Interview with Constance Penley and Andrew Ross, Editors of Technoculture

INTERVIEWS BY ROBIN MOORE

Constance Penley and Andrew Ross
Editors of Technoculture

I talked with Constance Penley and Andrew Ross separately, in the virtual space of the telephone. It was decidedly low-tech, recorded with a $3 suction-cup microphone from Radio Shack; transcribed longhand; Macintoshed; edited via transcontinental fax.

Penley was charming and soft-spoken. Read her with a southern accent. Widely known for her many books on film and feminism, including Close Encounters: Film, Feminism and Science Fiction, she is an editor of Camera Obscura, the nation’s snappiest film/feminism journal. Her favorite TV shows are Roseanne, and Northern Lights, and she dreams of one day having a show about university cultural critics, to be titled Ivory Towers. She currently teaches at UC Santa Barbara. Continue reading “Interview with Constance Penley and Andrew Ross, Editors of Technoculture”

DYSTOPIA – Life in the dark future

DYSTOPIA

Author: Ellie Bulin <buline@hotmail.com>
Used with permission.

Environment

The year is 2026. The city is Portland. The country is the Incorporated States of America or the ISA. The United States of America no longer exists it was taken over by the corporations earlier in the century. The corporations became the fourth branch of government. There is still a president, and Congress, but they are more figurative than they are powerful.
The once mighty American dollar has been replaced with a multinational currency called the eurodollar. It can be used throughout North America and Europe. You can not travel as easily as you once did. The ISA has put heavy restrictions on travel to foreign countries, making it almost impossible to leave the country. Continue reading “DYSTOPIA – Life in the dark future”

Bad Japanese Words

Bad Japanese Words

Author: Logan Graves logan1@shore.intercom.net

[digg=http://digg.com/gaming_news/Bad_Japanese_Words_2]Taken with permission from: The
Big Knobi Klub, a great Shadowrun site

Okay, here’s the long promised Japanese slanguage file.

First, some notes:

  1. I copied this off a Japanese Language-soft, so any errors in fact, tact, or syntax are now your problem.
  2. The words & phrases contained in this file are anglicized into an approximation of speech & are not standardized Japanese translations, however, they will correctly convey your meaning when spoken.
  3. My display-link didn’t support all the lang-soft’s fonts, so treat “ä ë ï ö ü & ÿ” as long vowels.
  4. This text is a bit revealing about the Japanese and their views on the rest of the (non-Japanese) world. If it offends your delicate sensibilities, don’t read it, clavie!
  5. When the slang expression has multiple Japanese translations, the phrases are listed from most polite to least polite! Continue reading “Bad Japanese Words”

The Saloon – A Cyberpunk 2020 Bar

The Saloon Bar

a location for Cyberpunk 2020 by Kristian de Valle (kris@cxa.com.au)

Prop. J.C. Ferreras
Staff: Jenny, Carly & Michelle. Ed on bar sometimes

We serve Wendy beer (straight from Minnesota), heavy, light, all spirits (no fancy orbital shit or designer crap), and the only cocktail we make is the Apache Warpath. Milk is served without a second glance. Sometimes there’s pretzels on the bench if Ferreras is paid well after a job.

The jukebox in the corner has been there as long as anyone can remember. It plays the Highwaymen, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson. The most recent disk is Bon Jovi’s Young Guns sound-track. ‘I’m a cowboy, on the steel horse I ride’ Nobody knows who Bon Jovi is. It still eats American dimes and quarters. Continue reading “The Saloon – A Cyberpunk 2020 Bar”

The Gaslamp District

The Gaslamp District

a new section of Night City by Gary Astleford (ocelot@connectnet.com)

HISTORY

The Gaslamp District was pieced together before the collapse by residents searching for the quaint history of other nearby cities. Older, decaying buildings were renovated and streetlights were replaced with working gaslamps (hence the name). After the collapse, the buildings fell into decay again. The area’s proximity to the Combat Zone lead to several turf wars between rival gangs. Continue reading “The Gaslamp District”

The 'Cybered Arms' – A Cyberpunk 2020 Bar/Club

The ‘Cybered Arms’

Author: unknown

On the corner of 2nd and Zelazny in Little Italy, there sits an oblong-shaped establishment which fronts the street and backs onto a dingy alleyway. Next door is a Garage which seems to be in the throes of restoration, the roller door kept securely locked and closed, with chickenwire keeping the upper windows safe.A dataterm on the opposite corner is scarred and looks like a model from down South N.C. way, the hood battered and the sides scarred by gunfire. Long scrape marks in the tarmac of the street slide all the way up to the front of bar, stopping roughly a meter away.

