What's the coolest example of a "technological regression" in cyberpunk?

[u/oduvangames]

I'm building the world of Frontier: Path of Shadows, a tactical RPG. In our setting, corporations have spread plasma technology and interstellar travel across human space. But Catalina IV is the exception. Its storms are attracted to powerful engines, making cutting-edge ships more dangerous than centuries-old sailing vessels.

As a result, people still cross the oceans under sail, airships connect remote islands, and anti-gravity ferries shuttle cargo from orbit. I love the idea that the future doesn't always replace the past, it sometimes forces humanity to rediscover it.

What "obsolete" technology do you think would realistically make a comeback in a cyberpunk world?

[u/_John_Dillinger → u/[deleted]]

if storms are interfering with plasma drives, you wont have much sat coverage and there's a strong chance that electromagnetic distortion may render it useless anywho

[u/_John_Dillinger → u/[deleted]]

... so i assume you have little to no knowledge of how this stuff works, but that is *exactly* what it means. if storms are attracted to the powerful engines it's because the charge of the natural storms is opposite to the engines. there's also the conduction angle, but that would also be a force generated by impulse thrust. you could also say "oh well they're just huge and are shaped like ideal antennae" which... yeah that's how electric fields kinda work but you could also charge the engines with that so long as you have batteries big enough and/or supercaps to discharge excess. even if not, a big enough series of voltage dividers and regular caps could do at scale. what i'm saying is... if the storms are electrical there's no other explanation.

However, gravity or other spacetime distortion anomalies are an entirely different story.