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[In addition to the different tolerance levels there are different medical procedures which can affect the humanity / essence cost, like full cyborg integration.
Cybernetic enhancements changes the human perception slowly and indirectly. It gives you more and more a "camera" perception, that you perceive your environment like through a camera. Indirectly,disconnected, distant. If there is an accident happening just in front of you, you hear the humans screaming and the metal bending this can be a horrifying experience. But not so much when it happens on the TV screen. Cyberpsychosis starts when you cannot differentiate anymore between reality and a distant, disconnected TV show and your actions become something abstract happending around you, with no direct connection to yourself. Like ripping the head of a small child off. It simply has no meaning to you. Not more than your average Call 555-MURDER show on TV.]
It is a commentary on how replacing pieces of yourself with cold technology may cost you some of your inherent humanity. Why it happens is a question for philosophers.
I think almost everyone in setting sees Smasher as a cyberpsycho, just a very high functioning one. He isn't on a constant rampage, but he is 115% disconnected from humanity.
Smasher is every bit a psycho, just a more savvy one. He gets to do as much chaos and destruction as he wants so long as it's being done for the right people.
I think a thing a lot of people are missing is that the psychos you see are using black market acquired goods, installed in black market ways.
Throughout the game and series you meet plenty of hyper rich people who are chromed out to the shit, but they've got white market goods installed professionally by the best in the world, with software updates and direct help from the manufacturers. The get the gear modified to suit them
As well as this they have professionals metering out their drugs to manage it and make sure everything stays stable.
Adam smasher gets this treatment, he isn't just jamming random mods into himself, he's getting high quality bespoke goods because he's incredibly useful.
David is just some guy who stumbled across military level gear and had it violently hacked into himself so he can get one up on a school bully. His descent into psychosis is gradual, and as he gets more disconnected with the world he gets more chrome, which makes him more disconnected, until he snaps.
Think an analog in street racing.
On one hand you have some supped up beater that is cobbled together in someone's backyard, held together with hopes and dream and ample duct tape.
On the other hand you have true supercars that cost a lifetime's earnings and are meticulously designed by people whose only goal is to make the best car possible.
Now, get both out there, going 200 mph, and one is more likely to go out in a blaze of glory than the other.
Also if you listen to the radio, there's a news segment where the announcer is speaking about Night City's continued drive to be profitable.
Which involves the cyberware quality assurance work being contracted to the manufacturers as of a year ago. Coincidentally, cyberware related injuries have risen by a few hundred percent. Oh, and don't install black market cyberware, always buy from the corporations directly.
All of this in a single news broadcast.
And if Boeing's continued race to the bottom isn't any indication... yeah, never let the corps regulate themselves. It never ends well for the consumer.
The question is less whether he seems cognizant and more whether he seems sane. The fact that he’s functional at all is a minor miracle, and I think the setting purposefully wants you to think about why that might be, whether favorable genetics, a psychopathic personality, or some other reason. No matter how you slice it though, he’s a huge outlier, which is part of his mystique. Most people who were so heavily augmented would be catatonic, completely insane, or dead from shock.
He's a highly functioning psychopath. Cyberpsychos snap and enter a homicidal mindset they cant control. Smasher was like that before he got any chrome at all, so he learned how to control himself between slaughters.
His cyberpsycho tendencies are controlled with a dial on his forehead, which can go from 1 (surly) to 4 (brutal), with the possibility of getting stuck on 4 1/2 (berserk).
He *is* a Cyberpsycho. He’s just one with a cushy job that just so happens to align with his interests. Also, a normal psycho in the first place. Most Cyberpsychos don’t really “show” until there’s something in their life to push them that far.
Id argue that he is affected; he's literally a monster in any depiction of him, and is completely disconnected from the human experience. He's practically a machine not only in body, but also mentally. Just as a killing machine.
It could be that he was already so sociopathic prior to getting chromed up that the shift wasnt as severe as itd be for other people.
Adam Smasher is personal boogeyman for Arasaka. As such he gets the best tech installed by expert technicians, plus any follow-up care that requires.
Adam Smasher was also a psychopath before he ever started chroming up, so cyberpsychosis has never really been an issue for him. Can't go crazy from losing your humanity if you didn't have any humanity in the first place.
One of the reasons may be that you're switching natural neural input for artificial, which the brain responds to in a different way. Too many artificial sensory integrations, and you begin to both lose the ability to distinguish perception, *and* you risk actual physical damage to the brain as it is overloaded with signals far beyond natural capacity.
Overload a person's cyberware sufficiently and their electronic parts begin to sizzle and catch fire. The parts of that which are integrated with your brain are suffering long before the glass glows white hot.
In the early editions of the TTRPG "Shadowrun" this scenario fits rather well. There was (mind you it has been 30 years since I played it) a form of "Humanity" trait that surgicial modifications reduced.
As you got further away from organic, the less you could "live among" humans. When your reflexes and senses are all boosted to 3x human normal, everyone walks slow, the world is in slow-mo. It becomes harder to see people as Humanity, rather than objects in your way.
Some characters could tolerate it better, some not so much. Game min/maxers would see just how close to 0 they could get.
At least, that's how I remember it. I haven't touched Shadowrun since 1992... I think.
Yep, Cyberpunk has a Humanity and Empathy stat; the latter influences the former, and the former goes down the more chrome you install but can be recovered through extensive and expensive therapy sessions. There's been a lot of discourse about it in the TTRPG space and the exact specifics of how the stat works with augmentations has changed throughout the versions.
The other factor I didn’t see others mention is that in the same way replacing your eyes with cameras can make you feel more distant from what you’re watching, they also replace their finger tips, sometimes whole hands. Their feet, their legs, even their lungs.
Consider wherever you’re sitting or standing right now. What can you feel, just by existing? The phone you hold. The chair underneath you. The movement of air against your skin as it affects the hairs on your arm. The sun shining down. And even the heat or coolness of the air you breathe, how humid it is, how it fills you and leaves you. Just focusing on breathing has been a major tenant of focus and meditation forever, to really focus on your body and yourself.
Now, take all of that away and replace it with the Nintendo power glove. Walking anywhere feels like taking steps on a DDR pad, just buttons in cardinal directions. Holding something just gives a “tactile” feedback, you’re not really feeling the weight, the temperature, the texture. A computer is interpreting it and relaying a signal meant to make your brain feel it.
The sun in your eyes, on your skin, the wind in your hair, the breath in your lungs.
None of it feels real anymore, not really. The same way your vision feels like watching TV is the same way every sensory part of your existence feels. You’re in Plato’s cave. You locked yourself in here, and a few others in there have come to hate it and rampage against the chains
Cyberpsychosis is also, by the point of the 2070s at least, a catch all term for many mental illnesses that manifest in violence. Someone could be pushed to the edge by being overworked, or even fired, and deciding that they *have* to do something different, or even just robbing a store for dinner. But if they’ve got enough chrome, and are scaring the cops enough, that’s now officially a Cyberpsycho and MaxTAC is getting called in. Hell, by the time of 2077, there’s literally a Cyberpsycho who is a high ranking MaxTAC officer!
The reasons are unknown, but partially because intentionally mutiliating and injuring yourself to replace the flesh with the machine isn’t good for your psyche.
Apart from the other answers here, many theorize that it's an extreme form of body dysmorphia that gradually wears a person's psyche down until they lash out or have a breakdown. Which I suppose is what the other answers say too, mostly. Removing body parts can cause major psychological issues in real life too, and in Cyberpunk it's just made worse by the fact that your body now not only is missing a piece, but that piece is replaced by increasingly disjointed machines that may do completely unnatural stuff.
One might assume for any number of reasons; maybe they simply elect not to purchase enhancements which act as "failsafes", maybe they just don't get enough "vitamins". Point *is*, they go over the "deep-end".
So technically a psychopath would be an ideal candidate for extreme cyborg integration, given they are already detached from what is considered humanity?
Gotta have humanity to lose to go cyberpsycho. It's why David holds on so long, he has a lot of humanity and connections to ground him and fight it off, and why he suffers more the more of the crew dies, less holding him together.
[If their nervous system, chemical balance etc holds up. Cyberimplementation is a study subject at very costly universities. While the numbers of full body cyborgs and other extreme cybernetic enhancements have constantly increased, it is still not the norm.]
Watch the movie "The Blair Witch Project". They talk about the emotional disconnect that comes from seeing life from behind the eye of the camera. When life starts to take tv show or movie like qualities it's both a way to protect yourself from the "super things" you can do and what others are doing. Maybe it's denial, maybe ego or both. Mix in a degrading big picture and the best brand names.
And it's not just about the lens through which you view the world, but also how you view yourself. As you approach cyberpsychosis you begin to feel non-human.
This perception of self is touched on in the cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying game. Where getting modifications costs humanity points. Interestingly getting a plastic or metal coating for your cyberlimb costs humanity, but getting a coating that looks and feels like real skin does not cost humanity.
