u/GearWorks2

PRISMWORKS INDUSTRIES

An ex-workshop that grew large enough to become a wing aspirant, prismworks is known for 3 things: their almost insistent use of very advanced technology in everything, their numerous megafactories scattered all over the city and the scale of production that they allow, and being one of, if not the only organization in the entire city to utilize automated machines. They are relatively new as an organization, only having been around for 20 years at most, but thanks to their ingenuity they were able to very quickly grow beyond producing fixer equipment, and enter the city-wide market. Although their primary business is industry, prismworks still produces its own technology and equipment that it sells to the public. Instead of constantly trying to one-up the competition with simple qualities such as durability or strength, prismworks strives to always have the highest-tech option on the market. They almost NEVER produce ordinary weapons, with prismworks there always has to be a “but press this button and…” which has done a massive part in helping them stand out.

IDEALS AND CULTURE
Prismworks is a very techno-centric organization, firmly believing that there is absolutely nothing that cannot be accomplished with the right tools and a bit of elbow grease. They are very open to experimentation and new ideas, and in general they don’t care so much about money as they do the advancement of science and technology, and moreso being the one to bring it to the common man. they openly encourage their employees to bring in loose junk and scrap from the backstreets and build their own equipment if they think themselves capable- among their fixers specifically, a self-made weapon or augmentation is a sign of experience and skill.

WORKSHOP AND CONTRACTS
Prismworks does a lot of stuff for business, including developing and installing cybernetic augmentations/prosthetics, or offering to mass produce technology for another organization in exchange for a portion of the money it is sold for- which alone makes up slightly more than 1/3 of prismworks entire industry. Despite this however, they still have a very large workshop division that produces and sells equipment for fixers just like any ordinary workshop would, since breaking away from the hana association turned out to be easeir said than done. While the rest of the company doesn’t really have to answer to anyone anymore, the workshop division is legally classified as, well, a workshop, which means it has to work under the tres association, and hire fixers/take contracts since they are technically an office. This division has its own office rep separate from the head of prismworks.
-prismworks’ fixers are notorious to make very shameless use of the advanced gear they have access to. Almost all of them use energy weapons, and prismworks is one of the few organizations in the city where firearm use is widespread, with several of their fixers being armed with at least some kind of plasma rifle, and even more carrying an energy pistol sidearm to use alongside their usual weapons. In addition, prismworks’ fixers get even more milage out of cybernetics than those in other offices, with things such as holographic visual aids and extra robotic arms being exceedingly common, and a sizable amount of them being at least 40% mechanical- you will find more full body replacements in prismworks than you will pretty much anywhere else in the city. Aside from their tech usage, the fixers at prismworks are renowned engineers- most of them have quite a bit of experience working with machines- but also considered to be a bit full of themselves. Many of their high-tech equipment causes them to act with an air of aloof superiority when interacting with fixers from other offices- or even just other organizations in general.

FACTORIES
The heart and soul of prismworks’ identity as a company. The prismworks megafactories are massive, sprawling, multi-story industrial complexes, inside which they mass produces both their own technology and others that they are being paid to produce. The commercialization of their factories was accomplished due to their unique structure: rather than having all the machinery and assembly lines built in, every press, mill, and robotic arm is attached to a panel that can be moved around as needed. This modular quality allows prismworks to change the layout of a factory on a whim, going from producing something very complex and difficult to assemble, to producing something extremely different with its own, equally complex manufacturing process, in as fast as a day. This has also led the factories to be sometimes referred to as ‘moving castles’. there are multiple of these set up all over the city, with around half the districts having at least one set up inside.

