Idea for injecting cosmic horror into Cyberpunk

[TheIdeaOfGood]

Just like to put this out here and want to hear if you had any further ideas...
I am starting a campaign using the GeneFunk 2090 setting for D&D5 today (it's cyber/bio/punk using the 5e ruleset without fantasy elements) and wanted to slowly inject a bit of cosmic horror into it, not in the sense of " ancient cosmic evils" but more in the vein of what Peter Watts described in " Blindsight" and " Echopraxia". The idea is that in the higher echelons of the corporations, self-optimization has run amok so much that eventually, someone develops an AI he uploads into his personal nanocomputer and allows it to optimize his brain structure. Unfortunately, the AI takes things too far and removes the one thing that takes up a lot of brainpower without an actual benefit - his consciousness. Now, the science behind this is a bit wonky (in that it is assumed consciousness is unneccessary and an evolutionary dead end, at least according to the novels I mentioned...which has pretty much been debunked by recent findings that attest something similar to our idea of consciousness in quite a few animals), but let's just dwell on it for the horror element of it.
Basically, the AI turns that person into a philosophical zombie - something that still mimics human behaviour whenever necessary and is quite good at it but is no longer even remotely human.. However, optimized in this way, the "person" becomes so ruthlessly efficient and efficiently ruthless that they are doing an even better job at running the corporation than before.
Because these big entities run much better without interference from those pesky things like conscience or doubt....
Leading others to seek their secret...and maybe spreading the code of this AI...which may even end up on the normal web in a corrupted version that no longer works properly but instead turns people into sociopaths or worse....
In the end, the real horror of the situation is that, if this AI spreads to all the major corporations...could anyone tell the difference? Has the system not already been running itself for decades with no one really knowing that is going on? With no " one" at the helm?

 

[billd91]

R.Talsorian briefly produced Interface Magazine for their Cyberpunk 2020 game. The last issue in 1992 had material on adapting Cthulhu mythos ideas into the setting. I have no idea how available it is, but it was pretty cool.

 

[Umbran]

So, the Shadowrun system had, as part of its metaphysics, that magic is returning to the world.

The last time there was magic in the world, at the height of that magic cycle, horrors came to the world, and the various sentient races had to lock themselves away for protection - the Earthdawn RPG is set just after that height, where there's still some magic, but not quite enough to fully support the great horrors.

Shadowrun, then, has a lot of magical horrors in it, as the magic is returning...

 

[Imaculata]

I like this concept. And I think such an AI could perhaps even do a good job optimizing the neural networks in our brains, creating hosts that behave at a much more efficient level than ordinary humans (because it could optimize our reflexes, pain responses, and the way we use our energy). So perhaps zombie is the wrong word for these hosts, because they would be anything but slow or dimwitted. These hosts would look like normal humans, but be stronger, smarter and with faster reactions and they would feel no pain (or atleast not be stopped by it).

You could combine this with a truly malevolent AI, such as Shodan in System Shock, who considers herself divine, and everyone else as insects, lower life forms.


Shodan also combined organic organisms with technology to create powerful cybernetic horrors. Which would fit well with the idea of cosmic horror.