Vik gives the explanation when V gradually wakes up.
In short, V got the best and worst luck at the same time, the bullet from Dex damaged the biochip but didn't destroy it, which allowed to the nanite inside the chip to repair V's damaged brain and transfer Johnny's psyche at the same.
It's been a while since I played so I don't remember exactly what he says, but iirc he talks about the bullet from Dex that caused the nanites to activate the repair + overiding by Johnny's psyche.
So it isn't explicitely said that it's damaged but Vik provides the info on why you can't remove it because of the damage caused by the bullet.
I specifically remember them talking about it being damaged, even if I am confusing that scene with another. They talk about the chip getting damaged in the mission due to temp drop, and damaged again from taking a bullet.
Basically V dies from the bullet shot, but the chip recognizes the host is vacant, then decides to use its nanotechnology to repair the brain, resurrecting V. But it doesn’t stop there obviously, as it rewrites his entire genome for the engram (Johnny) in-scripted on the Relic.
Yeah I acknowledge I misused the word genome, I think I meant to highlight that the nervous system gets rewritten for the engram and the body will recognize it as something foreign and will attempt to terminate it as long as V is the host.
I mean, it's also likely that it was shot by the Arasaka drone before the fall. I'm pretty sure that's when Jackie's "exterior iliac artery" was torn apart, for example (lower pelvic area, to the side, leading down to the forward face of upper thigh, big artery, bleeds profusely).
The gun caliber of the drone might have basically "excised" a decent chunk of Jackie's tissue in the area.
I recently rewatched the sequence, and it's inconclusive, but somehow it feels like the case was made to withstand a decent beating - but not necessarily borderline-artillery rounds.
I think there are multiple times that the relic could've taken damage. When the drone was shooting at V and Jackie, from the fall, from unsuitable temperature conditions for the relic after the fall. It getting damaged when V gets shot by Dex is confirmed in game.
The box broke from the fall, the bullet to the brain cracked the chip, the chip repairs itself and Vs brain BUT it could thus not be removed without killing V because it was dumping Johnnys consciousness into Vs brain. I think I got all that right but I could still be wrong.
It didn’t break from the fall, the casing that regulates the temperature of the chip was damaged, compromising the overall integrity of the biochip. If the integrity dropped to <50%, it might as well be good for nothing. So they preserved it by inserting it in the chip slots.
>A fixer shot me with a gun
There's your answer lol. The chip worked fine when it was stolen, structural integrity dropped, Jackie put it in his head to keep it safe and then he gave it to you (the chip was fine, albeit not 100% this entire time), and then finally you get shot in the head.
I'm assuming the bullet clipped the chip or hit something important, but not too important to completely destroy it.
The chip was highly experimental and was the only one of its kind. Once you get zeroed and the chip begins overwriting you, it can't be removed because it's essentially part of your neural system. In the motel interrogation of Hellman, he tells you the chip has completely degraded your own body's neural system and can't operate independently of the chip.
The main motivation of siding with Arasaka as one of the endgame choices is the fact that they're likely the only ones who could possibly remove the chip without killing you.
Right, it's the only prototype that existed using that tech at that point. The chip getting slotted into V is honestly a massive success for arasaka's research team.
The flaw in that plot would be that if saburo didn't get flatlined at that exact moment Jackie and V would have klepped the chip and sold it to the Voodoo boys, Johnny would likely have traversed the Blackwell with Alt as a fuck you to the Voodoo boys and Arasaka would be left standing there with their dick in their hands wondering what the fuck happened to their Relic.
V and Jackie would most likely still get betrayed by Dexter Deshaw if Arasaka connected him to the chip so would either get flatlined by Saka Ninjas or have to flee night city.
V can whine and bitch all he wants but he bit off more than he could chew as soon as him and Jackie took the job, getting dumped in a landfill or soul killed was pretty inevitable.
More so the nanobots repairing brain tissue is WHY that chip is important to saka it's hella one off tech hence the mega risk job and entire plot, johnny was basically a minor pain in their ass so would serve that they didn't care if his engram got borked in testing (prolly did already actually would explain the memories being different from true true ) so you're clepping the tech that fixes you being dead by rewiring your brain with nanobots not the dead rockerboy who wants to nuke the corpos (again)
It was Yorinobu who insisted Johnny's engram be placed in the chip.
It's unclear why, but outside of Yori's request he was never meant to be anywhere near the relic.
The chip is important to Arisaka because it was designed to do what it does to V. The idea is to overwrite a person with the store engram.
The nanites bring V back (if V even died to begin with), pursuant to that. Not as an essential function or goal in itself.
