Hey guys. I know its been a bit since the video released and I am currently working on my timeline video that will cover everything as a whole and answer a lot of questions. One thing I didn't mention that I should've is the chip inserted by Murphy is the soulkiller program. I mention it in my second video but failed to here. Thank you all for the support.

I like the idea how Johnny Silverhand, didn't purposely lie to V with the memories. I think he wanted to feel he was the one brave enough to stand up to Arasaka, though I do think his memories are epic and that the group blowing up AHQ was right because no one should have that power to rip the soul out of a person and put it on a database to edit or make themselves immortal. I did the Arasaka ending recently and it made me realise how right Johnny was about wanting Arasaka destroyed

Cyberpunk Fanbase: Do you really believe your own hype that much? Johnny Silverhand: I AM THE HYPE!

Love how Alt told us that Johnny's memories were lying to him, everything falls in to place It'd be so cool if the upcoming expansion featured Morgan blackhand lore and V finding out the truth somehow

God V taking on Arasaka in the Don't Fear The Reaper ending is alot more insane since we think Johnny destroyed Arasaka once and thinking he's a badass but finding out that Johnny was never that important or even on Arasaka's radar and it really makes more sense why Adam Smasher is confused when you say "Johnny Silverhand sends his regards."

Johnny is definitely a narcissist and has such an inflated ego so him remembering the events wrong makes a ton of sense. The game even says his recollections are biased and don’t fully represent the truth when first meeting with Alt.

i did always find it weird that one moment, johnny is laying on the ground after the door explosion, moments before smasher shoots him, then the next moment, he’s on the roof, about to escape in the bird. also, does this mean that johnny’s body IS out there somewhere? still preserved? which means, maybe V can ACTUALLY be saved? also, how does arasaka end up with his engram in the game?

Makes sense as to why Adam didn't know what V was talking about when they mentioned johnny during their last confrontation

Soulkiller could only put 70ish% of someone's psyche on an engram. I'm sure his engram was also tampered with in mikoshi so his memories are not completely correct.

I honestly hope this gets mentioned in Phantom Liberty, with Johnny actually having something of an identity crisis, both from his own disillusionment and from being "code on a chip". I also hope we get to find out how Arasaka then got a hold of Johnny's engram, since they clearly didn't do it themselves I know it happened when Murphy slotted what I presume was a relic chip into him as he was dying; what I'm wondering is how Sala got to his corpses and the child afterwards

When you invade Arasaka tower with Rogue, while letting Johnny take control, Adam Smasher DOES recognize Johnny and states: "Silverhand? How is this even possible?" but when you play as V and say "Johnny Silverhand sends his regards" Smasher replies: "Are you f***ing with me now?" It makes me wonder if Johnny was imagining Smasher's dialogue during that encounter, and in reality Smasher is totally confused.

As just a player of the game it always appeared very strange to me that in his memory Johnny was so powerful and skilled and cool with his weapons. Its as if he is a one man army, killing with every shot. Always found that strange.

I read the background in Cyberpunk Red as well. Johnny was cut in half by an automatic shotgun. He would be hamburger in seconds. In other words, he is dead before he drips off the ceiling (hits the floor). Funny thing is the game does slightly acknowledge it. Corpo V says "...the ghost of the man cut into 2..." So, there is no way to even make him into an engram, let alone being carried out, by anyone. Unless they just took the largest chunk that contained the head.

Being killed is probably very confusing. Is it possible some of Johnny's memories (the interrogation, the assistant who was pissed about her... husband?) come from conversations that may have happened in the net? The personality chips were kind of created to let you speak to the dead after all. He might have been interrogated (and maybe even tortured) for years after his death. Even if he wasn't seen as important, he might've been viewed as a valid access to Blackhand. I'm assuming Spider's last little chip insert was how his psyche got wrapped up in Soulkiller. Then you add in our tendency to rewrite our own memories and the vast stretch of time he spent between being dead and V getting shot in the head. He probably has no idea that's not how things happened.

I really like all the theories about engram copying issues, unreliable narrative, narcissism. And I think that might be what they were going for. However, reports say that Keanu wanted silver hand to have a bigger role than he originally did. Whatever that means. So to me, it’s hard to tell if it’s the aforementioned or deliberate retcon due to them landing an a list celebrity.

The line Smasher says right before finishing "Johnny" on the rooftop about being the one to finally take him down makes a lot more sense when you read the books and realize Morgan Blackhand was Smasher's arch nemesis.

