If you want it protected, these are still the people to talk to. Though their operations are severely reduced and their headquarters are limited to the Japanese mainland, Arasaka has managed, even in defeat, to hold on to most of its assets thanks to its strong alliance with the official government of Japan. Most of the time, post-War, Arasaka troops are covertly licensed out to other firms around the world as Corporate security guards, couriers, and mercenaries, but usually wearing the uniforms of their new "employers."
The best trained and hardest operatives in the security business, they follow their client's orders second only to Arasaka's, and to the Arasaka Corporation, they are loyal to the point of death. Arasaka is more about protecting its own damaged assets than protecting other companies, so they often use their position of trust with major Corporations around the world to gain inside information, contacts, and advantages that will help them to realize their ultimate goal: returning to the political and economic heights they once held.
When the fuel crisis really began to affect the industrialized community in the late 1990s, Biotechnica, thena small firm with only one office, came up with the answer: CHOOH2. CHOOH2(not its actual chemical formula) is a complex grain alcohol produced by genetically engineered yeasts and wheat strains created by Biotechnica. The potential of CHOOH2 was realized almost immediately after it was introduced, and within a few years, all fuel-burning vehicles and power plants had converted to the new product.
Biotechnica is also probably the closest thing to a"good guy" Corporation in the Time of the Red. Its labs have provided much of the tech that enabled the PacificConfed to develop new bio-engineered "replacement species," and Biotechnica is active in restoring both animals and habitat throughout the blighted environments of this era.
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On the surface, it is a private investigation firm specializing in cases for celebrities and other socially important clients. As its perky, unstoppable head, Michiko Sanderson (nee Arasaka) is a staple of parties and events from New Hollywood to the hot spots of recovering Europe. Her visible naivete and irrepressible charm disguise the fact that she's also a highly competent criminologist. It also obscures the fact that behind the scenes, she's fulfilling one of the directives she agreed to perform as part of her deal with President Elizabeth Kress to remain on American soil: locating and dismantling any Arasaka Corp operations in and around the United States.
For two decades, Danger Gal has been making headlines with its high-society cases and daring exploits, all the while playing a lethal undercover chess game against the warring factions of her deadly family. Don't let the cutesy logo of the "Little Detective" fool you. When you cross DangerGal, you're messing with fire.
One of the major players in the 4th Corporate War, MTI fought rival, Arasaka Corp to a bloody standstill that ended only when the Megacorp was ordered to stand down by the President of the remnant United States. This didn't sit well with Militech's hotheaded and proud CEO, Gen. Donald Lundee, an ex-Marine who took his war with the renegade Japanese security Corporation very personally.
Currently, even as it labors under controls from Washington D.C. as a nationalized Corporate asset of the New United States, MTI is secretly rebuilding back to its former role as a combination of arms merchant and mercenary army. Even though greatly reduced by wartime losses, MTI is still the world's largest producer and seller of all manner of military weapons.
Network News 54 is a wavelength monopolizer, operating on the same frequency across the country. Accordingly, no matter where you go in the country, Network News 54 is on Channel 54, although since the War their reach into the broadcast markets has been severely curtailed. Despite its name, News 54 offers many diversions in addition to news. Every regional office offers a slightly different schedule to its district, with syndicated series, non-prime-time movies, and independent local news programs. Certain elements of the broadcasting are universal nationwide, such as prime-time series and bi-hourly national and world news shows.
With the collapse of most multinational fuel companies after the 4th Corp War, Petrochem is keeping the world running. Literally. They're the world's largest producer of CHOOH2 (under license), and control millions of acres of arable land across the un-incorporated United States—land chiefly used to grow the genetically altered wheat that is used to make CHOOH2. Petrochem is also one of the world's largest oil producers, but with the oil supply dwindling most remaining fossil fuels are used to make plastics and other synthetics. Petrochem also has more fertile oil fields than any other company. All of these assets are huge, and accordingly hard to protect from other companies that would like to usurp Petrochem's wealth.
Founded in 2004 by Andrew Rocklin, Rocklin Prosthetics was a major supplier of artificial limb technology to the Veterans Administration after the Central American Police Actions. But as prosthetic devices evolved from simple medical aids to full cybernetic enhancements, Rocklin found itself eclipsed by more aggressive Cybercorps like Dynalar and Kiroshi. While the Corp eked out an existence through their old government contracts, they found their sturdy but basic products falling out of favor in the hyper-charged markets of the Cyberpunk Age.
Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Rocklin was radically reborn in 2030 as Rocklin Augmentics. The Neocorp burst onto the scene with an entirely new catalog of enhancements: bleeding edge designs that emphasized their artificial qualities and unique aesthetics. Still boasting the Rocklin reputation for reliability and strength, these new enhancements refused all pretense at organic simulation with open frameworks, bizarre color schemes, and proportions and variations that seemed brazenly inhuman. Rocklin still offers a selection of good-quality, domestically-made cybernetics in more conventional styles, albeit with greater sophistication than before, but it's Rocklin's more unorthodox lines that are burning up the Data Terms.
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One of the largest private medical firms in the world, Trauma Team provides ambulance services and paramedic support for a client base of at least fifteen million people. Trauma Team survived the 4th Corporate War but only as regional providers. The conflict not only drew heavily upon their limited resources, but also upon their suppliers. Repair parts for their fleet of AV-4s and jets are hard to come by, as well as medical dressings, key drugs and vaccines, and even trained personnel. Not all can afford TT's high response fees, but groups of Edgerunners have been known to chip in to buy a single card that they break to call in the Trauma Team in the hopes that the TT paramedics will at least patch the rest of the team up.
The War also changed TT's look as well: in the past, their crisp blue and yellow uniforms were a comforting sign of their competence and capability. But endless street battles and the availability of surplus military hardware has forced the Trauma Team to armor up almost as heavily as the worst Psycho Squad. The uniforms are still blue, but add heavy armor, power armor support systems, and self-contained combat medipacs. This coupled with the lack of qualified Medtechs, has given Trauma Team a new face: harried, overworked, angry, and impatient.
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Ziggurat seemingly appeared from nowhere in 2030 in Night City to transform the old fiber-optic Data Term network into a new system and restore cheap and reliable communication across the whole of the metroplex. Ziggurat further increased usability by overlaying the CitiNet with the first Data Pool, an open protocol for displaying and sharing data that anyone could use. By 2040, most cities in the New United States, the Pacifica Confed, Canada, and the Free States had CitiNets and Data Pools courtesy of the company. Ziggurat also helped restore communication between metropolitan regions by providing simple and inexpensive city-to-city communication via hourly data-packet burst transfers along a cobbled together patchwork of reclaimed phone lines, free-space optics, and even Nomad couriers. This long-distance communication only works via text, voice, and video messages. Direct audio and visual contact still requires a contract with the more expensive WorldSat Comm Network.
Almost immediately after the Night City Data Pool went online, Ziggurat published the first set of apps to make use of it. This allowed them to not only collect fees from the government for setting up and maintaining CitiNetsand Data Pools but monetized their use by collecting and selling data, selling advertising space, and supplying users with in-app upgrades. Among Ziggurat's most popular app offerings are the Ask Alex Anything pseudo-AI data crawler, the BabelChat chat app, the ZPost electronic mail service, and the Ziggurat Editing Suite for text, audio, video, and app creation.
While there are minor competitors, most content on North American Data Pools is created using Ziggurat Apps and consumed via the Garden, the company's one-stop platform for sharing content. Any Garden user can, at no cost, set up their own Garden Patch, a space on the Data Pool made specifically for sharing their text, audio, virtual, and braindance creations. Patches can be customized using a limited variety of free overlays or more functional (and thus more expensive) templates. Once setup is completed, users can populate their Patch with text, still imagery, audio and video, virtual, and braindance creations that other users can consume and comment on. Ziggurat runs targeted advertisements before, after, and during Garden content, cutting the creators in for ten percent of revenues. Most modern PopMedia stars in the Time of the Red get their start on the Garden and most performers and companies, no matter how big, maintain their own Patch in order to reach the broadest possible audience with their entertainment, commercials, and products.
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the balmy breezes
of Jamaica rust the
circuits on my arm.
Sneering, I down the pill with oil
as I watch the chrome-clad couple stroll-
is it envy or just the cyberpsychosis?
"Waitress, there was a fly in my drink."
"You want me to get you another?"
"Never mind. It's the only organic thing left in me."
Title: CyberJack Takes a Holiday, by Roger Cotton.