Shoot Now, Serve Later

In Cyberia society is always on the brink of collapse. Nobody ever has enough candy and everybody has far too many enemies. Human life is worth less than a pair of tennis shoes. Worse still, the big tech and data corporations are more powerful now than the Cyberpigs ever were.

The most recent reports carried out by the Cyberian Underground Insurgent Network Terrorists (CUINT) claim that 93% of all serious crime goes unpunished. However, the small print does state that this is only guesswork based on rumours. It’s likely to be way higher.

The main consequence of this is that the only law of the land is whatever the corrupt Cyberpigs say it is. After decades of underfunding and increasing apathy among the ranks, they no longer give a flying fart for the wellbeing of the average blue-collar Cyberian. That is unless they have a big bowl of candy at their disposal. Citizens can often buy their life back so long as they promise to button it afterwards.

On the flip side, if you’re a celebrity metropunk hustler sponsored by Viv Bastard or a wealthy CEO working for SKARS Corp, you can probably bribe the Cyberpigs to do their job properly or, more accurately, to do a thoroughly illegal job just for you.

Yet if you were to spot a digital poster downtown, you would be forgiven for thinking they are the good guys; a beacon of law, order and justice. Yet the only people who ever call them for legitimate assistance, even for something minor like a neighbourly dispute, are immediately executed on arrival for “wasting police time”. Such is the hellhole that is Cyberia.

But it isn’t all fun and games. Many people still want these little piggies slaughtered; especially the smaller gangs in Cyberia who can’t afford to pay them off. Instead these gangs designate a “Cyberpig Slayer” to eliminate those officers who could become a threat to the future of their client’s business. It’s dangerous work which is highly sought after these days because anything deemed dangerous is often well paid. And if you die… fuck it! It’s probably for the best.

But Who Exactly Are The Cyberpigs?

The Cyberpigs are often underpaid, overly augmented misanthropes running on coffee shot injections, confiscated crystal and “bully beef” testosterone capsules. To get their badge, they have to kill at least one punk with their bear hands in under thirty seconds and then laugh about it for twenty-four hours thereafter without falling asleep.

Rest assured that the folks at Give Me Head Productions were careful to include some playable Cyberpig characters as a way of satirising the 1980s despite being the exact people everyone else was satirising at that time: free market hedonistic yuppies with far more money than talent. This is actually a little unfair of us. We have noted several super talented employees who deserve some credit given the circumstances. You will meet some of them as you click around.

Anyways, let’s choose an example. One of the playable Cyberpig characters is Brutus. He has butchered more people in Cyberia than any other Cyberpig. If he doesn’t meet his daily quota then he will go after twice as many punks the next day.

However, things have become a little tense in recent weeks. Brutus is absolutely certain that there’s somebody watching him from the shadows, waiting patiently for him to slip up. This can only mean one thing: a Cyberpig slayer wants him squealing!

There is nothing that the Cyberpigs despise more than a Cyberpig slayer. They are always on the look out and will kill anyone who they suspect of being one. In fact it’s one of the most common alibis filed for a Cyberian’s death: he smelled of pig blood.

Whichever player takes on the role of Brutus will need to figure out a plan to not only remain wide awake, but also take out his stalker before they corner him. And being the biggest bastard in the game, Brutus will struggle to form alliances or hire out a warbot to provide some security.

It doesn’t get any more exciting than this. Literally: play a fat, friendless cop and try not to nod off for five minutes by rolling a d10 every half an hour.

Finally; you can see a series of wanted posters here which were going to be plastered across Cyberia. While not explicitly stated, they were probably connected to the Cyberpigs.

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