Lumon Industries

Lumon Industries is a multinational USA-based biotechnology corporation. Their headquarters are located in Kier, PE at their Branch 501 facility. The current CEO is Jame Eagan.

Background[]

Founded in 1865 by Kier Eagan, and subsequently run by generations of Eagans since, Lumon has grown from a business specializing in topical salves to a huge producer of drugs, biotech, medical equipment, cosmetics, personal care products, and more. According to the Branch 501 Severed Floor management, Lumon has been active for around 220 years (882 quarters) and operates in 206 countries around the world.

Lumon pioneered the severance procedure, which divides a person's consciousness and memory. When severed, a person has no memory or knowledge of their workplace when they are not there, and no memory of the outside world when they are in the office. Much of the action of Severance takes place on Lumon Branch 501's severed floor. Lumon's first Severed offices publicly opened twelve years ago; however, a comment by Burt Goodman's husband Fields suggests that they may have been using Severance for longer than this.

Although it is less apparent from the outside than on the Severed Floor, much of Lumon's internal workings resemble that of a religious cult, centered around the reverence of the company's founder, Kier Eagan. Paintings of Kier at various points in his life can be found throughout the Severed Floor, and Severed employees are encouraged to know Kier's sayings and philosophy by heart. In a conversation with his daughter Helena Eagan, current CEO Jame Eagan stated that the company's goal is to distribute Severance chips to every person on the planet, thus making them all "children of Kier." The exact motivation and true meaning behind this remains unknown at present.

The Board[]

The Board is the secretive and mysterious agency which directs the activities of Lumon Industries. They have almost exclusively been seen to communicate with Lumon staff using Board Liaison Natalie Kalen as an intermediate. The list of Board members is currently unknown, aside from Jame Eagan.^[1]

History[]

Lumon was founded in 1865 by Kier Eagan in the state of PE, beginning as a producer of topical salves. As of the late 20th Century, the company had expanded considerably and operated facilities in other towns near Kier, including an ether factory in Salt's Neck.

Some time after Harmony Cobel graduated from the Myrtle Eagan School For Girls, she invented the neurosurgical technique known as Severance, which would go on to be used by Lumon to create Severed workforces. The credit for the invention of Severance would go to Jame Eagan.

Recently, Jame Eagan's daughter Helena elected to undergo Severance as a publicity stunt, with the goal of furthering acceptance of the procedure in mainstream society. During a gala at which Helena was supposed to give a talk about her experiences as a Severed person, her "Innie" persona Helly R. was activated as a result of MDR employee Dylan G. engaging the Overtime Contingency, and seized the opportunity to speak out about Lumon's unethical treatment of Severed workers. This resulted in a flurry of controversy in the news media, forcing Helena to film an apology video where she claimed to have been inebriated while under the influence of a "non-Lumon medication."

Employees[]

Global Management[]

Board of Directors
- Jame Eagan - 8th CEO (2003 - present)
Natalie Kalen - Board Liaison
Mr. Drummond

Branch 501[]

Severed Floor Management[]

Harmony Cobel - Former Manager of the Severed Floor
Doug Graner - Former Head of Security on the Severed Floor
Seth Milchick - Current Manager of the Severed Floor
Judd - Security Guard of Severed Floor Access Elevator
Eustice Huang - Deputy Manager of the Severed Floor

Macrodata Refinement[]

Carol D. - Retired Macrodata Refiner
Dylan George - Senior Macrodata Refiner
Helena (Helly R.) Eagan - Junior Macrodata Refiner
Irving Bailiff - Senior Macrodata Refiner
Mark Scout - Current Macrodata Refinement Chief
Peter "Petey" Kilmer - Former Macrodata Refinement Chief

Optics and Design[]

Alice K. - Head of Optics and Design
Burt Goodman - Head of Optics and Design (formerly also worked as a "low-level enforcer" for Lumon prior to becoming Severed)
Elizabeth - Designer in Optics and Design
Felicia - Designer in Optics and Design
Oswald - Designer in Optics and Design

Mammalians Nurturable[]

Lorne - Department Head
Wyatt - Severed employee
Unidentified Severed man in black goat costume
At least eighteen additional Severed employees

Choreography and Merriment[]

Bukayo
Many Severed marching band performers

Part-time Severed Staff[]

Ms. Casey (Gemma Scout) - Wellness Director

Testing Floor[]

Dr. Mauer - Testing Floor overseer
Cecily - Nurse
Gemma Scout - Test subject

Watchers[]

The Watchers are a group of four Lumon employees who are tasked with observing the activities of the Lumon Branch 501 MDR team. They are stationed in an unknown room with four desks, each of which has a computer monitor which displays live feeds of the MDR team's activities. Each Watcher also physically resembles their assigned MDR team member; the significance of this remains unknown.

