Cyberpunk Lore Glossary: Relic, Soulkiller, Mikoshi, Blackwall, DataKrash and 122 More Terms A to Z

How to use this glossary#

Entries run A to Z, one section per letter. A tag like [2077] means the entry describes that edition's version. No tag means the term holds across editions.

Lore terms for gear, wars and tech live here. Words people say out loud, like choom, gonk and eddies, are on the cyberpunk slang page. For the long view, the timeline lays the events below in order. A few entries touch the 2077 plot, so skim carefully if you have not finished the game.

A#

• Aerodyne (AV): A vertical takeoff aircraft pushed by ducted jet fans, pronounced 'Ay-Vee'. Trauma Team crews arrive in Zetatech Atlus AVs [2077].
• Afterlife: The mercenary bar in Little China, Watson. The original club sat downtown until gentrification after the Time of the Red pushed it out. In 2077 it is where edgerunners pick up jobs from fixers. Full write-up: the Afterlife.
• Agent: The personal device people carry in the 2040s. In RED you can summon a Red Cab with it, or from a Data Term [RED].
• Aldecaldos: A nomad clan and one of the Seven Nations. It began in 1992 as a neighborhood watch in Los Angeles under Juan Aldecaldo and went nomad in 1993. In 2077 the family on screen is led by Saul Bright, with Panam Palmer as a lieutenant [2077].
• Alt Cunningham: The best netrunner in Night City in the 2000s and 2010s, an ITS employee, Johnny Silverhand's girlfriend and the author of Soulkiller. Arasaka kidnapped her. Her fate is the engine of Johnny's backstory. Remember the name. You will hear it again.
• Anders Hellman: The bioengineer who directed the Relic project at Arasaka before defecting to Kang Tao. His internal report on the two Relic versions is the backstory for the 2077 plot [2077].
• Arasaka Tower: The Corporate Plaza skyscraper that is Arasaka's North American HQ. In 2077 it is the tallest building in Night City, built on the site of the earlier towers destroyed in 2023. Mikoshi's local access point, Izanagi, sits under it [2077].
• Arasaka Waterfront: A Watson port subdistrict that works as Arasaka's fenced-off supply hub. Automated robots sort shipments, and anyone who is not an Arasaka employee is unwelcome [2077].
• Artificial intelligence (AI): A machine that knows it exists, can die and wants things. That is the line the setting draws between an AI and a smart program. Everything dangerous about the Net after the DataKrash comes from the first kind. The reason the Net has a wall.

B#

• Badlands: The desert ring around Night City. The north is oil fields and extraction scars, the east is toxic wasteland, and the south is milder thanks to Biotechnica protein farms. Nomads and the Wraiths live out here [2077].
• Bartmoss, Rache: The netrunner who made the R.A.B.I.D.S. viruses that caused the DataKrash. He also invented the Demon and Bloodhound program series and spent his last years hiding in a disguised cryo-freezer with Net access [2020].
• Biochip: A chip that holds more than data. The Relic is the 2077 version: an Arasaka biochip that stores and plays back a digitized human mind [2077].
• Biotechnica: The largest biotech company in the world, built on genetic engineering. Its modified wheat is the basis of CHOOH2, and its protein farms make the southern Badlands livable [2077]. Full page: Biotechnica.
• Bioware: Enhancements built on human biology instead of metal and electronics. It improves a biological function rather than replacing the body part [2020].
• Black ICE: Lethal intrusion countermeasures inside a NET Architecture. A netrunner can also carry their own into a system on a cyberdeck. The dangerous end of ICE: it hurts the runner as well as the program.
• Black Program: A category of dangerous, illicit netrunner software. Soulkiller started life as one, written by Alt Cunningham [2020].
• Blackwall: The barrier NetWatch built to wall off the sections of the Net overrun by rogue AIs after the DataKrash. By 2077 netrunner groups want to take it down and NetWatch works overtime to stop them. See the Blackwall. Think of it as a fence, not a vault.
• Boostergang: A gang built around heavy cyberware and violence. Maelstrom is the textbook example. See Maelstrom.
• Braindance (BD): A recording of a full experience, including sensations, emotions and thoughts, that anyone with the right gear can replay. It started as a therapy tool in penal reform before it became mass entertainment. Both 2077 and Edgerunners feature it. Also the reason nobody trusts a clip.