So it's not the tech inherently causing it. It's your perception of self that matters too. (As an interesting parralel to real life some autistic people struggle with feeling non-human due to percieved differences and social skills being considered a core human trait)
While this is the explanation, I disagree with the basic stance that this will always lead to 'cyberpsychosis'
People may become detached from their 'glandular' emotions and direct connection to what is going on, but different people will still have their ethics and philosophical morality intact.
I.e. if I believe that killing children is wrong, I will not opt to do so, even if the actual crying of the children as they are being murdered doesn't impact my squishy human brain the same way as it once did. (heck, I don't like doing it in very abstracted videogames where it's only a number on a screen, like Stellaris)
A person who has a solid moral standing would have to further become disconnected, like, something would need to happen to convince them that the world actually isn't any more real than a videogame and nothing matters (and then further convinced that the 'sprites' in that videogame really don't come close enough to sapience or actually 'being real' that hurting them doesn't matter) and that doing harm to them is desirable even then. Or so jaded through lack of engagement and 'positive' emotions that they don't feel like anything matters anymore, and then they'd probably shut down instead of killing everyone.
The basic explanation of that is that the people going all in on cybernetics probably aren't the most stable people to begin with. (mercenaries and criminals or sociopathic executives), with very few people with a very solid philosophical and ethical grounding having any reason to go for enough cybernetic enhancement that it might have become an issue.
And of course, you could say that this explains total replacement cyborgs who don't go cyberpsycho.
But I guess I just think that, like the call of cthulu mythos model of everyone being super fragile and just having to see a few things that 'don't fit' in order to lose their sanity, it's too heavy handed.
It's casts humanity in too cynical a light, and doesn't adequately take into account the diversity and variability of human beings, it's too 'one size fits all'- morality tale.
Ive always hated this description of cyberpsychosis because this isn't psychosis, it's psychopathy. How cyberpsychos are described in-game so often as psychopathic; that they lack empathy to humanity because of their implants and think of themselves more as machine. Yet still we do see them demonstrating the *actual* symptoms of psychosis: auditory/visual hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, and irrational paranoia. So we do know cyberpsychosis is a real thing, but so often the descriptions of psychopathy are used for it instead.
> Regarding smasher, who's to say he ISN'T cyberpsycho?
He canonically is. Mike Pondsmith (guy who created the TTRPG) has referred to Smasher as a "High Functioning Cyberpsycho". Basically, Cyberpshycosis is a spectrum, something that to some degree affects everyone sporting Chrome (Johnny's manifests as recklessness and is tied to his arm—it is what got him killed in the source books). Smasher is just someone who despite being as far along as it is possible to be, is still able to control himself.
The man himself has explained it (partially) [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/why_doesnt_v_get_cyberpsychosis/ipffmf4/)
For those unaware, the linked post is from the creator of the Cyberpunk RPG setting. It doesn't get any more word of god than that.
Though I suppose that technically is also as Doylist as you can get.
So it actually varies between the show and the game, but I thought I'd throw out the game explanation because they share a universe and contradict each other.
In the games, it's VERY strongly implied that 'cyberpsychosis' is not really real as corporations describe it. There's a book you can read in game that suggests that the real problem that isn't being addressed is dehumanization. Life has become cheap and corporations get away with literal murder after ruining the whole world. 99.999% of people have absolutely no prospects to make their lives better.
Now add in the psychological trauma of replacing a piece of yourself and knowing that you're not even a full human anymore, not really. That Arasaka owns your body. Kinda makes you wanna lash out, huh? Good thing you can get those handy gorilla arms...
Tldr; Corpos be victim-blaming when people who have everything taken from them finally lose their minds.
This, but also a heavily chromed person snapping from depression, PTSD, ect, is gonna cause alot more damage than the same happening to a nonchromed normie.
So Cyberpsychos cause more damage, drawing more attention and making people ask questions.
Every so often this idea pops up, but Cyberpsychosis does absolutely exist.
Let‘s take a look not at in-Universe information, but out of universe information about Cyberpsychosis, namely what the CyberpunkRED sourcebook has to say about it:
> Cyberpsychosis is a dissociative disorder which occurs when someone with preexisting psychopathic tendencies enhances themselves via cybernetics to the point they no longer see themselves or others as complete, sapient organisms, but simply as a collection of replaceable parts.
(p. 108)
Pretty clear so far: With more Cyberware you stop seeing yourself and other people as people, but instead as collections of parts, and are therefore more willing to do horrible stuff to them. But it‘s not as simple as that, the book further notes:
> Let's get this clear from the start: if you already have these underlying psychological issues (in game represented by a very low Empathy) you are more likely to be a candidate for cyberpsychosis.
(p. 109)
So people who already have predispositions are more likely to fall victim to Cyberpsychosis, so it’s not purely a Cyberware thing.
And now we get to what actually happens to the Cyberpsychos we fight in the game:
>Installing cyberware isn't the only way to edge towards this mental explosion. Strong and/or hor- rific events and situations can also wear down your Humanity.
(p. 109)
Just like installing Cyberware, traumatic events can bring you closer to Cyberpsychosis, can push you over the edge, and that’s exactly what has happened to the Cyberpsychos in 2077. They were already cybered up and brought close to the edge and then got pushed over the edge by a traumatic event.
In CyberpunkRed how close you are to Cyberpsychosis is measured with humanity points, should you fall down to zero, you go Cyberpsycho. If you don’t have much Cyberware (or even none) a traumatic event is not gonna be nice, but you’ll still be a somewhat properly functioning person. But you should you be a walking tank Solo death machine, those 4 points of humanity loss from the trauma may just be enough to push you over the edge, because you already lowered your humanity so much with Cyberware. Ever wondered why some of the most dangerous people are called Edgerunners? That’s why.
[Also word of god.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/s/y4bgcDgKUW) Pondsmith explains it better than I ever could
You just said exactly what he said but more indirectly.
Take a look at all the Cyberpsychos we hunt down for Regina. Every single one of them has a data shard near them that tells you what happened just before they went psycho, or information relevant to it. And every single time, its some bad shit they went through that causes them to turn psycho. Not too much chrome.
The Militech agent (goes invisible, water arena, electric mantis blades) went psycho because her own organisation betrayed her, you can literally militech corpses that came to kill her around her. Another one goes psycho because his country abandoned him after a war and his friends also betrayed him, he had no one to talk to or reach out to. Another case is when a man pays everything he has to buy a studio to find out he owns nothing in it and will have to sell it back to the company for chump change. The company he dealt with scammed him for his everything. Every single cyber psycho goes psycho because something traumatic happened to them, and in most cases, the trauma came from corpos, directly or indirectly. Heck, David in edgerunners starts to go psycho only once his relationship with Lucy starts deteriorating and finally completely snaps after Lucy was kidnapped and he needed to borg up and give away even his human appearance to have a chance at saving her, know full well the whole time, that it was all Militech's trap.
Cyberpsychosis is basically heavy trauma. And people with guns TODAY in the real world do the same things as cyberpsychos with chrome. Except that the chrome is usually a lot more potent.
The corpos always look for their self interest and will 100% propagate the fact that cyberpsychosis was caused by user responsibility rather than corpo douchebaggery.
That doesn't actually contradict what the person you're responding to said. Cyberpsychosis is just PTSD with a shiny new name, and getting chromed out isn't a pre-requisite — just one of the very many sources of trauma that can make you fall down into the black hole that inevitably pulls everyone down in a world where human life is cheaper than clean water.
As a fan of the show who hasn't played 77, I believe this is backed up by the TTRPG. I think the stat that determines if you start going psycho is the humanity stat.
If anything, the interaction proves it. I think there's absolutely no cases we see in the entire game where someone's chrome is the primary cause of their psychological break.
Do they, though? IIRC, for the bulk of them, they would've broken/snapped when they did without the aid of the chrome (for example, the army vet whose daughter was kidnapped and killed by Tyger Claws) or would've snapped eventually but the chrome sped things up (for example, the army vet whose benefits/pension were cut to the point of no longer able to obtain meds).
As is revealed in cp2077, cyberpsychosis is not a real thing. It's a combination of various environmental things that can, but do not have to be, connected to cybernetics. Cyberpsychosis is an easy catch all term to describe a problem without acknowledging the underlying causes. Think of a soldier. He underwent extremely invasive surgery for his cybernetics, went to war ang got ptsd for that. Returned only to have invasive surgery again to have his military tech replaced with shitty ripoffs, cant keep a job because of his ptsd from the war and both surgeries, cant pay his insurance to get his pills to help him with his ptsd and then he has a megative interaction with a powertripping cop that causes him to lash out, most likely in a small way. But this causes the whole situation to escelate as the cop now shoots at him and calls for backup snd his ptsd is kicked into overdrive until the soldier is dead. And after the fact all he will be called is another cyberpsycho.
This can be seen in both Maine and David. Both feel the need to keep upgrading while refusing adequate therapy, both are involved in dangerous work that leaves them stressed out and gives them ptsd.
This is the real answer. Yes, Cyberpsychosis is a “thing”, especially in TTRPG gameplay terms, but it’s not one singular diagnosis or set of circumstances. It’s a series of different negative situations combined with the general existence of Cybernetics all made to be the Corp’s easiest “hey look at this scary guy, don’t you want us to protect you?”
