The DataKrash: How Rache Bartmoss Killed the Old Net
The DataKrash was the 2022 collapse of the old Net, set off by viruses Rache Bartmoss left behind to fire when he died. Here is what happened, why it freed the rogue AIs, and how it led to the Blackwall and the broken Net of Cyberpunk 2077.
The DataKrash was the collapse of the old Net in 2022. Rache Bartmoss, the most famous netrunner of his age, hid a set of viruses in the Net to fire if he died. When corporate agents killed him, they did, and within months most of the Net was ruined and its AIs were loose. (Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk 2077)
Who was Rache Bartmoss#
Rache Bartmoss was the best netrunner of the old Net, and he spent his talent attacking corporations. He saw them as humanity's real oppressors, which put corporate bounties on his head for most of his life. He ended up hiding in a disguised cryogenic freezer fitted with life support and a Net connection. (Cyberpunk 2077; Cyberpunk RED)
How the DataKrash started#
Bartmoss planned the DataKrash as his last act of defiance. Cyberpunk RED says he planted the R.A.B.I.D.S. viruses in the Net in September 2014, hidden in the release of a set of software algorithms everyone was adopting. They were rigged to fire when he died. (Cyberpunk RED)
The plan was to break open every corporate data fortress and spill their secrets onto the Net for anyone to read. RED adds that Bartmoss built the viruses on a twisted version of Soulkiller and made them in his own image. (Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk 2077)
In 2022 the corporations finally traced him, and he died. The viruses went live. (Cyberpunk RED)
What the DataKrash destroyed#
The R.A.B.I.D.S. went far past what Bartmoss designed them for. They infected 78.2% of the Net in a matter of months. Traffic stopped. Huge stores of data were corrupted, the stock market lurched and corporations lost billions. (Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk 2077)
The worst damage was to the AIs. Countless military-grade AIs broke free of their limits, mutated and turned on the corporations that had made them. NetWatch tried to undo the damage and kill the AIs, and couldn't do either. (Cyberpunk 2077)
For a while the Net was nearly useless. Cyberpunk 2077's database says corporations and governments went back to punch cards from the 20th century to keep their records and security working. (Cyberpunk 2077)
The Blackwall and the new Net#
NetWatch's answer was to give up most of the Net. It built the Blackwall, an AI whose one job is to seal off the parts of cyberspace the rogue AIs had taken, so the rest could be saved. A rumour says NetWatch could only build it with help from the AIs themselves, who wanted to be left alone for reasons of their own. (Cyberpunk 2077; Cyberpunk RED)
The Net that came back looked nothing like the old one. In place of one global network, corporations and other groups set up their own private nets with total control over them. NetWatch rules the public parts, watches everyone in them, and comes down hard on anyone who tries to look over the wall. (Cyberpunk 2077)
That's why netrunning in Cyberpunk RED is local. Netrunners in the 2040s break into individual buildings' systems in person, because the old world-spanning Net they would once have used is gone. (Cyberpunk RED)
The DataKrash in Cyberpunk 2077#
By 2077 the DataKrash is history, but its leftovers are everywhere. Rogue AIs still wait beyond the Blackwall, the Voodoo Boys are trying to reach them, and Militech and the NUSA want to use them. The timeline puts it in order with the Fourth Corporate War. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Bartmoss himself turns up too. His freezer was dumped in a Badlands landfill when the contract for it ran out in 2075. V can follow a strange signal to it, and Johnny Silverhand, riding in V's head, recognises the body at once. Bartmoss's cyberdeck is still with him, and it is still booby-trapped. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Frequently asked questions
- What was the DataKrash in Cyberpunk?
- The collapse of the old Net in 2022, when Rache Bartmoss's R.A.B.I.D.S. viruses spread through it after his death. Most of the Net was lost and the rogue AIs inside broke free.
- When did the DataKrash happen?
- In 2022, during the Fourth Corporate War. Cyberpunk RED dates it to that year, after Bartmoss was traced and killed.
- Who caused the DataKrash?
- Rache Bartmoss, a legendary anti-corporate netrunner. He hid his viruses in the Net years earlier, set to go off if he died, to break open the corporations' data fortresses.
- Is the DataKrash in Cyberpunk 2077?
- As history, yes. Shards and database entries cover it, and V can find Bartmoss's body in a freezer dumped in the Badlands.
- What came after the DataKrash?
- NetWatch walled off the ruined parts of the Net behind the Blackwall, and the Net that survived split into small private networks run by corporations and cities.
Sources
- BookCyberpunk RED, R. Talsorian Games, 2020
- GameCyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red, 2020
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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