Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Backlund, Matheson Circus.

"This is the situation. All the documents and data of the Matheson Prosthetics Factory have been sent to you. The financial reports for the past two months have also been given to you. You will have to wait for this month's report until the end of the month."

Mrs. Misty exhaled a puff of smoke, removed a memory card from her prosthetic leg, and slid to the other side of the table.

It was late at night, Misty's performance had ended long ago, and the circus members were all asleep, but she was still sitting there, smoking. She didn't even take off her stage makeup and performance clothes, but just put on a heavy coat and sat in the dark room, waiting for Scott Cartwright, the owner of the circus and the prosthetics laboratory, to arrive as scheduled.

Misty Matheson was not a smoker, but she started smoking after her husband Rory Matheson, aka Dodger Lamar, passed away.

"As you said, we have invested all our funds in the research and development of this batch of new products. When the products and patents are launched on the market, are you prepared to deal with it?"

"What else can we do? Matheson Circus can be renovated, and then your factory can expand production and become a truly qualified prosthetics factory."

Scott did not come to the scene in person. The one who collected information and negotiated was a robot made by Scott, and he remotely controlled the puppet to conduct the conversation.

The robot smoothly caught the chip and plugged it into the port. The flashing green light indicated that everything was running normally.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about, sir."

Mrs. Misty flicked the ash off her cigarette calmly.

"Our Maxison products are still mainly aimed at the low-end and mid-end markets, which is fine. But the core patent here is the key to our prosthetics research room. Once the patent left by Luo Rui is announced, except for those cutting-edge prosthetics research, the commercialization of technology in almost half of the prosthetics industry will be greatly promoted. Many technologies that seem very expensive now will become commonplace by this time next year. In another year, the average quality of prosthetics used by the entire society will be much higher."

Many changes are subtle.

Currently, most of the prosthetics used by Rune are still at the stage of restoring the original functions, and can only run as well as the original people. Some functional prosthetics are still relatively expensive, and most people will not buy ones with too powerful functions. The concept of the whole society is also relatively conservative.

But if Dodge Rama's patent is promoted, the prices of many currently expensive functional prostheses will be brought down, and then more people in society will use these prostheses. Then they will find that people can pay less money and use prostheses to make themselves run faster, jump higher, and even do many things that original people cannot do at all.

This is not to say that Dodge Rama's technology is so advanced, he just solved the cost problem of a component in the production of prostheses, but once this small change is enlarged to the market level, it can reduce the huge cost of the entire prosthesis production on this component. In this way, the price of many prostheses will be reduced.

As high-functioning prostheses become popular and social atmosphere becomes more open, the entire society will be in turmoil, and the tide of history will push Backlund into an unknown distance.

Technology brings about change, and the popularization of technology is often the beginning of great changes.

"Sir, are you ready?"

"Are you talking about social instability caused by the overperformance of prosthetics? No, I'm not worried about that."

The robot's camera flashed.

To be honest, as an extraordinary organization that advocates technology, the topic of "how technology affects society" is itself the focus of discussion of the Steam Church. Before each technological trend comes, the Steam Church will be sensitive enough to capture its future trends and conduct full and detailed discussions and arrangements on these topics.

Today, the Church of Steam also owns Pump Spark, a research institute dedicated to exploring the frontiers of mundane science, and is fully aware of the development of technological science.

Therefore, responding to social changes brought about by technology is itself the strength of the Steam Church.

"What you should be more worried about is the current progress of brain-computer research and development, and when this thing will become completely popular."

Mrs. Misty couldn't understand Scott's worries and didn't know what impact he was afraid of.

But she suddenly remembered the rumors she had heard about the hackers in the underground city. Those gang leaders who took human life lightly would force their hackers to install implantable brain-computers. In an era when brain-computer technology had not yet been thoroughly commercialized and popularized, the underground city would only get those defective products. Although it could improve the hackers' computing power when operating on the network, it would cause serious damage to the hackers' brains until these substandard brain-computers cooked their brains.

Compared to Mrs. Misty, Scott and the Steam Church have more problems to worry about.

The current brain-computer technology has been around for many years, but it has not yet developed to the point of being promoted to the whole people, and it is still a very expensive device. On the other hand, outside the mainstream market, interests have also driven many illegal groups to conduct research on brain-computer devices. Many immature imitation products, defective products eliminated from the market, and even counterfeit and shoddy products have flowed into the gray and black markets in large quantities, resulting in a large number of deaths.

Many young people now also like to wear small brain wave terminals, which can be hung on the ears or attached to the temples, and read brain waves to make calls, send messages, etc. However, this is very different from a real implantable brain-computer interface, and it cannot even be considered an external brain-computer interface.

Brain-computer technology will eventually become popular in society, but not now, not at this time.

"I don't care. This is not our area anyway."

Mrs. Misty shrugged. She was just a prosthetic engineer, good at prosthetic legs and hands, and a circus performer. Brain-computer technology was still too far away for her.

"I think that day is not far away. I need your factory and research lab to keep a close eye on market changes in this area, including the prices of limb prostheses, especially the trends of brain-computer devices in the prosthesis market, both in the black market and legal transactions."

"Okay, you're the boss."

"Do you need me to send someone to support your prosthetics laboratory?"

"...For now, I can still manage the circus and the laboratory factory. I'll talk about it later when the laboratory is ready to expand."

"Who else knows that you are mine?"

Scott plans to use the Matheson Circus as his own private power, and it would be best if no one knew that he is the boss behind Mrs. Misty.

Scott had this habit when he was young. He would pick some suitable people behind the church's back, and then force them to do some dirty work for him by holding them hostage. Under various pressures, these people would be completely controlled by Scott and do many things for him that the Steam Church did not know about and did not allow.

That was how Scott met his proudest student, Jonathan Venturi.