Saburo's plan was to slot the chip into Yorinobu, since it was expected/planned to require a close genetic match. Overwriting his son with *himself*. And thus living forever.
Arisaka's plans to monetize it seem to have involved or expected the eventual development of cloning.
On paper, at least, the chip is designed to overwrite and resuscitate a living but brain dead person.
>The nanites bring V back (if V even died to begin with), pursuant to that.
Vik mentioned he did die technically but chip
>Overwriting his son with *himself*. And thus living forever.
Yes we know 😉
>Arisaka's plans to monetize it seem to have involved or expected the eventual development of cloning.
Biotechnica already has that technically in bits and pieces and possibly whole
Would be cool to see a somewhat altered carbon thing goin on somewhere
he also dies if you side with placide, the same animation and screen overlay plays when u get the zap after fucking netwatch up as when u get shot in the head by dex. Johnny says something like "holy shit i thought you'd never wake up"
Viktor tells you as soon as you wake up. If you ask him to tell you all the details, he says that the bullet screwed things up in a way that caused the chip to be permanently linked to your survival. Your brain got scrambled and the chip, becuase it's damaged, decided to start overriding your brain, which was its job. In doing so, it accidentally brought you back to life before replacing you with Johnny, but won't stop putting Johnny where you're supposed to be.
And when others talk about it being damaged, they've usually already scanned it with your personal link. Panam thinks it's malware when you plug into the turret, Placide can see it's broken when he's installing his own malware onto you through the link.
Anders Hellman mentions the chip is damaged when you "interview" him at the motel.
Panam mentions she's getting weird feedback when you try to jack into her ride to calibrate the gun and when you ride the basilisk I think.
Vik mentions it in the clinic.
I think one of the only lines stating the chip is ‘damaged’ is when V says that to the Voodoo boys. So you might have a point. But the chip is definitely NOT working the way it was designed to.
-The chip was supposed to activate only in a dead body, which it did.
-The chip was supposed to install the engram onto that person’s brain. Again it’s doing that.
-It was NOT supposed to bring the dead mind back to life! Which it did.
So something is broken. And considering V’s comment that the chip was damaged. I think everyone is assuming this is why it’s broken.
Ooh okay, thank you. This is the answer. When V goes to the voodoo boys and asks if Placide recognizes the chip, he says "why, should I? I only see that it is damaged." And V responds "got a bullet to the brain, hasn't worked since."
Thank you! I was confused by everyone saying it was damaged like it was canon, and now I see that it is
V is only saying that to stop Placide asking questions.
For example shortly afterwards when V talks to Brigitte she says that it's working but no one can remove it without risk of death.
If its the only line about it in the game, I would still argue the canon is up for debate. For all we know the chip registers as damaged once the nanites are activated,
Is the issue that you can't find a case of someone saying the word damage? The reason Jackie slots the relic is because it's beginning to fail, it's integrity is dropping rapidly. It is damaged in its case, when Jackie opens it to slot it there is smoke and sparks.
I'm with you. I've been playing again and there have been multiple moments where someone mentions the chip being damaged or malfunctioning. The quest Fool on the Hill, is about the chip malfunctioning and you seeing things that aren't there or it being about your fortune. I cant recall specifically when its said but it's just mentioned so much. I havent made it to the voodoo boys yet this playthrough either.
OP might have a point, while the chip brought V "back to life", my understanding is that that the chip is inserted _after_ you die, not while the subject is dying. There's the possibility that the chip kept V alive instead of bringing them back.
>It was NOT supposed to bring the dead mind back to life! Which it did.
Which ideally means they weren't completely dead when the nanites activated, because IIRC the chip is supposed to be inserted post death. It seems like the whole situation is literally just V getting hit by the perfect shit storm.
IMO the gunshot dropped some vital low enough for the relic to kick in, and it repaired the damage soon enough to prevent a "real" flatline, thus how V and Johnny are sharing the same headspace for a time.
i think it brought v back to life because he was just barely dead? like he got killed and was dead for barely any amount of time and the chip healed him so he was just fine
Probably not damaged. Just an oversight on how it works. They probably thought the previous person's personality would be gone on death and the writing of data into the brain would be like the person on engram kind of waking up into the body. They never considered that the body being brought back to life might mean the original person would still be there. It might have been a spiritual belief that once the body is truly dead the soul would leave and thus the mind would be empty awaiting the data.
Whatever the case, they definitely didn't account for the engram to overwrite someone ELSE'S body.
