A Cyberpunk 2077 x Mass Effect Story
I do not own Cyberpunk 2077 or Mass Effect, which are owned by CDProjekt RED and Bioware respectively. The only things I claim in this fanfic are my OCs, which there will be few of, if any. Any and all criticism will be greatly appreciated.
Warnings for Blood and Gore. Fair warning, a lot of characters might be a little bit OOC, I will do my best to try and not do that too much. This will start at the ending of Cyberpunk 2077, but it will be sort of a hybrid ending, you'll see what I mean in a minute, still MAJOR SPOILERS.
Just a heads up, this first chapter will be almost entirely in the Cyberpunk setting, where the second chapter will be more of a timeline, POV mix.
Finally, this is a semi "fix it" situation where Jackie and the Edgerunners survive, as well as some other characters that will be revealed later, however the Edgerunners will not be a major part of this story, in fact they'll probably just be in the background, mentioned here and there and possibly having some short stories of their own. I'm also making Alt a bit more 'nice' per say. She's still a mostly emotionless engram, but her actions are a bit more benign. Granted, she's still eating most of the engrams in Mikoshi though that'll be explained why.
X
Prologue: Waking up a New Man
V smiled as he plugged into Mikoshi, Jackie holding him up, finally feeling like he really won for once. He walked down the path as he looked around the net, finding it surprisingly dark, minus the massive pyramid he was heading towards. When he got there, he smiled as he saw Johnny already there, waiting for him, gazing out at a massive blinding pillar of light in the distance.
Then, it all came crashing down. It was all for nothing. He was dying. His body no longer thought of him as the owner, instead preferring Johnny. When he first heard that, he wanted to scream, to yell at how unfair it was, to take his anger out on the universe around him, make it pay, and for a minute, Johnny looked at him with fear. Not like he was afraid of him, no, more like he was afraid of me becoming him.
He quickly reigned himself in, asking, begging for a happier ending for everyone involved, for his new friend, for his friends back home, but as Johnny put it best, "Here, in this city? Wrong place, wrong people." So, V made his decision, and started to walk towards the well.
Johnny put up a fight at first, like you would expect of him. But right at the end, he came clean, "V, I'm just…I'm just scared for ya…" And V smiled as he looked back, "I'm scared too Johnny. I'll see you in the Afterlife." He grinned and chuckled as he let himself disappear into cyberspace.
X
When Johnny woke up, it was to the smiling face of Jackie Welles, standing over him, "Welcome back to the world of the living V." He said, before noticing the distant look on V's face, a look he only ever saw once, "V?" He hoped, and prayed that it was him, that it was his brother in all but blood.
Johnny shook his head, "Johnny, V went with Alt." He said, sighing before groaning as Jackie unceremoniously dropped his head on the hard, cold metal.
"Fuck! V, why? After all this shit? And he just leaves?!" Jackie says and punches the wall hard. Again and again, and his knuckles start bleeding as he swears in spanish.
Johnny sighed and stood up, rubbing his head, "I'll explain when we get outside, just know that it was his choice, I promise." He said as he picked up the nearby gun, his trusty Malorian 3516.
When he stepped out, he saw Rogue and Panam, the former here to help give him some peace and to help him kill Smasher, the latter here to help V, talking as they stood over Smasher's body, "I still say we should take, like, a plate or something. The alloy alone could sell for a ridiculous amount, and even if we don't sell it, it would still make a good trophy." Panam said as she put a foot on smasher's head, which had a huge hole through the middle.
"And I still say that it's a dumb idea. It's one thing to fuck with Arasaka and kill their favorite lap dog, it's another to openly brag, because that's just asking for some pissed of corpo exec to send squads of ninjas after you." She said, before turning her head and seeing him. She was about to call out, until she noticed the way he walked, and that expression on his face.
"What?" Panam asked before turning, her face lighting up in a way that hurt Johnny to the core when he saw it, and he had to put his hands on her shoulders when she came in for a hug, and she gave him a confused, worried look, "V?"
Johnny just grimaced, and shook his head, and Panam let out a strangled sob as she realized that it was him, "I'm sorry, there were complications, and he was stubborn." he said.
