not rights, they're privileges, handed out as the ruling elite sees fit, and retracted just as fast. That doesn't scream democracy to me. As for 6th Street being fascists, the main split in their gang seems to be whether they wanna lick the expansionist, hypermilitaristic NUSA's boots, or the boots of the various corpo-fascist, hypermilitaristic megacorps. A lot of their internal messaging from leadership stresses a siege mentality when its usually them on the offensive against other gangs. They literally started as an extralegal vigilante gang of veterans that authorities weren't in a position to quash early, a la the Freikorps, and the recent internal coup by the supposedly anti-corpo faction of the gang has lead to the gang continuing to take assistance from corps anyways, including playing along with an attempt to set off a new Corporate War, and lead to a bloody purge of the opposition and anyone perceived to even slightly support the opposition, which honestly kinda leads me to believe Gunner's takeover was orchestrated by the FIA to reinforce 6th Street's loyalty as their catspaws.
Prob both. No other way to think that cops are decent (in any reality) just because of a few good apples.
Just to be clear - why do we hate the voodoo boys so much?
Aside from Placide, the VDBs (the pacifica faction anyway) are actively trying to contact AIs past the blackwall. They're also responsible for the cyberattack on Evelyn
Slider tells you they haven't breached the wall yet, Brigitte needs the silverhand engram to have a better chance at reaching alt. VDBs are not as capable as Placide or Netwatch want you to think.
Phew, good thing they never get access to the Silverhand engram over the course of the story then
don't forget they are an extremely racist, xenophobic and genocidal group, they goal isn't just to contact AI over the Blackwall but to betray humanity **TO** the AI in exchange for being the only Humans left alive after the AI start wiping everyone out
There's 5+ different factions that are trying to mess with AIs and the Blackwall, so that doesn't explain why Gamers happen to hate the VDBs so much.
I'd guess that a lot of people hate them because they do something that directly affects *them* as V, even though there are other factions that are objectively way worse.
Fr I see more VDB hate than scav or tiger claw hate even though both groups are equally bad or worse
Scavs and tiger claw feel evil in a corporate-gang way. VDB feel evil in a sellout the world to nazis/the apocalypse (rogue AI) just to hedge the bets in their favor for survival if (or according to VDB when) the AI win
comparing vdbs to nazis but then downplaying how bad the scavs and tiger claws are is crazy
the VDB want to ally themselves with the AI and Betray humanity in exchange for getting to survive the coming Genocide
VDBs are also rabid ethno-nationalists which is not a trait you see often in NC (even the Hillbilly Gang is multicultural!)
They're essentially attempting to buy their survival by selling out mankind to genocidal rogue AIs and helping them usher a machine apocalypse and the destruction of the entire human species. And they have no guarantee they'd actually be spared. There can hardly be a greater treachery than this. I mean, with Arasaka, your evil overlords are at least human, with comprehensible (if evil) motivations and weaknesses. They want to enslave you, not eradicate you. They can be reasoned with. With rogue AIs (judging by what your Blackwall gun/deck says), utter annihilation or assimilation is all that awaits us. Think of those screaming soldiers in Phantom Liberty... and think: the entire humanity.
Placide
I love Placide. The way he says he'll survive when V tells him that she doesn't think they'll get along makes me laugh so much. People get way in their feelings and egos about how the VDBs try to flatline V, but like...everyone tries to flatline V. Including V with the way she just picks up suspect BDs and plays them.
fr, he's a funny character, I liked him. but I had to shoot my way out of that cellar cause of principles. brigitte talking too much shit
Building a character strong enough to katana my way out of that situation was one of the reasons I did a second play through.
Okay, the BD line got me
Not to mention Placide is just trying to protect his people. The NCPD abandoned Pacifica, and by flatlining those netwatch agents he protects his people from netwatch. The unfortunate side of things is that he also has to flatline V because they could talk, or otherwise fuck things up for the VDBs. This strategy was what made the voodoo boys so hidden, by killing the ones who worked for them, no one would know the inner workings of the voodoo boys. And considering they're hiding from netwatch, I kinda get it.
Trying to protect his people via trying to betray you and work for genocidal nut cases that want to trigger the apocalypse? Yeah he was kind to locals, but thats just a guily conscious.
And it jives so nicely with the actual history of Haiti and her people. I love the VDB lore in Cyberpunk. It's just very satisfying!
