Every day, corporations are creating tech and products which are becoming integral to daily life for many of us. But some of those advances may come at a cost. Are convenience and technology worth giving up a few liberties? Syfy’s Incorporated delves into those questions and much more.
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What is Incorporated?
Incorporated, from executive producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon is set in a future where corporations are king. More powerful than governments and high above the law, corporations have shaped a world where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and human life is just the cost of doing business. To survive here, you have to be on the inside. And from the inside, one man with a secret past could bring the whole system down.
The premise seems built on the science fiction conceit of addressing elements of our reality while extrapolating outward. And if the genre has a fundamental question, it’s “What if?”. What if computers could think? What if technology is used against us? What if the future isn’t the kind of future we dream of? Syfy’s Incorporated asks those questions.
The Future According to Incorporated
Set in 2074, Incorporated imagines a world where climate change has affected everything from agriculture to weather patterns. Due to rising sea levels and natural disasters, cities on the coast are destroyed. Superstorms, malaria, dysentery, food riots, and migration towards the midwest have made food and living space more important than ever.
FEMA camps are set up for climate refugees, but there are more people than resources. Already overburdened, the government is forced to privatize relief. Spiga Biotech, one of the most powerful and influential corporations in the world, sells what they need; pesticides to kill the insects, bioengineered crops that grow in harsh weather and more.
As a result, Spiga has become a sovereign entity within the United States. Spiga has its own rules, its own corporate army, and a very tight reign on any sort of technology going in or out of the company. Unauthorized tech is forbidden and downloading Spiga intel is cause for torture and worse. The Spiga Corporation will protect its intellectual property at all costs and has the autonomy to impose its own punishments, no matter how brutal.
The more unpredictable things get, the more cutthroat Spiga’s employee’s becomes. In the end, the goal is simple; stay ahead of the competition regardless of the consequences.
It’s All About Where You Live
The divide between the haves and the have-nots has grown. In the Red Zones, humanity struggles for everything. In the Green Zones, the wealthy live a life of comfort and luxury. Self-driving cars coast along a highway with a video wall projecting a beautiful landscape to blocking out the devastation on the other side. Meanwhile, the rest of the population fight to make a life somewhere in between. They work for the wealthy in one form or another, all the while hoping to join their ranks –– and fighting not to become one of the refugees.
Whether you’re a kid in the FEMA camps, one of the top employees at Spiga, or an ambitious kid somewhere in the middle, you have the same mission: fight to win.
Once you’re at the top, then your goal is to stay there. After all, once you make it to the top, the only direction is down.
Incorporated premieres on November 30 at 10/9C on Syfy.