This is an interesting take, looking at the dark fringes of the Star Trek galaxy, the places untouched or better yet, left behind by the Federation.  And there are a ton of those, like the planet where Tasha Yar is from, which, is, by any measure, is a hellhole, where "rape gangs" were a common threat- and this was written into the show.  Of course, the Federation is 'supposed' to be squeaky clean, but nearly damn Admiral we see is basically a by the book absolutist, look at Nechayev who Picard has to rebel against multiple times, and others I'm forgetting. 

And, of course, there are Maqui resistance fighters, who would essentially be a sort of cyberpunk-type setting.  The Federation wouldn't be good guys in their POV.   

Then you've got the 'Dabo girls' on DS9, who you know were essentially Quark's whores.  I mean, it wasn't spelled out, but.. it was right there.  And those holo-suites probably had a whole bunch of X-rated programs for paying customers.  And then there's Risa... 

So, yeah, there's plenty of material in the Star Trek universe for a 'cyberpunk' type take, imo.

Quote from: Valatar on November 20, 2023, 04:50:13 PM
I disagree, Ratman.  Because yeah, we're told that the Federation is a post-scarcity utopia, but we rarely if ever see that.  The characters we see are people who are choosing to work and have productive careers, but I suspect in a post-scarcity socialist state there are millions or billions of people laid up in public housing with no work and no ambition.  I could very much see a grim statement about human potential withering beneath the benevolent boot of such a society, of people growing up among generations of ancestors who never had to lift a finger and instead idly consume entertainment until the day they die, becoming desperate to actually make some kind of mark for themselves on the world and turning to any means to do that.

That's the tired, deconstructionist take on Star Trek. It's good for a farce or parody, but it requires a kind of willful misrepresentation of the source material, and a giant wink at "the audience".

QuoteIs that cyberpunk?  I'd argue that it's a technological dystopia and close enough to count.  The corporate hyper-capitalism is lacking, but it's still a commentary on human nature being warped by technology.

And then you're no longer doing Star Trek.
I would agree that the setting doesn't hold up to critical scrutiny, but then a lot of fiction doesn't.

Cyberpunk doesn't need to be dystopian.  Not all of the cyberpunk setting from the 80s and 90s were.

The reason that so many cyberpunk stories are set in a dystopia is it's easier to bring the reader (or viewer) on board with the perspective of the punk or edge runner, making them seam more reasonable.  Not all utopias fit everyone.  A character being forced to comply with a society that cannot be tolerate, even if everyone else is good with it, is all it takes to create the anti mainstream thread that's needed. 

Putting an edge runner in an apparent utopian setting allows us to explore that setting in a way that venerated members of that society cannot.  That said, it's well worth asking, is our Ted Kaczynski a prophet warning us about the failures of our society or just a whack job causing chaos.

Quote from: Valatar on November 20, 2023, 04:50:13 PM
I disagree, Ratman.  Because yeah, we're told that the Federation is a post-scarcity utopia, but we rarely if ever see that.  The characters we see are people who are choosing to work and have productive careers, but I suspect in a post-scarcity socialist state there are millions or billions of people laid up in public housing with no work and no ambition.  I could very much see a grim statement about human potential withering beneath the benevolent boot of such a society, of people growing up among generations of ancestors who never had to lift a finger and instead idly consume entertainment until the day they die, becoming desperate to actually make some kind of mark for themselves on the world and turning to any means to do that.

For core Federation worlds, the post-scarcity utopia is pretty well demonstrated in the show and the copious amount of support material available from the show runners of TOS onward.

But there is certainly room in the Star Trek universe for a cyberpunk type or grungy campaign. A lot of technology in Star Trek is also kind of 'dumb' compared to what we know about technological vulnerability (and much better shown in Ron Moore's version of Battlestar Galactica). As others mentioned, FASA Trek had the Triangle Campaign, which takes place where the Federation, Klingon and I think, Romulan Space meet. That would work out pretty well for such a campaign.

While I'm thinking of it, let me add a few more thoughts.

I'm not talking about deconstructing the setting of Star Trek anymore than I'd like to pull apart the USA to make the world a better place for bikers.  Rather, I think it's healthy to look at all aspects of an issue, even fictional, so we get a clear picture of the whole.  I think a view of the ST setting through the eyes of one that isn't accepted by mainstream society would be a fun and fresh way to explore something many of us love.

