| “ | Wake the fuck up, samurai. We have a city to burn.
— Johnny Silverhand
|
” |
Robert John Linder, more popularly known by his rename Johnny Silverhand, is a Rockerboy and a key character in the Cyberpunk world. Originally born in College Station, Texas, on November 16th 1988, John enlisted into the United States Army as a teenager as he lied about his age, and was deployed to Nicaragua during the Second Central American War, a brutal campaign that saw a corrupt U.S. invade South America at the behest of the Gang of Four, a cabal of governmental organizations, being labeled as "The New Vietnam". While the extent of Linder's service in the conflict is not dwelled on, he lost both a friend and his arm, before returning home as apart of a wave of deserters from the military.
Having been radically changed by the corrupt war, Linder settled in the growing metropolis of Night City on the American West Coast, and had his missing arm replaced by a cybernetic augment. He garnered the belief of starting a rebellion and exposing government corruption through music, and so he formed the chrome-rock band Samurai, made up of personal friends of his. After being discovered by a producer, the band would reach mainstream fame and became legendary, starting the Rockerboy movement, however personal problems within the band's members eventually culminated in their disbandment, but Silverhand continued his rebellion against corruption anyways.
He headed free benefit concerts and took part in demonstrations against the NCPD throughout the 2010s, however his ideas had seemingly caught the attention of the world's dominant corporate power, Arasaka. During a walk with Alt Cunningham, a former lover, they were both ambushed by men working for Arasaka, who captured Alt and sent her to Arasaka Tower to construct a new variant of her Soulkiller software. Taking matters into his own hands after the fact, Johnny gathered a strike team to infiltrate Arasaka Tower to retrieve Cunningham, and as a diversion, partially reformed Samurai to perform a free show right in front of Arasaka Tower, resulting in a large scale riot. With his team, Johnny broke into Arasaka Tower, however unbeknownst to him, Alt had been trapped in the Tower's mainframe, and he presumed she was dead.
In 2023, likely out of revenge and to find Alt Cunningham, Silverhand took part in Militech's assault on Arasaka's Towers within Night City to end the ongoing Fourth Corporate War. While he and his reformed team managed to make some headway, managing to liberate Alt from the mainframe, they were pinned down by Arasaka forces led by the infamous merc Adam Smasher. After being separated from his team, Silverhand attempted to go mono-e-mono with Smasher, a decision that has conflicting events in canon. One possibility is that Smasher easily killed Silverhand, taking little to no damage on his behalf, and moving on during the assault, but it is also possible that he managed to escape the initial encounter and almost make it to an escape helicopter, but was still killed by Smasher in the end.
Regardless, he would seemingly perish during the fighting, just before a nuclear detonation erupted at Arasaka's Headquarters and engulfed Night City, but while his physical body may be long gone, the memory of Johnny Silverhand still remains...as an engram.
Battle vs. Rick Deckard (by GardenofSound)[]
TBW.
Expert's Opinion[]
TBD.