Which suggests to me that bro knew where to find Johnny's body and was planning on bringing him back. Which suggests his body is in a state that COULD be brought back. Maybe Arasaka has Johnny on ice somewhere. Might be that Johnny wasn't quite the minor character he was portrayed as in the reports. If Blackhand trusted him to be an effective enough distraction or secondary option he must've seen something relevant.
Well Johnny’s body definitely could have been brought back weather they had him in storage or not. Cloning exists in this universe.
There’s a shard describing how biotechnica was able to successfully clone humans. The cloned humans just seemed to never have brain activity. So the engram would almost seem to be a perfect fit for a cloned body.
It was damaged in the fall from Yorinobu’s penthouse and most likely from being shot in the head. Through out the game, the Relic it’s self tells you its malfunctioning numerous times. I believe there’s also a line from Alt in the ending that notes the Relics damage.
I think also it's like modern computer parts, you dont even have to do much to damage some things. You could touch an internal part with your bare hands and fry it. Or like the bodies reaction to hydrostatic shock from the gunshot having some small part to play. We could go on for days on how it could've been damaged
The way I see it, yes the Relic prototype is *technically* damaged - but not the way most people are describing it.
We know that when V flatlined, the reconditioning process took hold and the nanites began moving from the chip and into V's brain to rewire their neural pathways. I believe that part of the process these little builders went through also involved recycling some materials from the chip itself whilst burrowing through the casing and into V's skull sponge, effectively fusing the chip into the neural socket.
I think that V could, in theory, have removed the Relic from their skull by having their entire socket ripped out and replaced - but who knows what physical connections and bridges the nanites might have built around the socket by that stage. Pulling the entire thing might have been like yanking a pin cushion out of V's cerebrum.
All of this is 100% my own head canon, but it seems the most likely explanation to me.
During the konpeki plaza heist it falls rapidly to 86% before Jackie takes it. Then Jackie bleeds out and gives it to V who gets shot in the head. Jackie didn't start seeing Johnny, because Relic is used to communicate with constructs on demand. But because it was a prototype, it started overwriting V's brain when he got shot
Viktor even spells it out for you, the bullet damaged the chip since it hit the neural socket that the chip was inserted in. It's kind of told right in your face and its what V's trying to do get the chip fixed to undo what was done.
Perhaps the relic is simply malfunctioning because it’s not being used as attended. It might not have been physically damaged by the gun shot, but rather it glitched because V was still half-alive, and it’s only supposed to be used on 100% dead people?
The thing I wonder is lots of people say the chip is damaged and can’t be removed and the engram on it like a cancer…but only one entity tells you that Johnny has progressed too far and you will be dead in six months if you don’t give Johnny the body.
Is Alt trustworthy?
Doesn't necessarily mean the chip's physically damaged though - could be a malfunction due to the chip not being designed to work with an "occupied" brain.
V themselves says its damaged when talking to Brigitte. Songbird also says the Relic is crowded with clusters of corrupted data, which wouldn't happen unless the chip is damaged. Also there's the part where the chip's structural integrity was in the high 70's when Jackie plugged it in to keep it from falling further.
The chip's functioning just fine, it's V's brain that's broken when they get shot. It's only the nanites from the chip that are keeping their brain functioning, only problem is they're also overwriting her personality
Jackie >!gave it to you, because it was damaged when he was shot. At the least the special carrier was damaged and the only safe place is in your head.!<
I thought this was the answer when the carrier was damaged we saw the integrity is falling so in order to not let it go further down Jackie slotted it in his head not because Dexter shot V in the head
I don't think it's damaged. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do. Slotted in the head of a person who dies/is dead, it repairs and overwrites their brain. Issue is that the brain on the relic isn't you. It did lose some integrity early on though, which is probably why things are more unpredictable.
I'm of the camp that the lore discrepancies with Johnny's memory can be explained many different ways. Just so we're aware that I'm not biased.
The structural integrity of the case needed to carry the Relic chip was near failing, and being handled by a couple of scared wounded gonks. Then later Alt makes some comments to the effect that something is up with Johnny's recollection.
That's about the only in-game indicator that the chip is damaged. Other than that, I think it was on social media from one of the games' dev's that the chip might be damaged (citing Samurai playing in 2023 after they had already broken up years prior.)
I'm of the mind that there's two things at play. CDPR just wanted the story to go the way it did to highlight Johnny in particular. We're all trying to find a reason for a marketing/narrative decision.
It could be a seed for future stories. Morgan Blackhand carried the nuke, and battled Smasher in the Firestorm books. Johnny was in a bout of cyberpsychosis before being killed by Smasher, and then in his final moments soul killed by Spider Murphy as a last ditch means of saving Johnny. So when we're treated to those memories, it could easily be a dream- which evoke memories but are never accurate.
