Hallucigen, Inc

While other major corporations of the pre-War era went wide in their spheres of influence, HalluciGen specialized in a single area: biochemical research for less-lethal weapons. Founder and CEO Eric Rice’s goal was to turn the scrappy science firm into the world leader in police and military gas weapons.

Although their main line of product—nonlethal means to end potentially fatal conflicts—seemed enlightened on its surface, the company’s procedures belied a more sinister corporate culture. Their human product testing was frequently conducted under deceitful, even deadly, circumstances, and in the event of a spill executives would be ushered to safety, the test subjects left to die.

By the time of the Great War, none of their research had reached full fruition, and the company posted a loss of $1.8B in their final shareholder statements. A crowd-control gas, meant to quell aggression in demonstrators and rioters, instead invoked terrifying hallucinations and a savage rage. A contract with Vault-Tec to build a mood-altering atmosphere additive never fully materialized and remained a disturbing rumor until the day the bombs fell.

History

With the chaos surrounding all the corporations scrambling to get federal funding in Charleston, HalluciGen leadership saw an opportunity to turn losses into profit. HalluciGen opened production facilities for their crowd-control gas in Charleston to sell to other medical and military manufacturers, hoping to generate income and get some additional feedback on trials with the chemical. The Research Supply and Service branch of the company was one of the few profitable parts of the business in the final months leading up to the Great War.