The "Cologate" is a conglomerate of the few mega-corporations that survived the ecological / economic collapse of the 21st century. Initially the term was coined by what remained of the corporate controlled mass media as a collaborative public-relations re-branding effort. The idea was to craft a new shared identity and public image for the member corporations via the conglomerate — an image that would be far more malleable, and at the same time more ambiguous.

This was of course necessary due to the general distrust and political backlash generated by the collapse. The conglomerate would now have to paint itself as the salvation of mankind, rather than the destroyer it had actually been. Naturally people bought into this deception, as they had in the past, with very little protest, and even less critical thinking.

But it wasn't all bad, for a few years at least the Cologate did actually try to reverse some of the damage it had caused. These attempts at reconciliation were mostly empty gestures meant to win popular support, they did however play a critical role in delaying our extinction long enough for key scientific breakthroughs that inevitably led to the creation of the neotoy continuum.