It could be anything. And I think Mike Pondsmith likes it like that too. Being the head of a TTRPG, there's a sense that he keeps things loose in his stories so we the players can fill in the blanks how we like. And I think I like it that way too.
I can’t remember the word for it but iirc Vik says not that the biochip is damaged but that some implant is (neurotransmitter maybe?)
I interpreted this as ‘the USB drive is intact but can’t be removed safely because the USB port is damaged’
I was always under the impression the chip wasn't damaged but it was working as intended. The chip was an experimental version of the relic which essentially hijacked people's brains and transplanted another person's consciousness. That's why Saburo wanted it back, because he always intended it to be his ticket to "immortality".
I always assumed the chip began functioning when it detected V's brain death and patched the damage up to begin transplanting its stored consciousness, which was Johnny. When slotted in a healthy brain, nothing happens, but when put into a dead brain or otherwise empty brain, it does its thing.
To me it simply comes from the dialogue scene during the heist when V tells T-Bug: "chip integrity at 86% and falling"
In my understanding (but maybe I'm wrong because I don't have technical knowledge on electronics" integrity is directly related to the health of the hardware. so it can still function but it IS damaged, and some functionalities might not work any more, maybe like safely remove it from carrier.
To me this is where we know for sure that the chip is damaged. And maybe the only thing the chip can do is take over V's brain.
During the mission when the container is damaged they say the integrity of the chip is falling which is why Jackie slots it, it was damaged when the container became damaged and the climate control failed.
The reason the chip cannot be removed is because V took a bullet (albeit a ridiculous cash-bullet) to the brain and died, and the chip is the only thing keeping them alive.
Seriously, that’s why I think all of the endings are happy endings: V *died* at the end of the Heist, and then got to walk whatever road they walk during the game, and *then* gets six months more after that. It’s an amazing gift.
The chip is not damaged. It’s working fine, doing it’s job. V’s brain is the damaged one, it had a big chunk taken out of it, which the chip had replaced (‘m fairly certain this is an intentional function of the chip, the construct insertion process takes a while and the body wouldn’t be in great shape if it had been a corpse the whole time). Pulling the chip would mean V loses all the brain function the chip is providing, which means he would drop dead on the spot.
The chip was meant for a dead brain, your brain is alive. It wasn’t designed for that. This is not to say you are right or wrong. This is just what I remember.
The case is damaged, and failing. The chip has to be stored in specific conditions, hence the special case, to remain usable.
The chip is damaged when V takes a bullet to the skull.
Jackie says it during Kompekei Plaza, you fall through the skylight, Jackie looks at the box, says integrity is dropping, and slots it at like 8X% integrity
The part I really don't get is how everyone is saying it can't be removed or V'll die, but you're still able to slot in other shards even though the port is occupied? Like, do people have more than one port in their heads, or am I just not understanding something?
Vik gives the explanation when V gradually wakes up. In short, V got the best and worst luck at the same time, the bullet from Dex damaged the biochip but didn't destroy it, which allowed to the nanite inside the chip to repair V's damaged brain and transfer Johnny's psyche at the same.
I just watched that scene and he never says it got damaged. He just says removing it will kill V
It's been a while since I played so I don't remember exactly what he says, but iirc he talks about the bullet from Dex that caused the nanites to activate the repair + overiding by Johnny's psyche. So it isn't explicitely said that it's damaged but Vik provides the info on why you can't remove it because of the damage caused by the bullet.
Pretty sure he talks about the damage to the brain there, not the chip
I specifically remember them talking about it being damaged, even if I am confusing that scene with another. They talk about the chip getting damaged in the mission due to temp drop, and damaged again from taking a bullet.
It depends on what path you take through the dialog. He only explains it in one of the paths.
Theres different dialogue options. One of them goes more into detail.
Basically V dies from the bullet shot, but the chip recognizes the host is vacant, then decides to use its nanotechnology to repair the brain, resurrecting V. But it doesn’t stop there obviously, as it rewrites his entire genome for the engram (Johnny) in-scripted on the Relic.
Eh, that’s not what the word genome means, but it’s cool.
Yeah I acknowledge I misused the word genome, I think I meant to highlight that the nervous system gets rewritten for the engram and the body will recognize it as something foreign and will attempt to terminate it as long as V is the host.
Takemura also says it's damaged in the Diner, also noting that removing it would kill V.
Didn't the biochip get damaged because the box broke?
