Behind the Crown [OoC], Out-of-Character information for Behind the Crown Options

[Koekepan]

BioZu (pronounced bee-oh-tsoo) Inc. is the employer of the characters as of day 0 in Behind the Crown.

The pronunciation is because it was founded by a couple of german scientists (something about a biologische zukunft) called Klaus von Unten and Maria Knochenkauer. This pair of geniuses was deeply engaged in biological creation of precursors for industrial chemistry and manufacturing. They received funding from a few private sources, then went more public and got buy-in from a few investment arms of various majors who like to have their fingers in lucrative pies.

The office where Day 0 starts is on a woodsy hilltop, about two miles from the border with the Salish-Shidhe lands near the southern fringes of the Seattle enclave, not far from a place called Tumwater. It's an R&D facility which is well out of the way for two clear reasons: one is risk in dealing with experimental biologicals, and the other is general secrecy around corporate R&D. There is road access, so that industrial tankers and trucks with supplies can come, but the office itself as a good 100 yards from the next nearest building, which is an electric charging station for electric vehicles, and the very last extended fringes of the street grid system.

The office itself is basically a three storey set of offices the size of a fancy mansion (but more blocky) tacked onto a warehouse, which has been converted to an R&D space.

Security is mostly of the cameras/locks/shoeleather variety, but the guards do carry weaponry, and there is a security rigger, to meet the needs of regulations around experimental biologicals.

For those of you who track earlier threads, consider the installation to have light-blue security as per http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1317859

Rumours

Of course, as with every company with a german connection, it's all a Saeder-Krupp front! Or maybe Lofwyr is behind it all and they don't even know it. Or something. Watercooler speculation on this has reached the point of a corporate in-joke; that they're secretly incubating eggs for Lofwyr.

Another favourite set of rumours is all about where the backing and money come from. It was a cabal of dragons that backed the original founders! Or maybe they're over here as an Aztechnology move, because they could never survive in Germany!

Klaus and Maria are secretly wild, passionate S&M lovers. (The fact that Klaus looks as if a strong breeze would blow him away and Maria seems mostly obsessed with rose gardening, when she's not making mushrooms do unnatural things in the service of heavy industry, does nothing to dispel these inevitable rumours.)

BioZu is really a front for something dark, hideous and unspeakable! Do you know where the feedstock for the growth medium comes from? Do you know what it's made of? I bet you it's made of metahumans! Go on, prove me wrong!

BioZu is bankrupt, dying, on the ropes financially. It's all a lie, a money laundering front.


Yup, rumours aplenty, most of which have no bearing on the day-to-day life of growing vats of weird mutant sludge.