Panam's shoulders were shaking, and she all but collapsed in his arms as he barely caught her, letting her cry it out as he led them all out of the tower, out to the Aldecados waiting below. Paul and Mitch gave him looks of confusion, but he waved them off as they all got in the cars, Rogue and Crispin following along in their own ride.
When they reached the camp, Panam had stopped crying, grabbed Johnny by the front of his shirt and pushed in a circle of everyone else, "Explain, right now Silverhand, no bullshit, no lies, no ego, got it?!" She said with a fist held up.
Johnny held his hands up, "No bullshit, I promise." He said, still feeling pretty numb from it all, he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, and tried not to think as even the shape felt fundamentally wrong in a way. "We got to Alt in Mikoshi and talked, apparently, the nanites had done their damage, and a lot of it. His brain was basically mush by then, my DNA almost completely overwriting his. If he stayed in this body, he would have been dead within 6 months, less than that if he took any more knocks to the head or the chip, if it didn't just outright reject him." Johnny said as everyone listened.
Mitch and Saul at that point seemed to have, while not fully accepting this, at least understood the situation, knowing more through experience about just how badly a corpo experiment could go. They liked V, thought of the Streetkid as family, but they also knew that once a corpo fucked up your life, it was practically impossible to un-fuck it. Just look at the Biotechnica deal, and how they've been stuck in one place for so long.
Rogue looked ready to leave. She had come to like V, not just as a client but as a friend, but to hear that the kid felt so hopeless that he just decided to, in her eyes, give up. She didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear that the 25 year old merc from Heywood who took Night City by storm in the span of a few weeks just gave his body away.
Jackie was more understanding. While he was sad that he lost his friend, he was happy that V was able to go out on his own terms, instead of dying at Arasaka and their Relic's hands. He knew he would need a lot of sessions and talks with Misty, but ultimately, this was V's choice, so Jackie would honor it. Didn't mean he wasn't torn up inside about it though.
Panam though, she was pissed. She couldn't believe, after all this shit, after Skorpion's death at the Kang Tao AV, after all the hell of retrieving Saul from the wraiths, the good times in the Basilisk tank, and everything in between that she went though with V, that the asshole would just up and leave like that. She couldn't take it out on Johnny, after his explanation, he made it pretty clear that he wasn't given the choice of coming back or not. But she sure as hell could be pissed at the dude she fell in love with.
Johnny kept talking, "V's currently in cyberspace, as an engram. Alt burnt Mikoshi, no idea what she did exactly, but from what it sounds like, she ate the broken engrams, the one's Arasaka tortured to insanity or a comatose state, and built another ghost town for the remaining sane ones, while layering a false prison on top to trick Arasaka. They ever try to use Soul Killer again, they'll just go straight to Alt's town, while a secondary copy with no real memories gets sent to the 'prison'."
That brought a little happiness back to the group, knowing that Arasaka basically had their scariest weapon unmade, and their other one dismantled, before Johnny spoke up, "speaking of Arasaka, some one, put on the TV. I want to see 'em squirm." He said with a viscous grin.
However, as the news reel started, it only got weirder as they saw Yorinobu himself step out, looking perfectly calm as he talked, before their confusion turned to horror once they heard that Yorinobu was no longer there. Instead, Saburo Arasaka stole his own son's body. Apparently, it was in a contract from a LONG time ago that EVERY Arasaka signed, that they were legally a part of the company, which can be taken in the most literal sense. For all intents and purposes, Saburo quite literally owned his family.
Saburo himself stated that his son was still alive, currently stepping away, in the form of an engram on Mikoshi, until they could move him to another server and make him a new body, something that everybody in the Aldecaldos camp knew would never happen, and that his violence would be quelled.
There were plenty of protests about Saburo doing this, various interviews with priests, rival companies, and other such influential figures, but Johnny tuned them all out as he heard the implications of it all. They're making more Mikoshi's, they're turning the rich, powerful, and abusive fucking immortal! And he couldn't take it, whipping out his Malorian and putting flechette after flechette through the tv as he screamed in anger, every last bit of hate and rage coming out at once as everybody around him recoiled.
When he was finally done, pulling the trigger again and again on his emptied gun uselessly, he was panting, his rage going straight back to his hate as he loaded a new magazine and holstered his weapon. You never know afterall.