I've seen videos and reddit commentary about the "errors" in arasaka logos and other things in the silverhand flashback scenes. Things that have to be overt and intentional because they are not scrambled in any "present day" scenes. This leads me to believe that Johnny's memory engram is at least partially corrupted. He's a raging narcissist but if the relic and soulkiller scramble you, as advertised, there's little wonder he'd replace the gaps with self affirming fictions. Some of what Johnny does is narcism but the rest is engram corruption due to the tech not being perfect. If you take the Devil ending, you give Arasaka what they need to get one step closer to perfecting the tech.

I think this is a really good analysis of some of the deeper portions of the cyberpunk 2077 iceberg. Just a few more points to reinforce your idea: With the Alt Cunningham reveal, we see a lot of the actual effects of soul killer. Alt is no longer Alt in the psyche, she is basically just some advanced AI Consciousness that takes on the visage of Alt. She seems detached from the personality of alt, though remembers defining moments (specifically pre death emotions) related to Johnny. While speaking with Anders Hellman, He really drives home that Soulkiller creates an engram of a persons consciousness. He doesn't seem to buy into the idea of having Johnny's soul inside of v. Nonetheless he believes the legitimacy of V's condition, He simply finds more realism in turning toward technology. He also mentions that Soulkiller was designed to be implanted into a "blank" so to speak. Likely in a manufactured mechanical body. Before both V's implant, and Johnny's death, they are both in really adrenaline fueled crap hit the fan situations. They are acting in extremes due to the nature of their circumstance. It would make sense that while soulkiller is creating a personality engram it tends to emulate the current state of the persons personality. This would partially explain Johnny's allusioned world views. Both receive the implant in a critical, Life or death scenario. The difference is that Johnny died and V lived. This idea is reinforced by Alt's fragmented personality. To reinforce the idea of Johnny also having a fragmented personality; During the rogue romance quest, she seems to try to be open to the idea of it really being Johnny. Things go okay at first, after reminiscing the old days. Once things get serious though, Johnny can't seem to provide rogue with any real answers to deeper questions. It ends with rogue leaving after a few remarks like "this just isn't right" and "Johnny... You died". The entire get together just ended up being Johnny finally taking her to the movies, and making risky advances in Rockstar fashion. Throughout the playthrough, V becomes more reckless and akin to the classic rpg protagonist. A once rational person, regularly weighing consequences and checking their best friend before dangerous situations. After the soul killer implant, V becomes much more driven and loses their regard to safety. It could be argued that V has much less to lose, and that most of their reckless action is acted upon the understanding that they are slowly dying. This is the beginning of V's downfall. Through the game, the Afterlife is used to build up the idea of legacy in death. As time goes on, V gets more used to the idea of legacy in death. Slowly V is reduced to little more than an Adam smasher type figure, Someone who cheated death and has encompassed a spirit of vengeance. This combined with the idea that the soul killer creates a personality engram, often flawed with extremes, Really sets V's implant as their first death. All in all, I agree that Johnny didn't mean to lie or misguide V. I think it is more likely that Johnny just isn't Johnny anymore. Nothing more than a rogue AI created in the Johnny Silverhand visage. I think this AI effectively emulated Johnny in the best way it knew how to, with its only reference material being Johnny's extreme Rockstar death. I also believe that it believes it is Johnny, as that is what it was designed to do. After meeting with Alt who wanted to bring Johnny to cyberspace with her, and linking with the mikoshi access point, Johnny's engram would no longer be in the soul killer chip. This basically leaves V in a footrace with an unavoidable death. I think it likely that V is doomed to the same fate as Johnny; having their soul killed and their engram implanted into a chip.

I think his presented memories represent his main emotions and drives, at the expense of reality. They leave out Blackhand and Smasher's rivalry because Johnny doesn't have a skin in that game, they do include the nuke and him setting it off because Johnny does own wanting to nuke Arasaka tower -- who pulls the trigger is not really important, he's part of the team so it's also his nuke. Memories gloss over the collateral damage because Johnny never wanted to hit bystanders -- and, frankly, hardly could have known, any knowledge of that would come from V. Him being carted to hospital and meeting Arasaka is a near death hallucination, his mind making sense of what's happening while getting uploaded while cut in half. So the fragmentation isn't really about his narcissism, or data corruption, the engram representing personality much more than reality. If you want mere reality scroll a BD.

