In the world of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, everybody can be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want to do thanks to the Cyberware implants. Be it artificial organs and synthetic muscle that can help you perform superhuman feats or the latest custom limbs with all sorts of weapons installed so that you can destroy everything that stands in your way. Cyberware can help you achieve all of that, for a price. However, since countless people of the Night City can only survive by committing violent crimes, the most popular route would be to get bigger and more powerful cyberware. To be someone that can destroy another man with one punch.
That being said, there is another route that certain people can take. They focus on enhancing their cyber brain, rather than their body. This allows them to obtain far more lucrative jobs than your run-of-the-mill cyberpunks. They are called the Netrunners. They can access your bank account or steal top-secret information from Mega Corporations. However, at the same time, being a Netrunner is also one of the most dangerous jobs in Night City.
What is a Netrunner
The overwhelming majority of people who live in the world of the Cyberpunk Edgerunners have some sort of cyber brain installed. Which is why there are hardly any computers or smartphones, as we know them today, over there. After all, why do you need such devices when you can simply access all of that information and functionality with your cyber brain. From making phone calls to any kind of financial transaction, you can do it all just by thinking about it. You’ll be able to see the information in the form of Augmented Reality that is only visible to you.
Netrunner is the kind of people that are trained to manipulate the cyber brain and any other kind of electronic devices. So in a nutshell, Netrunner is sort of like the supercharged version of the hacker that we know today. For electronic devices, such as electric cars or assault drones, they can gain control over them and use it however they see fit. As for cyber brains, well, once a Netrunner gains access to your cyber brain, they can impair your bodily functions, such as vision or limbs, they can steal information from you, or they can also fry your brain.
Different Roles of A Netrunner
Because a Netrunner has a very specific and highly in-demand, skill set, there are actually quite a lot of things that they can do. However, most of them can be boiled down to three main categories. They can act either as a frontliner, support, or information broker. Furthermore, they can also take a hybrid role depending on the task at hand.
As a frontliner, they will actively fight side by side with their teammates. The way they fight is usually by frying the opponents’ brains or taking control of their assault drones. Netrunners rarely take on these roles because it will expose them to the risk that they usually avoid. That being said, most netrunners are equipped to fight on the frontline so that they can survive if the situation suddenly turns sour.
Netrunners are specialized in extracting information, so a role as an information broker actually suits them quite well. They usually extract information out of high-profile corporate executives, or even from the company itself. And as a broker, they simply sell the info or the data that they have obtained to the highest bidder, but mostly to fixers though.
For the majority of Netrunners in Night City, their most common job is as a support for their team. Netrunners will do the initial preparation, usually based on the info that they got from the fixer, and then they will also accompany their team on the mission and provide active support on site, such as deactivating the security, keeping an eye out of any threatening activity, so on and so forth.
The Danger of Being A Netrunner
As you can see from the previous sections, Netrunners is easily one of the most versatile jobs in Night City. But at the same time, there’s an inherent risk and danger to being a netrunner. After all, Netrunner itself is already quite a niche occupation, so being a great netrunner will quickly put your name on the spotlight, and also in a lot of unsavory people’s watch list.
That alone will put tons of danger on a netrunner’s name. However, the biggest danger a netrunner could face is certainly during their deep dive. Because while they can perform most of their exploits wirelessly, certain things still require a netrunner to plug a real cable into their cyber brain and connect it to their target.
This is usually the case if they want to obtain top level information from certain individuals. And if they want to perform a deep dive into a Mega Corporations’ servers, then a netrunner requires a special rig to support them. Because during that deep dive, the temperature of their body can increase rapidly, so they need to cool it down. There’s a specialized, and expensive, rig for that, but for tightly-budget netrunners out there, a bathtub filled with ice should do the trick.
However, while plugging the external cable into their enhanced cyber brain and performing a deep dive is practically a netrunner at their most powerful form, it is also their most vulnerable state. Because this is the only time when their mind, or rather their consciousness, is separated from their body. This means if something were to happen to their body, their mind won’t have a place to go back to. Likewise, if their mind is attacked by something like a virus during a deep dive, then all that’s left is their limp, lifeless body.
This is why netrunners usually have their trusted partners with them to monitor their condition during a deep dive. Otherwise, one little accident is all it takes to destroy either their body or their brain. No other job in Cyberpunk Edgerunner has these kinds of inherent risks, and that is why netrunner is one of the most dangerous jobs in the Night City.