FortiCo Inc.

>Megacorp/Parmilitary Hybrid

>Search: “FortiCo History”
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>Security Confirmed: [REDACTED] History fetched
>Hello, [REDACTED]. Pertinent files provided.

	In the days before the Fall, the brutal march of progress carried on. As it had been since times unrecorded, fortunes were made, stolen, and lost from day to day and moment to moment. It was into this world that FortiCo came to be. Like a phoenix, FortiCo rose from an admixture of the ashes of 3 separate Corps. In order to understand the current state of the Megacorp, one must begin with a brief history of each of the founder Corps, and the dreams and motivations of the associated CEOs.

>What would you like to know first?
>CCAP/Leo Lynch/”Planning” Selected
	The Commission for Corporate Architecture and Planning was founded by Leo Lynch, a wealthy immigrant to [REDACTED] and sole heir to the Lynch fortune. Having expressed an interest in architecture and design at an early age, it came as no surprise that Lynch founded a Corp dedicated to the pursuit of such enterprises when he inherited his father and mother's wealth. CCAP's reservations against military and government contracts, prompted by the personal beliefs of Lynch himself, was much less expected. Even still, the architects and designers recruited by Lynch's charisma and connections were all absolute top-notch talent and this, coupled with the firm's unusual personnel structure (which allowed and encouraged even the lowest of assistants to express their opinion when they noticed a flaw in a plan of action, while still maintaining extreme efficiency) ensured that CCAP's expertise stayed in high demand. Their work included some of the most notable and intricate personal bunkers, megatowers, self-contained arcologies, hydroponic complexes, and corporate towns of the entire Pre-Fall world. However, eventually Lynch's prohibition on taking government and military contracts earned the enmity of several powerful individuals...as well as his shareholders, who became very frustrated over the missed revenue. After a particularly lucrative contract was given to a competing company, the shareholders raised an outcry. Lynch held majority share and refused to impinge on his pacificist ideals. In response the shareholders organized a massive sell off of company stock. Lynch was forced to burn the vast majority of his fortune buying back shares of his stock at a fraction of what they should have been worth. He watched as his company was driven into the ground, but still refused to relent on his convictions.
	When all was said and done, Lynch had regained sole ownership of the company...but he found himself with scarcely enough money to keep the established corporate facilities running. Many employees left, as wages were delayed for weeks or months due to lack of funds. In short order only the most loyal members of the company who would stand by CCAP, Lynch, and the ideals they symbolized no matter what remained. It was truly the darkness before dawn, but neither My Lynch, nor any outside observer would've gussed as much at the time.

>Recognizing Search “Why Lynch Wouldn't Accept Gov't/Mil Contracts”
>Requesting Authorization...
>Authorization Registered: Class [XXXX]
	Leo Lynch's pacifist and non-violence tendencies, while widely acknowledged, are not very well understood. Multiple opinions and conjectures have been presented, but information on the CEO is scarce and few to none have been substantiated.
>(WARNING, FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS ONLY GRANTED TO CLEARANCE [XXXX] AND ABOVE)
	The most widely accepted theory is that Mr. Lynch uncovered the secret of how his great-grandfather had earned seed-money to start the family fortune and recoiled from it, causing him to revolt from his legacy and swear off violence forever.
	It is rendered clear by FortiCo's success in its trade that, even if he attempted to suppress it, the propensity towards violence and warcraft remained intensely ingrained in Lynch's very genes.

>...Would you like to know more...?
>YES!
>Registering...Aceepted, fecthing “StrucaCom”
>Processing “StrucaCom History” files from CentralServer