He quickly turned to Saul and the Aldecaldos, "You need to get your people AWAY from Night City, as fast as you can. Please, for V." He begged, not wanting them to get caught in the crossfire.
Saul sighed and shook his head, "Even if we left now, Biotechnica would hunt us down, either take us back in chains or wipe us out, and we're far too small, even with the Basilisk, to take them on. We're here for the long haul, maybe even IN the city." He said as mutters passed through the Nomad camp.
Johnny sighed before turning back to Jackie and Rogue, "Don't suppose I could convince you two to leave, could i?" He asked, and he should have expected the shake of their heads.
"I've got too much family here to protect, Rockerboy. I'm stuck." Jackie said with a sigh, and Rogue gave a similar answer, stating that her friends that she's made into a family at the Afterlife will need all the help they can get.
Johnny looked down. He knew he would never leave, this city meant too much to him, in both good and bad ways. He stood up, shaking a little, and everyone started to disperse, and as Johnny drove back to V's apartment, he wondered what was next.
X
3 weeks later…
"Johnny, grab Jackie and Panam, I've got something important for you all." Rogue said over the phone as Johnny was scrolling through his messages. He grunted as he got up, still not fully used to the new body as he put on his old shades.
He holstered his Malorian and sent a quick text to Panam, knowing that if he worded it right, she COULDN'T shoot him down like she did his calls as he tried to apologize. After that, he sent a call to Jackie.
"Hey Johnny, what's up?" Asked Jackie when he answered. The ex-Valentino, now solo, was doing pretty good for himself, sporting a few more bits of chrome but not enough to be worried, thankfully.
"Rogue's said she's got something for us at the Afterlife, meet you there?" Johnny asked as he headed down to the garage, staring at V's car, a Quadra Turbo, before getting in his old Porsche.
Jackie nodded, "See you there." And hung up. When Johnny got to the Afterlife, he could already see Panam's truck, and figured she must already be inside, and Jackie pulled up as soon as he got parked.
After a quick greeting and a nod to Emmerick, they were let inside and saw Rogue, sitting in her booth with a distinctly corpo man next to her, as well as a third that didn't look to have spoken much, instead just looking around. Panam was standing nearby, and when she saw Johnny her expression tightened, before relaxing back out.
After another nod and sitting down, the corpo spoke first, "So, Johnny Silverhand, back in the game I see." Said the slimeball.
Johnny, the impatient man that he was, interrupted, "Just please, get to the point. What's the job?" he asked as he leaned over the table, and smiled when Claire brought him a Silverhand special, and couldn't help but cheer up a little as he felt the Tequila burn down his throat, the heat of the pepper on the rim sticking to his lips.
The man smiled, not thinking much of the interruption, and he brought out a holoprojector, which he turned on and revealed a massive space station, "This is the Crystal Palace. Are you all familiar?" He asked around, and when Panam looked confused, he explained, "It was a project by the European Space Union, started in 2000, delayed after the first Corporate War, and finished in 2007. Think of it like a city in the sky, built to cater for the top one percent. The few people that can afford getting up there in this city are either corporate execs and up, or Rockerboys as successful as Kerry Eurodyne. Anything and Everything you could want is on that station; shops, restaurants, apartments, casinos, and chief among them, corporate conference rooms and storage areas."
Johnny was starting to see where this was going, "and how do you propose we get up there? None of us have that kind of eddies, and it would look suspicious if we bummed it off Kerry. While he might do it, the last thing I want is to have it traced back to one of the few friends I've got that's still alive." He asked.
The other man spoke up then, saying a greeting in a language that was vaguely familiar as he held out his hand, "That would be my job. My name is Ade Duiker."
When Johnny shook it, he took a closer look, and was surprised as he soon realized what he saw, holding the hand up, "Holy shit, that's a skin weave. You're a Highrider." he said, looking at the man in a little bit of surprise, wondering what a Highrider was doing down groundside.
Ade smiled, "Ah, I see you're familiar with my people, Silverhand. Surprised you didn't recognize me from using the Word." He said and released Johnny's hand, "And I've got some more bioware than just a fancy skin weave."
Panam was confused at that point, "Wait wait wait, what's a 'Highrider'?" She asked as she gave the man an appraising look, noticing that while he seemed to have a build built mainly for stamina, there was definitely some modification to give enhanced strength.