C#

• Chipware: Bio-plastic circuitry that lets a body mesh with silicon processors. Some call it wetware. It is the base layer under most cyberware in Cyberpunk 2020 [2020].
• CHOOH2: The synthetic alcohol fuel made from Biotechnica's modified wheat. Petrochem produces it under license and it powers the mid-21st century.
• City Center: Night City's central business district and the most fortified district in 2077. It was a battlefield in the Fourth Corporate War and part of it was hit by the 2023 nuclear blast. Subdistricts: Corpo Plaza and Downtown. See Night City districts.
• Collapse, the: The slide of the United States between 1996 and 2008, set off by the Crash of '94, when millions lost savings and pensions. It is the event that makes everything after it believable [2020].
• Combat Cab: An armed, armored taxi service that drove into combat zones, with a fleet of about eighteen cabs around 2045. [RED]
• Combat Zone: An urban area the government has mostly abandoned. Police power is limited to nonexistent and gangs hold the blocks. Pacifica and Dogtown are the 2077 examples.
• Corpo (Corporate, Exec): A role: the suited insider with wealth and favors to call in. In 2020 and RED it is a playable class. The suit with a Rolodex.
• Corporate Plaza (Corpo Plaza): The skyscraper cluster rebuilt on the radioactive ground left by the 2023 blast. Its mix of neopostmodern and neomilitaristic architecture houses Arasaka Tower, Militech offices, Petrochem Tower and the Biotechnica and Kang Tao buildings [2077].
• Corporate Wars: Open conflicts between megacorps. The First Corporate War pitted Euro Business Machines against Orbital Air after a failed buyout of TWA. The Fourth, 2021 to 2025, is the one that matters for Night City.
• Crash of '94: The World Stock Crash of 1994. It followed the Gang of Four's covert 'Quiet War' against the European Economic Community and started the American Collapse [2020].
• Cyberdeck: The hardware a netrunner jacks into. A 2020 deck is about the size of a paperback with six interface ports. In 2077 it is a cyberware operating system that holds quickhacks and RAM [2020, 2077].
• Cyberoptics: Eye replacements that pair a camera with a processor. Colors get brighter, images sharper, and the options go from there. Kiroshi is the best-known maker.
• Cyberpsychosis: A dissociative disorder caused by too much cyberware, hitting people who already had violent tendencies. Max-Tac exists to deal with it. See cyberpsychosis. What every chrome lover is pretending not to worry about.
• Cyberspace: Another word for the Net. In the games it refers to the network you can enter through a neural link.
• Cyberware: Cybernetic tech grafted onto or into a body. It began as medical prosthetics and became lifestyle. See the cyberware list.

D#

• DataKrash: The collapse of the original Net, dated June 3, 2022 [RED, 2077]. Rache Bartmoss's R.A.B.I.D.S. viruses destroyed most of it and freed military AIs. Everything about Blackwall and NET Architectures follows from this event. One night. Everything after is aftermath.
• Data Term: A public computer terminal set in a concrete pillar, found across cities from the 2020s. It gives public information and a Net access port. Armored enough to survive a street fight [2020].
• Delamain: A Night City taxi service run by an AI, with armored cabs that go anywhere in the city. Delamain Corp HQ is in Vista del Rey, Heywood [2077].
• Del Coronado Bay: The bay on which Night City sits, in central California. Morro Rock stands in it.
• Demon: A netrunning program series. In 2020, a Demon bundles several programs as subroutines, up to five at once. Bartmoss invented it [2020].
• Dogtown: The walled-off Combat Zone inside Pacifica, once called Serenisands. BARGHEST rules it from the Black Sapphire. See Dogtown [2077, Phantom Liberty].
• Downtown: A City Center subdistrict, once called Little Europe in the Time of the Red. Network 54 and Night Corp both have offices here [2077].

E#

• EBM (Euro Business Machines): A Hamburg-based computer megacorp. It was one side of the First Corporate War, against Orbital Air.
• Edgerunner: A freelancer who lives on the Edge and works outside the law. Studio Trigger's anime took the word for its title.
• Engram: A digitized human consciousness, produced by Soulkiller. Also called a construct or a ghost. Whether it is the person or a copy is the fight the 2077 plot is built on. The question the whole game asks: copy or person?
• Eurodollar (ecu, eb): The currency of Europe and North America. The official name is the European Currency Unit. Everyone calls it eddies or eurobucks. Nobody says ecu.

F#

• Fixer: A well-connected fence, smuggler or information broker. They know who has what, and they hand edgerunners the work. In 2077 each fixer gives gigs in tiers that open up as you finish jobs. The person who has your number and your next job.
• Fourth Corporate War: The global conflict from 2021 to 2025 between the aquacorps CINO and OTEC, who hired Arasaka and Militech to fight for them. It ends with the Time of the Red.
• Free States: North American states that stayed autonomous from the New United States. During the Unification War, a loose alliance of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Nevada and Northern California fought the NUSA. Washington, Oregon and Idaho stayed neutral.

