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[Dr. Awkward]

 [SPEC]Ganu Yoshida, his evil henchmen & Connector of Doom

[Kraker]

So your point is...
The secret ingredient is the key to the game?

I thought that was established, as even those who believed slusho was important only believed it because of the "secret ingredient".

This didn't need it's own thread in my opinion

[Dr. Awkward]

[Arkaham]

But Tagruato doesn't exclusily mine for slusho. They explore the rigs, the Sea Bed Nectar is just one of the things they found there, so Bold Futura may benefit from some metal also extracted from the rigs, or some form of energy (undersea volcanoes?) or maybe just from using the extreme environments for testing their machines.

I don't know. Maybe I just don't like the idea of an eeeevil corporation being the force behind the monster. I like my gigant catastrophes free and with their own evil agendas.

[Cthulhu]

I think Ganu andd the gang just found SH....and, given the name, it was used in a food. Due to Ganu's past connections with the beverage industry, I don't think it's plausible for him to extract it for other uses. If he is, I think he knows its dangerous. I think the subsidiaries have their own methods and uses for different things. If SH happens to be one of them, so be it, but as of now, SH itself seems to be the reason for the catastrophe.

And whats up with the typing?

[rjharris1960]

Tell us something we didn't know.

Why doncha!!!

Please, do tell!!

[Kraker]

Eh, I like being snide, but ok (btw Awkward you really remind me of a PM the way you hint that we might find out the secret in your last paragraph).

Ah well, here's my theory.

The term "seabed honey" is only a codename referred to what was found accidentally while drilling for oil. Seabed honey means in my opinion "the nectar found at the seabed". Nectar can be the fruit of something, the juice.

Let's not forget honey is produced by a swarm of insects that are very willing to attack intruders.

They found it had some sort of addictive/mental/physical/??? effect on those who consumed it and so marketed it as a soft drink.

The other subsidiaries of Tagruato seem to have no relation to the secret ingrediant except for YMR. Bold Futura we are still unclear on what it does but it seems to have some sort of relationship with mining as mines have been specified to be opened yet they wouldn't yield oil or the secret ingrediant. ParafFun! is a market of wax which can be found often with crude oil.

It seems that although slusho is a downplay of Tagruato, it still contains the secret ingredient and therefore still has a possibility of participating in the movie.

Finally, Yoshida Medical Research specified that it uses "deep sea bioprospecting". I find it quite likely that they might be harvesting the "bees" to make more "honey" which can be engineered to have physical and mental benefits when used in proper treatement.

There you have it.

Perhaps we're looking at a queen bee?

[Dr. Awkward]

Boot or no boot...

[Red Walrus]

Dr. Awkward -- For what's it worth, I liked your post and the thought that went into it.

Some of the references to the sinister and addictive nature of Ganus' secret ingredient:

A culinary experience whose shadow has yet to leave my mind, and has left me craving more.

The lovely ladies handed out seven drinks to each senior in any flavor they could imagine.
"This Mikan-Strawberry Tasty makes me feel young again!" exclaimed 98-year-old Hiro Chinen.
Another aged lady asked to have a Nashi-Banana Anime hooked into her IV

the Slusho! fueled Lions
thirteen hit batsman. Nishio coach Geoff Jingle was forced to forfeit after he looked to his bench and found no Dragons brave enough to step to the plate.

Workers cited their pride in the Tagruato Cares foundation and their card allowing for half-off Slusho! at any participating vendors as some of their most favorable factors.

Slusho! contains a "special ingredient" that customers can't get enough of. Bearing the slogan, "You can't drink just six!",

but it wouldn't be a useful drug if it's too toxic to people, or gets broken down in the body too quickly, things like that! This might involve a "clinical trial": Trying the drug on real people after it's been through plenty of tests and development!

Everyone who drinks a SLUSHO! tastes Noriko's dream, and becomes a small
whale like Noriko - because you want to drink huge amounts of SLUSHO!
BET YOU CAN'T DRINK JUST SIX!!!

A feeling of great strength washed over me, as though I could take a boulder into my fist and squeeze it into a pebble. My fork became a scepter, raised high as I envisioned myself conquering the Nordic empire and laying waste to any filthy peasant who stood in my path. Glorious.

[Melampus]

Sorry - here comes another long one...