"Highriders are like the Nomads of space. They live in small communities, called work groups, usually on ships where they're hired to watch, protect, and repair stations. They tend to have better stamina, a good handle on their anger, a great education, and are multilingual, and that's just the culture. They also tend to use more Bioware than Cyberware, due to needing specially made, radiation shielded cyberware for space to prevent a critical system failure, though modern cyberware should be shielded enough." Johnny said as he couldn't stop staring for a minute.
When he snapped out of it, he realized something, "So, you're our ticket up. Why? I thought your people were rather stubborn when it came to holding to their contracts." Johnny asked as he looked at the man.
Ade sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Our contract is with the European Space Council, the same Council where all but 4 members had their brains fried. Due to some netrunning of our own, we found out Arasaka did the hit, and we're looking for payback."
Johnny nodded, leaning back again. He could get payback and sticking it to a corp, it's how he died after all. He turned back to Rogue and the Corpo, and he soon saw that the man had a NightCorp logo, cleverly hidden and blending in with the black on his suit, "So, what do you want us to do once we're up there, slaughter the board of directors for Arasaka?" He asked almost eagerly.
The corpo smiled and shook his head, "As interesting as that would be to see on the news, no, but thank you for offering. What I want you to do is steal this." He said and pressed a button on the holoprojector.
The first thing Johnny noted was that it looked like a mix of a Netrunner chair, and that scav-built torture machine that V saw in a BD when he was looking for Evelyn Parker, only looking closer he realized there were fewer blades, instead they seemed to be replaced by needles and the kind of stuff you'd see on bio-sculpturs for when people want to change their face. This looked somewhat more like a 3d printer, and to top it all off, the chair was encased in a pod that seemed to close up tight.
The corpo spoke again, "What you're looking at is Arasaka's next step to immortality. Meet the Bioloom. Its purpose is to contain samples of DNA of every corporate higher up and particularly rich person, and can create new bodies or modify existing ones. Alongside the bioloom is a direct access to the net and Mikoshi-style servers, as well as a case of new, perfected relics. From what we've been able to gather, this isn't the only bioloom, in fact we don't actually know how many are currently available, but we do know that the relics have since entered mass production under the orders of Saburo Arasaka directly." He said, images cycling through.
Johnny had to take a double take at Saburo. It seems like the old man had done some bio sculpting himself, because he suddenly looked the same as when he used Soulkiller on him. "Ok, so how are we supposed to get it out of the station though? We can't exactly just lug it around."
The corpo smiled again, "Well, it just so happens that the place it's stored has a quick release from the station, in case of emergencies where it can be quickly picked up. There's either an automatic lock, connected directly to the controlling office of the station, or there's two manual unlocks, one on the inside of the room and one out in the vacuum."
Finally, Panam asked the real question, "Why do you even want this thing? Wouldn't giving it to you only further the goal of immortality to corporate owners?" She asked.
The corpo thought on his words for a moment before speaking up, "It's not actually for me. You see my boss at NightCorp is noticing a change starting, and if there can be anything to even the ground, either slow the change down or make it more manageable, it's the mercs. That's why we're stealing it, to give it to you all, so that anyone can CHOOSE to be immortal or not."
Johnny's eyes go wide at that. If this rat was being truthful, that meant people no longer had to go full 'borg just to last longer, though he didn't fully understand what the corpo meant, "What do you mean 'even the ground', because Corporations hire solos quite often."
"That may be true, but it's the fact that it's not just corporations that hire you, but EVERYONE that matters. Think about it, if solos and mercs are all killed off or go out of style, then the only ones getting anything done are the private armies and assassins, and eventually the corporations are going to notice the difference in efficiency, and start just converting people into the next Adam Smasher. Speaking of him," The corpo said and opened another file on the chip for everyone, showing images of Saburo walking with Takemura and a Johnny honestly couldn't believe his eyes for a second at what he saw.
"Why's he back in his old Alpha body?" Johnny asked, remembering that relic. This one was obviously newer, but Alphas still could barely compare to Smasher's old Samson.
"We don't know yet, but our intelligence tells us that whatever they have hiding there for Smasher should be more than enough to counter whatever we could throw in a head on assault, so it must be a real game changer." The man says gravely.