	The next corp that would find its way into the arms of FortiCo was Katerina Denys' own construction corp, StrucaCom LLC. Known as Kathy to her friends (who were very few but included Mr. Lynch ultimately), Katerina gained an early start onto the international scene when she completed her first degree in Civil Engineering at the renowned Fenix University at the age of 10. This was only the first of many technical and scientific degrees to follow. Being from a relatively poor family, Katerina grew up in one of the rougher districts of Megacity Kokaido. Throughout her formative years her father would take young Katerina (perhaps less cautiously than he should've been) on walks through the industrial sections of Kokaido, where he worked. The young girl would walk alongside her father, looking up and marveling at the height and intricacy of the buildings that composed the megacity's heart and generated its wealth. This all ended when Katerina was 5 years old. At that time her father died in an industrial accident while working under [REDACTED], a roof collapse had occurred in the ailing megatower that he worked in and brought down several thousand liters of caustic chemicals with it (foul play by [REDACTED] was suspected by some, but never proven). This incident would prove to be an important moment of crisis in the young engineer's life. Without their father's income, Katerina's mother was force to...take up occupation in Kokaido's infamous District #69. When this still failed to bring in satisfactory income, Katerina was adopted as a ward of the city and sent to public school. Previously undiscovered, or non-extant, or perhaps sparked somehow by an unknown benefactor Katerina's immense and fiery intellect now decided to make itself known. By the age of 20 she possessed no less than 15 degrees from accredited universities around the world and was tenured faculty at no less than 3 separate (though related and nearby) universities.
	At age 23, Katerina decided to start her own construction company. Picking the name StrucaCom, after a long-dead family member, the prodigy finally felt that she would be able to ensure that no one else would feel the sort of loss she had. StrucaCom distinguished itself from its competition in several ways. Firstly, the company was completely vertically integrated. From mineworks to transport to refinery to constructor (and deconstructor), every bit of StrucaCom's technology was rigorously designed by and held to the high standards of its founder. Secondly, all construction projects undertaken by the company would have their architectural plans examined (and modified, usually) by Katerina herself. With these selling points, StrucaCom quickly gained a loyal following of customers, including the CCAP (the only company who's plans Katerina never had to make a revision on, which likely contributed to the close relationship between herself and Mr. Lynch), GROW, I Corp and others.
	However, it turned out that Ms Denys was more suited to her role as engineer than as CEO. After an embezzlement scandal where top employee [REDACTED] escaped with billions and left the company on the edge of bankruptcy, StrucaCom and Ms Denys found themselves in desperate straits with no clear way out.

	The third founding member-corp of FortiCo was unique among its fellows. As a small private military contractor with a steady clientele among corporate and government interests, Volsyk Industrial Security was an established if relatively unknown PMC in the years before the fall. The mainstay occupation of Volsyk Industrial was database security, both physical and digital. Despite its lack of fame, the digital security programs of Volsyk were quite innovative...occasionally accusations were even leveled at the corp of illegal AI development projects, as the counterattack algorithms contained in their defense programs operated with a degree of efficiency and voraciousness that was scarcely conceivable for 'normals' to achieve. No cases ever made it through to the actual courts though, presumably settled out of court away from the public's eye. Public records indicate that settlements for these cases were quite high, providing disturbing implications. [REDACTED] records further indicate that documents the prosecution sent forward had formerly been held in several datavaults physically secured by Volsyk personnel that had suffered mysterious “break ins” and “shutdowns.” This is unsurprising, as it was well known among clientele that Volsyk was much better at the cyber-aspect of security, its physical defense employees simply weren't up to snuff.
	Volsyk's last Pre-Fall CEO, a mysterious man simply known as “Jack”, came to power some years before the Fall began. Strangely there is next to no identifying information on Jack aside from scattered reports of bounties and vague similarities to [REDACTED] from the ancient era. Be that as it may, he was obviously a powerful warrior, even able to take down Supers in one-on-one fights...occasionally, despite appearing to be an entirely unaugmented human.
	Jack's rise to (or seizure of) Volsyk's CEO position is as mysterious as his past, but it is evident that once he attained the rank Volsyk experienced a dramatic restructuring. Almost immediately after assuming CEO status, Jack radically changed the mandatory training regimen for all on-site defense employees. Details on the new regime are scarce, but evidently it was extremely hard. Within 2 months 95% of the participants had decided to leave the company, rather than stay and keep up with the training. There are extensive records of Workers' Compensation cases from this period that suggest the training was highly...'realistic', though nonlethal, with an emphasis on fighting when outnumbered and/or in close quarters with melee and other CQC weapons. There are some questions as to how Jack was able to perform such radical reform to the company without any shareholder objections. Explanations are sketchy, but certain financial records point towards majority share having been attained by Jack through the use of various shell corporations funded out of his pocket.

([Note: How long was he planning this...how old is this motherfucker?])

