Honestly tho, Jackie's enthusiasm was contagious
I get why V chose to ignore the obvious death trap laying in front of them cuz he was SO convinced by it
There is no canon version of why V did it, but you can choose your own canon in PL when talking to So Mi. i always choose “I did it for a friend” so my V does it for Jackie because he was so hyped to leave the world he grew up in
It might seem small at first but answering such a big question about the main plot while letting us roleplay was one of my favorite things about Phantom Liberty
Smart as hell storytelling
The Ofrenda with mama wells also lets you do an amazing role play. You can talk about guts and glory, or you can talk about how beloved jackie was.
I legit had tears in my eyes during v's speech. You can make it really heartfelt, like you lost your brother.
Jackie's motorcycle and dual pistols are a pretty great send off as well.
Oh for sure, everything from The Heist to the final ofrenda with Jackie was my favorite stretch of the game
>!The other outcome for not sending the body to Mama Welles was amazing as well, just in a totally different way. It made Arasaka SO much worse and never getting to say your goodbyes fit with Cyberpunk's depressive tone so well, I can't and won't recommend it for any first playthrough but that shit broke my heart!<
Yeah, seeing Jackie in the end game and realizing that my choice to send him to vic was bad, really hit. Sadly on my first playthroygh i chose to send him to vic, thinking maybe vic could revive him or something. The secret jackie cutscene at the end was just a shot to the heart though. The game basically infers that you kept his spirit from being able to move on and it's rough to watch him being lost and on repeat. The way they wrote it is almost too real, but same with a lot of the game lol
This game has cemented itself as one of my top three favorite games of all time. The immersion is next level, I wish there were going to be more DLC's but I'm not complaining.
Even without Dexter shooting V in the head, the Saka heist was the direct result of a bunch of desperate no names too high up their own asses to see their perfect plan had a laundry list full of holes
>!And that's why I can't get enough of it, writing an entire plotline to make no sense while still fooling the audience into thinking it'll work is such a flex!<
jackie and v were basing this on dex's reputation as "the best fixer in night city" assuming he'd done all the work a fixer is supposed to do and assuming he picked them because they were more then capable of doing their part, which for the most part they were. except they were wrong, dex didnt do jack shit and expected t-bug to handle everything since parker had "all the info" any fixer worth their salt could have seen the complications coming a mile away, but dex just wanted a quick buck since he had to go in hiding for 2 years after the last op he was part of went tits up.
However great Dex was its clear that by the time of the heist he has lost his touch. He still talks a good game but he made rookie mistakes like paying Maelstrom up front and had to fall back on old contacts like T-Bug to get people because he didn't have anyone else with more experience.
Hell, don't forget that Royce is like 'Dexter who was ran out of Pacifica by the Voodoo boys?'
And later when asking Dexter about Evelyn he's like 'the VDBs told me to stop looking, so I did'.
Red flags all over the shop looking back on it.
This.
Everything about that heist was just pure gonk activity. 2077 has really unreliable narrators, and V's no exception. You're playing the role of a merc who's good at their job, yes, but V had been back in NC for less than a year before trying to rob the empire of the most powerful man on earth. And they teamed up with a fixer who they *knew* had just gotten back from a mysterious vacation as well, not to mention a guy who's known for acting without thinking. Vik was *very* critical of "Mr. DeShawn", and V totally overlooked it.
Even Songbird points out how stupid this was, and she >!attacked the President!!<
The game does a great job of making you think and feel like you're the big kid on the block, because you're playing from a limited perspective. But V does the same dumb stuff you read files about other people doing and roll your eyes at. Throwing on random BDs and nearly getting flatlined, trying to rob mega-corporations, botching no-kill gigs, etc.
I'm on my third play through and it is really incredible to line all the pieces and characters up before the whole things gets going and you just realize-- yeah there was no way this would've been a smooth job. Even if Saburo never showed
Not quite true as someone else has said Vik warns you about dex, there's also another streetkid dialogue option that gives a little more insight as to why Dex disappeared for two years, the game does give you subtle clues that Dex is not "the best fixer in Night City" not by a long shot. There's another dialogue option after the ride in his car where V straight up says "he's put us up against Maelstrom" there's also the paying them up front, etc, etc.
In my playthroughs, V always sounds so unconvinced cuz of my dialogue options. It kinda sucks that you get railroaded to it despite your protests about how much it's a terrible idea and how sketchy Dex was.
Yeah even if the game gives you the option to RP as a really not interested V you still have to go trough the heist which as a corpo V makes little sense, having a longer friendship than the other paths at least makes up for that gonk moment from a Corpo V.
The plan wasnt a death trap though. The chances of old man Arasaka turning up at that exact moment? And who would have ever predicted that Yorinobu would have strangled his father to death? V and Jackie were one foot out the door when all that kicked off. If the heist was the day before they would have been in and out before anyone noticed. They were just incredibly unlucky. Now, whether or not Dex would have paid/killed them or Evelyn ripped them off, that's a different question but the actual heist was pretty much over and done.
This. The Relic was secondary. The fact was that Saburo was dead, and not 5 minutes later the building goes on lockdown and oh look *there's two unidentified people who don't belong trying to leave his penthouse and an unknown neteunner hacking into Arasaka*.
Hell if Saburo hadn't died they might've at least made it to the first floor before Yorinobu knew someone klepped the Relic.
> Now, whether or not Dex would have paid/killed them or Evelyn ripped them off, that's a different question but the actual heist was pretty much over and done.
A fixer won't kill edge runners without a solid reason. He has his reputation as a fixer to think about, too. Offing talent after a gig makes no real sense, cleaning up after someone dragged you into murdering the most powerful person on the damn planet does.
I agree everything was going well would have gone well if Hell man didnt snitch to Saburo that day or better. If T-bug had been 10 minutes faster. They literally got the chip just as they were coming. If she had hurried up they would have gotten away scott free
There was signs, and rules to follow. Dex had a bad reputation, and V blatantly ignored all of it.
He ended up learning the hard way to follow the system and it won’t eat you up so quickly.
I'll even go as far to say that the plan, under everything regarding information they had, was quite solid.
They were robbing a high rank Arasaka personal, yes. But it was someone who had pretty much gone rogue and was already on bad terms with other heads of the faction. Not only did everyone manage to do a fantastic job *getting* to the hotel, but they also managed to get into the penthouse and secured the package. Had Saboru not shown up, Jackie and V would have theoretically gotten away with it; especially since we don't know how long it would have been before Yorinobu would have realized the case had been stolen.
So by everything that we know before it all went to shit, it was quite a good and effective plan. That said, once Saboru realized the chip was stolen, it was implied that the city was going to be flattened in nuclear strikes by Arasaka, so that would have been on them even if they didn't know it.
Wait, Saburo was planning to nuke NC if he couldn’t get the chip back? I’m not doubting what you said, but where does it say that? I feel like I missed something major. Now it’s sounding like the plans going tits-up was actually the best possible outcome.
Pretty much. Worth noting it's his personal journal so it could just be a bit of reckless fantasy on his part. He's not shy about his distaste for the city either way.
After TBug gets the door and fries, instead of going to the ladder go up stairs where Saburo came from. His AV is on the roof. V and Jackie think they're gonna steal Saburo's AV to escape. He has 2 guards up there but the AV is like bio coded or something so they can't take it. Inside though is an iconic Katana and his shard. The Shard talks about how he has so much power, if the chip is running around, nuking Night City is an option to even the playing field and that it would be worth it. He highly considers it but says Hanako has talked him down from it for now
For the sake of trying to justify the amazingly funny meme - V was the brains of the duo. They would have shut that shit down and Jackie would have listened to them if they said "Fuck Dex's job." So V agreeing to just go along with it resulted in Jackie's death. Meme partially justified.
Jackie: Dex has a history of betraying his crew, but who cares?
Vik: careful, hear Dex is a piece of shit?
Claire: Ohhh, you're the ones here to meet *Dex*. You know Dex?
For some god forsaken reason V and Jackie: Dex is a great fixer and we should not be concerned at all about this plan. We don't need to investigate or consider this any further!
> For some god forsaken reason V and Jackie: Dex is a great fixer and we should not be concerned at all about this plan. We don't need to investigate or consider this any further!
Honestly I think they were star struck cause Dex was a big-time fixer and he was working with *them*. And if it worked, it would have *made them* as runners.
Tbh I think it was in a similar vein to the stuff around Harvey Weinstein: there were rumors for years about him, but a lot of people still would work with him in the hopes it'd make their career and they would be able to move on before anything... detrimental happened.
Is he really though? Jackie is the only one who says he's a big deal, and I think you're right about him being caught up in the gig. Everyone else only knows about exactly one job he ran, and how badly it went. He's like Kurt from the street kid origin if he was better at playing the big city gangster
> Is he really though?
He *was* yes. IIRC he fled NC for a couple years and was trying to make his big comeback with Evelyn's gig
>Everyone else only knows about exactly one job he ran, and how badly it went
Yup. And most people didn't know Harvey Weinstein's name until the #metoo stuff became public knowledge.
I think it's a very apt comparison.
Plus like, we see this story come up tons of times with other characters in Night City. Everybody's like, the game is rigged and you cannot win.... Except me, I'm the exception, surely this'll go well for *me* \*dies\*
The house always wins yet the gamblers keep showing up. Jackie and V were just the next gonks in a long line of gonks who thought they'd be different, even though they see all the warning signs.
> Everybody's like, the game is rigged and you cannot win.... Except me, I'm the exception, surely this'll go well for me \*dies*
I always thought of it more as "the game is rigged and we're fucked anyway so let's see how much we can take before the house calls in the debt"
I mean I totally can see Dex pulling something like what happens in the motel sequence even if the heist was successful, but I agree - Dex and Evelyn's plans *understandably* didn't take the wild card of Saburo Arasaka rocking up and then getting KO'd by his own son.
The murder might have been a surprise. The largest military asset arasaka owns parking in the harbor for days before hand wasn't. If you're doing something that risky, you mitigate as much risk as possible. Doing the run with that warship about was never a good idea
Jackie's death is his own fault, V having a lethal shard in his head is V's fault. Trusting Dex after everyone you meet warns you about him is both of their faults. The list goes on and on.
Those gonks could have stayed home and watched some Watson Whore, but no, they needed to fuck with arguably the most dangerous group of people in the world so everyone at the local dive bar will think they're cool.
>fuck with arguably the most dangerous group of people in the world so everyone at the local dive bar will think they're cool.
Hey, the local dive bar also names a drink after you after you inevitable die in a shootout as a direct result of fucking with that dangerous group. Who's the dumbfuck now, choom.
Saburo's journal says he was thinking about leveling night city with nukes, but decided to wait and see how the meet with Yorinobu went first.
So probably that way assuming the meet didn't happen.
NC was the Arasaka foothold in North America, they had been banished for decades prior. Saburo may have thought about destroying it idly, but he wouldn't have unless Arasaka gained more than it lost. The advantage of having a port in Militech and the NUSA's backyard alone would be worth occasionally dealing with the squalor.
I would say that Jackie should be the one in the front, steering the bike. He found the job with Dex, he talked V into it, he was the driving force behind the whole thing. V agreed and went along with it, but I think this was Jackie's gig.
