Cyberpunk has been famous for Night City for years, and Cyberpunk Edgerunners and 2077 got us some visuals of the orbital scene. But Cyberpunk is more than Night City. More than just Earth. It’s time to unbox the true scope of the Cyberpunk setting. Let’s dive in!
Background
A ways back, I wrote about the larger Cyberpunk setting, touching on a number of not-Night City locations in the game. And one of them was outer space. But the reality is that Cyberpunk is far more than just the habitats and lunar holidays that were featured recently. Cyberpunk is an early stellar setting with a lot more going on in orbit and further than people think.
To get a good grip on this giant sub-setting, these are the core books to look for are Near Orbit from Cyberpunk 2013, and Deep Space from Cyberpunk 2020. Supplementing these are the Chrome Book series, Corporate Report series, and Maximum Metal from Cyberpunk 2020. Plus, naturally, Cyberpunk RED.
Earth is Dying
The Earth of Cyberpunk has done a speed run on ecological disaster and abuse. Climate change is just “the climate” now, and “climate emergencies” are in the same category. Large swathes of the planet are functionally uninhabitable either because of daily climatic conditions or because of annual storm action making them untenable. Haiti (and by extension, the Dominican Republic) was abandoned because it was “wiped off the map”, but that doesn’t mean that Hispaniola is gone, it just can’t be lived on anymore. Storms have scoured the island and the cost for the kind of shelters and infrastructure needed to survive there is astronomical. Make no mistake, the technology exists, but in the capitalist hellscape of Cyberpunk, there’s no profit to be had from it, so it’s not going to happen. Now imagine this process repeating globally, disproportionately hitting the global south. Then add in that only an estimated 10% of extant animal species survive in the wild, and only about 5% of plants. That’s the Earth of Cyberpunk.
So, naturally, people are leaving it. By 2020, there were multiple O’Neill Cylinder space colonies in orbit, Lunar colonies, a nascent Martian colony, asteroid mining in the belt, and missions happening to Jupiter and the system past the belt. But things are different in space, and not just because of the low to no gravity.
Life in Space
Descended predominantly from Black Africans, the largest population in space at roughly 68% of the population in 2025, are known as Highriders. Originally borderline or outright indentured labour and technicians, they successfully revolted against their corporate and government agency overseers and by the end of the 4th Corporate War, the effectively controlled orbital space. They remain the backbone of orbital and space industry, and of resource extraction. While not anti-capitalist, they also aren’t into megacorp or neocorp nonsense and have far more robust social safety nets and social institutions than anywhere on Earth except maybe Europe.
There are also orbital and space only corporations. Comparatively minor compared to their Earth based rivals, they’re nonetheless major influences. And unlike their gravity bound competition, they came through the 4th Corporate War without serious issues. While most maintain some ground facilities, others have become or have always been predominantly focused on the orbital and space markets for their goods. And, in an ironic twist, their reliance on the Highriders (who have dropped rocks on Earth and spaced a large number of problems) has kept them in check in terms of abuses of power. Edgerunners used to the nightmare of Earth’s megacorps are likely to find the situation in space far more “civilized”.
Broadly speaking, there’s four ways that people are living in space. First are as Highriders, autonomous and largely free from the nightmare grind of the Earth. Next you have corporate staff, flown into space and crewing one of the many orbital, Lunar, or Martian installations. And finally, there’s government; the USA (and later NUSA), Japan, Europe, and USSR all have active space programs and interests in orbit. The final group are private citizens who save up the eddies to get into orbit and have a skill set or wallet that can keep them there.
Edgerunning in Space
Just because the gravity is light doesn’t mean than the situation is. There’s work for edgerunners everywhere from Low Earth Orbit to the Belt, and it’s high risk, high pay. But there’s some differences compared to ground-based operations.
The first big change is that some of the supporting roles switch to primary. Techies, Netrunners, MedTechs, and Fixers are the kings in space, because there’s no escaping their fields of expertise. Solos, Corporates, Medias, Cops, Rockerboys, and Nomads are basically there to support them and influence the situation to set conditions for success. This can feel a bit weird, but in the tech dependent reality of space, it tracks.
Another shift is gear. For very reasonable reasons, people who live in space frown on it when you bust out the heavy artillery. Personal weapons in space are designed to kill people, and not destroy systems, and have minimal recoil. So flechette, gyrojet, bolter (think sabot), and energy weapons (tasers, dazzlers etc…) are the norm. Close combat weapons like swords, knives, batons, and the like are king. Cyberware is common, but bioware and nanotech enhanced cyberware are more common. In fact, the state of bioware and cyberware in space is more advanced than on most of Earth (at least circa 2025).
Probably the biggest shift that edgerunners from Earth will notice is that ACPA and full cyborg conversions. The Orbital Air/Raven Microcyb Spider (and its rumoured stealth variant) are known to be the most lethal ACPA in space, to point where there’s no known evidence of their use with he heavy implication that they haven’t left any survivors or digital footprint. Then there’s the Copernicus, Eclipse, Wingman (an IE specialty), Burroughs (a made for Mars cyborg body), and Wiseman full cyborg bodies. All of whom will thrive in space. Why all this in space and not ground side? Simple, on the ground, ACPA and full cyborg conversion are nice to haves; in space, they’re borderline necessary.
Jobs in space are going to be inherently riskier and likely more stealth oriented. There’s more planning involved, and less improv. Why? Because like undersea operations, the characters are in controlled artificial environments, and the outside environment is lethal. Surveillance and sensors are everywhere. And the NET is unique to each station or facility. Then there’s transport in and out; there’s no place to run to if things go south. No place to lay low. It’s you on a station filling with hostiles. So it’s methodical, technical, and in game terms, is going to lean heavily on those roles I mentioned earlier.
Why Play Cyberpunk in Space
Cyberpunk in space is, arguably, the most cyber that Cyberpunk can be. Technology and artificiality are at their maximum, there’s nothing they don’t touch and “the natural world” is absolutely lethal. It’s also a cauldron of intrigue and competition for resources, even with its social safety nets and more balanced relationships with megacorps and neocorps. Not to mention that as the Earth dies, Luna and Mars become more attractive for those wealthy enough to flee or desperate enough to take indentured employment. One nice feature of the sub-setting is that it offers multiple venues for adventures with enough differences to affect the vibe and feel of the game without a whole planet to worry about.
Final Thoughts
There’s a lot of things that set the orbital and space sub-setting of Cyberpunk apart from its genre cousins and even most modern creations in the same vein. One is that huge parts of it are unapologetically Black, and another is that it’s as well developed as it is. As a genre, cyberpunk tends to focus hard on cities, and not unreasonably so. After all, its formative basis is almost exclusively based in or around urban settings. But like I’ve said before, there’s more to these worlds, and in Cyberpunk’s case, its orbital and outer space regions are extremely well developed compared to others. And more importantly, there’s sufficient content to support a GM who doesn’t have time to homebrew it all. So, if you have a chance, follow Lucy’s example from Edgerunners, and go to the moon!