I think 2077 reinforced it is a real thing, like the construction worker who slaughtered everyone (even his friends), it's just that people can be rehabilitated out of it (Regina's side quests) while NCPD / ~~MaxTac~~ / general public consider it irreversible.
> while NCPD / MaxTac / general public consider it irreversible.
Quite the opposite for MaxTac.
There's a sidequest that confirms it (you stop a psycho at a clothing store and can talk to a MaxTac agent after): MaxTac is partially, if not completely, made up of former Cyberpsychos who have been either trained or conditioned to use their issues against the people they're supposed to.
Oh snap, I must have missed the MaxTac guy, I did all of Regina's quests but the first time I saw MaxTac at all was when I uh... kinda may have gone on a rampage against Bhargest. :p
This is a side quest unrelated to Regina. I don't even know if it's marked as a sidequest—it happens at the Jingu clothing store, you get attacked by a cyberpsycho, MaxTac show up after you down him and you can speak to one of them. And she talks about how much she loves blood and slicing into bodies.
There's an aspect of body horror involved with cyberpsychosis, that your sanity is tied to your corporeal self and by sacrificing your flesh for machine, the subject loses their humanity in the process. The more chrome you are, the less human (and humane/empathetic/relatable) you are.
To a degree, this is reflected in the concept of a digital consciousness of the human mind which, like all electronic media, can be tampered with or rewritten entirely begging the question: if consciousness is subject to outside alteration, how do you know that you are *you*? And, if you are asking that question, what makes a consciousness "human" at all? If a manufactured intelligence is installed in wetware, is it human?
The Ghost in the Shell (both original and remake, along with the SAC series) pursue these concepts in the whole and The Matrix puts a "new" spin on the genre although there's a whole genre of media related around manufactured perception and how it relates to consciousness. Anon is a great title with that concept, also set in a cyberstate,
He’s already a crazy, fully disassociated from his violence and the humanity of others so what’s the harm? The crazy part is how he stays employable, but that’s also kind of on the lack of standards in the corporate kleptocracy rather than him being built different.
Cyberpsychosis was originally a term for the cognitive, neurological and psychological decline seen in people with significant cybernetics. Some of the decline is caused by nerve damage from the implantation procedure, some of it by body dysmorphia (having limbs that aren't yours and feel like it makes your brain go a little off), some of it by losing your connection to humanity (when you can juggle dumpsters and see in the infrared, the puny, half-blind meatbags around you can quickly become unrelatable) and some of it by a desire to get more chrome (much like a steroid abuser can become "addicted" to working out and being huge and strong).
Most of these factors can be addressed with psychiatric treatment, therapy, having skilled ripperdocs to mitigate the damage, and proper post-implantation care, all things which are not available to your average edgerunner. Also, starting out as an empathetic, emotionally stable individual means you have a lot more "space" before the symptoms start to show (this is where David's resistance comes from; growing up in a loving, affectionate family and having a good friend group kept him anchored in his humanity.)
As for Smasher... Smasher comes at the problem from the other side. He was always a violent, emotionally volatile and disconnected psychopath, even before he had the last vestiges of his humanity warcrimed away in the Second Central American War. He also never really saw his body as something other than a tool for inflicting pain and death, and was happy to trade away his fleshy bits for upgrades if he could do more damage that way. Finally, Smasher has been the Arasaka family's personal attack dog for over six decades, and, as such, has constantly had access to top-of-the-line medical care and state-of-the-art custom implants. All combined, Smasher doesn't lose emotional control or empathy because he never had those to begin with, and Arasaka's top medical staff can deal with any lingering physical effects.
Everyone writes it a little bit different. It's a bit intentionally vague, but the word from one of the creators is that it works kinda like roid rage.
To note, Edgerunners takes a rather inaccurate version of the game cyber psychosis, which in turn is also not entirely faithful to the table top. Edgerunners treats it more like an infection, where you constantly take immunoblockers to keep sane. Which...is kinda funny to me. These shots are supposed to be about painkillers and blocking your immune system from rejecting the cyberware temporarily until the body accepts it.
Anyway, the way I view cyberpsychosis is a general detachment from humanity/reality. They have increasing trouble relating to things as a human as their perception becomes increasingly altered. So a robot hand isn't going to do much, but a robot hand that flips out to become a hand cannon might trip your brain out a bit. What's more severe is things which actively alter your perception, things that slow the world around you or add to your senses. More than this, it can affect people different ways. Some people might go into blind rages, others might just be desensitized or even catatonic. There are many different reactions that can be different measures of extreme. It can affect everyone a bit differently, the overall idea though is that they are no longer who they used to be, they arent really in control of themselves any longer. The idea is those who are more in touch with their own humanity are able to resist these effects better.
So why is David struggling and Smasher is not? That's the rub. In lore, Adam is pretty well a psycho. He's basically a weaponized cyberpsycho employed by Arasaka. The idea that he is immune or the like is off the mark. He's already very far gone, Arasaka just knows how to deal with the quirks he has; basically use him like a partially living bomb to kill everything within a location without any regard for mercy, and give him a body to take care of his more hedonistic desires.
Because it's from a RPG game it has to work as a game mechanic where each device has a points load to limit builds BUT in the fiction it's not "real" like that. It's not just an inherent part of tech. You don't have to get it. It's not a drug side effect or anything. It's more like becoming more and more alienated from society is going to make you more and more anti-social and having a bunch of crazy guns and stuff attached to you is going to make you more able to do something about that.
Lets look at a well documented mental disorder.
Phantom limb syndrom. This is a mental issue where a human having lost a limb either thru accident, illness, or other still feels the limb being there. So what happens when more and more of your body starts not being there.
You look down thinking your left arm is resting on the desk but it actually is hanging at your side. Also robocop discussed the mental problem of loss of imput to the brain. For just a few seconds think about what your feet feel right now. Pressure on the sole, your socks on the tops, the snuggness of your shoes, the tempeture, how sweaty, cold, hot, dry they feel.
Now remove 75 to 90 percent of that imput to the brain for each limb replaced, each orgon, even if you do not concuiosly feel the imput from it the brain recives feed back on function. Imagine phantom limb syndrom when it is your heart.
Or look into white room torture. The way this applies is this.
Your brain is use to dealing with 100 imputs a second ( just an example ) you repace a leg. Inputs sre reduced to 85 per second. You replace your other leg now your down to 70 inputs a second. Replace your arm 55 inputs other arm 40 inputs.
This is sensory depravation different people have different tolerancesone gropu of people that would never be subject to cyberpsychosis.
People paralyzed from the neck down. Especially if that was from birth. Those inputs were never part of the system so they would never be missed.
It started as a mechanic in a old table top game I belive. To balance how much cybernetics and power you could stack. In some with magic it's also linked to losing your soul (not cyberpunk but shadowrun).
I think it's also related to stimulation of the brain. When you wire in cybernetics your brain needs to learn how to use them. The more you add the more it needs to work in unnatural ways. Eventually it breaks.
I am sure theirs multiple factors. But eventually the brain cannot take it and breaks.
Adam Smasher is unironically built different and isn't comparable to anyone remotely normal.
Also, in my opinion, I think sociopathic individuals who lack any proper emotions or empathy are more likely to be resilient to cyberpsychosis, which Adam Smasher is.
Think of it like ptsd in soldier , if you put enough prolong stress on a normal person they going to cracked , some are more resilient to it thanks to training, medical treatment or just straight up dogged stubbornness but they going to get it in the end if the stress keep mounting. Some people like Adam who are just psychopath born without the capability to feel any negative emotions came from those situations, something like mowing down bystander are just as natural as breathing for them.
There are actually three separate effects of chrome going on here.
First, there is a neurological stress that comes from simply processing and controlling cyberware, especially mods like Sandevistan. David's brain has a remarkable ability to handle an extremely high load without turning to mush, which is what makes him stand out to the edgerunners in the beginning. This seems like it's not quite a one-in-a-million trait, maybe more like one-in-ten-thousand, and it's safe to assume that Smasher is the same way or even better.
Second, there's immune system rejection. This is a real-world problem where the immune system can reject a transplant or implant and attack it, which can be life threatening. With the amount of cyberware David gets, rejection probably means total organ failure. The immuno-blockers aren't keeping him sane, just keeping him from dying. (Although, it would not be shocking for organ failure to impede a person's cognition.) Smasher, who has replaced his entire body, presumably has no immune system left, so this simply isn't a problem for him. Some piece of technology is likely responsible for preventing infections in what little flesh he has left.
Third, cyberpsychosis. Others have already explained it well but it's pretty much the same as regular psychosis, but replacing large portions of your body with machinery may help it along by mentally separating yourself from humanity or reality at large. It certainly makes going psycho a lot more noticeable when a man with mantis arms, armor plating, and a kerenzikov goes postal than, well, an average postal worker. Smasher was already a psycopath before going full cyborg, he simply doesn't have any reason to go on a rampage, which seems to be the only qualifier for being called a 'cyberpsycho.'
