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Backstory

Harrison Okoye was born in 2267 to an astrophysicist father and a marine biologist mother. Science had thus always been present in his life since the day he came to be. As he grew up, he was fascinated by both fields that his parents worked in and highly respected them equally. He wanted to follow in their footsteps, but saw the difficulty in devoting himself to two completely different and unrelated areas of study. That is, until he managed to find something that actually did link the two together: Robotics. Robotics were very often used to gather data in both of these fields where treading as a mere human was not only ineffective, but would typically lead to death. Needless to say, this ambition of his delighted Harrison's parents.

By 2289, Harrison had solidified his passion for robotics, and zoomed through school and college to begin his career as a robotics engineer. Over the coming years, he would bounce back and forth between several different research and development conmpanies as a designer and tester for robots and machines of many different applications. His passion and infallible attention to detail always managed to impress his employers and especially his coworkers, such as an AI programmer and ADI researcher by the name of Myriam Joplin. Harrison and Myriam grew particularly close during their work together and came to greatly enjoy each other's company in their off-time as well. Despite being individuals of strong devotion to their work, this only fueled their admiration for each other more, and they ended up falling in love. This came as no surprise to their colleagues, who had nicknamed the budding couple "Harry & Mary"; the inseparable dream-team in robotics design. Harrison and Myriam got married in 2295, where they began to pursue their new dream of starting their own robotics research foundation not long after.

As tensions slowly continued to build around the world, spawning cold wars between more and more countries, governments looked to strike deals with their nation's brightest minds and most successful research organizations in an effort to gain and maintain a scientific and military advantage over opposing nations. This lead to many foundations and companies selling out to their government, who approached them with offers of continuous, generous funding in return for "shared" control over their projects and assets. This had been the leading reason for Harrison's bouncing between numerous companies, as he refused to work under employers and representatives who would willingly fuel the fire of this corrupt power struggle. Eventually, through their sheer determination, renown among their fields, massive network of prominent connections, and several enormous loans, Harrison and Myriam Okoye founded OkoyeAutomata in 2298, their very own robotics reserach and development company.

The company flourished from having such notable names as Okoye and Joplin at the helm, attracting a sizeable workforce behind them. While their growing team undertook several different notable research projects, their most notable project was perhaps their efforts on further developing more effective methods of creating, editing, and utilizing ADIs, a relatively new technology having only existed at the time for about a decade. Other than for research, ADIs had only really been utilized for military purposes, but many saw their emerging potential for other applications, like Harrison and especially Myriam. Over the next 8 years, OkoyeAutomata made several revolutionary breakthroughs in robotics and AI/ADI application, but their golden age quickly lost steam in 2306, when the Worldwide Nuclear War finally broke out. During the 5 year period of the war, OkoyeAutomata had been incessantly approached by government officials with offers of funding and commission in exchange for creative control, like the many companies that Harrison had previously worked for. These relentless attempts at soliciting "partnership" with OkoyeAutomata were always shot down by Harrison, who had no interest in putting his time, effort, and workforce towards military use. Many of his coworkers admired his resolve for this, while other's respect for him began to waver in this time where nothing in the future was certain with the war at hand, and few even calling him downright foolish for continuously passing up the opportunity to secure the company's future. Harrison was well aware that keeping his company afloat would be difficult as the war raged on, but was confident that continuing their current research projects was far more important for the future of humanity than contributing to a corrupt war.

Unfortunately, the war was only the beginning of their struggle, as Myriam would come to be diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in 2309, dealing an intense blow to Harrison's drive to continue his work. But Myriam took it in stride and pushed her shaken husband to make the best of however long the dream-team Harry and Mary had left. The world had yet one more earth-shaking curveball to throw at them in 2310: the final stretch of the war, dominated by the worldwide use of cataclysmic nuclear armaments, followed by a silence; not from the war coming to an end, but from a lacking number of voices loud enough to be heard after the mass devastation. The remainder of the world's population plummited into further hardship just to survive the nuclear war's ubiquitous nuclear fallout. As the war tapered out, international talks to mitigate the aftermath promptly circulated, giving rise to the global fallout cleanup effort, which sparked inspiration in Harrison and Myriam. The next two years would culminate into their company's magnum opus: the production of their very own automaton that would be utilized in the cleanup effort. Their project gave birth to an excellent nuclear radiation-absorbing apparatus paired with an innovative ADI-controlled automaton. The implemented ADI was created and meticulously edited from a full neural scan of Myriam's brain, which was no small feat to obtain with the still very new and limited ADI tech at the time. The full mapping process took many attempts of trial-and-error, and was physically taxing on the brain. But Myriam refused to let her life's work go to waste as her terminal cancer pushed her closer and closer to death. Harrison made little effort to protest the strain that she subjected herself to, as he knew there was no changing his headstrong wife's mind, and so the two worked harder than ever before to reach the breakthrough they sought after, side-by-side just one last time.

Myriam passed away in 2311, only a couple months after her first successful neural scan. Harrison was struck by the loss of his beloved, but satisfied in knowing that she felt content in her death. The war officially came to an end later into the year, as Harrison and his team put their all into their revolutionary contribution towards the global fallout cleanup effort. Finally, OkoyeAutomata finished and released the M011-1 in 2312. Harrison and Myriam's combined visions to change the world in their own ways had finally come to life.

Though the war was over, this didn't stop his nation's government from continuing their efforts to obtain OkoyeAutomata from Harrison. But Harrison stayed strong on his decision to keep his company out of government and political control. That is, until 2315, when he suffered from a sudden unforseen heart attack. Harrison had never exhibited any signed of heart complications in the past, and was only 48 at the time. Harrison's closest colleagues were suspicious of the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, but were never able to produce any solid evidence of foul play. The new heads of OkoyeAutomata, most of who were those that expressed dissatisfaction with Harrison's consistent refusal to accept funding from the government, stepped in to oversee the company. Months after Harrison's passing, a conglomerate known as the AIWH approached the newly appointed heads of OkoyeAutomata, with similar interest to purchase the company. A deal was struck, and OkoyeAutomata had merged into the growing force of the AIWH.

Current Story

Though Harrison may be gone, OkoyeAutomata's innovations to robotics, energy, and ADI can still be felt in the modern age.

Trivia

• Harrison's only hobby that didn't include robots was cooking, which he enjoyed and practiced in his free time. Despite his enjoyment of it, the food he prepared was mediocre at best; something even he was painfully aware of.