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The CyberComedy Challenge


bigdamnhero

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Can't concentrate on work today and could use a good laugh, so here's a challenge game inspired by the CyberComedy: Is It Possible? Thread.

 

One of the best methods of spoofing a genre is to take the conventions/cliches of the genre and push them to their (ill)logical extremes. A few examples, borrowed from Neil Stevenson's Snowcrash:

 

 

Convention: Corporations run everything.

 

Comedic Extreme: Everything is a franchise. The church on the corner is The Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates #4672; the subdivision where a character lives is The Mews At Windsor Place #563,434; etc.

 

 

Convention: Japan rules the world and the Yen is the global currency.

 

Comedic Extreme: US currency is still in circulation, and may even be required for some official transactions, but has become so devalued that you need a wheelbarrow full of $10,000 bills (Clintons) and $1,000,000 bills (Reagans) to buy anything.

 

 

Right? Right. So, each poster will name a cyberpunk genre convention; the next poster will suggest a comedic twist on that convention, and then list another convention/cliche for the next poster, and so on. First up:

 

Convention: Cities are gang-ridden urban blights surrounding a few islands of super-rich techno-luxury.

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Re: The CyberComedy Challenge

 

Convention: Cities are gang-ridden urban blights surrounding a few islands of super-rich techno-luxury.

Comedic Extreme: Everyone in the cities, regardless of race, not only speaks in the language of gangsta rap but in its cadence as well. Every conversation, including ordering your lunch, has phat rhymes and a backbeat. In the rich part of town, the air is always filled with muzak of the most insipid variety that nobody really enjoys but they feel they have to play to keep up appearances.

Convention: Rich corporate executives always hire lowlfie mercenary scum of dubious reputation to do their dirty work.

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Comedic Exteme: Dirty work includes janitorial and occasionally catering. Some gangs are reknowned for their Ninja Cleaning skills. Possibly so much experimental inventing takes place that secret corp labs need military expertise in disposing of rubbish.

 

Convention: Anything can be bought if you have enough money. Capitalism is God, money is power.

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Comedic Extreme: The wealthy have turned pointless extravagance into a high art form. Homeless dumpster divers routinely find suits that cost the equivalent of $10 million in the trash, discarded after being worn for only a few minutes. There is a booming cottage industry that involves offering the decadent wealthy forbidden luxuries (such as the meat of endagnered or even extinct species, even utterly impossible ones to procure such as Mammoth or Brontosaur) and then presenting completely ordinary goods in such a way that the purchaser never knows the difference, and they get away with it because the purchasers couldn't care less. There are 1300 Mona Lisas in secret collections, each of whose owners believes it to be genuine and none of whom realize that the real Mona Lisa is still hanging in the Louvre where it belongs (this is the result of a legendary 2063 heist that was actually a cleverly-designed hoax by the curators, who were getting tired of all the unsuccessful attempts to steal the Mona Lisa so they hired a retired burglar to stage a "successful" one).

 

Convention: Anyone can, if they wish, transform their body into the Ultimate Killing Machine.

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Comedic Extreme: The wealthy have turned pointless extravagance into a high art form. Homeless dumpster divers routinely find suits that cost the equivalent of $10 million in the trash' date=' discarded after being worn for only a few minutes. There is a booming cottage industry that involves offering the decadent wealthy forbidden luxuries (such as the meat of endagnered or even [i']extinct[/i] species, even utterly impossible ones to procure such as Mammoth or Brontosaur) and then presenting completely ordinary goods in such a way that the purchaser never knows the difference, and they get away with it because the purchasers couldn't care less. There are 1300 Mona Lisas in secret collections, each of whose owners believes it to be genuine and none of whom realize that the real Mona Lisa is still hanging in the Louvre where it belongs (this is the result of a legendary 2063 heist that was actually a cleverly-designed hoax by the curators, who were getting tired of all the unsuccessful attempts to steal the Mona Lisa so they hired a retired burglar to stage a "successful" one).

 

Convention: Anyone can, if they wish, transform their body into the Ultimate Killing Machine.

