Pulse

It’s no secret that Vectors are an engineered race. The war, the first three Vector population enhancement phases, all these things are included in the (admittedly slim) history lessons every Vector must complete as part of their Contributory Education. But the novelty of that fact has long since worn out for most. While it might have provoked a crisis of consciousness and self-doubt centuries ago among a few Vectors who had trouble coming to terms with the whole idea, these days it’s just something to giggle about. All in the past.
Pulse merged out of a Public Relations division of MarsCo that had been tasked with finding universal sporting activities to keep people connected that didn’t follow the old Earth designs, as most of them didn’t translate well to Martian gravity. The story goes (according to their own now-enormous PR department), while digging through the anatomical makeups of dozens of different Vector races in order to find some form of physical competition that didn’t give one species special advantage over another, they hit upon an idea: Why not make the disadvantages part of the sport?
Vector DNA is clean, neat, and easily configured. It had to be for the system to function to begin with, without running the risk of some piece of ancient evolutionary ghost code popping up 400 years later and making everyone sterile or something. Their bodies were patterned off an original animal model, but built genetically from scratch, effectively removing all the little pieces of lots associated with millions of years of evolution and drawing a brand new, clean and neat picture on a blank slate. And since every little gene with all its functions is neatly named, categorized and defined, adjusting the code to favour say, strength or size or even appearance, is a tidy process. Expensive, but tidy. Pulse took this idea and ran with it, crafting dozens of new sporting competitions that emphasized certain specific traits, and then offering the surgery that would grow your body toward that trait as a service to be purchased by sponsored athletes. The result was superstar athletes who were, quite literally, larger than life, and the public loved to watch them. The idea grew from there, and Pulse was eventually granted independent status by MarsCo in order to allow them to grow their enterprise in the interests of increasing traffic through the commerce sections of Mars itself.
Over the centuries, Pulse’s message has fed off of itself and become more personal. No longer is athletic enhancement treatment reserved only for the sponsored, it can now be purchased by anyone with the cash to make it happen. Cosmetic surgery is by far their most popular civilian product, and a few simple treatments in a Pulse Pod can do anything from melting pounds away to tightening skin to changing breast size, all without the need for a knife. Side effects are rare, but they’ve occurred before. Blemishes, disfigurement, and on particularly rare occurrences, fast and violent cancers have appeared, but the overall safety of basic cosmetic gene-refreshment is considered high. It’s not even terribly complicated to do, but overall vanity and pressure from the social elite have kept the cost higher than it needs to be.
The more extreme surgeries, those generally reserved for athletes and soldiers, are a bit more invasive and result in significantly more change. Champion fighters in Pulse tournaments range anywhere from three to ten feet tall (and certainly didn’t start that way), some favouring a smaller body for the maneuverability while others want the sheer stability of being a mountain of muscle. Pulse rules allow for a wide variety of body changes depending on what you’re participating in, and it’s not unusual to have some competitors with an extra pair of arms or species traits that don’t match their actual breed. Large scale changes like these are difficult to undo as they affect the very skeleton of the person involved. They’re typically permanent, and once their career has ended the person who possesses them either has to live with it or pay for a brand new body to transfer into. That can be prohibitively expensive, even for star athletes, and as a result, various sporting guilds have imposed maximum modification rules on their events to prevent over-exuberant athletes from ruining their future lives after the sport by modifying so hard they can’t function in natural society anymore. Of course, that only led to the creation of underground, high stakes events with no such limits, in which huge sums of money are exchanged yearly and inevitably end up in Pulse coffers as they supply the surgeries and equipment, but, well, they didn’t sanction it. It just ‘happened that way.’

Structure

Scouts

• Much like Scouters today. Explore Sol in the search of the next big superstar
• They offer to promising individuals a life they could not hope for alone
• The current trend is "Humble beginnings"

Beacons

• Pulse funded superheroes. Often augmented in someway
• Friendly neighbourhood superhero on their off-hours
• IRPF bat a blind eye, despite the annoyance to the general law enforcement

Kindling

• Promote confidence and action to the public
• Can be very subtle and people may not even notice their influences
• They try to shift public opinions to more positive and proactive ones

Catalysts

• Secret operatives that scout for would-be Beacons in a morally questionable way.
• They find likable personalities in Sol and give them a "push" achieve potential stardom
• A push could be by being thrown through a staged but very hazardous event
• Catalysts use temporary mutations (often injectable) to enhance the mark's experience in one way or another
• Not always used with the mark's given consent or knowledge
• These pushes are usually not legal outside of Pulse towns

Stagehands

• Engineers in charge of spontaneously build and shortly after deconstructing arenas in city blocks, neighbourhoods, where ever
• Often used as an advertisement for larger events
• Creates excitement since it's a change of pace of day-to-day routines for the public
• Kind of like when a circus comes to town. New and exciting.
• They are speedy, accurate, and efficient
• Often hired by other Corps because of this in Hotzones

Assets

• Entertainment
• Cosmetics
• Surgeries and enhancements

Infrastructure

Scaffolds

Public safety is more of a suggestion that an enforced policy. Pulse culture encourages its citizens to explore and reach new (and often literal) heights. Makeshift work areas and open air walking zones are often called Scaffolds. While people aren't compelled to go to these extremes, it's often encouraged and even rewarded in competitive circles.
     Arenas

These vary in size, shape, and location. In a Pulse Corptown, they are as common as a public park. People go there to play and compete in games and sports. Referees are even available for hire and when something is big enough, bets can be made.
     Studios

Pushing one's limits is also encouraged in creative pursuits in Pulse. Various studios can be found with artists working professionally or as a hobby. Pulse will give access to these studios for its citizens for free but all that is created is given to Pulse and under its scrutiny. Others can rent studios out of their own pockets if they wish to have private workshops without Pulse's oversight.
     All Roads Lead In

Like Progenitus, Pulse cities have a centralized theme with all roads leading inward to the main event.

Become Limitless

Type

Corporation, Entertainment

Capital

Beacon

Government System

Corporatocracy

Controlled Territories

• Beacon
• Nova