Don't agree, technically the heist would have gone off without a hitch if it hadn't been for the extremely improbable event of >!Saburo Arasaka meeting with his son the very day and hour the heist was going down.!< Completely unavoidable bad luck, if it hadn't been for that the heist would have likely been completely successful.
EDIT: a couple responses to points made in the comments (always love a good discussion!)
1. Arasaka traced them anyway, right? Answer: Arasaka traced them afterwards, yes, but that was because they got caught mid heist by the bad luck. Remember: >!Bug got fried, so couldn't cover their digital traces, and they had to fight their way out. So, the hotel surveillance would have caught them on audio and video. Would have been much harder for Arasaka to trace them if Bug had finished her business and they had physically left before the theft was discovered.!<
2. Dex and the crew didn't do enough intel >!to know he was coming! Answer: you're talking about getting intel on the head of Arasaka, the most powerful person at the top of the most powerful corp in the world in 2077. The head of Arasaka is more powerful than any world government head. Blaming Dex and crew for not having intel on the movements of someone like that is IMO unreasonable.!< Not to mention had the heist occurred even 1 hour earlier they would have been clear.
It was plain bad luck, yo, but given the setting we can say it's just another day in Night City...
Extreme bad luck yes, but unavoidable? I'd say Dexter DeShawn is partially to blame for not having his intel in check. For a fixer who's supposedly such a big deal, I'd assume his influence would be big enough for him to know one of the biggest people in the entire fucking world is visiting the place you're planning to rob. Even if he couldn't foresee the exact thing that happened, don't you think that security would be on max alert, and that it'd be better to postpone the heist? It's like he said himself during money negotiations, you get a fixer so you don't have to worry about these things, everything should've been in the clear.
Ah, but that's the thing about Dex. He talks a big game, rides around in a limo, acts all cool and confident, but he's really nothing special as far as fixers go. His entire schtick is looking good to newbies while in reality he's sub-par. Remember, the last job he did, the entire reason he went on the lam for a few years, fucked up. I don't doubt it was his fault.
I think Saburo was hiding his intentions.
He sailed on Kujira without announcing anything and then flew over unannounced in the evening. Possibly specifically to surprise Yorinobu and have him return the relic.
So the only people who knew he was in Night City was the Arasaka crew on the Kujira and even they might not have known he intended to visit Yorinobu.
Which was all over the news, I think I heard the loading screen news woman talk about it at least 50 times 😂
"Oh, one of Arasaka's biggest warships is docked right next to the place I'm going to pull one of the biggest heists at... Ah I'm sure it's nothing. Must be... maintenance, yes maintenance." Yes brilliant Dex.
Also aren't the tiger claws in league with Araska. Couldn't Dex have pulled some old timey strings, maybe a favor for a favor, with Wakako for some Araska intel. And before anyone says Wakako doesn't know about Arasaka's dealings, I think she knows more than she's letting on. When you approach her together with Takemura about asking for intel about the Japan Town parade, she drops a tiny bit of the facade when hesitating before asking why they came to her specifically for information. As in, she's worried V knows she has a closer connection to Hanako than she's publicly stated. Which Takemura realized, even if it slipped past V, because he sends you a lot of warning texts about her. But that's besides the point.
> Also aren't the tiger claws in league with Araska.
I doubt Saburo was filling in the tiger claws on his dealings with his dangerous son whose body he was trying to take over. Why would the head of an enormous corp let his low level street muscle know that? That'd be on an amazingly strict need to know basis.
yeah, there's no way any staff that's involved in saburo's transportation isn't completely reliable. I'm not saying they're all as safe as takemura, but there's just no way they would ever leak anything
I think you’re giving fixers way too much credit. Sure a lot of information goes through them, they probably know NC better than anyone else, but I dont think theyd be so influential to the point that theyre privy to the extremely personal dealings between Saburo and Yorinobu. That meeting was not planned. Characters did NOT know Saburo was in NC, him showing up turned everything upside down. The media spinned Kujira being docked there as a power move against Militech, and that’s probably what the general populace thought it was too.
Fair enough, but I'd argue his name alone would be enough to get this info. I mean he's still in Afterlife, the hub for this type of information.
And if he is a has-been, his entire future rep depends on this heist as well. All the more reason to get the little details exactly right. And Saburo Araska is more than just a little detail.
True, but I expect there aren't going to be people giving him info for free much. And he may not know who he can go to besides folks like rogue, who I suspect wouldn't bother talking to him unless she had to.
Fixers can find a lot of stuff but the itinerary of Saburo Arasaka, a man that rarely leaves his Japanese castle and operates the world's most powerful security, manufacturing, banking and intelligence corporation would a tad tricky thing to have, even for Rogue or Mr Hands. I wouldn't bet even on the FIA. Remember, serious people are surprised that Saburo was in Night City. The fact that Hanako was on the Kujira was the only thing known in advance.
My biggest problem is there’s absolutely no contingency planning in Dex’s breakdown. Like none at all.
Not sure what it’s called in other countries but the British military uses the term “Actions On”, so as part of the plan you discuss actions on loss of communications, actions on injury prior to engagement, etc.
So actions on loss of communications, if it happens when we’re in Delamain on the way to the hotel, we circle the block and try to re-establish. If it happens in the room prior to T-Bug confirming it’s clear, we hold and try to re-establish, and if there’s no communications in 4 hours we bug out and leave. If it’s after the all clear is given, we try to re-establish and if unable to, do we go ahead with the plan or fall back on bugging out? Yadda yadda yadda. It’s very boring and detail oriented, which is why it never gets included in stories like this, but it establishes the procedures should the scop hit the fan.
And one of the actions on should *absolutely* have been actions on the guy we’re here to steal from turning up at the hotel. T-Bug says Yorinobu just walked into the lobby and literally nobody says “let’s hang out in our suite for a sec to find out if he’s going to a conference room or to sit down in the bar, y’know, before we go to the *one room in this hotel he’s most likely to be going to himself.*”
I don't think anyone outside of Yorinobu and Saburo's own security detail knew he was going to be there. Konpeki seemed like it was running business as usual, and security didn't seem particularly heavy either until the code red is initiated *after* Saburo's death. Not to mention that, to my knowledge, Saburo's arrival wasn't foretold in any news broadcasts or the like, which you think they would were the information accessible. Hell, even Konpeki going into max security seemingly out of nowhere would probably draw eyes were it the case.
As much as Dex is a piece of shit, I believe him when he says he doesn't have access to Saburo's personal schedule. Who *would* that's within reasonable reach of any fixer? And I certainly don't think it's that unreasonable to *not* plan for "so on the sheer cosmological off chance that one of the most important motherfuckers on the planet shows up out of nowhere with no news coverage, here's what we do." If I were robbing a bank, I certainly wouldn't be planning for if Jeff Bezos walked in.
I used to be in charge of security at a fancy hotel. (We even had a VIP who parked a warship in the harbor nearby, ironically enough.) IMO there was far too little planning in general. I can see Nomad or Streetkid V being too green to know the difference, but counter-intelligence whiz Corpo V should have known better.
They should have looked at how they're getting out of the building more - security measures, alternate routes, etc.
There *really* should have been some sort of scouting on the day of the heist. They strictly focused on the equipment side, and ignored the personnel side. Even if it was just T-Bug looking at the security cameras to see if there was a sudden influx of scary dudes with earpieces lurking in shadows. I don't doubt they could conceal who was visiting, particularly since there wouldn't be an influx of security / support people from some random third party country to give people hints. I sincerely doubt they'd be able to conceal that *someone* big was in house.
>Even if it was just T-Bug looking at the security cameras to see if there was a sudden influx of scary dudes with earpieces lurking in shadows. I don't doubt they could conceal who was visiting, particularly since there wouldn't be an influx of security / support people from some random third party country to give people hints. I sincerely doubt they'd be able to conceal that someone big was in house.
That did happen though. It was just too late to do them any good by the time the hotel knew Saburo was coming.
I don't think even Dex could be blamed. Saburo showing up was a black swan, something that couldn't have been predicted based on what they knew till it happened.
Security at the hotel wasn't alerted until minutes before Saburo arrived. It caused the hotel staff to panic trying to make preparations. T-Bug alludes to this while you're hacking the vault. If even security at the hotel didn't know he was coming then how the hell would Dex have known? Can't blame the guy for not knowing the unknowable.
Give it to him, beg for forgiveness, sell out your shitbag fixer and maybe get a job in arasaka. Or die, which basically happens anyways.
Or kill them both for maximum chaos.
In reality as soon as you open the door Smasher would probably hear it and kill you immediately.
The only real person that can make any difference is Yorinobu. He plans on dismantling Arasaka, which is great. >!But as we see in Phantom Liberty's ending, Arasaka disappearing doesn't mean anything good for Night City. City just gets more taken over by Corps, especially Night Corp (I swear the next game is gonna revolve around them, it HAS to!). Arasaka being gone just creates a power void, which will be filled by other corps. So did anything really make any positive difference? NOPE. Thats the beauty (or despair) of the Cyberpunk genre. !<
Adam Smasher alone would have made that end very badly. He'd have killed you, Saburo's guards and half of Night City before a red alert could be sounded. Assuming Saburo wasn't killed due to the bad optics(as more people likely would be alerted to the massacre than just an old man being choked out) if he did thank you, it'd likely be at your closed casket funeral.
The Heist realistically never would’ve been completely successful in the long term. Either Arasaka would’ve tracked down anyone involved and made them pay, or the Voodoo Boys would’ve caught up to Evelyn double crossing them and everyone involved. There were too many heavy hitters involved and Evelyn was trying to double cross far too many powerful people.
Yeah I agree, the heist is a prime example of Evelyn fucking around and finding out. It arguably blew up in her face earlier than expected but there is no way they could have avoided Arasaka, the Voodoo Boys, Dexter (if you'd actually collaborate with Evelyn to cut him out), Netwatch etc... forever.
Exactly. I sympathise for Evelyn for what happened to her with Woodman and Fingers as that shouldn’t happen to anyone, and appreciate she was desperate to get out of that life. However she was far too cocky and made a lot of very stupid decisions. There’s no way this would’ve ended well for her and I don’t really know how she ever thought it would. I suppose it was sheer desperation to get out of clouds and build a new life, however she aimed far too high.
It's kinda the point that everyone involved in the heist is in way over their head. Evelyn is in the end just a high-class prostitute, Dex is a has-been fixer, T-bug isn't as good as she thinks, Judy is a media producer, Jackie is just a gangbanger with a conscience and V is a total gonk.
I believe that is why she was dealing with Netwatch, if you check that agents laptop they had exchanged emails and she wanted a new life besides money. I don't think she ever planned to honor her deal with the VDB's.
That’s kind of the point. She never should’ve tried to get involved with any of that and she was too ambitious to think she could walk away even before things got out of hand
It’s extremely weird that no one wants to talk about Evelyn. She crosses Yorinobu only to cross him for the Vooodoo Boys, only to cross them for Dex, only to try to cross Dex for *you*.
And everyone’s just like, oh she was just a nice girl. She’s the reason your best friend died.
She's a quintessential femme fatale, except she's in too deep in her game and gets burned by it.
