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1 CONTENTS CONTENTS Initialise CR Prototype that extra little nudge was provided by a weasel. The hapless mustelid shorted out a transformer, shutting the machine down for several days. Unin- tended consequence: a timeline breach, clearly and Contents irretrievably adjusting our history, tearing apart causality like cheap bog roll, wadding up the detri- tus to hurl at passersby. 1 Noise Floor 3 There we were in 1996, being good, fic- 1.1 Anthropocene Extinction Event . 3 tional, Cyberpunks, when The Shift occurred. 1.2 Fascism on the Rise . 4 Timelines were a reserved matter for that other kind of Science Fiction, until the Large Hadron 2 Meatspace 5 Weaselizer reached across reality and screwed us 2.1 UK-Japan Trade Deal . 5 all. info: "the conceit" We are now apparently liv- 2.2 Brexit . 6 ing in the sub-optimal timestream called “reality” 2.3 Initiate Level Three Diagnostic . 6 in the year 2020. Twenty twenty. Yeah, that year. How ironic, all things considered. 3 Cyberspace 6 We are looking across this new vista and are not 3.1 Cyber Force . 6 impressed. You were supposed to have all this shit 3.2 Copyeditors Endangered . 7 sorted out by now. 3.3 Humans Endangered . 7 Time to start taking notes. 3.4 GCHQ’s Antivax War . 8 Astonishingly, the weasel is not a metaphor, 3.5 NSA Code Quality . 9 though it may function as one. Its charred mortal 3.6 Operation North Star . 9 remains are now on display at Rotterdam Natural 3.7 Healthcare Under Cyberattack . 9 History Museum serving as a warning to future generations. We, Cyber Rebel, call on some other 4 Spacespace 10 brave weasel to sacrifice itself for the greater good, 4.1 Written in the Stars . 10 and get our reality back on track. 4.2 Scratches on the Sky . 11 There is much shit to fix. 4.3 Alien Transmission Found? . 11 Meanwhile... as ever, the job is to get the word 4.4 ISS Not on eBay . 12 out. We are all about the data integrity. What you 4.5 Phosphine on Venus . 12 are about to read is true, not in any epistemological 4.6 The Closest World . 13 sense, but in that it’s all referenced, all researched, 4.7 Two Years to Titan . 13 all vouched for. If it’s some guy mouthing off, it is marked as such. If there’s actual data to present 5 Weird Shit 14 we will show you. If any of the following proves to 5.1 Havana Syndrome is Real . 14 be crap we will happily correct it... and tell you 5.2 New Eff Oh (Fuck) Sightings . 14 where we went wrong. You are expected to be an active consumer and 6 Detritus 15 processor of knowledge. To query and challenge, 6.1 Cognitive Bias Data . 15 not just nod along. Cyber rebel is not a news source, 6.2 Breaking . 15 it is an information supplement. 6.2.1 Infiltration . 15 On behalf of all past Cyberpunks, we’re fucking 6.2.2 Signal from Proxima . 16 sorry already. This future wasn’t supposed to happen.j 7 Fourth Wall Interjection 16 ::: DATA VERIFICATION ::: Changelog Weasel[1] ::: Electrocuted Weasel[4] ::: I.M. Weasel[2] ::: Weasel Incident Report[3] 1.00 SgH (2020-12-28) — First Release ::: HOW TO ::: If you’re reading this on a cyberdeck, click New Timeline, Who Dis? hyperlinks for source information. Numbers are references to same data, but printed at Well, they finally did it, didn’t they? the back if you’re reading on Flat Media, i.e. ⌘⌘⌘Dicking around with subatomic particles blasted paper. For more information: Steve Ham- to almost the speed of light, smashing against mond’s Web Page[5] 〈〈〈Anything delineated each other, could only have one outcome: the thusly, is not from the Fact region of France, Large Hadron Collider at CERN finally ripped re- but is merely sparkling opinion.〉〉〉 ality asunder. It was not designed to do this. No, 2 1 NOISE FLOOR Noise Floor HAT’SBEENHAPPENINGINTHECYBER SPHERE in the last 20-something years? Prominent in 2020 W is a global plague in the form of novel Coronavirus COVID-19, but we’re guessing you knew that already. The culprit of this little event is a collection of molecules called SARS-CoV-2 which has already been tackled by a sizable mobilisation vaccine effort which has now paid off. Aside from the death toll resulting from transmission and infection, the other notable point is highlights a previously-only- suspected failure mode of humanity at large: flat-out denial. As some commentators have noted, people exist who would deny a zombie outbreak even if one happened right in their face. Coming as all this does at the arse-end of the Trump presidency, characterised by “fake news” claims to the point of denying the existence