Branch 5X[]

Gwendolyn Y. - Macrodata Refiner
Mark Wilkins - Macrodata Refiner

Italian Branch[]

Dario Rossi - Macrodata Refiner

Customs[]

The Cult of Kier[]

The Eagan family and other upper management at Lumon are secretly a religious cult organized around Lumon's founder, Kier Eagan. Severed "Innie" employees on the Severed Floors of Lumon facilities are encouraged to follow the guidance of Kier as described in the three appendices of the Compliance Handbook, and various paintings and other iconography depicting Kier in a reverential light can be found throughout the Severed Floor. Non-Severed Lumon staff members such as Harmony Cobel, Mr. Drummond, and Dr. Mauer refer to themselves as serving Kier and his vision. Shortly before Gemma was planned to be killed at the conclusion of the Cold Harbor test, Mr. Drummond facilitated a ritualistic sacrifice of a baby goat from Mammalians Nurturable, which he stated would be entombed with a "cherished woman" so that it could guide her soul to Kier in the afterlife.

The ultimate goal of Lumon appears to be the fulfillment of Kier's dream of eradicating all suffering from humankind, which Mr. Drummond described as Kier's "eternal war against pain". Currently, they appear to be attempting to do this using Severance.

Lumon's Core Principles[]

Lumon upholds nine Core Principles, which are listed in the Compliance Handbook and Macrodata Refiner's Orientation Handbook:

Vision
Verve
Wit
Cheer
Humility
Benevolence
Nimbleness
Probity
Wiles

These principles are apparently treated with near-religious significance by certain individuals both inside and outside the company, including Harmony Cobel and her aunt Celestine. The Myrtle Eagan School For Girls appears to employ a system in which each calendar year is assigned a virtue. For example, Harmony Cobel graduated from the school during the Year of Wiles.

The Four Tempers[]

The Four Tempers are a philosophical framework posited by Kier Eagan, in which he proposed that all human souls are composed of a mixture of four emotions or "tempers" - Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice - that must be balanced and controlled in order to live a good and effective life. The Kier Cycle oil painting "Kier Taming the Four Tempers" depicts Kier fighting with anthropomorphized representations of the Four Tempers; the dancers in a Waffle Party also wear costumes modeled after these personifications.

Lumon's upper management apparently take the idea of the Four Tempers seriously, as seen when Drummond speaks with Helena following her near-drowning during an ORTBO. The four categories of numbers sorted by MDR Refiners (WO, FC, DR, and MA) correspond to the Four Tempers as they exist within the mind of Gemma Scout. According to the handbook from the Lexington Letter, WO numbers elicit "melancholy or despair", FC elicits "joy, gaiety, or ecstasy", DR elicits "fear, anxiety, or apprehension", and MA elicits "rage or a desire to do harm". The philosophy of balancing the Four Tempers also matches the handbook's to fill "each of five bins evenly with the four kinds of number clusters". The successful "refinement" of an MDR file results in the creation of a new Innie persona for Gemma on the Testing Floor.

Kier Cycle Paintings[]

Paintings of Kier at various points in his life may be found throughout the Lumon Branch 501 Severed Floor. These are collectively known as the "Kier Cycle." Known paintings include:

A portrait of Kier in his middle age (title unknown)
The Youthful Convalescence of Kier
The Courtship of Kier and Imogene
Kier Invites You to Drink of His Water
Kier Taming the Four Tempers
Kier Pardons his Betrayers
The Exalted Victory of Cold Harbor

Kier Hymn[]

The Kier Hymn (also referred to as the Kier Anthem^[2]) is a song of unknown authorship extolling the virtues of Kier Eagan, the founder of Lumon Industries. A "punitive rendition" of the song was once performed by Harmony Cobel for the members of the Branch 501 Macrodata Refinement team; an 8-bit instrumental version was also played on a TV at the beginning of the Branch 501 MDR team's ORTBO excursion.

Lyrics[]

Kier, chosen one, Kier,
Kier, brilliant one, Kier,
Brings the bounty to the plain through the torment, through the rains,
Progress, knowledge show no fear,

Kier, chosen one, Kier.

Notes and Trivia[]

The name "Lumon" may be derived from the Latin word "lumen", meaning "light" or "opening".
- In conjunction with the company's historical connections with and manufacturing of ether, "Lumon" also brings to mind the now-debunked concept of the luminiferous aether, a hypothetical medium once believed to be responsible for the propagation of light throughout space.