 

 

Comedic Extreme: Medical nanotech is so advanced that people are innoculated at birth with cellular replicators and are effectively unkillable by anything short of weapons of mass destruction...and not always even then. Kinda like roaches.

 

 

Convention: Despite the existance of a perfectly anonymous world spanning virtual reality network, corporate reps always go to the trouble to meet the deniable assets they hire in run down bars in dangerous parts of town face to face.

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These are great - I may have to run this campaign some day! :lol:

 

Convention: Despite the existance of a perfectly anonymous world spanning virtual reality network' date=' corporate reps always go to the trouble to meet the deniable assets they hire in run down bars in dangerous parts of town face to face.[/quote']

Comedic Extreme: The Net is so overcrowded with robot-avatar advertisements (“Hi, I’d like to talk to you about your insurance coverage”), vandals (“Crap, some punk just spraypainted my avatar!”), drunken idiots looking for trouble (no consequences if you lose), and other annoyances that it’s impossible to get any actual work done. So after about 5 minutes, most cyber-meetings end with “Screw this! What’s your physical location? I’ll be right over.”

 

Convention: Print is dead – everything is electronic/virtual.

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Convention: Print is dead – everything is electronic/virtual.
Comedic Extreme: All print is dead. Even toilet paper. Bathroom necessities are taken care of through a cybidet, powered by lasers.

 

Convention: Skills and careers have become so specialized that there are people who professionally jack their heads into computers.

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Convention: Skills and careers have become so specialized that there are people who professionally jack their heads into computers.

Comedic extreme: Every task, however routine, is so complex that it requires a specialist. It is no longer possivle to do your own laundry because the cloth is so complicated: you must take your trousers to one specialist, your socks to a second, your underwear to a third (and the specialist who cleans male underwear won't touch female underwear), etc. The job of a fry cook is so complicated (due to the unpredictable effects of nanotech on digestion) that the required license requires five years of training and a Masters degree in nanobiochemistry.

 

Convention: Every government function that can be privatized has been privatized, as have some that can't.

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Convention: Every government function that can be privatized has been privatized' date=' as have some that can't.[/quote']

Comedic Extreme: Cities, counties, states, provinces, countries, and even the United Nations can be bought and sold on the stock exchanges. While corporations own most of the national stocks, even common citizens can own a few shares. Naturally, dividends are paid quarterly; all government income is through tarriffs and user fees, with taxes a thing of the past.

 

Convention: Anything is available... for a price, usually cash.

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Convention: Anything is available... for a price' date=' usually cash.[/quote']

 

Comedic Extreme: Anything is available for a price. Lives can be bought in 12-packs! It's only $999,999,999.99 for a cure to the common cold! There are even divices that can't exist thanks to real world physics but sre somehow available! Portable Holes! Invisibility Creme! Anything you can think of, and some things no human (nor cthuloid) mind can comprehend!

 

Convention: Rock & Roll music is still around despite the current times (our time) being the age of Techno and Rap.

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Comedic Extreme: Why just cover a legendary band when you can clone them? Some enterprising promoter has gotten his hands on the DNA of the Beatles, the Who, Led Zeppelin, etc. Clones of all these legendary bands play all over the world, to varying degrees of effectiveness. Not to be outdone, hip-hop promoters have cloned Dr. Dre, Eminem and Tupac Shakur. These clones have the appearance and voices of the originals, but may or may not have all the same skills -- and may or may not know they are clones....

Convention: What little law enforcement remains is astoundingly corrupt and incompetent.

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Convention: You can make yourself look like anyone/anything you want.

Comic Extreme: People will pick popular faces to mimic. Just as the Rachel Green haircut from Friends became the most popular haircut of all time, now you can look like your favorite sitcom character head-to-toe. Hundreds of Rachel Greens (or the characterdu jour) run around town.

 

Convention: Information is power.

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Convention: Information is power.

Comic Extreme: The most power-hungry people will hoard information on the most obscure topics imaginable, on the off-chance they might one day be useful. The man who has memorized every line of dialogue in every Star Trek episode ever made is regarded as a near-deity, surpassed only by the one who has memorized every line of dialogue in every Gunsmoke episode ever made.

