Themes
Themes
Pharmaceutical corporations
The interlocking pharma companies, their various branches operating worldwide and their founders’ Social Darwinist utopic/dystopic leanings resembles the eugenics movement and their stated intent to create a superior Nordic Aryan society worldwide – at the expense of anyone not measuring up to the aforementioned type.
For more information on eugenics, I can highly recommend the 2003 book ‘War Against The Weak: Eugenics And America’s Campaign To Create a Master Race‘ by Edwin Black and the 1998 documentary ‘Homosapiens 1900‘. You can also read my previous article partly relating to the subject, ‘The Impact Of Zombies On Society‘, to see how the subject specifically relates to the Resident Evil series.
Travis Trading and Tricell
The fictional backstory begins with a wealthy European merchant family in the days of David Livingstone travelling back and forth to Africa in the 1800s and setting up shop there. Henry Travis of the Travis Trading company publishes his life’s work on the country’s rich collection of flora and fauna based on his company’s own exploration of the country.
This exhaustive 72-volume set entitled ‘Survey of Natural History’ was at first widely lauded by scientists – but it wasn’t too long after a rumour flourished that much of what had been written in the books was fabricated or the result of Henry Travis’ wildest imagination. Henry’s work was ultimately discredited by the scientific community, launching the author into a deep state of depression that eventually resulted in his death two years after publication of his book.
As it transpired, the one who produced the false rumour to begin with was actually one of his [Henry Travis]‘ own brothers. Not because of any disagreements or quarrels he had with his brother – on the contrary, no one was more convinced of his book’s importance – which was why he didn’t want to share the secrets the book contained with the rest of the world – he wanted his company, Travis Trading, to be the only one to reap the many fruits of Africa.
Travis Trading had a field day in the country – collecting samples of every known animal, plant and insect mentioned in Henry Travis’ book – samples which were soon used for pharmaceutical research and development. Shortly thereafter, several ‘independent’ in name only pharmaceutical corporations are founded and later consolidated under a single banner, Tricell Corporation (also see Tricell, pt2). Tricell would concern itself with pharmaceutical research and Travis Trading was its shipping division.
Ozwell E.Spencer and Umbrella
From left to right: (left) Lord Ozwell E. Spencer, the fictional character in charge of Umbrella; (middle) Sir Francis Galton, the father of eugenics; (right) Lord Herbert Spencer, coiner of the phrase 'survival of the fittest'. Like Galton, Ozwell E. Spencer regularly travelled Africa as an explorer (and like Galton, he sees nothing wrong with 'supplanting the inferior race', as Galton liked to put it); like Galton, he is a true believer in eugenics; and like Herbert Spencer, he believes fervently in the right of the weak to perish. And this same train of thought later seems to permeate Wesker's reasoning: 'All weak people exist to be eaten'.
But not everyone was discouraged from researching Henry Travis’ book by this deliberately propagated (false) rumour. A British Lord by the name of Lord Ozwell E. Spencer was fascinated in particular by the folklore recorded within the book of the Ndipaya tribe – an advanced civilization of architects who zealously safeguarded the ancient ruins of the vanished Ndipaya Kingdom.
There was an interesting method to the way the Ndipaya Kingdom in its heyday would decide who was to rule their kingdom. In the Ndipaya monarchy, a king was not decided by birthright, but by the abilities and qualities he displayed during a certain mandatory ceremony. In this ceremony, the would-be King would consume a special plant that grew in the Sun Garden. This garden resided in one of the deepest areas of the royal city (mostly underground ruins in the present day). ‘The Stairway To The Sun’, as the plant was dubbed, was known to be extremely poisonous, and its effects often killed those who consumed it. However, some apparently had an innate natural resistance to the poison. The Ndipaya believed that one who could withstand the poisonous effects of the plant should have all the requirements necessary to rule as a King. Not many individuals survived this trial, but those that did were said to rule the kingdom for hundreds of years; apparently the plant gave them some form of life-enhancement or boost.
This account, of a plant giving kings certain life-enhancing benefits, piqued Spencer’s curiosity. He apparently envisioned a Huxleyian Brave New World where only people of certain inheritable (and desirable) traits were genetically augmented to produce superhumans, a society which he then would rule over as a King (or rather, God) – very much like one of the Controllers in the aforementioned book by Aldous Huxley. Evolution by force similar to how eugenicists and Social Darwinists envisioned it, then (also see Self-directed evolution / Social Darwinism) – with an elite at the top that must remain wild (as suggested by Charles Galton Darwin in The Next Million Years).
