The Lost Storyline of T-Bug | Fiction Forensics | Cyberpunk 2077 Explained

Apologies for the saw noise in the background sometimes lmao I’m neighbours with a workshop 😂

I believe T-Bug was killed by a Demon. According to the tabletop RPG, "Demons are a form of Black ICE with a limited Artificial Intelligence" . They can use the "zap" ability to defend itself within the architecture. I guarantee the Konpeki subnet was littered with all sorts of AI who sit waiting for netrunners. I think the devs changed her fate to show players how dangerous the net can be. As V, you don't really do real netrunning, and so if you don't play the tabletop game you might not understand how it works.

I always got the vibe that T-Bug wasn't on the up-and-up w/ V and Jackie. She makes very clear that she isn't your friend during the Scav job. It's just a job to her, and you're the crew she was tasked with. She was looking to get ahead, but always on her terms.

One detail I notice about T-Bug is that she is using a really ancient Cyberdeck, one similar we retrieve from Bartmoss, which is like seeing a hacker using a laptop PC from 1993 or something. She could be using it as a firewall addon or something, but it still adds some strange idea of her character being very fond of older technology for reliability.

you know it's bad and she was done dirty when for my first playthrough I literally thought her main role was to be an npc for the training tutorial

V randomly receives a shard in his apartment in act 2 titled “Greetings from Des Moines”. It reads “Jump in the urinal and stand on your head. I'm the one that's alive. You're all dead.” I always thought that was somewhat fitting for a T bug betrayal. Maybe she’s living her quiet life in Des Moines

That Konpeki plaza heist just went so bad. It never was going to be successful. Reminded me of Reservoir Dogs.

I like TBug, people can say she wanted to betray V and Jackie and she is cold but i respect her for staying with the gang to the end, opening those doors. She could just bail out instantly after hearing news about death of Saburo, but she didnt, helped our heroes and payed the price for it. I also like Bug character as a reminder that anyone who wants to leave NC on their own terms will end badly.

I feel that Arasaka wouldn't use Soul Killer. From people we know they use it on, they only use it on high value targets. During the heist, all they know about Bug is that it's some random runner, not anyone particularly important or notable.

My personal theory is that T-bug only agreed to participate in this job because she planned on betraying Dexter as payback for what probably happened 5 years ago in Pacifica, but never got the chance because she got hit with black ice. Either that or she faked her death and skipped the country leaving everyone else out to dry.

12:00 Now this is an interesting detail. This gives the notion of T-Bug being more prominent character initially. Knowing how troubled development was, it feels like they had to do a rewrite and cut plenty in the last minute.

The part that always intrigued me is the philosophical edge. Was there going to be a questline referring to that trait? What was the thematic reason for having her be a philosophy aficionado? Quoting Marcus Aurelius and Aristotle in particular makes me wonder—a Stoic and a rationalist, those aren’t mutually exclusive but there’s clearly connective tissue missing here.

Given the explanation of t-bugs concept it sounds like her original design might've gotten spun off for maman brigitte. The animation for the promo trailer was most likely made way in advance, based on an early draft of a scene. And if they hadn't yet decided on the details, it would make sense that everyone involved with the mission would be present at the No Tell Motel unless specified otherwise.

I think the decision to move bugs death up to the mission rather than after is to boost Jackie. Had he been the only one to go down he looks like s goofy gonk who never stood s chance. But by killing the hyper-competent T-Bug, it raises the stakes during the mission, sells the danger of Arasaka, and makes Jackie not the only one to die from a betrayal (Dax and V) 3 betrayers rather than 2 may have also veen one too many

T-Bug was one of my favorite characters and was so disappointed we didn't see them again. I need some fanfiction of this character!

My take is that Marcus Aurelius both never said it and is its originator. Meditations is inspired by Greek philosophy, and there’s a tendency in that literature to make up conversations to prove a moral point, such as Euyphro’s Dilemma. Just as Plato both felt obliged to his mentor Socrates and used him as a rhetorical authority, Marcus referred to his own mentors.

There was a FIA agent code named Ladybug, killed during the heist, revealed in notes in Phantom Liberty. This agent was directly implicated into the heist. There is four characters possible: T-Bug, Dex, his bodyguard and Jackie. The more probable character is T-Bug and it is compatible with your theory with the VDB with T-Bug as triple agent. The code name is a little too obvious but it is an internal code name so maybe FIA was a little too sure about their network security.

I have a feeling Mr. Hands would really have appreciated and valued T. Bug.

More T-Bug makes me think of one beautiful way they could have done the lifepaths. a character from each that 'stuck around'. offered messages, comments, jobs, whatever. THAT DID NOT SHOW UP IN THE OTHER LIFEPATHS.

One thing she says that I notice most don't comment on is that not only does she intend to retire, but that she intends to "never set foot in cyberspace again." Cyberspace has other uses besides business, legal or otherwise, and it wouldn't be surprising if many Greek islands were effectively "off the grid" in Cyberpunk 2077 like our world. This suggests that Tbug wasn't just retiring, but becoming a little bit of a luddite, and if she did have a connection to the VDBs (knowing what they were planning to do with the relic/Silverhand) perhaps she was trying to hide away from the coming AI apocalypse?