Go back and watch the ST:TNG episode The Drumhead and ask yourself about the poor souls that Picard wasn't there to stand up for.  Then go back and reread the last paragraph of my OP and see if there's a functional concept for a campaign.

Quote from: BadApple on November 21, 2023, 05:06:26 AM
I'm not talking about deconstructing the setting of Star Trek anymore than I'd like to pull apart the USA to make the world a better place for bikers.  Rather, I think it's healthy to look at all aspects of an issue, even fictional, so we get a clear picture of the whole.  I think a view of the ST setting through the eyes of one that isn't accepted by mainstream society would be a fun and fresh way to explore something many of us love.

Go back and watch the ST:TNG episode The Drumhead and ask yourself about the poor souls that Picard wasn't there to stand up for.  Then go back and reread the last paragraph of my OP and see if there's a functional concept for a campaign.

Star Trek has lots of inconsistencies. There are multiple series with hundreds of episodes, over a dozen feature films, and many dozens of novels and other works. If one selectively pulls out certain episodes (like "The Drumhead"), then it is easily possible to have the Federation be dystopian and imagine good-hearted cyberpunks running criminal operations against mega-corporations that control the inner workings.

That is against the vast majority of episodes and the spirit of the show, though - and would essentially be deconstructing.

Still, I do think there's room for good criminal operations around the edges of the Federation, though, like in the Romulan/Klingon/Federation Triangle, in Orion territory, or similar.

One issue for cyberpunk is that computers are nearly sentient and don't need any complex interface. Hacking is possible -- we've seen characters take control of computers -- but it looks a lot different than in classic cyberpunk.

Generally I agree with everyone else. You could look a long way before finding a sci-fi universe more thematically and aesthetically opposite of cyberpunk than Star Trek is. But that argument is well enough made by others, so instead let's talk about how you would do this, if you were going to.

Here's my proposal: The campaign is focused around a mega-station (like Babylon 5 or the Alpha Station from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), which is controlled by several competing Ferengi trade guilds. That gets you your urban jungle, your crime, sleaze, crony capitalism and corporate espionage. The PCs are essentially privateers, freelance operators loosely connected to some off-the-books branch of the Federation (much like 40K's Rogue Traders). That gets you your morally dubious outsider protagonists and frees you up from the utopian liberalism of Starfleet. The Federation wants to crack a Ferengi monopoly on some valuable resource, but the station's oligarchs won't allow an official Federation presence there, so they've had to resort to hiring a crew of outlaws and misfits. There's your "Punk".

If you want add in the "Cyber" element, I suggest that the Station is built around a derelict Borg Cube. The Ferengi have reverse-engineered the Borgs' hivemind technology and used it to create a prototype neural internet throughout the station. Anyone wanting to interact with the station, even just to move about and trade on board, has to undergo cybernetic implantation in order to interface with the systems. Maybe some shady covert ops group in the Federation wants to steal this technology, planning to neural-link its warship crews to make them more effective in battle. Or if you don't want to cast the Federation as the baddies, either the Romulans or the Klingons have the same plan, and the PCs have to prevent the tech falling into their hands.

To me, that opens up tons of adventure possibilities, trading with the station, hunting resources off-station to curry favor, playing spy-vs-spy with the Romulans, climbing the corporate and/or criminal ladders, all with the grand prize of tech that could tip the balance of power in the Alpha Quadrant.

....Or you could go the lazy route and just warp your PCs to the Theta Quadrant or whatever, where you've plopped down a homebrewed cyberpunk setting...

EDIT: fixed some grammar/punctuation

Slightly unrelated note, but Cyberpunk is a somewhat broader genre than I think we're giving it credit for. Just running through some of the most cited examples:

Ghost in the Shell (at least Stand Alone Complex which is the version of it I'm most familiar with) and Paprika both present less dystopian futures than is standard. Akira is more concerned with government overreach than it is with corporate. Battle Angel: Alita skips the near-future element and goes full post-apocalyptic. Blade Runner and Judge Dredd both present more typical dystopias, but don't really engage with the whole internet/virtual reality side of things, while the Matrix eschews the social commentary almost entirely and focuses on the VR thing instead.

(Really the "machines take over and kill everyone" brand of sci fi is almost it's own genre, and maybe shouldn't even be called cyberpunk; I'd have to think about that one)

It's kind of only the narrow band of Cyberpunk properties that follow very directly on from Neuromancer (including the roleplaying game) that tend to put all the standard elements together as one.

