The servers went dark. The holograms flickered and died. And in the silence, Maya walked out of PESP Tower for the last time. Behind her, a thousand deleted frames—lost cartoons, canceled series, forgotten B-movies—drifted up from the broken servers like digital snow.

Across the studio, the digitized artists inside NEXUS stopped rendering. They watched their own work for the first time in months. And one by one, they began to smile.

For decades, five studios have commanded the majority of the world's theatrical and home entertainment market. These studios possess the massive financing and distribution infrastructure required to launch global blockbusters. Walt Disney Studios