G#

• Gang: An organized street crew with turf. In 2077 gangs hold whole districts. See Night City gangs.
• Gig: A job given by a fixer. Each gig has a fixer attached and an associated tier [2077]. Fixers give gigs. Gigs give trouble.
• Glen, the: A Heywood subdistrict planned in the rebuild as the new seat of central government. It absorbed parts of South Night City, the University District and Little Asia. Valentinos control it in 2077.

H#

• Hanako Arasaka: Saburo's only daughter, a self-taught netrunner and head of the Kiji faction inside Arasaka [2077].
• Heywood: A central Night City district of contrasts: parks and glass towers to the north, slum blocks to the south. Valentinos and 6th Street fight over it. Subdistricts: Vista del Rey, the Glen, Wellsprings.
• Humanity: The tabletop stat that cyberware eats. Each install costs Humanity, and when you run low you are on your way to cyberpsychosis [2020, RED]. Tabletop players call it the real price tag.

I#

• ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics): Net security software that a hacker has to break through. The term comes from Gibson's novels and was kept by the games. The deadly kind is called Black ICE. Gibson's word, still earning rent.
• Izanagi: The Mikoshi access point under Arasaka Tower in Night City. An employee needs Kisen authorization and a registered session to use it. Every session is recorded [2077].

J#

• Japantown: A Westbrook subdistrict, home to the Cherry Blossom Market, hostess clubs and love hotels. Tourists by day, Tyger Claws and yakuza influence by night [2077].
• Johnny Silverhand: Born Robert John Linder, the rockerboy who fronted Samurai, a military veteran and the figure who fought the corporations and the government. In 2077 his engram rides along in V's head [2077]. The loudest voice in V's head.

K#

• Kabuki: A Watson subdistrict next to Little China. By day a market, by night a bazaar for implants, organs and steroids. Once the pride of the Japanese medical corporations, now one of the poorest areas outside Pacifica [2077].
• Kang Tao: A weapons maker founded in Taiwan, later based in China, known in 2077 for its smart guns. Anders Hellman defected to it from Arasaka [2077]. Full page: Kang Tao.
• Kendachi: A Tokyo arms manufacturer specializing in melee weapons and purpose-built chipware. It supplies 6th Street gear in 2077.
• Kerenzikov: Reflex cyberware. In 2077 it slows time while you dodge, slide or dash and shoot. Frontal cortex boost variants stack on it [2077]. The reflex implant everyone should try once.
• Kimen-Gumi: A Tyger Claws subgroup in the RED era. Shows how far back the gang's yakuza-style structure goes [RED].
• Kiroshi: A Japanese cyberware group from Nagano, widely seen as the leading expert in optics. The 2077 Kiroshi line includes Clairvoyant, Cockatrice, Doomsayer, Sentry, Stalker and Oracle models [2077].

L#

• Lawman: The cop role, from beat cops to private detectives to federal agents. Authority is the power they bring to a table [2020].
• Lifepath: The tabletop backstory-generation system. You roll or choose your way through background and history. 2077 borrows the name for V's starting choices. Where every tabletop character gets their trouble.
• Little China: A Watson subdistrict that was meant to become a second City Center in the 2040s. Now crowded with Asian immigrants, it holds the Afterlife and the old Med Center [2077].

M#

• Maelstrom: The cyberware-obsessed gang that rules Northside in Watson. See Maelstrom and the gangs page.
• Max-Tac: The Maximum Force Tactical Division, an NCPD tactical sub-group whose job is cyberpsychos. Also called the Psycho Squad. See Max-Tac.
• Media: A role: the credible journalist who people believe. The setting treats the media as corporate-owned except for the occasional maverick [2020].
• Medtech: A role: the medical specialist who treats people with a lot of chrome. The tabletop version has its own ability for medical technology.
• Megabuilding: A giant housing block. In 2077 the megabuildings carry an H-prefixed number, such as H10 in Little China, where V's apartment is [2077]. If you live in one, you know your neighbors by sound.
• Mikoshi: Arasaka's data fortress in the corporation's part of cyberspace, with servers on orbital stations. It stores the Secure Your Soul clients and Soulkiller's victims. The name is the Shinto portable shrine that carries a deity. Not a safe. A prison with a nice name.
• Militech: A Washington, D.C. weapons and military contractor and Arasaka's main rival. Backed the NUSA in the Unification War. See Militech.
• Morro Rock: An island in Del Coronado Bay off City Center, big enough for a spaceport and airport. A bridge links it to the mainland [2077].