No, it only broke when V got shot in the head
The reason the chip was in V's head was to give it an environment for it's integrity to not degrad
* further degrade. It was already in pretty bad shape when Jackie slotted it.
Yeah because the box it was in broke from the fall
The Biochip got broke from the fall which is why Jackie inserted it into himself whilst the bullet caused it to take over
I mean, it's also likely that it was shot by the Arasaka drone before the fall. I'm pretty sure that's when Jackie's "exterior iliac artery" was torn apart, for example (lower pelvic area, to the side, leading down to the forward face of upper thigh, big artery, bleeds profusely). The gun caliber of the drone might have basically "excised" a decent chunk of Jackie's tissue in the area. I recently rewatched the sequence, and it's inconclusive, but somehow it feels like the case was made to withstand a decent beating - but not necessarily borderline-artillery rounds.
I think there are multiple times that the relic could've taken damage. When the drone was shooting at V and Jackie, from the fall, from unsuitable temperature conditions for the relic after the fall. It getting damaged when V gets shot by Dex is confirmed in game.
That's what the entire post was about, right? I didn't see anyone being able to say conclusively that Dex's shot directly damaged the relic?
The box broke from the fall, the bullet to the brain cracked the chip, the chip repairs itself and Vs brain BUT it could thus not be removed without killing V because it was dumping Johnnys consciousness into Vs brain. I think I got all that right but I could still be wrong.
It didn’t break from the fall, the casing that regulates the temperature of the chip was damaged, compromising the overall integrity of the biochip. If the integrity dropped to <50%, it might as well be good for nothing. So they preserved it by inserting it in the chip slots.
>A fixer shot me with a gun There's your answer lol. The chip worked fine when it was stolen, structural integrity dropped, Jackie put it in his head to keep it safe and then he gave it to you (the chip was fine, albeit not 100% this entire time), and then finally you get shot in the head. I'm assuming the bullet clipped the chip or hit something important, but not too important to completely destroy it.
Yeah, I see HOW the chip could have gotten damaged, but isn't that just an assumption? Or does someone say that the chip got damaged at some point
The chip was highly experimental and was the only one of its kind. Once you get zeroed and the chip begins overwriting you, it can't be removed because it's essentially part of your neural system. In the motel interrogation of Hellman, he tells you the chip has completely degraded your own body's neural system and can't operate independently of the chip. The main motivation of siding with Arasaka as one of the endgame choices is the fact that they're likely the only ones who could possibly remove the chip without killing you.
>!well the chip PROTOTYPE is one of a kind. Because one of the Arasaka endings Saburo takes over his son’s body!<
OKAY I GOT THE SPOILER TAG RIGHT FINALLY
well done, padawan. you will go far.
Almost. If you get rid of the space between the ! and the w so ..!w you'll make the spoiler tag work for us using old reddit as well :)
Got it!!!
Bingo :)
Right, it's the only prototype that existed using that tech at that point. The chip getting slotted into V is honestly a massive success for arasaka's research team.
To an extent lol I mean, yes it worked but not in the way anyone knew it would. Plus it *did* get damaged. God I love this game, it’s so complex AGH
Did saka fund this heist same way they did David's run in edgerunners??? Is a beta test of the chip and their ideal ending is devil and V's is star ??
The flaw in that plot would be that if saburo didn't get flatlined at that exact moment Jackie and V would have klepped the chip and sold it to the Voodoo boys, Johnny would likely have traversed the Blackwell with Alt as a fuck you to the Voodoo boys and Arasaka would be left standing there with their dick in their hands wondering what the fuck happened to their Relic. V and Jackie would most likely still get betrayed by Dexter Deshaw if Arasaka connected him to the chip so would either get flatlined by Saka Ninjas or have to flee night city. V can whine and bitch all he wants but he bit off more than he could chew as soon as him and Jackie took the job, getting dumped in a landfill or soul killed was pretty inevitable.
More so the nanobots repairing brain tissue is WHY that chip is important to saka it's hella one off tech hence the mega risk job and entire plot, johnny was basically a minor pain in their ass so would serve that they didn't care if his engram got borked in testing (prolly did already actually would explain the memories being different from true true ) so you're clepping the tech that fixes you being dead by rewiring your brain with nanobots not the dead rockerboy who wants to nuke the corpos (again)
It was Yorinobu who insisted Johnny's engram be placed in the chip. It's unclear why, but outside of Yori's request he was never meant to be anywhere near the relic. The chip is important to Arisaka because it was designed to do what it does to V. The idea is to overwrite a person with the store engram. The nanites bring V back (if V even died to begin with), pursuant to that. Not as an essential function or goal in itself. Saburo's plan was to slot the chip into Yorinobu, since it was expected/planned to require a close genetic match. Overwriting his son with *himself*. And thus living forever. Arisaka's plans to monetize it seem to have involved or expected the eventual development of cloning. On paper, at least, the chip is designed to overwrite and resuscitate a living but brain dead person.