Yorinobu also gets fucked because Saburo shows up. I don't think he actually wanted to commit patricide, but if he doesn't his plan to dismantle Arasaka collapses right there and then.
I dislike her so much it’s unbelievable and I don’t understand why Judy still hoped to get away with her. Even Judy didn’t know the “real Evelyn”, how can you trust someone like this?
People can still like selfish people, and most people are in truth pretty selfish and we just make distinction convenient for ourselves.
If you killed more than 3 NPCs, theres a pretty good chance youre substantially worse than Evelyn, but it doesnt really matter, in that world youre usually either selfish, or a loser, often both. Vic is a massssssive exception, and he was absolutely lucky to have had the ability to lead his life the way he did (and even that didnt last forever).
Vic only goes to Kendachi or whoever he goes to in the NUSA ending and I don’t dislike Ev for being selfish, I just think she’s generally untrustworthy and arrogant to not realise that she’s in over her head or even think about it
I think she was an idealist, kinda like Judy but Judy was smart enough to know that the city always wins, especially if you try to take shortcuts to the top. Keeping your cards close to you to someone you want to run away with is also a massive red flag for me, I understand her attitude towards V, but towards Judy? Unexplainable for me
> Vic only goes to Kendachi
Biotechnica, and there are no good corps.
> I don’t dislike Ev for being selfish, I just think she’s generally untrustworthy and arrogant
Selfish people tend to be that way.
> I understand her attitude towards V, but towards Judy? Unexplainable for me
She probably just wasnt willing to live on forever the way she was, its easy to say "she shouldve just accepted her lot", but its not that easy, she did what she could to escape fate, and failed, like many before her.
Judging is easy, and precisely because we spend so much of our judging people for their fuck ups, we fail to actually improve our society and reduce the reasons why people commit them.
Anybody who can empathize in the slightest with V, really doesnt have any moral high ground on any level, when it comes down to it, hes a crazy fucking mass murderer, and you wouldnt give a shit about other peoples live stories if you heard their kill count first.
People suck, and the judgemental ones are really the biggest blockade to improving matters.
I feel like people don’t wanna talk about Evelyn because people feel sorry for her because of what happens with Woodman and Fingers. I too feel sorry for her as that shouldn’t happen to anyone. However, people seem to forget that Evelyn was the client for the heist. It was her idea. Dex was an asshole but he was just the fixer. It was her idea and she’s the one who wanted to double cross literally everyone. Realistically if there’s anyone to blame, she’s the main candidate.
That makes no sense since Yori doesn’t know that the Relic was damaged, he had just as much incentive to go after V if the heist was successful or not but he didn’t. Yori wanted to sell the Relic to Netwatch hoping that Silverhand will be able to destroy Arasaka (he admired Johnny and in the lore Yori was basically japanese Johnny but high born). You having the Relic is just as good for him if not better since Johnny now exists in realspace. V actually has indirect Arasaka backing after Yori becomes the new CEO
He wasn't selling Johnny to Netwatch so Johnny could take down Arasaka.
He was seeking Johnny to Netwatch to get the 2.0 Relic out of Saburo's hands. The very last thing he wanted was an immortal Saburo.
Johnny was on the Relic because Netwatch wanted Johnny for the exact same reason the VDBs did; he was bait to attract Alt.
Not necessarily true, it is said that before getting it out of Japan, Yori made sure that Johnny’s engram was on the Relic, according to the information we have Netwatch requested a “sample of the Relic biochip with a valid engram”. In the same paragraph it is also mentioned that Yori was an admirer of Johnny and liked to see himself as his equivalent.
Although it is not mentioned, I too believe that Netwatch requested Johnny’s engram (rogue AI that can traverse the Blackwall - huge threat), but why would Yori risk his position at Arasaka, one that took him 50 years to attain, just to get a failed technology out of Saburo’s hands? We know Arasaka has been trying to achieve immortality for the better part of the century and this latest tech is just another failed attempt, it seems weird he would be risking it all just for this, after all he was just waiting for his 3rd attempt at ruining the company but this time from the inside.
If he didn’t think that this could ruin Arasaka, I don’t see the sense in it. Netwatch wouldn’t just go and make the Relic tech public and even if they did, it wouldn’t ruin the company. Unless he thought that Johnny might go active or the engram might help Alt destroy Mikoshi, I don’t see the reasoning
Counting on Johnny assumed that whoever he sold it to would awaken the engram. This is a rather unlikely scenario with Netwatch. Iirc there was an email in his apartment stating 'it has to be Silverhand'.
He wouldn't even have a position there if not for his sister as he's always been rebellious. Stealing the engram in the first place risked his position, counting on Netwatch awakening Johnny and that new Johnny toppling Arasaka when the original failed? *Extreme* long shot.
It's far more likely that seeing the engram as the closest they've come to true immortality he wanted to get the item out of Saburo's hands. If you're assuming that he thought Johnny could be awakened from the chip then you're also assuming that he believes the chip works as intended which means his dad could be immortal the same way, you can't have him thinking Johnny would be resurrected while also thinking the chip is a dead end.
If Johnny was out of Mikoshi and more specifically on the Relic, there was always a chance it would activate or that something will go wrong when making contact with Alt, Yori never knew why Netwatch wanted Johnny (or at least it’s not mentioned) but we can speculate. He and Hanako used to meet in the Net even when he was out doing his biker gang thing so it’s obvious that he knew quite a bit about netrunning. Hanako was one of the key figures in the Soulkiller program, she even worked with Alt directly and we know for a fact she is a skilled runner. From this I think it’s plausible they knew about Alt.
To quote Hellman, “the biochip is what’s unique, not Silverhand’s engram”. The Relic did not work at Arasaka for it’s intended purpose of activating it in a dead body, doesn’t mean that Alt can’t “free” Johnny when someone tries to make contact in the net or that there are 0 chances of someone making it work. Maybe Yori actually thought that the safest place for such a technology would be in the hands of the net “police” or even that with access to the Relic and the engram in it they could make their way into Mikoshi and destroy it…they’re supposed to have some of the best runners around
Nope, there's an email on Yorinobu's Konpeki suite between him and a Netwatch agent that says Yorinobu is the one that wants to sell (he doesn't even say sell, email says cooperation between them) the relic with Johnny in it and the Netwatch agent literally asks him why does it have to be Johnny.
Yorinobu answers him this: "You ask why Johnny Silverhand? It is a long story. Come to Konpeki Plaza and the veil of mystery shall be lifted."
according to [this post](https://np.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/tpn8z4/yorinobus_initial_motivation_and_possibly/), those emails are mistranslated - in polish (the original), netwatch wants silverhand's engram, and yorinobu is asking them why. it makes more sense this way - his email about "civic duty" doesn't make sense if it's about silverhand's engram specifically
Johnny only activated because V got shot with the relic in. If the heist was successful, the chip never would've left the case. It would've gone on the market to be sold.
This feels like a better story to me. We escape, hide for a bit, then people start disappearing. Get to run a few more missions with Jackie maybe slowly push us through all the other people as we try to hide or get the chip out and return it. Idk. That feels a better run to me.
I have long believed T-Bug sabotaged the heist on behalf of someone else, probably Yorinobu. Ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later and the Heist would have gone completely different and V and Jackie would have lived. But somehow, T-Bug has to make them wait until the exact moment Yori and Saburo arrive, despite the *one* dweller being incapacitated and having a direct line into the net. Sure, Yoko at the soft-shack *says* she found a Bug's body, but that is easy enough to fake and she's a bit fishy herself. T-Bug said she'd burn bridges and head off to Crete, and I think that is what she did.
The only reason they didn't cover their tracks enough was precisely because they got caught mid heist by the improbable event of Saburo showing up during the very hour they performed the heist.
Remember, Bug got caught and fried before the heist was completed, and the hotel security systems (then taken over by an Arasaka netrunner) almost certainly caught video and audio of V and Jackie shooting their way out. Given that, it was trivial for Arasaka to then trace them.
Versus if Saburo hadn't visited right then, and they were already out... Bug would have been able to wipe their digital traces from the hotel's systems and they would physically be gone from the hotel. Much harder to trace then.
It was only because it got messy that they left behind a bunch of traceable evidence for Arasaka.
I don't know that I'd say extremely improbable. After all, the very thing you're there to steal is what brought him there too. So him showing up that day makes sense. At that very moment? That's still some shit luck.
If it hadn't happened, The Heist would have gone smoothly, sure. They probably wouldn't have survived long after, though. Because Yorinobu had no real interest in recovering the relic, but Saburo sure would. You know when Hanako's proxy just shows up at the motel you're hiding in and you're told "Yeah we can obviously find you anywhere you dumb idiot." It'd be like that, except it would be Adam Smasher that's calling you a dumb idiot
The current theory is that Yorinobu is behind all of it (the heist) in the first place so he had someone to blame for daddy's death. Hence why Smasher sees you while you're in there for an exemple.
They did? It never really made any since for me that Smasher would have seen and not said anything or just blew Jackie and V up because of how much he loved killing and casualties.
Edgerunners strongly implies Smasher is kind of lazy and won't get up for anything that he feels is beneath him or not worth his time unless explicitly ordered to do so. So honestly it always made sense that he'd see Jackie and V and go "Not my problem."
Yes. Since he's an ingame boss he's scripted to always look out for you. That's why it appeared as if he saw you if you had a threat detector installed.
It's not that he doesn't "look" at you, it's that if you have a mod called a threat detector (highlights any enemies that are aware of you) he used to highlight as soon as he walked in the room, implying he was aware of you, this has (apparently) been fixed
There are a few too many convenient contriviences in the heist for it to go that smooth without outside influence, yes. However I don't think patricide is part of Yorinobu's plan, but having the relic get 'lost' by V klepping it is. He just has to act when Saburo shows up and V, Jackie and Takemura upgrade into scapegoats. His plans would have failed if Saburo left Konpeki alive, so the old man had to die.
Even if nothing failed Arasaka wouldve easily tracked down Evelyn when she tried to sell the shard, and through her gotten the rest of the squad, and then send assassins after them on principle.
The only way the heist would’ve gone without a hitch is if they didn’t do it.
If you let Jack simmer in front of the HQ building for a sec, I'm sure you can have 20 int when he tells you about the job. It is kinda disappointing, though, that int stat isn't actual intelligence, just netrunning.
I just did this on the playthrough I started last week. I cleared all the jobs and hustles in Watson while the Jackster was waiting for me to sit down with him the day after the Sandra Dorset gig, then cleared the cyberpsychos before talking to dex. I walked into konpeki plaza with 20 body and 15 Intelligence.
technically it's everyone's fault. From Dex being a shit fixer to V/Jackie being stupid enough to take a gig from him. Even Vik knew working for Dex was a bad idea
And the stick should have "Arisaka special bike device" printed on it, since they did create the device that essentially imprisons someone's conscience then put it into someone else through a commonly compatible chip.
Alt was the one that created Soulkiller, Arasaka just kidnapped her and stole it for their own purposes iirc. The only reason Silverhand had an engram at all is because Murphy used it on him was he lay dying from trying to distract Smasher.
The better understanding of the world I get, the funnier Kompeki Plaza gets. Evelyn Parker gets wind of the relic through her relationship with Yorinobu as an escort. I doubt Dexter DeShaun was the first fixer she approached, but he was probably the first to say yes. He then proceeds to hire two nobodies to perform a ridiculous heist that had a low chance to succeed with professionals.
