Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

The Brink and Back (Poll) (Patreon)

Published:
2026-10-10 15:59:00
Imported:
2026-10
Tags:

Content

Hey everyone! So, for the next tech tree, I'm looking for settings that are mostly normal, with small branches of interesting tech. It can be one single interesting thing, or a small branch of interesting things, or several interesting branches that are on the shorter side. I have a few ideas in mind, but I thought it would be a great chance to let you guys make suggestions. Depending on what you guys suggest, I might make another Poll and let you guys vote for the winner, or I may just pick from your ideas. Additional Rules:

Time travel and unrestricted world hopping is forbidden

The general setting can beyond IRL tech levels, but nothing more advanced than general Cyberpunk

explicit and really strange settings will be ignored.

I'm lifting my usual ban on Anime, but keep it relatively mainstream and short.

Magic and soul stuff is forbidden.

Broken tech, like unrestricted nanotech or replicators, is forbidden

Comments

Yunru

CDPR Cyberpunk would be ironic now he's basically conquered said setting.

Rocketman

The tech tree in marvel or DC is pretty simple maybe not DC cuz they do have multiverse traveling but marvel they got cloning and stuff like that but he can already basically do that anyway yeah they have time travel but that's only possible due to the quantum realm and there's no telling it the universe of cyberpunk supports a quantum realm maybe an alternate reality where the physics are different but maybe cyberpunk just doesn't support that type of physics or Pokemon pokémon's tech trees pretty interesting and he can already kind of do most important stuff already

emahue64

sword art online

concor

did you already do the expanse? or firefly. or independance day

coldpyr0

Jurassic Park/World

Beau Bryant

Dune... Mentats, Prana Bendu, the Weirding Way etc

Marick

Gundam, silent mobius, Gits, blade runner ( not sure different those last ones would be compared to what he already knows) could do a tech / magic tree (shadowrun) but all the magic just glitches and blows up when tried. Could make it a gag tech tree from something unwanted. Not all random gifts have to be good.

racerZ airsoft

Weird idea, but why not pull from like a battlefield/CoD tech tree, they have both had some light to medium sci-fi settings to pull from, but it's mostly just normal stuff. Or there's helldivers, that would be interesting.

Rocketman

If you're not looking at anything too serious check out sunset overdrive ... Or if you're wanting to go in more into genetics maybe infamous

Shadoian DraconicFox

What about the Deus Ex franchise? It is somewhat cyberpunk adjacent and I think they have tech to help or has outright solved cybernetic rejections.

Ashywar Bhardwaj

Gundam 00 has pretty nifty solar technology or even Matrix would be an interesting setting

Yunru

I thought about suggesting Firefly too, but... It's too mundane. Everything unique we have a more advanced version of from other settings.

Jambo

The first phase of the MCU might be pretty cool, so like the first Avengers movie and before? You have the Arc Reactor, could get Vibranium, Iron Man suits upto the Mark VII, more AI (Jarvis,) Hulk Serum, the SHIELD vehicles such as the Quinjet and Helicarriers, Super Solider serum and more. I was thinking that all of it’s good but not to the point that it eclipses cyberpunks stuff, obviously later on in the MCU it gets more broken. There’s also Thor and Asgards technology but they’re technically aliens so they don’t count for this fic, I don’t think.

Yunru

James Bond?

Yunru

... We already had? It's where the dogs came from.

Urbane_Bomber

Horizon Zero Dawn. It would allow him to clean up / terraform the world faster.

Jambo

It’s not letting me edit properly so hopefully you read this as well. There’s also the Wakanda stuff that although doesn’t feature in the first phase should technically still be happening, such as Black Panther suit, energy shields and so on. I’m sure there’s other stuff as well that should be happening around the period as well, like the Sorcerer’s, A.I.M, The Ten Rings, Hydra. There’s a ton that isn’t outside of the scope of what is in Cyberpunk, at this point there ain’t even any spaceships that humans use if I’m not wrong, it’s pretty much just aliens.

Will Iam

Akira and Ghost in the Shell can fit. Frostpunk can work too. Transformers (human tech) is also decent. Crysis (human tech) is also a decent fit

Yunru

But can it run Crysis?