Quote from: BadApple on November 21, 2023, 05:06:26 AM
While I'm thinking of it, let me add a few more thoughts.

I'm not talking about deconstructing the setting of Star Trek anymore than I'd like to pull apart the USA to make the world a better place for bikers.  Rather, I think it's healthy to look at all aspects of an issue, even fictional, so we get a clear picture of the whole.  I think a view of the ST setting through the eyes of one that isn't accepted by mainstream society would be a fun and fresh way to explore something many of us love.

That's perfectly fine. Characters like Harry Mudd or Okona or even Kassidy Yates exist. The Maquis is a great example of Federation citizens disagreeing with their government and going rogue.

QuoteGo back and watch the ST:TNG episode The Drumhead and ask yourself about the poor souls that Picard wasn't there to stand up for. 

Again, this presupposes the the Federation is full of totalitarian assholes who just have good PR, and that incidents like in The Drumhead are the norm, and not the exception.
That's not Trek.

Quote from: ForgottenF on November 21, 2023, 02:58:09 PM
Here's my proposal: The campaign is focused around a mega-station (like Babylon 5 or the Alpha Station from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), which is controlled by several competing Ferengi trade guilds. That gets you your urban jungle, your crime, sleaze, crony capitalism and corporate espionage. The PCs are essentially privateers, freelance operators loosely connected to some off-the-books branch of the Federation (much like 40K's Rogue Traders). That gets you your morally dubious outsider protagonists and frees you up from the utopian liberalism of Starfleet. The Federation wants to crack a Ferengi monopoly on some valuable resource, but the station's oligarchs won't allow an official Federation presence there, so they've had to resort to hiring a crew of outlaws and misfits. There's your "Punk".

If you want add in the "Cyber" element, I suggest that the Station is built around a derelict Borg Cube. The Ferengi have reverse-engineered the Borgs' hivemind technology and used it to create a prototype neural internet throughout the station.

That sounds reasonable. There are different balances possible between how much Star Trek and how much cyberpunk there is. If there's too much cyberpunk, then what's the point of it being in the Star Trek universe, after all?

I also like the idea of being Harry-Mudd-esque scoundrels in the Romulan/Klingon/Federation Triangle. Having a ship isn't very cyberpunk, but it connects more to Star Trek. The PCs don't have to be Federation-connected, and I think it's better in some ways if they weren't. They could be outlaws and misfits with their own ship - running around and doing heists and smuggling of various sorts. Also, it's easier to get "cyber" via cyberware rather than from netrunning. Star Trek already has established cyberware like Geordi's visor.

Quote from: ForgottenF on November 21, 2023, 03:17:02 PM
Slightly unrelated note, but Cyberpunk is a somewhat broader genre than I think we're giving it credit for. Just running through some of the most cited examples:

Ghost in the Shell (at least Stand Alone Complex which is the version of it I'm most familiar with) and Paprika both present less dystopian futures than is standard. Akira is more concerned with government overreach than it is with corporate. Battle Angel: Alita skips the near-future element and goes full post-apocalyptic. Blade Runner and Judge Dredd both present more typical dystopias, but don't really engage with the whole internet/virtual reality side of things, while the Matrix eschews the social commentary almost entirely and focuses on the VR thing instead.

I don't really consider any of those cyberpunk.  Manga is its own separate genre.  To me cyber punk is Neuromancer, Johnny Mnemonic, Snow Crash, etc.  I don't make any claims for the majority and don't care enough to try to research it, but that's where I'm at.

As an aside, if you like Ghost in the Shell, you might want to try Appleseed.  GitS is great, but Masamune Shirow has done better.

Although I don't think Star Trek as presented fits cyberpunk at all, I would quite enjoy a take showing that the Federation is fundamentally broken and what we've seen previously is a facade.  That could be punk, if not cyberpunk.

I really liked the original Star Trek as a kid, but when I got older and saw to what extent it was socialist propaganda it kind of ruined it for me.  A game refuting the previous propaganda, showing just how badly socialist ideology breaks a society when put into practice, would be pretty cool.

Whether or not the Trekverse actually has this dystopia is moot.   Trek has been rewritten by entertainment companies so you might as well get in there and have your way with the setting too.

What I want to know is what system would you use?  The current Trek game is Modiphius' 2d20 and I personally don't find it inspiring.  But if you used R. Taslorian's Cyberpunk to run a space game I would totally be down.  Back when Cyberpunk first came out I used it to run Traveller and it woeked out pretty well.

