Delta Corp

Delta Corp started as just another robotics start-up inside a personal residence. It was the brainchild of three men: Ray Sellars, Vince Moore, and Charles Kenton. Like many others, they had the idea of starting the next big tech revolution in robotics, really shake things up, and make a name for themselves. They emblazoned a delta symbol over their initials, and launched Sellars, Moore, and Kenton LLC, later Corp

Sellars, Moore, and Kenton (SMK Corp)

The superstar of SMK Corp was the last man listed, Charles Kenton. Kenton was a progenitor of the clocksmith tradition, and rebuilt and rebuilt the robots produced by other corporations. He worked around proprietary technology, gizmo-gimmicks, and sought out utility in his engineering. Kenton made a large number of unique robots, and through this he created a core system that was highly reliable, durable, and versatile.

The Kenton Cortex and Auxiliary Controller

Kenton's two greatest contributions were the Heuristic-Dynamic Cortex, also known as the K-Cortex, or Kento-tron cyberbrain and it's back up auxiliary controller. The cortex was modeled off of obsolete Robodyne Series 2 units used in industrial automation mated to the locomotor control unit from Cyberdyne systems self propelled droids. These previous machines demonstrated considerable drawbacks, and prohibitive costs. Integrating these two systems created a cybernetic cortex that was elastic enough to handle basic and intermediate human movements, as well as the processing power to learn from these actions and behaviors. Droids equipped with Kenton cortices could learn, and could be trained. The core of this was a single quantum circuit that contained the ability of the machine to learn, and to also, paradoxically, forget information. The Auxiliary controller was a hand and headset that allowed a human operator to give direct commands to the robot, including the Shadowboxer configuration, where the machine would mimic the movements of the operator.

Kenton, the Man.

Kenton came from a typically broken home, was divorced, had an estranged child, and a long history of gambling debt and alcohol abuse. Kenton's gambling addiction and skill in cybernetics made him a regular in RoboSports, especially robot boxing. Most of his early work was cobbling fighting machines together to stay ahead of the people who he owed money and to procure drinking money. While he never remarried, Kenton did manage to salvage his relationship with his son and went to psychotronic therapy to deal with his gambling and drinking problems.

Post psychotron Kenton was still a talented cyberneticist, the madcap devil may care attitude that almost ruined his life was the same thing that lead him to crash through barriers in machine design. Afterwards, his work was predominantly based around refining the technology he created during his drunk and gambling days. A man made of paradoxes, Kenton was never happy later in life, despite gaining wealth and overcoming his personal demons. During his youth, between the threats of bodily harm and hangovers, he felt more alive.

The Jackal, Vince Moore

There are unethical and immoral men, and then there is Vince Moore. Moore was a retired soldier and security contractor who went into cybernetics and automation. As a veteran of combat, he knew the strengths and limitations of men and machines, and more importantly, he knew about government and military contracts and budgets. In the post tank, pre mech world, he knew that bigger badder killing machines were the future of war, and whoever got the best fighting robot first was going to control the industry, and the very face of war. That would be massively and obscenely profitable.

The Goliath was Moore's ace in the hole. It was a strider type walker equipped with twin gun arms, an off the shelf industrial cortex, and a fully enclosed cockpit. While a man could pilot the Goliath, the machine was still effective running on it's own. This was largely considered irrelevant because the Golaith was just one of many proto war machines stomping around, and was fairly mediocre. Moore's idea was to just keep adding more and more weapons to the machine, pumping out a series of heavily armed, low performance stompers like the Rhino, the Hippo, and the lackluster Ninja.

Vince Moore, the Man

Moore was a ruthless businessman and unethical cyberneticist. He had no compunction about threatening his peers, stealing their work, plagiarising their efforts, or sabotaging them. This is how Moore met Kenton, running his latest and greatest urban combat stomper through the domestic robot boxing league. Kenton's Harasser handily defeated Maximilian, shaming the machine and Moore as well. In the following confrontation Moore coerced Kenton into working for him. This state or coercion would not last long, as Kenton proved his learning machines were more than willing to protect their creator, culminating with Maximilian v.4 assaulting Moore and putting him in the hospital. Afterwards, the two continued to work together. Moore chose to leave Kenton alone in the lab, and stuck with handling the finance and the face of their combined business.

The Mogul Sellars

Ray Sellars was a media mogul with a history of being involved in various high tech sports, always looking for the next big thing. He dipped into robot boxing, and there discovered Moore and Kenton dominating the domestic circuit. Their Maximilian robot had the combat chops to drop almost anything that stepped into the ring with it. The military aesthetic and fluid motion of the machine caught his eye, and caused him to get a personal audience with the two men. Sellars was already pro-cybernetic, but the discovery of Kenton's cortices and Moore's international contacts enticed him.

Sellars was an industrialist at heart, and it was easy to retool one of his small polyforge facilities to start mass production of whatever machines Kenton and Moore put together. This enterprise was the beginning of SMK corp. It started small at first, production series robot boxers. The machines were made in limited runs, sold at relatively high cost, and then the money was reinvested in the company. Sellars was willing to take a risk, but he wasn't going to take a loss. This was followed by breaking out into the highly competitve autons and wojek markets, where the K-Cortex machines outperformed their competitors many times over.

Delta Corp

Delta Corp was born from the stunning success of SMK Corp. Their work did change the way robots were built, and many companies were forced to license Delta Corp technologies or face complete failure in the face of their competition. Delta grew to be a major supplier of autons for the Federation, as well as farming out their work to other nations as well. This would last only a short time because Delta had attracted the wrong sort of attention.

Omni-Consumer Products and Delta

OCP felt Delta undercut their military and security contracts and enacted a semi-hostile take-over of the corporation. Sellars and Kenton were keen to cash out, accepting OCPs offers. Sellars would continue on as a media mogul and investor, simply adding his Delta Corp buy-out to his already astronomical portfolio. Kenton took his payout and retired to a private estate in the Rocky Mountain Republic, where he carried on with his passion, building one of a kind robots. Moore fought the take-over, not wanting to see Delta Corp end up being owned by a sundry goods and power distributor like OCP.

Moore would later leave the Federation and immigrate to the South African United Republics. Having relocated to Joburg, Moore continued his military and security contrator robots, with the SAUR being keenly interested in his wojeks and war striders. He would spend several years working as an independent contractor before passing away after a highly questionable heart attack. It is suspected, but unproven, that he was assassinated.

OCP and Copyright Trademark

OCP was vigilant about protecting it's intellectual and technological property. Where cease and desist letters and legal action failed, OCP shadowrunners and cyber espionage agents would act. Factories were sabotaged. VIPs were abducted or assassinated, and worse. OCP denies any of these actions, claiming that employing shadowrunners is technically a felony. This doesn't prevent OCP from being one of the top employers of shadowrunners.

Author's note: A fusion of Chappie/Blomkamp universe (minus District 9), Real Steel, and the RoboCop 2014 reboot are the main components of this sub. The movies have many stylistic similarities, and much of the technology looks like it should be easily interchangeable. The robots of Chappie, Elysium, and RoboCop share strong similarities, especially the MOOSE of Chappie and the ED-209 of RoboCop 2014. The humanoid EM-208, Tetravaal Scout, and Atom share strong stylistic similarities. Thus, these things could concevable exist in the same universe, with things like Atom and Real Steel representing older models, or highly stylized models, and the EM-208s and Scouts showing later mass production models. There are going to be hundreds or even thousands of law enforcement models like the EMs and Chappie, but there is only going to be one Noisy Boy or Midas.