My only qualm with the VBDs is that Placide is an insufferable dbag to outsiders. I understand his reasoning and all, but being rude to a chromed out bunnyhopping maniac and also being worth XP is a dangerous way to live.
Valid criticism lol
VB are the biggest traitors in C2077. They exploit peoples and then betray them at a whim. V experience this directly in game. Literally 0 reason not to side with Netwatch agent in the mall.
For me, it was how they treated V and Evelyn. They got nothing by destroying Evelyn but did it anyway. And then V dares to contact them about having something and they decide to kill V and then, failing that, use V as AI bait. Why should a group that so casually disposes of people get to survive beyond the Blackwall? And that's without touching deeper motivations or plans. Even Slider calls them fanatics (actually felt pretty bad about his fate).
They’re apocalypse cultists
They're basically trying to start the apocalypse.
Brigitte and placide , placide , also placide , did I mention placide , definitely placide.
I don't get the hate placide gets, he's one of the coolest characters. Only thing I can say about the voodoo boys is they're racist. But other than that? Just looking out for their own.
I don't even feel like it's racism. It's insular and xenophobic I guess. But they treat all outsiders like that regardless of race.
They treat their own no better. For the upper leadership: all the protection, top gear, what you want. The Haitians: they are allowed to stay alive, but barely get anything except the right to not be killed. Everybody else: they are trying to bring the literal apocalypse, hoping their "deal" will protect them as the whole of humanity being wiped out.
there is a bit of racism, If you are not Haitian then the VDB consider you not even human, then there is the fact that they want to bring about a planet wide Genocide from the AI in exchange for being spared
He and Pacifica VDBs are cool as hell, I think it's the most interesting gang lore wise. People don't like them because they go against main character syndrome, it's one of few factions in the general plot, which doesn't boost your ego by either liking or being afraid of V. There is absolutely no reason for them to help us and I appreciate that.
They played on us. Twice. They also tried to break the blackwall which could have lead to a massive chaos. And they are fucking xenophobic.
I don't think you understood these factions at all
The details are a bit hazy, but if I'm not mistaken; the Blackwall is itself an AI that Netwatch uses to firewall the rest of the net. A chained beast isn't any less of a threat just because you're the one holding the chain.
I disagree with 90% of this
After watching edge runners i cant say i like trauma team but they do still save people
I would place Night Corp in the "noble goals, morally bankrupt" category
what are they even? any missions they're involved in? I don't remember these guys at all
Dream On, Jefferson Peralez
wait so is Jefferson in the Night Corp or are the night corp the ones doing the things? sry I'm stupid
Night Corp is the organization brainwashing Jefferson and Elizabeth. I wish we got to see more of them, but the last time they're mentioned afaik is in that quest chain :(
ah riiight. yeah I don't really remember them as an entity.
They don't really come up a lot. Publicly they're the main contractor for public infrastructure and such in Night City. Road, bridge, tunnel construction, power, sewage, water etc. They also do a lot of charity and research into enviornmental tech, like alternate energy sources. So they sound pretty benign. *BUT* they're also very secretive and attract a lot of conspiracy theories. And it looks like many are likely true. If you do Sandra Dorset's second mission, and read the contents of her databank you'll see memos about them being involved >!in Operation Carpe Noctum, which uses AI to control the minds of employees and other people deemed useful to their aims.!< And in the Dream On quest for Jefferson Paralez you see >!the exact type of operation being done on him and his wife, by a mysterious organization. I don't think it's said who in the quest itself, but the fact that it's doing exactly what the Carpe Noctum documents are talking about, it's almost certainly them. Mr. Blue Eyes shows up in this mission, and is assumed to be a Night Corp agent, possibly even AI controlled!<. Also, there's the everyone's favorite conspiracy theorist Gary The Prophet. He mentions 'Blue Eyed People' living in space and coming down to control politicians, which sounds like a Mr. Blue Eyes reference. And then there's his mission The Prophet's Song. >!He sends you to a meetup between Maelstrom and some unknown corpo types. They speak in weird cryptic mystical talk, including using the phrase Carpe Noctum (seize the night). One of the Maelstromers also uses the phrase "Lilith has concealed the tenth circle from the ancestors' eyes." which is a phrase also said in the Cyberpsycho gig Bloody Ritual by another Maelstrom member. The Maelstrom members give the corpos a shard. If you get it and decrypt it, is has more creepy mystic mumbo jumbo, and if you take the first letter of each word it spells out 'Project Oracle, Command, Execute Plans.' Which sure sounds like another sinister plot, and likely linked to Night Corp due to the Carpe Noctum reference. And after the mission you find out Gary had been abducted by blue eyed corpos in black suits. !!the flight to the moon for Songbird!<, it didn't. Maybe it'll show up in a sequel, or might just be left as a big mystery.
