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One the largest, and most notorious, corporations in the galaxy.
Thanatos Inc. specializes in a wide range of products, a lot of them seeming completely unrelated to each other, almost random. At first, Thanatos Inc. dealt specifically in potent pharmaceuticals, but over time it branched out to include everyday products like cosmetics, electronics, even foods and toys. They could genetically engineer food to make it healthier and ensure the body processed more of the nutrients, they could produce products that would boost an athletes performance, even toy with the genetic makeup of animals and humanoids to produce superior specimens. On the darker side of things, they could also create special products for those governments that contracted them, creative products that could kill and maim in unthinkable ways while still being brutally efficient. They are experts in all things relating to the humanoid body and how it works, and even as they can create ingenious ways to build a body up and improve its performance, they can also come up with frighteningly effective ways to tear a body down.
The main company headquarters is located on Earth in Aedolis, though the company also has a branch on Mars in Edanith. The company has no true loyalties except to itself, and so it can easily work with two warring nations while remaining completely impartial on the matter. It is because of that cold impartiality that neither Aedolis or Edanith hassle the company for working both sides of the fence; after all, they just want a profit and they provide for everyone.
At the head of the company is the President, and then the TRIM Director. Beneath them are scientists, technicians, and businessmen and women from all over that work for the company—as well as those people who do the smaller, menial jobs, like secretary work and serving coffee to employees.
1. The Institute
Often shorted to "TRIM", the Thanatos Research Institute of Metaphysics is Thanatos Inc.’s dirty little secret. Hey, the scientists need something, or someone, to test their products on—as well as living subjects to study and experiment on. Their subjects of choice? The mages and psychics that Edanith and Aedolis don’t want, the ones that are too unruly and uncooperative or simply too weak to be of any use to them. While useless to those countries, Thanatos Inc. can sure find something to do with them, and mages and psychics are, in fact, the ideal guinea pigs. How does magic work? Is there a gene that makes the ability inherent in some while barren in others? How does a healer heal? And what about psychics? Not only do they wish to better understand these abilities, but they are also interested in, perhaps, finding a way to replicate them in a controlled environment. Maybe there is a way to give people lacking the ability a means of gaining it.
The Thanatos Research Institute of Metaphysics (or TRIM) orbits between the Earth and Mars, nice and close to its two main sources of research fodder. It is made up of two connecting space stations, named Wing Alpha and Wing Omega. The main part of the institute, aptly titled Main, is the middle section that bridges Wing Alpha and Wing Omega. It contains the bridge, living quarters for the captain and crew, a docking station, and a medical center. Like the rest of the institute, it is kept clean and tidy, almost as sterile as the laboratories.
On TRIM, security is tight. That, coupled with the fact that TRIM is floating out in the middle of outer space, renders escape from the institute nothing short of impossible. In other words, you just don't hear about TRIM escapees—because people don't escape.
All of TRIM's employees are carefully screened before being hired and all of them are expected to maintain a professional , scientific demeanor. Any employee found needlessly abusing a subject (in other words hurting them beyond what is required of a specific experiment) would be promptly fired, and TRIM pointedly takes care not to hire people with sadistic tendencies. Likewise, employees are expected to not make exceptions for their subjects or get attached to them. Subjects are strictly lab rats and, once a subject they are a subject until death, which is not always brief. Subjects are valuable and expensive and, thus, TRIM strives to make them last for as long as possible.
The research conducted on TRIM varies far and wide, as do the experiments, and it is fairly common for TRIM to be contracted by other companies to create or test products for them, or investigate a hypothesis. It could be as simple as studying what parts of the brain psychic phenomenon occurs in or researching whether or not there is a gene that turns people into mages. There are teams who work on pharmaceuticals and cosmetics and use the less interesting mages and psychics to test them out. However, there are also more complex projects that TRIM employees delve into but, while TRIM can and does manufacture biological weapons, it is not in the business of turning sentient beings (such as humanoids) into said biological weapons. It is one thing to create a devastating virus and quite another to create a powerful weapon that can think and act on its own. That would be far too dangerous.
2. Alpha and Omega
Wing Alpha is where the mages are kept and Wing Omega is where the psychics are held. Both Wings contain laboratories where the experiments are conducted and their respective holding cells are reinforced with all the proper wards and precautions to prevent both magic use and the exercising of psychic abilities. The psychics are perhaps the most dangerous in a way; without those wards, they could potentially communicate with the rest of the captives via telepathy to organize a mutiny.
The mages and psychics are all grouped two to a cell in their respective areas, and each cell contains a bunk bed, sink, and toilet, all kept clean and tidy. When not the focus of some experiment, the subjects get to leave their cells for up to two hours a day to shower and exercise under supervision in a designated room. Showering, like exercising, is done as a group, males and females alike; they are simply forced into a large room with shower heads above and washed like that. Quick and efficient. Cleanliness and good health (well, physical health, perhaps not mental and emotional health) is stressed in TRIM to maintain a good medical environment and ensure that their valuable investments (the mages and psychics) have a good shelf life.
It must be noted that while psychic mages no doubt exist, TRIM does not accept them; it accepts only psychics and mages and splits the two among Wing Alpha and Wing Omega. Psychic mages would be far too difficult to properly contain and safely handle and could pose a security risk. That is why psychics and mages are held in different, separate areas to begin with.
Upon entering TRIM, all subjects are promptly stripped of their name and instead issued a nine-digit number that is from then on used to identify them. This is a way of ensuring that the subjects are viewed less as people and more as objects, maintaining emotional distance between the scientist and the subject. Simple gray clothing is issued to all subjects and all personal belongings are taken from them.
3. Irony
Many of TRIM's scientists and workers are mages and psychics themselves. This doesn't stop them from using and abusing other mages and psychics for their experiments, however.
3. The Director
The Director is the head of TRIM, the lead scientist that oversees all experiments and generally ensures things are running smoothly. Anyone with exceptional scientific know-how, experience, and the toughness required to run such a place can potentially work their way up to the top.
4. The Guards
The guards of TRIM are men and women of expertly trained origins. They are often trained in hand to hand combat, forms of martial arts and even kick boxing. Their skills have been finely honed so that they can be called upon for any situation. They are trained in military tactics, both in offensive and defensive situations. They have been trained to use both lethal force and non-lethal force, depending on the situation they have been called to monitor. Guards have been mentally trained against psychics as well, as their job requires them to not be easily tricked by psychic suggestions and the more commonly found psychic powers. Guards undergo rigorous training when it comes to their bodies; they must be fit, they must be trim, and they must be ready for anything. Guards are forced to walk around in heavy gravity environments just so that when they are in normal gravity situations they’ll be able to act faster and move quicker. Guards undergo special training for their reflexes as well, not to mention psychology classes in order to assess when a person is going to be a danger or a threat.
Guard Outfits: The guards on TRIM wear only the finest armour that has been designed. Using a special form of black plastic material the outfit seems brittle and weak but it can withstand up to five thousand pounds of pressure thanks to its special design. It can survive heat up to one thousand five hundred degrees Celsius and almost two hundred degrees below zero Celsius. The suit's interior is temperature controlled, keeping it at a comfortable temperature, depending on whatever the wearer desires.
The boots are special, allowing a person to magnetically stick to anything metal, and not to mention it has special soles allowing electricity to harmlessly flow through the suit and dissipate without any damage to the wearer or the suit's internal system. The helmet is a large sphere shaped device that holds advanced sensor systems and communication devices. This is mainly so all guards can keep running tabs on each other, scan passing scientists they don’t recognize, and see in various lighting, even in complete darkness. Guard suits can filter most toxins, allowing the breather to only get the oxygen that they need. It keeps a HUD for the guards, allowing a guard to quickly see where any other guard is at any given time. The HUD can even create tracking destinations for the Guard, to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. The HUD can help to show guards heat registration to see in thermal vision, and a conclusive radar system allows the guard to see all nearby persons and their distance from them.
Weapons of Guards: Guards use special stun batons for the little things. These batons can be set from a small jolt of electricity that will get a person’s attention and make them think twice to deliver a jolt of electricity so powerful that it could shut down their entire nervous system, causing an almost instantaneous death. Guards can lock the stun batons to their hands, making it almost impossible for them to lose the weapon in a fight. For tougher jobs, guards are armed with side arm pistols that use a form of concentrated energy in order to kill targets. The pistol has a special wireless hook up to the helmet that shows where the gun is pointing, how much energy it has left, and it even allows a person to set how powerful the shot is, from a sliver of energy to fully dispersing the entire charge held. Using special crystal and plasma technology, the clip doesn’t have to be changed after being shot, but it must recharge. However, after a certain amount of usage (usually twenty recharges) the clip must be refilled with the special plasma.
Suit Physical Description: The suit itself looks like a plastic space suit for a bipedal, two armed, one headed humanoid. It fits the wearer comfortably, and while it seems to have no seams for the legs, arms, chest, or head to even move, it is actually quite flexible, allowing even gymnastic style acrobatics in safety and comfort. The helmet is a bubble of sorts that surrounds the head, ensuring that people can’t sneak behind them and snap their necks; it’ll simply twist the helmet tighter or looser. The suit is completely black with no discernable gender; generally, the person looks like an androgynous male. The only way to tell is when the person talks, which is broadcasted through special speakers on the suit and helmet.
Thanatos Inc. was created by a small group of entrepreneurs who chose the company's name in honor of a country from the Old World. In the old days, Thanatos was a country devoted to learning and the pursuit of worldly knowledge, and it is that which Thanatos Inc. strives to do. While the company started out small, over times it began to grow and expand as the founders branched out. It wasn’t long before Thanatos Inc. had grown to mammoth proportions to become the leading corporation of its kind, a monopoly in its own right with a finger in every pie.
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