I've been going full steam ahead with Cyberpunk for the last two weeks, focusing on the Phantom Liberty quest lines. I was leaning towards putting it off for later and progressing the main story first, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I've played through the Phantom Liberty expansion twice before, once when it first came out and again at the beginning of this year, and both times I sided with Songbird. I'm not sure I'll ever play a character where it doesn't feel right to go with her, but I really wanted to see the other ending this time so I did some mental gymnastics to get my V to go the other way.
My V is a young ex Nomad, dying, adrift and alone in Night City. She's desperate to keep living, but also desperate to be apart of something after losing her Nomad family and her best friend, so she goes along with the FIA. Even though she feels horrible about not following Songbird's plan, she's convinced herself its for the best, the only way to guarantee both of them live. I'm not sure this version of V truly believes that in her heart, or if she's just too scared to risk the help she's been promised by the NUSA government. She likes Songbird, and feels sympathy for her, but doesn't fully trust her. Of course, having played through the other ending I know she's right to have doubts. In the BETRAY REED ending Songbird eventually reveals that she has no way of helping V, just before she escapes on a shuttle to the moon to have her own life saved. She was using V all along, a fact which I was slightly surprised to learn is never actually revealed in the BETRAY SONGBIRD ending.
Even as Song rages at V for betraying her and ruining her plans to save herself, she never acknowledges that us helping her would have meant sacrificing our own chances to live. There is a moment while I'm trading barbs with Songbird while tracking her through the abandoned Militech facility where she lambasts me for not helping her. I then point out that she also promised to help me, and at this point she seems to hesitate. The rage and hurt fades from her voice, replaced by guilt. She says she has to tell me something - but we're interrupted before she can go on. V and Songbird never return to this line of conversation, Song never elaborates on what she was about to say, but I believe she was about to admit here that she could never have helped V.
It's easy to call Songbird a hypocrite - and she is one - but knowing how she suffered it's hard to hold much malice for her. Knowing what she lost - her friends, her family, her home - and how she was abused by the government she worked for, forced to kill and break the highest laws, to reach beyond the blackwall and risk her own life and santiy (not to mention Armageddon) I don't blame her for being so desperate to get away. In my other playthroughs where I help her, I never even blame her for using me - and in that ending we never even get to see the fragments of her life that led to her current situation. I'm not sure how my current version of V would react if she knew Songbird was never going to help her, but she'll never know that. And in the end it doesn't matter. V ended up voluntarily giving up her chance to be saved anyway, when she granted Song's final request to die rather than be taken back by the NUSA.
So ended V's adventures as a secret agent. I imagine it all seemed almost fun to her at first - saving the President, code words and clandestine meetings, things a young Nomad kid could only dream about as she and her family rolled along the dusty highways. She found camaraderie, and a chance to save herself while doing work she was good at. A place to belong. Then the bodies started to pile up. People started to die by the truckload, both innocent bystanders and people she formed connections with. She started to understand the price of keeping the secrets of powerful people even better than she already did. In the end V decided to help Songbird after all, It was a turning point for her. I feel she's matured after her Dogtown adventures. She's more aware of the potential consequences of her actions and the things she chooses to involve herself in, and she's more confident in her skills. At the same time, she's also starting to unravel a bit. She's a little quicker to pull the trigger - or whip out her monowires - when faced with a powerful opposing force. A little less willing to spend time creeping around choking people out one by one. Whether a result of her experiences or her circumstances, V is changing - or changing into something else ...
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