But to accomplish his goals, he would first have to retrieve this flower with the particular viral strain. Not an easy task to achieve, given that the ruins of the Ndipaya Kingdom were a secret to all but the local indigenous people and they guarded it with their very lives. However, this did not prevent Ozwell E. Spencer from excavating the mines in search of the ruins during the 1960s. The locals detested foreign companies of Umbrella’s ilk plundering their mines and flowers, and tried to fight back. Prior to doing battle, they would consume one of the particular flowers with the virus strain in it because it lent them extraordinary strength[1].
The Progenitor virus
In the 1979 James Bond movie Moonraker, villain Hugo Drax has modified a plant that caused sterility to the ancient Mayan civilization that paid reverence to it. After modification by Drax, it has become a poisonous plant that will kill human life instantly. (great care has been taken to ensure it only harms human life, not the environment or animals). Drax plans on launching fifty globes into space that will carry out the depopulation process. Once all human beings on Earth are dead, his hand-picked master race will repopulate the Earth. Resident Evil 5's Albert Wesker commits to a similar gameplan.
Despite constant run-ins with hostile Ndipaya tribesmen that ended in bloodshed, Spencer was ultimately successful in locating the fabled flower. The flowers seemed to contain some form of viral strain that gave the plant its potency. This trait, however, was ultimately borne out of the environment in which the flower was cultivated – the virus only developed inside the plant when it was grown inside the Ndipaya mines[2]. Because of this, Spencer was unable to grow the flowers for research purposes anywhere else in the world – hence, he couldn’t abandon the mines now that he got what he wanted. Because of this, it was necessary to set up shop permanently in the underground mines and build a research laboratory for further testing/exploration of the virus. Out of this flower his most prominent scientist – James Marcus – would develop the first manufactured virus, aptly dubbed Progenitor virus. This was to be the base for all future viruses developed by Spencer. It was at this stage in time that Spencer decides to create a corporation called Umbrella Corporation to give their unscrupulous research some cover.
The purpose of Umbrella was, in no uncertain terms, to function as a smokescreen to disguise the extensive pharmacological research that had gone into the development of these virus strains so far. (for instance, when Umbrella requested samples of the newly discovered Ebola virus, the reason given to the US government was that it wanted to develop a cure for the virus) At the same time that Spencer and co were developing viruses for use in bioweapon experiments dubbed ‘Biological Organism Weapon’, they were also busy marketing beneficial products to the end consumer to build brand awareness and a public veneer of respectability. Thus, to the consumer the Umbrella corporation was a benevolent pharmaceutical corporation dedicated towards keeping people healthy[3]. Some of these pharmaceutical products include the First-aid sprays that the player uses throughout the game (these can be found all over the place in the Resident Evil series and function as a health item, replenishing your depleted health meter).
There were some differences of opinion between the three founding members of Umbrella on what to do with the Progenitor virus; Edward Ashford apparently was more interested in potential beneficial uses of the virus, while Marcus and Spencer were specifically interested in developing biological weapons for military use. Even though Spencer and Marcus shared a common goal, Ozwell E. Spencer was a man known for keeping his cards close to his chest, and even this venture into bioweapon research proved to be no different. Access to the African division was highly restricted; only a few life-long members were allowed to enter the base where the Progenitor flowers were being cultivated, and unbeknownst to them they were constantly being monitored by Umbrella’s private military intelligence services. Those researchers who were left disillusioned by the project or caught wind of Spencer’s true business plan (his eugenic utopia) were to be disposed of[4]. No one except for Spencer was to know of the African division’s existence; not even Marcus was allowed to be in the know.
The Wesker Plan / Lebensborn
Fertile, unmarried and 'racially pure' women initiated into the Lebensborn program were allowed to mate with pure-blood Aryan men in order to breed the children of the future. The child would then be given to the SS organization which took charge of the child's education and adoption. Because Germany's birthrate was on the decline, this program was intended to increase the Germanic/Nordic population of Germany to 120 million. This fits to a tee Plato's Republic, where children will be raised by the state and will not know who their real parents are. To quote, 'These children will also not be randomly conceived. They will be bred deliberately to produce the best offspring, as though the Guardians were a pack of hunting dogs.'*
With Progenitor, Spencer finally sees his dream of a eugenics utopia becoming a real possibility. Immediately he kickstarts a positive eugenics program called the Wesker Plan. Dozens of children from parents with above-average intelligence were to be kidnapped by Umbrella (or a child trafficking service affiliated with it) and given the surname Wesker. Prior to reaching the age of 17, their character would be moulded by Spencer himself through a combination of scientific indoctrination and social engineering (in short: re-education). This was to ensure they would not turn against Spencer or his planned utopia when it would arise – Spencer could not afford any opposition to his plan, especially when it came to his chosen children who were to be part of the new master race[5].
