Genetic engineering, microbiological, and biochemical research
Headquarters: La Jolla, California
Regional Offices: London, Bonn, Paris, Seattle, Dallas, Night City, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro
Chief Officer/Designer: Nicolo Loggagia
Employees: 36,256
Background
When the fuel crisis really began to affect the industrialized community in the late 1990s, Biotechnica, then a small firm with only one office, came up with the answer: CHOOH2 TM (pronounced 'chew two'). CHOOH2 (not its actual chemical formula) is a complex grain alcohol produced by genetically engineered yeasts and wheat strains created by Biotechnica. The potential of CHOOH2 was realized almost immediately after it was introduced, and within a few years, all fuel-burning vehicles and power plants had converted to the new product. Although Biotechnica held worldwide patents, it lacked the production facilities to meet worldwide demand, forcing it to license production to several large Agricorps and PetroCorps. These deals made Biotechnica an extremely wealthy, but still not particularly large, company. Biotechnica is also probably the closest thing to a "good guy" Corporation in the Time of the Red. Its labs have provided much of the tech that enabled the Pacific Confed to develop new bio-engineered "replacement species," and Biotechnica is active in restoring both animals and habitat throughout the blighted environments of this era.
Face: Nicolo Loggagia
A brilliant but erratic biochemist, Nicolo Loggagia has taken what began as a small company based out of an industrial park in Rome and made it into one of the most important Corporations in the world. Biotechnica is still relatively small, hardly what constitutes a true "Megacorp," but it punches well above its weight with the scale of its creations, such as the CHOOH2 development that powers most of the vehicles in the world. And behind almost all of these is Loggagia: a slight, white-haired, dapper man with a slightly abstracted air about him. Loggagia likes to make things. Useful chemicals. Biological tools. Artificial life forms. He doesn't often think of what he'll do with his creations; he leaves that to his grandson Mario and his wife Luchessia, who handle most of the business aspects of the firm. But that's because Nicolo is pursuing a dream. Since childhood, Loggagia has wanted to restore the biosphere of the planet, starting with endangered flora and fauna and working up to recreating some of the most interesting (to his far-ranging mind) extinct animals throughout history. Loggagia, however, is a practical man. He knows if he recreates such now-extinct wonders as pandas and koala bears, the greedy and rapacious forces of the world will soon destroy his reborn creations. So Nicolo has redesigned many of his favorite animals with both defensive and offensive capabilities that they previously lacked—koalas with venomous fangs, for example. He's also been experimenting with creating new bio-engineered flora and fauna to restore his favorite ecosystems: the color shifting pattern-panthers now moving into the Northwest forests, or the spotted ptero-raptors that have started to infest the heights of the Canadian Rockies. Nicolo is a pleasant and likable man who exudes an old-world charm that immediately endears him to those he meets. On the other hand, he may well also be the Doctor Moreau of the Time of the Red.
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