History VideoGame / Technobabylon

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Many puzzles have an easy and a hard way to do them, and the easy way is often the most dickish and self-centered. Examples include shooting a suicide bomber instead of talking him down (or being so antagonistic to him that he blows himself up anyway), tricking a man infected with a trojan that will eventually turn him into an obedient work drone for the Greater Han Republic into thinking you gave him an epinephrine shot he needs to break the control when you just gave him water instead, and then cutting power to the entire street to sneak past the understandably furious bouncer (another way to solve the puzzle involves crashing an obviously expensive car into the wall), and [[spoiler: gruesomely killing the Mindjacker instead of apprehending him.]]

It was announced in 2017, that a sequel, ''Technobabylon: Birthright'', is in development. The sequel will feature full-on 3D graphics, rather than 2D ones, giving it the distinction of being the first Wadjet Eye release to make the jump to the third dimension. The game, has however, been caught up in quite a bit of TroubledProduction, and is effectively languishing in in DevelopmentHell.

It was announced in February 2019, that a sequel, ''Technobabylon: Birthright'', is in development. The sequel will feature full-on 3D graphics, rather than 2D ones, giving it the distinction of being the first Wadjet Eye release to make the jump to the third dimension.

Formerly an episodic freeware series for its first three parts (of what was originally planned to be eleven), the game was adapted into a full-length adventure by [[http://www.technocratgames.com Technocrat Games]] and published by Creator/WadjetEyeGames in 2015, adding to their sci-fi collection that includes ''Videogame/{{Primordia}}'' and ''VideoGame/GeminiRue''.

* StunGuns: All CEL agents are equipped with one of these.

* MeaningfulName: [[Literature/TheStepfordWives Stepford]] makes synths [[spoiler:and is one himself]]. Galatea, too. [[spoiler:She's definitely a human, just an artificially grown and programmed one]].

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Many puzzles have an easy and a hard way to do them, and the easy way is often the most dickish and self-centered. Examples include shooting a suicide bomber instead of talking him down (or being so antagonistic to him that he blows himself up anyway), tricking a man infected with a trojan that will eventually turn him into an obedient work drone for the Greater Han Republic into thinking you gave him an epinephrine shot he needs to break the control when you just gave him water instead, and then cutting power to the entire street to sneak past the understandably furious bouncer, and [[spoiler: gruesomely killing the Mindjacker instead of apprehending him.]]

** The Governor chip made Adam Baxter physically sick at the thoughts of violence - a possible reference to ''Literatore/AClockworkOrange''.

** Apparently Vegas was nuked at some point, in a possible reference to ''Literature/TheStand''.

* ShootOutTheLock: In an early scene, Lao is able to open the door to the rooftop by shooting the access panel with her stun gun.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Downplayed. Central is coldly logical and pragmatic, which often makes some of its actions seem morally ambiguous at best and outright cruel at worst. [[spoiler:Another issue is, as explained by a member of the City Council who is in on the conspiracy to take down Central, is that Central, while supposed to be a neutral entity that obeys the wishes of the democratically-elected Council, has developed its own opinions on governing over time, which causes some problems with its usefulness as a controller of the city. The problem isn't that Central is disobeying or attempting to subvert the orders the Council gives it, because its programming effectively prevents it from this, but rather that it has taken to deliberately delay and stall the implementation of certain policies and edicts for as long as possible]].

* AmbiguouslyBi:
** [[spoiler:The Van der Waal couple. While they were a gay couple, they liked to have threesomes involving an "anatomically correct" female {{sexbot}}, which would make them this, or at least {{robosexual}}s.]]
** Nina Jeong also mentions having a relationship with [[OverlyLongSpanishName Imogen Natalia Revilla-Quintanilla de Florez]].

* BarefootPoverty: Latha wears cheap blue overalls with no shoes, a fact lampshaded twice. At the end of the game, Lao even mentions that they should get her to a hospital, considering how she's been walking around for a day with no footwear. Latha notes that she shut off her pain receptors to deal with it.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: The omnipresent Central can access and monitor virtually everything in Newton. Apparently, other cities have implemented similar systems, such as Archimedes in many [[UnitedEurope Eurofed]] cities, although Central is much more sophisticated.

The second protagonist is world-weary, technophobic Doctor Charlie Regis, an experienced agent for city's police force, CEL, which is the extended arm of Central, the A.I. responsible for controlling the city. Central assigns Regis and his work partner the case involving an outlandish SerialKiller known as "the Mindjacker" for his reputation of ripping all of his victims' information directly from their brains, killing them in the process. Faced with blackmail and deception as he investigates, Regis soon finds himself embroiled in a strange case of cloak and daggers in Newton's seedy underworld, and even Central doesn't appear to be entirely on the level any more.