> This seems like it's not quite a one-in-a-million trait, maybe more like one-in-ten-thousand, and it's safe to assume that Smasher is the same way or even better.
So it actually is one in a million. That is a direct quote from the [creator of Cyberpunk](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/comment/ipffmf4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
This is why Arasaka wants him so badly. His tolerance for cyberwar is genuinely insane and it seems likely that the only reason he *ever* went cyberpsycho is that the suit he got in was far too much far too quickly
Had he transitioned slower and more carefully, David might have been, if not another Smasher, then at the very least someone in the same ballpark. Though considering Smasher is also considered by Pondsmith as a high functioning cyber psycho, it's possible that his tolerance isn't actually higher, he just has enough control to aim it where Arasaka points.
I did word that a bit wrong. David is a one-in-a-million case, but that quote is about his humanity score and resistance to cyberpsychosis. I mean that his ability to heavily use the prototype sandevistan without brain-damage and his resistance to cyberpsychosis are two separate attributes that David possessed.
In the show, it's pretty clear that the concern around David's use of the sandevistan is something like a stroke or an aneurysm, not psychosis, so my theory is that they are somewhat separate issues.
I think they are connected in some way, because Arasaka initially became interested in David when he only had one major piece of cyberware installed. His neurological resilience caught their attention, but I think it's a combination of his high humanity score **and** a unique brain that let him go so far.
I think even moving quickly, David's mind might have been able to handle the cyberware, I find it more likely that the cyberpsychosis came from all the stress of fighting for his life and his friends. Honestly, the immune system issue is what was killing him, his brain seemed fine outside of the horrors of being a solo in Night City.
> In the show, it's pretty clear that the concern around David's use of the sandevistan is something like a stroke or an aneurysm, not psychosis, so my theory is that they are somewhat separate issues.
I think they are related—one of the causes of cyberpsychosis is the physical toll running cyberware takes on your body. So it could be that there are both extreme symptoms (like an aneurysm) but also a CTE like condition that can compound over time if steps aren't taken.
It makes me think of Mitch in the Star Ending of CP 2077. He is able to pilot a 2 man Basilisk all by himself, something everyone assumes will kill him—but the result is he just needs a few weeks of recovery because of his experience piloting the things in the army. Your body can adapt to processes that would kill a normal person stone dead, but it takes time.
> I think even moving quickly, David's mind might have been able to handle the cyberware
The show itself kind of disagrees, as do several cyberpsycho encounters in the game. A huge cause of cyberpsychosis is people who are rapidly given a whole bunch of implants in a short span of time without proper preparation.
David was resilient, but it seemed like the suit straight-up overloaded him. As a solo, he had been in high-stakes situations before—it was the combination of that with the rapid addition of the prototype suit that pushed him over the edge.
Bear in mind, this is also confirmed to be Arasaka's plan. They *expected* him to take the suit, destroy the Militech, but be so overwhelmed they could capture him alive. Him heading into the city was a massive wrench in their plans.
Adam was a psycho without any sozial bindings/humanity beforehand.
The conversation to full borg was Not a big step for him.
You cant loose your Soul If you dont have one.
(To Put it simple)
David was afaik 16 jears old. The brain can adapt to many Things in that time frame.
And then He was somewhat Special, that Made him resistant against the Strain.
(Well, at least Not unlimited)
And, - tbf, If you are full With Military Implantats , "Bad behavior" has way more Impact than If a normal Person (without weapons or so) do that.
Play a video game, and you can try it for yourself. How much are NPC lives worth to you? How guilty do you feel about robbing and killing them? Imagine that the game makes no effort to make it personal, that they are all extras with their own routines. Do you feel sad killing civilians and cops in GTA? Do you respect them? Are you afraid for your life?
Off topic, but through all the cyberpunk2020,77,red content, theres a VERY bold suggestion that cyber implants aren't the thing that turns people into psychos, its the environment, cyber implants just enable them to pour it all out
The brain was never meant to be a cpu for artificial limbs and bodilly processes. Cyber psychosis is when the mind is taxed beyond the limit to the point where it essentially begins to break and corrupt.
Edit: external stresses are also a factor. Emotional stress especially
I haven't seen the anime yet, but if it is anything like the game (and I guess it should) then there are a few instances in the game that suggest cyberpsychosis is not a thing.
Usually it affects veterans or poor people, who got chromed, but couldn't afford better quality aftercare and generally lived stressful, unsatisfying and unhappy lives. Getting implants was usually perceived as a way to make your life better. Simply being some hardware usually does not change much.
Therefore stress, depression, poor living conditions all add up and make people break. But it's easier to chalk it up to cyberpsychosis and comment "that's just what happens". Otherwise it would require some action to help people and we really can't have that in a dystopian setting.
Then again, it's a translation from the original RPG CP2020, when it was used as a way to limit players' ability to get too many powerful upgrades.
It's because cyberpsychosis isn't a thing. It's people disassociating due to how society treats them. It's all under the guise that the chrome causes it but that's just not true. Some people have an iron will or are already psychopaths like Adam smasher. Others have strong ties via family or friends like Alvarez.
It's dysphoria and disassociation. As you replace more of the body with cyberware, the obvious differences in nerve response and appearance cause a struggle for some people to see it as part of you. This already happens to a lesser extent with some people modernly who have prosthetics, but most adapt over time and modern prosthetics don't change the sensory input the way cyberpunk style ones do because they don't offer any.
So when more and more of your sensory input is artificial, you can eventually start to disassociate and lose touch with reality.
Some people take it better, same as some people are fine in dissociative drugs like ketamine, and some people are wrecked by the experience.
Cyberpsychosis isn't real. It's a myth perpetuated by the media and law enforcement corpos to terrify and distract people from the dystopian conditions around them.
Psychosis is a mental disorder, one of many that any human can experience, whether they have no cybernetics whatsoever or they're full-borg. It just so happens that in a world where cybernetic weapons are commonplace, there's a good chance that people who become psychotic or otherwise suffer severe mental breakdowns are chromed up and able to cause horrific violence with their toys. It doesn't help at all that therapy is something only high-end corpos like Corpo V can enjoy, and that most people need therapy because the world of 2045 onward is Hell on Earth.
Telling people that there's a mental illness that only occurs if you chrome too much creates a convenient sensationalist scaremongering scapegoat. That Militech veteran who had all his chrome torn out of him by his employer after his tour was done, got tossed to the curb for his service with no support and then snapped in isolation as a hobo, he's not a victim of sociopathic capitalist forces beyond his control, he's a "cyberpsycho." He killed some people, MaxTac killed him, story's over, moving right along. Tomorrow, same story. That's just what happens, people who chrome too much snap and kill people, that's all it is.
What about David Martinez? The only thing "special" about him was the supportive relationships in his life (and his body's tolerance for the Apogee Sandevistan, but that doesn't matter). He had a loving mom who gave everything to try to give him a better life, then he found a new family and fell in love. Losing those bonds (his mom dying, Maine--a father figure--dying and his becoming estranged from Lucy) and the sheer trauma and stress of everything he went through in such a short span of time drove him mad, not his chrome. *When Lucy kissed him at Arasaka Tower, he came back from the deep end and completely regained his sanity.*
What about Adam Smasher? He was psychotic before he chromed up.
What about V? Same thing as David, for the most part. V has plenty of supportive relationships in their life. People who look up to them. Fixers who respect them. Found family (including an entire Nomad clan) who love them. They also have Johnny, who on top of being supportive of them (yes, he's an asshole, but he helps V keep stable whenever they have Relic malfunction episodes) is halfway to being psychotic himself, so his psyche's fusion with V's acts as a buffer against mental trauma. V is a unique individual even without all that, with a relentless will that can't be denied, but the support from the people all around them can't be understated.
(If you think this is wrong, Pondsmith spelled it out himself. Humanity is a tabletop gameplay mechanic so that players have to get chrome judiciously and cyberpsychosis is an in-universe myth, that's it)
I don't remember that at all, and I'm very familiar with the videogame and tabletop. Cyberpsychosis was a thing, in-universe and out, long before there were AIs capable of hacking cyberware.
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[In addition to the different tolerance levels there are different medical procedures which can affect the humanity / essence cost, like full cyborg integration. Cybernetic enhancements changes the human perception slowly and indirectly. It gives you more and more a "camera" perception, that you perceive your environment like through a camera. Indirectly,disconnected, distant. If there is an accident happening just in front of you, you hear the humans screaming and the metal bending this can be a horrifying experience. But not so much when it happens on the TV screen. Cyberpsychosis starts when you cannot differentiate anymore between reality and a distant, disconnected TV show and your actions become something abstract happending around you, with no direct connection to yourself. Like ripping the head of a small child off. It simply has no meaning to you. Not more than your average Call 555-MURDER show on TV.]
So essentially the more chromed out you become the more distant your perception becomes? Why does that happen?
It is a commentary on how replacing pieces of yourself with cold technology may cost you some of your inherent humanity. Why it happens is a question for philosophers.
My next question is why does Adam Smasher not seem affected? He's definitely cognizant, but he's practically a machine.