of objective reality, accurate data is more important than ever. We’re guessing you’ve heard about this too. On the weirder end of the spectrum the US a shit. Revelations are fed into the news cycle and Navy responded to the UFOs videos being chased instantly buried by the next big thing. Crime and by F18s, that you may have seen on YouTube. corruption occurs at such a pace that it amounts Yeah, they’re real. But as the saying goes in to a Distributed Denial of Justice attack on the sys- the astronomical community: “It’s never aliens.” tem. But being real doesn’t automatically identify them. Hacking by various states very much resembles 〈〈〈Cyber Rebel pooh poohs the Extraterrestrial Hy- an undeclared, new, cold war. And so this is 2020, pothesis: the entire phenomenon is in fact a metas- looking very much like a certain dystopia. tasizing cultural artifact, a memetic prion disease, But hey, at last we have jetpacks.j because humanity is desperately afraid of being ::: DATA VERIFICATION ::: alone. Knock us down and call us Alexa if it isn’t so.〉〉〉 Facebook Study[63] The other world plague, we have observed in this new reality, is social media, which has successfully weaponised your attention span, and drained your critical response. The term “Doomscrolling” was Anthropocene Extinction Event invented for Twitter. In 2014 Facebook literally experimented on users to see if it could induce 2019 EARTH BREATHING RANTY depression. 2019 saw the rise of pro-environment, Simultaneously, the planet continues to burn. ⌘⌘⌘anti-death-by-heatstroke, groundswell of popular Australia suffered severe wildfires. The fucking support for Extinction Rebellion. The movement Arctic had the same. Sea ice is diminishing. Tem- entreaties the rest of us to obey the the maxim peratures are soaring and TV weather can call it “don’t shit where you live”. The problem is this: the hottest summer day of the year without draw- where we live is “Earth” and where we shit is also ing a line through the very obvious dots. Politics “Earth” data: CO2 415ppm . Something needs to is about voting in the kakistocracy, intentionally, be done and the entities known as governments, for the lols of seeing what novelty fuckup happens which are the only ones capable of doing some- next, to mask the gnawing hunger in our guts. thing about it, are doing nothing. Or are saying No amount of careful designed language will they will do something and not following through. avoid willful misunderstanding, but to elucidate We are told to recycle, but the biggest polluters for absolute clarity you should read BLM as Black aren’t touched. Lives Matter Too. This should be obvious. Defund The only option: Rebel against status quo. Ac- the Police, in the USA, hides a nuanced argument tion: Immediate. about using those funds for social care and educa- Additional context: mild-mannered scientists — tion instead; giving a mental health organisation almost the definition of any scientist who doesn’t funds instead of giving the police a garage full of live in a comic — are now politely saying that tanks, and you obviate the need for the police to the matter is “decidedly urgent”. Translated from deal with those cases using said tank. scientist-speak, they are (internally) screaming The political environment currently has the that we have twelve years to fix this mess before shame dial turned down to zero, and snapped off we all start fucking dying. One less year now. And for good measure. As a number of commentators again. Repeat. on Twitter have noted, getting the word out about Scientists don’t speak the same language as misdeeds no longer works, because no-body gives politicians. 3 1.2 Fascism on the Rise 1 NOISE FLOOR When a scientist says keep the warming under cess vehicles and weapons available to local law 1.5°C, she means keep the warming under 1.5°C. enforcement. When this figure enters a politician’s ears, he hears Research has shown (Oh! But which research? 1.5°C, maybe 2°C at a push, tell you what we’ll be Shouldn’t there be a “citation required” here? Why, fine with 4°C, but only if my fracking mates get a yes. This is exactly the sort of question you should bung, can’t you negotiate it a little? Everything has ask when you see weaselly phrases like that. In a price, right? answer, the link to the research is in the Data Ver- Physics is not negotiable. ification box.) that there’s a positive correlation between military gear and police violence. Some US police have even adopted The Punisher’s logo. The traditional British Bobby has a baton and a whistle.