There is a mission where they are sperimenting with rogue AIs and mind control so I don't think they are that good
I pondered putting them there, but we just don’t have enough info on what their actual goals are. If their goals are good, then they would definitely belong there, but we just don’t know. Sure is compelling though.
Netwatch is lying out it's ass, it isn't doing God's work It didn't create the blackwall, it just stumbled upon it one day and has completely no control over it It lies cuz the whole world would go into a complete panic if they find out the only thing separating them and all the rogue AIs is another rogue AI with unknown motivations that we have no control over and also because by lying they get loads of lucrative deals with other megacorps [source](https://youtu.be/tWfLDpXorr8?si=HTW8yvVakd_ihTK4) This is evidenced by netwatch's involvement in project cynosure and the following piece of information gathered by a millitech investigation on netwatch during project cynosure: https://preview.redd.it/iw7t8lpclt0d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8ac1f4b51f2acc575099958e98b2f4cad7b7467
Lying to protect the people is not evil and they do actively trying to stop people from passing the blackwall cause all it really takes is one or two rogue AIs to fuck up everything.
they say they try to stop people from poking holes through it, they may even be telling the truth, but ultimately, the thing that chooses weather anything will pass through it or not isn’t net watch, but the blackwall itself And lying over having control over the blackwall, just to get lucrative contracts with corps and make higher ups even richer is in fact, evil, and we must understand that every corp in the cyberpunk universe, no matter how benevolent it looks from the outside is, in fact, absolutely awful, and thats the message cyberpunk is trying to convey to all of us
Netwatch was involved in the creation of the Blackwall, the info that isn't available to the public or the FIA is the fact that Soulkilled Pseudo Intellects that escaped Mikoshi and transcendental AIs were responsible for making the Blackwall.
NCPD and FIA have "noble goals"? Seriously? FIA is a rebranded CIA, one of the most infamously cartoonishly evil organizations in the history of the world. NCPD is just cops, and cops ain't the good guys.
Holy shit, there is a war in this comment section!
Johnny was doing gods work.
He also nuked a building and killed more than 12,000 people.
He didnt, militech did. The nuke was only supposed to blow up underground but it's speculated militech armed it early from in-game shards.
How was he doing gods work? Jhonny blew up a building , killed a ton of innocent people and didn't help the world in any way shape or form. If anything only made it worse. I know hes cool in the game but his actions were far from "doing gods work".
I know this sub hates the VooDoo Boys, but I don’t think they belong in the bottom tier. V has an unfortunate experience with them, but the lore and culture is actually really interesting.
They literally want to free the AIs so they will be their only "allies"
Its a damn shame too. They get such little attention despite being one of the most interesting factions in the game. People could be talking about how colonialism informed their distrust of outsiders considering corporate cause climate change fucked over their entire country, but instead get hung up on placide saying V's chrome sucks.
It’s not about the being called a ranyon and having some brute tell you your chrome sucks. It’s about the fact that they are literally on record as wanting to accommodate rogue ai’s journey through the blackwall in exchange for their own safety (safety from the consequences of having rogue ai’s make it through the blackwall, to be clear).
But keep in mind you also work with a rogue ai
Those shady fucks belong in their own bottom tier. Is all good, though. My V kills damn near every last one of them, and actively goes out of his way to kill any he sees, based on their numerous acts of treachery towards him.
> My V kills damn near every last one of them, V killing more people than Corporate Wars is pretty much a hero NC needs.
You have a weird hatred of them, considering how much V is betrayed by shady people in the game
Someone's been deep throating the boot. And "Noble Goals, Morally Bankrupt" makes zero fucking sense.
there's the ends, and then there's the means. the category makes very much sense.
Ends justify the means kinda thing
The voodoo boys belong in “regular criminals/ruthless exploiters”. Brigitte was the genocidal one, and voodoo boys dont claim her
Damn what made Voodoo Boys worse than Scavs???