Great analysis! For me, personally, I believe Johnny suffers from a rare memory disorder known as Korsakoff Syndrome. Basically what it does is it disrupts your brain's ability to maintain true memories, which then prompts it to rewrite your lost memories for you (I.e. it rationalises your perceptions of reality). In the case of Johnny, it's likely his memories were rewritten with what he wanted to believe, like you said yourself in your video. Korsakoff Syndrome is something that's actually very common in alcoholics too, so I think it'd make perfect sense if Johnny was actually diagnosed with this.

Great video! Keep making Cyberpunk Lore analasys and video essays! i see great success coming your way!

I think while the inflated ego is a part of the disillusioned memories, that him being trapped in an echo chamber of anger and hatred for 50 years caused him to believe things happened a certain way.

Quick question, if Johnny died in the Arasaka labs, then why does Rogue say "Not this time, Honey" when Johnny looses his balance on the AV and almost falls during the Rogue ending? That seems like a direct callback to Rogue dropping Johnny on the Arasaka rooftop in 2023.

This actually puts a whole new look on the story and Johnny as a character, Its interesting to know it was more of Morgan who did the fighting because realistically Johnny isn't surviving that fight. It's also nice to know Johnny was probably buried and there's more added about how you get his car and malorian arms. Cyberpunk is a very in depth story tbh and its crazy how much of it is actually over looked, I think Johnny did a bit of both lying and being confused on what actually happened because your brain practically scrambles when you get shot. But this being the case would explain why even he seems confused on everything that actually happens along with his unyielding rage.

Thanks for the info here are some of my thoughts on it: - I do not think Johnny is "lying" since he is not telling a story, V is reliving his memories, so It is not on purpose, just Johnny has a messed up head. - Alt does point out ingame to V that Johnnys memories are far from what actually happened. - A possibility I see: Since Blackhand was last seen on the rooftop fighting Smasher, and we see this as memories. I would not put past Saka that they have engrammatic data from both Johnny and Blackhand, and they experimented with cutting and pasting some memories over from Blackhand-s engram, and merged it into Johnny's. With your information in mind you see Johnny in the apartment/zen garden thing as Smasher drops down next to him (which is basically where Johnny actually died if I understood it correctly), then there is a glitch/cut and you see Johnny on the roof getting shot up by Smasher then Interrogated (which could be implanted memories from Blackhand) Add the personality biases from Johnny's memory, and you can easyly get the sequence V relives. +1 Even Johnny says that the thing he cannot stomach is that Saka can now change change ppl and the person would not be even aware of it. +2 The Saka rep. in the quest Violence tells to Lizzy's manager that "they cannot edit an engram, ... but what edits did he have in mind" ... which basically tells me that "We actually could do it if the money is right."

Johnny talked about « the hand » and the author confirmed that it’s Johnny’s cyberpsychosis, I think it had an impact on his recollection of the event.

I agree that Johnny remembers things wrong. Alt even mentions it when V first meets her. I do wonder how Smasher got Johnny's gun, car, & personality chip.

The main issue is that Cyberpunk: 2077 doesn't exist in the same timeline as the tabletop games. If the TTRPG is to be believed, Johnny couldn't have been hit with soulkiller, at the very least not to the extent that he was in CP2077, he probably died before Spider could even get to him, and his body was found in the ruins by Sarah. Further, for Johnny, when you go through his memories, the attack had just happened, it was his most recent memory, and to think he would be able to alter his memories to that extent so quickly doesn't sound very believable to me. I think that they changed the story for the game to make it more interesting, because if we just saw Johnny lead a strike team and then get beat up, it wouldn't make much sense. The story of the game makes the attack on Arasaka Tower Johnny's op in an attempt to find Alt. Morgan Blackhand probably wasn't involved, and Johnny was incapacitated by Smasher and taken to another Arasaka facility to be interrogated, before being hit with soulkiller so Arasaka could dig through his memories themselves. His body definitely doesn't get dumped in the bay, it ends up buried in a shallow grave in the dump, and Smasher gets Silverhand's car and pistol. There are huge and probable differences between the books and the game, and I find that indicative of being a separate timeline

I’m ngl I believe it’s a mix of Johnny’s ego radiation and militech erasing some memory’s because after spider used soul killer on him for some reason arasaka gets their hands on his engrams which means they likely wiped his memory or data and gave it to arasaka for them to “interrogate” him in soul prison which is why we probably get that scene we do and the gaps within the memory’s to hide militechs involvement making Johnny the fall boy.

Doesn’t Smasher talking about Johnny pissing himself to Grayson when he gets soul killered punch a hole through this? Like that’s Smasher basically confirming Johnny wasn’t cut in half, so I’m thinking pondsmith retconned stuff.

