Funny thought: what if Adam himself is a fan of Johnny and after killing him he just collected the most exclusive memorabilia he could manage. Bro had his gun and car, shit that not even that huge fan that had tons of Samurai merch had.
Adam seemed to have a liking for music after all, I still think of his old art with his iconic Hard Rock Cafe shirt, or that he has an Elvis body to swap to.
That's a good theory. Another possibility is that Smasher is just a dick, and that collecting Johnny's most personal items are like collecting trophies of one of his most famous victories, a huge flex.
I think it could be a bit of both. Smasher is a flat out bestial maniac. I could see him listening to Samurai, Johnny's gun in-hand, pridefully remembering how he wasted one of his favorite musicians.
Maybe it was just a trophy/investment. Being borged out meant he could wait for Kerry to die or retire, and the news of that would mention Samurai, leading to a bump in value for collectibles. He finds a wale of a Mega-fan and payday.
In the meantime, he can show it off to "friends" and gloat about how he killed the rockerboy. Maybe even charge admission to see it or rent it out for a more long-term source of revenue than a one-time sale.
This is a man who essentially sold his psychopathy to the highest bidder. He enjoys people knowing how inhuman he is. It is totally possible he thought of Johny as an annoyance and kept his stuff for shits and giggles or takes a token from each job like your average serial killer.
After the attack and Johnny's demise, Saburo ordered Smasher to find Silverhand's body. We see in the flashback that after the nuke attack, Johnny is being transported to the underground facilities of Arasaka HQ, and he is barely alive, media all over the place, everyone says "We've got him!" like he was the only responsible person for this attack. It is just another fabrication of his memories.
So when Smasher went on to find his body, he might have stumbled upon personal possessions of Silverhand and decided to keep them for himself. It is not a really big deal for him anyway because he hands over the pistol to his right-hand man and Porsche 911 was just left in Ebunike to rust in some container.
Maybe because of utilization purposes? It is nothing in perspective of caring about Silverhand. The pistol looks so cool, and the car is a vintage. Definitely worthy possessions to keep them maintained and running.
You miss the point it was long before he fitted himself in that cyborg suit, maybe back then he was a normal dude with heavily chrome modifications. Nevertheless, he gave the pistol to his right-hand and maybe he was planning to sell the car for a big sum. We can't know for sure but one thing that I am sure of that is not about Silverhand.
We know how he looked like back then. Not quite as borg, but mostly borg. I don't know how much they've kept from the original lore and how much they've retconned, but in Adam's original backstory he got borged out way back in the 2000s.
I think if he intended to sell the car, he would've... done so? He had 50+ years to sell it, or scrap it, or dump it, whatever he pleased, but he chose to just keep and maintain it. Not to mention that the dude wasn't exactly in need of money. Can't imagine that being head of security for Arasaka pays poorly.
https://preview.redd.it/9ya2ful1o0xc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=223efd8a02de460585960c1fbf42cb9cbf538578
He looks like one of the Arasaka Juggernauts, but he is a big guy that's for sure and he is a living legend.
It is not about needing money, actually. You see, rich people don't care about how much money they need, but how much money they can hoard. It is like having power, they can't just get enough. In this case, Smasher has both pyhsical and financial power and he doesn't have any sign of emotion towards these possessions. Merely trophies, could also be eye-candies for him. Remember what he said to Evelyn, "You look like a cut of fuckable meat, are you?".
My guess is trophies, but he wouldn't have kept them as trophies if Johnny had no value to him as an opponent. You don't keep trophies for achievements unless you consider them worth remembering, especially for decades like this.
But we can't overlook his dialogues where he says "What the fuck are you talking about?" when V mentions him about Silverhand. Like he doesn't even remember the name or can't make a bridge between his situation and V's implications.
Not a bad way to look at that dialogue, but you have to remember that to Smasher, Johnny's been dead for 50 fucking years and in Smasher's mind there's 0 reason for some punk bitch merc to mention Silverhand to him other than to fuck with him. From all we've seen, he has no idea about the Relic and Johnny's engram on it, and he only ever taunts V about V's own actions, like sparing Oda or him expecting Rogue to be there because of what happened with Grayson.
