Softlight Corp.

Founded in 2049 CE in California by Terrence Ross, Softlight started out as a biotech company specializing in synthetic implants. Ross managed to get many high-profile investors on board, and used the money to buy Silane Chip Fabrication Technologies (SCFT) in 2055 CE. Softlight retained the Silane brand name for several years before phasing it out in 2061 CE. Softlight began designing its own implants and, with Silane's foundries, incorporating AI accelerator chips. As part of a military contract, Softlight created what could be considered the first cybernetic augmentation in 2058 CE.

By 2060, Softlight had plans in place to deploy consumer versions, but the regulations around such procedures meant it would take decades to develop and test any products. Rather than wait for red tape, Ross once again turned to investors, raising an enormous amount of capital. This, along with his personal wealth, went toward buying land and building smart cities. With less governmental oversight, Softlight began testing consumer-targeted augmentations in 2065.

This first era of augmentations was somewhat limited, and mainly fell into 2 categories: prosthetics and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Prosthetics could restore missing motor function, or give the user the ability to control complex robotics. BCIs transformed the way the user thought. Sensory data could be accurately recorded, then retrieved, for objective eidetic memory. Cognitive tasks could be offloaded directly from the brain to the computer, blurring the line between brain and silicon. The entire internet could be accessed as easily as a memory of yesterday's dinner. Prosthetics were flashier, but BCIs were what metamorphosed the world. The primary downside of these augmentations was the bulk. Even with strides in power efficiency and battery compactness, large battery packs or physical connections were still necessary to run the hardware. This and cost meant that outside the military, augmentation was mostly restricted to test volunteers and the wealthy. A few highly-knowledgeable hobbyists were able to modify and extend these augmentations, but it was uncommon.

In 2075, The Moment War occurred. This was a brief exchange of nuclear missile launches between several nations, creating several nuclear dead-zones. Corporate power grew significantly, and Softlight had control of a large amount of southwestern North America.

In 2079, Softlight researchers discovered gridspace, which enabled a new generation of augmentations that used a comparatively negligible amount of electrical power for significantly greater capability. Augmentations were packaged and sold as individual units called modules. These new augmentations became ubiquitous, and communities of hackers who experimented with alterations came to be. The first application of gridspace was a cybernetic antirad virus that helped prevent effects of radiation poisoning in the wake of The Instant War. This ultimately resulted in an expansion of the upper class to areas with slight amounts of radiation, displacing the lower class into areas with non-negligible radiation.

In 2098, Softlight began producing Androids, and deployed them exclusively on Utopia, one of their floating cities which was home to mostly very wealthy people.

In 2115, the events of Sophocles Delta occurred, resulting in Astra discovering the truth that Androids were humans stripped of free will and the subsequent destruction of those Androids. Softlight had to pay many fines and several executives went to jail because of the fall of Utopia, but the company remained powerful and the truth about the Androids did not become public, only existing as a fringe conspiracy theory.

In 2122 Softlight researches developed true AI using gridspace. This type of AI was as sophisticated as human intelligence, and would often inhabit machine bodies. The meaning of "Android" shifted to refer to these AIs with physical bodies. AIs and Androids fought for their rights and to be considered "people" for many years.