Post by Tobey on Oct 29, 2006 23:19:37 GMT -5
((This lab doesn't appear in any of my characters' backstories, and is really only important because Christina's entire family worked there. The three surviving members of Christina's family still do, in fact. Feel free to use this lab in one of your characters' backstories, just be sure to ask my permission first.))
This lab's name started out as a sort of pun on the fact that the store name "Pets Mart" sounds like "Pet Smart." So they reversed it and got "Smart Pet."
Smart Pet has maybe a dozen or so labs scattered throughout the country, but their headquarters is in Pittsburg. They're only very slightly more public than most genetics labs; they manage to get the word of their existance to the people who need to know about it. In other words, their clients. And they have a knack for contacting precisely the people who would do business with them without revealing their operation to the public. Almost always, a Smart Pet employee is sent to the prospective client's home to make the deal.
Instead of capturing humans, Smart Pet finds it easier to simply start with the DNA, and create a creature from there; they grow their creatures from mixtures of human and animal DNA, meeting their clients' specifications. They basically create deluxe housepets, adding any features their clients want, and even manipulating their creations' personalities as their customers see fit. Most creations are endowed with some amount of obedience, though. Smart Pet specializes in personality modification, and as such, there are very few personality specifications that they cannot meet for their clients. However, because they work with complex creatures, often possessing human intelligence, there is at least some potential for failures. Much of the personality alterations are done upon the creatures' creation, but because personality is such a complex thing, follow-up treatments are almost always required. Few of said 'treatments' involve injections, however; it mostly involves altering the environment to mould their creations' mindsets.
Unlike many labs, creatures created at Smart Pet are usually treated very well; very much like the pampered housepets they were intended to be. How a creation is treated usually varies with their personality, to try to ensure maximum control over the sort of 'person' they turn out to be, and usually to make sure the experiment stays as happy with the scientists as possible. Usually, only one or two scientists work on each project, and they often get rather attached. It isn't unknown for scientists to bring their experiments home from work, introduce them to their families, play with them, and all that. Other scientists try not to get attached, because they know that their creations are not theirs to keep. In any case, the experiment is almost always informed that they will eventually be given a new home, and very often the prospective buyer visits their experiment often while it's still 'in progress,' so that they can get to know each other early on.
In the actual Smart Pet building, it's mostly offices, for paperwork and stuff that needs to be done on the computer. There's a wing that houses the medical and scientific equipment, and looks like your average, friendly hospital. There are few cages, never more than one cage in a particular room, and these cages contain the vicious, dangerous experiments, the ones for clients that prefer bodyguards or fighting creatures to housepets. A very small minority of the experiments at Smart Pet are kept in cages; the scientists want their creations to learn to trust humans. The ones that are in cages are usually the ones too vicious to be handled, or the ones that are too wild or free-willed to be trusted not to escape. The rest are simply monitored to make sure they don't try to escape, and a very select few are given such trust that they may wander freely, without needing even to be watched.
This lab's name started out as a sort of pun on the fact that the store name "Pets Mart" sounds like "Pet Smart." So they reversed it and got "Smart Pet."
Smart Pet has maybe a dozen or so labs scattered throughout the country, but their headquarters is in Pittsburg. They're only very slightly more public than most genetics labs; they manage to get the word of their existance to the people who need to know about it. In other words, their clients. And they have a knack for contacting precisely the people who would do business with them without revealing their operation to the public. Almost always, a Smart Pet employee is sent to the prospective client's home to make the deal.
Instead of capturing humans, Smart Pet finds it easier to simply start with the DNA, and create a creature from there; they grow their creatures from mixtures of human and animal DNA, meeting their clients' specifications. They basically create deluxe housepets, adding any features their clients want, and even manipulating their creations' personalities as their customers see fit. Most creations are endowed with some amount of obedience, though. Smart Pet specializes in personality modification, and as such, there are very few personality specifications that they cannot meet for their clients. However, because they work with complex creatures, often possessing human intelligence, there is at least some potential for failures. Much of the personality alterations are done upon the creatures' creation, but because personality is such a complex thing, follow-up treatments are almost always required. Few of said 'treatments' involve injections, however; it mostly involves altering the environment to mould their creations' mindsets.
Unlike many labs, creatures created at Smart Pet are usually treated very well; very much like the pampered housepets they were intended to be. How a creation is treated usually varies with their personality, to try to ensure maximum control over the sort of 'person' they turn out to be, and usually to make sure the experiment stays as happy with the scientists as possible. Usually, only one or two scientists work on each project, and they often get rather attached. It isn't unknown for scientists to bring their experiments home from work, introduce them to their families, play with them, and all that. Other scientists try not to get attached, because they know that their creations are not theirs to keep. In any case, the experiment is almost always informed that they will eventually be given a new home, and very often the prospective buyer visits their experiment often while it's still 'in progress,' so that they can get to know each other early on.
In the actual Smart Pet building, it's mostly offices, for paperwork and stuff that needs to be done on the computer. There's a wing that houses the medical and scientific equipment, and looks like your average, friendly hospital. There are few cages, never more than one cage in a particular room, and these cages contain the vicious, dangerous experiments, the ones for clients that prefer bodyguards or fighting creatures to housepets. A very small minority of the experiments at Smart Pet are kept in cages; the scientists want their creations to learn to trust humans. The ones that are in cages are usually the ones too vicious to be handled, or the ones that are too wild or free-willed to be trusted not to escape. The rest are simply monitored to make sure they don't try to escape, and a very select few are given such trust that they may wander freely, without needing even to be watched.