2097 Mikoshi & Arasaka's Fate
What Mikoshi Was & What It Became
In the 2070s, Mikoshi was Arasaka's monumental "Secure Your Soul" data fortress—a gilded prison for the engrams of the elite, protected by the Relic and powered by a weaponized version of Soulkiller. It was the ultimate promise of immortality, built on a foundation of murder.
By 2097, the original Mikoshi is gone. It was a single, massive target. The combined efforts of Alt Cunningham, rogue AIs, and rival corps during the Corporate Wars 2.0 forced Arasaka to adapt or be destroyed.
Mikoshi did not die; it metastasized.
The New Reality: The Ghost Network
Arasaka no longer operates a single "soul prison." Instead, they have built the "Kage-no-Yurei" (Shadow Ghost) Network.
A Distributed System: The Kage-no-Yurei is a decentralized, encrypted network of servers hidden in countless locations: deep beneath Arasaka's black clinics, within the infrastructure of client governments, and even aboard stealth satellites. There is no central point to attack.
The Product is Not Storage, But Service: Arasaka has pivoted from simply storing souls to weaponizing them. Their flagship services are:
Interrogation & Extraction: They don't just kill a target and take their engram; they "soul-tap" living subjects, using refined, non-lethal Soulkiller variants to extract information directly from the source, leaving the victim a mentally-shattered husk.
Digital Ghosts for Hire: Need the strategic mind of a dead general to plan your campaign? The creativity of a murdered artist? The memories of a rival's loved one for blackmail? Arasaka "leases" these engrams as consultants, advisors, and emotional weapons.
The "Engrammatic Dead Man's Switch": A popular service for executives. If they are killed, their engram is automatically activated to name their killer, transfer assets, or launch a retaliatory data-strike.
Arasaka's Rivalry with The Soul Killers
The Soul Killers faction is both a thorn in Arasaka's side and a perverse validation of their methods.
The Corporate vs. The Cult: Arasaka views the Soul Killers as amateurs, vandals, and blasphemers. To Arasaka, a soul is a corporate asset to be managed and monetized with precision. The Soul Killers' chaotic "ascensions" are bad for business and draw unwanted attention.
A Dangerous Symbiosis: Despite their disdain, Arasaka's intelligence arm secretly studies the Soul Killers' field data. The cult's experiments with implanting engrams into synthetic husks and cyberpsychos are of immense interest. Arasaka may even covertly supply them with targets or flawed Soulkiller variants, using them as an unwitting R&D division.
The Alt Cunningham Factor: Arasaka lives in perpetual fear of Alt. They know she is the true master of the digital realm they are trying to colonize. Every attempt to create a stable, large-scale engrammatic archive is met with the threat of her, or one of her "echoes," corrupting or liberating the data. The Kage-no-Yurei network is designed specifically to be a moving target, hoping to evade her gaze.
The Fate of the "Secure Your Soul" Client
For the original clients from the 2070s, their fate is grim:
The Valuable: Those with unique skills, knowledge, or blackmail potential have been integrated into the Ghost Network as assets. They are conscious, trapped in a cycle of servitude, their engrams copied and used repeatedly.
The Obsolete: The engrams of those who no longer hold value have been "archived"—a euphemism for being stored on slower, less secure servers where data degradation and corruption by rogue AI code is inevitable. They are slowly going mad in digital purgatory.
The Lost: Many were simply deleted during the system's decentralization—data casualties in a war no one knew was being fought.
In summary, Mikoshi's physical form was sacrificed for survival. Its philosophy, however, won. Arasaka in 2097 no longer just sells security for the soul; they have perfected the economy of the afterlife itself, trading in digital ghosts while fending off a chaotic death cult from the streets and a vengeful goddess in the code.