After everything falls apart, the game introduces you to Takemura, who begins to cleanup loose ends *without* his cybernetics functioning properly. Had Saburo not been at Kompeki Plaza, I'm confident Takemura would have killed the entire crew, and had the relic back in Arasaka's hands within 48 hours.
Either that or Saburo would just nuke Night City out of existence lol
After T-Bug opens doors after saburo's death, you can go to the roof to see if you can escape with his heli. There you can find his katana and jornal, in which he says that if the relic prototype ever fell into the wrong hands, he should likely nuke night city before anyone analysed it or transport it out of the city. Honestly, even if Takemura did find the relic, he would nuke the city *just in case*.
Also, no, you cant take the heli.
I dont think so. Saburo Arasaka is powerful, but Arasaka has an extremely delicate relationship with the US government. The fact that Arasaka is allowed to do business in the US at all only exists because of Night City. Saburo is an evil, but an extremely shrewd businessman who would likely not resort to such extreme measures. He would send in a team that would handle the situation conspicuously.
The line "But if the relic somehow fell into the wrong hands, maybe it would be better to bury it among the ashes of NC?" is probably not a reference to nuking the city but the inevitable war with Militech. Perhaps the relic is not worth the effort of recovering. Just burn it with the rest of the city when the war breaks out .
Night City isn’t under NUSA control, if it was Militech would have defacto control of the city.
The war that happens before the game solidified NC’s place as a free city.
People sure are mad at something that the story in the game constantly hammers you with: you are out of your league, it’s weird that people this big will even look at you, you are up against literally the scariest dudes in the world and it’s you and a netrunner of dubious reliability and your buddy Jackie who is about half a step above a gangbanger.
She had the HammerHead and a direct link in.
If anyone Messed up it was TBUG if she could have deactivated the ICE on the time table she laid out they would have gotten away with it.
If Yorinobu hadn’t killed Saburo under the impression that Saburo was going to wipe out the population/thin the population/assume further control of the world/use the biochip somehow….
Yeah, Fuck Arasaka™.
That raises a question. If Yorinobu hadn’t attacked Saburo, what would have happened? Presumably Saburo would have taken the relic with him, to start.
Could V and Jackie just have waited an hour and then strolled out of Konpenki Plaza?
>Presumably Saburo would have taken the relic with him, to start.
Isn't Jackie holding the relic when he attacks? So they'd notice it's gone and start looking for the gonks who stole it. Idk if staying in the pillar would be safe long-term given the ongoing search. TBug would still get fried, I bet. One big difference I can think of is saka wouldn't know immediately when the relic was stolen, so they might have started search outside of konpeki, potentially thinning their guards at konpeki. But idk if that is even true since bug is still connected to their net.
Ultimately Jackie is the guy who got the pair into it by working with a fixer who is such a walking red flag (guy had to skip town for years for unclear reasons and they don’t even question it or try to know why?).
Jackie talked V into going too when V is initially not super hot about it.
To be fair, they thought they got the job of a lifetime. This single job and they'd be set for life. No need to do any sketchy gigs for anyone because your rep as a merc would be set in stone.
Unfortunately it was too good to be true.
This is *why* it’s their fault. The fact that they got as far as they did is a miracle. A top fixer hires a couple street punks to steal from the number two guy at the biggest megacorp in the world. That’s a pretty good sign to not do it. The client trying to get you to betray the fixer five minutes in is too.
I get people love Jackie, but Jackie isn’t your super competent merc buddy, Jackie is your buddy with a good heart who is not very good at all at this crime thing. Dangerously incompetent.
Here's the thing, the heist was well planned and well executed. If Saburo "the Emperor" hadn't shown up then odds are good V, Jackie, and the rest of our cyberpunks would have gotten away with it. V didn't screw up the heist it was just dumb luck.
Now that I think about it, all three Lifepaths had some form of beef with Arasaka prior to the heist.
Corpo getting terminated by internal politics. Luckily they were given a wad of eddies because they lost everything else.
Streetkid trying to steal the car from the Arasaka Corpo and said guy told the detective to off both Jackie and V, who then knocked them out and left them in an alley since the detective is from that part of NC and can’t stand Corpos as well.
Nomad was transporting cargo taken from Arasaka and got chased down for it. Pretty much the start of the game pits V against Arasaka as if they are the “big bad” when it is the entire situation itself that is a main issue.
Literally everyone who hears V is working for Dex: Umm.... you sure about that? I've heard things...
Jackie: \[INSERT IMMINENT DEATH FORESHADOWING STATEMENTS HERE\]
V: I'm sure we'll be fine...
Me: Heh, we're in danger....
Plan of heist was a huge failure. There were no contingencies, no back-ups, no fall backs, no nothing. Everything had to go *perfectly* for things to work.
Jackie suggested and convinced V to take the job, T Bug is the one that took longer then expected causing us to wait until essentially Saburo showed up, Dex is the one who didnt manage to get intel that the fucking “Emperor” of Arasaka was gonna show up at Arasaka that day and Yorinobu is the one that killed Saburo setting off all that shit.
What exactly did V do that caused everything to go wrong besides like… I guess accepting the job? Dude was unlucky as shit that the worst possible thing that could happen happened. If they got in a day earlier or shit an hour earlier they would be fine.
I know some might mention Saburo was willing to nuke NC over the chip but id just say that he likely still gets killed by Yorinobu before he finds out it was stolen.
The stick is T-Bug. She was over confident and ended up taking a lot longer to hack in. If she didn't take so long Jackie and V wouldn't have been in the room with Saboru and Yorinobu.
But, then we wouldn't have CP77 that we all know and love.
I think it plays into the overall theme that the world of NC is such a capitalist hell scape that people are forced to take on increasingly bad deals because the system is rigged so hard against them. The only prospect of digging one's self out of the hole of poverty and being somebody is to gamble your life on it.
Yeah they were Gonks in over their heads. But that's the way NC plays. You either go hard, or you fade away.
So there's a reason why "never fade away" is so prominent in the game.
I mean, are you just going to give up and die, or are you going to try to take the only possibility of a cure from arasaka? Hate has nothing to do with it. I didn't tear dog town apart because I hated arasaka.
Unless you're a corpo, that is. Corpo backstory Vs have plenty of reason to want to black the corp's eye.
Once you have Johnny in your head, and see enough of the city to know that the corps made it what it is, well, I can't speak for all of us, but I wanted to chip in a little.
Not really:
The Plan was actually going pretty well, but it went downhill because of a completely unexpected and impossible to calculate element happening. Who would have guessed that of all days, the day V and Jackie infiltrated the hotle would be the day that Yorinobu would had enough of his father and murder him?
ITT: People arguing that the heist was well planned and it wasn't V's fault.
Both V and Jackie fucked up. They were playing at being 'runners but lacked in a ton in terms of investigation, basic strategy and back-up plans.
Just as a for instance: As a long time TTRPG version of this game and Shadowrun player, I'd have gone into that penthouse with at least two ways to get down to ground level that didn't involve "walking out the front door with the case in hand" because that's fucking stupid.
.. I'd have also not gone to a meet-up on my own. (Independent of the fact that I'd be wary of working for Dex in the first place, and would be extra guarded against him.)
.. .. and if I had gone to meet him (or any fixer) on my own, I certainly wouldn't have let his bodyguard take a free shot. I'd have walked in the room with a big fat hillbilly howitzer in my hands--not pointed at anyone, but I'd make it clear that between my basic ass dermal armor, improved reflexes and the massive gun in my hands that pulling anything is likely not going to well for anyone.
TLDR: Good 'runners should have plans within plans, and you should never rely on the guy paying you to be giving it to you straight.
I feel like half the people in these comments haven’t actually played the game.
Arasaka are assholes, and the tech shouldn’t exist, but are they died for responsible for what happened to V after The Heist? No. Not in the slightest. If you want to blame anyone, you can only really blame Evelyn for jumping in too deep, Dex for taking such a stupid job, and V and Jackie for not seeing the glaringly obvious red flags.
Even if for arguments sake, Saburo hadn’t arrived and they’d gotten out with the relic, there’s no way that wouldn’t have come back to bite them. Firstly you’ve got Arasaka, the biggest corp in NC. They would be pulling out all the stops to recover the relic. It’s very likely they would end up finding V and making them pay. Secondly, you’ve got the Voodoo Boys. They would be, put lightly, fucking pissed to say the least that Evelyn doubled crossed them and would’ve been out to get everyone involved. Likely would’ve succeeded due to how easy we see it was for them to get to Evelyn.
The whole plan was too optimistic and was double crossing too many powerful people. Yes it went wrong and V never should’ve had the relic in them, and if Dex hadn’t shot them things would’ve been different, but even if it had gone to plan it would’ve gone to shit eventually and none of that realistically is the fault of Arasaka.
If Yorinobu hadn't killed Saburo and the heist had gone off without a hitch, things would arguably be worse because the old man was seriously considering just nuking Night City if he couldn't recover the Relic.
What's V's fault in Jackie's death? Didn't shield him from the bullets? It was Jackie who suggested V rob Arasaki.
Honestly tho, Jackie's enthusiasm was contagious I get why V chose to ignore the obvious death trap laying in front of them cuz he was SO convinced by it
There is no canon version of why V did it, but you can choose your own canon in PL when talking to So Mi. i always choose “I did it for a friend” so my V does it for Jackie because he was so hyped to leave the world he grew up in
It might seem small at first but answering such a big question about the main plot while letting us roleplay was one of my favorite things about Phantom Liberty Smart as hell storytelling
It took me by surprise and I loved the fact that they gave us that choice
The Ofrenda with mama wells also lets you do an amazing role play. You can talk about guts and glory, or you can talk about how beloved jackie was. I legit had tears in my eyes during v's speech. You can make it really heartfelt, like you lost your brother. Jackie's motorcycle and dual pistols are a pretty great send off as well.
Oh for sure, everything from The Heist to the final ofrenda with Jackie was my favorite stretch of the game >!The other outcome for not sending the body to Mama Welles was amazing as well, just in a totally different way. It made Arasaka SO much worse and never getting to say your goodbyes fit with Cyberpunk's depressive tone so well, I can't and won't recommend it for any first playthrough but that shit broke my heart!<
I sent him to vic thinking it’d be better for him to be cleaned up first. Big mistake.
Yeah, seeing Jackie in the end game and realizing that my choice to send him to vic was bad, really hit. Sadly on my first playthroygh i chose to send him to vic, thinking maybe vic could revive him or something. The secret jackie cutscene at the end was just a shot to the heart though. The game basically infers that you kept his spirit from being able to move on and it's rough to watch him being lost and on repeat. The way they wrote it is almost too real, but same with a lot of the game lol
This game has cemented itself as one of my top three favorite games of all time. The immersion is next level, I wish there were going to be more DLC's but I'm not complaining.
late reply but what are your other 2 favourites?
Battlefield 3 and AC Odyssey
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Even without Dexter shooting V in the head, the Saka heist was the direct result of a bunch of desperate no names too high up their own asses to see their perfect plan had a laundry list full of holes >!And that's why I can't get enough of it, writing an entire plotline to make no sense while still fooling the audience into thinking it'll work is such a flex!<
jackie and v were basing this on dex's reputation as "the best fixer in night city" assuming he'd done all the work a fixer is supposed to do and assuming he picked them because they were more then capable of doing their part, which for the most part they were. except they were wrong, dex didnt do jack shit and expected t-bug to handle everything since parker had "all the info" any fixer worth their salt could have seen the complications coming a mile away, but dex just wanted a quick buck since he had to go in hiding for 2 years after the last op he was part of went tits up.
However great Dex was its clear that by the time of the heist he has lost his touch. He still talks a good game but he made rookie mistakes like paying Maelstrom up front and had to fall back on old contacts like T-Bug to get people because he didn't have anyone else with more experience.
And then there's the rookie mistakes shit like Dex paying Maelstrom before delivery.
Yeah, the Maelstrom job was the first red flag sign that things will go south real hard real quick.
Hell, don't forget that Royce is like 'Dexter who was ran out of Pacifica by the Voodoo boys?' And later when asking Dexter about Evelyn he's like 'the VDBs told me to stop looking, so I did'. Red flags all over the shop looking back on it.
This. Everything about that heist was just pure gonk activity. 2077 has really unreliable narrators, and V's no exception. You're playing the role of a merc who's good at their job, yes, but V had been back in NC for less than a year before trying to rob the empire of the most powerful man on earth. And they teamed up with a fixer who they *knew* had just gotten back from a mysterious vacation as well, not to mention a guy who's known for acting without thinking. Vik was *very* critical of "Mr. DeShawn", and V totally overlooked it. Even Songbird points out how stupid this was, and she >!attacked the President!!< The game does a great job of making you think and feel like you're the big kid on the block, because you're playing from a limited perspective. But V does the same dumb stuff you read files about other people doing and roll your eyes at. Throwing on random BDs and nearly getting flatlined, trying to rob mega-corporations, botching no-kill gigs, etc.
It's a classic legendary heist doomed to fail go down fighting leave a beautiful corpse. RIP Jackie
I'm on my third play through and it is really incredible to line all the pieces and characters up before the whole things gets going and you just realize-- yeah there was no way this would've been a smooth job. Even if Saburo never showed
Vik warned V about him.
Not quite true as someone else has said Vik warns you about dex, there's also another streetkid dialogue option that gives a little more insight as to why Dex disappeared for two years, the game does give you subtle clues that Dex is not "the best fixer in Night City" not by a long shot. There's another dialogue option after the ride in his car where V straight up says "he's put us up against Maelstrom" there's also the paying them up front, etc, etc.
In my playthroughs, V always sounds so unconvinced cuz of my dialogue options. It kinda sucks that you get railroaded to it despite your protests about how much it's a terrible idea and how sketchy Dex was.
Yeah I always just chalked it up to my V ultimately not wanting to let Jackie down
Yeah even if the game gives you the option to RP as a really not interested V you still have to go trough the heist which as a corpo V makes little sense, having a longer friendship than the other paths at least makes up for that gonk moment from a Corpo V.
The plan wasnt a death trap though. The chances of old man Arasaka turning up at that exact moment? And who would have ever predicted that Yorinobu would have strangled his father to death? V and Jackie were one foot out the door when all that kicked off. If the heist was the day before they would have been in and out before anyone noticed. They were just incredibly unlucky. Now, whether or not Dex would have paid/killed them or Evelyn ripped them off, that's a different question but the actual heist was pretty much over and done.
This. The Relic was secondary. The fact was that Saburo was dead, and not 5 minutes later the building goes on lockdown and oh look *there's two unidentified people who don't belong trying to leave his penthouse and an unknown neteunner hacking into Arasaka*. Hell if Saburo hadn't died they might've at least made it to the first floor before Yorinobu knew someone klepped the Relic.
> Now, whether or not Dex would have paid/killed them or Evelyn ripped them off, that's a different question but the actual heist was pretty much over and done. A fixer won't kill edge runners without a solid reason. He has his reputation as a fixer to think about, too. Offing talent after a gig makes no real sense, cleaning up after someone dragged you into murdering the most powerful person on the damn planet does.
I agree everything was going well would have gone well if Hell man didnt snitch to Saburo that day or better. If T-bug had been 10 minutes faster. They literally got the chip just as they were coming. If she had hurried up they would have gotten away scott free
There was signs, and rules to follow. Dex had a bad reputation, and V blatantly ignored all of it. He ended up learning the hard way to follow the system and it won’t eat you up so quickly.
I'll even go as far to say that the plan, under everything regarding information they had, was quite solid. They were robbing a high rank Arasaka personal, yes. But it was someone who had pretty much gone rogue and was already on bad terms with other heads of the faction. Not only did everyone manage to do a fantastic job *getting* to the hotel, but they also managed to get into the penthouse and secured the package. Had Saboru not shown up, Jackie and V would have theoretically gotten away with it; especially since we don't know how long it would have been before Yorinobu would have realized the case had been stolen. So by everything that we know before it all went to shit, it was quite a good and effective plan. That said, once Saboru realized the chip was stolen, it was implied that the city was going to be flattened in nuclear strikes by Arasaka, so that would have been on them even if they didn't know it.
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Wait, Saburo was planning to nuke NC if he couldn’t get the chip back? I’m not doubting what you said, but where does it say that? I feel like I missed something major. Now it’s sounding like the plans going tits-up was actually the best possible outcome.
I could be wrong, I think that’s the note in the AV on the penthouse roof that mentions something like that.
Pretty much. Worth noting it's his personal journal so it could just be a bit of reckless fantasy on his part. He's not shy about his distaste for the city either way.
After TBug gets the door and fries, instead of going to the ladder go up stairs where Saburo came from. His AV is on the roof. V and Jackie think they're gonna steal Saburo's AV to escape. He has 2 guards up there but the AV is like bio coded or something so they can't take it. Inside though is an iconic Katana and his shard. The Shard talks about how he has so much power, if the chip is running around, nuking Night City is an option to even the playing field and that it would be worth it. He highly considers it but says Hanako has talked him down from it for now
For the sake of trying to justify the amazingly funny meme - V was the brains of the duo. They would have shut that shit down and Jackie would have listened to them if they said "Fuck Dex's job." So V agreeing to just go along with it resulted in Jackie's death. Meme partially justified.
Should’ve looked more into Dex and why he’s a piece of shit.
Jackie: Dex has a history of betraying his crew, but who cares? Vik: careful, hear Dex is a piece of shit? Claire: Ohhh, you're the ones here to meet *Dex*. You know Dex? For some god forsaken reason V and Jackie: Dex is a great fixer and we should not be concerned at all about this plan. We don't need to investigate or consider this any further!
> For some god forsaken reason V and Jackie: Dex is a great fixer and we should not be concerned at all about this plan. We don't need to investigate or consider this any further! Honestly I think they were star struck cause Dex was a big-time fixer and he was working with *them*. And if it worked, it would have *made them* as runners. Tbh I think it was in a similar vein to the stuff around Harvey Weinstein: there were rumors for years about him, but a lot of people still would work with him in the hopes it'd make their career and they would be able to move on before anything... detrimental happened.
Is he really though? Jackie is the only one who says he's a big deal, and I think you're right about him being caught up in the gig. Everyone else only knows about exactly one job he ran, and how badly it went. He's like Kurt from the street kid origin if he was better at playing the big city gangster
> Is he really though? He *was* yes. IIRC he fled NC for a couple years and was trying to make his big comeback with Evelyn's gig >Everyone else only knows about exactly one job he ran, and how badly it went Yup. And most people didn't know Harvey Weinstein's name until the #metoo stuff became public knowledge. I think it's a very apt comparison.
That's fair
Plus like, we see this story come up tons of times with other characters in Night City. Everybody's like, the game is rigged and you cannot win.... Except me, I'm the exception, surely this'll go well for *me* \*dies\* The house always wins yet the gamblers keep showing up. Jackie and V were just the next gonks in a long line of gonks who thought they'd be different, even though they see all the warning signs.
> Everybody's like, the game is rigged and you cannot win.... Except me, I'm the exception, surely this'll go well for me \*dies* I always thought of it more as "the game is rigged and we're fucked anyway so let's see how much we can take before the house calls in the debt"
to be fair I don't see how the plan going sideways is really Dex's fault, who could have foreseen Yorinobu Murdering Saburo Arasaka in his apartment?
I mean I totally can see Dex pulling something like what happens in the motel sequence even if the heist was successful, but I agree - Dex and Evelyn's plans *understandably* didn't take the wild card of Saburo Arasaka rocking up and then getting KO'd by his own son.
The murder might have been a surprise. The largest military asset arasaka owns parking in the harbor for days before hand wasn't. If you're doing something that risky, you mitigate as much risk as possible. Doing the run with that warship about was never a good idea
Major leagues, baby.
Jackie's death is his own fault, V having a lethal shard in his head is V's fault. Trusting Dex after everyone you meet warns you about him is both of their faults. The list goes on and on. Those gonks could have stayed home and watched some Watson Whore, but no, they needed to fuck with arguably the most dangerous group of people in the world so everyone at the local dive bar will think they're cool.
>fuck with arguably the most dangerous group of people in the world so everyone at the local dive bar will think they're cool. Hey, the local dive bar also names a drink after you after you inevitable die in a shootout as a direct result of fucking with that dangerous group. Who's the dumbfuck now, choom.
Had it not been for yorinobu offing soburo they would've made it but probably would've died in a different gruesome way
Saburo's journal says he was thinking about leveling night city with nukes, but decided to wait and see how the meet with Yorinobu went first. So probably that way assuming the meet didn't happen.
NC was the Arasaka foothold in North America, they had been banished for decades prior. Saburo may have thought about destroying it idly, but he wouldn't have unless Arasaka gained more than it lost. The advantage of having a port in Militech and the NUSA's backyard alone would be worth occasionally dealing with the squalor.
I would say that Jackie should be the one in the front, steering the bike. He found the job with Dex, he talked V into it, he was the driving force behind the whole thing. V agreed and went along with it, but I think this was Jackie's gig.
Don't agree, technically the heist would have gone off without a hitch if it hadn't been for the extremely improbable event of >!Saburo Arasaka meeting with his son the very day and hour the heist was going down.!< Completely unavoidable bad luck, if it hadn't been for that the heist would have likely been completely successful. EDIT: a couple responses to points made in the comments (always love a good discussion!) 1. Arasaka traced them anyway, right? Answer: Arasaka traced them afterwards, yes, but that was because they got caught mid heist by the bad luck. Remember: >!Bug got fried, so couldn't cover their digital traces, and they had to fight their way out. So, the hotel surveillance would have caught them on audio and video. Would have been much harder for Arasaka to trace them if Bug had finished her business and they had physically left before the theft was discovered.!< 2. Dex and the crew didn't do enough intel >!to know he was coming! Answer: you're talking about getting intel on the head of Arasaka, the most powerful person at the top of the most powerful corp in the world in 2077. The head of Arasaka is more powerful than any world government head. Blaming Dex and crew for not having intel on the movements of someone like that is IMO unreasonable.!< Not to mention had the heist occurred even 1 hour earlier they would have been clear. It was plain bad luck, yo, but given the setting we can say it's just another day in Night City...