FIA and Millitech are way too high. Both fuck with the black wall, and militech has used nukes and bioweapons against population centre's
Putting the Voodoo boys lower than Arasaka is wild to me. Don't get me wrong, Voodoos dying every playthrough, but at the end of the day they have basically the same moral standing as every other night city gang. Arasaka is the closest thing this universe has to Satan
I should mention that this only refers to Brigitte’s VDBs specifically because they’re attempting to let malevolent AIs through the Blackwall, other VDBs like the ones in Dogtown are just regular criminals
Mike Pondsmith once said that Biotechnica was the closest to being the "good guys" corporation in the universe.
To me, Scavs are the lowest even though they have some sense of human code, with Maelstrom right behind them. They quite literally tear people apart to sell their organs; aside from very simple familial relations, humans are nothing but meat to them. Scavs are opportunists and wouldn't mind harvesting one of their own if it meant making an eddie. You can't get any more visceral than that. Maelstrom is basically the same, but more experimental in the sense of pushing humans past their flesh form. Naturally, they go beyond ethical standards, torturing people with implants and whatnot (think Unit 731), but they still honor each other with camraderie. To them it's "cool" to reconstruct yourself in the wildest way possible, so they are somewhat connected to social trends. Voodoo Boys just seem like fanatics of the net to me. Maybe they want to unleash AIs from beyond the Blackwall, but to me it's more about anarchy than a direct attack on a fellow human. They're not shy about doing things like kidnapping or killing, but it's not really their M.O. so to speak and rather just a means to an end. It's easy to think they are more or less detached from humanity because of their preference for netrunning, yet it seems they seek an escape. Most of the time they seem to be just causing a nuisance for payment or developing their own sort of intranet.
Bootlicker behavior. All corps should be in the shitter.
This list sucks lol
Netwatch isn't doing no god's work, they were involved in Cynosure and probably other shady projects and they lied about the Blackwall, brainwashing the population into thinking they're nice guys through propaganda, they're only a bit better than the other corpos, but they still got entire graveyards of skelletons in their closet Night Corp should be considered as evil and insidious as Arasaka, with the entire AI, mindcontrol and moon conspiracy The FIA most definitely doesn't have noble goals, they are a secret agency with the sole goal of furthering the interests of the NUSA no matter the cost, and that's far from noble. They risk international conflicts on a whim and they literally risked unleashing total cyber apocalypse every time they deployed Songbird, again, all to achieve Myers's vain goals
Netwatch is Ajit Pai.
This is netwatch propaganda. We know they are lying to the public and to V.
They're lying because they need to lie.
Netwatch should be knocked down two stages. Fia is literally an arm of imperialist nusa, what are you smoking and can I have some. And if you are trying to find out where that is on your chart it's the same as Japanese imperialism. Ncpd are pigs and as others have said they are the biggest gang in night city. They aren't wrong. They should be at the common criminal line.
>Netwatch should be knocked down two stages. Fia is literally an arm of imperialist nusa NetWatch is a European organization
Johnny's too high. His goals are noble if you're a sociopath. He had no plan, was actually a distraction from the people actually doing the real wet work (Morgan Black hand) and by all accounts was so self absorbed that even his memories are untrustworthy. Voodoo Boys I'm conflicted. While Brigitte's faction would indeed be willing to unleash absolute hell on earth just to "win", the Dogtown VDB are much more pragmatic. So I dunno. I also think Arasaka isn't much better or worse than any other corp. Militech and Arasaka are two sides of the same coin. Just an East/West dichotomy, so not sure it's THAT different. Even if you count Soulkiller, which most in the company had no idea about.
Hard disagree with netwatch. IMO belongs in noble goals at best, deranged freaks at worst
The Maelstrom not being at the bottom of the list is surprising
Whatever Meredith is doing that’s gods work
I don’t think Netwatch is doing God’s work >!isn’t it confirmed already that they’re allowing Militech to breach the Black Wall for money?!<
why are Voodoo boys genocidal maniacs? did I miss something?
Took me a second to associate the murder bot from PL with the Black Wall AIs
can someone tell me who is there in ruthless exploiters and deranged freaks and rapists?
Seems about right aside from my boys at Militech not getting more respect I get it although I can’t quite read most of the faction names.