Deus Ex Eggs/References. - by Eberon
Silkworm on 27/1/2006 at 09:14
Its been mentioned that the code for the luminus path is 1997 the year that Hong Kong was turned back to China, but the code for the Sillouette is 1968 - the year of the Paris Uprising in may.
Im also surprised no one has mentioned the ICE breaker system, which is not explained in the game - a reference to the original System Shock
BlackCapedManX on 27/1/2006 at 21:03
Actually a reference to William Gibson and the Neuromance trilogy, which much preceded SS, and were greatly influential on it, along with a lot of other LGS/ISA work.
Silkworm on 28/1/2006 at 03:17
Quote Posted by BlackCapedManX
Actually a reference to William Gibson and the Neuromance trilogy, which much preceded SS, and were greatly influential on it, along with a lot of other LGS/ISA work.
Thanksfor the correction, didn't know that.
Rogue Keeper on 1/3/2006 at 15:19
To quote this classic:
Quote:
...ICE patterns formed and reformed on the screen as he probed for gaps, skirted the most obvious traps, and mapped the route he'd take through Sense/Net's ICE. It was good ICE. Wonderful ICE...
...His program had reached the fifth gate. He watched as his icebreaker strobed and shifted in front of him, only faintly aware of his hands playing across the deck, making minor adjustments. Translucent planes of color shuffled like a trick deck. Take a card, he thought, any card.
The gate blurred past. He laughed. The Sense/Net ice had accepted his entry as a routine transfer from the consortium's Los Angeles complex. He was inside. Behind him, viral subprograms peeled off, meshing with the gate's code fabric, ready to deflect the real Los Angeles data when it arrived.
...
`You're a console cowboy. The prototypes of the programs you use to crack industrial banks were developed for Screaming Fist. For the assault on the Kirensk computer nexus. Basic module was a Nightwing microlight, a pilot, a matrix deck, a jockey. We were running a virus called Mole. The Mole series was the first generation of real intrusion programs.'
`Icebreakers,' Case said, over the rim of the red mug.
`Ice from ICE,
Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics.'
Live on 26/3/2006 at 16:22
Out of interest, would people categorize Deus Ex as being cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk literature?
There are arguments for both, I think.
Qaladar on 26/3/2006 at 17:04
Time wise, I'd say its pre-cyberpunk
At least if by cyberpunk you mean something like Gibson's work. Deus Ex's world doesn't yet have the giant government like multinational corporations, continent spanning mega-cities, or the global matrix-like computer systems. It has the advanced biotechnologies but they are strictly military/government... they are not available to the general public for $ yet.
I'd say the Helios ending is the beginning of a cyberpunk world, but the environment that most of the game takes place in is not there yet.
The System Shock games are much farther along into full cyberpunk. Deus Ex could reasonably be assumed to take place sometime in the near future. System Shock is set in 2072, and SS2 in 2114.
BlackCapedManX on 29/3/2006 at 13:17
I'd think Deus Ex is more of an offshoot of cyberpunk than an exemplarly show of it. Cyberpunk has a lot of nihilistic attributes, where the main characters are often facing infititely resourceful machines (usually corporations through the use of the future of the internet) and are usually shown in stories where they're just fighting to stay alive to make some sort of place for themselves in their own little microcosm of the world (IIRC, it's been a good while, in Neuromancer Case goes to retrieve something from this family that owned one of the last big family owned businesses, and they were basically all dead, and of little import to the world at large, yet this invasion became a huge drawn out climactic thing, even though it didn't really matter.) DX on the other hand deals more with conspiracies and changing the world and drastically alter the way things go, making it more of like, a cyber-epic or something.