Then there's Dr Max Lao, Regis's younger, headstrong and more optimistic partner in CEL. Max is the technology and computing expert, embracing technology and keeping up to date with it, contrasting with Regis. Despite Regis's reputation for being difficult to work with, he and Max get along quite well and have developed a mutual trust and respect for each other. When Regis lands himself in trouble, Max takes it upon herself to find out the truth and help him out.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Downplayed. Central is coldly logical and pragmatic, which often makes some of its actions seems morally ambiguous at best and outright cruel at worst. [[spoiler:Another issue is, as explained by a member of the City Council who is in on the conspiracy to take down Central, is that Central, while supposed to be a neutral entity that obeys the wishes of the democratically-elected Council, has developed it own opinions on governing over time, which causes some problems with its usefulness as a controller of the city. The problem isn't that Central is disobeying or attempting to subvert the orders the Council gives it, because its programming effectively prevents it from this, but rather that it has taken to deliberately delay and stall the implementation of certain policies and edicts for as long as possible]].

* OneDegreeOfSeparation: [[spoiler:About the only major character who doesn't have some direct connection to Central (aside from just taking orders from her) is Lao. Even Latha turns out to have been made from the same batch of embryos that made Central, making them sisters of sorts.]]

* SmartGun: CEL personnel have weapons keyed to respond only to their authorized user. [[spoiler:The fact that Latha can shoot Regis with his own gun serves as FiveSecondForeshadowing.]]

* DestroyTheEvidence: [[spoiler:Baxter]] is found with his head pounded into pulp, [[spoiler: done to erase all traces of his murder being committed by the Mindjacker so that he can frame Regis for it.]]

* SexForServices: Subverted at the Trance club. Latha can suggest she has skills (referring to her hacking) that she could barter for entry to the club. The bouncer assumes she means sexual favors, but refuses because he thinks she's too frail and she's hardly the first to try that tactic. Latha is disgusted and clarifies her intentions.

* UncannyValley: Invoked. [[spoiler:Even before Mr. Stepford's RoboticReveal, Regis notices that there is something seriously wrong about him, especially with his eyes. The trope name is mentioned verbatim.]]

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Many puzzles have an easy and a hard way to do them, and the easy way is often the most dickish and self-centered. Examples include shooting a suicide bomber instead of talking him down (or being so antagonistic to him that he blows himself up anyway), tricking a man infected with a trojan that will eventually turn him into an obedient work drone for the Greater Han Republic into thinking you gave him an epinephrine shot he needs to break the control when you just gave him water instead, breaking the antenna to a Trance den to sever all outside connections, and then cutting power to the entire street to sneak past the understandably furious bouncer, and [[spoiler: gruesomely killing the Mindjacker instead of apprehending him.]]

* OurClonesAreIdentical: A news report mentions that Japan is attempting to solve its shrinking population problem by ramping up cloning. They estimate that, at one point, nearly 40% of the Japanese population will be clones.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Regis is able to pinpoint a suicide bomber as hailing from Texas by his accent, when said character has nothing even resembling a Texas accent.

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: The person who hired the bomber to kill Nina turns out to be Councillor Dean, who did it because he was being blackmailed by Geil. When Regis confronts him, he begs Regis to frame the assassination attempt on Ran Shou-Man instead, appealing to the fact that Regis of all people knows what it's like to be blackmailed into doing something horrific. If you ''do'' decide to frame Shou-Man, Nina joins in as well, implying that she knew all along who the culprit was, and remarking as Regis leaves that they're more alike than he'll admit.]]

* HatePlague: A localized variant, as [[spoiler: when the Mindjacker rips Baxter's psyche, he's somehow infected by Baxter's decades of suppressed hatred for Regis, leaving him with an intense grudge against Regis for no good reason.]]

* EverythingIsBigInTexas: Regis came from there before joining CEL and [[spoiler:creation of Central]].

* DudeNotFunny: InUniverse. When Vicky reveals to Nina that [[spoiler:she's using her and Regis' embryos to create Central]], Nina remarks that she's surprised at this turn of events since [[spoiler:Regis' last kids had a tendency to blow up.]] Vicky is ''not'' amused.

** [[spoiler:Notably, Ran Shu-Man is disappointed to learn that the meat is from brainless clones, as he likes the idea of cannibalism being the ultimate symbol of the rich elites' utter power over the poor.]]
* INeedAFreakingDrink: When Regis is in an abandoned factory [[spoiler: while on the run from CEL]], he finds a years-old bottle of whiskey. The player is able to get him to take a drink, after which he remarks "I needed that."