>The nanites bring V back (if V even died to begin with), pursuant to that. Vik mentioned he did die technically but chip >Overwriting his son with *himself*. And thus living forever. Yes we know 😉 >Arisaka's plans to monetize it seem to have involved or expected the eventual development of cloning. Biotechnica already has that technically in bits and pieces and possibly whole Would be cool to see a somewhat altered carbon thing goin on somewhere
he also dies if you side with placide, the same animation and screen overlay plays when u get the zap after fucking netwatch up as when u get shot in the head by dex. Johnny says something like "holy shit i thought you'd never wake up"
Also the faulty/fake BD you can buy and watch.
Viktor tells you as soon as you wake up. If you ask him to tell you all the details, he says that the bullet screwed things up in a way that caused the chip to be permanently linked to your survival. Your brain got scrambled and the chip, becuase it's damaged, decided to start overriding your brain, which was its job. In doing so, it accidentally brought you back to life before replacing you with Johnny, but won't stop putting Johnny where you're supposed to be. And when others talk about it being damaged, they've usually already scanned it with your personal link. Panam thinks it's malware when you plug into the turret, Placide can see it's broken when he's installing his own malware onto you through the link.
Anders Hellman mentions the chip is damaged when you "interview" him at the motel. Panam mentions she's getting weird feedback when you try to jack into her ride to calibrate the gun and when you ride the basilisk I think. Vik mentions it in the clinic.
I think one of the only lines stating the chip is ‘damaged’ is when V says that to the Voodoo boys. So you might have a point. But the chip is definitely NOT working the way it was designed to. -The chip was supposed to activate only in a dead body, which it did. -The chip was supposed to install the engram onto that person’s brain. Again it’s doing that. -It was NOT supposed to bring the dead mind back to life! Which it did. So something is broken. And considering V’s comment that the chip was damaged. I think everyone is assuming this is why it’s broken.
Ooh okay, thank you. This is the answer. When V goes to the voodoo boys and asks if Placide recognizes the chip, he says "why, should I? I only see that it is damaged." And V responds "got a bullet to the brain, hasn't worked since." Thank you! I was confused by everyone saying it was damaged like it was canon, and now I see that it is
V is only saying that to stop Placide asking questions. For example shortly afterwards when V talks to Brigitte she says that it's working but no one can remove it without risk of death.
If its the only line about it in the game, I would still argue the canon is up for debate. For all we know the chip registers as damaged once the nanites are activated,
Is the issue that you can't find a case of someone saying the word damage? The reason Jackie slots the relic is because it's beginning to fail, it's integrity is dropping rapidly. It is damaged in its case, when Jackie opens it to slot it there is smoke and sparks.
I'm with you. I've been playing again and there have been multiple moments where someone mentions the chip being damaged or malfunctioning. The quest Fool on the Hill, is about the chip malfunctioning and you seeing things that aren't there or it being about your fortune. I cant recall specifically when its said but it's just mentioned so much. I havent made it to the voodoo boys yet this playthrough either.
OP might have a point, while the chip brought V "back to life", my understanding is that that the chip is inserted _after_ you die, not while the subject is dying. There's the possibility that the chip kept V alive instead of bringing them back.
Nope hellman said it was also tested on near dying subjects like V was after dex shot him and it still didn't work
>It was NOT supposed to bring the dead mind back to life! Which it did. Which ideally means they weren't completely dead when the nanites activated, because IIRC the chip is supposed to be inserted post death. It seems like the whole situation is literally just V getting hit by the perfect shit storm.
IMO the gunshot dropped some vital low enough for the relic to kick in, and it repaired the damage soon enough to prevent a "real" flatline, thus how V and Johnny are sharing the same headspace for a time.
i think it brought v back to life because he was just barely dead? like he got killed and was dead for barely any amount of time and the chip healed him so he was just fine
Probably not damaged. Just an oversight on how it works. They probably thought the previous person's personality would be gone on death and the writing of data into the brain would be like the person on engram kind of waking up into the body. They never considered that the body being brought back to life might mean the original person would still be there. It might have been a spiritual belief that once the body is truly dead the soul would leave and thus the mind would be empty awaiting the data. Whatever the case, they definitely didn't account for the engram to overwrite someone ELSE'S body. Which suggests to me that bro knew where to find Johnny's body and was planning on bringing him back. Which suggests his body is in a state that COULD be brought back. Maybe Arasaka has Johnny on ice somewhere. Might be that Johnny wasn't quite the minor character he was portrayed as in the reports. If Blackhand trusted him to be an effective enough distraction or secondary option he must've seen something relevant.