	Towards the end of this die-off period, after the vast majority of former employees had left, the company began to roll out several new benefits programs for its remaining personnel. Foremost among these was an extensive cybernetic augmentation program offered to all employees, particularly to the cyberdefense arm. All cybernetic development and augmentation was done in house by Think Tankers hired with the liquid assets freed up from firing so many employees. Top-of-the-line milspec enhancements to agility, strength, reaction time, etc. were as you'd expect from a PMC that was rapidly reforming into a small, elite force. There was at least one exceptional aspect of the Volsyk augs though, in the mental category. All cyberdefense personnel who chose to become augged were granted special experimental modules that granted advanced networking abilities between them, and allowed their brains to work in parallel. For practical purposes, this allowed the cyberdefense employees to run both physical and cyber defenses at once, seemingly flawlessly.

[(NOTE: Observations of modules and capabilities bear similarities to later work performed by Dr. [REDACTED] in the Vault [XXX] research complex. This bears greater investigation.)]

	Personnel who volunteered for the augmentation procedures were subsequently conscripted into the physical training regimen. Trainers had expanded to include all the non-dropouts of the first wave of training, and dropout rates among augmented individuals undergoing the training were greatly reduced. Several injuries were still reported, 99.8% of them being on augmented persons. Cyberwarfare was also trained, and augmentees were ran through gauntlets where they would be expected to defend facilities from physical and cyber attacks at once. The training was grueling, but it seemed to pay off. Volsyk's stock soared, and incidence of failure went down drastically. During Jack's entire pre-fall tenure as CEO there was not a single major breach in any Volsyk-affiliated facility, a record that few others could hold a candle to.
	Within a year Volsyk had been reformed into something quite unlike its former self. A hard-forged group of elite fighters capable of taking on nearly any offensive or defensive assignment equally well...but with a penchant for enclosed spaces. These skills would be put to the test soon, as Jack lead his Corp into open warfare against the little-remembered [REDACTED] corp. Volsyk seemed almost designed to take on the opposing forces, and his commandos were able to win several remarkable victories by eliminate manufacturing centers for Bugbots, or even hacking autodefenses and robots to be used as filler for coordinated attacks when Volsyk forces were too few. The campaign ended in a bittersweet victory for the corp, as their enemy was eliminated but the CEO still seemed dissatisfied with the result.
[...WARNING...FOLLOWING INFO IS FOR XXXX CLEARANCE AND ABOVE ONLY]
[REQUESTING AUTHORIZATION CODE: ALPHA SIGMA TYRANUS]
[...REQUEST AUTHORIZED]
	One of the unexplained mysteries of history occurs during the final siege of [REDACTED]'s lair by Volsyk Industries and several allied auxiliary forces. Doom seemed certain for the opposing cult-megacorp, their inexplicably evil robotic armies being smashed consistently across several continents by Jack's top-of-the-line augmented troops backed by filler allied troops. However, when Volsyk's forces finally massed outside [REDACTED] HQ, something was different. No bugbots emerged to do battle, not even a single cultist could be seen at the gates. Extensive, networked automated defenses continued to chatter out their defiance, but all else was utterly silent.
	Forces advanced slowly, but before they had even properly smashed aside the first layer of defenses something happened. Reports indicate an extremely loud “CLAP” of decompression, a large glow of...anti-light, followed by a haunting sound of unearthly laughter. Bugbots across the continent dropped dead, inert in the middle of swings, massive supertanks ceased charging plasma blasts instantaneously, and autoturrets fired out their last handfuls of rounds as they spun down.
	Jack's troops claimed victory, their foe having vanished into thin air. Celebrations held off of  looted riches began, and lasted for a full fortnight. Riches that had been looted from installations that no longer existed, having disappeared along with all of [REDACTED]'s other holdings.
	While his troops celebrated, Jack did not. With little delay, and no celebration, the man turned his mind to forging a force that could last through the ages no matter the circumstances. Though his immediate enemy might be gone, he knew the hand of evil would not cease to exist...and that it would not cease in its attempts to wipe him and the forces that would help him from the face of the earth. His coffers flush from from sacking most of a megacorp's holdings, Jack happened upon 2 ailing corps that might offer him a chance in achieving the lasting legacy he needed to leave...