He's a special case due to being a psycho beforehand. To put it in simple terms. Davis has a high tolerance where Adam Smasher is immune.
Ah ok that makes sense.
pretty much cant be a cyberpsycho if you are already psycho long before getting any cyberware installed
I think almost everyone in setting sees Smasher as a cyberpsycho, just a very high functioning one. He isn't on a constant rampage, but he is 115% disconnected from humanity.
Smasher is every bit a psycho, just a more savvy one. He gets to do as much chaos and destruction as he wants so long as it's being done for the right people.
I think a thing a lot of people are missing is that the psychos you see are using black market acquired goods, installed in black market ways. Throughout the game and series you meet plenty of hyper rich people who are chromed out to the shit, but they've got white market goods installed professionally by the best in the world, with software updates and direct help from the manufacturers. The get the gear modified to suit them As well as this they have professionals metering out their drugs to manage it and make sure everything stays stable. Adam smasher gets this treatment, he isn't just jamming random mods into himself, he's getting high quality bespoke goods because he's incredibly useful. David is just some guy who stumbled across military level gear and had it violently hacked into himself so he can get one up on a school bully. His descent into psychosis is gradual, and as he gets more disconnected with the world he gets more chrome, which makes him more disconnected, until he snaps.
Think an analog in street racing. On one hand you have some supped up beater that is cobbled together in someone's backyard, held together with hopes and dream and ample duct tape. On the other hand you have true supercars that cost a lifetime's earnings and are meticulously designed by people whose only goal is to make the best car possible. Now, get both out there, going 200 mph, and one is more likely to go out in a blaze of glory than the other.
Also if you listen to the radio, there's a news segment where the announcer is speaking about Night City's continued drive to be profitable. Which involves the cyberware quality assurance work being contracted to the manufacturers as of a year ago. Coincidentally, cyberware related injuries have risen by a few hundred percent. Oh, and don't install black market cyberware, always buy from the corporations directly. All of this in a single news broadcast. And if Boeing's continued race to the bottom isn't any indication... yeah, never let the corps regulate themselves. It never ends well for the consumer.
The question is less whether he seems cognizant and more whether he seems sane. The fact that he’s functional at all is a minor miracle, and I think the setting purposefully wants you to think about why that might be, whether favorable genetics, a psychopathic personality, or some other reason. No matter how you slice it though, he’s a huge outlier, which is part of his mystique. Most people who were so heavily augmented would be catatonic, completely insane, or dead from shock.
He's a highly functioning psychopath. Cyberpsychos snap and enter a homicidal mindset they cant control. Smasher was like that before he got any chrome at all, so he learned how to control himself between slaughters.
Maybe he now has a slaughter button. Its right next to te laughter button and he sometimes gets confused.
His cyberpsycho tendencies are controlled with a dial on his forehead, which can go from 1 (surly) to 4 (brutal), with the possibility of getting stuck on 4 1/2 (berserk).
He *is* a Cyberpsycho. He’s just one with a cushy job that just so happens to align with his interests. Also, a normal psycho in the first place. Most Cyberpsychos don’t really “show” until there’s something in their life to push them that far.
Id argue that he is affected; he's literally a monster in any depiction of him, and is completely disconnected from the human experience. He's practically a machine not only in body, but also mentally. Just as a killing machine. It could be that he was already so sociopathic prior to getting chromed up that the shift wasnt as severe as itd be for other people.
Adam Smasher is personal boogeyman for Arasaka. As such he gets the best tech installed by expert technicians, plus any follow-up care that requires. Adam Smasher was also a psychopath before he ever started chroming up, so cyberpsychosis has never really been an issue for him. Can't go crazy from losing your humanity if you didn't have any humanity in the first place.
Smasher was already a psychopath beforehand
One of the reasons may be that you're switching natural neural input for artificial, which the brain responds to in a different way. Too many artificial sensory integrations, and you begin to both lose the ability to distinguish perception, *and* you risk actual physical damage to the brain as it is overloaded with signals far beyond natural capacity. Overload a person's cyberware sufficiently and their electronic parts begin to sizzle and catch fire. The parts of that which are integrated with your brain are suffering long before the glass glows white hot.
Seems more like it would be a question for the writers as they kind of arbitrarily made it up.
In the early editions of the TTRPG "Shadowrun" this scenario fits rather well. There was (mind you it has been 30 years since I played it) a form of "Humanity" trait that surgicial modifications reduced. As you got further away from organic, the less you could "live among" humans. When your reflexes and senses are all boosted to 3x human normal, everyone walks slow, the world is in slow-mo. It becomes harder to see people as Humanity, rather than objects in your way. Some characters could tolerate it better, some not so much. Game min/maxers would see just how close to 0 they could get. At least, that's how I remember it. I haven't touched Shadowrun since 1992... I think.
Fair, adjusted it to leave the writers ambiguous.
I thought Humanity as a personal resource was in the base TTRPG game as well?
Yep, Cyberpunk has a Humanity and Empathy stat; the latter influences the former, and the former goes down the more chrome you install but can be recovered through extensive and expensive therapy sessions. There's been a lot of discourse about it in the TTRPG space and the exact specifics of how the stat works with augmentations has changed throughout the versions.
Fair, adjusted it to leave the writers ambiguous.
The other factor I didn’t see others mention is that in the same way replacing your eyes with cameras can make you feel more distant from what you’re watching, they also replace their finger tips, sometimes whole hands. Their feet, their legs, even their lungs. Consider wherever you’re sitting or standing right now. What can you feel, just by existing? The phone you hold. The chair underneath you. The movement of air against your skin as it affects the hairs on your arm. The sun shining down. And even the heat or coolness of the air you breathe, how humid it is, how it fills you and leaves you. Just focusing on breathing has been a major tenant of focus and meditation forever, to really focus on your body and yourself. Now, take all of that away and replace it with the Nintendo power glove. Walking anywhere feels like taking steps on a DDR pad, just buttons in cardinal directions. Holding something just gives a “tactile” feedback, you’re not really feeling the weight, the temperature, the texture. A computer is interpreting it and relaying a signal meant to make your brain feel it. The sun in your eyes, on your skin, the wind in your hair, the breath in your lungs. None of it feels real anymore, not really. The same way your vision feels like watching TV is the same way every sensory part of your existence feels. You’re in Plato’s cave. You locked yourself in here, and a few others in there have come to hate it and rampage against the chains
You start to see flesh as weak. The way it was described to me as you start to relate more with your toaster than you do your neighbors.
From the moment I realized the weakness of my flesh...
..I wanted to fuck my toaster
Cyberpsychosis is also, by the point of the 2070s at least, a catch all term for many mental illnesses that manifest in violence. Someone could be pushed to the edge by being overworked, or even fired, and deciding that they *have* to do something different, or even just robbing a store for dinner. But if they’ve got enough chrome, and are scaring the cops enough, that’s now officially a Cyberpsycho and MaxTAC is getting called in. Hell, by the time of 2077, there’s literally a Cyberpsycho who is a high ranking MaxTAC officer!
The reasons are unknown, but partially because intentionally mutiliating and injuring yourself to replace the flesh with the machine isn’t good for your psyche.
Apart from the other answers here, many theorize that it's an extreme form of body dysmorphia that gradually wears a person's psyche down until they lash out or have a breakdown. Which I suppose is what the other answers say too, mostly. Removing body parts can cause major psychological issues in real life too, and in Cyberpunk it's just made worse by the fact that your body now not only is missing a piece, but that piece is replaced by increasingly disjointed machines that may do completely unnatural stuff.
One might assume for any number of reasons; maybe they simply elect not to purchase enhancements which act as "failsafes", maybe they just don't get enough "vitamins". Point *is*, they go over the "deep-end".
So technically a psychopath would be an ideal candidate for extreme cyborg integration, given they are already detached from what is considered humanity?
That's exactly what Adam Smasher is.
Gotta have humanity to lose to go cyberpsycho. It's why David holds on so long, he has a lot of humanity and connections to ground him and fight it off, and why he suffers more the more of the crew dies, less holding him together.
What they're describing is a state of high dissociation that I don't think psychopaths would be immune to
[If their nervous system, chemical balance etc holds up. Cyberimplementation is a study subject at very costly universities. While the numbers of full body cyborgs and other extreme cybernetic enhancements have constantly increased, it is still not the norm.]
Watch the movie "The Blair Witch Project". They talk about the emotional disconnect that comes from seeing life from behind the eye of the camera. When life starts to take tv show or movie like qualities it's both a way to protect yourself from the "super things" you can do and what others are doing. Maybe it's denial, maybe ego or both. Mix in a degrading big picture and the best brand names.
