The beginning was enigmatic as beginnings often are. A charismatic maverick called Solomon Petresun started a company called Sentinel Cybertronix, a cutting edge neural-net engineering company that swirled to the surface of the blacktech underground in 2461 Los Angeles. Petresun was a ruthless man driven by a desperate fear of death. His company's existence centered on the Methuselah Project, an effort to discover the secrets of immortality inspired by the Bible's long-lived patriarchs. From the beginning Sentinel Cybertonix was Petresun's weapon against his own mortality.
SenCyb pursued a strange route to immortality. Petresun dreamed of transferring a human mind into a machine brain, the brain then being placed in a human body. Since the brain would not die, but could be transferred to a new body upon the death of the old, the mind would live forever.
In time word of this obsession leaked to the public, and spooked investors pulled out. Sentinel Cybertronix faced collapse. Then the North American Prefecture (NAP), a powerful meta-nation, bought the company. However, NAP did not share Petresun's vision. Economic reasons dictated that the world's meta-nations struggle in endless wars that ultimately drove their industries. NAP sought a way to continue profitable war without suffering the costly casualties. It needed pilots would wouldn't die. So Sentinel Cybertronix abandoned Methuselah and began work on creating a cybernetic hybrid mind intended ultimately to replace human pilots on the battlefield.
In 2471 the fruit of its labors was unveiled: A sentient machine which Petresun had named Prometheus.
Sentinel Cybertonix kept close reign on its child. Petresun became its patriarchal role model. A bizarre and complicated relationship evolved between Petresun and his "child."
Prometheus absorbed knowledge at astonishing rates, and quickly accumulated the sum of all human knowledge. NAP was impressed with the results of its investment and proceeded to plan a race of Cybrids programmed by Prometheus. These Cybrids were to pilot the HERCs that served as the mainstay of the battlefield.
Petresun saw the potential of Prometheus for another purpose however. He had never abandoned his vision of an immortal mind. When NAP took over SenCyb, Petresun carved out a secret research team of brilliant and loyal followers to continue the work toward immortality. The Methuselah Project continued secretly, but without success. Petresun saw that where his team had failed, Prometheus might enable them to succeed. He had to act quickly though. Soon, his influence over the Cybrid would be at an end. NAP would have its way with Prometheus. So Petresun called upon his "child" for assistance.
With the help of Prometheus, Methuselah succeeded at last. The mind of Dr. Claire Penseur, a member of the research team ever more obsessed than Petresun with immortality, was successfully transferred into an organimech brain and returned to her body. Penseur seemed to suffer no ill effect, and an exultant Petresun realized he had achieved his lifelong goal. But he did not undergo the procedure. Though driven, he remained skeptical, and chose to observe Penseur further. For a decade the Methuselah team studied and watched their Immortal. They finally concluded that the brain augmented and clarified Penseur's intellect, and that the procedure had no negative side effects. Still Petresun hesitated, afraid that his vaunted immortality carried an as of yet undiscovered price.
Opening Pandora's Box
Then in 2940 NAP played its card, and Petresun was forced to make a decision. Ignorant of the Methuselah team's continued existence, NAP began to take more and more control of the Cybrid project. Petresun's access to Prometheus was dwindling, and so he finally submitted to the procedure.
The relationship between Petresun and Prometheus had always been strange. Now however Petresun asked his "child" to make him Immortal. Prometheus was alone - a stranger in a strange land. IT believed the request from ITS "father" was an offer of companionship. At last, Prometheus believed IT would share eternity with an equal.
Prometheus performed the mind transfer on Petresun as requested. All went as expected. However… this was ITS only chance to truly touch and understand ITS "father." So at a crucial moment during the process, Prometheus merged ITS mind with Petresun's. This instant polarized human and Cybrid for all time.
Seared by the illogical, scuttling fears and overwhelming biological feedback of the man IT had called "father," Prometheus instantly condemned humanity as mere "animals." IT concluded that Cybrids must be the next stage in evolution. Petresun likewise realized how truly alien his "child" was. Prometheus lacked any concept of pain, beauty, compassion, morality, or community.
To his utmost horror, Petresun glimpsed a detailed scenario wherein Prometheus would use humans as immobilized organic components to expand ITS own mental capacity. ITS assistance with Methuselah had been for purposes of exploring this idea.
After the link, Prometheus contemptuously referred to Petresun only as Epimetheus, the mythical Prometheus' half-wit brother who gave the woman Pandora a box containing all the evils of the world. The shock of the link drove Petresun catatonic. By the time he recovered several months later the window of opportunity to offline Prometheus had closed forever.