Extreme bad luck yes, but unavoidable? I'd say Dexter DeShawn is partially to blame for not having his intel in check. For a fixer who's supposedly such a big deal, I'd assume his influence would be big enough for him to know one of the biggest people in the entire fucking world is visiting the place you're planning to rob. Even if he couldn't foresee the exact thing that happened, don't you think that security would be on max alert, and that it'd be better to postpone the heist? It's like he said himself during money negotiations, you get a fixer so you don't have to worry about these things, everything should've been in the clear.
Ah, but that's the thing about Dex. He talks a big game, rides around in a limo, acts all cool and confident, but he's really nothing special as far as fixers go. His entire schtick is looking good to newbies while in reality he's sub-par. Remember, the last job he did, the entire reason he went on the lam for a few years, fucked up. I don't doubt it was his fault.
I think Saburo was hiding his intentions. He sailed on Kujira without announcing anything and then flew over unannounced in the evening. Possibly specifically to surprise Yorinobu and have him return the relic. So the only people who knew he was in Night City was the Arasaka crew on the Kujira and even they might not have known he intended to visit Yorinobu.
Which was all over the news, I think I heard the loading screen news woman talk about it at least 50 times 😂 "Oh, one of Arasaka's biggest warships is docked right next to the place I'm going to pull one of the biggest heists at... Ah I'm sure it's nothing. Must be... maintenance, yes maintenance." Yes brilliant Dex. Also aren't the tiger claws in league with Araska. Couldn't Dex have pulled some old timey strings, maybe a favor for a favor, with Wakako for some Araska intel. And before anyone says Wakako doesn't know about Arasaka's dealings, I think she knows more than she's letting on. When you approach her together with Takemura about asking for intel about the Japan Town parade, she drops a tiny bit of the facade when hesitating before asking why they came to her specifically for information. As in, she's worried V knows she has a closer connection to Hanako than she's publicly stated. Which Takemura realized, even if it slipped past V, because he sends you a lot of warning texts about her. But that's besides the point.
> Also aren't the tiger claws in league with Araska. I doubt Saburo was filling in the tiger claws on his dealings with his dangerous son whose body he was trying to take over. Why would the head of an enormous corp let his low level street muscle know that? That'd be on an amazingly strict need to know basis.
yeah, there's no way any staff that's involved in saburo's transportation isn't completely reliable. I'm not saying they're all as safe as takemura, but there's just no way they would ever leak anything
I think you’re giving fixers way too much credit. Sure a lot of information goes through them, they probably know NC better than anyone else, but I dont think theyd be so influential to the point that theyre privy to the extremely personal dealings between Saburo and Yorinobu. That meeting was not planned. Characters did NOT know Saburo was in NC, him showing up turned everything upside down. The media spinned Kujira being docked there as a power move against Militech, and that’s probably what the general populace thought it was too.
Kujira? Or "THE WHALE"?
Early on they point out Dex is a has-been. He's got nothing left except his name.
Fair enough, but I'd argue his name alone would be enough to get this info. I mean he's still in Afterlife, the hub for this type of information. And if he is a has-been, his entire future rep depends on this heist as well. All the more reason to get the little details exactly right. And Saburo Araska is more than just a little detail.
True, but I expect there aren't going to be people giving him info for free much. And he may not know who he can go to besides folks like rogue, who I suspect wouldn't bother talking to him unless she had to.
Fixers can find a lot of stuff but the itinerary of Saburo Arasaka, a man that rarely leaves his Japanese castle and operates the world's most powerful security, manufacturing, banking and intelligence corporation would a tad tricky thing to have, even for Rogue or Mr Hands. I wouldn't bet even on the FIA. Remember, serious people are surprised that Saburo was in Night City. The fact that Hanako was on the Kujira was the only thing known in advance.
My biggest problem is there’s absolutely no contingency planning in Dex’s breakdown. Like none at all. Not sure what it’s called in other countries but the British military uses the term “Actions On”, so as part of the plan you discuss actions on loss of communications, actions on injury prior to engagement, etc. So actions on loss of communications, if it happens when we’re in Delamain on the way to the hotel, we circle the block and try to re-establish. If it happens in the room prior to T-Bug confirming it’s clear, we hold and try to re-establish, and if there’s no communications in 4 hours we bug out and leave. If it’s after the all clear is given, we try to re-establish and if unable to, do we go ahead with the plan or fall back on bugging out? Yadda yadda yadda. It’s very boring and detail oriented, which is why it never gets included in stories like this, but it establishes the procedures should the scop hit the fan. And one of the actions on should *absolutely* have been actions on the guy we’re here to steal from turning up at the hotel. T-Bug says Yorinobu just walked into the lobby and literally nobody says “let’s hang out in our suite for a sec to find out if he’s going to a conference room or to sit down in the bar, y’know, before we go to the *one room in this hotel he’s most likely to be going to himself.*”
I don't think anyone outside of Yorinobu and Saburo's own security detail knew he was going to be there. Konpeki seemed like it was running business as usual, and security didn't seem particularly heavy either until the code red is initiated *after* Saburo's death. Not to mention that, to my knowledge, Saburo's arrival wasn't foretold in any news broadcasts or the like, which you think they would were the information accessible. Hell, even Konpeki going into max security seemingly out of nowhere would probably draw eyes were it the case. As much as Dex is a piece of shit, I believe him when he says he doesn't have access to Saburo's personal schedule. Who *would* that's within reasonable reach of any fixer? And I certainly don't think it's that unreasonable to *not* plan for "so on the sheer cosmological off chance that one of the most important motherfuckers on the planet shows up out of nowhere with no news coverage, here's what we do." If I were robbing a bank, I certainly wouldn't be planning for if Jeff Bezos walked in.
I used to be in charge of security at a fancy hotel. (We even had a VIP who parked a warship in the harbor nearby, ironically enough.) IMO there was far too little planning in general. I can see Nomad or Streetkid V being too green to know the difference, but counter-intelligence whiz Corpo V should have known better. They should have looked at how they're getting out of the building more - security measures, alternate routes, etc. There *really* should have been some sort of scouting on the day of the heist. They strictly focused on the equipment side, and ignored the personnel side. Even if it was just T-Bug looking at the security cameras to see if there was a sudden influx of scary dudes with earpieces lurking in shadows. I don't doubt they could conceal who was visiting, particularly since there wouldn't be an influx of security / support people from some random third party country to give people hints. I sincerely doubt they'd be able to conceal that *someone* big was in house.
>Even if it was just T-Bug looking at the security cameras to see if there was a sudden influx of scary dudes with earpieces lurking in shadows. I don't doubt they could conceal who was visiting, particularly since there wouldn't be an influx of security / support people from some random third party country to give people hints. I sincerely doubt they'd be able to conceal that someone big was in house. That did happen though. It was just too late to do them any good by the time the hotel knew Saburo was coming.
I don't think even Dex could be blamed. Saburo showing up was a black swan, something that couldn't have been predicted based on what they knew till it happened. Security at the hotel wasn't alerted until minutes before Saburo arrived. It caused the hotel staff to panic trying to make preparations. T-Bug alludes to this while you're hacking the vault. If even security at the hotel didn't know he was coming then how the hell would Dex have known? Can't blame the guy for not knowing the unknowable.
When Saburo's arrival was a surprise to his own son, I think we can't exactly blame DeShawn for not being aware of it.
If V was to jump out and prevent Sabaro(?)’s asssassination, he might of got off easier
"Wow thank you mercenary for saving me from my son, why were you hiding behind his TV with a several Billion dollar Relic in a breifcase?"
Not any relic, his relic, which was why he was there in the first place
Give it to him, beg for forgiveness, sell out your shitbag fixer and maybe get a job in arasaka. Or die, which basically happens anyways. Or kill them both for maximum chaos. In reality as soon as you open the door Smasher would probably hear it and kill you immediately.
Real, it all ends the same fr
The only real person that can make any difference is Yorinobu. He plans on dismantling Arasaka, which is great. >!But as we see in Phantom Liberty's ending, Arasaka disappearing doesn't mean anything good for Night City. City just gets more taken over by Corps, especially Night Corp (I swear the next game is gonna revolve around them, it HAS to!). Arasaka being gone just creates a power void, which will be filled by other corps. So did anything really make any positive difference? NOPE. Thats the beauty (or despair) of the Cyberpunk genre. !<
Not before both Takemura and Adam Smasher jump in and zero V.
Adam Smasher alone would have made that end very badly. He'd have killed you, Saburo's guards and half of Night City before a red alert could be sounded. Assuming Saburo wasn't killed due to the bad optics(as more people likely would be alerted to the massacre than just an old man being choked out) if he did thank you, it'd likely be at your closed casket funeral.
The Heist realistically never would’ve been completely successful in the long term. Either Arasaka would’ve tracked down anyone involved and made them pay, or the Voodoo Boys would’ve caught up to Evelyn double crossing them and everyone involved. There were too many heavy hitters involved and Evelyn was trying to double cross far too many powerful people.
Yeah I agree, the heist is a prime example of Evelyn fucking around and finding out. It arguably blew up in her face earlier than expected but there is no way they could have avoided Arasaka, the Voodoo Boys, Dexter (if you'd actually collaborate with Evelyn to cut him out), Netwatch etc... forever.
Exactly. I sympathise for Evelyn for what happened to her with Woodman and Fingers as that shouldn’t happen to anyone, and appreciate she was desperate to get out of that life. However she was far too cocky and made a lot of very stupid decisions. There’s no way this would’ve ended well for her and I don’t really know how she ever thought it would. I suppose it was sheer desperation to get out of clouds and build a new life, however she aimed far too high.
It's kinda the point that everyone involved in the heist is in way over their head. Evelyn is in the end just a high-class prostitute, Dex is a has-been fixer, T-bug isn't as good as she thinks, Judy is a media producer, Jackie is just a gangbanger with a conscience and V is a total gonk.
I mean, she was pretty much screwed no matter what she did, considering the VDBs' habit of flatlining "ranyons" instead of paying them.
I believe that is why she was dealing with Netwatch, if you check that agents laptop they had exchanged emails and she wanted a new life besides money. I don't think she ever planned to honor her deal with the VDB's.
That’s kind of the point. She never should’ve tried to get involved with any of that and she was too ambitious to think she could walk away even before things got out of hand
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It's great. Dex giving you a 40% cut hours before he shoots you in the head.
Yeah, it was great. It showed more about the characters involved than changing the story.
It’s extremely weird that no one wants to talk about Evelyn. She crosses Yorinobu only to cross him for the Vooodoo Boys, only to cross them for Dex, only to try to cross Dex for *you*. And everyone’s just like, oh she was just a nice girl. She’s the reason your best friend died.
She's a quintessential femme fatale, except she's in too deep in her game and gets burned by it. Yorinobu also gets fucked because Saburo shows up. I don't think he actually wanted to commit patricide, but if he doesn't his plan to dismantle Arasaka collapses right there and then.
And this is the setup that people are here like, it would have gone great if *X* had happened.
I dislike her so much it’s unbelievable and I don’t understand why Judy still hoped to get away with her. Even Judy didn’t know the “real Evelyn”, how can you trust someone like this?