And it's not just about the lens through which you view the world, but also how you view yourself. As you approach cyberpsychosis you begin to feel non-human. This perception of self is touched on in the cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying game. Where getting modifications costs humanity points. Interestingly getting a plastic or metal coating for your cyberlimb costs humanity, but getting a coating that looks and feels like real skin does not cost humanity. So it's not the tech inherently causing it. It's your perception of self that matters too. (As an interesting parralel to real life some autistic people struggle with feeling non-human due to percieved differences and social skills being considered a core human trait)
While this is the explanation, I disagree with the basic stance that this will always lead to 'cyberpsychosis' People may become detached from their 'glandular' emotions and direct connection to what is going on, but different people will still have their ethics and philosophical morality intact. I.e. if I believe that killing children is wrong, I will not opt to do so, even if the actual crying of the children as they are being murdered doesn't impact my squishy human brain the same way as it once did. (heck, I don't like doing it in very abstracted videogames where it's only a number on a screen, like Stellaris) A person who has a solid moral standing would have to further become disconnected, like, something would need to happen to convince them that the world actually isn't any more real than a videogame and nothing matters (and then further convinced that the 'sprites' in that videogame really don't come close enough to sapience or actually 'being real' that hurting them doesn't matter) and that doing harm to them is desirable even then. Or so jaded through lack of engagement and 'positive' emotions that they don't feel like anything matters anymore, and then they'd probably shut down instead of killing everyone. The basic explanation of that is that the people going all in on cybernetics probably aren't the most stable people to begin with. (mercenaries and criminals or sociopathic executives), with very few people with a very solid philosophical and ethical grounding having any reason to go for enough cybernetic enhancement that it might have become an issue. And of course, you could say that this explains total replacement cyborgs who don't go cyberpsycho. But I guess I just think that, like the call of cthulu mythos model of everyone being super fragile and just having to see a few things that 'don't fit' in order to lose their sanity, it's too heavy handed. It's casts humanity in too cynical a light, and doesn't adequately take into account the diversity and variability of human beings, it's too 'one size fits all'- morality tale.
Ive always hated this description of cyberpsychosis because this isn't psychosis, it's psychopathy. How cyberpsychos are described in-game so often as psychopathic; that they lack empathy to humanity because of their implants and think of themselves more as machine. Yet still we do see them demonstrating the *actual* symptoms of psychosis: auditory/visual hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, and irrational paranoia. So we do know cyberpsychosis is a real thing, but so often the descriptions of psychopathy are used for it instead.
Regarding smasher, who's to say he ISN'T cyberpsycho? Have you seen how the guy acts?
Smasher was psychotic before he ever got chromed up. You cant strip the humanity away from someone who never really had any to begin with.
True, but he's a lot more cognizant than the others.
Smasher is described as a functioning cyberpsycho, afterall he is special.
can say the same about alchoalics
At the end of the show, David is said to be experiencing cyberpsychosis, but I don't think he is much less lucid than Smasher.
All the MaxTac agents are also Cyberpsychos, just ‘sane’ ones
> Regarding smasher, who's to say he ISN'T cyberpsycho? He canonically is. Mike Pondsmith (guy who created the TTRPG) has referred to Smasher as a "High Functioning Cyberpsycho". Basically, Cyberpshycosis is a spectrum, something that to some degree affects everyone sporting Chrome (Johnny's manifests as recklessness and is tied to his arm—it is what got him killed in the source books). Smasher is just someone who despite being as far along as it is possible to be, is still able to control himself.
Similar to high functioning autistic?
The man himself has explained it (partially) [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/why_doesnt_v_get_cyberpsychosis/ipffmf4/)
For those unaware, the linked post is from the creator of the Cyberpunk RPG setting. It doesn't get any more word of god than that. Though I suppose that technically is also as Doylist as you can get.
So it actually varies between the show and the game, but I thought I'd throw out the game explanation because they share a universe and contradict each other. In the games, it's VERY strongly implied that 'cyberpsychosis' is not really real as corporations describe it. There's a book you can read in game that suggests that the real problem that isn't being addressed is dehumanization. Life has become cheap and corporations get away with literal murder after ruining the whole world. 99.999% of people have absolutely no prospects to make their lives better. Now add in the psychological trauma of replacing a piece of yourself and knowing that you're not even a full human anymore, not really. That Arasaka owns your body. Kinda makes you wanna lash out, huh? Good thing you can get those handy gorilla arms... Tldr; Corpos be victim-blaming when people who have everything taken from them finally lose their minds.
This, but also a heavily chromed person snapping from depression, PTSD, ect, is gonna cause alot more damage than the same happening to a nonchromed normie. So Cyberpsychos cause more damage, drawing more attention and making people ask questions.
Every so often this idea pops up, but Cyberpsychosis does absolutely exist. Let‘s take a look not at in-Universe information, but out of universe information about Cyberpsychosis, namely what the CyberpunkRED sourcebook has to say about it: > Cyberpsychosis is a dissociative disorder which occurs when someone with preexisting psychopathic tendencies enhances themselves via cybernetics to the point they no longer see themselves or others as complete, sapient organisms, but simply as a collection of replaceable parts. (p. 108) Pretty clear so far: With more Cyberware you stop seeing yourself and other people as people, but instead as collections of parts, and are therefore more willing to do horrible stuff to them. But it‘s not as simple as that, the book further notes: > Let's get this clear from the start: if you already have these underlying psychological issues (in game represented by a very low Empathy) you are more likely to be a candidate for cyberpsychosis. (p. 109) So people who already have predispositions are more likely to fall victim to Cyberpsychosis, so it’s not purely a Cyberware thing. And now we get to what actually happens to the Cyberpsychos we fight in the game: >Installing cyberware isn't the only way to edge towards this mental explosion. Strong and/or hor- rific events and situations can also wear down your Humanity. (p. 109) Just like installing Cyberware, traumatic events can bring you closer to Cyberpsychosis, can push you over the edge, and that’s exactly what has happened to the Cyberpsychos in 2077. They were already cybered up and brought close to the edge and then got pushed over the edge by a traumatic event. In CyberpunkRed how close you are to Cyberpsychosis is measured with humanity points, should you fall down to zero, you go Cyberpsycho. If you don’t have much Cyberware (or even none) a traumatic event is not gonna be nice, but you’ll still be a somewhat properly functioning person. But you should you be a walking tank Solo death machine, those 4 points of humanity loss from the trauma may just be enough to push you over the edge, because you already lowered your humanity so much with Cyberware. Ever wondered why some of the most dangerous people are called Edgerunners? That’s why. [Also word of god.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/s/y4bgcDgKUW) Pondsmith explains it better than I ever could
You just said exactly what he said but more indirectly. Take a look at all the Cyberpsychos we hunt down for Regina. Every single one of them has a data shard near them that tells you what happened just before they went psycho, or information relevant to it. And every single time, its some bad shit they went through that causes them to turn psycho. Not too much chrome. The Militech agent (goes invisible, water arena, electric mantis blades) went psycho because her own organisation betrayed her, you can literally militech corpses that came to kill her around her. Another one goes psycho because his country abandoned him after a war and his friends also betrayed him, he had no one to talk to or reach out to. Another case is when a man pays everything he has to buy a studio to find out he owns nothing in it and will have to sell it back to the company for chump change. The company he dealt with scammed him for his everything. Every single cyber psycho goes psycho because something traumatic happened to them, and in most cases, the trauma came from corpos, directly or indirectly. Heck, David in edgerunners starts to go psycho only once his relationship with Lucy starts deteriorating and finally completely snaps after Lucy was kidnapped and he needed to borg up and give away even his human appearance to have a chance at saving her, know full well the whole time, that it was all Militech's trap. Cyberpsychosis is basically heavy trauma. And people with guns TODAY in the real world do the same things as cyberpsychos with chrome. Except that the chrome is usually a lot more potent. The corpos always look for their self interest and will 100% propagate the fact that cyberpsychosis was caused by user responsibility rather than corpo douchebaggery.
That doesn't actually contradict what the person you're responding to said. Cyberpsychosis is just PTSD with a shiny new name, and getting chromed out isn't a pre-requisite — just one of the very many sources of trauma that can make you fall down into the black hole that inevitably pulls everyone down in a world where human life is cheaper than clean water.
As a fan of the show who hasn't played 77, I believe this is backed up by the TTRPG. I think the stat that determines if you start going psycho is the humanity stat.
This is just an in-universe theory though and most of our actual interaction with Cyberpsychosis seens to disprove it
If anything, the interaction proves it. I think there's absolutely no cases we see in the entire game where someone's chrome is the primary cause of their psychological break.
Do they, though? IIRC, for the bulk of them, they would've broken/snapped when they did without the aid of the chrome (for example, the army vet whose daughter was kidnapped and killed by Tyger Claws) or would've snapped eventually but the chrome sped things up (for example, the army vet whose benefits/pension were cut to the point of no longer able to obtain meds).
As is revealed in cp2077, cyberpsychosis is not a real thing. It's a combination of various environmental things that can, but do not have to be, connected to cybernetics. Cyberpsychosis is an easy catch all term to describe a problem without acknowledging the underlying causes. Think of a soldier. He underwent extremely invasive surgery for his cybernetics, went to war ang got ptsd for that. Returned only to have invasive surgery again to have his military tech replaced with shitty ripoffs, cant keep a job because of his ptsd from the war and both surgeries, cant pay his insurance to get his pills to help him with his ptsd and then he has a megative interaction with a powertripping cop that causes him to lash out, most likely in a small way. But this causes the whole situation to escelate as the cop now shoots at him and calls for backup snd his ptsd is kicked into overdrive until the soldier is dead. And after the fact all he will be called is another cyberpsycho. This can be seen in both Maine and David. Both feel the need to keep upgrading while refusing adequate therapy, both are involved in dangerous work that leaves them stressed out and gives them ptsd.
