(No spoilers)
Table of contents
There’s no doubt that cyberpunk and cosmic horror make strange bedfellows. Both story genres unfold their settings in different ways. Both often have different types of characters. Those differences often create rigid understanding, at least until one begins considering the scalability of insignificance. Cosmic horror, with its core disturbance rooted in its earliest works, has repeatedly expanded into new settings while redefining the concept of insignificance. One could easily argue—and be at least partially correct—that the future of the genre depends on new stories exploring this trajectory.
Cyberpunk cosmic horror sits at one of these intersections. While one genre explores overwhelming technology and the other confronts overwhelming cosmic forces, both ultimately deal with the limits of human understanding. In both genres, knowledge exists beyond easy reach, and gaining that knowledge may very well lead to one’s ruin.
At the same time, cyberpunk continues to redefine itself alongside the evolving human experience. Dystopian literature—oppressive, dehumanizing, technocratically commodifying—has little regard for the value of individual perspective and understanding. Cyberpunk frequently explores technological alienation, transhumanism, surveillance, and even loss of identity, while cosmic horror examines humanity’s insignificance against forces too vast to comprehend. Despite arriving from different directions, both genres often reach the same destination.
Cosmic horror often reveals human insignificance through:
- forbidden knowledge
- hidden truths
- understanding leading to destruction
Cyberpunk often reveals human insignificance through:
- corporate secrets
- hidden systems
- inaccessible technology
- information asymmetry
The source differs, but the narrative function is similar. The character becomes smaller. And, regardless of whether this is caused by the incomprehensible cosmos or by an impenetrable technology or social system, there’s an existential trigger worth discussing. Two very different genres; one interesting point of dread.
Cyberpunk’s Equation Evolves
The cyberpunk genre now contains enough works, influences, and historical periods that a purely retrofuturistic definition no longer works. Yes, it can be viewed through that lens for the sake of nostalgia or study, but to say that’s all there is concedes a hollow understanding of the topic. One needs only look at Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell for an example.
“High tech, low life” remains fundamental to cyberpunk stories, but the definition has been changing since the phrase was first coined because the phrase itself is an equation.
When first introduced, the frame of reference included cartridge video games, color television, cassette tapes, and car phones. Being rebellious toward this technology often meant rejecting consumer culture and adopting a punk attitude toward its influence on society. This looked different between early Japanese and American cyberpunk, but those differences alone are not enough to divide the broader understanding of what it means to be a low-life or a punk.
Allow for nearly half a century of genre development, exponential technological growth, and wealth consolidation, and one quickly finds that the equation has changed. The math remains the same, but the value of each side continues to evolve. Today we have internet compression, smartphones, streaming subscriptions, AI, self-driving cars, and more. Many cannot afford a house. Millions work two jobs, and countless others pursue serious side hustles—some out of necessity, others searching for an advantage.
ChromaSpyke’s Cyberpunk Equation
The far future leaves little doubt about the dystopian trajectory cyberpunk has long warned us about. Megacorporations. Unchecked technology. Deeply eroded privacy. This universe contains transhumanism and post-humanism, augmentations, cybernetics, robots, and intelligence engines—just as it contains strata for every variety of low-life population. Zero-mods. Gangs. Street punks. Service workers. The entrepreneurial and otherwise undervalued.
This equation is not dissimilar to classic 1980s cyberpunk; scalability has simply kept pace with speculative fiction. The range of variables has broadened, but the math still checks out.
With it, the intent behind the equation has expanded as well. Punk is no longer just a lack of engagement, a personal objection, or the threat of local rejection. ChromaSpyke’s technology is ubiquitous, and its cyberpunk requires active removal. Personal objection leans into sabotage and insurgency because, without them, resistance is swallowed up. What once could be rejected outright now requires technology to be used against technology.
The plot remains largely the same, but society has adapted. Today, people are waking up to the proximity of real-life cyberpunk dystopia: megacorporations, unchecked technology, wealth disparity. In the far-future of ChromaSpyke, people understand the dystopia keenly and time has bridged that gap between warning and cause. This doesn’t make the megacorporations any less oppressive or peak technology any more comprehensible.
ChromaSpyke’s Esca Mizutara
As is often the case with small ChromaSpyke stories, Esca Mizutara originally published for free on the Arkhelian website and was only lightly promoted, making it a reward for those paying attention.
The story centers around a female protagonist, Yokai, while switching between two timelines: a flashback and the present.
During the flashback, we follow Yokai and her friends as they dive in a flooded valley, learning that blind initiative is often enough to create opportunity. Meanwhile, that same initiative creates a predicament in the present.
The technologies in ChromaSpyke’s universe are wholly earned. In the same way the technologies of Warhammer 40,000 or Blade Runner 2049 require rediscovery, ChromaSpyke’s technologies are often stolen or counterfeited.
This is the price of a society drowning in technology. The risk is not lacking access to something, but unknowingly settling for a close approximation. Further, just because something works does not mean everyone understands how, why, or at what cost.
In Esca Mizutara, Yokai finds herself grossly unaware of her situation. The reader is just as blind to the cause as she is to her circumstance.
The Connection Between Cyberpunk and Cosmic Horror
Stranded and caught in a state of cyberpunk body horror, escape is Yokai’s only real option. The risk that comes with it is enough to make any science fiction fan wince.
Once she’s free, she encounters the star-eating intelligence. For a brief moment, both Yokai and the reader occupy the same state. Both learn at the same speed. Both attempt to understand the unintelligible and the hidden cost of technology.
This is where cyberpunk cosmic horror works best.
Both genres force characters to confront something larger than themselves. In cosmic horror, that force may be an ancient god, a hostile universe, or an incomprehensible intelligence. In cyberpunk, it may be a megacorporation, an intelligence engine, a technological system, or the consequences of transhumanism itself. The source changes, but the feeling remains remarkably similar.
And for that same brief moment, the cyberpunk and cosmic horror genres look at each other and find common ground.
As promised, we aren’t going to spoil the story for you. If you’d like to read Esca Mizutara, you can find the digital story here and in both the paperback and hardcover versions of Requisition Volume 1: Anomalous Intent.