Argon City

Argon is the capital and eponymous city of Argon County. A high-tech blend of suburban and semi-urban, it is a commuter city save for the concentrated tech industry. Nothing ever seems to happen there. Even if the world is on fire, Argites will go about their days, ignorant to it all.

As its economic boom marked the beginning of the Cybernetic Age, Argon is a particularly important city in current times. Most technological research and development in that region of the country are done in Argon. People in Argon use all sorts of technology in their daily lives. Personal devices, cybernetics/bionics, augmentations, and artificial intelligence of various types.

Server in the Sky

In the middle of the town's business zone, mounted high on stilts above the Eternal Midnight Digital Corporation Headquarters, is the Eternal Midnight Computer Center (EMC2). The company's most advanced and integral operations take place there, high in the sky. To cool the servers and other technology, water is pumped upward, against gravity, not to mention the power usage.

In this process, the center constantly releases steam into the atmosphere. While other data centers, factories, and power plants in the area produce such emissions, EMC2 produces the highest volume at the highest rate. Being in Southern California, this collective process covers Argon in a haze, an eternal June Gloom or September Morning. It even rains periodically, no matter the season, and the water is reclaimed and used to irrigate the slightly mutated plant life of Argon.

Argon is a city full of neon and electronic lights. Pitch darkness only exists in the rooms of shut-in individuals. This is done for the safety of the populace.

Devices

The use of personal computers has become more commonly restricted to business, outside of more technical or reclusive individuals. The average person prefers to use a tablet computer for most tasks. For more "convenient" interaction with their devices, many people have a Personal Helper Agent, or Phagent, which assists them through voice commands and responses.

Phagents

Personal Helper Agents. Phagents. Critics instead call them Philosophical agents, Phage-nts (implying they devour their users), or simply Chatbots. Typically they are installed in a specialized earpiece that uses short range radio waves to connect to a user's devices. Others may wish to embed one in a specific device, wherein it specializes by collecting data about that device.

Phagents in Argon, and indeed around the world, report back to the Eternal Midnight Digital Center. They need a server for security updates and monitoring, as well as for software upgrades and customer service. As users treat their Phagents as friends, secretaries, or even lovers, it is vital that their data is kept secure.

Augmentation

Cybernetic augmentation has become more and more common, hence the name of the Cybernetic Age. Most Argites are relatively conformist, and so only get the most popular and accepted of enhancements. Typically, these enhancements are not very extreme. Modern prosthetics of course fall into the category of augmentation, but are excluded from most discussions, as are most disability aids.

Oftentimes, they will purchase PrettyAug. These augmentations, using a combination of biochemical and psychological alterations, make a person match the beauty standards of current society to a higher level. It prevents too much fat from building up and makes sure a person stays skinny, muscular, and well-poised.

MentAug is also popular. These usually take the form of chips applied as patches on the base of the neck to release certain signals that alter the functioning of the brain. Often employed by certain psychiatrists, MentAug makes a person happier, more social, and more productive. Detractors accuse it of only making a person *seem* happier, and forcing them to behave more typically, but these claims are disregarded by psychiatric institutions. While most people will never experience it, a side effect of MentAug is the impediment of a person's ability to use SIKE. The broad category of "mental augmentation" makes this industry hard to describe.

Alternative

Those on the fringes of modern culture may seek more extreme, more exotic, more strange cybernetics. Avid cybernauts seek practical, extensive enhancements, often including human-computer interfaces for more convenient use of technology. Body modifications, limb amputations and replacements, cybernetic drugs, and similarly distasteful products are sold on dark markets for these bionic desires.

There is a movement of Do-it-Yourself cybernetics. These augmentations are typically less invasive and cheaper to manufacture, utilizing open-source or recycled hardware and software. A fair amount are corporate-sponsored. The risks of a person creating and installing their own cybernetics are vast, but many do so to avoid the costs of medical or black market installation.