Between the Altcults and the NeoCorps and the gangs there are a fourth people in Night City 203x. They outnumber all the others put together and they control more of the city than any of the other groups could hold. This group is made up of the everyday men, women and children of Night City. (Article by Mr. Michael Wolf).

Basic Living

Night City is actually a pretty cheap place to live, if you don’t mind having absolutely NO amenities.  There is just so much living space that a person can squat just about anywhere.  The problem is that, while smartbuildings have electricity and plumbing and such, they have no security or maintenance.  Generally, citizens can live anywhere the City Manager’s Office has zoned a neighborhood.  The City provides the needed additions to make a smartbuilding and the surrounding area livable and people move in.  A person pays to live there simply through the sales tax system and other levies.  Of course, this is the most basic of living conditions.  There is little guarantee that someone won’t just come and make someone move if they happen to like their pad and since it’s only a matter of time before the building’s computer goes dormant, they will have to move sooner or later.  There are alternatives.  One is the 203X version of renting.

Night City, for the most part, isn’t ownable.  The shifting nature of the city makes that almost impossible.  While there are ways of owning land, it’s difficult without a team of lawyers.  Most of the time the City Manager’s Office simply says no.  Property, however, defined as a structure, is another matter.  People and organizations can purchase property rights from the city.  To protect their investment, they must continually deploy anti-nano.  Otherwise their property could be eaten at any time.  A business can purchase a smartbuilding and simply decide that their business is housing.  Housing companies basically zone large areas or buildings and offer security and amenities to the residents.  The residents pay a monthly service fee (rent) for the service.  If they can’t make the payment, they’re out of there.  Also, because of the nature of information, leases are far rarer and offered as an incentive in exchange for several months’ or years’ rent up front.

Survival and Prosperity

Unemployment is a tough thing to track in Night City.  While only about half have a steady job, very few are without a living income.  There’s ALWAYS a way to make money, and most of it is legal, too.

Night City levies a flat sales tax on all retail items.  They also collect tolls on major freeways and for use of the NCART.  There is no income tax.

Since there is no income tax, there are no laws pertaining to employment.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  There is no minimum wage, no benefits, and overtime….technically.  Night City does not make any employer do these things.  Many employers, however, have some of these as they are competing with other companies for labor.

An example of all of this at work is Exodyne Enterprises, a mid-level manufacturing company.  Exodyne pays 12ncd an hour on the entry level, a good wage by 203X standards, and offers traditional vacation time (one day for every month of employment).  There are no benefits and no overtime pay, the later explained by the lack of overtime laws.  An employee may sign up for additional hours and he will probably receive them, they just won’t get any bonus pay on top of that.

The NeoCorps, for the most part, play by the same rules in regards to employment.  Outside of managerial positions, NeoCorps also have to compete with smaller businesses and each other for labor.  Most pay less then non-corp companies but have far better benefits, at least on the surface.

In contrast,  Altcults do NOT hire outside of their communities.  The same doesn’t quite go the other way.  True, most “normies” don’t trust or like Altculters, but some small businesses see the benefit in hiring cyberpunks.  Trauma Team, NCSwat and many other crisis companies hire Edgerunners, Cee-Metals, Desnai and Rips whenever they can.  Rollers and Reefers, not so much.

Psyche

Living and surviving in Night City is a struggle that only the smart and the strong survive, but no more so than it was in the early 21^st century, or even in the 19^th century.  An average urban resident is aggressive, resilient, capable and, most importantly, adaptive.  Sure, there have always been those that go beyond the norm to achieve great things, but even the common man is capable of being resourceful when necessary.

As stated before, the people of Night City are a capable people.  They’ve lived through the fall of civilization and are still around to make a new world.  Yes, MAKE.  While it’s true that the Edgerunners and Desnai lead the way in some ways toward the light at the end of the tunnel, the common man was the one that did the hardest work.  They raised families.  They built the infrastructure (until Chiang brought the nano into the picture).  They rebuilt a society.

Most cyberpunks, since the early days back in 2013, have held the belief that most people lived with a severe case of techno and future shocks and that it was up to them to grab the dark future and ride it like a wave, but this is no longer true.  It may never have been true.  The populace of Night City is savvy with all sections of modern life, from technology to politics to living in a schizophrenic society.  They’ve seen it all and while they may not be willing to leap into firefights on a regular basis, they’re survivors, if not fighters.  And remember, there are still those few souls that, while not part of an Altcult, still have the stuff it takes to be able to call themselves Cyberpunks.

Altcult members tend to forget that not every cyberpunk in the world is a member of an Altcult.  While rare, the unaligned cyberpunks are alive and kicking, doing what they’ve always done: black ops, selling illegal goods, and generally stuff the powers that be don’t want them to do.  What makes it interesting is that many of the unaligned didn’t buy into any of the ideas of community.  “We’re criminals!” they say.  “We’re not supposed to BECOME the establishment.”  Most of these cyberpunks resemble Edgerunners and that’s why they resent them the most.  “Edgerunner” was never a name for a faction, they say.  The co-opting of the name has annoyed many, but some just don’t care.  They were never rebels or crusaders.  They were professional criminals, anarchists and street businessmen.  What do they need with belonging to anything?

Outsiders

All the Altcults put together are only about 1/12^th of the total population of Night City, with the Edgerunners and Desnai being the most populous within the city proper.

Most Altcults are treated almost like Indian Reservations, except that the Altcults are far from oppressed and more than capable of defending their own rights and interests.  Edgerunners and Desnai are the most understood and accepted Altcults, mostly because of the Edgerunner’s history of helping lead the way out of the chaos of the DataKrash and Desnai’s involvement in so much of Night City’s entertainment.  After all, Desnai Parkologies are mostly open to all, unlike other enclaves.  Riptide also enjoys a certain acceptance by the general population.  Rollers, Reefers and Cee-Metal are mostly avoided by the general population.  Rollers are savages, Reefers are monsters and Threeps are cyberpsychos, or so people believe. 

The NeoCorps are, for the most part, ignored.  While the Altcults share a distrust and even hatred for the NeoCorps, the common man still doesn’t buy into the tales of corporate conspiracies and capitalism run amok.  They also, unlike the Altcults, offer jobs.

If there is any major resentment of the NeoCorps, it comes from small business owners.  Since the rebuilding of Night City, the small business owner has made a major comeback.  Small and medium companies hold a sizable share of the market and since the NeoCorps no longer have the clout with the government that it used to, most NeoCorps are forced to compete with mom-and-pop operations that they would have crushed before the DataKrash.  There is still the threat of corporate strike teams dealing with these companies but so far this hasn’t become a problem.

Fini

So in closing, if nothing else, please remember that they outnumber you a  dozen to one.  They control the economy.  They control the laws.  They control the power.  They control the DataPool.  It’s their world.  We just live in it.