The story opens in The Shanty Town in the center of a large park in the city of New Albion. it had started with a small group of back to nature enthusiasts, but it was eventually joined by runaways and disenfranchised young punks, until eventually it evolved
into a various mix of neo futurist hippies, crunchy cyberpunks and transfuturist modification junkies (Bio1 棚户区/The Shanty Town).
In this park lives and works a young genius named Xander, who is obsessed with pioneering biopunk technology. They had been raised in a
cult. Their mother and her sister had grown up in the Shopogopolis and were
recruited into joining a space age cult who believed in chasity, in
preparation for cosmic angels who would come and carry the pure to a blissful
life in outer space. Since the cult must procreate despite their distaste for
sex, procreation was done with hoods. Their aunt gave birth to their cousin Henry, and
their mother gave birth to them and their twin, Macayla. Macayla developed a serious
illness which the cult refused to treat, so Xander’s mother fled with the
twins one night. She returned to The Shopogopolis and Xander's sister got medical
treatment, but it was too late. She ended up locked into her body and from there
slowly went insane. Xander’s obsession with biopunk science stems from this.
Xander went on to study biology at a university in New Albion, but their experiments went too far and they were expelled. They set up shop in the Shanty Town where they now live (Bio2 赞德*卡诺尔/Xander Cale).
One day, a woman named Rebecca and her wife, a small, rodent-like robot called The Little Meme visit Xander and ask them to create them a child. Xander makes the child out of The Little Meme's bioessence and Rebecca's DNA. The little cyborg is initially given male attributes, but several weeks after gaining consciousness informs her mothers that she is in fact a girl, so Xander makes the necessary adjustments. The cyborg is thus named Jane.
The Little Meme, Rebecca and Jane stay in the Shanty Town and Jane becomes very close with Xander, learning biology and studying their experiments. One day, when Xander is not there, Jane admits a young man who wants a simple bio-enhancement. Jane does the job and he pays her with a pouch of sand. When Xander finds out, they insist she throw the sand away, but Jane keeps it.
Jane grows up in the Shanty Town, and is not only very attached to it, but suffers anxiety at the thought of the outside city and the idea of leaving the park (Bio3 生化人简/Jane the Cyborg).
Meanwhile, The Mayor of New Albion is up late at night , bothered by a strange correspondence she has received from The Dwarves who live far below the city. The Mayor is already quite burdened with the taks of holding the city together and playing fierce games of politics, despite a crumbling marriage and a child with behavioral and emotional issues. These dwarves very rarely messages up to the surface and indeed, the last time they had was back when Annabel McAlistair was alive. They warn that a wheel that controls the cycle of epochs has turned and that major upheaval is on the way. Parallels are drawn between Annabel and Edgar, Merlin and Arthur, and presumably, Xander and Jane. The Mayor, unwilling to have another disaster like the Dolls occur on her watch, orders the city military to go and take the Shanty Town (Bio4 市长/The Mayor).
Meanwhile, Jane decides to secretly perform another operation on a patient while Xander is out. She messes up repeatedly and a college girl looking for a sexy tail ends up with six tails protruding out various parts of her body and incredibly long hair covering her so that she looks like a shambling mound. Xander walks in, sighs and works late into the night to fix the problem. Despite this, they tell Jane: "I love and I'm proud of you and nothing you could ever do will change my mind." At that moment Xander stops, listens and says that something "is out there" (Bio5 简在实验室/Jane in the Lab).
Blood Red Dogs burst into Shanty Town and an all-out war begins. Rebecca gets shot among many others and The Little Meme runs to her. She begs Xander to take her child to safety and she stays with Rebecca, lying on the ground.
Xander takes Jane away but a soldier sees Jane and her robotic features, identifies her as a threat and shoots her. She falls down, the bullet having destroyed her arm. Xander picks Jane up and carries her away (Bio6 突袭/The Assault).
