Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost in the Shell, manga, anime, or films; they are the sole property of Masamune Shirow, Funimation, Paramount pictures, Kodansha manga, and Netflix. I also don't own Cyberpunk 2077; it is the sole property of CD Projekt Red, CD Projekt, Playstation/Xbox, R. Talsorian Games, Cyberpunk roleplay series and its creator, Mike Pondsmith, and the anime owned by TRIGGER and Netflix. Original characters are of my own design. This fanfic is a dual project done with Twilightnite13, and is rated M for language, nudity, violence, and future lemons to come.

Enjoy

In the future, the line between human and machine is disappearing.

Advancements in the technology allow humans to enhance themselves with cybernetic parts.

Asaka-Tech robotics, funded by the government, is developing a military operative that will blur the line even further. By transplanting a human brain into a fully synthetic body, they will combine the strongest attributes of human and robot.

It is known as Project 2571.

Ever since the first computers, there have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code?

Or is it something more?

When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth?

When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?

And when those born of flesh are remade in metal, do we lose our humanity forever… or is it just deep within the shell where our Ghost… our soul… hides within the shell?

After the last two World Wars, the world was put to heal and adapt itself.

Despite the world healing and advancing its major cities in what was known as Upper Levels, millions of people crowded in megablock colonies, where roving bands of street gangs and savages created violence, crime, and chaos, as the old justice system couldn't control it and with it, law collapsed.

Due to the severity of the new world, humanity had to change as a result. With the advancement of technology as it was able to be saved, humans began to augment themselves with cybernetic improvements that could improve or enhance traits like vision, strength, speed, make them be able to survive any environment. This also came to be as a form of evolutionary lifestyle as well as a way of life that was called by those who could afford it, Cyberization.

Not just cybernetic enhancements were being advanced, so were Artificial Intelligence and the Net itself to connect a splintered world. A new type of A.I. was made in the form of Androids, designed to be faster, stronger, more efficient, and smarter, and yet were made into a disposable slave work force.

Because of this, now the line between Machine and Man was blurred, and would soon to disappear.

But when new technology arose, so did new conspiracy and new chaos.

Gangs began to cyberize themselves to make themselves more unstoppable forces to deal with.

The Anti-Cyber Police force which were in charge of policing, monitoring, and controlling rogue cybers. But also a new elite and freelance force. A force with the power to dispense both justice and punishment… for the right price. They were called Edgerunners

And now the Corporations, have pushed further into their research to create a new kind of cyborg. A new lifeform by transplanting a human brain into a fully synthetic body. This would combine the strongest attributes of both human and robot.

But would this new cyborg be considered human anymore? Or would it be more machine? Where does the line start or end when we've advanced so far, that we question if we're even really human or alive anymore?

Ghost in the Cyberpunk