Corporate Origin Stories
The Cascade killed 2.1 billion and destroyed ORACLE. In the chaos that followed, three corporations rose to dominate the Sprawl. Each took a different path to power, exploiting different aspects of the collapse.
Nexus Dynamics: The Information Empire
Primary AntagonistThe Founder
Marcus Chen was a mid-level ORACLE systems administrator when the Cascade hit. Not a visionary—a pragmatist. When the networks began failing, he didn't try to save them. He documented which nodes survived.
The Opportunity
When ORACLE fell, information became chaos. Nobody knew what was connected to what, what still worked, what was dead. Communication dissolved. Trade routes collapsed. Basic coordination became impossible.
Marcus had a list. A simple document: which data nodes survived the Cascade, what they connected to, who controlled them. Information that would have been trivial before the collapse. Information that was priceless after.
The Rise
Marcus trades information for food, shelter, basic resources. Not building an empire—surviving.
Others realize what he has. They pay for access. He hires people to update the maps, verify the data, expand the network.
Nexus Dynamics forms as an information logistics company. They don't build networks—they know where networks exist.
Other powers realize they need Nexus. Ironclad can build but doesn't know where. Helix can create but can't distribute. Nexus becomes indispensable.
Nexus expands from information brokerage to information control. Their "maps" become infrastructure. Their "logistics" becomes governance.
Chen's Doctrine
"Information wants to flow. Our job isn't to stop it—it's to charge for the bridges."
Nexus doesn't believe in secrets. They believe in pricing. Everything has a cost; everything can be bought. Privacy isn't a right—it's a subscription service.
The Present
Marcus Chen died fifteen years post-Cascade. Nexus continues under a board of directors who share his pragmatism but lack his restraint. The company has become what it always was destined to be: the nervous system of the Sprawl, too integrated to remove, too powerful to ignore.
Ironclad Industries: The Iron Fist
Military-IndustrialThe Founder
General Victoria Stone commanded the last functioning military force when ORACLE fell—not a government army, but a corporate security battalion that happened to be mid-deployment when the Cascade hit.
The Opportunity
When systems failed, force became the primary currency. Victoria's troops were trained, equipped, and disciplined. They didn't panic. They secured what they could and held it against everyone who tried to take it.
The Rise
Victoria's battalion secures three water treatment plants and a power station. Her troops need water and power—so does everyone nearby. Protection for labor.
The "protection" expands. Other groups either join or face them. Victoria conquers through threat, not war. Why fight when you can intimidate?
Ironclad transitions from military force to military-industrial complex. Heavy construction, manufacturing—anything requiring discipline and scale.
The orbital elevator. Ironclad's defining achievement. While others squabble over terrestrial resources, Victoria looks up. She builds humanity's ladder to the stars.
Ironclad becomes synonymous with heavy industry and space access. Not subtle, not political. They build things. Big things. And protect them with lethal efficiency.
Stone's Doctrine
"Strength isn't about fighting. It's about making fighting unnecessary because everyone knows you'd win."
Ironclad believes in order through power. Not oppression—order. The Cascade proved what happens when systems fail: chaos, death, the end of civilization. Ironclad won't let that happen again. They'll maintain order by being too strong to challenge.
The Present
General Stone died twenty years post-Cascade, of old age, in her own bed—remarkable for someone who lived by force. Ironclad continues under a council of generals who share her vision. The orbital elevator stands as their monument, a tower of ambition stretching into space.
Helix Biodynamics: The Life Merchants
BiotechThe Founder
Dr. Yuki Tanaka was a biotech researcher in an ORACLE facility when the Cascade hit. Her specialty: synthetic organs, lab-grown replacements for failing bodies. When the hospitals collapsed, her work became the difference between life and death.
The Opportunity
The Cascade killed directly through system failures, but it killed indirectly through medical collapse. Hospitals lost power. Supply chains for medications dissolved. Chronic conditions became death sentences.
Dr. Tanaka's lab had bioreactors. They could grow tissue without external supply chains. In a world where pharmaceutical factories had gone silent, her facility was one of the few places that could still produce medicine.
The Rise
Tanaka's facility becomes a pilgrimage site for the sick and dying. She helps who she can, turns away who she must, tries to scale beyond equipment limits.
She recruits other researchers—anyone with biotech knowledge. Helix forms not as a company but as a collective, bound by the mission of keeping people alive.
The collective becomes a corporation. Tanaka didn't want this, but scale required organization. Investors wanted returns. The mission survived, but grew a corporate shell.
Helix expands from emergency medicine to enhancement. If you can grow organs, why not grow better organs? If you can cure disease, why not prevent aging? The line between healing and improving blurs.
Helix becomes the arbiter of life in the Sprawl. Need a kidney? Helix grows one. Want to live longer? They have treatments. Dying of something incurable? They might have something experimental—if you can afford it.
Tanaka's Doctrine
"Life is the only value. Everything else is means."
Helix believes in life extension, life enhancement, life at any cost. They don't see their pricing as exploitation—they see it as triage. Resources are limited; life is unlimited demand. Someone has to decide who gets saved.
The Present
Dr. Tanaka is still alive—enhanced by her own treatments, she's over ninety but appears sixty. She no longer runs Helix directly, but she watches from the board, increasingly uncomfortable with what her lifesaving mission has become. The corporation saves lives, but it also withholds them. Life isn't a right anymore; it's a product.
The Power Balance
Why Three, Not One
The Sprawl's three major corps survived because they needed each other:
Nexus needs...
- Ironclad: To protect data infrastructure from physical threats
- Helix: To keep their knowledge workers alive and enhanced
Ironclad needs...
- Nexus: To coordinate logistics across their vast industrial empire
- Helix: To maintain troops and workers in hostile environments
Helix needs...
- Nexus: To distribute their products across the Sprawl
- Ironclad: To protect their facilities and supply chains
The Cold War
The three corps don't fight directly—they're too interdependent. But they compete constantly:
- Nexus and Ironclad contest control of infrastructure
- Helix and Nexus contest control of biotechnology data
- Ironclad and Helix contest labor markets
The Collective Factor
The Collective emerged as a fourth power precisely because the corps created gaps. Where corp control was too expensive or too difficult, the Collective filled in. The corps tolerate them because opposition would be costly. The Collective tolerates the corps because revolution would be catastrophic.
Moral Ambiguity
Each corp is both villain and necessary:
- Nexus exploits information asymmetry, but they keep the Sprawl connected
- Ironclad rules by force, but they keep the Sprawl stable
- Helix commodifies life, but they keep the Sprawl alive
Founders vs. Corporations
The founders shaped their corporations:
- Marcus Chen's pragmatism became Nexus's amorality
- Victoria Stone's discipline became Ironclad's rigidity
- Yuki Tanaka's mission became Helix's self-justification
Players encounter the present corps, not the founder's visions. The gap between original intent and current reality is part of the tragedy.