Assassination of Luthen Virtuoso

The Assassination of Luthen Virtuoso was a major event during the Virtual Wars. The anti-corporate extremist group known as the Free Souls arranged for his death in order to supposedly punish Virtuoso for playing both sides of the war. His younger, less experienced son Lucian Virtuoso would take his place.

Overview

The Free Souls exploited Luthen's addiction to cybernephrine, a habit he developed to cope with the stress of running such a large, galactic scale corporation. The assassin sent to do the deed was Mortimer Nex, a former Federation soldier who was dishonorably discharged for having ties to the Aether Cartels. Using a highly intense dose of cybernephrine, Mortimer effectively used a cognitohazardous program that killed Luthen just by him perceiving it.

Mortimer was apprehended after a one year-long manhunt. He was convicted and sentenced to life in virtual reality prison where he would be meant to go through remediation. Among Virtuoso, this stirred an uproar as Lucian wished for him to face the death penalty especially given that Mortimer's remediation process was slow. Virtuoso sent an assassin of their own, Echo, to break into the prison in order to seek vengeance on Lucian's behalf.

In an attempt to kill Mortimer, Echo caused the virtual reality systems to malfunction and to flood Mortimer with the same cognitohzardous program that killed Luthen. What was not anticipated was how much inherent resistance to cybernephrine Mortimer had. While it did not kill him, it caused him heavy brain damage which destroyed any semblance of his original personality. After the incident, Mortimer was transferred to another facility. Echo chose to leave him like this as it was considered a fate worse than death.

Aftermath

The death of Luthen plus the situation with Mortimer's sentencing created mixed responses among the public. Some were outspoken against Virtuoso's involvement in the war and saw it as justified while others argued that Luthen should have had the chance to have a fair trial for his war crimes.

As Echo has served Virtuoso for many years, she considered the assassination of Luthen to be her greatest failure.