This is a clip of Lucas Blackburn who claimed to be a professional stuntman. He was instructed to climb onto a counter and pull out a handgun. Instead he did this and was immediately fired for being drunk on set.
The Russian Quarter is a decrepit district out in the eastern suburbs of the Cyberia Universe. Several of the playable characters etch out their existence here. The two main etchers are Boriz and his boss Count Maxim.
Boriz is a low level pimp who dreams of bigger things, but he doesn’t have a clue how to accomplish anything. Consequently he’s left nagging at Maxim for unrealistic promotions. The one promotion he won’t shut up about is resident DJ in Rasputin’s nightclub so he can spin Trotsky techno tunes to an empty dance floor all night.
The truth is Boriz has become more like an annoying younger brother to Maxim. Maxim only really protects Boriz because they were both raised in the same brutal post-Soviet orphanage system. If it wasn’t for this minor detail, he would probably have made Boriz “disappear” many years ago.
Maxim, in stark contrast, is head of the Russian mafia. He operates the Rasputin’s nightclub, the Love Bites brothel and several laundrettes. These operate as a front for his illicit work in extortion, whole sale drug manufacturing, fraud and the usual shopping list of money making activities perfected by hardened career criminals.
Through these two characters we learn that the Cyberpigs are “too stretched” to deal with them, meaning they’ve accepted bribes and thus turn the other guanciale (which, admittedly, is a joke that doesn’t work because most people will probably have to Google guanciale only to then realise it wasn’t worth the effort).
Even more exciting; we also come to learn that there’s a war bubbling away with the neighbouring Puerto Rican greaser gang.
The sum of it is that Maxim intends to move into auto trade and vehicle modifications imminently. The greasers have always been the go-to guys for this industry and so the close proximity with the Russians would disrupt not only their business but their whole way of life. The only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is by taking up arms.
The Russian mafia is feared by everyone. Their code, if one exists, appears arbitrary and brutal. On the flipside, the greaser gang is highly respected as they have a reputation for leaving everyone alone so long as others follow suit. In some ways they are considered the underdogs, but just like dogs, their loyalty and determination is fierce.
Such a war will result in victory for one gang and total defeat for the other. The outcome is dependent on how the players proceed.
The Second Cold War
If you have been clicking around this story for a while and before reaching here, you may have already come across references to a vaguely mysterious geopolitical event known as the Second Cold War.
During the summer of ’88, the Berlin Wall was yet to fall and the tense situation between the West and Russia was constantly featuring in the news. The top dog at Give Me Head HQ, Lawrence Cassidy, wasn’t really paying any attention but still made it crystal clear that he didn’t want to roll with a geopolitical crisis taking place in the background of his project. However, some of the team saw the opportunity to heighten the apocalyptic vibe of the genre.
The minutes from one of the early days pep talks states that:
Mr Cassidy made it clear in no uncertain terms that Cyberia wasn’t interested in what he called “political vomit”. Beyond that little squirt Boriz and Commie Keith, there’s to be no mention of it. Cassidy has told me to write this down word for word, underline it and then ask Lara to go plaster it all over the office in post-it notes. “
Author unknown owed to a water damaged paper file
However, it appears that Cassidy spent very little time paying attention to anything of importance when it came to plot development. He was only really interested in making sure that the “snack cupboard” remained full. This allowed some important creative freedom for the newly assembled Give Me Head teams.
With all of this in mind, what we know is that some of the company’s artists and writers snuck in the “post-Soviet” theme just to amplify the grim possibility of “mutually assured destruction”. They also created the character Mikh; a lone secret agent sent from the post-Soviet order to gather intel on life in bourgeoisie Cyberia as well as hunting down and replicating emerging technologies.
We get the impression that the story of the Second Cold War remained cold until it finally fizzled out. Since then, as the years (Decades? Centuries?) rolled by, the western countries became hyper-technocratic and cutthroat capitalist while Russia became even worse than what came before which is arguably prophetic for this box of donuts.
We don’t know how grim it looks behind the Iron Curtain. However, we do know that Cyberia is a hostile, violent, paranoid, superficial, neon drenched nightmare where the blood never dries and where you shouldn’t expect a handshake; two of the better tag lines the team came up with even though the former is directly ripping off the British Empire. Compared to this description, Russia was even worse.
List of Residents
Mikh (possibly)
Return to the Index
Click here to return to the index.
Interested in the Digital Collectables?
NFTs coming soon on BESC Hyperchain
| INDEX | 
Leave a comment