Mohawks & Mirrorshades: Neurolinks

I thought I'd write down some musings about how I want to handle virtual reality/the net/whatever I plan to call it in this game. Encapsulating VR or computer networks are a staple of the game in the genre, and so it needs development.

Though the game will be kind of more old-school in style, I find a lot of cyberpunk has a lot of what TVTropes calls "Zeerust" - almost laughable visions of what people 20 to 30 years ago though the future would look like. For example, in Cyberpunk 2020 there are a few augments that record information onto multiple megabyte microcasettes - it just doesn't work anymore.

One staple of newer cyberpunk and transhuman fiction I like is the universal computer, installed at birth. This allows humanity to experience mixed reality - a strange melding of reality, augmented reality, augmented virtuality and virtual reality. I'm leaning towards calling mine a Neurolink or something similar.

Neurolinks are going to just be very advanced wetware computers, but they will allow people to both experience run-of-the-mill AR and the all-consuming alternate realms of virtual reality. This kind of eliminates the gap of some players not being able to go into virtual realms while the netrunner screws around in cyberspace.

Netrunners will be those who have 'jailbroke' their Neurolinks, and are thus able to run hacks on it which will be spell-like abilities that can both affect mechanical things (drones, robots, weapons, vehicles, etc) and other peoples Neurolinks.

I'm also throwing around the idea of Neurolinks having an onboard AI, which seems like a fun thing to do. But again, I'm trying to keep this game simple for the most part.

Thoughts on the Neurolink? Too cool? Too dumb? Let me know!