This channel has two main series: GovanifY’s Lab about technology in English and Frafnir’s HQ on random topics – mostly social sciences and Sci-Fi – in French.
Anthropophagous and ecocidal capitalism has expanded all over the planet, consuming entire countries down to the ashes of what they were once upon a time. During the war of 2058, the Great Russian Federation tried to manufacture a drug designed to maintain its people under control. This was a failure. The victorious Liberal and Democratic Republic of China then began to synthesize a composite of this drug.
In 2067 happened the biggest economic crisis that humanity ever had to endure. States were over-indebted because of the war and lots of them bankrupted despite selling the commons. Proving thereby its incapacity to maintain stability, the entire system collapsed on itself and citizens were found on the streets, protesting and rioting.
The (in)famous drug ended up being synthesized by someone known as “K.” who then got rich thanks to his patent. In 2066 he founded TotRec Inc.
It can do a good subset of things, depending on the mixtures, explained above:
Make one's mind enter a state of "Hyper Conscience" - a kind of lucid dreaming between unconsciousness and daydreaming. This explains its many uses in medicine but also in the audiovisual industries and video games, as the players connect to the machines, leaving their bodies in stasis. It has also enabled great advances in neurobiology.
It affects all perceptions - hence its use in simulation - and can be used to divert the transmission of information from the body to the brain. Certain "light" or "lessened" versions of the drug are used in the care of certain diseases or to alleviate the suffering they cause. Some "low cost" and bootleg versions can even give taste to food, which has a disgusting taste in these early days of the XXIInd century.
It therefore works perfectly with electronic technologies while also serving as a drug. Taking it alone alters fatigue, varies the effect of orgasms; mixed, it can produce hallucinations for a handful of hours without significant after-effects – except psychological ones.
TotRec Inc. has become one of the most powerful corporations in the world while its activity has diversified – consider for instance the takeover of Navi, its investments in transport infrastructure ...
Some critiques – certainly lacking analytic skills – accuse the drug of having played a role in the return to an even more unequal relative stability. But that would be to ignore the evolution of the balance of power and in particular the radical modification of the global order in the face of the disappearance of the states as main actors – relegated for the most part to simple tools for territorial management and policing – and the extent of the ecological crisis both as an ideological motivation for alienation and as a catalyst for inequality.
It is some kind of anarcho-capitalist society. “Classic” states are breaking down, corporations rule and we are witnessing the rise of "night-watcher" and “strategist” states. Monopolistic companies govern almost directly in certain regions, in some areas they impose very high barriers to entry and regulate trade as well as community life inside. Elsewhere, it can be oil-rich monarchies where the interest and the property of the king are blurred with those of his nation-company; areas of violence with an uncertain and perpetually changing organization; or simply spaces made uninhabitable by global warming. 11.64 billion people live in this purgatory. A figure no longer increasing ...
It is supposedly a pharmaceutical organization.
Unofficially, and because TotRec is rich enough to let that happen, Gravof, like many others, makes the drug and sell it at a lesser price – for a subpar quality. This drug is made underground and the only legal façade of Gravof is Frafnir's office.
Frafnir and GovanifY are the founders of Gravof. Acting either by conviction or interest, they survive like they can in a weird universe populated by drug smugglers, corrupt district governors, rogue trade unionists, revolutionary activists, ethnic clashes, cyber activist et cetera.
Why are Frafnir and GovanifY using tools coming from the early XX1st century?
With wars and all the other disasters, technology evolved quite a bit with a but: only the richest had access to those evolutions. Lower classes reuse what is left. Recycling has become a way of life and most people are able to repair or even reproduce "21st century style" technologies – cars, computers, etc. Life quality rapidly worsened: polluted air, foul food, public transports in shambles ...
Frafnir is letting himself live with what he has. He talks about what he wants, seldom leaving his house.
GovanifY discusses technology, from computer science to electronics with anything in the middle, trying to use XXIst century technology. His laboratory is used as a cover in case of a surprise break-in by The Militia, always on the lookout for illegal drug manufacturers.
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