The children were to be unknowingly monitored individually by Umbrella’s private intelligence services to track their progress as they went through the best colleges the world had to offer (courtesy of Umbrella, of course).
After the children reached adulthood, Spencer felt it necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff by administering each of the children a sample of the virus. To keep the Weskers in the dark as to what they were part of, a conscious decision was made not to force the intake of the inoculation on them, but to persuade them to take it by themselves (because Umbrella kept close tabs on their private lives, they could get to the Weskers’ inner circle of friends and get them to convince the Wesker in question he had to take this particular inoculation because it would benefit his health).
In Albert Wesker’s case, one of the few remaining survivors, it was his lifelong friend, William Birkin, who encouraged him to take the shot (at Umbrella’s behest, of course). Wesker had earlier impressed Spencer with his intellectual prowess to the extent that he had been allowed a prominent position at Umbrella’s Training Research Facility after his university graduation. He and Birkin would later spearhead the development of Umbrella’s most important virus strain since the Progenitor virus: the T-Virus (named after the Tyrant program developed simultaneously with the virus).
Spencer Mansion – B.O.W. development
A key design flaw of the Progenitor virus had always been its difficulty in bonding with its host’s DNA. To solve this problem, Marcus stumbled upon the idea of infecting a single-minded organism with the virus – in this case, a leech – that had but one purpose in life (to eat). This leech would then attach itself to another organism. In January 1978, James Marcus succeeded in creating the T-Virus by splicing leech DNA with the Progenitor virus. That same year he would also take two of his most prominent researchers under his wing: Albert Wesker and William Birkin. He would teach them to be responsible scientists while using his findings as a vehicle to gain a place on the company’s Board of Directors.
Spencer, however, had grown paranoid of Marcus’ prowess in the field of virology and closed the training facility where Marcus conducted his T-Virus research. This way he could conveniently isolate Marcus from the rest of the company (knowing he would stay there to continue research on the T-Virus due to his singleminded obsession with his creation) and limit his progress (without additional funding, Marcus would only be able to do so much). At the same time he took Marcus’ proteges, Birkin and Wesker, away from him and relocated them to the newly built Spencer Mansion to do further research on the T-Virus – Spencer apparently thought the two were far more loyally predisposed towards him than Marcus (also see Mansion Incident).
Repeated experiments wrought on Lisa have left her so horribly disfigured she has resorted to disguising her ugly hunchbacked and decomposed figure by wrapping human pieces of skin onto her body and face; for instance, the masks she wears are actually the faces she ripped off her impostor moms. She appears in the 2002 remake of Resident Evil 1 to flesh out the backstory. The Ebola virus she was infected with as an early experiment acts as the 'death-blocker' within her body - combine this with the T-Virus and Nemesis parasite and it means she can't be killed.
The Spencer Mansion (also known as the Arklay Research Facility internally; the estate was just a front to hide the research lab) had an ugly tale to tell. As far back as the late ’60s Spencer had commissioned an architect by the name of George Trevor to design a huge mansion located somewhere on the outskirts of Raccoon City. (as soon as the Progenitor virus had been developed, Spencer knew that his bioweapons experiments would require a sizeable testing ground) A number of traps, secret and unorthodox rooms were included into the design of the estate – such as an entire subterranean laboratory, a large water tank (where the Neptune BOW would be developed and tested) and a private residence adjacent to the Spencer estate (where various plant-related experiments would be conducted, such as the infamous Plant 42). Ultimately, it wasn’t until the very end (when the estate was completed) that George Trevor figured out that Spencer would dispose of him as soon as the estate was complete, so nobody would live to tell the tale of this strange architectural design with dozens of Indiana Jones-like entrapments and secret research labs. He was thrown into a secret compartment of the mansion where he would die a slow and mundane death (to add insult to injury, George Trevor wrote in his notes that, to his complete befuddlement, Spencer had a special gravestone dug specifically for him in the secret compartment of the mansion where they left him – which would suggest Spencer had incorporated George Trevor’s death into the design plan of the estate from the get go – and if he had paid better attention, he would have caught on to this sooner).
His wife and 14-year old daughter, meanwhile, were kidnapped by Umbrella and used as the first human test subjects for the Progenitor virus (Marcus had previously lamented in his journals that his non-human mammalian subjects were not getting him anywhere, and he wanted to test the virus on humans). Both were given a differing variation of the virus. Jessica (the mother)’s immune system could not fight off the virus, and Umbrella quickly disposed of her. Lisa proved more resilient; but repeated experiments left her grossly disfigured and her mental state permanently damaged.