This is very interesting. note that, even in the first memory we play(when Alt gets taken), Johnny keeps thinking it all revolves around him no matter what Thompson says. While we as the player figure out that Alt was the sole target and Johnny was simply a bystander.

If Johnny was so insignificant, then why is he an engram created by Arasaka and the core element to the games story? If wat you're saying is true, then Blackhand would be the engram taking Vs body and Silverhand would be an insignificant footnote.

This is a really interesting video and I'm glad you pointed this out, but I think the difference is better explained by them changing the story so it would flow better with Johnny and Morgan's roles combined rather than some intentional depth from the developers. Having a bunch of stuff about Morgan in the game would make it a lot more complicated narratively and in the end this was the story they wanted to tell. It's like how in movie adaptations they often wind up dropping whole side plot lines and characters; when you're trying to tell a very specific story some of the asides from a novel can become such a nuisance that dropping them actually makes sense. For people who love the original story it can feel like sacrilege but it's important to remember that a film adaptation doesn't NEED all those extra bits to build out the world because it has more tactile means of conveying the story, namely audio and visual. Worldbuilding potential is increased dramatically in video games due to the interactivity, and developers need to be really, really, REALLY careful about how many stray tangents their story has. I'm on my 6th full playthrough of 2077 right now (each one taking about 100 hours) and let me tell you, after the first 3 or 4 I greatly appreciate anything which reduces the amount of forced storyline engagement I have to suffer through (but that's a different topic lol).

Also just remember the first interlude was started with Johnny high for the whole affair. Perhaps that in some way saved him long enough with delusions of grandeur

In game Johnny talks about the memories of peoples engrams being stored and how they can be changed and overwritten so maybe what we see is a mishmash of silverhand and blackhands memories.

In all honesty it's just the writing of the game changed to incorporate Keanu's character more because of all the star power he brought to the game

You forget to mention one thing: It was Spider Murphy who used Soulkiller on Johnny. How Araska came into the possession of his engram remains a mystery.

that confirms my suspicions. I read what happened in the rulebook and I was a little confused especially when I thought back on Johnny's memories.

Tbh, Alt says this in the game. She says that his memories are from his perspective and ego, which means we may never really know how Silverhand ended up on that relic. Silverhand was also super OP in those memories which was definitely a fantasy.

My theory is that Yorinobu, who has a very similar backstory to Johnny, was going to use his engram as either a scapegoat for Saburo’s death or add him to his entourage against Arasaka. However, Johnny’s memories are changed because his memories about Blackhand and possibly some secret he discovered were too dangerous to be kept in tact. The new memories also changed Johnny’s personality, he’s always been a self absorbed dick but he hadn’t always been a freedom fighter. It might be erasure but there are no documents in Cyberpunk 2077 talking about “Freedom Fighter Johnny” or the fact that he was present at Arasaka HQ at all. In Cyberpunk Red (or time of the Red) it’s discovered that the reason the nuke goes off midway, killing the entire block was because someone set it off before it could reach the ground floor. They did that because there was a second nuke below ground that would’ve done much worse if it had gone off at the same time. That nuke survived the explosion and is saved by a fire fighter, eventually handed over to Tyler Santiago, who hands it over to Michiko Arasaka to be dismantled, who somehow hands the remnants to an unknown named Angel who opens it up and finds a body hidden inside. It’s widely believed to be Johnny. Something else, after Alt’s death we have no idea what Johnny does in the interim. All we know is that he hung out with Santiago until the nuke mission.

The Engram is a product of Araska. They got fragments and tried to meld them together, with whatever they could fond

I like this but there’s stuff that doesn’t add up like; if Johnny was shot in half how does he end up in the relic, and the interactions with rogue show that Johnnys memories whereby lies. I belive more in fact that Johnnys memories are glorified because of what he believes, this isn’t to say Adam and Morgan’s Fight didn’t happen but that instead it was after Johnny and Adam

In the same way that CDPR's Witcher isn't exactly the Witcher canon, when playing CP2077 I just assumed the writers of the Comp Game conflated Blackhand and SIlverhand--I mean, that's a lot of hands. And although Blackhand is critical to the ttrpg, I don't know if he's ever mentioned in a spoken line in the crpg. So although Johnny isn't completely honest, that one might not be on him. This might have been a writer-empowered change. We do know that Johnny wasn't dead in that scene, because we also know that he got Soul Killer'd and turned into an engram. That is the one 100% fact. Because no Soul Killer, no engram. No engram, no construct. (And Arasaka is still Soul Killer. Witness the bad ending for Jackie).