Midgaard

Altered Carbon is freking awesome please

Aj Brake

Resident evil

Yunru

Tiberian Sun?

Person8

iRobot. There's pretty much nothing unique in the setting at this point though. Dune is a fun idea I saw in this list. The TV show Fringe has a bunch of interesting stuff, but is mostly regular tech. Though if you aren't already a fan it would probably take too much time to research the setting. Bladerunner, though it might be a little too high tech... and our mc would probably be too squeamish for replicants... Though it should be able to push his spartan program at least a little bit higher. I was thinking about virtual reality - so Ready Player One, Battlestar Galactica (the tv prequal), or Matrix. I'm thinking Ready Player One is the lowest tech of those settings, but the Matrix might just squeak through under your limits. There's also sword art online, but I'm not actually very familiar with that setting. Minority Report, just leave out the psychics...

Memory Dump

Subnautica, maybe Ghost in the Shell for cybernetics that don't cause cyberpsychosis. Same with Alita: Battle Angel, Horizon Zero Dawn, ARK Raiders?, Mass Effect, Stellatis, Pokémon for more efficient storage. Actually, Dragon Ball has that and a whole bunch of other stuff, but that might get too powerful if you include the "androids", which canonically destroy solar systems. Definitely Half-Life. It might even contain Portal as a bonus since they canonically take place in the same universe. StarSector!, FTL, BattleTech, EVE Online, Xenonaughts, Deep Rock Galactic, Elite Dangerous, HomeWorld, Prey, Wolfenstein, Signalis, Endless Space, Metal Gear, Eclipse Phase, There is Sword Art Online, but I think a more interesting option would be Hypno Space Outlaw. Same idea with full virtual reality, except that it takes place while you sleep! Yeah, that's about everything that I can think of at the moment.

Memory Dump

For VR, there is also Hypno Space Outlaw, which is kind of like Sword Art Online, except that it works while you're asleep

Straven

Hmm....read 'anime' and instantly thought 'code geass' tech. Don't doubt that might have some points in generators for him or at least the ability to produce such 'machines' that'll likely open quite a few points for him and with him and his teams ability to combine and work over tech to better points and for more things I don't doubt they'll make a lot out of it. Construction will def go up with 'suits' I think.

Koren Tiquar

Shadowrun? Same general level as Cyberpunk but with some cooler drones and vehicles controlled by rigger decks. Mechwarrior/Battletech isn't too far ahead really? Terra Nil has cool tech for fixing damaged environments.

PantherTheory

Horizon zero dawn or Prey(2017). Horizon is difficult to really pin down tech wise but I don't really think it's beyond Cyberpunk 2077 tech levels so much as just hyper focused on robotics rather than Cyberpunks more broad view of tech, but I think there would be some great gems there to help with production, robotics, the Focus and potentially terraforming. As for Prey, its main draw is its Neuromods its own version of the molly maker and the Psi potential it could add to the story, the Psi stuff is easily avoided too if you don't want to add it, otherwise it just has a few minor interesting bits of tech, the game is after all set on a scientific space station so there could be lots of minor tech to snack on.

Cmols897

That could be fun, especially whenever gangs like Maelstrom try it and realize that they cant bring their cybernetics into the game

emahue64

I was thinking more for things like fluxlight so he can give the ai souls

Luke Ward

I support this one we missed out on giant mechs with titanfall and there's nothing really op about it besides maybe beam sabers.

Yunru

I actually feel safe suggesting Stargate at this point. All the big stuff that would disqualify it is either seriously deep in the tech tree to the point it could never come up if the author wanted, or redundant against something we already have. What's left is mostly... Sensors and novelties? At least, if limited to what Earth gets access to in-show. Or go even further: Stargate, the movie version. Very little that's novel, but Sarcophagus.

Pearl of the Orient

Altered Carbon, Piper and Flynx, Dune Golden Age Terran Hegemony

Wiliam Chiper

Would it be crazy to pull from call of duty? Element 115 may be a weird anomalous object but it does bring the best things, like a teleporter, the pack a punch and the whole Perk a cola catalogue!