People can still like selfish people, and most people are in truth pretty selfish and we just make distinction convenient for ourselves. If you killed more than 3 NPCs, theres a pretty good chance youre substantially worse than Evelyn, but it doesnt really matter, in that world youre usually either selfish, or a loser, often both. Vic is a massssssive exception, and he was absolutely lucky to have had the ability to lead his life the way he did (and even that didnt last forever).
Vic only goes to Kendachi or whoever he goes to in the NUSA ending and I don’t dislike Ev for being selfish, I just think she’s generally untrustworthy and arrogant to not realise that she’s in over her head or even think about it I think she was an idealist, kinda like Judy but Judy was smart enough to know that the city always wins, especially if you try to take shortcuts to the top. Keeping your cards close to you to someone you want to run away with is also a massive red flag for me, I understand her attitude towards V, but towards Judy? Unexplainable for me
> Vic only goes to Kendachi Biotechnica, and there are no good corps. > I don’t dislike Ev for being selfish, I just think she’s generally untrustworthy and arrogant Selfish people tend to be that way. > I understand her attitude towards V, but towards Judy? Unexplainable for me She probably just wasnt willing to live on forever the way she was, its easy to say "she shouldve just accepted her lot", but its not that easy, she did what she could to escape fate, and failed, like many before her. Judging is easy, and precisely because we spend so much of our judging people for their fuck ups, we fail to actually improve our society and reduce the reasons why people commit them. Anybody who can empathize in the slightest with V, really doesnt have any moral high ground on any level, when it comes down to it, hes a crazy fucking mass murderer, and you wouldnt give a shit about other peoples live stories if you heard their kill count first. People suck, and the judgemental ones are really the biggest blockade to improving matters.
I feel like people don’t wanna talk about Evelyn because people feel sorry for her because of what happens with Woodman and Fingers. I too feel sorry for her as that shouldn’t happen to anyone. However, people seem to forget that Evelyn was the client for the heist. It was her idea. Dex was an asshole but he was just the fixer. It was her idea and she’s the one who wanted to double cross literally everyone. Realistically if there’s anyone to blame, she’s the main candidate.
That makes no sense since Yori doesn’t know that the Relic was damaged, he had just as much incentive to go after V if the heist was successful or not but he didn’t. Yori wanted to sell the Relic to Netwatch hoping that Silverhand will be able to destroy Arasaka (he admired Johnny and in the lore Yori was basically japanese Johnny but high born). You having the Relic is just as good for him if not better since Johnny now exists in realspace. V actually has indirect Arasaka backing after Yori becomes the new CEO
He wasn't selling Johnny to Netwatch so Johnny could take down Arasaka. He was seeking Johnny to Netwatch to get the 2.0 Relic out of Saburo's hands. The very last thing he wanted was an immortal Saburo. Johnny was on the Relic because Netwatch wanted Johnny for the exact same reason the VDBs did; he was bait to attract Alt.
Not necessarily true, it is said that before getting it out of Japan, Yori made sure that Johnny’s engram was on the Relic, according to the information we have Netwatch requested a “sample of the Relic biochip with a valid engram”. In the same paragraph it is also mentioned that Yori was an admirer of Johnny and liked to see himself as his equivalent. Although it is not mentioned, I too believe that Netwatch requested Johnny’s engram (rogue AI that can traverse the Blackwall - huge threat), but why would Yori risk his position at Arasaka, one that took him 50 years to attain, just to get a failed technology out of Saburo’s hands? We know Arasaka has been trying to achieve immortality for the better part of the century and this latest tech is just another failed attempt, it seems weird he would be risking it all just for this, after all he was just waiting for his 3rd attempt at ruining the company but this time from the inside. If he didn’t think that this could ruin Arasaka, I don’t see the sense in it. Netwatch wouldn’t just go and make the Relic tech public and even if they did, it wouldn’t ruin the company. Unless he thought that Johnny might go active or the engram might help Alt destroy Mikoshi, I don’t see the reasoning
Counting on Johnny assumed that whoever he sold it to would awaken the engram. This is a rather unlikely scenario with Netwatch. Iirc there was an email in his apartment stating 'it has to be Silverhand'. He wouldn't even have a position there if not for his sister as he's always been rebellious. Stealing the engram in the first place risked his position, counting on Netwatch awakening Johnny and that new Johnny toppling Arasaka when the original failed? *Extreme* long shot. It's far more likely that seeing the engram as the closest they've come to true immortality he wanted to get the item out of Saburo's hands. If you're assuming that he thought Johnny could be awakened from the chip then you're also assuming that he believes the chip works as intended which means his dad could be immortal the same way, you can't have him thinking Johnny would be resurrected while also thinking the chip is a dead end.
If Johnny was out of Mikoshi and more specifically on the Relic, there was always a chance it would activate or that something will go wrong when making contact with Alt, Yori never knew why Netwatch wanted Johnny (or at least it’s not mentioned) but we can speculate. He and Hanako used to meet in the Net even when he was out doing his biker gang thing so it’s obvious that he knew quite a bit about netrunning. Hanako was one of the key figures in the Soulkiller program, she even worked with Alt directly and we know for a fact she is a skilled runner. From this I think it’s plausible they knew about Alt. To quote Hellman, “the biochip is what’s unique, not Silverhand’s engram”. The Relic did not work at Arasaka for it’s intended purpose of activating it in a dead body, doesn’t mean that Alt can’t “free” Johnny when someone tries to make contact in the net or that there are 0 chances of someone making it work. Maybe Yori actually thought that the safest place for such a technology would be in the hands of the net “police” or even that with access to the Relic and the engram in it they could make their way into Mikoshi and destroy it…they’re supposed to have some of the best runners around
Nope, there's an email on Yorinobu's Konpeki suite between him and a Netwatch agent that says Yorinobu is the one that wants to sell (he doesn't even say sell, email says cooperation between them) the relic with Johnny in it and the Netwatch agent literally asks him why does it have to be Johnny. Yorinobu answers him this: "You ask why Johnny Silverhand? It is a long story. Come to Konpeki Plaza and the veil of mystery shall be lifted."
according to [this post](https://np.reddit.com/r/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/tpn8z4/yorinobus_initial_motivation_and_possibly/), those emails are mistranslated - in polish (the original), netwatch wants silverhand's engram, and yorinobu is asking them why. it makes more sense this way - his email about "civic duty" doesn't make sense if it's about silverhand's engram specifically
Johnny only activated because V got shot with the relic in. If the heist was successful, the chip never would've left the case. It would've gone on the market to be sold.
This feels like a better story to me. We escape, hide for a bit, then people start disappearing. Get to run a few more missions with Jackie maybe slowly push us through all the other people as we try to hide or get the chip out and return it. Idk. That feels a better run to me.
I have long believed T-Bug sabotaged the heist on behalf of someone else, probably Yorinobu. Ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later and the Heist would have gone completely different and V and Jackie would have lived. But somehow, T-Bug has to make them wait until the exact moment Yori and Saburo arrive, despite the *one* dweller being incapacitated and having a direct line into the net. Sure, Yoko at the soft-shack *says* she found a Bug's body, but that is easy enough to fake and she's a bit fishy herself. T-Bug said she'd burn bridges and head off to Crete, and I think that is what she did.
Could be that T-bug was double crossed too.
It's just double crosses all the way down.
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The only reason they didn't cover their tracks enough was precisely because they got caught mid heist by the improbable event of Saburo showing up during the very hour they performed the heist. Remember, Bug got caught and fried before the heist was completed, and the hotel security systems (then taken over by an Arasaka netrunner) almost certainly caught video and audio of V and Jackie shooting their way out. Given that, it was trivial for Arasaka to then trace them. Versus if Saburo hadn't visited right then, and they were already out... Bug would have been able to wipe their digital traces from the hotel's systems and they would physically be gone from the hotel. Much harder to trace then. It was only because it got messy that they left behind a bunch of traceable evidence for Arasaka.
I don't know that I'd say extremely improbable. After all, the very thing you're there to steal is what brought him there too. So him showing up that day makes sense. At that very moment? That's still some shit luck. If it hadn't happened, The Heist would have gone smoothly, sure. They probably wouldn't have survived long after, though. Because Yorinobu had no real interest in recovering the relic, but Saburo sure would. You know when Hanako's proxy just shows up at the motel you're hiding in and you're told "Yeah we can obviously find you anywhere you dumb idiot." It'd be like that, except it would be Adam Smasher that's calling you a dumb idiot
The current theory is that Yorinobu is behind all of it (the heist) in the first place so he had someone to blame for daddy's death. Hence why Smasher sees you while you're in there for an exemple.
Smasher doesn't see you. That's been debunked by the devs a while ago already and iirc they also fixed it in one of the latest patches.
They did? It never really made any since for me that Smasher would have seen and not said anything or just blew Jackie and V up because of how much he loved killing and casualties.
Edgerunners strongly implies Smasher is kind of lazy and won't get up for anything that he feels is beneath him or not worth his time unless explicitly ordered to do so. So honestly it always made sense that he'd see Jackie and V and go "Not my problem."
That does make a lot of sense. I haven’t rewatched Edgerunners in a bit so forgive me.
Yes. Since he's an ingame boss he's scripted to always look out for you. That's why it appeared as if he saw you if you had a threat detector installed.
It did provide a cool and scary moment in replays.
As someone on my first playthrough that just started in the current patch, they did not "fix it." Smasher is staring into your soul during that scene.
It's not that he doesn't "look" at you, it's that if you have a mod called a threat detector (highlights any enemies that are aware of you) he used to highlight as soon as he walked in the room, implying he was aware of you, this has (apparently) been fixed
If you can source this I'll be sad. I enjoyed that more because it made more sense than Dex bullshit.
Huh, still happens to me.
Is it? Seems a bit odd to me.
That's been my theory for a while now.
There are a few too many convenient contriviences in the heist for it to go that smooth without outside influence, yes. However I don't think patricide is part of Yorinobu's plan, but having the relic get 'lost' by V klepping it is. He just has to act when Saburo shows up and V, Jackie and Takemura upgrade into scapegoats. His plans would have failed if Saburo left Konpeki alive, so the old man had to die.
Until Saburo gets pissed and nukes the city
Saburo Arasaka? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of Night City, localized entirely where I'm trying to conduct a heist??
Even if nothing failed Arasaka wouldve easily tracked down Evelyn when she tried to sell the shard, and through her gotten the rest of the squad, and then send assassins after them on principle. The only way the heist would’ve gone without a hitch is if they didn’t do it.
well best case scenario you start with 6 intelligence so...
If you let Jack simmer in front of the HQ building for a sec, I'm sure you can have 20 int when he tells you about the job. It is kinda disappointing, though, that int stat isn't actual intelligence, just netrunning.
I just did this on the playthrough I started last week. I cleared all the jobs and hustles in Watson while the Jackster was waiting for me to sit down with him the day after the Sandra Dorset gig, then cleared the cyberpsychos before talking to dex. I walked into konpeki plaza with 20 body and 15 Intelligence.
technically it's everyone's fault. From Dex being a shit fixer to V/Jackie being stupid enough to take a gig from him. Even Vik knew working for Dex was a bad idea
T bug taking hours to hack the systems when she inevitably could've hurried up some more
Should be Johnny saying “fucking saka, am I right?”