N#

• NCPD: The Night City Police Department, the city's primary law enforcement agency. In 2077 it does not patrol Pacifica.
• NET Architecture: An air-gapped local network built after the DataKrash as a safe alternative to the Net. Each one is a physical server with layered software. You jack into an access point to hack it, usually seen through Virtuality goggles [RED].
• Netrunner: A hacker with a neural interface. See netrunner.
• Net, the: The setting's global network of hard lines, radio links and cell networks. It takes in appliances and even cyberlimbs. After the DataKrash, what remains is walled off by the Blackwall.
• NetWatch: A worldwide Net police based in London, founded in 1991. After the DataKrash it set out to contain dangerous AIs and salvage the Old NET. It built the Blackwall. Full page: NetWatch.
• Network 54 (N54): The American broadcast megacorp, founded in 1991. Its 2077 Night City office is in Downtown and it leans pro-Militech. Its rival, WNS, leans pro-Arasaka [2077].
• Neural Link: The foundational neuralware of the 2040s, installed at the base of the skull or spine. Everything neural plugs into it [RED].
• Neuralware: The class of cyberware that links machines to the central nervous system: small co-processing chips and nodes you cannot see from outside.
• Neuroport: The foundational implant that all cyberware of the 2070s needs to run. Rocklin Augmentics invented it [2077]. No plug, no chrome.
• Night City: The Free City of Night City, on the Pacific coast of California. Its slogan is 'The City of Dreams', changed from 'City on the Edge of Tomorrow'. Founded as Coronado City by Richard Night. See Night City. A city that sells itself as dreams.
• Night Corp: The corporation tied to Richard Night, founder of the city. Secretive, with its HQ downtown in 2077.
• Nomad: Fired and blackballed corporate workers turned road clans with strong family bonds. The Aldecaldos and Wraiths are two kinds. Family on wheels, with a fuel bill.
• North Oak: The newest and most exclusive Westbrook subdistrict, built on land used for refugee camps after the 2023 blast. Musicians, bankers and executives live here [2077].
• NUSA (New United States of America): The country that replaced the US after the Collapse, 51 states and some territories, under President Rosalind Myers in 2069.

O#

• Old NET: The pre-DataKrash Net. NetWatch tries to secure what it can of it [2020].
• Operating system (cyberware): In 2077, the slot for Sandevistan, Berserk and cyberdecks. See the cyberware list [2077].
• Orbital Air: The space transport megacorp, born in Nairobi, later based on Hayman Island, Australia. A practical monopoly on getting things into orbit.

P#

• Pacifica: A southern Night City district planned as a luxury resort protected by Militech security. The Unification War killed that dream. By 2077 it is a Combat Zone outside the city's administrative boundaries. Subdistricts: Coastview, West Wind Estate, Dogtown.
• Petrochem: The world's biggest producer of CHOOH2, based in Dallas. Sponsored the EBM Petrochem Stadium in Pacifica. Droughts in 2076 tanked it [2077]. Full page: Petrochem.
• Psycho Squad: An old NCPD name for Max-Tac. The Cyborg Suppression Unit is another. The nickname you use when you are scared of them.

Q#

• Quickhack: A program loaded on a cyberdeck to disable, distract or burn out a target. Each one has a duration, an upload time and a RAM cost [2077]. The reason a netrunner never needs a gun.

R#

• R.A.B.I.D.S.: The viruses Bartmoss made. They tore through the old Net and set loose the military AIs [2020].
• RAM: In 2077, the budget a cyberdeck spends on quickhacks. Frontal cortex cyberware raises it [2077].
• Red Cab: Night City's largest transport service around 2045, with ground cars and AVs you could summon by Agent or Data Term. Linked to Maelstrom in the RED era [RED].
• Relic: Arasaka's biochip for storing and playing back engrams. Version 1.0 is a commercial immortality product with a limited engram. Version 2.0 is a secret project Saburo Arasaka commissioned for internal use only, never for sale [2077]. The chip at the center of 2077, and the one to know first.
• Richard Night: The businessman who bought up land around Morro Bay in the 1990s to build his own city, Coronado City, the future Night City.
• Ripperdoc: A medical technician who installs cyberware. Some operate legally, others install military-grade chrome for the right price. See the cyberware list. The person you trust with your skull.
• Rockerboy: A rebel musician who uses music to fight authority. Johnny Silverhand is the archetype. Loud on purpose.
• Rocklin Augmentics: A cyberware firm founded in 2004 in Rocklin, California, as Rocklin Prosthetics for the Veterans Administration. It invented the neuroport.
• Rogue AIs: Military-grade AIs freed and mutated by the DataKrash. They sit beyond the Blackwall. Some Night City groups, such as the Voodoo Boys, want to contact them [2077].

S#

• Saburo Arasaka: Arasaka's patriarch, called the Emperor. A former Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service pilot. Sponsor of Mikoshi and Relic 2.0.
• Samurai: Johnny Silverhand's band, formed in the 2000s and broken up in 2008. In 2077 the music is by the real band Refused [2077]. The band Johnny made famous.
• Sandevistan: Reflex cyberware that slows time. See Sandevistan.
• Scavengers (Scavs): Gangs that kidnap people and harvest their cyberware for the black market. They will take any job, no questions asked. Full page: Scavengers.
• Screamsheet: A paper newspaper in the 21st century: flimsy, slick, with news of the past few hours. Yesterday's news, printed on paper.
• Secure Your Soul: Saburo Arasaka's program that uses a modified Soulkiller to build engrams and store them in Mikoshi. A newer version, run by Hellman, was meant to put them back into bodies.
• Seven Nations: The largest nomad groups in North America. By 2020 over 7 million nomads lived in the US, and more than half had joined one of seven nations.
• Solo: A hired gun, bodyguard or mercenary. Trained to notice traps and avoid harm. The gun for hire. Everyone wants one until the invoice arrives.
• Soulkiller: A program written by Alt Cunningham that digitizes minds into engrams. The process kills the original and leaves them catatonic. Arasaka stole it and it became an AI inside Mikoshi. Alt wrote it. Arasaka stole it. That is the plot in one line.
• SovOil: The Soviet oil company, Moscow-based, privatized in 2002 and the richest firm in the Soviet Union. Petrochem's oil rival.

T#

• Tech (Techie): A role: the underground fixer-upper who can rebuild anything. Off-the-record work is their specialty.
• Time of the Red: The period from August 2023 to the late 2040s, named for the red skies left by the Fourth Corporate War. It is where Cyberpunk RED takes its name. Where RED got its name.
• Totentanz: A bar in Northside, Watson. In 2077 Maelstrom has its HQ in the building [2077].
• Trauma Team International (TTI): A paramedical franchise that bills patients from the moment it gets the call. HQ in Seattle. See Trauma Team.
• Tyger Claws: A Japantown gang in Westbrook and Watson with about 5,500 members in 2077, run like a yakuza organization. See the gangs page. Full page: Tyger Claws.

U#

• Unification War: The 2069 to 2070 war, also called the Metal Wars, where President Myers's NUSA, backed by Militech, fought the Free States. The bloodiest battle was at Ridgecrest, South California. Night City stayed neutral, barely. The war that made Night City independent.

V#

• Virtuality: A cyberoptics add-on that overlays holographic Net imagery on your sight, as if you wore Virtuality goggles. How you see a NET Architecture. Goggles in the Net, not a game console.
• Voodoo Boys: Haitian refugees who settled in Pacifica after 2062 and began probing the Blackwall to reach rogue AIs. Very small, very dangerous in the Net. See the gangs page. Full page: Voodoo Boys.

W#

• Watson: A poor northern district with abandoned factories, battleground of Maelstrom and Tyger Claws. Subdistricts: Little China, Kabuki, Northside, Arasaka Waterfront.
• Westbrook: The wealthy eastern district of celebrities and corporate executives, with Japantown, Charter Hill and North Oak.
• Wetware: Another word for chipware. Chipware under another name.

Z#

• Zetatech: A chipware and hardware maker from Cupertino with a heavy presence in Night City. In 2077 it builds the Atlus AVs Trauma Team flies and the Sandevistan and Berserk operating systems [2077]. The smaller name behind the AVs.

Fixer's notes: easy mix-ups#

Soulkiller, Mikoshi and Relic are three different things. Soulkiller is the program that makes a mind copy. Mikoshi is where the copies are stored. Relic is the chip that reads one back.

The Old NET, the Net and a NET Architecture are three layers. The Old NET died in the DataKrash, the Net is what replaced it, and a NET Architecture is a closed local system you reach by jacking in. The Blackwall guards the first from the other two.

Time of the Red is the era. Cyberpunk RED is the tabletop game set in it. 2077 is set about three decades after the Red Decades end.