After looking back over the Tagruato site - the descriptions of each subsidiary company, and the 'day in the life' of Dr. Hiro Takahashi, I'm on the fence about whether the Slusho ingredient is the key to all this. Don't get me wrong, Doc, I think your idea has got to be in the right ballpark, but I'm not sure if it's the Slusho ingredient or something else developed by Tagruato, w/Slusho just being a kind of sideshow... Sideshow Slusho! We've been focused on Slusho for a long time b/c it was the first thing that was found (can't remember if it was before or after 1-18-08.com). But, now that we've been told about Tagruato & YMR, we know that the secret ingredient in Slusho is just one of many applications of the "fermentation" process developed, or at least used, at YMR - as described in the 'day in the life' article. This process can be boiled down to this:

Step 1. They harvest gunk ("samples") from the ocean floor and bring them back to the lab.

Step 2. Bacteria present in the samples are isolated, and then cultured, i.e., they isolate strands of bacteria and then let them grow, so they have large samples ('colonies') of each strand of bacteria.

Step 3. The bacteria colonies are placed in incubation (in a liquid media) to warm them up and 'aerate' them - this process is called "liquid fermentation." The result of this incubation is that chemical compounds are released from the bacteria. So, just as (yeast + sugar) = alcohol; so does (bacteria + incubation) = new chemical compounds.

Step 4. The chemical compounds are transfered into resins and put through chemical baths, etc. eventually yielding a "crude extract" - a concentrated batch of whatever chemical compound was released during fermentation.

Step 5. This crude extract is then run through various tests "to see if it has any interesting bioactivity!", e.g., will this new compound kill cancer cells? etc.

Since YMR was established "to study extremophiles found only in the deepest parts of our oceans," I'm guessing those bacteria are the extremophiles - that's why incubation (heat) releases chemical compounds. Just a guess - I don't really know the science behind this, so I may be way off. In any case, it's not the stuff actually found on the ocean floor that is put to use in Slusho or ParaFun or whatever; it's the chemical compounds that get distilled out of the bacteria that's isolated out of the deep sea gunk. On the one hand, this makes me think that Slusho is just a sideshow and we're hung up on it because we've been obsessing over it for so long; but, the real story is Tagruato and YMR.

On the OTHER hand, Slusho's secret ingredient is odd because it must be kept very cold. I doubt paraFun has to be kept frozen; and I doubt any pharmaceutical applications would have to be kept frozen. My guess - and, it's a pretty uneducated one - is that the Slusho ingredient is unique among the Tagruato applications because it's not a chemical compound, but one of the extremophile bacteria strains, i.e., it's put into use pre-fermentation.

According to the Slusho History, Ganu never intended to carry on his mother's work - making beverages. He was into science, and deep sea harvesting of bioactive chemicals, etc. I think he stumbled upon the Slusho ingredient - he discovered a bacteria that releases a chemical compound that is short-lived and also just happens to be amazingly, freakin' delicious (and possibly narcotic). How he would find this out I have no idea; maybe he had a dream or something, I don't know... Had it not been for his mother and cousin, he probably would have never pursued this frivolous application, but he realized that he could use a strain of bacteria in a frozen drink - w/the "fermentation" taking place in a person's mouth. That's the thing that's always bugged me about Slusho - it has to be kept cold, but as soon as someone puts it in their mouth, it will obviously warm up (unless, of course, the person is undead). So, the 'secret' has to be that the flavor is released when whatever is in Slusho warms up. And, if the tasty chemical compounds quickly lose their bioactivity, then if you let your Slusho warm up and then sip it, you won't get the same effect. You've got to drink it cold, and then, Slusho comes to life!!!

Even if this is remotely correct, Slusho could still be just a Sideshow, w/the real interesting drama coming from some other project going on at YMR. Of course, if they just accidentally stumble upon and enrage a big monster while harvesting more gunk, than Tagruato, Slusho, Ganu, etc., could all be sideshows. But, I don't want to think that - I don't see JJabrams doing that. There's got to be a big conspiracy somewhere, right?

Finally - Because they have to get this gunk from the deep-sea floor, I don't think they use these chemical compounds in their Bold Futura drilling equipment. I only say this b/c they would have to have already had the technology to drill that deep, and in those conditions, to get the stuff up in the first place. Later, they may have found compounds that could be used to enhance their pre-existing technology, but the proprietary technology that allowed Tagruato to harvest this stuff had to be in place before YMR started its work.

Ok, that's all.

[Finch]

I think the nail gets hit on the head when you mention harvesting. I just can't buy into this whole Slusho thing.