One aspect of her past that remained intact was her attachment to her mother – she would frequently call out to her mother in despair. Because Umbrella had killed Jessica Trevor and Lisa’s inability to see her mother would result in extreme violent fits, it was necessary for Umbrella to hire several bodydoubles that would pay her a visit from time to time, this to give her a false sense of security in order to keep her docile. However, Lisa would quickly detect these women were not really her real mother, and violently kill them (in her journal, she describes the women as having the same face, but being ‘different inside’). She would rip off their faces and attach them to her own body. As her mental condition deteriorated even further as time went on, her only hope and solace was that she would one day meet her true mother again so that she could return her face to her.
In all, Lisa Trevor’s resistance to the various viruses she had been administered with (in no particular order, she had been injected with the Progenitor virus, the Ebola virus, the T-Virus, and even the Nemesis NE-Alpha Virus) laid the foundations for Birkin’s improved version of the T-Virus, the G-Virus. After the G-Virus’ completion, Lisa Trevor became a liability due to her uncontrollable violent urges. An attempt was made to kill her – but at this point the compounding viruses inside her body were blocking each other out (Ebola acted as a detterant to the T-Virus, for instance[9]) and it was near impossible for her to be killed.
Mansion Incident
The T-002 Tyrant program's purpose was to create supersoldiers fit for military use. A human guinea pig of extraordinary intelligence and with the right genetic makeup was injected with the T-Virus and experimented upon to produce the monstrosity seen in this picture. In Resident Evil 2 you encounter a mass-produced version of the Tyrant with no obvious weak spots (such as the protruding heart of this prototype) and a less monstrous appearance (thus able to function as an infiltration unit for the military - similar to the Terminator series' T-800 cyborgs).
James Marcus’ power struggle with Spencer would have severe repercussions on his moral and mental conduct as a scientist: he was increasingly becoming more paranoid about potential security breaches and moles purportedly sent by Spencer to steal his research (note that Marcus was one of the co-founders of Umbrella, and was probably well aware what Spencer had done to the Trevors shortly after they had outlived their usefulness).
Feeling he could trust his protégés, any fellow research scientist he distrusted or suspected of conspiring against him, he had liquidated by Wesker and Birkin (these two had previously proven to be quite the ruthless bunch judging by how they treated Lisa Trevor). Some even found themselves unexpectedly “assisting” in his research – as live human guinea pigs, that is. He began to develop a morbid fawning adoration for the ‘leeches’ he used to develop the T-Virus – even referring to his human test subjects (most of them ending up as zombies) as his ‘leeches’.
In 1988, exactly a decade after Marcus first invented the T-Virus project, Spencer decided he had enough of him and ordered Marcus’ subordinates, Wesker and Birkin, to assassinate their master. With Marcus dead, the aforementioned duo would then steal his research and move onto the next phase of experimentation – the supersoldier project, B.O.W. Tyrant.
The T-001 Tyrant developed at the Training facility under Marcus’ watch had always been intended for the scrapheap from the get go; its followup, the T-002, had to be more cost-efficient in terms of finding a suitable host, contain less physical weak spots and still exhibit some modicum of intelligence. This was to be Wesker’s chief assignment for many years.
Meanwhile, Spencer had big plans for William Birkin, and in 1991 Umbrella begins construction of an expansive underground laboratory beneath Raccoon City (specifically intended for Birkin’s G-Virus research). Much to Wesker’s surprise, Spencer approves Birkin’s unproven and highly unstable G-Virus project. Wesker is beginning to get nagging doubts about Spencer’s true intentions; feeling he first needs to dig up as much information on Spencer’s background as he can, he requests to be transferred to the Information Department, away from Birkin. Clandestine meetings begin with Raccoon City Police Chief Brian Irons and Umbrella; Umbrella shows some goodwill and puts up some funds for the refurbishment of several badly needed facilities inside the city, such as the General Hospital and City Hall.
The Hunter (below) is a BOW created by combining reptilian DNA with a human embryo and then administering the T-Virus as a bonding agent. How far-fetched is the concept of using chimeras for the military? Consider this: inspired by eugenics and Social Darwinism, the USSR set out to prove that Darwinism had superseded religion. Stalin was especially interested in the idea of creating half-human/half-ape hybrids for use in his military**. This new race would be a likely candidate for the fabled Soviet superman - the Holy Grail of the Soviet Union. For political reasons, however, the Soviet Union would later ban all research pertaining to eugenics/genetics - as this was Nazi-Germany's forte, it was declared a 'burgeois pseudoscience'.
A smart move on Wesker’s part is to start his own military apparatus with himself as Captain of the team. To accomplish this, he approaches the Raccoon City Police Department in 1996 with the proposition to set up an elite team of mercenaries known as the S.T.A.R.S. team. Wesker handpicks highly suitable members for inclusion into the team; two of which include Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine (the first game’s two main characters).