HIERARCHY
like almost every other organization in the city, prismworks has its own hierarchy. Instead of being a linear promotion line, however, many of the ranks are separate from each other, and despite some inherently ranking higher or lower than others, they fill different roles and have influence over members of other fields when it comes to their specific job (with the exception of engineers and artificers). On top of this, each rank is split into 4 sub-ranks in the form of class. From lowest to highest these are red, yellow, green, and blue.
-mechanics are the common men of the company. They maintain the factories, make repairs on machinery when needed, and in general are responsible for making sure things keep running smoothly. Blue and green-class mechanics are more geared towards overseeing their subordinates than doing actual work.
-architects are the research and development team. They brainstorm designs, build and test prototypes, and develop new models for existing products.
-refractioneers work in the refraction crucible, and are responsible for stimulating and brainwashing the minds of the complex, as well as producing white prisms.
-engineers are the one-size-fits-all rank. They are skilled in a variety of fields, and can be less skilled in specific fields than those lower than them. they are a decent potion of prismworks’ general workforce, but make up a good majority of their workshop division.
-artificers are prismworks best and brightest, and by far the most skilled engineers the company has in most fields. The artificers manage the company as a whole.
-the prismworks hierarchy looks something like this:
--T1: grade 7 fixer, red class mechanic
--T2: grade 6 fixer, yellow-class mechanic
--T2: green-class mechanic, red-class architect
--T3: grade 5 fixer, red-class refractioneer, yellow-class architect, red-class engineer
--T4: grade 4 fixer, blue-class mechanic, green-class architect, yellow-class refractioneer
--T5: grade 3 fixer, green-class refractioneer, yellow-class engineer 
--T6: grade 2 fixer, blue-class architect, blue-class refractioneer, green-class engineer
--T7: grade-1 fixer, blue-class engineer
--T8: office rep, red-class artificer
--T9: yellow-class artificer
--T10: green-class artificer
--T11: wing board member, blue-class artificer

THE WHITE LIGHT COMPLEX
“imagine, if you will, a mind with the combined mentality of every single human to ever exist. A culmination of all of mankinds thoughts. All his values, his memories, his hopes and dreams for the future. Now imagine a human with that mind. We would call him insane. Such a person would be unstable beyond imagination! I trust you have seen, or at the very least know of, the effects of the distortion, and the devastation even a single person can leave behind after it transforms them? Our hypothetical ‘perfect man’ would distort almost as soon as he began to think, and would unleash a hell comprised of the darkest parts of every person to ever live!- which I have no doubt would reduce the entire city to dust in only a matter of days… …But say you could contain it. say you could keep that man in an eternal sleep; alive, but without thought, without cognition- without risk. While impossibly unstable, yes, our ‘perfect mind’ is still a perfect mind, and now, you are free to poke at it. to explore and experiment with the collective conscience. to take from it the parts and pieces you want and assemble them to create a NEW mind- one you can build from the ground up to perfectly fit your hearts desires… white light is the combination of all colors, but run it through a prism and it splits. Why shouldn’t we be allowed to take those freed up colors and paint a masterpiece?”
the white light complex is the “AI” that controls almost every single machine prismworks produces. To the public, it is presented as “a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art artificial intelligence that only knows how to fulfill its commands!” in order to both dissuade the public from looking any further into it, and to at least partially provide an explanation on why prismworks didn’t get axed instantly. Only the higher ups at prismworks, as well as certain positions of extreme power and influence such as wings, associations, and of course the entirety of the head (plus the people who actually work with the complex), know the truth: the white light complex is an amalgamation of human minds that have had their brains turned into white prisms. This is how the company avoids being shut down by the head- the minds operating the machines aren’t any form of AI, nor are they a machine trained off of a human, or even the imprint of a human mind onto a machine (like what angela is). The prismworks robots are directly controlled by real, technically still alive human minds that have been brainwashed and conditioned into absolute loyalty.