* LoyalPhlebotinum: CEL personnel have weapons keyed to respond only to their authorized user. [[spoiler:The fact that Latha can shoot Regis with his own gun serves as FiveSecondForeshadowing.]]

* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Baxter]] is found with his head pounded into pulp, [[spoiler: done to erase all traces of his murder being committed by the Mindjacker so that he can frame Regis for it.]]

* AssholeVictim: One of the victims of the Mindjacker is [[spoiler:Adam Baxter, former colleague of Regis and Vicky's murderer.]] ''No one'' expresses any amount of grief over his murder, and one person who knew him even remarks that she's glad he's dead. [[spoiler:Galatea also meets a horrible fate]] in one of the endings, but seeing as how all the bad things during the game were more-or-less her fault...
** [[spoiler:Ran Shu-Man is innocent in the restaurant scene, but he's generally insufferable and hugely corrupt. You can finger him instead of the ''actual'' murderer, a generally more sympathetic personality whose crime had some pretty awful people as the targets. Nobody bats an eyelid if you do and Ran gets unceremoniously tossed out the window, to no ill consequences on the plot.]]

* ActionBomb: The subway bomber is is a product of gengineering, having been designed to produce nitrates in his bones which make him a living bomb. It's terrible for his health, of course, since nitrate-filled bones are pretty weak, but he wasn't designed with longevity in mind. [[spoiler:The restaurant bomber is another one of these. Worse, Regis was the one to create many of them during his time working for the warlords in Texas.]]

* CannotTellALie: Councilman Deane because of the Governor chip installed in his head. [[spoiler:However, he is quite skilled at wording his statements and answers in ways that makes them technically true, yet at the same time misleading.]]

* MetaphoricallyTrue: Invoked. [[spoiler:Councilman Deane voluntarily installed a Governor in his head which prevents him from lying, but does not prevent him from telling the truth in very specific ways. He uses this to deny hiring the bomber that attacked the secret meeting: technically, his secretary did that.]]

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Mr. Stepford appears to be an homage to Frank Nelson.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Regis. Even before his wife was murdered, [[spoiler:he was forced by Texan warlords to biologically engineer child suicide bombers before he finally made it to Newton.]]

* EvilTwin: [[spoiler:Galatea is this to Latha, given that they were both cloned from the same embryo. While Galatea may be considered a WellIntentionedExtremist, she is perfectly willing to get her genetic sister killed in order to achieve her goals. Strangely enough, Latha and Galatea are voiced by different actresses, probably to keep TheReveal a secret.]]

* ForTheEvulz: Ran Shou-Man is a completely unrepentant asshole who deeply enjoys being evil for the hell of it, even mentioning that he'd much rather be engaging in ''actual'' cannibalism -- instead of the watered-down version where you only eat human meat from non-conscious purpose-grown bodies -- because it would emphasise his power over the common folk.
* FosterKid: Latha was raised by the city as a refugee from a war-torn region. She meets a fellow "city kid" as one of the CEL corpsmen. He admits to have guessed that she was one too based on the fact that her last name (Sesame) is a plant. Apparently, it's common for "city kids" to receive nature-based last names. [[spoiler:It turns out that she's not a refugee at all, but a lab-grown genetically-modified embryo, and is the genetic daughter of Charlie and Viksha Regis.]]
* FrenchMaid: A robotic one, no less.

* HateSink: Ran Shu-Man exists for no other reason than being a totally unrepentant asshole, so you don't feel bad [[spoiler:if you choose to frame him for the restaurant bombing and he gets tossed out a window]].

* {{Kawaiiko}}: Cheffie the Chef's obnoxious appearance and personality has been designed by committee with heavy overtones of this. At least she'll do ''anything'' to help.

* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Nina Jeong. While her research actually has quite noble goals in and of themselves, she has a blatant disregard for ethical boundaries and can be quite the vicious cut-throat in her attempts to achieve them. [[spoiler:She also [[ImAHumanitarian frequents a restaurant that serves meat cloned from humans]].]]

* OverlyLongName: Imogen Natalia Revilla-Quintanilla de Florez.

* RobotGirl: The robotic French maid, who believes that she is a real human being.
* {{Sexbot}}: The robotic French maid was this to the Van der Waal couple. When programmed with the right personality, she will boast that she is "anatomically correct".

* YellowPeril: Ran Shou-man is an unscrupulous businessman from the Greater Han Republic, who is probably the only truly evil character in the game.