Prana

Star wars is a possibility after all their tech is good, without being completly ridiculous and any form of magic, alchemy or psy come from the force which cannot be replicated

Spart1n158

This is the one, it doesn’t change the paradigm, but definitely adds cool factor.

morningstar

SAO, The Boys, The Incredibles

Hello

The blade runner universe seems like a good one. Lots of interesting little bits even if they are mostly in line with cyberpunk. Plus it would be a nice nod to one of the origins of the setting. Another good one is the expanse. With this one you also have the benefit of deciding how much of the proto-molecule derived tech to include.

Gaz

Batman Beyond has some pretty good stuff in it, gene mod tech, cybernetics, all the various suit tech let a 90 year old Bruce Wayne keep fighting as superhuman levels for decades. Camo, some Ego Transfer tech if we’re counting the Joker-in-Chip that took over old man robin

KatherineFtw

I'll vote for Gundam first and foremost. Most Gundam timelines aren't that far off from both the MC's tech level nor Cyberpunk as a setting while having a lot of techs that are interesting. Gundam has giant mechs, self-sustaining orbital colonies, the GN Drive alone would be a substantal upgrade. Other interesting settings: Terra Nil and Horizon for terraforming. Code Geass for another (lower tech) mech setting. Shadow Run is very complimentary to the Cyberpunk setting's technology.

Table Top (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-27 06:00 Subnautica/Alterra Tech. Though with the release of the secound game the tech has become kinda cracked, but I'm not shure if it's really cracked for what is already available
2026-10-10 19:06 Subnautica/Alterra Tech. Though with the release of the secound game the tech has become kinda cracked, but I'm not sure if it's really cracked for what is already available

Subnautica/Alterra Tech. Though with the release of the secound game the tech has become kinda cracked, but I'm not sure if it's really cracked for what is already available

Stephen

I like the idea of Battletech. The mechs and everything he can practically build now. The most interesting things I think would be metallurgy. Plus a very limited form of FTL that he could then release in the future when he is ready. Much more limited than Slipspace and could be a form of soft control. Give civilians/governments the ability to FTL between selected systems and surrounding space. Especially if you keep the crazy long charge times and massive jump ships. Speaking of which, I think nomad owned jump ships would be perfect all around.

OdinMage

Earth: Final Conflict for some of the biotech (Taelon living space ships, CVI's, Skrills)?

Tasriel

GTA could be interesting to include. Mostly modern day, with a few bits of interesting things here and there. Just Cause could also be cool with the whole bavarium thing from JC3 Ace Combat, perhaps? Also Arknights, though I am not sure if Originium & the Æther stuff counts as magic... Might be best to save that for later

Miguel Garcia

Battletech? Yet another FTL type to study (it even has built in restrictions that mean he could offer it to others instead of slipspace/teleportation?) Then you got giant mechs, new terraforming technologies, FTL comms technology that is worse than his and can be sold/given out, possible improvements to incorporate from fusion tech, weapons tech, neural tech, solaris shield tech, and the elemental’s power armor is basically an advanced version of fallout armor to compare and contrast

RegularReplacement

New suggestion, the film Repomen. The one where if you don't keep up payments for your artificial organs, the organ can be repossessed. So, a whole medical line for cheap artificial organs.

Tracyhill

Worship and clink Gundam build fighters through the original series into the current one Dragon Ball are their tech two those are on three. I think it was.

Heidao

No nanotech or replicators, so no Riftbreakers, sad. Then I suggest Starsector, the game is more ship and space infrastructure that'll pad out the tech knowledge for more ship designs, weapons, modules and space station/orbitals. Most importantly their FTL, Hyperspace, that funnels travel through antimatter and relies on constructed gates and gravity masses. This can be used for civilian and non-Tinker travel, leaving Slipspace and teleportation exclusively for his Corp. The AI tech was also geared for planetary and system administration but it's more for "How" knowledge that to utilize them.

Heinz

Curveball. Beyblade.

Kyeen

Satisfactory. Or if you wanna be silly beyblade or air gear.