Quote from: Mishihari on November 22, 2023, 01:42:47 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on November 21, 2023, 03:17:02 PM
Slightly unrelated note, but Cyberpunk is a somewhat broader genre than I think we're giving it credit for. Just running through some of the most cited examples:

Ghost in the Shell (at least Stand Alone Complex which is the version of it I'm most familiar with) and Paprika both present less dystopian futures than is standard. Akira is more concerned with government overreach than it is with corporate. Battle Angel: Alita skips the near-future element and goes full post-apocalyptic. Blade Runner and Judge Dredd both present more typical dystopias, but don't really engage with the whole internet/virtual reality side of things, while the Matrix eschews the social commentary almost entirely and focuses on the VR thing instead.

I don't really consider any of those cyberpunk.  Manga is its own separate genre.  To me cyber punk is Neuromancer, Johnny Mnemonic, Snow Crash, etc.  I don't make any claims for the majority and don't care enough to try to research it, but that's where I'm at.

As an aside, if you like Ghost in the Shell, you might want to try Appleseed.  GitS is great, but Masamune Shirow has done better.

Well, both William Gibson and Mike Pondsmith do.  Both have made public comments about it.  As I seem to remember, Pondsmith even saying that some of the supplements contain things that were direct lifts from anime, including the bulk of Maximum Metal and that's why he did a crossover book for Mekton.

Bubblegum Crisis is actually considered one of the seminal early cyberpunk works.  It was introduced in 1987 and has shaped both American and Japanese cyberpunk since, inspiring Mike Pondsmith, Neal Stephenson, and others here in the US as well as countless others around the world.

ForgottenF has it completely right, cyberpunk as a genre is not dystopian scifi.  It is scifi that explores the characters that don't conform to social norms and how both they and society are impacted by the high volumes of information computers can provide.  As I've stated before in this thread, the dystopian angle is a literary tool that is used to make the counter culture characters more understandable and palatable. 

Quote from: Mishihari on November 22, 2023, 01:42:47 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on November 21, 2023, 03:17:02 PM
Ghost in the Shell (at least Stand Alone Complex which is the version of it I'm most familiar with) and Paprika both present less dystopian futures than is standard. Akira is more concerned with government overreach than it is with corporate. Battle Angel: Alita skips the near-future element and goes full post-apocalyptic. Blade Runner and Judge Dredd both present more typical dystopias, but don't really engage with the whole internet/virtual reality side of things, while the Matrix eschews the social commentary almost entirely and focuses on the VR thing instead.

I don't really consider any of those cyberpunk.  Manga is its own separate genre.  To me cyber punk is Neuromancer, Johnny Mnemonic, Snow Crash, etc.  I don't make any claims for the majority and don't care enough to try to research it, but that's where I'm at.

As an aside, if you like Ghost in the Shell, you might want to try Appleseed.  GitS is great, but Masamune Shirow has done better.

Genre lines are always a bit fuzzy, but saying that Berserk and Sailor Moon are the same genre seems to be going a step too far. Manga is a medium if anything, and really it's not even that. It's just comic books from Japan.

Thanks for the recommendation, though. I've actually bounced off of Ghost in the Shell multiple times (both the manga and the anime). I keep trying because it's so influential, but it's never stuck for me, so maybe I should try Appleseed instead. 

EDIT: Regarding your unusually narrow definition of Cyberpunk: I ran into a similar thing on another thread, where my definition of Dark Fantasy was wildly disparate from everyone else's.  Ultimately I wound up just deciding I needed a different term for the genre I was talking about.

Quote from: BadApple on November 22, 2023, 02:50:03 AM
ForgottenF has it completely right, cyberpunk as a genre is not dystopian scifi.  It is scifi that explores the characters that don't conform to social norms and how both they and society are impacted by the high volumes of information computers can provide.  As I've stated before in this thread, the dystopian angle is a literary tool that is used to make the counter culture characters more understandable and palatable. 

I do think you have to include the aesthetic element of cyberpunk in any reasonable definition of it. The augmentations, the leather, the retro-futurist fashion, neon lights, etc. are all universal enough that I think it has to be considered. Really, Grognard GM's list from earlier in the thread isn't a bad one. The mistake would be in saying "you must have all these elements to be cyberpunk", rather than "the more of these you have, the more cyberpunk you are".