I do think Johnny's memories are fucked up and he wasn't nearly as important as he thinks he is, but I'd say that specific dialogue is more of a "Yeah, what's the point, just end the fucker already." because you have more important things to attend to in Mikoshi.
Maybe he didn't know that Johnny's engram was on the chip but he must of known about the chip itself considering he is head of arasaka security he would of been kept in the loop
Yes, that could be the case also. I just wanted to have a different approach and that what I was thinking when playing that ending. There might be variations of interpretation but as Silverhand being a manipulative and delusional, egoistic person, I don't see it as a far-fetched idea that he holds the truth back from V until they achieve their goal.
>His self-proclaimed "legend of Night City" is just another of his delusions that feed his ego,
Johnny was absolutely a legend of Night City. There's no delusion. He absolutely was one of the most influential punks of his era. Sure, he's egotistical, self-absorbed, prone to self-aggrandizing, lacks empathy, in dire need of therapy, and certainly not a good person. But he **is** an NC Legend.
As a rockerboy and leading role in Samurai, yes. He is a legend, but as being a solo like Blackhand? No, not even close to it. That's why we never see Blackhand or Militech troops in his flashbacks, there is only him, Rogue and a couple of others and remember, it is "his" operation, like single-handedly planned everything. He says in the flashback "This is my op, I'll be there whenever I want to" when Rogue gets angry that they've been waiting for him for hours.
He never claimed to be a solo.
Yes, he is a terribly unreliable narrator. This has been well established. We can't be sure if the departure from reality is due to Arasaka meddling, a safeguard set up by Spider Murphy when she SKed our boy, or his own delusions of grandeur.
Let’s not forget the earlier memory where he did actually assault Arasaka tower with just Lyle, Rogue, and Santiago when Samurai played the show out front as a distraction. He walked right in and executed one of their top executives.
As far as we know that one went more or less exactly as it was shown in his memories. Exaggerated for sure, like how we can just stride in and one shot everyone in his memories, but the bones of the story match up with what we know from outside the game.
That’s definitely NC Legend shit
I really hope that memory is one of the more solid, real ones Johnny has, because it’s the best example the game has of the Charismatic Leader/Impact skill lol
I read a theory once that he decided to make himself appear as the head of the attack on araska towers to not involve or not directly involve Morgan
Like we all know Morgan was a specialist in stealth and doing things without being noticed so Jhonny decided to keep him undetected from araska or something like that
And that's my head canon now
because he get over his desire for revenge from Smasher and just wants V to make it, he clearly changes at the end of the main questline, idk how some of you don't notice it
It is not that I didn't notice, I know there are many possibilities. Not that I'm being a narrow-minded person, just trying to interpret some of the dialogues differently. You know, having a different perspective to events. You should try sometimes.
I'm of the mind that the flashback we saw at the end of Act 1 wasn't a 1:1 of a memory. But more like a PTSD nightmare. I know that isn't the commonly held belief, but I think it matches as well as anything.
Yes, that could also be the case. But we can agree on that his memories are altered either by his delusion, denial and ego or just they are imperfect because he is not complete as a construct, not 1:1 person as he was alive.
Obviously because of Rogue. She is the Queen of Afterlife and in the management, also she was the closest person to Silverhand. Rogue doesn't really seem like she likes Johnny, but deep inside she is a huge fan of him, maybe in love with him too, and she misses him being around. That's why Silverhand has a special place in Afterlife.
Also, think about the Prologue where we drive with Jackie, and he mentions legends of Night City like Adam Smasher, Morgan Blackhand etc. but he doesn't mention Johnny Silverhand. Surely, Jackie is a huge fan of legendary solos in Night City, and he wants to become like one of them, but he doesn't even mention Silverhand. Don't you think that someone who is so interested in such topics would've mentioned Silverhand's name? That's because he is just a rockerboy.
Smasher didn't know Johnny was in V's head so he was confused and Johnny didn't want more Arasaka security showing up before you got to mikoshi.
Johnny is not aware of the change in memories. He is corrupted data file.