Dozens of refugees, now without a home, descend into the Tunnels Beneath New Albion and travel. They run into Lloyd Allen, who tells them about the ways forward in the tunnels. He says there are Dwarves and The Wheel there, and that they should avoid that. He says that if they go in one direction they would find the stone gates where the Faerie Realm begins and that they will all have to ingest some of the sandy drug Jane is carrying in her pouch to be able to cross the gates.
With nowhere to go, the refugees continue their journey through the tunnels. Jane had long passed out and Xander carried her, refusing all help in that task. Xander keeps apologizing to Jane for not being able to save her (Bio7 出埃及记/Exodus).
The refugees listen to Lloyd and head for the gates with the soldiers still chasing them. They find The Albinos and Lillith, their queen, tells the refugees a story of their magic, its becoming and their task. They offer the refugees rest but then ask them to leave (Bio8 白化族/The Albinos).
The refugees find the ancient city of Victoria, the city of The Fairies (Bio9 仙子之歌/Song of the Fairies). The faeries offer them a place to stay and heal, but their magic, beyond human comprehension, starts taking its toll on the refugees' minds. Xander, taken by the abilities that faeries posses, starts learning their skills and their magic. They slowly go mad, but also succeed in learning the ways they could fix Jane.
Despite now knowing the incredible techniques that faeries have, Xander needs human flesh to fix Jane. They cut off both their legs and their left arm, laughing maniacally, trying to save Jane. Xander succeeds, but the knowledge takes a heavy toll on their mind. Now crazy, Xander manages to write down all they had learned in chapters and add a warning never to study beyond the chapter seven (Bio10 赞德的突破/Xander's Breakthrough).
All of the refugees fear for their minds. The presence so near to the faerie magic is starting to disturb them. Jane, who had recovered, learns from Xander's notebook and modifies all the refugees to their liking. Together, they decide to return to Shanty Town.
Once they reach the Shanty Town, Jane leading the way home, they are confronted by the Blood Red Dogs, who surround them and make Jane kneel. She sings of home and smiles, then an army of albinos and an army of faeries flood the field of battle and defeat the Blood Red Dogs. In a callback to The Little Meme's "You will not have her", Jane sings to the Blood Red Dogs: "You cannot have it, you cannot take our home."
The refugees, now home, declare independence and found a new town in the center of the park in New Albion. They now call it Xandoria and are lead by the warrior cyborg princes Jane (Bio11 回归/Return).
The Broken Cyborg chronologically follows The Forgotten Meme. It is set in a logical, continual time-frame. It loosely mentions the period before The Ballad of Lost Hollow and the early lives of Xander and Henry's mothers.
In early promotions of the album, Paul Shapera stated it would be heavy on lore. This was very much the case as the album featured a variety of call-backs, references, easter eggs, characters and motives from previous albums. The major ones being Lloyd Allen's appearance, the reveal of Henry's true background, the Albino Tribes, the faeries and of course, New Albion as the main setting. Among numerous others are the Blood Red Dogs, Rebecca and The Little Meme, Shopogopolis, mentions of the Dolls, the Voodoopunk, Annabel and Edgar, etc.
Han-Mi narrates this story, just as she narrated The Forgotten Meme. She does not interfere in the events, but just as Raven had in The Forgotten Meme, Lloyd Allen makes an appearance and steers the cast a little.
Paul Shapera had planned the plot, or at least some parts of the plot of The Broken Cyborg before recording The Forgotten Meme. He recorded Kerttu's line from this album while recording The Forgotten Meme.
The Broken Cyborg was first live-streamed on YouTube on March 7, 2019.
The release date of the album was supposed to be March 10. However, in an attempt to set up a pre-order on it, Paul Shapera released the album to the public on March 8, giving the fans another treat, after the live-stream.
The song titles are written in Chinese to prevent the entire plot from being gathered from song titles alone on the first listen. Mandarin was chosen after Psyche was consulted and said that was the language that Han speaks