The frontage of this bar is brutal. Once an ailing ‘theme’ bar covered in flashy chrome trimmings and neon, it changed ownership eighteen months ago and the inner and outer facade have changed dramatically. Great slabs of sheet steel lie riveted across the once-wide front windows with three-inch slits bisecting them horizontally, looking remarkably like gun ports. These sheets are scorched and dinted, yet are holding. The surrounding brickwork is blackened and paint is blistered.

The front doors are twin tinted Lexan swinging doors, opening to a small antechamber with matching untinted doors two meters away, and from here one is able to see into the bar itself. Continue reading “The 'Cybered Arms' – A Cyberpunk 2020 Bar/Club”

THE LA METROPLEX

WELCOME TO THE LA METROPLEX

Name: LA METROPLEX (a.k.a.: San-Angeles Metroplex)Population: 750,000,000

Businesses: Moderate to Heavy Industry, Entertainment, Trade, Computers, Electronics, Tourism, Chemical Production

Background: The San-Angeles Metroplex (LA Metroplex. called the Plex’ by ones who live in it) is a large city located on the west coast of what remains of the U.S. This Mega-City sprawls from the Santa Barbara area (which now is a suburb of the Metroplex) to the border of Mexico and as far east as what remains of San Bernardino. What is left of Old Orange County is now the site of the Happy Kingdom which features the largest amusement park in the world. The only section of the Metroplex that is near uninhabited is a length of land between the Happy Kingdom and San Diego known as the San Onofre stretch. San Diego is the current capital of the SoCal free state. Continue reading “THE LA METROPLEX”

Das Bluelight – Eine Cyberpunk 2020 Bar

Das Bluelight

Autor: Cord Gudegast <SirGaiwain@gmx.de>
mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Steelrain’s Cyberpunk Page

Einführung

Das Bluelight liegt im Stadtteil Little Ireland und ist eine umgebaute Polizeiwache. Der Besitzer Seargeant Walter Cole ist ein angesehener Cop im 7. Revier gewesen, bis er sich zur Ruhe gesetzt hat, jedoch nicht ganz alleine in seiner kleinen Wohnung versauern wollte. Also nahm er seine magere Pension und einen kleinen Kredit zu Hilfe und kaufte der Stadt das verfallene Revier ab und eröffnete im Januar 2017 seine Bar.
Das Besondere am Bluelight ist, das sie ausschließlich den COPs vorbehalten ist. Vor Eintreten hat man seine Dienstmarke zu zeigen. Continue reading “Das Bluelight – Eine Cyberpunk 2020 Bar”

Ocelot's Gang Creation Chart

GANGS IN CYBERPUNK 2020

by Gary Astleford (ocelot@connectnet.com)

The article is a set of tables that allows you to create quickly some cool and individual gangs for the use in Cyberpunk 2020. Its tells you how big the gang is, what the focus, equipment and power of the gang is going to be.

You may roll the same gang type twice. This means that the gang in question is very narrow in its goals and its means of achieving them. This isn’t a bad thing at all, and it does nothing to make the gang more or less exciting, depending on how the GM interprets his results.

There is, however, a special case. If “Puppet Gang” is rolled, make a note of the result and roll on the chart twice more. The following two rolls indicate the Puppet Gang’s front – the type of gang people perceive them to be. If either of the two rolls result in “Puppet Gang” again, then it is common knowledge that the gang is, in fact, corporate owned and operated.

Note that not all gangs are evil, nasty, antisocial, and violent. Some are merely driven to such a course by outside influence and the pressure of the street. In addition, not all gangs are brought together because of poverty and lack of parental attentions. Imagine a gang made up of spoiled rich kids who douse vagrants with lighter fluid and set them on fire. Sound familiar? Continue reading “Ocelot's Gang Creation Chart”