>[Founder Summary Requested]
>Corporate Traits

>CCAP
-Elite design firm
-Experience with projects big and small
-Expert at self-sustaining structures and communities
-Corporate structure designed to point out disconnects between higher-up decisionmaking and real-world issues
-Only most loyal, most elite designers leftover after company near-collapse
-Pacifist CEO and architects
-CEO and company near bankrupt after government/military dickery, due to pacifist beliefs

>StrucaCom
-Vertically integrated, entire supply chain addressed in-house
-Expert engineers tutored by Founder herself, able to address any flaws in design or lack of on-site materials by modifying design...often resulting in better final product
-Remarkable construction times
-Remarkable safety record
-Familiarity with real world problems
-CEO friends with CCAP CEO
-Broke/Failing after embezzlement scheme

>Volsyk Industrial PMC
-Elite, heavily augmented forces
-Specializes in CQC and melee weapons, perfect for defending or attacking inside defensive works
-Augmented troopers also adept at cyberwarfare, protecting holdings they're assigned to or attacking enemy cybersystems
-Experimental augs related to Vault 101 designs allow for simultaneous hacking and fighitng
-Extremely small core of badass mildly augmented/unaugmented officers
-Often worked with and trained auxiliary forces for use as rank-and-file
-Legendary Fighter/Commander CEO
-Blood feud against [REDACTED]
-Quite wealthy, used this to bail out CCAP and StrucaCom

[Server Online...FortiCo Files Available]
[Query...”FortiCo Formation”]
[Query Accepted, fetching files]

[Audio Log, Recorded at future sight of Ft. Seracopa, [REDACTED] Pre-Fall]

[ID: Participant 1. Name : Leo Lynch, Records in Archive 113FBA667]
The sound of a born patrician's 'I'm about to turn you down' cough breaks through the static of the recording.

"Ahem. Well look, you make good points on a financial level and all but you have to understand that I am fundamentally opposed to just about everything you represent, Old Man."

[ID: Participant 2. Name : Katerina Denys, Recording in Archive 980DAC422]
"Hon, it's like you haven't even listened to a goddamn thing he said. 'Makes good points on a financial level'" the feminine voice in the recording assumes a mocking tone that only good friends often use "Face it, you're broke. I'm broke. We gave it a good shot but it didn't fucking work out, and now we're both staring down the possibility of putting all these people who counted on us out on the street."

"...That's not true," the first voice counters weakly, but quickly gains strength "Kat, we've both trained our people very well. Our companies may tank but they'll get new jobs, better ones even. God knows the Megas tried to pluck enough of my people even while I was in business, and I know they did it to you too. They're all more than smart enough to make it off even better than we could afford to give them."

"He already explained why that's bullshit, Leo. I'm starting to think you actually didn't listen to anything he said."

"Maybe I fucking didn't. I know exactly his sort, exactly the same sort that drove me out of fucking business just because I wouldn't design their complexes of WAR for them. He in particular reminds me of relatives I'd rather had never existed."

A third voice makes itself known.
[Alert! Detecting [BLACK] Markers, unable to ID voice.]
"Boy." even through the static of obfuscation the weight of age and iron ring of command can be palpably detected. "The financials are clear, and have been explained. Both of your companies' personnel are toxic. Yours for the enemies they have made by associating with you in your headstrong pursuits of impractical idealism, and hers for the oh-so-hideous sin of being involved in a compromisation of profit. You go under, they and their children will be wage slaves or worse for the rest of their lives." The voice pauses momentarily for effect, and the tape grows utterly silent for a brief time. Somehow Jack's piercing gaze makes itself felt across time, through a fucking audio-only recording, as does the deflation of Leo's defiant affect.

The patrician's voice resumes, somewhat trembling but with resolve lurking beneath the surface.
"I just didn't want to be...like him."

The third voice speaks, still as unyielding as before, but somehow...softened.
"I have learned a thing or two, through my years, about futile fights that you still get involved in because of your principles. I know precisely why you abhor violence so much, it is one of the reasons why I have chosen you and your friend to be here. It is both understandable and admirable what you have refused and how far you have been willing to stand for you ideals. Allow an old man to impart an ounce of wisdom and tell you that at times you must temper these ideals with realism..." a deep sigh is heard "as I have and am about to again. Sacrifice is a fact of life, and sometimes painful compromises must be made for the sake of what you truly hold dear.

Now, if you would, allow me to re-iterate my offer and this time you'll actually listen."