Ben Benson

You could use the modern world. I prompted Google’s ai for examples and here’s some of what it gave me: Post-Quantum Lattice Cryptography, instead of ice Lattice-Based Cryptography, a mathematical encryption method that hides public data inside complex geometric structures and data "noise" that quantum computers cannot untangle. Ai workflows that smooth out bureaucracy. Decentralized computing instead of centralized computing that the corps used that made it easy for AI to break. Other forms of computing like quantum or light or dna. Properly implemented quantum could easily steamroll regular computing which cyberpunk seems to have focused on.

Heidao

I hope for Gundam, but my greatest worry is if the tech tree gets affected by specific series. Like most of the series follows the Fed vs Zeon so the Minovsky Particle tech is secure, but then there's GN Drives or God forbid, Turn A's Moonlight Butterfly tech. But hopefully most of the franchise tech will be available.

Heidao

Oh, I just remembered, Plavsky Particles, Gundam's Domain Expansion tech that allows gunpla to act and attack as if real. A fleet of ships projecting a Plavsky field can deploy gundam figure swarms like drones.

Gangrene Gout

Something that will help with the upcoming conflicts with the remaining megacorps and maybe some city management stuff, since Jackson is now in the early stages of space empire building. So maybe Stellaris, Rimworld, or Frostpunk for interesting tech. I can't think of any eastern mainstream or anime related settings that would be meaningful. Jackson is beyond the slice-of-life stuff and hasn't encountered any existential species-ending stuff... yet. Anime has a lot to draw from with respect to world-ending crises, but the story doesn't seem to need anything like that yet. The sun is just now beginning to rise on Jackson's empire. This is the org management phase where he has to keep finding the right people, build the right culture, communicate the vision, and build the systems that will work without him handholding everything.

Robert Tipton

Every gundam universe but gundam wing has its own flavor of “newtype bullshit”. He has already taken over the world. Now he just needs to introduce an alien invasion to move the story along. My personal favorite is mass effect

coldpyr0

Oh, Horizon Zero Dawn is pretty much the perfect terraforming tech branch and gives him even more ways to give AI beings more stability. Plus it's pretty low tech, no real mcguffins or extreme forms of tech.

Caelen Burrows

If looking for a lower impact tree as far as amount of time Jackson needs to work on during the cycle maybe something like Terra Nil would be good. Basically trying to think of a setting that doesn't have stated or implied interstellar ships that would take time to build, but still has something nice to pick up. I think something that can provide some immediately observable rehabilitation of the environment, like the air purifiers but better, would go a long way towards demonstrating the desire to 'heal humanity' isn't just the usual corpo bs. Material sciences could be another direction for laying groundwork for future developments. Just not sure of a setting that would be a good fit for that, especially without ending up blackboxed. Especially especially without invoking a ton of branches that would come with what advanced materials allow the setting to do. Maybe Pacific Rim? They might have some interesting climate mitigation tech, a bit of human machine interfacing, and while the power sources could probably be replaced with some of what is already had from other trees not sure anything has been picked up that operates on that scale yet. If Gundam and Battletech are too involved there is probably a lot that could be repurposed from a setting limited to Earth and fighting Kaiju to be utilized in industrial capacity and psychological impact when giant mechs walk up out of the ocean to subdue megacorps. Could also lay a foundation for, and work out some of the kinks in, larger builds in a future tree. We've already seen how much of a struggle large builds can be with the Halo ships. Would give an excuse to really focus in on ironing out how to do large builds without necessarily leaving a ton on the table by the end.

Jon Fiedler

I like the idea of Gundam and maybe even Attack on Titan like the ability to use the unique Titans via gene altering?

sailor sloth

Portal, Subnautica, slime rancher, Assassin's Creed, Witcher, One piece, MegasXLR, Attack on Titan, My hero academia, SAO,James Bond,Ghost in the shell, Back to the future ,Big hero 6,Matrix, Men in black, Marvel or dc, but limited to earth human tech?, Horizon zero dawn, Yugioh Zoids, Crackdown, Gears of war?, Tron.

