FTL Technologies

## FTL Matrixware, a NeoNET Corporation

* **Name:**Faster Than Light Matrixware, a NeoNET  Partner Company
* **Business:**Software Development and Implementation
* **Headquarters:**FTL 'Launchpad' Complex, 510 W 20th St, Tsêhéstáno, Tetonwan CF 82001, Oceti Sakowin
* **Leadership:**Harlen Sky, President of FTL Matrixware
* **Rating:**By itself, FTL would count as a BBB, however, as a wholly-owned possession of Laramie Resource Development Incorporated, which is a holding group established by the Cyberspace Development Corporation, itself a subsidiary of the NeoNET corporation, it is part of the AAA-Prime rated NeoNET.

Founded in the late 2030's by Steven Ridgemont, a brilliant young canoti  researching linguistics and Matrix science at the Oyate Owa Yawa ("University of Cheyenne"), FTL broke big with the "Warpdrive" (now called Warpdrive 1.0) language translation software suite that soon became the global standard for online language translation, used by everyone from common citizens to governments and corps. He was able to build on these early successes to build FTL into the largest and most successful company in the thriving and competitive Matrixware industry in the Oceti Sakowin. Post-crash cyberdeck  software was often built on the Warpdrive Platform, coming as the standard, in-built OS for cyberdecks from industry giants like Fairlight and Fuchi Industrial Electronics . Most Persona ASIST programs, even those not written in Warpdrive, were built along the lines pioneered at FTL. They also held SDF  military contracts and the Horned Serpent cascading IC  they designed for the Sioux government was among the most feared on the Matrix.

Naturally all this success attracted attention and the megas started taking sharp notice, and the 2050's saw a number of takeover attempts by the AAA's, including MCT  and Fuchi, all of which Ridgemont saw off with increasing difficulty. After a particularly nasty shadow -war with MCT in '54, FTL found itself the subject of a hostile takeover by the Laramie-based Laramie Resource Development Inc, a shell company for Fuchi subsidiary Cyberspace Development Corp, who had found a loophole around the Sioux Bureau of High Technology's ban on non-Oceti Sakowin companies licensing Oyata Owa Yawa-developed technology. FTL Technologies, the parent company, was dismantled and FTL Matrixware, the core business, was made a subsidiary of CDC.

Ridgemont was offered a position with the new company, but he walked rather than bend the knee to Fuchi, took his (sizable) payoff and went to on to found Warpdrive Systems in Denver . Ridgemont got the last laugh on Fuchi though. Although Fuchi had the rights to use the Warpdrive-derived software they already had, Ridgemont retained the intellectual rights to the core Warpdrive kernel and language.

Although much reduced from its former glory, the amount of software franchises already held by FTL kept it a major moneymaker for its parent corporation, and almost as important, gave Fuchi a foothold in markets where previously been forbidden to operate in the North American heartland. While the transition from Fuchi to Novatech  in 2059 was chaotic for all of the various subsidiaries, FTL weathered it fairly smoothly and even went on to participate in the first Wireless Matrix conferences, writing new software protocols for resurrecting the pre-Crash wireless world.

More chaotic for FTLwas the disaster that was the Second Matrix Crash in '64. A lot of FTL's top talent was killed in the crash and a fair bit of their files and product was gutted. However this disaster was a bit of a godsend for the stagnating corporation. New blood, such as Coding Team Lead Harlen Sky who suddenly found himself the senior surviving exec of the Production division, rose up to take positions of responsibility in the company, and more importantly, with their Code gutted, they had to write a new language, one which FTL and NeoNET had full rights to. The new Hyperspace Platform, born out of the initial Universal Matrix Conferences, proved to be well-suited to the new Wireless world, able to be modified to operate in nearly any kind of device and put FTL back into its spot as the jewel in the crown of NeoNET's North American possessions.

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