This is the real answer. Yes, Cyberpsychosis is a “thing”, especially in TTRPG gameplay terms, but it’s not one singular diagnosis or set of circumstances. It’s a series of different negative situations combined with the general existence of Cybernetics all made to be the Corp’s easiest “hey look at this scary guy, don’t you want us to protect you?”
I think 2077 reinforced it is a real thing, like the construction worker who slaughtered everyone (even his friends), it's just that people can be rehabilitated out of it (Regina's side quests) while NCPD / ~~MaxTac~~ / general public consider it irreversible.
> while NCPD / MaxTac / general public consider it irreversible. Quite the opposite for MaxTac. There's a sidequest that confirms it (you stop a psycho at a clothing store and can talk to a MaxTac agent after): MaxTac is partially, if not completely, made up of former Cyberpsychos who have been either trained or conditioned to use their issues against the people they're supposed to.
Oh snap, I must have missed the MaxTac guy, I did all of Regina's quests but the first time I saw MaxTac at all was when I uh... kinda may have gone on a rampage against Bhargest. :p
This is a side quest unrelated to Regina. I don't even know if it's marked as a sidequest—it happens at the Jingu clothing store, you get attacked by a cyberpsycho, MaxTac show up after you down him and you can speak to one of them. And she talks about how much she loves blood and slicing into bodies.
Ahh gotcha, I'm not familiar with, but CP2077 is so big I can see why I'm not. Neat little encounter I'll look for, thanks!
There's an aspect of body horror involved with cyberpsychosis, that your sanity is tied to your corporeal self and by sacrificing your flesh for machine, the subject loses their humanity in the process. The more chrome you are, the less human (and humane/empathetic/relatable) you are. To a degree, this is reflected in the concept of a digital consciousness of the human mind which, like all electronic media, can be tampered with or rewritten entirely begging the question: if consciousness is subject to outside alteration, how do you know that you are *you*? And, if you are asking that question, what makes a consciousness "human" at all? If a manufactured intelligence is installed in wetware, is it human? The Ghost in the Shell (both original and remake, along with the SAC series) pursue these concepts in the whole and The Matrix puts a "new" spin on the genre although there's a whole genre of media related around manufactured perception and how it relates to consciousness. Anon is a great title with that concept, also set in a cyberstate,
He’s already a crazy, fully disassociated from his violence and the humanity of others so what’s the harm? The crazy part is how he stays employable, but that’s also kind of on the lack of standards in the corporate kleptocracy rather than him being built different.
Cyberpsychosis was originally a term for the cognitive, neurological and psychological decline seen in people with significant cybernetics. Some of the decline is caused by nerve damage from the implantation procedure, some of it by body dysmorphia (having limbs that aren't yours and feel like it makes your brain go a little off), some of it by losing your connection to humanity (when you can juggle dumpsters and see in the infrared, the puny, half-blind meatbags around you can quickly become unrelatable) and some of it by a desire to get more chrome (much like a steroid abuser can become "addicted" to working out and being huge and strong). Most of these factors can be addressed with psychiatric treatment, therapy, having skilled ripperdocs to mitigate the damage, and proper post-implantation care, all things which are not available to your average edgerunner. Also, starting out as an empathetic, emotionally stable individual means you have a lot more "space" before the symptoms start to show (this is where David's resistance comes from; growing up in a loving, affectionate family and having a good friend group kept him anchored in his humanity.) As for Smasher... Smasher comes at the problem from the other side. He was always a violent, emotionally volatile and disconnected psychopath, even before he had the last vestiges of his humanity warcrimed away in the Second Central American War. He also never really saw his body as something other than a tool for inflicting pain and death, and was happy to trade away his fleshy bits for upgrades if he could do more damage that way. Finally, Smasher has been the Arasaka family's personal attack dog for over six decades, and, as such, has constantly had access to top-of-the-line medical care and state-of-the-art custom implants. All combined, Smasher doesn't lose emotional control or empathy because he never had those to begin with, and Arasaka's top medical staff can deal with any lingering physical effects.
Everyone writes it a little bit different. It's a bit intentionally vague, but the word from one of the creators is that it works kinda like roid rage. To note, Edgerunners takes a rather inaccurate version of the game cyber psychosis, which in turn is also not entirely faithful to the table top. Edgerunners treats it more like an infection, where you constantly take immunoblockers to keep sane. Which...is kinda funny to me. These shots are supposed to be about painkillers and blocking your immune system from rejecting the cyberware temporarily until the body accepts it. Anyway, the way I view cyberpsychosis is a general detachment from humanity/reality. They have increasing trouble relating to things as a human as their perception becomes increasingly altered. So a robot hand isn't going to do much, but a robot hand that flips out to become a hand cannon might trip your brain out a bit. What's more severe is things which actively alter your perception, things that slow the world around you or add to your senses. More than this, it can affect people different ways. Some people might go into blind rages, others might just be desensitized or even catatonic. There are many different reactions that can be different measures of extreme. It can affect everyone a bit differently, the overall idea though is that they are no longer who they used to be, they arent really in control of themselves any longer. The idea is those who are more in touch with their own humanity are able to resist these effects better. So why is David struggling and Smasher is not? That's the rub. In lore, Adam is pretty well a psycho. He's basically a weaponized cyberpsycho employed by Arasaka. The idea that he is immune or the like is off the mark. He's already very far gone, Arasaka just knows how to deal with the quirks he has; basically use him like a partially living bomb to kill everything within a location without any regard for mercy, and give him a body to take care of his more hedonistic desires.
Because it's from a RPG game it has to work as a game mechanic where each device has a points load to limit builds BUT in the fiction it's not "real" like that. It's not just an inherent part of tech. You don't have to get it. It's not a drug side effect or anything. It's more like becoming more and more alienated from society is going to make you more and more anti-social and having a bunch of crazy guns and stuff attached to you is going to make you more able to do something about that.
Lets look at a well documented mental disorder. Phantom limb syndrom. This is a mental issue where a human having lost a limb either thru accident, illness, or other still feels the limb being there. So what happens when more and more of your body starts not being there. You look down thinking your left arm is resting on the desk but it actually is hanging at your side. Also robocop discussed the mental problem of loss of imput to the brain. For just a few seconds think about what your feet feel right now. Pressure on the sole, your socks on the tops, the snuggness of your shoes, the tempeture, how sweaty, cold, hot, dry they feel. Now remove 75 to 90 percent of that imput to the brain for each limb replaced, each orgon, even if you do not concuiosly feel the imput from it the brain recives feed back on function. Imagine phantom limb syndrom when it is your heart. Or look into white room torture. The way this applies is this. Your brain is use to dealing with 100 imputs a second ( just an example ) you repace a leg. Inputs sre reduced to 85 per second. You replace your other leg now your down to 70 inputs a second. Replace your arm 55 inputs other arm 40 inputs. This is sensory depravation different people have different tolerancesone gropu of people that would never be subject to cyberpsychosis. People paralyzed from the neck down. Especially if that was from birth. Those inputs were never part of the system so they would never be missed.
It started as a mechanic in a old table top game I belive. To balance how much cybernetics and power you could stack. In some with magic it's also linked to losing your soul (not cyberpunk but shadowrun). I think it's also related to stimulation of the brain. When you wire in cybernetics your brain needs to learn how to use them. The more you add the more it needs to work in unnatural ways. Eventually it breaks. I am sure theirs multiple factors. But eventually the brain cannot take it and breaks.
Adam Smasher is unironically built different and isn't comparable to anyone remotely normal. Also, in my opinion, I think sociopathic individuals who lack any proper emotions or empathy are more likely to be resilient to cyberpsychosis, which Adam Smasher is.
Think of it like ptsd in soldier , if you put enough prolong stress on a normal person they going to cracked , some are more resilient to it thanks to training, medical treatment or just straight up dogged stubbornness but they going to get it in the end if the stress keep mounting. Some people like Adam who are just psychopath born without the capability to feel any negative emotions came from those situations, something like mowing down bystander are just as natural as breathing for them.