Sammy the Shark

I think bladerunner would be an awesome choice for it’s almost mundane comparison to some of what we’ve already achieved.

meu 32

Not sure about most of those but stellaris is way to overpowered at least if we are talking about the full tech tree. Subnautica could be fun but I think its too advanced as well they can print a whole submarine in like 30 seconds. I think Pokémon doesnt work either, its teleport and hammerspace bags are fine but anything even close to biology would either be classified as magic or be basicaly entirely made out of black boxed materials. Humans didn't create the berries so he probably couldnt recreate them and like all of pokemon biotech is based on them. I suppose since they are berries he could make them once and grow them after that but that would break the whole idea of black boxed materials.

meu 32

Specifically mentioned no soul stuff.

jbli

Arcane for magitech

Caelen Burrows

Another avenue might be something like one of the Anno games set in the future. While production and logistics are generally pretty well handled by what they already have, some improvements for the fake factories could be a thing. Potentially more relevant would be some improvements in agritech, naval/coastal construction, consumer goods and infrastructure... Some design info was derived from Beyond Human, and some biotech got picked up from Jurassic Park, but now that they have the foundational material and military necessities taken care of something more focused on quality of life for the general populace potentially wouldn't be remiss. Of course, if the plan is to avoid a wide tree that takes a lot of time to get aspects out of then some of this might not be applicable. Also depends on if our protagonist took a lesson from the Bioshock tree about plumbing the depths of what the trees have to offer even if some of the components overlap. As ever a balancing act of throughput, time, and personal wellness/responsibilities.

Caelen Burrows

Addendum: One of the VRMMO worlds that have significant time dilation for consciousness tech might be an utter game changer for getting the most out of his future trees. If there could be some way of integrating that expanded time to actually making things in a way that Tinker of Fiction counts for getting the knowledge then those settings with profoundly wide trees would be less of a feel bad in the future, he wouldn't have to feel like going granular with the less flashy nodes was a waste, and he wouldn't have to feel as guilty about abandoning reality for a couple weeks/burning himself out. There would still likely be some issues with dissonance between experienced time and actually passed time, but his human companions could potentially visit him while he works and the AI companions could likely easily keep pace. Most of those worlds only multiply time by factors of 3, 5, or 10 anyway. I'm sure there are higher rates out there, but turning two weeks into 6, 10, or 20 respectively (not counting time spent outside dilation that would shrink that) isn't so large a jump that he could genuinely exhaust a setting like Star Wars; probably. Good luck building a Death Star, Star Forge, or any number of mega-structure style constructs as a solo operator of a fabricator in that time. Would also make the Fibonacci expansion of downtime between trees feel slightly less bad knowing that he could 'keep pace' just a little longer, and that he could really sink his teeth into a tree worth doing so when it potentially comes along. Further, he is planning to remake the web anyway so there might be some nifty bits of information infrastructure tech that would combine well, or at least augment, some of his other computing tech to facilitate the ridiculous quantities of information and at the rates needed for a full-dive MMO.

Cryowolf72

IIRC, at the time of Mankind Divided the cybernetics, while slightly better in terms of power, is actually relatively worse compared to Cyberpunk. Every Augmented person needs constant doses of Neuropozyne to prevent scar tissue build up. Granted, Jackson can pick apart the augmentations and improve them, but I dont remember any that are worth it.

Shadoian DraconicFox

I know that but I remember a the plot in one of the games where they figured out a way for people to no longer need injections.

Cryowolf72

A few tech trees I can think of are Horizon Zero Dawn, Prey (2017), Metal Gear, and The Outer Worlds. Horizon brings Focuses and their network to those who don't like cybernetics. It also lets the crew see the AR manipulation display that Jackson can see from his neural interface. It also can beef up his knowledge of AI from the work on Gaia. However, the best thing Jackson can get is the schematics for the terraforming animals. Depending on how far from the ending to this fic, you might want to push this tech tree back. Prey (2017) can bring fun stuff like the GLOO cannon, but the main item is obviously Neuromods. Metal Gear can bring in the big mechs that Jackson missed from Titanfall, but I'm also interested in Nanomachines, more specifically nano-communications. The Outer Worlds is just to have more fun space-cowboy stuff rather than any particular interesting technology.

Johnny Hamrick

What about having that earth be in the mass effect universe