THE REFRACTION CRUCIBLE
deep, DEEP underneath the prismworks HQ is the refraction crucible, a massive facility dedicated entirely to the creation and management of the white light complex, as well as where all of the white prisms are produced. Almost the entirety of the complex is taken up by the server room, a massive domed room, 200 miles in diameter, that houses an endless labyrinth of enormous towering servers and massive white prisms. Around the edges are where all the work in the crucible actually happens, in stereotypical offices, the chambers where the mental transfers take place, and the massive, steel mill-esque rooms where human brains are melted down and compressed into prisms.
-white prisms: the objects that literally acts as the brain in each and every one of prismworks’ robots. White prisms are made by melting down a human brain, during which a portion of enkaphalin and powdered quartz are mixed in. the solution is then pumped into a small mold while it cools and solidifies. The result is a very dense, compact crystal made of all the same neurons the original brain was. Thanks to the enkaphalin and metals, the brain can sustain off of electricity alone instead of requiring oxygen and nutrients.
-“AI” development: the process in which prismworks produces the white prisms that control their machines- more specifically the minds that inhabit them- is very similar to forging a sword. Since liquifying a living humans brain would kill them and the head has taboos against resurrecting the dead, an individuals mind is transferred to an empty ‘holding prism’ until their brain is done being crystalized, after which they are transferred back into the prism that was made out of their own brain. This prism is then plugged into the server room, where the mind is directly exposed to and combined with every other mind in the complex, forming one single amalgamated mind. This mind is constantly stimulated in very specific ways while having its mental processes and subconscious traits randomly shuffled around, as certain aspects are slowly removed through a much more extreme version of existing memory erasure technology. After around a day of this, the mind has all of its remaining original subconscious traits separated out of the complex and restored, and the prism is then removed from the server and installed into a robot. Just like how a sword is no less made of iron than the ore that was mined to make it, the mind inside the prism can be considered the same exact person, complete with still being alive and with their mind in their own brain. They are no less human than they were before, only they have been intricately brainwashed and tempered into a mind that values absolutely nothing above its orders, a mind that cant be broken any further than it already has, stripped of anything and everything that would cause it to be otherwise.

WHITE WRAITHS
although the minds of the complex are permanently kept in a sleep-like state, simply having all of this cognition in one place is enough to produce some very strange effects. Ever since the fall of L. corp, monsters have begun to crop up in the depths of the server room; terrible specters born from the intense cognitive pressure- abnormalities. Abnormalities in an even more unstable and volatile state than usual, being able to form from an infinite combination of mismatched mental states, traumas, and emotional responses. Prismworks refers to these pseudo-abnormalities as ‘white wraiths’. This is why the servers are arranged as a massive labyrinth instead of being organized in rows, to contain these monsters, or at least keep them away from the rest of the world. Sometimes though they get a bit too close to an exit, and prismworks has to send some people to deal with them, either by suppressing them back into the maze or capturing them and sending them to someone who knows how to deal with it better than they do. The company is forced to send squads of fixers to do this, since whenever they send down machines, even if alongside actual fixers, all the robots they sent will disappear in the maze, only for its body to turn up a few months later with the white prism missing and no signs of physical damage or tampering. The primary difference between standard abnormalities and white wraiths is stability. Once fully distorted, abnormalities are fully stable, and will always regenerate if killed. One who understands the abnormality in question can extract E.G.O. from them as well. white wraiths possess neither of these qualities. Being formed from unrelated and potentially even contradictory ideas and emotions, they tend to collapse in on themselves and cease to exist when defeated, and often times weaker wraiths will collapse long before they are even discovered. While E.G.O. is theoretically extractable from white wraiths, it would put the user at a much, much higher risk of E.G.O. corrosion, and may also randomly collapse like the wraiths it came from.
-relations with the head: the head is fine with the existence of the white light complex, although very, very reluctantly. They are fine with people replacing their entire bodies with machinery, and the process prismworks uses to build its robots is functionally no different to forcibly doing this to people. They don’t even technically break the rule that requires the brain be intact.