Johnny got a bad feeling just looking at Smasher again, not in the violent way, but more in the 'I should avoid that' way. "Okay, back on topic, we just sneak it, steal the loom, and what? That's our payment as well?"
The man nodded, "Nightcorp already purchased a loom, this is just to get you all informed, and equipped." he said as he collapsed the projector. "My employers recommended you have a fairly large team, otherwise, your ship leaves within the week."
Johnny looked him in the eyes, trying to judge his character as Jackie was already talking with Panam on how to get the Aldecados to help, both already on board as they realized what they could do with the bioloom. When he saw that the NightCorp employee wasn't lying, he sighed, "Well then, I have just one more question, what did you mean by 'a change is coming', because that doesn't explain a whole lot." Johnny asked.
The man from NightCorp froze, but then sighed, "We have intel that Militech found something on Mars. Whatever it is, they haven't cracked it open yet, they're still waiting for the rest of the colonists. Mixed in with the colonists will be mining equipment, biodome equipment, scientists, and lots of guards. That means whatever they've found will be big."
Jackie laughed, "Haha, w-what you're saying they've found ALIENS on MARS?" He laughed, but it died down when he noticed the man wasn't laughing, "Holy shit…" he muttered as he stared off.
"Indeed, which is why you need to be prepared. All of you." He said and looked around the bar at various other mercs, his eyes seeming to stay longer on the older mercs, all ones who've been in the game long enough to know that any big change comes with rivers of blood following it.
Johnny looked at the man for a second longer before sighing, "fine, but we also want a steady supply of biomass for this thing when we're done." He said, holding out his hand.
The corpo shook it, "That can be easily arranged. Thank you for your business, Mr. Silverhand." He said before walking off, seeming to disappear as soon as he was out of the doors.
Johnny sighed as the highrider stuck around, "So, you know any people that can help get this done?" He asked, and Johnny nodded.
"I've got two of them with me right now." Johnny said as he looked at Panam and Jackie.
While Jackie was onboard, Panam looked at him like he was crazy, "And why would I want to help?" She asked.
"What? Don't want to be there when Alt takes your boyfriend out of cyberspace?" Jackie asked before standing up, heading over to where Rogue went, Ade and Jackie following him.
Panam was stunned for a minute before chasing after him.
X
After gathering his crew which consisted of Jackie, Panam, Mitch, Saul, and a crew known as the Edgerunners, Johnny had them follow Ade as they headed to Night City's spaceport/launchpad.
The trip up was admittedly a little too bumpy for Johnny's taste, but seeing the view of the planet behind him was something he'll never forget. When he looked at the Crystal Palace though, he made some immediate plans for if shit went wrong, ranging from something minor like causing a small shootout somewhere, to infiltrating the center of the place and forcing it's generators to overload, blowing up the entire station.
The job, once they arrived, admittedly was going pretty well. Johnny, due to how noticeable he was, opted to stay on the outside as they tried to get to the automatic locks in the net, but unfortunately the dweller aws a bit too active, and Lucy and Kiwi didn't plan on getting fried today, so instead they went inside.
Johnny finally decided to go in with them, stealing some of the guard's full body hardsuits, made to quickly seal up if there was a breach, as well as a small jetpack to maneuver back into the station if they got sucked out.
As they made their way through the station, things started to go wrong at the very end when Smasher decided to check up on the cargo. While his alpha body didn't look intimidating, especially since he had very minimal amount of upgrades, surprisingly, they soon found out what leveled the playing field as he emerged from a back room in a massive combat suit, equipped with enough armor to stop tank rounds and looking scary as hell, complete with a set of horns.
Johnny recognized it though, "Shit shit shit, where the fuck did they pull a DaiOni out of." He asked. Jackie was right next to him, keeping quiet as a mouse as Panam was focused solely on the console. The outerlock was already off, they just needed to get this one and they were good to go.
Finally, they got it, but a loud alarm blared and Smasher busted through a storage container right in front of them, a massive railgun already charging, "Hey Johnny-boy." He said menacingly as they ran, the railgun going off, just barely missing as Johnny had shot it and made it veer slightly to the side. The downside, however, was that it punched clean through the station, creating a hole for air to escape, and they only just barely got out of the cargo area before it closed off and ran to the docs.
