#cyberpapacy

You loved Torg week last year, so here’s some more Torg. Because man, Torg is pretty great.

Well, certain sections of Torg are pretty great, anyway. I do not recognize the Living Land. But the Cyberpapacy? That is some top shelf nonsense of the highest order. Based in CyberFrance, they’re an invading reality that was originally based on the idea of the line of French antipopes forging a dark feudalism in the modern era. On its way to imprint on Earth, though, it crashed into a cyberpunk reality and got…remixed? Fused? With the exception of the subplot involving a synthetic AIDS virus, the whole Cyberpapacy is a perfect exercise in slipstream camp. It is very difficult to take seriously, yet I remain fascinated.

The GodNet (1991) is an important sourcebook for the Cyberpapacy that explains how its virtual reality internet works. It is the equivalent of Shadowrun’s Matrix or the Net in Cyberpunk, but with a Catholic aesthetic. I find the mix of stereotypical netrunner types dealing with gothic and rococo environments endlessly entertaining. It is housed in a web of Holy Exchanges, Program Monasteries and Data Cathedrals. Inside the net is mostly the digital construct of the church data fortress and its outlying structures, but CyberHeaven, CyberPurgatory and CyberHell all exist there as well (along with the remains of the original cyberworld reality). As in Count Zero, there are cyber entities that are not accounted for by the CyberPope, like demons and the Great Beast.

Faction Paradox Stands (Day of the Doctor)

The Crack of Doom (Time of the Doctor)

The origins of the Cyberpapacy (Time of the Doctor)

The accretion of legendary, in a War context

Amnesia (Deep Breath)

On the Goodness of Daleks (Into the Dalek)

Notes on the Sibling Assault (Into the Dalek)

After Hood (Robot of Sherwood)

On the role of the Doctor in the Hood Mythos (Robot of Sherwood)

Under the Blanket (Listen)

Notes on Probability 4. (Listen)

Doctor Who Discovers Giant Space Life: Williamson’s Roc (Kill the Moon)

Doctor Who Discovers Metaphysics: Evil (Kill the Moon)

Captain Scarratt – the preBrakespeare Years

Trappers [lesser non-time bound entities]. (Series 11)

On Our Origins (Arachnids in the U.K.)

Also of interest might be his two Twelfth Doctor scripts, The Gospel of the Voord and Games of Mine and Minotaur; his City of the Saved drabbles, “Tourism” and “8 more”; and this excerpt of his story from the depublished anthology Wallowing in Pessimism’s Mire. There’s also tons of lovely poetry!

LOL, the Cyberpapacy.

OK, so, this realm was initially just an oppressive medieval theocracy, but on its way to invade Earth, it melded with virtual reality, creating an oppressive medieval cyberpunk theocracy. It took over France, which, OK. It is run by the Cyberpope. Man, typing that made me laugh hard. This came out in 1991, a full year before The Lawnmower Man.

It is full of pure gold. The back cover reprints the cyber catechism, which includes lines like “To possess cyberware is to share the body of the Lord.” It has a religious version of the internet called the GodNet complete with a cyber hell. There are Jazuits, some kind of knife-wielding cyber Jesuit pun that I don’t entirely understand. There is a CYBERPOPE.

Alas, they couldn’t just focus on the laughs. Part of the history of the Cyberpapacy involves the secret manufacture of an artificial AIDS virus that the Cyberpope could effectively turn off at will in order to create the appearance of a miracle. This is a pretty gross plot device no matter which way you look at it.

However, let’s close on a bright note, that being the art of Tim Bradstreet. Bradstreet is strongly identified with Vampire: The Masquerade (also ‘91), but I find his straight cyberpunk stuff here very strong. Love that cyber nun.

Cyber.