In 1998, an unforeseen event catches Umbrella by surprise: defying the laws of nature, the deceased James Marcus has been resurrected from the death. Looking about 20 years younger, he exacts revenge on the company that betrayed him. A large-scale viral leak occurs at the Spencer mansion. B.O.W.s such as the Cerberus (a T-Virus mutated dog) are running amok all over the place and claiming casualties.
This draws the authorities in. Wishing to put to rest claims of cannibalism and mysterious deaths in the Arklay Mountains, they put the Racoon City police on the job – which again delegates the mission to its newly formed S.T.A.R.S. team. Here is where the player comes in. Wesker’s strategic gamble paid off – as Captain of the team, he is able to control the investigation to the degree that it will not upset any future research.
Oblivious to Chris and Jill, Wesker was leading his team members down a rabbit trail. As team leader, he ordered them around the mansion, released BOWs into the mansion and then ran off and waited to see if the STARS members survived the attack. If they did, he would establish contact with them again, suggest a rendezvous point, and then release new monsters again. Chris and Jill were thus unwitting guinea pigs for the BOWs. Wesker’s mission was to compile battle data gathered from Chris and Jill’s fights against the BOWs (which included massively enlarged mutations of Tarantulas, snakes, Dobermans, sharks, etc) and then sell the data to a competing pharmaceutical company – while at the same time diverting Chris and Jill from the mansion’s true history for long enough until they were eventually killed by one of the bioweapons.
This pattern of deception continued to repeat itself until Chris and Jill grew ever more suspicious of Wesker’s erratic behaviour – running off at times leaving the team members to fend for themselves and exploring far-off locations of the mansion without informing his team beforehand.
Eventually it was revealed that Barry Burton – one of the team members – had been blackmailed into cooperating with Wesker. Having them at gunpoint, Wesker insists they join him in witnesssing the birth of his crowning achievement, the T-002 Tyrant. This was supposed to be the culmination of Wesker and Birkin’s decade-long experiments with the T-Virus – a humanoid supersoldier with a claw for an arm, superhuman strength and an exposed protruding heart. Its capacity to follow orders would make it ideally suited for military purposes. Finding a research subject for the Tyrant program proved extraordinarily difficult for Birkin and Wesker because of the previously mentioned limitations of the T-Virus – the virus had a very low compatibility rate (1/100.000.000) and required a human test subject of superior intelligence and the right genetic makeup. On any lesser gifted subject, the result would be a rapid deteroriation of the mental faculties, rapid decomposition of the skin and an insatiable bloodlust. In short, a slow-moving zombie would be the outcome – not of much use as a military-purpose bioweapon. The Tyrant would also have to retain some of his intelligence – but not to the extent that he would hesitate following orders when instructed to do so.
Viral outbreak in city
William Birkin in his original form (above) and after intake of the G-Virus (one of the several forms he will undertake due to the continuous mutagenic properties of the virus).
Fortunately for Chris and Jill, the Tyrant, while quite effective as a bioweapon, could not withstand the direct blast of a standard-issue rocket launcher. Ultimately, while the Mansion incident was quite the setback for Umbrella, the damage incurred was within acceptable limits. Because the Spencer mansion was destroyed by a self-destruct mechanism, all evidence implicating Umbrella in the illegitimate research had been destroyed. Chris and Jill, having experienced an almost traumatic experience back at the mansion, were determined to bring about the downfall of Umbrella. Unfortunately, their claims were so incredulous nobody could take them seriously. Neither the US government or the Raccoon City police department where they worked were interested in pursuing a further investigation of Umbrella. (of course, it should not be forgotten that Umbrella had regular business dealings with the police department – and could exert its weight/influence on the department from time to time if a major-scale investigation was to be initiated)
At the same time as Jill and Chris were fruitlessly trying to get the authorities to clamp down on Umbrella, William Birkin had just completed development of the G-Virus. This highly improved version of the Progenitor virus with continuous mutagenic properties (basically, what this means is that the virus is constantly mutating the DNA of the organism with). Whether this can be chalked up due to his ego or perhaps a misplaced faith in Spencer, what Birkin didn’t realize was that he would ultimately be just as expendable to Umbrella as the next prominent scientist. Like Marcus, he wanted to use his research to propel himself to an executive board position inside the company. There were also disagreements between him and his superiors on ownership issues – Birkin, being quite the technocrat, had learned to love his mutagenic baby more than his wife/fellow scientist or his daughter. He is the personification of what Jacques Ellul termed the ultimate technocrat – the kind that would be more concerned about the efficiency of the lethal gas chambers inside the concentration camps than the fate shared by those inside them. When Umbrella learned that he planned to sell his virus to the US government, they decided to pull the plug on him, literally – a special mercenary unit was deployed to the Underground facilities to take him out and retrieve his research.