Convention: People are so incredibly jaded that only the most depraved and shocking things have even a chance of amusing them anymore.

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Comedic Extreme: whenever you move from one apartment building, neighborhood, or office to another you have to learn an entirely different language. If you go next door to visit a friend, the doorman at the building will be unable to answer even the simplest of questions, because he cannot find his 1462 Ash Place to 1478 Ash Place Dictionary. Use a common word like "cheeseburger" a block down the street and people will attack you because you have mortally insulted them, and there is no word in any human language that is not viewed as a reference to either sex, violence or religion by somebody (but if you attempt to discuss sex, violence or religion in plan English nobody has the slightest idea what you're talking about).

 

Convention: There are useless but gaudy neon signs for everything.

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Comedic Extreme: whenever you move from one apartment building' date=' neighborhood, or office to another you have to learn an entirely different language. If you go next door to visit a friend, the doorman at the building will be unable to answer even the simplest of questions, because he cannot find his [i']1462 Ash Place to 1478 Ash Place Dictionary[/i]. Use a common word like "cheeseburger" a block down the street and people will attack you because you have mortally insulted them, and there is no word in any human language that is not viewed as a reference to either sex, violence or religion by somebody (but if you attempt to discuss sex, violence or religion in plan English nobody has the slightest idea what you're talking about).

 

Convention: There are useless but gaudy neon signs for everything.

 

Comedic Extreme: So much so that the most effective marketing is as plain as possible, to the point that minimalism is on the upsurge. Most ads are so minimalist that only people that already know what it means can even understand it.

 

Convention: Its more important to look kewl than it is to be competant. Form over function is rampant.

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Comedic Extreme: All print is dead. Even toilet paper. Bathroom necessities are taken care of through a cybidet' date=' powered by lasers.[/quote']

I love that. In fact - just about everythiing should be powered by lasers - toasters, shavers, telephones, televisions....

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Convention: Its more important to look kewl than it is to be competant. Form over function is rampant.

Comedic Extreme: Big Honking Enormous Nasty-Guns...that do 1d6-1K. Highly fashionable body armor that offers 2rPD. High-tech night vision goggles that only have a 20-degree field of vision. Moreover, any character carrying equipment that is actually effective must take Distinctive Looks: Dresses Like A Dork.

 

Convention: Many (if not most) 90-pound girls can beat the snot out of most (if not all) 250-pound men.

Actually, that one's pretty comedic already, isn't it?

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I think we can start combining stuff here....

 

The President of the United States is hired every four years by the company's Board of Directors, the only qualifications being that he must look extremely "kewl," understand the slang used in Congress' bills, have all seven seasons of The West Wing devoted to memory, and have someplace to plug in the large, portable, cybernetic neon sign that will identify him as "The Prez."

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[Convention: Many (if not most) 90-pound girls can beat the snot out of most (if not all) 250-pound men.

Actually, that one's pretty comedic already, isn't it?

 

Comedic Extreme: There is a well known fact that there is a inverse ratio of weight to effectiveness. Some of the most effective ninjas are actually 10 year old girls. Never underestimate the Girl Scouts.

 

Convention: Corporate employees are routinely headhunted by rival corporations.

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Comedic Extreme: So much so that there are implemented procedures for extraction teams to follow. Some corporations are so heavily kidnapped from, that teams need to form queues and book ahead. Filling out the necessary paperwork is done for politeness sake.

 

Convention: Everyone uses personal vehicles that have been heavily modified and customised. No one uses public transport.

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Convention: Everyone uses personal vehicles that have been heavily modified and customised. No one uses public transport.

Comedic Extreme: Yet public transportation is still running anyway, with busses and trains armed to the teeth like military convoys and no passengers whatsoever. It makes those in power look good if "the trains run on time", desptie the fact that nobody rides the trains, and they keep saying "we have to keep the infrastructure intact in case of emergency". The only people actually on the trains and busses are drivers and cosudctors who are so frightening and heavily-armed that even the gangbangers avoid them.

 

Convention: There is an illegal street drug for every occasion, every one of which is terrifyingly addictive.

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