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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MGibster" data-source="post: 9759731" data-attributes="member: 4534">Let's talk about what a literary theme is to begin with just so we're all on the same page.  A theme is the underlying idea the author is trying to convey with their work (though you could argue unintentional themes exist).  For example some of the themes explored in Wrath of Khan include growing old, obsolescence, death, friendship, and of course vengeance.  Of course none of these themes are limited to cyberpunk nor is this an exhausted list.  You might very well have a cyberpunk story where one of the themes is "technology bad," but it isn't one I've seen yet.  Alienation is explored in a lot of cyberpunk fiction.  Alienation from society as a whole, other people, and even oneself.  Most cyberpunk protagonist are outsiders, quite often criminals, who don't fit in for one reason or another.  At the beginning of Neuromancer, Case is a former hotshot hacker who has essentially been exiled to the slums of Chiba City and can no longer ply his trade or have connections to his old life.  To pay for her augmentations, Molly Millions became a meat puppet, deliberately entering into a technologically induced dissociative state as a prostitute. Disparity between the haves and the have nots is another common theme seen in cyberpunk stories.  You have a few elites who might live in nice, gated communities, some of them in orbital stations high above the Earth, who are in control of governments and corporations, reaping rewards that are unavailable on the lower rungs of society.  In Altered Carbon, the elites have even conquered death while it's still very much a thing for the poor.  Self-determination versus outside control is a common thing in cyberpunk stories.  Alt Cunningham from Cyberpunk 2020 is a highly skilled netrunner who could write her own ticket at any corporation, yet she chooses to remain independent.  The have nots don't just meekly accept what the elites give them, they take technology and adapt it for their own use like the Low-Teks from Johnny Mnemonic and their codebreaking Navy dolphin.  Another popular theme is what it means to be a human.  If you're mind has been placed in a cybernetic body, and your brain is written onto a hard drive, are you still human?  If you're effectively immortal because your conscience transfers to a new body every time the old one dies, are you still human?  What does it mean to replace parts of your body just so you can more easily accomplish tasks for your employer?</blockquote>

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