A pill to enable super/psychic powers?
A pharmaceutical company begins drug trials of a pill that they believe can activate a previously understudied and widely unknown region of the brain. The trial begins and when the first participants take the pill, there's no obvious changes. The company decides they need to be subjected to intense physical and mental training in order to stimulate the body into processing the drug. Over the course of a couple weeks, one person discovers they can levitate objects with their mind. Then, a different participant starts to shoot fire from their hands. Other various powers emerge, ranging from typical powers, like flight, to truly unique ways to manipulate their bodies and the laws of nature.
There's a lot I plan to hand wave about the powers from the drug (the brain is linking to a spiritual aura so not much to say on the science side), but I want the drug and the culture around the drug to feel realistic. A few notes about how I intended the drug to work:
- Taking additional pills beyond the recommended dosage doesn't increase the intensity of the powers
- Training is required for powers to emerge, plus a few days for your body to adjust to the pill in the first place
- You stop taking the drug, you lose the powers
How does the company hide their drug and keep the participants from spreading the word? I imagine this could not be a publically distributed drug, but what purposes could the drug be prescribed for? (Super soldiers seems obvious)
How would the black market handle a drug like this? Would it even warrant interest from the public due to the training needed?
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1 answer
So you set it up like a drug trial.
First phase is really small, maybe 10 people to get dosing figured out.
Maybe use some underprivileged people who would like a place to sleep and some money. If they talk after the effects wear off no one will pay much attention.
Wait for the powers to manifest and call in the Defense Department for a demonstration. Show it off and get their agreement to help with phase 2.
Phase 2 is a little larger test group of 100-200 to check for efficiency and safety, look for unwanted side effects. These would probably be volunteers from the armed forces. This is where you can really test stuff out without having to worry about security because DD would handle that.
Phase 3 is an even larger group of 1000-3000 to continue to look for side effects and safety concerns.
Black Market:
This is going to happen, but the fact that the effects wear off is a good thing, meaning that there will have to be a steady supply to be of much use, and having military security on hand is going to help.
Something like this would probably fall under some kind of code word level security where violation is Treason and very bad things will happen to people that violate it.
The biggest threat is going to be foreign powers trying to get a hold of it for the purpose of reverse engineering it for their own armies.
That's why trying to keep it all in house is probably a bad idea. If a nation state wants to break into your corporate headquarters to steal the formula corporate security may not be up to the job.
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