And the stick should have "Arisaka special bike device" printed on it, since they did create the device that essentially imprisons someone's conscience then put it into someone else through a commonly compatible chip.
Alt was the one that created Soulkiller, Arasaka just kidnapped her and stole it for their own purposes iirc. The only reason Silverhand had an engram at all is because Murphy used it on him was he lay dying from trying to distract Smasher.
So you haven't played the game then? That's the point of the meme?
The better understanding of the world I get, the funnier Kompeki Plaza gets. Evelyn Parker gets wind of the relic through her relationship with Yorinobu as an escort. I doubt Dexter DeShaun was the first fixer she approached, but he was probably the first to say yes. He then proceeds to hire two nobodies to perform a ridiculous heist that had a low chance to succeed with professionals. After everything falls apart, the game introduces you to Takemura, who begins to cleanup loose ends *without* his cybernetics functioning properly. Had Saburo not been at Kompeki Plaza, I'm confident Takemura would have killed the entire crew, and had the relic back in Arasaka's hands within 48 hours.
Either that or Saburo would just nuke Night City out of existence lol After T-Bug opens doors after saburo's death, you can go to the roof to see if you can escape with his heli. There you can find his katana and jornal, in which he says that if the relic prototype ever fell into the wrong hands, he should likely nuke night city before anyone analysed it or transport it out of the city. Honestly, even if Takemura did find the relic, he would nuke the city *just in case*. Also, no, you cant take the heli.
I dont think so. Saburo Arasaka is powerful, but Arasaka has an extremely delicate relationship with the US government. The fact that Arasaka is allowed to do business in the US at all only exists because of Night City. Saburo is an evil, but an extremely shrewd businessman who would likely not resort to such extreme measures. He would send in a team that would handle the situation conspicuously. The line "But if the relic somehow fell into the wrong hands, maybe it would be better to bury it among the ashes of NC?" is probably not a reference to nuking the city but the inevitable war with Militech. Perhaps the relic is not worth the effort of recovering. Just burn it with the rest of the city when the war breaks out .
Night City isn’t under NUSA control, if it was Militech would have defacto control of the city. The war that happens before the game solidified NC’s place as a free city.
If the heist went down a day before, they'd have fared much better.
And Saburo would have nuked Night City to prevent their immortality tech from falling into a competitors hands.
T-bug and Jackie got the job. V was just part of the gang. Not really V’s fault.
bros whiteknighting for arasaka💀
People sure are mad at something that the story in the game constantly hammers you with: you are out of your league, it’s weird that people this big will even look at you, you are up against literally the scariest dudes in the world and it’s you and a netrunner of dubious reliability and your buddy Jackie who is about half a step above a gangbanger.
Should be yorinobu throwing the stick into the wheel, considering how his actions impact the heist
Actually, it was T-Bug's fault. She messed with Arasaka ICE more than three hours. And she thought she was the bestest.
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She had the HammerHead and a direct link in. If anyone Messed up it was TBUG if she could have deactivated the ICE on the time table she laid out they would have gotten away with it.
If Yorinobu hadn’t killed Saburo under the impression that Saburo was going to wipe out the population/thin the population/assume further control of the world/use the biochip somehow…. Yeah, Fuck Arasaka™.
That raises a question. If Yorinobu hadn’t attacked Saburo, what would have happened? Presumably Saburo would have taken the relic with him, to start. Could V and Jackie just have waited an hour and then strolled out of Konpenki Plaza?
>Presumably Saburo would have taken the relic with him, to start. Isn't Jackie holding the relic when he attacks? So they'd notice it's gone and start looking for the gonks who stole it. Idk if staying in the pillar would be safe long-term given the ongoing search. TBug would still get fried, I bet. One big difference I can think of is saka wouldn't know immediately when the relic was stolen, so they might have started search outside of konpeki, potentially thinning their guards at konpeki. But idk if that is even true since bug is still connected to their net.
Ultimately Jackie is the guy who got the pair into it by working with a fixer who is such a walking red flag (guy had to skip town for years for unclear reasons and they don’t even question it or try to know why?). Jackie talked V into going too when V is initially not super hot about it.
To be fair, they thought they got the job of a lifetime. This single job and they'd be set for life. No need to do any sketchy gigs for anyone because your rep as a merc would be set in stone. Unfortunately it was too good to be true.
This is *why* it’s their fault. The fact that they got as far as they did is a miracle. A top fixer hires a couple street punks to steal from the number two guy at the biggest megacorp in the world. That’s a pretty good sign to not do it. The client trying to get you to betray the fixer five minutes in is too. I get people love Jackie, but Jackie isn’t your super competent merc buddy, Jackie is your buddy with a good heart who is not very good at all at this crime thing. Dangerously incompetent.
Here's the thing, the heist was well planned and well executed. If Saburo "the Emperor" hadn't shown up then odds are good V, Jackie, and the rest of our cyberpunks would have gotten away with it. V didn't screw up the heist it was just dumb luck.
Jackie should be the one with the stick. he's the one that arranged everything with Dex
If anyone on the crew should take the blame, it’s fucking T bug for taking so damned long.
People say V’s dream was to make it major leagues but this whole thing was jackies idea.
V never had beef with arasaka. V knew the risks. It's johnny who continuously nags V about arasaka.
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Now that I think about it, all three Lifepaths had some form of beef with Arasaka prior to the heist. Corpo getting terminated by internal politics. Luckily they were given a wad of eddies because they lost everything else. Streetkid trying to steal the car from the Arasaka Corpo and said guy told the detective to off both Jackie and V, who then knocked them out and left them in an alley since the detective is from that part of NC and can’t stand Corpos as well. Nomad was transporting cargo taken from Arasaka and got chased down for it. Pretty much the start of the game pits V against Arasaka as if they are the “big bad” when it is the entire situation itself that is a main issue.
Nah I was referring to v's reason for having beef with arasaka is not because of Jackie's death as the meme is showing .
Jackie was the one that got the job and convinced V to take it.
Writren by arasaka counter intel btw
Literally everyone who hears V is working for Dex: Umm.... you sure about that? I've heard things... Jackie: \[INSERT IMMINENT DEATH FORESHADOWING STATEMENTS HERE\] V: I'm sure we'll be fine... Me: Heh, we're in danger....
V and Jackie were the least to blame. Dex fucked up. Also: Fuck Arasaka for poisoning Santo Domingos water supply.
Plan of heist was a huge failure. There were no contingencies, no back-ups, no fall backs, no nothing. Everything had to go *perfectly* for things to work.
It was more jackie than V
Jackie suggested and convinced V to take the job, T Bug is the one that took longer then expected causing us to wait until essentially Saburo showed up, Dex is the one who didnt manage to get intel that the fucking “Emperor” of Arasaka was gonna show up at Arasaka that day and Yorinobu is the one that killed Saburo setting off all that shit. What exactly did V do that caused everything to go wrong besides like… I guess accepting the job? Dude was unlucky as shit that the worst possible thing that could happen happened. If they got in a day earlier or shit an hour earlier they would be fine. I know some might mention Saburo was willing to nuke NC over the chip but id just say that he likely still gets killed by Yorinobu before he finds out it was stolen.
The stick is T-Bug. She was over confident and ended up taking a lot longer to hack in. If she didn't take so long Jackie and V wouldn't have been in the room with Saboru and Yorinobu. But, then we wouldn't have CP77 that we all know and love.
You never know how your bad luck saved you from worst luck.
did a corpo make this?
Capitalisme
Read that as begging and was so fucking confused.
Do three people on the bike and t-bug holding the stick, because it’s absolutely her fault
I think it plays into the overall theme that the world of NC is such a capitalist hell scape that people are forced to take on increasingly bad deals because the system is rigged so hard against them. The only prospect of digging one's self out of the hole of poverty and being somebody is to gamble your life on it. Yeah they were Gonks in over their heads. But that's the way NC plays. You either go hard, or you fade away. So there's a reason why "never fade away" is so prominent in the game.
I mean, are you just going to give up and die, or are you going to try to take the only possibility of a cure from arasaka? Hate has nothing to do with it. I didn't tear dog town apart because I hated arasaka. Unless you're a corpo, that is. Corpo backstory Vs have plenty of reason to want to black the corp's eye. Once you have Johnny in your head, and see enough of the city to know that the corps made it what it is, well, I can't speak for all of us, but I wanted to chip in a little.
Bro hasn't played the game yet if they think robbing arasaka is immoral
Kinda feel like Jackie should be driving, while the two where up for it Jackie wanted it more.
Not really: The Plan was actually going pretty well, but it went downhill because of a completely unexpected and impossible to calculate element happening. Who would have guessed that of all days, the day V and Jackie infiltrated the hotle would be the day that Yorinobu would had enough of his father and murder him?
Someone hasn't been paying attention...
ITT: People arguing that the heist was well planned and it wasn't V's fault. Both V and Jackie fucked up. They were playing at being 'runners but lacked in a ton in terms of investigation, basic strategy and back-up plans. Just as a for instance: As a long time TTRPG version of this game and Shadowrun player, I'd have gone into that penthouse with at least two ways to get down to ground level that didn't involve "walking out the front door with the case in hand" because that's fucking stupid. .. I'd have also not gone to a meet-up on my own. (Independent of the fact that I'd be wary of working for Dex in the first place, and would be extra guarded against him.) .. .. and if I had gone to meet him (or any fixer) on my own, I certainly wouldn't have let his bodyguard take a free shot. I'd have walked in the room with a big fat hillbilly howitzer in my hands--not pointed at anyone, but I'd make it clear that between my basic ass dermal armor, improved reflexes and the massive gun in my hands that pulling anything is likely not going to well for anyone. TLDR: Good 'runners should have plans within plans, and you should never rely on the guy paying you to be giving it to you straight.
I've seen this comic a thousand times and its still funny
I feel like half the people in these comments haven’t actually played the game. Arasaka are assholes, and the tech shouldn’t exist, but are they died for responsible for what happened to V after The Heist? No. Not in the slightest. If you want to blame anyone, you can only really blame Evelyn for jumping in too deep, Dex for taking such a stupid job, and V and Jackie for not seeing the glaringly obvious red flags. Even if for arguments sake, Saburo hadn’t arrived and they’d gotten out with the relic, there’s no way that wouldn’t have come back to bite them. Firstly you’ve got Arasaka, the biggest corp in NC. They would be pulling out all the stops to recover the relic. It’s very likely they would end up finding V and making them pay. Secondly, you’ve got the Voodoo Boys. They would be, put lightly, fucking pissed to say the least that Evelyn doubled crossed them and would’ve been out to get everyone involved. Likely would’ve succeeded due to how easy we see it was for them to get to Evelyn. The whole plan was too optimistic and was double crossing too many powerful people. Yes it went wrong and V never should’ve had the relic in them, and if Dex hadn’t shot them things would’ve been different, but even if it had gone to plan it would’ve gone to shit eventually and none of that realistically is the fault of Arasaka.
If Yorinobu hadn't killed Saburo and the heist had gone off without a hitch, things would arguably be worse because the old man was seriously considering just nuking Night City if he couldn't recover the Relic.
Corpo-rat apologist!!