"Fucking bastard never mentioned he got access to another Tin Can." Johnny cursed out the Corpo who hired them, however Adam was in hot pursuit, rushing through and breaking the doors, though they thankfully had more blast doors to recover it as his heavy armor clunked behind them. While they did their best to dodge his firepower, it was getting harder as his momentum built, though thankfully any rounds they dodged tended to take out the security and civilians in front of them.
Finally, a massive blast door cut him off, causing him to roar and pound on it, leaving dents as they loaded up into the Highrider craft and took off, picking up the bioloom on their way out.
They all cheered, none of them having even gotten hurt as they returned to earth, setting up the bioloom in the afterlife. After finding some clothes with old blood on them, they entered V's DNA and got into contact with Alt, who turns out hadn't eaten him, they waited while he printed.
X
The first thing V noticed, as he woke up was just how bright everything was. In cyberspace, almost everything except the running lines of code was dark as the Blackwall did its job pretty well, but he didn't truly notice where he was until he took his first breath, and felt like he wanted to cry in happiness.
His body was almost exactly like how he remembered it, minus a few pieces of cyberware, though he still had his mantis blades and sandevistan. He started to sit up, the pod around him sliding open, and he saw a sleeping Panam, with her head on the table, and he smiled as he slowly climbed out, thankfully finding some clothes nearby.
He was stretching when she woke up, and she seemed to get lost in thought as she stared at him, his back still turned before she called his name, "V?" she asked, breathlessly.
He stiffened for a moment before turning back, that same dumb grin from when she first met him on his face, "Hey Panam, how've you been?" He asked softly as he walked over.
She didn't even wait to slug him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him before hugging him, "You absolute asshole! Never do that again!" she said and hugged him tighter, never wanting to let him go.
She cried into his shoulder as he held on tight, meanwhile her commotion caused Jackie and Johnny to bust in, before seeing the situation and slowly backing out, letting the couple have their moment.
When V and her were finally done after lots of crying on Panam's part, V explained what it was like in cyberspace to the rest of the crew, who all gave them respective hugs, pats on the back, nods, and in the case of mama welles, because despite her dislike for mercs and the Afterlife she was not going to miss out on the day V woke back up in the waking world, a massive meal and lots of booze from the Coyote.
Then, V suddenly remembered something, "You said this has the DNA of ALL high up corpos?" he asked and put his hand on the machine, getting nods from everyone around.
"Good, because we need to get Yorinobu out of there as well." He said.
"Not that we don't trust you V, but why should we get that gonk out?" Johnny asked. He respected Yori back in the 2020s, fighting against his father, but that respect went down the drain when he went crawling back to the old man, and only recently had he realized Yori was trying to break Arasaka from the inside.
"Because, he'll be useful, he still remembers all of the passwords and what not as well as the weaknesses in Arasaka's tech." V said and started booting up the bioloom.
"Not to mention, he's a hell of a fighter, and we did fuck up his plan to take Arasaka down, so I think we owe it to him." V said, getting nods in response.
With that settled, they set the machine to print Yorinobu out, and Viktor was thankful Yori didn't have any cyberware past a basic chip slot, eyes, and a fairly average kerenzikov.
With that handled, they went about the rest of their day, talking stories and reacquainting V with Night City and the real world, and when they flicked on the news, it turns out that some Media decided to go ahead and show everyone was Militech was hiding, "I'm reporting live here, inside a secret Militech base that I almost got shot to enter, and it says here that they've found evidence of ancient aliens called Protheans that have an outpost here."
X
2077: A new space race is started as Militech's 'Prothean Secret' is revealed, and all Corporations and governments threaten to go to war over who gets it if they don't give it to everyone. Unknown to them, the incident was manipulated by Night Corp.
2079: The governments come together in secret to try and overthrow the corporations and take total control. Unknown to them, the representative sent from Japan was a sleeper agent of Arasaka, allowing the corporations to take the first strike, killing 50% of the leaders, most of which were from europe, and initiating the Corpo-Government War.
2080: Mercs worldwide stated they would be non-participating with the few exceptions being Morgan Blackhand fighting for Militech, Adam Smasher fighting for Arasaka, and Shaitan who's plan is just to rip apart Araska when they're distracted with no real goal in mind other than to make them bleed. This causes many in the corporate world to hate mercs.
