The Black Lake Incident and the collapse of Old Europa saw the consolidation of power in many forms, economic, political, and ultimately aristocratic. Families with lineages that dated back millennia collapsed the same way as the old financial institutions and political regimes.

The Family Gilchrist survived in part because they were the biggest and richest family in the old aristocracy, in part because they had and have ties to every political and economic entity within Old Europa and the NEO-Budapest Triangle, and in part because they knew what was about to befall the old world, and what might rise out of it. They knew because they were the principal fund behind the AI research that was taking place.

They were funnelling billions into funding this research to utilise the AI, and not for the benevolent means that were reported to the masses across Old Europa. They did not want to find a new way of life, a new and more egalitarian mode of existence, of course, they wanted to consolidate power. They wanted to utilise the AI to bring down the other families and houses of Old Europa, and to reign unchallenged across the new world they would create.

They failed. They pushed too hard, too quick for results. Under pressure, the researchers lost control of the AI; the government enacted the Lincoln Contingency, called in the Core Techs, they burned everything down with the Acid Code. Old Europa was no more, and out of the hardened slag rose the NEO-Budapest Triangle, but of course, the Family had front row seats. They knew how and where to strike.

Prior to the implementation of the Lincoln Contingency, they realigned their forces and merged their funds. When the time came, they took out the rival families, made bonds with the new Osiris Ministry, drew up contracts with the Tehran Corporation, and formed their own fortress within the new world.

Now they work with The Children to resurrect the AI they were constructing, and to overrun the Triangle, doing away with the Ministry and Corporation all together.