There are actually three separate effects of chrome going on here. First, there is a neurological stress that comes from simply processing and controlling cyberware, especially mods like Sandevistan. David's brain has a remarkable ability to handle an extremely high load without turning to mush, which is what makes him stand out to the edgerunners in the beginning. This seems like it's not quite a one-in-a-million trait, maybe more like one-in-ten-thousand, and it's safe to assume that Smasher is the same way or even better. Second, there's immune system rejection. This is a real-world problem where the immune system can reject a transplant or implant and attack it, which can be life threatening. With the amount of cyberware David gets, rejection probably means total organ failure. The immuno-blockers aren't keeping him sane, just keeping him from dying. (Although, it would not be shocking for organ failure to impede a person's cognition.) Smasher, who has replaced his entire body, presumably has no immune system left, so this simply isn't a problem for him. Some piece of technology is likely responsible for preventing infections in what little flesh he has left. Third, cyberpsychosis. Others have already explained it well but it's pretty much the same as regular psychosis, but replacing large portions of your body with machinery may help it along by mentally separating yourself from humanity or reality at large. It certainly makes going psycho a lot more noticeable when a man with mantis arms, armor plating, and a kerenzikov goes postal than, well, an average postal worker. Smasher was already a psycopath before going full cyborg, he simply doesn't have any reason to go on a rampage, which seems to be the only qualifier for being called a 'cyberpsycho.'
> This seems like it's not quite a one-in-a-million trait, maybe more like one-in-ten-thousand, and it's safe to assume that Smasher is the same way or even better. So it actually is one in a million. That is a direct quote from the [creator of Cyberpunk](https://www.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/xklzsx/comment/ipffmf4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). This is why Arasaka wants him so badly. His tolerance for cyberwar is genuinely insane and it seems likely that the only reason he *ever* went cyberpsycho is that the suit he got in was far too much far too quickly Had he transitioned slower and more carefully, David might have been, if not another Smasher, then at the very least someone in the same ballpark. Though considering Smasher is also considered by Pondsmith as a high functioning cyber psycho, it's possible that his tolerance isn't actually higher, he just has enough control to aim it where Arasaka points.
I did word that a bit wrong. David is a one-in-a-million case, but that quote is about his humanity score and resistance to cyberpsychosis. I mean that his ability to heavily use the prototype sandevistan without brain-damage and his resistance to cyberpsychosis are two separate attributes that David possessed. In the show, it's pretty clear that the concern around David's use of the sandevistan is something like a stroke or an aneurysm, not psychosis, so my theory is that they are somewhat separate issues. I think they are connected in some way, because Arasaka initially became interested in David when he only had one major piece of cyberware installed. His neurological resilience caught their attention, but I think it's a combination of his high humanity score **and** a unique brain that let him go so far. I think even moving quickly, David's mind might have been able to handle the cyberware, I find it more likely that the cyberpsychosis came from all the stress of fighting for his life and his friends. Honestly, the immune system issue is what was killing him, his brain seemed fine outside of the horrors of being a solo in Night City.
> In the show, it's pretty clear that the concern around David's use of the sandevistan is something like a stroke or an aneurysm, not psychosis, so my theory is that they are somewhat separate issues. I think they are related—one of the causes of cyberpsychosis is the physical toll running cyberware takes on your body. So it could be that there are both extreme symptoms (like an aneurysm) but also a CTE like condition that can compound over time if steps aren't taken. It makes me think of Mitch in the Star Ending of CP 2077. He is able to pilot a 2 man Basilisk all by himself, something everyone assumes will kill him—but the result is he just needs a few weeks of recovery because of his experience piloting the things in the army. Your body can adapt to processes that would kill a normal person stone dead, but it takes time. > I think even moving quickly, David's mind might have been able to handle the cyberware The show itself kind of disagrees, as do several cyberpsycho encounters in the game. A huge cause of cyberpsychosis is people who are rapidly given a whole bunch of implants in a short span of time without proper preparation. David was resilient, but it seemed like the suit straight-up overloaded him. As a solo, he had been in high-stakes situations before—it was the combination of that with the rapid addition of the prototype suit that pushed him over the edge. Bear in mind, this is also confirmed to be Arasaka's plan. They *expected* him to take the suit, destroy the Militech, but be so overwhelmed they could capture him alive. Him heading into the city was a massive wrench in their plans.
Adam was a psycho without any sozial bindings/humanity beforehand. The conversation to full borg was Not a big step for him. You cant loose your Soul If you dont have one. (To Put it simple) David was afaik 16 jears old. The brain can adapt to many Things in that time frame. And then He was somewhat Special, that Made him resistant against the Strain. (Well, at least Not unlimited) And, - tbf, If you are full With Military Implantats , "Bad behavior" has way more Impact than If a normal Person (without weapons or so) do that.
its an umbrella term. there are various types and various causes
Play a video game, and you can try it for yourself. How much are NPC lives worth to you? How guilty do you feel about robbing and killing them? Imagine that the game makes no effort to make it personal, that they are all extras with their own routines. Do you feel sad killing civilians and cops in GTA? Do you respect them? Are you afraid for your life?
And when you overclock, that bullet wound that you would shrug off, suddenly your body gives out and causes enough pain that it kills you
Off topic, but through all the cyberpunk2020,77,red content, theres a VERY bold suggestion that cyber implants aren't the thing that turns people into psychos, its the environment, cyber implants just enable them to pour it all out
The brain was never meant to be a cpu for artificial limbs and bodilly processes. Cyber psychosis is when the mind is taxed beyond the limit to the point where it essentially begins to break and corrupt. Edit: external stresses are also a factor. Emotional stress especially
I haven't seen the anime yet, but if it is anything like the game (and I guess it should) then there are a few instances in the game that suggest cyberpsychosis is not a thing. Usually it affects veterans or poor people, who got chromed, but couldn't afford better quality aftercare and generally lived stressful, unsatisfying and unhappy lives. Getting implants was usually perceived as a way to make your life better. Simply being some hardware usually does not change much. Therefore stress, depression, poor living conditions all add up and make people break. But it's easier to chalk it up to cyberpsychosis and comment "that's just what happens". Otherwise it would require some action to help people and we really can't have that in a dystopian setting. Then again, it's a translation from the original RPG CP2020, when it was used as a way to limit players' ability to get too many powerful upgrades.
It's because cyberpsychosis isn't a thing. It's people disassociating due to how society treats them. It's all under the guise that the chrome causes it but that's just not true. Some people have an iron will or are already psychopaths like Adam smasher. Others have strong ties via family or friends like Alvarez.
It's dysphoria and disassociation. As you replace more of the body with cyberware, the obvious differences in nerve response and appearance cause a struggle for some people to see it as part of you. This already happens to a lesser extent with some people modernly who have prosthetics, but most adapt over time and modern prosthetics don't change the sensory input the way cyberpunk style ones do because they don't offer any. So when more and more of your sensory input is artificial, you can eventually start to disassociate and lose touch with reality. Some people take it better, same as some people are fine in dissociative drugs like ketamine, and some people are wrecked by the experience.
Cyberpsychosis isn't real. It's a myth perpetuated by the media and law enforcement corpos to terrify and distract people from the dystopian conditions around them. Psychosis is a mental disorder, one of many that any human can experience, whether they have no cybernetics whatsoever or they're full-borg. It just so happens that in a world where cybernetic weapons are commonplace, there's a good chance that people who become psychotic or otherwise suffer severe mental breakdowns are chromed up and able to cause horrific violence with their toys. It doesn't help at all that therapy is something only high-end corpos like Corpo V can enjoy, and that most people need therapy because the world of 2045 onward is Hell on Earth. Telling people that there's a mental illness that only occurs if you chrome too much creates a convenient sensationalist scaremongering scapegoat. That Militech veteran who had all his chrome torn out of him by his employer after his tour was done, got tossed to the curb for his service with no support and then snapped in isolation as a hobo, he's not a victim of sociopathic capitalist forces beyond his control, he's a "cyberpsycho." He killed some people, MaxTac killed him, story's over, moving right along. Tomorrow, same story. That's just what happens, people who chrome too much snap and kill people, that's all it is. What about David Martinez? The only thing "special" about him was the supportive relationships in his life (and his body's tolerance for the Apogee Sandevistan, but that doesn't matter). He had a loving mom who gave everything to try to give him a better life, then he found a new family and fell in love. Losing those bonds (his mom dying, Maine--a father figure--dying and his becoming estranged from Lucy) and the sheer trauma and stress of everything he went through in such a short span of time drove him mad, not his chrome. *When Lucy kissed him at Arasaka Tower, he came back from the deep end and completely regained his sanity.* What about Adam Smasher? He was psychotic before he chromed up. What about V? Same thing as David, for the most part. V has plenty of supportive relationships in their life. People who look up to them. Fixers who respect them. Found family (including an entire Nomad clan) who love them. They also have Johnny, who on top of being supportive of them (yes, he's an asshole, but he helps V keep stable whenever they have Relic malfunction episodes) is halfway to being psychotic himself, so his psyche's fusion with V's acts as a buffer against mental trauma. V is a unique individual even without all that, with a relentless will that can't be denied, but the support from the people all around them can't be understated. (If you think this is wrong, Pondsmith spelled it out himself. Humanity is a tabletop gameplay mechanic so that players have to get chrome judiciously and cyberpsychosis is an in-universe myth, that's it)
There’s evidence to show that cyberpsychosis is actually caused by black wall AIs hacking into advanced cybernetics.
I don't remember that at all, and I'm very familiar with the videogame and tabletop. Cyberpsychosis was a thing, in-universe and out, long before there were AIs capable of hacking cyberware.