2083: The end of the Corpo-Government war arrives, with the corporations having won, disabling all nuclear weapons caches and claiming them for themselves, as well as installing one large, overarching government for all of humanity made up of a "Upper Council" of the CEO's of the top ten megacorporations in the world, Militech, Arasaka, Kang Tao, Orbital Air, SovOil, PetroChem, Biotechnica, IEC, Zetatech, and EBM with an unspoken 'eleventh seat' for Netwatch, though they remain separate for the most part as they are almost entirely dedicated to protecting humanity from their own AIs. The Upper Council all splits the lands across the world, meanwhile the Lower Council is made up of any other business big enough to be considered a corporation, such as Malorian Arms and other small groups. The Upper Council makes most world wide decisions regarding laws, economy, and the like but the Lower Council can outvote their decision if they get a 70% majority.
2085: Because of public mistrust and hate towards the new government, with new protests and riots popping up every day, the Corporations buckle down on good public relations, cleaning up nuclear hazard zones and cleaning up the larger cities of crime as MaxTac expands, and Night City Police have taken over the rest of the world's police departments. These actions allowed resettlement of Busan after the AIs that had gone rogue in the automation facilities had been swept out, as well as removing most of the bans on animals as they were cloned back into existence with alterations so that they couldn't transmit past diseases. Quietly, behind doors, the upper council threatened the various Agricorps of the lower council to cease all biological warfare or else.
2086: The Corporations give an ultimatum to the solos, either they become permanent parts of one, or they will be branded as criminals. This action leads all of the solos, minus Adam Smasher and Morgan Blackhand, to leave their respective contracts, deciding to meet in the Afterlife. When they supposedly arrive, the Afterlife is bombed by the corporations, and they start hunting the survivors, with the last one being the reborn Legend of Nightcity himself, V, who made a last stand before detonating a nuke in the heart of Night City, disappearing in the blast. Unknown to the corporations, who thought they'd won, the Solos had scattered and fled to safe houses to lie low, Alt Cunningham having warned them of this beforehand.
2087: The Space Race is still going strong, with the first element zero drives being made and the first, long-range starships being produced as well at the Crystal Palace. At the same time, not wanting to be entirely dependent on Element Zero, the various corporations start branching off and trying to create their own means of true FTL, while also keeping some Element Zero technology.
In the same year, probes around the solar system discovered what was identified as a 'mass relay' inside of Charon, Pluto's ice moon. This causes the need for alternate FTL means to skyrocket among the corporations as they work on how to activate the recently dubbed 'Charon Relay'.
2088: The Gagarin Station, owned by Orbital Air, named after the first man to reach space, finishes construction, housing large quantities of experiments and secret military projects, though the space is constantly competed over by the major contractors.
Also, in a surprising move, Militech is the first of the major military powers to make an alternate FTL drive. After teaming up with IEC, they were the first to make an efficient particle accelerator based antimatter generator, allowing them to use traditional propulsion to achieve FTL when combined with the ability to dampen the inertia for the crew with element zero, letting them have a respectable speed of around 25 light years a day.
Not far behind, Arasaka comes up with a much more elegant way of travel, shifting into a higher plane, though Militech forever laughs when someone mentions it, talking about one of their old sci fi series and "how the Japanese found hyperspace." While many acknowledged that it was an insult, some were mad that the Americans were basically saying they copied their ideas, while others were mad that their 'hyperspace' could barely hit 45 light years a day, meaning it was far weaker than what they were implying.
Finally, Kang Tao was the third, with all future fleets being made with one of the three systems. The Kang Tao's FTL system, true to their business style, is a mix of stolen Militech and Arasaka plans, using the brute force energy production of Militech and the extra-dimensional theories of Arasaka, they developed another thing that the Americans sometimes teased them about, a Slip Space drive, with their top speed being 37 light years a day.
While the three methods are used extensively, the Arasaka FTL systems require many outposts for refueling their reserves, which is consumed very quickly, not to mention a lengthy docking, refueling, and undocking procedure that, if done incorrectly, could destroy the whole station. The cons of the Militech based ones are that the reactors also take up a sizable space, though they don't need to refuel as often, and can travel longer distances with less stops. Finally, the cons of the Kang Tao engines are that they require more frequent refueling than the Militech but less than the Arasaka, and they can't go as long as the Militech but they can go longer than Arasaka.