Let me know what you think of what actually occurred during the AHQ Bombing. As well as your thoughts on why Silverhands memories seem to be so inaccurate. Could his engram have been tampered with? Or even combined with Blackhands...Let me know.

arasaka does change memories, ego, etc when they download a construct into mikoshi, turn you into someone completely different

This is absolutely mind-blowing, and falls in line with actual human psychology. People who compulsively lie will often times take the experiences of others and try to pass them off as their own. They don't often do it maliciously, but just to make them seem more interesting, or brave, or having any sort of desirable trait the experience would invoke. It's also entirely possible that Johnny wasn't lying at all, but that he was a construct for so long that everything got scrambled. I am currently experiencing this now with my real life memories after getting older. I remember things, but sometimes, I remember them completely out of order or blended together, and it's a real mind fuck. I am definitely going to be watching for more out of this. I love games that are deep in lore, and stuff like this is probably the most exciting thing about games to me.

At one point it is mentioned that Mikoshi is such a problem due to Arasaka Corp being able to change who you are without knowing it. Is it possible that they deliberately changed his memories and substituted him for Blackhand? Given M.B. was such a threat to Arasaka, I can see how reviewing the memory from a forced perspective would give them the ability to learn about their enemy and what the real plans were for the nuke beyone wanton destruction.

I'd also like to add that I think Johnny's memories are at some points affected by V's consciousness, specifically when you're given dialogue options. It's weird to have these at some points and not others, and in addition Johnny does not seem to behave any different when talking with V, regardless of what decisions you make. Also, I think Johnny being split in half must not be as gruesome as it sounds, or it has been retconned. While Cyberpunk is ultimately sci-fi, it's still relatively grounded with only cutting edge technology crossing the line into fantastical science. As such, a brain "split in half" by Smasher and recovered likely hours later would not be viable for soulkiller, so I think Silverhand must've been in critical condition, but not dead for long

Hell Alt legit tells you when you meet her that Johnny's memories are not to be trusted as they are how he WANTS to remember not actually what happen.

Really good synopsis. I’m sure the more mundane reason for the changes was to make the memories more exciting and build up the return to Arasaka in the endings, but this is definitely a more fun and realistic way to explain it. Along with that, the events of that day happened so long ago that there was likely plenty of misinformation, lies and stories spread about what happened that day between the corpos and mercs as well as Johnny’s crew so we’re realistically the only people who could know what actually happened since we have an outside view of the world and the story

sounds good, but the sidemission where you and Rogue go to the ebinuke and find Johnny's gun and car show Adam smasher definitely didnt feel Johnny as just some random solo rocker, so i get the feeling the game canon and the board canon are simply different

Makes me think of that one line Jackie slings at you in the beginning of the game: "Nah, mano. Not just any other city. Morgan Blackhand, Andrew Weyland, Adam Smasher. Legends are born here. Man, I'm starvin’. Let's grab a tight-bite. Whaddaya say?" No mention of Johnny at all.

I think some of it like Saboru using soul killer on Johnny, is him trying to fill in the gaps in his head as he had no idea and just assumed that, probably no thanks to his ego.

Alt cunningham herself states Johnny's memories are a warped recollection of events from his own perspective within the game, along with Mike pondsmith himself stating that johnny's version of events is unreliable due to the nuclear radiation affecting both him and the engram he was slotted onto.

You unraveled the the knot that was my mind after playing the attack in the game. I knew it didn’t play out like that and it made me feel weird about all the time I spent read. Your thoughts and logic are completely plausible and I find convincing. Seriously, good stuff.

I think in the game the truth is actuall that Johnny _was_ taken by Arasaka to be interrogated. Otherwise there's no way he could have been made an engram, since he'd have been dead, and the game shows that you can't make proper engrams of dead people.

Never caught up on this how Shaitan is useless as a gunner until Johnny takes over. How the ragtag gang easily assaults a corporate headquarter, how the tower raids we see in flashbacks are all different non-coherent versions of the same raid while in-game it seems they are different raids. It's just a fantasy trip but since this always happens in video games noone questions it. How in cyberspace we always return to the place where he met Smasher and supposedly dies in-canon (in the atrium). And he kinda kills Alt by casually jacking her out seemingly dead. Love to see an engram of Spider Murphy in the next game, seems legit interesting. I do wonder now if "Don't Fear The Reaper" events are even real now.

Nice to see this out there, have a friend who always suspected spider had soul killered johnny...

