We're just about coming up on a month since the end of Mothership Month 25 and, in addition to the progress report coming out to our backers, we thought we'd do a bit of a deep dive into who Hygeia Interplanetary are, what their intentions are for Prospero's Dream and what kind of inspirations brought them into existence.
Greetings, from Hygeia
Hygeia Interplanetary is a janitorial and mass-fabrication megacorporation attempting to gain a powerful stranglehold on hygiene contracts in Rimspace. Producing and transporting vast amounts of bargain-quality equipment and seizing upon the cheapest options they can find, Hygeia has gnawed its way up the financial rankings - devouring minor competitors into their corpulent fiduciary bulk.
Motivated by an ever-burning love for profit and capital, Hygeia Interplanetary is the hygeine obsessed cousin to 'The Company' whose thriving massfab industry is only outshone by their new and innovative ways to cut corners.
Prospero's Dream is neither the start nor the end of Hygeia's story but rather their newest venture - a station so thoroughly corrupt that anything goes, provided they can convince Golyanovo II Bratva to turn a blind eye. Of course, Hygeia has not come empty-handed. Supplied by a cargo cruiser - the Rod of Asclepius - and eager to make their mark, Hygeia Interplanetary has brought with them vast chemical supplies, equipment stockpiles and a budding new test technology, the CleanliSlate.
More conspiratorial station-siders might claim that Hygeia has been negotiating with the Bratva for some time before their arrival, or note that a recent stationquake happened to strike right before the cleaning company's arrival. Be assured, this is all certainly spurious rumour.
For now Hygeia has set themselves up in temporary offices around the Docks, inserting themselves wherever possible as they begin to flood the station with their resources. Whilst popular in places and reviled in others, it is impossible to ignore their growing influence.
What do they want with us?
The question of Hygeia's motives change wildly depending on who's asked.
Any Hygeia executive (if you can catch them during permitted meeting hours) will insist that they are here for you, the downtrodden contractors and stationsiders. After all, it cannot be denied that Prospero's Dream has a cleanliness issue - one that an outside company would be in perfect position to solve.
Turn your attention to the workers of the Local Union or Bratva droogs and you might get a different story - either a corpo-predator leeching off of the workers of Prospero's or a rival company seeking to stake their turf out of Novo ground.
Delve even deeper and you may hear some more sinister claims. A chemical company looking for new testing ground, a corporation eager to exploit a vast subsurface population down in the Choke, one hoping to one day have the Dream for themselves.
Conspiracy and rumour aside it appears that the most common interaction workers are having with Hygeia aboard the Dream is through the newly distributed CleanliTask Programme...
The CleanliTask Programme
Hygeia's experimental foray into "revolutionising work as you know it", the CleanliTask Programme is designed to strip away the unnecessary elements of contracted work and make it simple and easy for the user with no strings attached.
Step 1. Collect a CleanliSlate from your nearest Hygeia Officer.
Step 2. Activate your account and connect it to your Dream O2 Credstick.
Step 3. Select a task and get to work, earning pay with each one you do!
Some have claimed that Hygeia's new programme is 'explicitly designed to circumvent Union bylaws' or 'turning brutal labour into a gamified commodity', but naysayers have yet to slow the steady expansion of the CleanliTask Programme throughout all parts of Prospero's Dream. Hygeia's experiment is looking to be a roaring success!
Hygeia Interplanetary - Inspirations
On the grid above are some of the influences that came together when conceiving Hygeia Interplanetary. Some of these, like Aerospace and Abraxo, were more direct by virtue of being cleaning companies in their respective settings (with particular focus given to Viscera Cleanup Detail in that regard).
Others like Aperture, Biotechnica and Nanotrasen provided the tone for Hygeia - a callous experimental company constantly on the lookout for new ways to profit, even at the expense of the populace.
Links like Roadside Picnic and the SCP Foundation were less distinctly relevant but had some influence on the final image.
Developing Hygeia
Early on in the development process for Cleaning Crew the 'Company' was split into four brands working in a conglomeration:
Cleanli-Solutions, a cheap and cheerful massfab company with no scruples and all the desire to profit. Praktikal, a former mining venture repurposing their tech for custodial use. Garrison, a military-industrial complex refocusing to the war on grime. And, last but not at all least, Hygeia Interplanetary, the high-tech researchers studying the more arcane methods of cleaning.
Over time the scope narrowed down and we settled on Hygeia as the chosen company. We didn't just scrap the others though. Cleanli-Solutions would make a return in Hygeia's Cleanli-Programme and their budget equipment lines, whilst Praktikal provided the baseline for the more formidable tools. Garrison remains hidden for now, though Backers may get the chance to spot the return of the military-industrialists quite soon...
From these company cultures and their respective equipments was born what we now call Hygeia Interplanetary, a cleaning company whose reach spans across Rimspace and whose morals fall as far as the Choke. The name lended a slightly religious mythical element to the company so we've stuck with that, keeping a running theme of the goddess of hygeiene throughout Cleaning Crew and the stretch goals.
We hope this has shone a little more light on the development process for Hygeia Interplanetary! As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us through our website or on our social medias.
Hygeia Interplanetary.
Cleanliness. Godliness. Hygeia.