[Audio Log End.]
[Accessing Historical Databases]
[Located MegaCorp Infiltration and Intel Agent Deposition and Report]

[Displaying Deposition Transcript]
To be quite honest, I can't fucking tell you how it happened, okay? I've been here for 3 years now, hired in the first-round after the whole FortiCo merger deal (also who the fuck had the foresight to insert me that early?), and I still don't hardly know how the fuck the bastard child of 2 bankrupt construction firms and a cyber PMC managed to hit the big gigs this hard this fast. And no, don't even ask me for background history from pre-merger. These motherfuckers are all so goddamn loyal to each other that I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't fall on the paramilitary-esque security forces' fancy-ass swords or something if they had the chance to utilize their communication to upper echelons first and were actually convinced that it'd be for the good of all of them. No, it's actually kind of pissing me off that I can't find anything, in case you couldn't tell. From everything I can find they're literally just that fucking good at building defenses that'll last longer than you or I ever will. At this fucking rate I wouldn't be surprised if they turned into a MEGA banking on just that, let alone their propensity to sell their security wing out as a means of continued income.

[Displaying Report]
	I'm sure you are all aware of the explosiveness with which FortiCo has burst upon the scene of the defensive warfare market. Their success in constructing bunkers, bases, and space-borne installations that rival or even surpass what most paramilitary contractors are capable of is already accruing a large body of documentation and analysis. As such I will not cover the details of what FortiCo does, I will merely relay the corporate traits that have enabled their explosive growth.
	A thesis statement might say that FortiCo essentially cherry picked all of the best traits of its founder members while shedding their faults. CCAP's unique communications structure was the first bit to be mimicked, and my if that wasn't an impressive first move. The intercommunication between personnel of all ranks and branches allowed the company to avoid the all-too-common integration pains most corporations face after a merger by allowing, for lack of a better term, these three entirely different areas of expertise to "shit slap" each other into a well oiled machine in very little time. This period lasted for about a year before the relationships between Research and Design (former CCAP elements), Construction and Execution (StrucaCom personnel, mostly), and Integrated Garrisons/Advisement (Volsyk personnel) stabilized with a sense of mutual respect between them all. I have been unable to acquire bid reports for this time period, but from the execution budgets that I do have access to I am lead to suspect that the Trio CEO Council might've deliberately kept work thin during this period to cause a sort of stress-weld between all the staff. Whether deliberate or not, it worked and FortiCo's employee loyalty both between workers and between workers and the higherups could only be reliably matched with an extensive psycho-surgeon routine.
	Another reason why I suspect FortiCo intentionally kept its business suppressed is that after its first year accepted contracts went from a trickle to a flood. Suddenly there was more work to be done than was feasible, and all employees were employed on ridiculous amounts of overtime. If it weren't for prototype constructor drones (which have, at this point, been integrated into core FortiCo work practices) of Katerina Denys' design being rushed into production to supplement the workforce it's likely several of the contracts would've been cancelled. As it happened though, between the cohesiveness of the workforce and former Volsyk elements providing cyber and physical security on the constructor drones (which prevented any acts of sabotage being successfully completed on any FortiCo project) all contracts were completed AHEAD of schedule with exemplary results.
	There were many other elements of FortiCo which contributed to its success but are harder to describe in non-technical detail. It has been noted that their facilities are designed to be exsquisitely self-sufficient in a compartmentalized fashion while still playing with the strengths of their security forces in mind (at least if you're clever enough to look at them in that way. Otherwise you'd never notice). Auto-defenses are most often reliable, modular technology such as missiles, rockets, artillery, other chemically propelled weapons with changeable ammunition and railguns. These systems hit far above their weight class due to the in-house programs and coordination provided by FortiCo's heavily cyber-augmented security personnel.
	However, the number of facilities FortiCo had built and contracted to protect quickly grew beyond what former Volsyk employees could handle. Rather than let this suspend operations, the challenge was used to catalyze a change in the methodology of Volsyk. Jack was unwilling to compromise even an inch on the training regime for security personnel, but he was persuaded by Lynch and Denys into allowing supplementation of augmented forces with bots and drones networked with the troopers themselves. FortiCo officers (those who managed to pass the regime without excessive augmentation) were also employed in lucrative consulting deals to train non-corp garrisons for FortiCo structures, allowing for minimal FortiCo personnel presence to maintain security.
	By far the most remaaaaar---933$$$d

[File Corrupted, Terminating Script.]