Morgan was probably present at the Arasaka hq bombing, he saved Johnny at his first encounter with Smasher, he escaped the tower, Smasher captured Johnny. So 50 years as an engram, Arasaka interrogated him to find where Blackhand is (or maybe to find where Alt is), he either purposefully buried the memories with him to protect him, or spider (or alt) altered the memories of him. So he left with what fragmented memories he has, tried to fill the gaps with made up stories that'd also boost his ego. That'd also explain Smasher's confusion at the ending when you mention Johnny, he was never that important, Blackhand was. To me, it feels like Johnny was used by the crew, he was to be the poster boy to draw attention away from Morgan, the fact that Rogue almost willingly lets go of Johnny doesnt add up, and her discomfort at Ebunike is also strange, Johnny was planned to be left behind.

If you put even the slightest scrutiny onto Johnnie's memories you will see that he is definitely delusional. Like how during the whole thing he thinks arasaka is doing this so they could get to him, while ignoring the simple answer that they wanted Alt. The only reason why I think there might be some truth to what he is saying is that the existence of the chip is proof that Arasaka did indeed use soulkiller on him. Probably to find who orchestrated the whole thing, and were probably very unhappy if they saw his delusions of grandeur.

Amazing. I never knew this. Very well done mate!!!

Not to mention that he's been in Mikoshi for about 50 years. Who knows how much Arasaka has tinkered with his engram on that time.

V riding off with the nomads is the best ending and no one can change that for me haha.

What if Arisaka mixed his memories with memories of Blackhand to have better proof that it was fault of one madman if they had to show his memories to press?

This gets me excited for what's gonna happen in phantom liberty .

Johnny was part of the team. He was there. He did get Alt out of Arasaka's subnet. But it wasn't a terrorist attack; it was Blackhand leading the op on Militech's direction. Cast in that light, it makes sense that Arasaka would rather it be remembered as a terrorist attack rather than a strike at their heart by their most dangerous rival. At the end of the game, when given a chance to taunt Adam Smasher about Silverhand getting the last laugh, his reaction is wtf. At first it seems like it's because Smasher is missing out on the context of the ghost of rockerboy's past being along for the ride. But I actually think it was because Smasher doesn't really care about Johnny. They're not rivals. It was Blackhand he faced off with, he smeared Johnny across the rooftop.

There are some inconsistencies with the game story and the books, like the fact that despite Jhonny holding no insignificance compared to black hand for arasaka or Adam smasher and that his body was found and stored by a fan somehow his biochip (which was supposedly extracted after death so at the time it should of been working very wackly), got somehow to the hands of yorinobu arasaka, was considered an arasaka treasure and that his stuff have gotten to arasaka agents hands is very wierd to me. The only 2 explanations I have for this is: 1. The devs decided to change the story a little for the better or worse. 2. The Ingram V and Jackie stole was never of Jhonny silverhand, but a merge of both Ingram's to make the next best supersoldier Incase something happens to Adam smasher. Which then explains where did Jhonny get these memories that was supposedly of morgen blackhands.

If you read the mission synopsis written by Johnny for each of his flashbacks, it seems to imply that neither his "memories" nor the official accounts are true. The latter are a noble lie, a legend built off a myth built off the team members telling an account of the story that made them all sound heroic. "What? No, we didn't run away while Johnny got massacred by Smasher, he sacrificed himself to buy us time. It was very heroic and noble. In fact, I took down Smasher because of his help. Definitely didn't get winged in the helo and miss the whole run." Meanwhile he explicitly says that his recollection of Alt's kidnapping and botched rescue are a recurring dream. He has survivor's guilt and sees a twisted version of the events in his nightmares, so it *is* a memory. It's his memory of his dreams, and they're the "truth" in that they reveal the emotional core of his motivations. He doesn't care about colonialism or capitalism anymore, he cares that Arasaka stole his girlfriend's soul and he failed to stop them.

I Kinda feel like this is the difference between reading a book and then seeing a movie based on the book. In the movie, it’s not always the same as the book. I feel like it’s the same situation here. Sure, in the books it happened as described here, but they just changed some stuff in the game for the sake of storytelling and such. I don’t feel like silverhands ego has anything to do with it.

one thing you have to consider, is the immense physical and psychological trauma that comes from the wound Johnny suffered at Arasaka. He was literally torn *in half* by Adam Smasher with barely a second thought. The amount of sheer trauma from the body literally dumping every chemical it can to stem either the bleeding or to null the pain would be enough to send the brain into absolute shock. Combine that with suddenly having a chip slotted into your neuro-port and everything that is "you" being downloaded and stored into what is essentially a flashdrive, and it's a wonder his digital brain is even REMOTELY intact. But you also have to remember the idea/scheme behind soul-killer. The brass tacks of it, is to capture the personality/memory/soul of whomever it is that Arasaka wants and grill them for information for nearly an eternity. So the "johnny got captured and interrogated" memory is less of a figmentation and more of an abstractation. If you've seen/played Soma you can see a bit of a parallel.

