PRIMER

A runner's guide to Singapore

The world of SG2048 is a cyberpunk science fiction setting that takes place in Singapore, 30 years from the present. The world is a corporate dystopia. National governments and powers have given way to the domination of transnational corporations. Corporate entities have divided up much of the world, and every faucet of society is shaped by them.
In this dark future, you play as talented but ultimately disposable denizens in the underbelly of society. The only way to climb out of subsistence is by exploiting what talent you have, for whichever employers are willing to shell out the Cred. Fortunately, in the silent war between corporate superpowers, there is not shortage of jobs for deniable assets.

What is Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is speculative fiction taking place in the near future. It is based on the world of today, where many of our fears about technology, and about the future of humanity, have come true.

How do we play?

We will be playing The Sprawl by Hamish Cameron, modified to suit our needs. While it would be helpful for you to know the basic rules before hand, it is not required. Simply show up and we will help you create a character and teach you how to play!

Corporations

Seven corporations share the main stage in SG2048:
Apple-Mercedes is a luxury "total lifestyle" brand, catering to the very rich and inspiring everyone else to aspire to the same heights. Apple products are a mark of a successful career (or an ambitious and committed up-and-comer). Mercedes vehicles pack a surplus of performance in a compact, stylish package.
Confederated Boeing is an aerospace engineering firm, specializing in large scale projects. It is the main force behind the construction of Singapore's space elevator project.
Disney-Amazon is the entertainment and commodities conglomerate. Their branding is both iconic and ubiquitous. They trade in satisfaction, offering both luxurious vacation for the rich, and mass produced toys for the aspiring consumer.
HSMBC is a software and banking giant. They are infamously for their faceless and litigious conduct, but also stand as a neutral party in many conflict domains.
Pfizer-Monsanto is a biomedical and bioengineering firm. They control much of the medical trade and agriculture around the world. Their cyberware and bioware products are top of the line.
Toyota-Huawei is an amalgamation of heavy industries, resource extraction firms, and consumer software and electronics manufacturers. Their specialization is in mass production and their products, be they trucks, phones or apps, are rugged, reliable, and widely available to all parties. Toyota also specializes in the production of industrial and military walkers.
Finally, Temasek is the corporate government of Singapore. The financial arm of Temasek is a direct competitor and partner to HSMBC in the investment, insurance, and banking arenas. The foreign relations arm of Temasek owns and operates water renewal plants around the world.

What has changed in Singapore?

In the last 30 years, Singapore, like much of the world, has experience a significant overpopulation. While still holding the moniker of "the garden city", open green space is scarce around the island, much of it has been converted for residential or commercial use. Public and private housing now cover much of the island, with new constructions reaching toward the stars.
Two large megastructure projects are under construction, both standing to redefine the island nation. The first is the Marina Bay Dome which, once completed, will enclose the downtown core in an fully air conditioned environment. The second is the ambitious Tian Dao Space Elevator Project, whose completion at the end of 2048 will turn Singapore into a nexus of space travel, exploration and commerce.
Not all parts of Singapore have benefited from this windfall, some neighborhoods have been in decline. Here are a list of places to avoid:

• BTown - a partially constructed bridge across the strait, now filled with a dense community of squatters
• SEAplex - an experimental housing project built out of abandoned freighters and tankers, itself abandoned and left to drift out of Singaporean waters, partially controlled by the Bratva
• New Venice - the northern half of Punggol which has become permanently flooded due to rising sea levels
• Understories - the seedy lower levels of Bedok corporate housing estates, which is now considered "underground" due to the construction of raised walkways and causeways
• Yishun - a corporate housing district in northern Singapore where criminal activity has recently spiked; many blame the influx of foreign Toyota-Huawei employees, or the presence of the Yakuza

Technology

SG2048 is a "hard" science fiction setting, where technologies are extrapolated from present day trends. The follow are the most notable or ubiquitous changes:

• Augmented Reality chips are implanted in all citizens at puberty. These chips allow holographic images from nearby broadcasting sources to be projected directly into the eye, allowing the display of 3D objects and pop up "tooltips". AR projections cannot be "turned off" by the user.
• The Matrix has superceded the internet. While traditional internet browsing is still possible, advanced users "deepdive" using neural links, which allow them to interact with the server with their full consciousness, greatly improving their efficiency and bandwidth while lowering latency. The Matrix has made hacking and intrusion countermeasures hotly contested and deadly businesses.
• The Fringe is the Matrix's analog of the dark web. It consists of anonymously operated routing servers located in South East Asia, operating "through and around" the Matrix network, under the banner of non-censorship and non-regulation.