2090: In an effort to leave behind the masses of Earth and the 'filth' filling the slums of big cities, more and more corporations start becoming entirely space-based with facilities, however the masses, unwilling to be left behind, turn to gangs, Raffen Shiv, Nomads, and various smaller groups, so as more colonies are being settled as the big Corporations send their relatively small fleet out through almost every Mass Relay they find, gangs build their own small fleets, starting with repurposed shuttles and scrapped fighters.
2100: Gangs have finally gone interstellar as they scatter to the new settlements. After further research and another Prothean ruin, Humanity discovers kinetic barriers, along with their weaknesses to Tech and Electricity based weapons and ammunition, with Tech weapons possessing enough power to punch clean through, and Electricity ammunition frying the barrier faster than conventional weapons. While Humanity has also found the tech for Mass Accelerator weapons, they are mostly used in mounted turrets and the like as new advances in propellants allows highly modular ballistic, tech, and smart weapons to beat them 6/10 times.
2105: As humanity has spread out far enough, the mercs, in hiding, have commandeered a blacksite of their own, and with the help of Alt Cunningham, have allied with massive amounts of Rogue AIs, building servers for them and in return the Rogue AIs keep them almost entirely hidden, turning any starship that gets to close to the blacksite into scrap as they either make them self destruct, or rip itself apart with the element zero core. This causes the creation of the infamous 'Relay 77 Graveyard' and, utilizing all the scrap from high end explorer, stealth, and combat vessels, a space port and traveling base is created, reaching nearly 7 kilometers in length, with 2 kilometers of that being the railgun in the front.
The new, merc created super-carrier dreadnought hybrid is named The Afterlife's Fury, and is the only one of its class at the time, and the only one for centuries to come that's outfitted with working stealth tech, reverse engineered from ships with the help of countless AI and scientists. With this ship and hidden port, reminiscent of the pirate ports of old, the mercs have created a new base and start putting out feelers, letting the galaxy know they're still alive.
Naturally, NetWatch and the Voodoo Boys tries to hunt them down, the former to eliminate the AIs and the latter to join, only the Voodoo Boys actually find them, and as such almost 30% of their forces disappear as they reinforce the current netrunners and AI that defend New Afterlife.
2115: Humanity's population count has finally reached into the 10 billions, and the number of colonies has reached into the 30s as exploration booms. Territory is owned by the Upper Council, however the Lower Council will own certain worlds in Upper Council territory. Arcturus Station has also been finished, and both councils are moved to the massive structure, which looks similar to an upscaled crystal palace, with the central pillar being 30 kilometers long, and instead of two rings it comes equipped with 10, all with a radius of 9 kilometers. Built around arcturus are multiple ship yards, all connected to the ring station via structures similar to planet size space elevators.
2124: Panam and V get married, along with Jackie Welles and his girlfriend Misty, with the entire living Welles family in attendance as he had managed to smuggle them off Earth, though the Valentinos attending both events nearly got everyone caught. Interstellar gangs have started to set up more bases on planets, and in particular asteroid stations.
2144: Humanities population has reached 15 billion, with their colony count equalling 54, as their FTL methods had allowed them to spread farther than the Relay Network, though there were still some locations that would take years to make it too. There has been little progress with Direct Energy weapons, however there has been some progress with the concept of a Magnetohydrodynamic weapon.
2150: An Element Zero freighter crashes and spreads the substance over an entire city on Earth. In the follow three years, it is only with the help of several medical corporations and hidden help in the background from mercs that even half of the cities population is saved, as the implants that all humans carry cause eezo to concentrate and 'stick' to the most heavily chromed areas, causing lethal amounts of radiation to linger without fulling removing and replacing the implant.
2154: The Colony of Shanxi is established and becomes one of humanity's farthest outposts into the stars that's still connected to the Relay System. The city on the planet itself received a massive amount of people, trying to escape corporations, yet they all ended up in a city reminiscent of Night City on Earth, as most cities tend to be on planets in human space. This has allowed a lot of farmland and, because it's so new, none of the larger gangs have moved in yet.
2157: First Contact.