Cyberpunk actually offers fair critisism of the "System" and also the self-righteous revolutionaries that seek to change them, pointing out in visual and verbal storytelling that the corpos care little for how their actions impact the general masses so long as they profit from it while also pointing out that the revolutionaries seek only to gratify themselves morally irrelevant of how their efforts to "correct" the injustices actually affect the people they claim to want to save.

I agree for the most part, but Johnnys anger was his memory. Johnny doesnt replace Morgan. He was still killed was by smasher and he wants him dead, meanwhile blackhand never had a "rivarly" it was more one sided with Smasher. Blackhand and smasher were still fighting when it happened, meanwhile Johnny was knocked out from the blast that hit the chopper

I think that we aren't paying enough attention to the Yorinobu character. Do we really expect him to take this shit lying down? He was actually pissed off enough to kill his father. We all know that he had that relic in his possession before V and Jackie come and take it. I think that Yorinobu actually hired Dexter for the klep job. It is just so convenient how Takemura shows up to save V from Dexter. Gotta tie off that loose end to cover his tracks. I think Yorinobu altered the memories on the relic to make Johnny much more dangerous. He probably gave him the memories of Morgan Blackhand and God only knows who all else. If you put yourself in Yorinobu's shoes it only makes sense to give Johnny some military and mercenary skills that he never actually had. That way he has a chance to really get it right this time. I don't see how egotism alone could give Johnny someone else's memories.

The reason Johnny's memories are corrupted is cuz in the begginning of the game (heist mission) the relic looses integrity before Jackie decides to chip it in. Also after that V gets a bullet to the brain which could have impacted the relic even more. Maybe things ain't that complicated after all.

Not even surprised if we later learn the artifact didn't really transferring consciousness, but just a memory copy with lower quality. The silver hand V talked all this time might've been just an AI that has the limited memory of the real Silver hand.

I think when discussing this its also important to remember that johnny's psyche "lived" through a pretty MAJOR trauma and was then forced to sit with that and nothing else in mikoshi's cyberspace for about 50 years. i'm sure to cope with his death he wanted to seem like a bigger player in the attack than he was. he's undoubtedly got narcissistic traits and a generally inflated sense of ego, but i dont think his false recollection is at all intentional. he had no idea he was gonna end up in the head of some merc. also, who's to say his memories weren't tampered with, edited and added and removed, by arasaka/mikoshi? not sure why they'd do that if they didn't intend to keep his construct, but it's not necessarily out of the question. plus, the chip got damaged during the heist which could also be screwing with it. lots to think about in regards to johnny's memories of the AHQ bombing! i don't blame him for not being accurate. even a person's memories of a trip to the grocery store may be inaccurate to the truth, or to someone else's memory of it, not to mention the memories of your literal death and the moments before.

We know johnny ended up in mikoshi, and we know that Saburo talked to the mikoshi engrams. Maybe Saburo lied to johnny to make him think that Saburo killed him. Out of spite maybe? The other thing is that nukes don't just "accidentally go off early". Maybe johnny planted his nukes without the others knowing, and that's the one that went off and fucked everything up. This such a cool video made me think about the game differently.

Interesting and enlightening video. You know the reason I've heard for the inconsistencies IRL is that Mike Pondsmith asked that Morgan Blackhand not be in the game so they had to replace him with Johnny. As for in game reasoning, the process of having your mind involuntary downloaded would be hard on the psyche so itau have damaged him and his memories to where this is how he remembers it.

I wonder if the reason Johnnys memories are not as reliable as they should be is because this particular engram was merged with Morgan Blackhands so both fused into the version of Johnny Silverhand in the game. It would explain why he is so strong in the flasbacks, they are recreations through the lens of Morgan Blackhand and his skills.

I like to think that all the time Johnny's mind spent in Mikoshi is to blame for his warped sense of himself. Not entirely due this as Johnny has always been a self-absorbed ass, but the combination of these two might been the reason. Johnny described the sensation of having his mind in Mikoshi as being dream like. Maybe the "hazy" state of mind in Mikoshi lead to Johnny developing this alternate view of the events that played out during that night. I can't imagine being entirely mentally stable and being able to remember everything clearly after over half a century of having my mind in a digital environment where you're basically half a sleep.

It all makes sense now. -Arthur Morgan, 1896

I bought the story the same way that V did. There’s no reason to question it or doubt it. at least my first play through. After going through it a couple of times I realize that there are a lot of holes in Johnny story. Things that just don’t make sense. I have not read the books that were mentioned in this video. But thank you for this video because it really fill in those gaping holes and explains a whole lot.

The way I see it there are 3 options. 1. Cd project Red has gone on record saying 2077 is an alternate future from the tabletops. 2. It's like you theorized and Johnny's ego won't let him play second fiddle. 3. His construct's memories were altered by someone else to hide some secret.

I could honestly see either v or a new created character in a sequel with Morgan black hand being in your “relic”

Or maybe the game is telling its own headcanon based on the event of the core rpg book, because you know, Cyberpunk 2077 commercial were a bit mainly focus on Keanu Reeves being Silverberg.

could have been the delusions of a dying mind, one that spent decades dying. as he described his stay in mikoshi as almost what can be called a fugue state, not sure if he was awake or not, and not sure who he really was. maybe the memories are unconscious fabrications he made as his mind was dying in the tower, based on information he gleaned from other memories he managed to retain. cunningham also comments on this toward the end, stating that his memories aren't realiable in reference to their relationship, but that he believes they are real, and what V has really seen are the garbled reamins of that.

Been playing through the game recently again and what caught my eye is that between the Arasaka raid section and the interrogation by Saburo the subtitles switch from Johnny's yellow and blue to the default red. With the UI representing your ocular implants I wonder if this is simply the first, visual, hint that these are manufactured memories, likely by Arasaka to find out what the engram knew, putting a 3rd factor to how unreliable Johnny's narration is.

could be an experiment, by Asaka to change and alter backhands memories, and put what they know about johnny in their place.

could be blackhand's and his memories got mixed up or merged to get access to black hand through johnny as black hand is a high level operative

I am now coming up with the theory that the discrepancies in his memory are due to a Morgan Blackhand AI that memories were put in a much less threatening Johnny Silverhand to keep Blackhand from using it to come back but still get access to his memories.

I see it as along the same lines as Cloud Strife and Zack Fair... trauma and personal disappointment in their lack of impact in important events causes false memories

Johnny says the worst thing about mikoshi was that they changed stuff about you. I think Smasher took down black hand, and Johnny... this is an amalgamated version with tweaks from Arasaka.

I think the memories that johnny has are just memories programmed into the engram, probably even by blackhand himself or people who employ him now, to erase himself from the story. One of the CP plotlines is memory manipulation. I don't remember Rogue mentioning Blackhand was there too. They might not remember it at all.

What I learned from this, is there is potentially another nuclear weapon floating around Night City, and hopefully in the expansion, we'll get to use it.

Yeah. When I played it, I thought it was about Johnny ego and people who knew him points out that the guy had a massive ego. The event described in the RPG book is different from what is shown in the game. I didn't think it was a retcon or anything like that but as you describe here that it is Johnny trying to make himself a bigger deal. The dude is a narcassist after all! This is a good example how deep the cyberpunk world. :)

FINALLY SOMEONE IS TAKING THE BOOKS INTO ACCOUNT. Thought i was like the only one that owned them lmfao

This got me thinking what if Johnny Silverhand and Morgan Blackhand are the same person at the start of 2077. So what if that thing that happened to V happened to Blackhand and thats why Johnny thinks it was him.

Ok, here is my thereory of what went down: Spider steals Soulkiller Johnny got gunned down by Smasher. Spider used the Soulkiller on Johnny. The nuke set up and the later rooftop fight against smasher was Blackhand. Smasher cought Blackhand and Arasaka used Soulkiller on him. In the reckage of the towes or later on, Arasaka got there hands on the Soulkiller chip with Johnny on it. Arasaka edits the memorys of Blackhand and Johnny into one persona. Now the question is: Why did Yorinobu have the Chip in his apartment? Thesis: In the upcomming DLC, Blackhand will be our guide.

I agree with everything that was said up to the point where you mention saburo didn't have a vendetta against Johnny you can find saburos journal in his av and it mentions how he had an old rival or something like that also if he was so insignificant why was he put on an engram?

never let your heroes get stuck in your head as sentient engrams.... oh say it aint so Johnny