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Spiralis Labs & The OIA
a year ago
Hello all! Dropping by with a little lore dump of the two major players that I'll be writing about in the forthcoming Junction City stories. Spiralis' intro is a little more detailed, but I felt I had to explain more with certain aspects of them - and don't worry, very soon it'll be OIA's turn to shine after two Spiralis stories in a row ^.^
In the seedy underbelly of Junction City, those looking for the ultimate thrill often visit the nightclub known simply as Spiral. Tucked away in a nondescript alley, its only sign a self-styled gold-and-white spiral, it nevertheless usually has a line of would-be patrons stretching around the block. It’s one of the few clubs with the distinction of being run by a certified doctor – Doctor Beatrice Tannhauser, licensed practitioner of hypnotherapy. Of course, she does much more than that, but that’s what fits on her business card.
For most, Spiral is a window into experiences they never thought they could have, or would have. True to the name and motif, hypnosis and mind control are the order of the day, and the options are limitless. Want to be enthralled by your waiter? Take a seat and stare deeply into their eyes. Want to stalk and hunt a hapless, helpless submissive? Take your pick from their trained staff – but make sure everything stays safe, sane, and consensual. Spiral is not the sort of place that indulges in the excesses of mind manipulation; permanent conditioning, drastic personality alterations, so on and so forth are strictly forbidden and will result in stiff punishment if found to be occurring.
Beneath the surface, however, Spiral is much more than a simple nightclub. A front for Spiralis Laboratories, Dr. Tannhauser is in truth the head of their Applied Sciences Division. The nightclub, with its varied clientele consisting of everyone from down-on-their-luck singles to rich executives and politicians, is a perfect petri dish for testing the various technologies and techniques that come out of the Labs. Most of the staff is also unaware of the true nature of the nightclub, though genuine Labs personnel are strategically seeded through the ranks.
Underneath the nightclub, the sprawl of the Labs is extensive. Founded in the year 302 AF (After Founding), Spiralis Laboratories is a venerable institution, if one that is largely unknown to the general public. The stated goal of the Labs is to research and perfect the study and application of mind manipulation. In its formative years, the Labs were a neutral entity, often to be found supplying hypnotic technology to anyone with the resources to pay. Under the leadership of Doctor Nadia Konorski, who assumed the mantle of Director of Research twenty-two years ago, the Labs’ mission statement has changed. Much of the old guard was purged, and now Spiralis has re-geared itself towards the protection of Junction City, and preventing the proliferation of mind manipulation. Dr. Konorski’s motives in instituting these changes are unknown, and grumbles of discontent still run underneath the surface.
Spiralis’ main agents are largely split into two categories; the Pinion teams, and the Liberated Sleepers.
Pinion teams are groups of 4-5 individuals, working seamlessly together as a kind of special operations unit. Precision strikes and lightning-fast raids are their specialties. The ranks of the Pinions are mostly made up of victims of unscrupulous and/or rogue hypnotists, subjecting them to a process known colloquially as “dronification.” Dronification, as a process that substantially rewires and rewrites the brain’s impulses, is not something that can be easily reversed or undone, and indeed greater than ninety percent of rescued victims will relapse at some point, even if thoroughly deprogrammed. Spiralis offers these victims a choice; they can do their best to resume a normal life, assisted by the Labs’ therapists and deprogrammers to mitigate and possibly quell further relapses, or they can enter the Labs’ employ.
Pinion drones undergo a proprietary and highly secretive conditioning regimen unlike the “brute-force” approach so commonly seen in the wild. When their services are not required, they live normal lives amongst the populace of Junction City, but they can be activated and recalled with very little notice. Even when the drone personalities are activated, they remain semi-autonomous, receiving orders and compelled to follow them but given latitude to act in their best interests.
Liberated Sleepers are a similar but distinct division, consisting of individual agents generally deployed as spies, saboteurs, and in cases of extreme necessity, assassins. The Sleepers, as the name implies, are by and large unaware of their true work for Spiralis. Their ranks are made up, again, of former victims of unethical mind manipulators. Their origins are more rooted in tragedy, however; unlike Pinions, who as drones were likely to be random, unlucky victims snatched at the hypnotists’ pique, Sleepers were generally groomed to be that from an early age. Certain children, when exposed to enough traumatic triggers, can manifest another side of themselves to shoulder the burden of the trauma. They may refer to this other self as an “imaginary friend,” but to a mind manipulator, this other self is a prime opportunity to create a Sleeper. Through rigorous brainwashing and conditioning regimens, the alternate self can be instilled with the commands and triggers to create an efficient, lethal agent able to carry out the hypnotists’ wishes, all while insulating the unaware “original” from any detrimental effects. This process takes a considerable amount of time, often progressing through the subject’s adolescent years and resulting in a “true” Sleeper around the ages of twenty to twenty-three.
When found, Spiralis goes to great lengths to liberate and reconcile these Sleepers’ dual aspects. This must be done so that consent can be garnered from both the original and alternate selves. Once Spiralis has established a rapport with both selves, a choice is offered similar to the Pinions’. More rigorous hypnotherapy and supervision is needed in a Sleeper’s case, to prevent any dangerous relapses, given the alternate self’s usual vocation and training, and to eventually guide the selves towards melding again.
Alternatively, the Sleeper can choose to remain with Spiralis. In this case, their alternate self’s talents will be turned towards advancing the Labs’ goals while the original will be given a mundane job as cover for their extracurricular activities. Most Sleepers’ original selves choose to continue the division of self, not wanting to remember or experience the things their alternate is capable of. With their consent they are hypnotized in believing they work for Spiralis for any number of reasons, given their chosen career paths. Some Sleepers choose to remember, and pursue a high level of coordination with their alternate selves.
No Sleeper has yet been found with more than one alternate self; the current thinking is that this situation is too unstable to be possible.
The Office of Interuniversal Affairs is a relatively new player to the Junction City area, but it has quickly risen to be a powerhouse. Founded in 413 AF, OIA is only thirty years old. It has been helmed by the same director for that entire span, an elephant named Candace Jaeger. Fleeing to Junction City when her home universe was destroyed, Director Jaeger was twenty-six years old and bereft upon arriving in the city. A law student in her former life, the how and the why of her founding of OIA remains shrouded in mystery. Within five years of its creation, however, the fledgling organization had already acquired a reputation of being a fearless, if sometimes reckless, defender of universes against encroachment – often the first on the scene of a crisis and the last to leave.
OIA’s mission statement is simple – protect the universes under its charge from harm, including Junction City, its home base and staging area. It does this through judicious application of diplomacy and force in equal measure, stemming from each of its three principal departments, Records, Personnel, and Enforcement. Records and Personnel handle the two sides of intelligence gathering – documentation and human sources. They identify multiversal glitches and errors, anomalies that OIA is tasked with mitigating or reversing. Reality distortions that cause transformations are their forte – however, as OIA is tasked with ensuring the continuity of the multiverse, if they discover an error in a file they will correct it. Receiving a letter from OIA in the mail can be the difference between a life as a human, and a life as an anthropomorphic golden retriever.
Enforcement, the other principal division, employs agents known as Executors/Executrixes. Recruited from across the multiverse, they are top-flight agents, acting in a variety of functions from peace officer to special envoy to commando. Enforcement agents are OIA’s frontline troops, the ones generally dispatched to investigate burgeoning multiversal crises and the ones who end up solving them.
Despite using the naming conventions of such, OIA does not fall under the auspices of Junction City’s government. Within Junction City, OIA operates as a clandestine agency, with the grudging backing of the city’s governing council. Only those in the top political echelon are aware of its existence, with the council understandably chafing at not just one, but two secret independent agencies operating without explicit official permission. OIA coexists with Spiralis, but regards the latter somewhat uneasily, due to their focus on mind manipulation and hypnosis techniques. So far, they have proven to be steady if shifty allies, but OIA is quietly preparing contingencies should that status change in the future.
In the seedy underbelly of Junction City, those looking for the ultimate thrill often visit the nightclub known simply as Spiral. Tucked away in a nondescript alley, its only sign a self-styled gold-and-white spiral, it nevertheless usually has a line of would-be patrons stretching around the block. It’s one of the few clubs with the distinction of being run by a certified doctor – Doctor Beatrice Tannhauser, licensed practitioner of hypnotherapy. Of course, she does much more than that, but that’s what fits on her business card.
For most, Spiral is a window into experiences they never thought they could have, or would have. True to the name and motif, hypnosis and mind control are the order of the day, and the options are limitless. Want to be enthralled by your waiter? Take a seat and stare deeply into their eyes. Want to stalk and hunt a hapless, helpless submissive? Take your pick from their trained staff – but make sure everything stays safe, sane, and consensual. Spiral is not the sort of place that indulges in the excesses of mind manipulation; permanent conditioning, drastic personality alterations, so on and so forth are strictly forbidden and will result in stiff punishment if found to be occurring.
Beneath the surface, however, Spiral is much more than a simple nightclub. A front for Spiralis Laboratories, Dr. Tannhauser is in truth the head of their Applied Sciences Division. The nightclub, with its varied clientele consisting of everyone from down-on-their-luck singles to rich executives and politicians, is a perfect petri dish for testing the various technologies and techniques that come out of the Labs. Most of the staff is also unaware of the true nature of the nightclub, though genuine Labs personnel are strategically seeded through the ranks.
Underneath the nightclub, the sprawl of the Labs is extensive. Founded in the year 302 AF (After Founding), Spiralis Laboratories is a venerable institution, if one that is largely unknown to the general public. The stated goal of the Labs is to research and perfect the study and application of mind manipulation. In its formative years, the Labs were a neutral entity, often to be found supplying hypnotic technology to anyone with the resources to pay. Under the leadership of Doctor Nadia Konorski, who assumed the mantle of Director of Research twenty-two years ago, the Labs’ mission statement has changed. Much of the old guard was purged, and now Spiralis has re-geared itself towards the protection of Junction City, and preventing the proliferation of mind manipulation. Dr. Konorski’s motives in instituting these changes are unknown, and grumbles of discontent still run underneath the surface.
Spiralis’ main agents are largely split into two categories; the Pinion teams, and the Liberated Sleepers.
Pinion teams are groups of 4-5 individuals, working seamlessly together as a kind of special operations unit. Precision strikes and lightning-fast raids are their specialties. The ranks of the Pinions are mostly made up of victims of unscrupulous and/or rogue hypnotists, subjecting them to a process known colloquially as “dronification.” Dronification, as a process that substantially rewires and rewrites the brain’s impulses, is not something that can be easily reversed or undone, and indeed greater than ninety percent of rescued victims will relapse at some point, even if thoroughly deprogrammed. Spiralis offers these victims a choice; they can do their best to resume a normal life, assisted by the Labs’ therapists and deprogrammers to mitigate and possibly quell further relapses, or they can enter the Labs’ employ.
Pinion drones undergo a proprietary and highly secretive conditioning regimen unlike the “brute-force” approach so commonly seen in the wild. When their services are not required, they live normal lives amongst the populace of Junction City, but they can be activated and recalled with very little notice. Even when the drone personalities are activated, they remain semi-autonomous, receiving orders and compelled to follow them but given latitude to act in their best interests.
