Designing Drugs: The Origin of Triple T.

Author's Commentary #7

 

Viekko Spade.

When I first started plotting out exactly who he was, the idea that he would be addicted to a drug came pretty early.  As an outsider, it felt, to me, a likely result of Viekko's ham-handed attempt to fit into society.  Call it a class of cultures, the effect of so-called 'civilized' society's effect on simpler societies, or just the results of a country boy turned loose in the big city.  Whatever trope you wanna attach to it, Viekko wouldn't be the type to turn down a good time if it was offered to him.  Especially if there was any type of challenge attached to it.

And, of course, this is the future, bitches!  Good old fashioned cocaine or heroin wouldn't cut it anymore.  Because, in some ways, a time in place can be defined by the kind of mind-altering substances the population regularly indulges in.  And a thousand years into the future, it's all gonna be about Triple-T.

The name came from somebody that I worked with on a college paper.  I don't remember who came up with it or why but I remember a conversation about how he always wanted there to be a drug called Triple-T.

So now there is.  Your welcome... whoever it was.

As for what exactly the drug did, this is where I drew inspiration from Cowboy Bebop.

 For the uninitiated, Cowboy Bebop was a Japanese anime about a group of bounty hunters in a near-future universe hunting criminals across the solar system.  Mostly to jazz music.  And some blues.  And one episode to heavy metal.  It's pretty awesome.

One idea they introduced early in the series was a drug called Bloody Eye. The idea is that you spray, this shit in your eye-ball, things get all red and wonky and then you beat the Living Shit out of everything.

Bloody Eye from Cowboy Bebop Session 1.

That was the idea I built upon.

But the real story about Triple-T isn't the high.  It's the low.

And for the Drug of the Future, I wanted something goddamned diabolical.   Something that would rip one's soul out of their body, stomp on it and urinate on the tattered remains.

Brain chemistry is an interesting thing.

As much as we like to think of ourselves as rational beings that somehow have evolved a consciousness that transcends the physical, we are essentially big bags of chemicals.  Bags of chemicals that have managed to fly to the moon, inhabit almost every ecosystem on the planet Earth and create a band called The Sex Pistols.  But, still, bags of chemicals.


Endorphins, in particular, are an interesting class of hormones.  Runners and gym rats know it well.  It is, among other things, part of the body's natural reaction to pain.  When your pituitary gland pumps it into your brain the effect is not dissimilar to opioids.  Hence, the idea of a 'runner's high'.

At least that's what happens when your body decides to increase the standard dose.  But what about people who's body stops producing it?

Well, shit gets weird.

In short, the feeling of your mind being coupled to your body and sharing a similar experience goes away.   It's a weird, scary concept and exactly the kind of horrific side-effect I was going for.

And, in that way, Triple-T became exactly a kind of horrific by-product of a future society I was looking for.