Hegemony Labs
Hegemony Labs may save the Earth. But none of us may survive to enjoy it.
Guillermo Merino, President of Venezuela
H
egemony Labs is the primary research-and-development organization within Hegemony International.
Culture
B
y most accounts, The Lab is the most independent (and some would say... rogue) organization within all of Hegemony International. They have wide latitude to pursue their own research initiatives and to stick with them over many years when nothing tangible has been produced. While some of their objectives are driven by outside requests from the overall business, they are swift to deny such requests if they do not pique the interest of the moles, or to abandon those initiatives when they fail to deliver immediate results. Conversely, The Lab maintains many "pet projects" that were started solely by their own moles and can only be killed by a direct edict from Reginald Howell himself.
Snobbery
This wide latitude stokes great envy in the broader scientific community. Many of the world's pre-eminent researchers have struggled for years to gain employment in Hegemony Labs. The moles' elevated status in the company also leads many of them to exude an air of arrogance.
Public Agenda
P
ublicly, Hegemony Labs is simply a generic moniker for all of Hegemony International's R&D activities. Just as any thriving corporation must constantly strive to update its existing products, and to develop new ones, so too must Hegemony continually innovate if it expects to continue its domination across a myriad of marketplaces.
Scope
Internally, The Lab's charter is far more extensive than most would imagine. They are not merely content to increment upon the company's numerous patents. Rather, they make aggressive investments to achieve their goal of using science and technology to establish entirely new marketplaces from scratch.
Technological Level
T
he Lab has an unparalleled reputation for stunning scientific and technological expertise. Although that expertise has occasionally yielded products of dubious ethical value, no one begrudges Hegemony's status as the absolute market leader in innovation. It's no exaggeration to state that many "world saving" technologies originated in The Lab.
Advancements
In 2068 it was announced that, for the first time in the Industrial Era, Earth had finally become "carbon neutral". This was only possible because The Lab perfected the first efficient, and economically viable, solution for carbon sequestration.
For the last 10 years, The Lab has perfected a stable fusion generator that produces significantly more energy than is required to maintain the reaction. Although there has not yet been any attempt to release (and thus, profit) on this technology, Hegemony currently powers its entire Kinshasa campus with this reactor.
In 2065, Hegemony International launched the first reusable manned spacecraft capable of making round trips between Earth and Mars. It has since completed two successful missions.
In 2060, Hegemony demonstrated the first working version of KeyMaster, an advanced quantum computer capable of cracking all known modern cryptographic cyphers. The demonstration was followed by angry condemnations from the the world's military superpowers. But those protests have done nothing to stifle the technology.
Laws
G
iven the group's near-total carte blanche to pursue their own interests and develop their own methods, it should be no surprise that The Lab has a decidedly... mixed reputation outside of Hegemony International. While they've made many discoveries that would qualify as "standard" corporate advancements, they've also been known to dive head-first into areas of questionable legal or ethical provenance. In all of these cases, the explicit direction from executive management has been to concentrate solely on perfecting the technology - and they'll sort out the legal ramifications later.
First, innovate. Then innovate some more. We'll sort out any legalities after the fact.
Reginald Howell, founder and CEO of Hegemony International
Ethically Dubious
Although The Lab cannot claim to have produced the first verified human clone, they perfected the process, making it reliable and reproducible on an enterprise scale. And they did this at a time when most governments had specifically banned any research into human cloning.
One of the most profitable research areas in The Lab is in the field of national defense. It's been said that the most lethal force on any modern battlefield is the weaponry produced by Hegemony Labs. And a sizeable portion of that weaponry flies in the face of the Geneva Convention.
In 2039, the midsize Venezuelan city of Calabozo was effectively wiped off the map by a catastrophic explosion. Although numerous governments have denied having any involvement in the tragedy, and while Hegemony continually disavows any knowledge of the event, Calabozo was known to to be a hub for one of The Lab's largest research centers specializing in biospace engineering.
Over the last 30 years, The Lab has made continual, and sometimes stunning, advancements in bioengineering. While those discoveries have, in some cases, saved millions of lives, they also frequently skirt the boundaries of modern medical ethics. Additionally, it's widely-rumored that The Lab had at least some hand in the creation of viruses that resulted in the last two global pandemics.
Profiteering
To be fair, The Lab has also come under public scrutiny when Hegemony International leverages their discoveries for exorbitant profit. For example, several forms of cancer have been effectively cured through treatments that were pioneered in The Lab. But Hegemony has a well-deserved reputation for squeezing every possible bizkit from those treatments once they're made available to the public. While this practice is viewed by most as unsavory, The Lab can scarcely be blamed for developing innovative approaches to age-old medical ailments.
Type
Corporation, Research & Development
Alternative Names
The Lab
Ruling Organization
Related Professions
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