Chain of custody // chronology
From stolen code to corporate afterlife.
Six moments are enough to understand how Alt's work became Arasaka's weapon, vault, product and re-instantiation programme.
- BEFORE 2013
Alt proves a mind can become data
At ITS, Alt Cunningham develops a matrix for artificial personalities and discovers that the same architecture can hold human engramic data. The preservation idea comes first. The weapon comes later.
- 2013
The preservation project gets teeth
Arasaka abducts Alt and forces her to recreate a mobile Soulkiller build. The software is used against her. Her biological body dies; an entity carrying her engramic continuity remains in the Net.
- 2023
The Tower falls. Johnny becomes data.
Johnny Silverhand dies during the Arasaka Tower disaster. An engram of him later exists inside Mikoshi, although the exact capture path is one of the setting's contested records.
- 2045–2070
Arasaka turns the weapon back toward preservation
Hanako Arasaka works on revised Soulkiller research aimed at preserving consciousness and transferring engrams into new bodies. The idea is no longer just capture. It is continuity — on Arasaka terms.
- 2070s
Death becomes a premium service
Secure Your Soul packages engram creation and Mikoshi storage for elite clients. Behind the public promise, Arasaka also studies extraction, copying and construct-level manipulation.
- 2077
Hellman attacks the last problem: flesh
Relic 2.0 takes Soulkiller-derived engram technology and pushes it toward re-implantation in an organic host. V becomes the impossible field test nobody planned for.
NEXT TRACE