Birkin, sensing such a symbiotic bond between him and his virus that he wished to taste its DNA-enhancing strength, injected himself with it. During a violent confrontation with the mercenary unit, a vial containing the T-Virus was smashed and ingested by rats. Like the Black Death, then, these rats had the honor of transmitting the virus to the human population living above the sewage (called a ‘carrier’ in medicine)
Rockfort Island
Rockfort Island is a private island owned by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella Corporation. It houses both an illegal prison camp and a para-military training facility (where mercenaries such as HUNK were trained and instructed for black-ops operations). It is administered by Alfred Ashford, heir to the Ashford family in Alexia’s absence.
Alexia Ashford’s ant colony utopia
Clipping the wings of a dragonfly and dropping it into a vase littered with ants that feast themselves on the hapless thing gets these two Ashford designer twin siblings all romantically aroused. Decadency, a mutual disdain for the 'unwashed', an unshakeable conviction in the superiority of their genes and their desire to impose their 'anthill societal planning' ideas onto the rest of humanity all serve to underline the aristocratic fear of 'losing it all' and joining those 'lower ranks' again - the 'feebleminded' commoners that serve to be the prey of the 'fittest' - yet despite all the grand theories and ideas, their definition of 'fit' does not always correlate with reality.
When Edward Ashford, one of the three founders of Umbrella Corporation, died due to contracting the Progenitor virus himself, the baton was passed to Lord Alexander Ashford, his son. Although a gifted geneticist/virologist, he had tarnished much of the family’s reputation and good name in his youth – which Spencer cheaply exploited to consolidate his own power over the company. With Edward died, it was clear that Spencer was calling the shots from now on.
This didn’t deter Spencer from still employing Alexander as a scientist at Rockfort Island. There he came upon the discovery of the gene regulating human intelligence. It’s implied in one of Resident Evil: Code Veronica’s journals that Alexander was sterile, which might explain why his two children were not the product of natural conception, but rather that of artificial insemination. Because he had already hit upon the intelligence gene, his idea was simply to take a sample from the rotten carcass of the family’s matriarch, Veronica Ashford (who was known for her extreme beauty and intelligence) and infuse that with the intelligence gene to produce ’superior twin siblings’: Alfred and Alexia.
These blond-haired, blue-eyed specimens (as was much of the Ashford family’s lineage, it must be interjected) both benefited from genius levels of intelligence, but as always there was a dominant sibling: Alfred exhibited only low-level genius intelligence, while Alexia had received the lion’s share of intelligence quotas. At the age of 10 she graduated from university and was able to start her own virus research experiments – all with the backing of the Umbrella Corporation of course. She and William Birkin would develop an intense rivalry despite both of them never actually meeting each other in person (Birkin being located at the USA Raccoon City branch and Alexia at the Antarctic Research Facility).
Alexia’s extraordinarily high intelligence had quite the sway on her pre-adolescent development: a extremely isolated, very egotistical, and self-centered young girl. But above all, what was most apparent about her (and this includes her lesser-gifted brother as well) was her extreme disdain for what she termed the ‘unwashed’, the ‘masses’. The only one she could relate to happened to be her slightly lesser mentally-gifted brother Alfred; in certain cutscenes you can almost see the two sharing a kiss while studying ants in a receptacle eating a wingless dragonfly. Later on in the game, when you uncover the secret private resort Alfred had built for his beloved sister Alexia, two paper cut-outs on a music box can be seen resembling Alfred and Alexia – again, they share a kiss, and it doesn’t seem to be of the brother/sisterly love kind). Incest is suggested but never overly implied – the Japanese have this unspoken rule of ’show but don’t tell’ when it comes to these things.
Alexia likened the vast majority of people to ‘ants’ – in one of her scientific journals she impassionately writes about ant colonies where the queen ant rules all the lesser ants, and how this would be a great societal system to apply to the human race:
“After discovering the remains of an ancient virus within the genes of a queen ant, I have been concentrating on the research of ants.
The ecosystem of the ants seems truly ideal to me. There is one queen ant in each anthill, and the soldier and worker ants are the queen’s slaves. They dedicate their lives to the queen.
The death of the queen ant means the doom of the entire anthill. However, the soldier and worker ants can be easily replaced as long as the queen ant is alive. This is exactly the same relationship between myself and the other ignorant masses[6].