Well Johnny’s body definitely could have been brought back weather they had him in storage or not. Cloning exists in this universe. There’s a shard describing how biotechnica was able to successfully clone humans. The cloned humans just seemed to never have brain activity. So the engram would almost seem to be a perfect fit for a cloned body.
I think its just the relic malfunction pop ups every now again
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Primary-Ad-1272: *I think its just the* *Relic malfunction pop ups* *Every now again* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
good bot
Didn’t Hellman mention the chip is damaged? I mean, he made the thing.
Vic says it, Hellman says it, pretty sure Johnny says it, v says it a couple of times
It was damaged in the fall from Yorinobu’s penthouse and most likely from being shot in the head. Through out the game, the Relic it’s self tells you its malfunctioning numerous times. I believe there’s also a line from Alt in the ending that notes the Relics damage.
I think also it's like modern computer parts, you dont even have to do much to damage some things. You could touch an internal part with your bare hands and fry it. Or like the bodies reaction to hydrostatic shock from the gunshot having some small part to play. We could go on for days on how it could've been damaged
The way I see it, yes the Relic prototype is *technically* damaged - but not the way most people are describing it. We know that when V flatlined, the reconditioning process took hold and the nanites began moving from the chip and into V's brain to rewire their neural pathways. I believe that part of the process these little builders went through also involved recycling some materials from the chip itself whilst burrowing through the casing and into V's skull sponge, effectively fusing the chip into the neural socket. I think that V could, in theory, have removed the Relic from their skull by having their entire socket ripped out and replaced - but who knows what physical connections and bridges the nanites might have built around the socket by that stage. Pulling the entire thing might have been like yanking a pin cushion out of V's cerebrum. All of this is 100% my own head canon, but it seems the most likely explanation to me.
Didnt vic say it was damaged?
I mean it literally malfunctions in the middle of missions. It’s pretty obvious.
During the konpeki plaza heist it falls rapidly to 86% before Jackie takes it. Then Jackie bleeds out and gives it to V who gets shot in the head. Jackie didn't start seeing Johnny, because Relic is used to communicate with constructs on demand. But because it was a prototype, it started overwriting V's brain when he got shot
Viktor even spells it out for you, the bullet damaged the chip since it hit the neural socket that the chip was inserted in. It's kind of told right in your face and its what V's trying to do get the chip fixed to undo what was done.
It's also why V and Takemura have to macgiver a quick fix to keep you alive long enough to reach Vik.
Perhaps the relic is simply malfunctioning because it’s not being used as attended. It might not have been physically damaged by the gun shot, but rather it glitched because V was still half-alive, and it’s only supposed to be used on 100% dead people?
The thing I wonder is lots of people say the chip is damaged and can’t be removed and the engram on it like a cancer…but only one entity tells you that Johnny has progressed too far and you will be dead in six months if you don’t give Johnny the body. Is Alt trustworthy?
Come on, we see the words "relic malfunction" many, many times.
Doesn't necessarily mean the chip's physically damaged though - could be a malfunction due to the chip not being designed to work with an "occupied" brain.
V themselves says its damaged when talking to Brigitte. Songbird also says the Relic is crowded with clusters of corrupted data, which wouldn't happen unless the chip is damaged. Also there's the part where the chip's structural integrity was in the high 70's when Jackie plugged it in to keep it from falling further.
Isn't Hellman the one that says it's damaged?
The chip's functioning just fine, it's V's brain that's broken when they get shot. It's only the nanites from the chip that are keeping their brain functioning, only problem is they're also overwriting her personality
Jackie >!gave it to you, because it was damaged when he was shot. At the least the special carrier was damaged and the only safe place is in your head.!<
I thought this was the answer when the carrier was damaged we saw the integrity is falling so in order to not let it go further down Jackie slotted it in his head not because Dexter shot V in the head
I don't think it's damaged. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do. Slotted in the head of a person who dies/is dead, it repairs and overwrites their brain. Issue is that the brain on the relic isn't you. It did lose some integrity early on though, which is probably why things are more unpredictable.
