🕸️ The Old NET
“It was supposed to connect everyone. Now it’s a graveyard full of ghosts.”
📝 Overview
The Old NET is what remains of the global network that once connected every computer on Earth. Before the DataKrash in 2023, the NET was humanity’s greatest achievement—instant global communication, limitless data, virtual realities indistinguishable from the real thing.
Now it’s a ruined, dangerous wasteland sealed behind the Blackwall.
🌐 The NET Before (2000–2023)
What It Was
- Global connectivity: Every device connected to every other device
- Virtual reality: Netrunners experienced it as a physical space—cities of data, fortresses of ICE
- Digital economy: Trillions of eurodollars moved through the NET daily
- Corporate battleground: Megacorps waged invisible wars for data supremacy
The Architecture
The Old NET was visualized as an infinite digital landscape:
- Data Fortresses: Corporate strongholds protected by ICE and guarded by Sysops
- Cities: Virtual representations of real-world locations
- Wilderness: Uncontrolled space between major nodes
- Subgrid: The underground, where black markets and criminals operated
💀 The DataKrash (2023)
Rache Bartmoss, the greatest netrunner who ever lived, destroyed it all.
When he realized he was dying, Bartmoss released his final creation: R.A.B.I.D.S. (Really Annoying, Bothersome, Incredibly Destructive Software). These self-replicating attack programs spread through the NET like a digital plague:
- Destroyed data: Corrupted everything they touched
- Killed netrunners: Flatlined anyone jacked in
- Freed AIs: Released corporate AIs from their constraints
- Crashed the global economy: Trillions lost in hours
Within weeks, the global NET was gone.
🏚️ The NET Now (2045)
Local Architectures Only
Without global connectivity, each city operates isolated Data Pools:
- Night City has its own local NET
- Data moves between cities via physical courier (yes, really)
- The old dream of global connection is dead
What’s Left of the Old NET
The Old NET still exists—sort of. Behind the Blackwall:
- Corrupted data fortresses from pre-DataKrash corporations
- RABIDS still hunting for anything to destroy
- Rogue AIs that evolved for 20+ years without human contact
- Ghosts: Human engrams captured by Soulkiller and trapped forever
Why People Still Go There
The Old NET contains:
- Lost corporate secrets worth fortunes
- Pre-DataKrash programs unavailable anywhere else
- Engrams of dead people (some very famous)
- Technology that no one knows how to recreate
Some netrunners breach the Blackwall seeking these treasures. Most don’t come back.
🎲 GM Resources
Old NET as a Setting
If your netrunner wants to breach the Blackwall (or is forced to), the Old NET is:
- Alien: Decades of corruption make it unrecognizable
- Deadly: RABIDS attack immediately, ICE is still active in some fortresses
- Rewarding: The payoff for surviving is enormous
Adventure Hooks
| Hook | Description |
|---|---|
| Lost Data | A pre-DataKrash archive contains proof of corporate crimes |
| Ghost Rescue | Someone’s engram is trapped beyond the Blackwall |
| AI Contact | An entity offers a deal—data for hardware |
| Bartmoss’s Legacy | Rumors of Bartmoss’s final cache surface |
🔗 Related Topics
- The DataKrash — How it died
- Blackwall — What seals it
- AI — What lives there now
- Rache Bartmoss — The man who killed it
- Netrunning — How to access what remains
(Source: Cyberpunk RED Core Rulebook, pgs. 32-34, 199-211)