Softlight Corp.

Founded in 2049 CE 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 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. These new augmentations became ubiquitous, and communities of hackers who experimented with alterations came to be.