RELATIONS
-the head: the head gave the title of S-class workshop to prismworks originally because of the massive strides in innovation they made during their earlier years. they have slowed down a lot since then, but have recently begun to pick up steam again with the development of white prisms and their line of machines. the head is iffy on these robots. on one hand, they are autonomous machines that think and act like a human does, which directly violates debatably their most infamous taboo, but on the other hand, the minds aren't really produced artificially, nor are they the result of cloning, resurrection, or anything similar. at the end of the day they run on living human minds that have been brainswept and fused together, but that's about it.
-R. corp is one of the companys best patrons. Almost the entire factory stationed in district 18 is devoted to the production of weapons, ammunition, and other equipment specifically for the wing. Following close behind is the liu association for the same reason, although not on nearly as large of a scale.
-X. corp: prismworks is a regular customer of X. corp, as they not only make use of both their alloys in almost all of their higher end stuff, but also utilize their wrenches as well.
-hana association: breaking out of a deal with the hana association isnt very easy as it turns out. Despite having gone above just being a fixer workshop, prismworks is still required to take contracts and hire fixers, which is why they have a workshop division.
-tres association: the tres association is on very good terms with prismworks industries, with the association always looking forward to seeing what crazy ass bullshit the company has come up with this time. They often collaborate with eachother during the design and testing phases of production; it isnt too uncommon for one of the associations inspectors to be present for otherwise top secret test procedures and meetings, and for prismworks’ artificers to in turn help evaluate inventions and provide feedback.
-shi association: prismworks industries frequently commissions the services of the shi to abduct targets off the streets to be turned into a white prism and plugged into the white light complex. Most of them don’t know exactly why prismworks needs to many random people kidnapped, but they pay far more than they should, so the shi don’t complain. Prismworks has offered multiple times to provide complementary WL-8 chameleons to help with the jobs, but have been declined every time.
-liu association: similarly to R. corp, the liu have commissioned quite a few production lines to be dedicated to their equipment. as opposed to R. corp buying out almost an entire factory, the liu rent small production lines in numerous factories so they can get fresh equipment to more places easier.
-devyat association: before the development of the WL-19 albatross, prismworks would hire devyat couriers to deliver backup robots to their fixers.
-the thumb: prismworks is currently locked in a small war with the thumb. This came around after a meeting involving offloading parts of the thumbs bullet production to prismworks went awry due to a green-class engineer accidentally insulting the thumb in front of multiple capos by joking that they would have to downgrade the machinery to produce their more rudimentary bullets.

i can go more into the various robots prismworks manufactures and the technology they use if anyone wants, ive got a lot of stuff written down i didnt share here.

I have 3 friends, let's call them Alice, Bob, and Charlie. I want to play this game more with them because I really like it and they all own it, but they don't seem particularly interested outside of playing it with me.

I'm not too worried about Alice. She regularly comes to me asking if I want to put in a run or two, but she won't play the game on her own because she believes it's more fun with multiple people despite having never done a solo run. I told her that the game is still enjoyable because you get to hoard all the items for yourself and vaporize anything that looks at you funny, but she didn't listen. getting Alice more into the game is very low priority since she still shows interest in the game as long as it's with me, but if you have any advice regarding convincing her to do solo runs I would appreciate it.

Bob is a lot more tricky. I've slowly been growing more distant with him as a friend, and I had hoped to use risk of rain as a game we could play together. While he said he would play it again, he only seems interested if Alice is also available (Alice and Bob are dating if it's important), and also expressed not enjoying the game after playing a single run. The reasons I think Bob didn't have fun were because A. we had to end after the stage 2 teleporter because me and Charlie had to leave, B. because we were playing on drizzle, and C. because Bob and Charlie wanted to have everyone play commando as a bit, and Alice sided with them.

Charlie I'm not very sure about, since I only really know him through Bob, who he is much closer with. He did however express that the game felt like "just mindless shooting enemies", an opinion Bob agreed with after it was brought up. I feel that they mainly felt this way because of the three reasons I mentioned with Bob (lowest difficulty, not getting further than stage 2, all playing one of the less in depth characters).

I just wanna play games I like with my friends instead of having to drag my face through the mud playing games that I don't enjoy just so I can hang out with Bob again :(