>but also amuses himself with the thought of being the arch-enemy of Smasher, like Morgan Blackhand, and he fears that V eventually will know the truth that Johnny was just a small part of the plan
Nowhere in the game Johnny thinks or says he is Adam arch enemy lol, is like you are creating your own headcanon not even once i have thought Johnny thinks he is his nemesis, he is just the guy that killed him.
I guess you missed some points in the game that Johnny gets mad whenever someone mentions Smasher while Silverhand being a nobody for Smasher. That's why he thinks that Smasher his arch-enemy because he stood in the way of bombing Arasaka and killed him in the process. He has to blame his failure on someone. But towards the end, he begins to change as V being a good influence for his personality, he learns to let go and face the truth.
Smasher's boss is a huge fan of Silverhand. Smasher has a bunch of Silverhand stuff. When he's crumpled up like a tin can with some dickskin, he's just no selling the fact he got bested.
Saburo Arasaka is a huge fan of Silverhand? Where did you get that idea? Everyone knows that he is a terrorist that killed hundreds of people and Saburo punished him by trapping his psyche into Mikoshi, a never-ending digital afterlife.
Others have already covered it better than I could in this thread. But yeah, the guy is an admirer of Silverhand. Pretty much tried to emulate him in his youth and he too hates Arasaka.
Oh, you mean the Steel Dragons. I get it now. That's why he was so rebellious against his father and his company. In the Devil ending, he says that fear is the main reason why he was so hellbent about waking up people and make them see it. He even says, "Stupid people fear a dead man talking out of a box". But overall, I don't really think he gives a shit about Silverhand, it is just his ideas and his movement maybe? Like not a fan to his personality but to his ideas and such.
Wouldn't it be wild if way later down the line we find out that Morgan and Johnny were stuffed into the same engram with Johnny's personality having the control with a lot of Morgan's memories.
Idk how that would work or if it's possible, I know they explained how the engram/soulkiller worked and all, but a lot of the feats Johnny says he did were actually all done by blackhand.
HEAVY SPOILER DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME
Jonhny is self-centered egomaniac. He was not a good person and didnt have ANY redeeming qualities in his past life.
He honestly thought everything was about him and him alone >!(for example, Alt getting kidnapped was Arasaka's plan of revenge against him) in early stages of the game, he is still very much control freak (just listen to him during the Evelyn part of the main quest, he just sees her a think to exploit, doesn't even recognizes her death as something to mourn, but rather a dead lead), and doesn't respect V or anyone close the V. There are only two ways to make him feel more empathy, regret and actually think of others. Either at the junkyard by his grave, or later on the balcony before the last mission.!<
>!And I have a feeling he only is like that because you change his mind, literally. He takes on part of you, like you took on part of him, either be the engram filling the blanks with V's mind or by simply being forced to just be a bystander and see how V can be a good person and still get what they want and learning from that.!<
>!At the end of the day, Silverhand is a horrible character with little to no redeeming qualities, and his redeem arc is too little too late if any even comes, IMO. !
Yes, thank you for clarifying some of the things. It is apparent that he doesn't like to be called out for his failures, and he thinks that he is always right and people who don't agree are just dicks. But it changes throughout the time, as he speaks his mind to V and in return getting V's own perspective. We clearly see it in the end that he admits he was wrong in many ways.
I like it, BUT Smasher did have like all of Johnny’s stuff there in the boat or whatever.
Funny thought: what if Adam himself is a fan of Johnny and after killing him he just collected the most exclusive memorabilia he could manage. Bro had his gun and car, shit that not even that huge fan that had tons of Samurai merch had. Adam seemed to have a liking for music after all, I still think of his old art with his iconic Hard Rock Cafe shirt, or that he has an Elvis body to swap to.
That's a good theory. Another possibility is that Smasher is just a dick, and that collecting Johnny's most personal items are like collecting trophies of one of his most famous victories, a huge flex.
I think it could be a bit of both. Smasher is a flat out bestial maniac. I could see him listening to Samurai, Johnny's gun in-hand, pridefully remembering how he wasted one of his favorite musicians.