Lots of perishable ingredients need to be kept frozen when shipping. "Dry ice is a little extreme to use just to keep things frozen." Well, I used to work in a factory a few years back that made frozen pizzas. Other than the crusts everything was kept at a balmy 38 degrees or less throughout the entire shipping and manufactoring process (That's fahrenheit for all you wacky folks that use understandable units of measurement). In fact immediately after being packaged the pizzas were frozen to about -38 F and kept that way until delivered to stores which would still need to keep them frozen (albeit not as low as -38 F). Now to end my life story I'd like to ask our over-seas friends if they've ever heard of Tombstone Pizzas. No? Well, thats because there is no way to keep them frozen at sub zero temperatures to ship them out of the US and still keep the pizzas "fresh". I would then assume that before this Slusho drink everyone's been raving about in Asia hits the US markets (thus then also being manufactored here) it would need to be packed in dry ice for the trip across the globe. I would very highly doubt that once it reached its destination, something like a 7-11, it would require being packed in something as uncommon and dangerous as dry ice until consumption. I don't even think your average Joe can go out and buy dry ice considering the dangers involved in handeling it. I see the DSN being a perishable ingredient, nothing more.

Harvesting. Bold Futura looking to mine deep underwater. Well drilling. To me these are the clues pointing to what happens on 1-18-08. I will say though that the combination of YMR being medical research and Bold Futura being involved as a military contractor is suspicious. Umbrella Corperation anyone? But thats blind speculating.

[Melampus]

I know what you mean about packing perishable items (e.g., pizzas) in dry ice for shipment. I'd agree that Slusho is nothing special in this regard, EXCEPT for the Slusho History: "Because the ingredient was discovered on the deep ocean floor, under amazing pressure and in the most extreme cold, Ganu knew he had to serve the ingredient in a near-frozen state to preserve its freshness!!"

Notice: it has to be served in a near-frozen state, not just shipped (like everything else).

[Finch]

[Melampus]

I hear what you're saying, and it makes sense. Still, I think there's more to Slusho than it just being a plain old slushy drink.

True, they mention the pressure, but then don't say that Ganu had to serve it under pressure; but, they do say that it has to be served in a near-frozen state. Since they expressly say this, why assume it's false?

I never imagined Slusho being served in a form that's like liquid nitrogen. I always thought of it as a Slushee/Slurpee drink; and, as you point out, those are served in a near-frozen state, so there ya' go. When it warms up past a certain point, the extremophiliac (?) bacteria "comes to life!!" and in doing so, releases a chemical compound that is bioactive. This can be done in a controlled lab environment - liquid fermentation - and, under those conditions, you can preserve the bioactive compounds released. OR, you can learn from Ganu's dream and just shove the crap into your piehole. It will ferment in your mouth (not in your hands!). And, then, BOOYAH! But, using your own body heat to 'ferment' the bacteria is not a controlled setting like the lab; if the bioactivity of the compounds is very short-lived, then your mouth is really the best place to try this kind of body-heat-powered fermentation. [This does make it hard to explain, though, how you can drink 7 to get a quantum leap in effect; if the chemical effect 'window' is really short, then you'd have to chug the 7 slushos one after the other. Hawk might be able to do that, but not the old folks. No, there's got to be a way to explain that - a kind of cumulative effect... ? Any thoughts anyone?]

Anyway, ignoring that issue, as long as it's kept cold enough in shipping and serving, then we're fine. And, that limit isn't arctic cold, but just Slurpee cold. The only trick is that it can't ever warm up past Slurpee cold and then be refrozen - it's got to stay below that limit at all times, right up until you open wide and say "aaah" - so that might make shipping and storing more difficult, but not drastically so.

Very good point about people drinking Slusho and making cocktails - I can easily see people letting it warm up. BUT, if the effects you get from taking a little bit of care to keep it cold are UNFREAKINBELIEVABLYAMAZING!! then, I think people would be willing to take care. "Dude! You let the Slusho get warm! WTF?!!" All the clever people at Slusho need to do is devise some heavily insulated packaging and make sure it's stored in the freezer section, w/all kinds of happy warnings from donkeys and fish reminding you to get it home and into the freezer quickly so as not to lose that Slusho ZOOOM!... why not? Also, the kit could have some new tech. that allows it to keep your Slusho cool.

[Melampus]

Ok, I think a coherent story is starting to coalesce here. To clarify: I do NOT think that the monster is somehow born from Slusho. I only think that Slusho tastes incredibly amazing - and is a truly novel flavor - and that, if you drink enough of it (Seven, in fact, in a reasonably short time), then you'll feel like Hercules on crack; you'll be cooler than Pootie Tang. As to how Slusho relates to the monster - no clue (not yet). But, may as well try to piece together what they've given us, while waiting for more. So, consider this, from the Slusho History: