2015: A Better Tomorrow

Titan Engineering, Ohio’s leading bio-engineering innovator, is coming to Oberlin to share what has been touted by experts everywhere as “the most important pharmaceutical advancement of the last hundred years,” the cure-all patch Panacea! It cures anything – cancer, bullet wounds, maybe even death itself – but things are not as they seem.

You decide to attend their presentation at Dye Lecture Hall, where they reveal that you will get the exclusive opportunity to experience the drug entirely free for a year. Halfway through the Q&A, a protest group known only as the Oberlin Fuck Big Pharma Co-Operative (OFBPCO for short) breaks up the meeting and claims to have evidence of deaths caused by this new drug that Titan has covered up.

From there things only get more complicated: a whistleblower begins sending the you daily audio and text documents hinting at corruption and coverup in the highest levels of the company; company representatives are sleeping with each other and leaking documents left and right; and mysterious codenames hint at a deeper, darker conspiracy to get the drug to market.

Soon, you are asked to make a choice: side with Titan and begin taking Panacea, or side with OFBPCO and help expose the lies and corruption within the company.

Here, the game split into two distinct storylines that interacted with two different sets of characters. The Titan side blackmailed their way up the ladder, getting closer and closer to the truth behind Panacea through the on-campus representatives. The OFBPCO side experienced the story of one student affected by Titan’s corruption and learned the truth behind OFBPCO, that they were a puppet organization set up by another Big Pharma corporation. Some key characters from both sides:

  • Rachel Allison Ge: The founder of Titan Engineering and the original creator of Panacea, Dr. Ge left the company in 2014 for unknown reasons. Her whereabouts and condition are unknown as well.
  • Elizabeth Glisser: The current president of Titan Engineering and the driving force behind getting Panacea to market. She came in and Ge left within the same month.
  • Hector Zimora: Glisser’s right-hand man, he deals with everything legal and financial. Glisser and him are boning.
  • Galen Lorish-Cale: A whistleblower with a deep hatred for Glisser, they send out emails every day at midnight verbally abusing and messing with their audience while spreading vital insider information.
  • Wayne McGarvis: A jingoistic thriller-writer-turned-CEO that heads Progenitor Technologies, a rival biotech firm that lives in Titan’s shadow. McGarvis is a big fan of Titan, but that doesn’t stop him of using every tactic that he can to get ahead…

Eventually, both sides hacked accounts of scientists within Titan that revealed that the drug was actually a parasite that replicated human tissue. Being a parasite, however, it also killed its host at random, appearing in this destructive form in about 2% of all users of the drug. You were then faced with a final choice: do you keep quiet, and let Titan release a drug that cures all ills for 98% of people; do you hand the drug over to Progenitor and let them deactivate it, ridding the world of Panacea forever; or do you give the story to the press, let them blow the doors off Titan and Progenitor, and doom the people who have already taken the drug to a painful death as the parasite eats them from the inside out?

Winners:

  • The Troublemakers [After placing second two years in a row, the Troublemakers triumphantly took the top spot this year!]
  • Piroshki [bonus points for being the only team to totally solve the Mudd Reference Book number puzzle!]
  • Savannah Tracy [bonus points for writing a legal case so good it had everyone on the team slack-jawed in awe!]
  • Bad Intentions [bonus points for the wilder banner and the rock!]

Materials:

  • Revisit the Powerpoint presentation that kicked everything off!
  • Print your own OFBPCO zine and spread the word about Titan’s lies!
  • Revel in the secrecy of the leaked HYPERION documents – censored and uncensored!
  • Laugh, cry, and scream (and scream again) at the extensive collection of audio files leaked from inside of Titan!
  • Be overjoyed by the sheer amount of awesome-looking pseudoscience went into making Panacea!

Unused Materials:

  • Check out this extensive character map we made, and notice some characters that we didn’t end up using!
  • Scratch your head at this early, incredibly evil concept for Titan’s presence at Oberlin!
  • Understand a little bit more about character motivations with this unused document between Glisser, Zimora, and Ge!
  • Marvel at some early characterization for Uncle Will, A.K.A. Wayne McGarvis!

Player-Made Content:

  • The Savannah Tracys put together this amazingly detailed fake science report!
  • Bad Intentions came up with a menagerie of attack ads!
  • The Troublemakers painted a rock and put up some snazzy posters, and blew us away with this sublime and subliminal video!
  • Prioshki rocked our socks with their pseudoscience-filled patent!
  • Fuck Tables, They’re Just Tall Floors stunned with their legit-as-all-heck patent and existential-as-all-heck name!
  • The Pleasant Box took to social media with great success!

Websites:

  • titanohio.com – Titan Engineering’s very own website!
  • ofbpco.com – The Oberlin Fuck Big Pharma Co-Operative’s professionally-designed homepage!
  • waynemcgarvis.com – Explore the ins and outs of the best-selling author the New York Post calls “the most American author of the past 2o years!”
  • anselmettijournal.blogspot.com – The home of the enterprising science journalist Pauline Anselmetti, who was on the scene to report about Titan at Oberlin
  • titanohio.com/dfrank – Personal server for Titan Personal Relations Representative Daniel Frank – password: isabelwurgen
  • titanohio.com/mross – Personal server for Titan Operations Coordinator Melanie Ross – password: 18714sm
  • titanohio.com/kmuher – Personal server for Titan Scientist Katrine Muher – password: SweatersOnCats123
  • titanohio.com/iwurgen – Personal server for Titan Scientist Isabel Wurgen – password: D4n4nd0liv3r