Set in a 2010 ravaged by a societal collapse known as the "First Breakdown," Cyborg depicts a world where civilization has been decimated by anarchy, genocide, and a global pandemic called the "Living Death." The film envisions a landscape defined by industrial decay and lawlessness, where small pockets of scientific resistance attempt to restore order from fortified hubs. The central narrative follows a "slinger" (mercenary) escorting a cybernetically enhanced woman, Pearl Prophet, who carries the digital blueprints for a plague cure in her internal memory banks.

The film’s vision of 2010 is heavily Earth-centered, showing a planet that has regressed into a neo-medieval state. Technology is scarce and salvaged; weapons are often rudimentary blades or modified tools rather than advanced energy weapons. Earth is no longer a unified political entity but a series of warring territories dominated by "Flesh Pirates" and marauder gangs. The only remaining vestige of institutional authority is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, which serves as the ultimate destination and the last beacon of human recovery, implying that the rest of the federal government has effectively ceased to exist.

In terms of technological predictions, the film’s titular concept—using a human-machine hybrid as a secure, mobile hard drive—serves as a metaphor for extreme data security, though critics have noted it seems anachronistic given the real-world development of portable flash storage by the actual 2010. While the "Living Death" plague serves as a narrative device for societal collapse, retrospective analyses often compare its impact to the global anxieties regarding the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s. The film’s 2010 failed to predict the digital connectivity of the real 21st century, instead offering a lo-fi future where physical transport of data is the only remaining way to save the species.