Organization:Uniqus

Uniqus (pronounced Yew-nee-kwas) is a high-end Virtue developer and an associated retail chain which sells superhero equipment, custom avatars and Virtues. It is considered a high-income retailer, contrasted to Red-Lite's low income vending machine model or Powersource's big box approach.

Primary competitors of Uniqus include Powersource, Red-Lite, Vac-U-Vend and SuperShop.

Uniqus Stores
While Uniqus Virtues certainly have a significant hatedom, their stores sell more than just their own products and are focused more on providing services and goods that a Virtue user would also want to have. Often people will purchase a non-Uniqus Virtue at an increased price from a Uniqus store to have access to the Uniqus customer service. Since Uniqus Forever doesn't apply to Virtues purchased from a third party, getting a module directly from Uniqus is considered objectively superior than getting it from Powersource or Vac-U-Vend.

Uniqus also makes a point in its retail contracts that all Virtues sold in its stores must have software support into perpetuity as part of Uniqus Forever; if the SAM developer is unable to continue providing software support, Uniqus gains full rights to modify - but not make derivatives of - the Virtue module's code for the purpose of providing software support.

Other products such as weapons and health potions can be purchased from Uniqus stores, and are usually higher-quality than those sold by competitors.

Uniqus Forever
The company produces expensive but well-programmed Virtues that come with a decade of customer service and software support under a free trial of their Uniqus Forever service. If one so chooses, they can subscribe to Uniqus Forever and pay a small monthly fee to have access to customer service and software support towards bug fixes. Its fans applaud them and consider it a matter of getting what you paid for. Unfortunately, a large group of critics are upset that Uniqus also tends to produce powerful Virtues that push the limits of what SAMs can do in the name of empowering only the people who can afford their products.

The primary limiter of Virtues is supposed to be that the programming required to give someone god-like powers would need to have unchecked access to the New Real. Since even the Descendants don't have that level of access, theoretically it would be impossible for a SAM to make someone a god.

Uniqus takes that as a challenge. Even Teaching Aid, the most restricted - and some would say most pointlessly niche - of Uniqus Virtues, has the power to create pocket universes and pseudo-timelines along with summoning objects from thin air. The two most overpowered of the brand's SAMs, Borderline and Extropy, are more commonly known by their names among the criminal element as "Gap-Hax" and "Hard to Destroy", due to the terms being featured in heist films and action movies as terms for rich people who bought their way to invincibility.

As a result, Uniqus is seen by many Virtue owners as a traitor to the original ethics of Virtues, catering to people who already have more than they deserve, at the cost of making the New Real pay-to-win. They point out that instead of providing a bit more power to people who feel powerless in the relatively utopian but chaotic and crowded metroscapes of Gaia, Uniqus is trying to make the world that much closer to a cyberpunk dystopia where people who can afford Uniqus products feel entitled to have power over those who can't.

Others, mostly those who use their powers to help people who the overextended police force can't spare an officer for, feel that the luxury pedigree of Uniqus and the customers that reputation draws to Uniqus products undermines the only legitimate use of a Superhuman Ability Module.

Those that defend the existence of expensive and powerful Virtues such as the creations of Uniqus point to the fact that the richer someone was in the Old Real, the more likely that they would end up destitute in the New Real from lack of skills. The counterargument is that people like Gavin Strong were so determined to be rich that they found a way to cheat a system specifically designed to be as fair as possible.

Another defense is that because Nullify is capable of rendering any and all Virtues completely useless, even ones as overpowered as Borderline, Uniqus is perfectly justified in making expensive and exclusive ability modules. The people who use this defense usually get a punch to the gut for thinking that people should have to choose between Uniqus SAMs and Nullify just because the metagame says so.

All in all, Uniqus seems more concerned with pleasing their customers than trying to appeal to any of the people who refuse to, or can't afford to, buy their products. As much as this is an unfair way of running a company, it can be said that when the New Real was designed to restrict unfair business practices, the reasoning was to protect people from being taken advantage of and not to satisfy people's envy.

This is how you shot web...
While Uniqus has been around since the early days when Virtues were still called Superhuman Ability Modules, they have traditionally positioned themselves as "the Macy's of Superheroes"; even if they never admitted it publicly. Uniqus has a parade float, a blimp seen at sporting events, and even a racing team. Even though Uniqus has a price point few can afford, every man, woman and child on Gaia knows their name.

It was not until Powersource began seeing great success as a big box Virtue retailer, that Uniqus has upscaled their own business to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Uniqus couldn't afford to bundle their equipment with Virtues, but they could offer a better quality of goods as Powersource at the same price point. Not only are Uniqus weapons better quality than Powersource weapons, but their salespeople can provide brief but indispensable explanations of how to use weapons without getting yourself hurt or killed by incorrectly wielding them.

Since Powersource doesn't, and has shown no interest in, providing generous warranties and customer support for weapons and armor, Uniqus has managed to successfully pivot from being the Macy's of superheroes to becoming the PC Parts Picker of warriors.