u/millimidget

Rogue is working for Arasaka.

The sidequest Heroes. The shard appears immediately after completing the sidequest, or it appears at the start of Act 2 if you sent Jackie's remains to Vic.

FF06B5 is 100% Ubik.

It's not, but Ubik is certainly one of its influential cultural works.

The nodes on the bottom row are identical, which is to say they're equal in value.

The nodes on the middle row are equal in value.

The nodes on the top row are not equal in value.

It's a little puzzle.

The truth is out there.

It's debatable whether it's the same hair, but it's not the same model. For example, the trailer has cyberware which Mr. Blue Eyes does not.

You're also missing the obvious. His eyes were blue because he's jacked into a Flathead. See: Jackie during The Heist.

But much like the Gman, his role is likely to expand in the sequel.

When you realize "ÿ : ACK : µ" really was the answer.

444, 3, and 45 all have esoteric significance, and arguably so does 444/(3/45). Consider; the shard still can't be decoded even after the contents were updated, and the Assault in Progress isn't associated with any relevant Facts which connect to other content. You might sooner connect it to Cyberpsycho Sighting: Bloody Ritual, which sits on the other side of a nearby wall.

The mercs you mention aren't related. They're just a neat bit of world building which occurs in The Afterlife, and reference something about Rogue which is only explicitly revealed in Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Their models are fixed, whereas Dirk and Nils are the only named NPCs at the Assault in Progress and their models are not fixed. I've even seen Garry's model used for Dirk, but that's because Garry's model is also present in the generic Veteran Guards list (ie unaffiliated corpo guards).

Because he's jacked into the Flathead. Mr. Blue Eyes' model name is Gman_q003; Q003 is The Pickup, in which we're introduced to the Flathead. The Flathead was originally intended to be a more integral part of the gameplay. Until Mike Pondsmith or CDPR directly confirm something to the contrary, it's best to consider Mr. Blue Eyes as a Flathead user.

The file name of the mesh used for his hair references Blackhand.

His character model is unique, Gman_q003. G-Man is an obvious references to the Half-Life character. Q003 is The Pickup, in which we're introduced to the Flathead. It seems he was originally intended to make a G-Man like cameo during The Pickup, much like he does during Dream On or Phantom Liberty.

I don't know that it's related, but Johnny has a tattoo of The Tower on the inside of his arm which also includes the II seen in this tattoo.

Too central to turn it into plot twist, this person isn't even real.

The plot twist isn't that V isn't real; it's that the events of the game aren't real. And that's already established in the game, hence all the speculation about the "simulation theory."

It's the Red Ochre Clan graveyard, and ties into Project Nightingale.

The Red Ochres were a small nomad clan. Project Nightingale was a Biotechnica medical experiment headed by Dr. Joanne Koch, of the gig Guinea Pigs. One of her assistants, Alex Pushkin, can be encountered during the gig Olive Branch. Another assistant, Diana Cuno, can be found dead at an Assault in Progress in North Oak. One of the Red Ochre test subjects can be found in the cyberpsycho sighting On Deaf Ears.

There are another half dozen or so Assaults in Progress, mainly in City Center, related to an investigation into Project Nightingale by independent journalist Manuel Mendoza, whose body we find at an Assault in Progress in Corpo Plaza. Also in Corpo Plaza is the gig Serial Suicide, in which we obtain footage of the killing of a journalist Mendoza had met with and who was also investigating Project Nightingale. We can additionally find the bodies of many of his other informants at other Assaults in Progress, and even at the Suspected Organized Crime Activity: Privacy Policy Violation in North Oak.

And quietly, there is a follow-up story to this, told through a handful more Assaults in Progress and the Tower ending. Across Corpo Plaza and into The Glen, we come across the story of Jezper, a netrunner targeting drones in Heywood and City Center. Kang Tao are already onto him and catch up to him before we do, but by then Jezper has already collected quite the haul, as outlined in the shard DRONES. Included in this is the entry, "BIOTECHNICA - samples, who the fuck knows what, could be viruses, tossed them." Fast forward to The Tower ending, and there's a story coming out of Wellsprings regarding a mysterious infection spreading among residents.

What if it's all a simulation on the Aleph (Mona Lisa Overdrive), or Cyberpunk's version of it, and this is a replay of V's memories as a BD?

Assuming V is even a real figure, and not a composite based on other peoples' memories, tuned into a singular perspective in a preem BD.

Those papers show up all over the place.

It makes sense. Psycho Killer is a gig, but the psycho sightings themselves are NCPD scanner hustles.

I wonder if the handful of hidden gems which are also hidden NCPD scanner hustles are required to unlock the achievement(s).

It's an advertisement. It's common when scanning billboards.

What do you think it is?

How do you find a thread talking about the laptop without finding a thread talking about its solution?

In the stream, Pawel mentions that it's incredibly complex, that teams worked on implementing it, and that the solution is simple so it can be shared.

That's both consistent with the 2.0 solution and contradictory to the apocryphal comment which started all this five years ago. The 2.0 solution may have been built upon content added in 1.5, but that couldn't have been the answer back in 2020, unless the answer was that the solution hadn't been implemented yet.

garden NE of Riot / S of Misty’s (has been on the map since the beginning)

That seems easy enough to investigate. I'm assuming it's a rooftop garden, difficult to access, and there only as background.

ziggurat on JapanTown roof; NE of ‘Skyline & Salinas’ (added to the map since 2.0)

I'm not seeing it. Is it a premium feature, or are you referring to something which is visible in-game but not readily apparent on that map?

The game sees itself as a braindance. It's artificial from the moment you breach an unidentified network to access the main menu. The statue FF:06:B5 is attached to represents The Emperor (as in the Tarot card), and the placement of the string on the statue represents "vision of the machinery of the universe." It was likely always intended to reflect some part of the community, as seen in the cube QR code message, and in the responses found on netdir://timetowakeup.web (ie the Bartmoss Collective website).

Probably not.

Exactly when V gets this shard at start of act 2, after heist mission and death.

Not quite. It's linked to Heroes. It appears immediately at the start of Act 2 if you send Jackie's remains to Vic, or after completing Heroes if Mama Welles gets the remains.

I only just called Brigitte at around 120 hours.

Corpo - The Devil (spare Oda, save Takemura)

Nomad - The Star (female w/ Judy romance)

Streetkid - The Sun (via Don't Fear the Reaper)

Johnny - Temperance (via For Whom the Bell Tolls/Knockin' on Heaven's Door)