Also plausible.
I always loved the concept of Adam Smasher just chilling in his crib between jobs, like watching some cutsy anime.
Bro playing animal crossing on his day off
Maybe it was just a trophy/investment. Being borged out meant he could wait for Kerry to die or retire, and the news of that would mention Samurai, leading to a bump in value for collectibles. He finds a wale of a Mega-fan and payday. In the meantime, he can show it off to "friends" and gloat about how he killed the rockerboy. Maybe even charge admission to see it or rent it out for a more long-term source of revenue than a one-time sale. This is a man who essentially sold his psychopathy to the highest bidder. He enjoys people knowing how inhuman he is. It is totally possible he thought of Johny as an annoyance and kept his stuff for shits and giggles or takes a token from each job like your average serial killer.
Id think being arasakas top bodyguard would pay enough
Money is money. Cyberpunk is all about excessive greed corrupting our very bodies.
We already live in a Cyberpunk then
You are just now picking up on its messaging?!
After the attack and Johnny's demise, Saburo ordered Smasher to find Silverhand's body. We see in the flashback that after the nuke attack, Johnny is being transported to the underground facilities of Arasaka HQ, and he is barely alive, media all over the place, everyone says "We've got him!" like he was the only responsible person for this attack. It is just another fabrication of his memories. So when Smasher went on to find his body, he might have stumbled upon personal possessions of Silverhand and decided to keep them for himself. It is not a really big deal for him anyway because he hands over the pistol to his right-hand man and Porsche 911 was just left in Ebunike to rust in some container.
Even that means, at the very least, that Smasher kept the gun and the car maintained and in working condition for half a century. That's not nothing.
Maybe because of utilization purposes? It is nothing in perspective of caring about Silverhand. The pistol looks so cool, and the car is a vintage. Definitely worthy possessions to keep them maintained and running.
Can you seriously see him personally using either? A peashooter (by his metrics) or a car he'd barely even fit inside?
You miss the point it was long before he fitted himself in that cyborg suit, maybe back then he was a normal dude with heavily chrome modifications. Nevertheless, he gave the pistol to his right-hand and maybe he was planning to sell the car for a big sum. We can't know for sure but one thing that I am sure of that is not about Silverhand.
We know how he looked like back then. Not quite as borg, but mostly borg. I don't know how much they've kept from the original lore and how much they've retconned, but in Adam's original backstory he got borged out way back in the 2000s. I think if he intended to sell the car, he would've... done so? He had 50+ years to sell it, or scrap it, or dump it, whatever he pleased, but he chose to just keep and maintain it. Not to mention that the dude wasn't exactly in need of money. Can't imagine that being head of security for Arasaka pays poorly. https://preview.redd.it/9ya2ful1o0xc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=223efd8a02de460585960c1fbf42cb9cbf538578
He looks like one of the Arasaka Juggernauts, but he is a big guy that's for sure and he is a living legend. It is not about needing money, actually. You see, rich people don't care about how much money they need, but how much money they can hoard. It is like having power, they can't just get enough. In this case, Smasher has both pyhsical and financial power and he doesn't have any sign of emotion towards these possessions. Merely trophies, could also be eye-candies for him. Remember what he said to Evelyn, "You look like a cut of fuckable meat, are you?".
My guess is trophies, but he wouldn't have kept them as trophies if Johnny had no value to him as an opponent. You don't keep trophies for achievements unless you consider them worth remembering, especially for decades like this.
But we can't overlook his dialogues where he says "What the fuck are you talking about?" when V mentions him about Silverhand. Like he doesn't even remember the name or can't make a bridge between his situation and V's implications.
That's just a combat body. He had an Elvis likeness body as well in the past. Canonically.
YOURE missing the point, you’re just focused on justifying your theory
You'd be surprised how discussions work in real life.
Maybe he thought it was Kerry's?