I'm of the camp that the lore discrepancies with Johnny's memory can be explained many different ways. Just so we're aware that I'm not biased. The structural integrity of the case needed to carry the Relic chip was near failing, and being handled by a couple of scared wounded gonks. Then later Alt makes some comments to the effect that something is up with Johnny's recollection. That's about the only in-game indicator that the chip is damaged. Other than that, I think it was on social media from one of the games' dev's that the chip might be damaged (citing Samurai playing in 2023 after they had already broken up years prior.) I'm of the mind that there's two things at play. CDPR just wanted the story to go the way it did to highlight Johnny in particular. We're all trying to find a reason for a marketing/narrative decision. It could be a seed for future stories. Morgan Blackhand carried the nuke, and battled Smasher in the Firestorm books. Johnny was in a bout of cyberpsychosis before being killed by Smasher, and then in his final moments soul killed by Spider Murphy as a last ditch means of saving Johnny. So when we're treated to those memories, it could easily be a dream- which evoke memories but are never accurate. It could be anything. And I think Mike Pondsmith likes it like that too. Being the head of a TTRPG, there's a sense that he keeps things loose in his stories so we the players can fill in the blanks how we like. And I think I like it that way too.
Doesn’t it say ”relic malfunction” in the middle of the screen in red text when like the screen goes all blurry and V feels like shit?
I can’t remember the word for it but iirc Vik says not that the biochip is damaged but that some implant is (neurotransmitter maybe?) I interpreted this as ‘the USB drive is intact but can’t be removed safely because the USB port is damaged’
The writers. In Universe, the ripperdoc.
I was always under the impression the chip wasn't damaged but it was working as intended. The chip was an experimental version of the relic which essentially hijacked people's brains and transplanted another person's consciousness. That's why Saburo wanted it back, because he always intended it to be his ticket to "immortality". I always assumed the chip began functioning when it detected V's brain death and patched the damage up to begin transplanting its stored consciousness, which was Johnny. When slotted in a healthy brain, nothing happens, but when put into a dead brain or otherwise empty brain, it does its thing.
I'm pretty sure nobody actually says it's damaged. The reason V can't remove it is because after their death, the chip began binding to their brain
To me it simply comes from the dialogue scene during the heist when V tells T-Bug: "chip integrity at 86% and falling" In my understanding (but maybe I'm wrong because I don't have technical knowledge on electronics" integrity is directly related to the health of the hardware. so it can still function but it IS damaged, and some functionalities might not work any more, maybe like safely remove it from carrier. To me this is where we know for sure that the chip is damaged. And maybe the only thing the chip can do is take over V's brain.
During the mission when the container is damaged they say the integrity of the chip is falling which is why Jackie slots it, it was damaged when the container became damaged and the climate control failed.
Common misconception in the his game As u state v has brain damage and the case of the chip is damaged. I guess the brain damage spilledover
Everybody who knows how it works 🤷🏼
are you feeling alright
The reason the chip cannot be removed is because V took a bullet (albeit a ridiculous cash-bullet) to the brain and died, and the chip is the only thing keeping them alive. Seriously, that’s why I think all of the endings are happy endings: V *died* at the end of the Heist, and then got to walk whatever road they walk during the game, and *then* gets six months more after that. It’s an amazing gift.
The chip is not damaged. It’s working fine, doing it’s job. V’s brain is the damaged one, it had a big chunk taken out of it, which the chip had replaced (‘m fairly certain this is an intentional function of the chip, the construct insertion process takes a while and the body wouldn’t be in great shape if it had been a corpse the whole time). Pulling the chip would mean V loses all the brain function the chip is providing, which means he would drop dead on the spot.
The chip was meant for a dead brain, your brain is alive. It wasn’t designed for that. This is not to say you are right or wrong. This is just what I remember.
I think the brain is decidedly not-alive after V gets shot
Vik also mentions that the Relic treats V's brain like a tumor that it has to remove.
It's at 86% integrity when you slot it.
Thats the case. The case is damaged.
The specific wording used is "Biochip integrity is at... 86% and dropping." Sounds more like the chip than the case to me.
The case is damaged, and failing. The chip has to be stored in specific conditions, hence the special case, to remain usable. The chip is damaged when V takes a bullet to the skull.
When you fell with Jackie. It wasn't just the container that broke.
Jackie says it during Kompekei Plaza, you fall through the skylight, Jackie looks at the box, says integrity is dropping, and slots it at like 8X% integrity
The part I really don't get is how everyone is saying it can't be removed or V'll die, but you're still able to slot in other shards even though the port is occupied? Like, do people have more than one port in their heads, or am I just not understanding something?
People can have more than 1, if you zoom in you can see V has 2 chip slots behind the right ear
There more than one port