Liberated Sleepers are a similar but distinct division, consisting of individual agents generally deployed as spies, saboteurs, and in cases of extreme necessity, assassins. The Sleepers, as the name implies, are by and large unaware of their true work for Spiralis. Their ranks are made up, again, of former victims of unethical mind manipulators. Their origins are more rooted in tragedy, however; unlike Pinions, who as drones were likely to be random, unlucky victims snatched at the hypnotists’ pique, Sleepers were generally groomed to be that from an early age. Certain children, when exposed to enough traumatic triggers, can manifest another side of themselves to shoulder the burden of the trauma. They may refer to this other self as an “imaginary friend,” but to a mind manipulator, this other self is a prime opportunity to create a Sleeper. Through rigorous brainwashing and conditioning regimens, the alternate self can be instilled with the commands and triggers to create an efficient, lethal agent able to carry out the hypnotists’ wishes, all while insulating the unaware “original” from any detrimental effects. This process takes a considerable amount of time, often progressing through the subject’s adolescent years and resulting in a “true” Sleeper around the ages of twenty to twenty-three.
When found, Spiralis goes to great lengths to liberate and reconcile these Sleepers’ dual aspects. This must be done so that consent can be garnered from both the original and alternate selves. Once Spiralis has established a rapport with both selves, a choice is offered similar to the Pinions’. More rigorous hypnotherapy and supervision is needed in a Sleeper’s case, to prevent any dangerous relapses, given the alternate self’s usual vocation and training, and to eventually guide the selves towards melding again.
Alternatively, the Sleeper can choose to remain with Spiralis. In this case, their alternate self’s talents will be turned towards advancing the Labs’ goals while the original will be given a mundane job as cover for their extracurricular activities. Most Sleepers’ original selves choose to continue the division of self, not wanting to remember or experience the things their alternate is capable of. With their consent they are hypnotized in believing they work for Spiralis for any number of reasons, given their chosen career paths. Some Sleepers choose to remember, and pursue a high level of coordination with their alternate selves.
No Sleeper has yet been found with more than one alternate self; the current thinking is that this situation is too unstable to be possible.
The Office of Interuniversal Affairs is a relatively new player to the Junction City area, but it has quickly risen to be a powerhouse. Founded in 413 AF, OIA is only thirty years old. It has been helmed by the same director for that entire span, an elephant named Candace Jaeger. Fleeing to Junction City when her home universe was destroyed, Director Jaeger was twenty-six years old and bereft upon arriving in the city. A law student in her former life, the how and the why of her founding of OIA remains shrouded in mystery. Within five years of its creation, however, the fledgling organization had already acquired a reputation of being a fearless, if sometimes reckless, defender of universes against encroachment – often the first on the scene of a crisis and the last to leave.
OIA’s mission statement is simple – protect the universes under its charge from harm, including Junction City, its home base and staging area. It does this through judicious application of diplomacy and force in equal measure, stemming from each of its three principal departments, Records, Personnel, and Enforcement. Records and Personnel handle the two sides of intelligence gathering – documentation and human sources. They identify multiversal glitches and errors, anomalies that OIA is tasked with mitigating or reversing. Reality distortions that cause transformations are their forte – however, as OIA is tasked with ensuring the continuity of the multiverse, if they discover an error in a file they will correct it. Receiving a letter from OIA in the mail can be the difference between a life as a human, and a life as an anthropomorphic golden retriever.
Enforcement, the other principal division, employs agents known as Executors/Executrixes. Recruited from across the multiverse, they are top-flight agents, acting in a variety of functions from peace officer to special envoy to commando. Enforcement agents are OIA’s frontline troops, the ones generally dispatched to investigate burgeoning multiversal crises and the ones who end up solving them.
Despite using the naming conventions of such, OIA does not fall under the auspices of Junction City’s government. Within Junction City, OIA operates as a clandestine agency, with the grudging backing of the city’s governing council. Only those in the top political echelon are aware of its existence, with the council understandably chafing at not just one, but two secret independent agencies operating without explicit official permission. OIA coexists with Spiralis, but regards the latter somewhat uneasily, due to their focus on mind manipulation and hypnosis techniques. So far, they have proven to be steady if shifty allies, but OIA is quietly preparing contingencies should that status change in the future.