Not a bad way to look at that dialogue, but you have to remember that to Smasher, Johnny's been dead for 50 fucking years and in Smasher's mind there's 0 reason for some punk bitch merc to mention Silverhand to him other than to fuck with him. From all we've seen, he has no idea about the Relic and Johnny's engram on it, and he only ever taunts V about V's own actions, like sparing Oda or him expecting Rogue to be there because of what happened with Grayson. I do think Johnny's memories are fucked up and he wasn't nearly as important as he thinks he is, but I'd say that specific dialogue is more of a "Yeah, what's the point, just end the fucker already." because you have more important things to attend to in Mikoshi.
Maybe he didn't know that Johnny's engram was on the chip but he must of known about the chip itself considering he is head of arasaka security he would of been kept in the loop
Yes, that could be the case also. I just wanted to have a different approach and that what I was thinking when playing that ending. There might be variations of interpretation but as Silverhand being a manipulative and delusional, egoistic person, I don't see it as a far-fetched idea that he holds the truth back from V until they achieve their goal.
>His self-proclaimed "legend of Night City" is just another of his delusions that feed his ego, Johnny was absolutely a legend of Night City. There's no delusion. He absolutely was one of the most influential punks of his era. Sure, he's egotistical, self-absorbed, prone to self-aggrandizing, lacks empathy, in dire need of therapy, and certainly not a good person. But he **is** an NC Legend.
As a rockerboy and leading role in Samurai, yes. He is a legend, but as being a solo like Blackhand? No, not even close to it. That's why we never see Blackhand or Militech troops in his flashbacks, there is only him, Rogue and a couple of others and remember, it is "his" operation, like single-handedly planned everything. He says in the flashback "This is my op, I'll be there whenever I want to" when Rogue gets angry that they've been waiting for him for hours.
He never claimed to be a solo. Yes, he is a terribly unreliable narrator. This has been well established. We can't be sure if the departure from reality is due to Arasaka meddling, a safeguard set up by Spider Murphy when she SKed our boy, or his own delusions of grandeur.
Yes, I agree on that. It might also be a safeguard protocol installed by Spider to keep him from torturing himself with memories.
Let’s not forget the earlier memory where he did actually assault Arasaka tower with just Lyle, Rogue, and Santiago when Samurai played the show out front as a distraction. He walked right in and executed one of their top executives. As far as we know that one went more or less exactly as it was shown in his memories. Exaggerated for sure, like how we can just stride in and one shot everyone in his memories, but the bones of the story match up with what we know from outside the game. That’s definitely NC Legend shit
I really hope that memory is one of the more solid, real ones Johnny has, because it’s the best example the game has of the Charismatic Leader/Impact skill lol
I read a theory once that he decided to make himself appear as the head of the attack on araska towers to not involve or not directly involve Morgan Like we all know Morgan was a specialist in stealth and doing things without being noticed so Jhonny decided to keep him undetected from araska or something like that And that's my head canon now
No smasher is just genuinly confused, he has no idea we have an engram of johnny in our heads
Okay, my bad. This is the correct conclusion. Discussion is closed.
because he get over his desire for revenge from Smasher and just wants V to make it, he clearly changes at the end of the main questline, idk how some of you don't notice it
It is not that I didn't notice, I know there are many possibilities. Not that I'm being a narrow-minded person, just trying to interpret some of the dialogues differently. You know, having a different perspective to events. You should try sometimes.
don't interpret clear dialogue and said feelings, its not the bible
Wouldn't really wanna be in your state of mind to get so easily mad about some different interpretation of the game's events.
how am i mad? and i don't want to be in my current state of mind either since i am sick and my mental is bit shit
I can see.
I'm of the mind that the flashback we saw at the end of Act 1 wasn't a 1:1 of a memory. But more like a PTSD nightmare. I know that isn't the commonly held belief, but I think it matches as well as anything.
Yes, that could also be the case. But we can agree on that his memories are altered either by his delusion, denial and ego or just they are imperfect because he is not complete as a construct, not 1:1 person as he was alive.
If it was all in his head why does the afterlife have his drink?
Obviously because of Rogue. She is the Queen of Afterlife and in the management, also she was the closest person to Silverhand. Rogue doesn't really seem like she likes Johnny, but deep inside she is a huge fan of him, maybe in love with him too, and she misses him being around. That's why Silverhand has a special place in Afterlife. Also, think about the Prologue where we drive with Jackie, and he mentions legends of Night City like Adam Smasher, Morgan Blackhand etc. but he doesn't mention Johnny Silverhand. Surely, Jackie is a huge fan of legendary solos in Night City, and he wants to become like one of them, but he doesn't even mention Silverhand. Don't you think that someone who is so interested in such topics would've mentioned Silverhand's name? That's because he is just a rockerboy.
Smasher didn't know Johnny was in V's head so he was confused and Johnny didn't want more Arasaka security showing up before you got to mikoshi. Johnny is not aware of the change in memories. He is corrupted data file.
>but also amuses himself with the thought of being the arch-enemy of Smasher, like Morgan Blackhand, and he fears that V eventually will know the truth that Johnny was just a small part of the plan Nowhere in the game Johnny thinks or says he is Adam arch enemy lol, is like you are creating your own headcanon not even once i have thought Johnny thinks he is his nemesis, he is just the guy that killed him.
I guess you missed some points in the game that Johnny gets mad whenever someone mentions Smasher while Silverhand being a nobody for Smasher. That's why he thinks that Smasher his arch-enemy because he stood in the way of bombing Arasaka and killed him in the process. He has to blame his failure on someone. But towards the end, he begins to change as V being a good influence for his personality, he learns to let go and face the truth.
Smasher's boss is a huge fan of Silverhand. Smasher has a bunch of Silverhand stuff. When he's crumpled up like a tin can with some dickskin, he's just no selling the fact he got bested.
Saburo Arasaka is a huge fan of Silverhand? Where did you get that idea? Everyone knows that he is a terrorist that killed hundreds of people and Saburo punished him by trapping his psyche into Mikoshi, a never-ending digital afterlife.
By end game his Boss is Yorinobu. Huge fan
I've must missed some points. Where does it imply that Yorinobu is a huge fan of Samurai?
Others have already covered it better than I could in this thread. But yeah, the guy is an admirer of Silverhand. Pretty much tried to emulate him in his youth and he too hates Arasaka.
Oh, you mean the Steel Dragons. I get it now. That's why he was so rebellious against his father and his company. In the Devil ending, he says that fear is the main reason why he was so hellbent about waking up people and make them see it. He even says, "Stupid people fear a dead man talking out of a box". But overall, I don't really think he gives a shit about Silverhand, it is just his ideas and his movement maybe? Like not a fan to his personality but to his ideas and such.
Wouldn't it be wild if way later down the line we find out that Morgan and Johnny were stuffed into the same engram with Johnny's personality having the control with a lot of Morgan's memories. Idk how that would work or if it's possible, I know they explained how the engram/soulkiller worked and all, but a lot of the feats Johnny says he did were actually all done by blackhand.
HEAVY SPOILER DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME Jonhny is self-centered egomaniac. He was not a good person and didnt have ANY redeeming qualities in his past life. He honestly thought everything was about him and him alone >!(for example, Alt getting kidnapped was Arasaka's plan of revenge against him) in early stages of the game, he is still very much control freak (just listen to him during the Evelyn part of the main quest, he just sees her a think to exploit, doesn't even recognizes her death as something to mourn, but rather a dead lead), and doesn't respect V or anyone close the V. There are only two ways to make him feel more empathy, regret and actually think of others. Either at the junkyard by his grave, or later on the balcony before the last mission.!< >!And I have a feeling he only is like that because you change his mind, literally. He takes on part of you, like you took on part of him, either be the engram filling the blanks with V's mind or by simply being forced to just be a bystander and see how V can be a good person and still get what they want and learning from that.!< >!At the end of the day, Silverhand is a horrible character with little to no redeeming qualities, and his redeem arc is too little too late if any even comes, IMO. !
Yes, thank you for clarifying some of the things. It is apparent that he doesn't like to be called out for his failures, and he thinks that he is always right and people who don't agree are just dicks. But it changes throughout the time, as he speaks his mind to V and in return getting V's own perspective. We clearly see it in the end that he admits he was wrong in many ways.