I have succeeded in creating an ideal virus by implanting the queen ant’s gene into the mother virus that Spencer found.” – Alexia Ashford, Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Dubbing her creation the ‘T-Veronica virus’ (named after the matriarch of the family, and the one she resembles most by virtue of her DNA), the first test subject she uses it on happens to be her father – whom she has despised ever since she and her brother became privy to the fact they were not naturally conceived. The test is a failure and complete mental deterioration of the brain ensues – which prompts Alexia and Ashford to lock him up in an isolated prison room indefinitely. Based on Alexia’s calculations, it takes the body at least 15 years in cryogenic sleep to adapt to the virus – so at the tender age of 10, she injects herself with the virus and enters into her cryogenic vault to be awakened 15 years later. In the meantime, Alfred – at the age of 12 – as her soldier ant, is meant to take care of family business matters.
At the age of 12, the self-centered and arrogant Alexia Ashford hits upon the idea that humanity would be more to her liking if it could be made to resemble the anthill. As a queen ant in this ant colony she would then rule over all the lesser ants. These lesser ants fall into two categories: the 'soldier' ants (her brother, Alfred, is classified by Alexia as her 'soldier ant') and the 'worker' ants (basically the 'ignorant masses' Alexia despises).
But exactly 15 years have passed since dear Alexia was put into a cryogenic chamber, and it’s about time Alfred gave up this schizophrenic illusion and re-awaken her from her sleep. But Alfred doesn’t live to see his dear fair lady again – he dies in front of the cryogenic chamber while putting her out of the vault.
Alexia, meanwhile, still sees herself as this ruthless, uncompromising queen ant that has a birthright to rule all of humanity as her slaves:
And the “T-Veronica” virus will be unleashed upon the entire world by my children. Every last creature on Earth will exist to serve me.
At that time, the world will achieve the perfect ecosystem, just like the anthill, but on a much grander scale.” – Alexia Ashford, Resident Evil: Code Veronica
While it was unfortunate Alfred died, to her mind he was ultimately just a “soldier ant”, and they are expandable as she pontificated earlier. She never loses her eugenic streak either: still showing this disdain for anyone not remotely up to her intellectual standards, she taunts Chris and Claire during a boss fight with the zinger: “It’s almost time you genetically inferior siblings”.
Umbrella folds amid government crackdown
Racoon City gets destroyed with tactical missile strikes by the US military. Spencer comments in his journal: 'While the danger posed by the threat of the T-Virus spreading was very real, I don't think Americans will easily forgive their government for the deaths of over 100,00 of their own people.'
The virus outbreak in Raccoon City forced the US government’s hand: after failing to contain the threat, they destroyed the city using tactical missile strikes to prevent the virus from spreading into other cities/states. With Umbrella’s research experiments resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians, this time the company found itself backed against a corner. As Spencer wrote in his journal:
“If the truth of this matter is ever brought to light, support for the current administration will plummet. I don’t think he wants that. Even a child can see that they will come after Umbrella with everything they have. To hide their own foolish mistakes, they will blame Umbrella for Raccoon City’s annihilation.”
But Spencer had a plan. He could care less if the company would fold, as by his own admission it was nothing more than a tool for the research of the Progenitor virus. Spencer’s priority now was in safeguarding the company’s secret research formulas involving the Progenitor virus. The African research facility had always remained a secret to all but the employees he had working at that specific branch (its director, Bailey, for instance, had worked there exclusively for 30 years).
Now he had to shut down the African facility, so that it could no longer be linked to Umbrella. Then, a purge of Stalin-esque proportions would ensue – everyone with Level 10 security clearance would have to be eliminated. As he puts it, “When one buries a treasure, one should not leave behind a map.”
Several incriminating lawsuits were filed against Umbrella for their involvement in the incident. Several revelations surfaced during the trials: first, Umbrella acquired stock medicines and techniques by other companies and employed them in their own bioweapons research. Second, and even more troubling for every pharmaceutical company that had done business with Umbrella, it had commissioned them to only partially develop certain medications so that no trace could be established to what was ultimately being developed. This made all of Umbrella’s affiliates essentially accessories to the crime.
The Global Pharmaceutical Consortium, of which Umbrella and Tricell are/were a part of, was hit hardest. Facing a government crackdown that would leave nothing of the business, the consortium decided to play ball with the prosecutors. Their proposition to the prosecutors was that it would agree to asssist with the case against Umbrella, and would turn over all its internal company documentation relating to the case. In return, the prosecutors would leave the consortium alone. This they could agree on. In 2003, Umbrella was found guilty of all charges, and shortly thereafter stock prices plummeted and the company was bankrupt. Spencer, meanwhile, facing criminal charges, had to go into hiding – retreating to his European estate which was situated along the coast of an undisclosed ocean. To all intents and purposes, Spencer had been successful in safeguarding his crown jewel, the virus, research laboratory and the cultivation process itself. But his stated intent to rule over a new socially planned world of biologically enhanced humans was beginning to look like a distant dream – he himself had to be kept on life support and was quickly approaching his own mortality.
Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA)
Umbrella’s dissolvency had unintended ripple effects. All around the world black-ops Umbrella BOWs began to appear on the black market and were sold to the highest bidder – mostly to terrorist organizations and “unstable” governments. This new age of ‘bioterrorism’ calls for the creation of a multi-jurisdictional taskforce that is able to deploy anywhere in the world in a very short timeframe. To this end the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance was created, funded almost wholly by the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium. (which acts as much-needed PR for the badly-damaged pharma industry in general)
Because the BSAA enjoys the United Nations‘ official nod of approval, all its member states have agreed to let the task force across its borders – though some remain skeptical of the organizations’ ties with the pharmaceutical conglomerate (mostly because Umbrella had left such a bad mark on pharma companies worldwide). A thorny issue that may incur it the legal wrath of a particular nationstate is that it sometimes has to go beyond its jurisdiction to carry out their missions. A special department known as Special Operations Agents (SOA) are deployed to do exactly that. Chris Redfield is such an agent – he is essentially a Dirty Harry-type figure who, although showing restraints, is told in no uncertain terms to ‘contain the threat’, and that his orders still stand whatever the cost – and that may include engaging locals. (oddly, Sheva Alomar at no point protests to Chris or the other members of the BSAA that they are needlessly slaughtering a good part of her fellow countrymen/women – perhaps she figures the situation calls for extraordinary measures, and the infected are beyond treatment in any case).
Tricell, pt. 2
With Umbrella finished, a great many competing pharmaceutical organizations found themselves compelled to pick up where the disgraced company left off (nature abhors a vacuum, after all). Foremost among these is Tricell – and due to the proliferation of Umbrella BOWs onto the black market, it wastes no time in inserting its tentacles into the bioweapons market.
Reopening of Umbrella’s African research site
Excella as CEO of Tricell Africa is basically a pawn of Wesker. She has begun to think alongside the same Social Darwinist lines as her mentor and love interest - the idea of evolution being forced upon man through viral infection appealing immensely to her - moreso when she begins to tinker with the idea of becoming a Queen in the coming 'new world'.
Wesker saw to it that Ozwell S. Spencer did not carry his secret into the grave. By digging through Spencer’s old archives he came across evidence of the African research site’s existence. Conveniently, Spencer had already eliminated all research personnel aware of the African site, so with the founder gone it was effectively abandoned and only had to be reopened by someone fortunate enough to find it.
Seeing as Umbrella had been dissolved, Wesker realized he now needed a pharma company of equal stature in order to develop the Uroboros Project. To solve this conundrum he would prop up Tricell Africa by approaching one of its high-ranking employers, Excella Gionne, and giving her access to Umbrella’s vast collection of biological agents. Excella had a background in genetic engineering, so this obviously was exciting stuff to her. The thought had been developing in her mind ever since Umbrella was closed that Tricell ought to broaden its horizons and expand its business to include biological weapons research.
Through all sorts of political shenagigans she managed to become CEO of Tricell Africa, effectively becoming a tool for Wesker. Immediately he indirectly commisioned her to reopen the Umbrella African research site. This was essential in order to cultivate the flowers with the viral strain that was at the core of the bioweapons development process.
New viruses
Tricell would pick up where Umbrella left off in its search for the ultimate biological viral agent. Since Wesker had already obtained a sample of the Las Plagas virus (Resident Evil 4) through his proxy agent Ada Wong, it was a shame to let it go to waste – especially since Uroboros was still in its infancy and far too poisonous for the average human to be of any practical use.
Las Plagas 2
There were certain aspects of Las Plagas’ functionality that Tricell didn’t like. First of all, the incubation rate took too long – it would take several days before the egg inside the host subject’s body would hatch and take over its nervous system. Secondly, there was the issue of control. In Resident Evil 4, there were two classes of Plaga: there was the Control Plaga (examples of these include: the boss Ramon Salazar and Osmund Saddler in Resident Evil 4) that were basically in control of the lower Plaga like a queen bee ruling the beehive. This came at great personal cost to the user, however – by injecting themselves with a control Plaga, the user lost his human likenesses and turned into a halfway house between a grotesque freak and a human (this was the reason why Bitores Mendez wore a long trenchcoat – to hide his insect-like torso). This was not desirable for Tricell from a pure business perspective – Las Plagas subjects had to be able to function independently as supersoldiers. An enhanced form was developed, dubbed simply Las Plagas 2.
Unlike the predecessor first seen in Resident Evil 4, this new virus is ingested orally by the user. Given that the virus resembles some sort of repulsive parasitic slug, the user obviously has to be forced against his will to take it (the first Majini encountered in the game is first restrained then forced against his will to eat it). The incubation rate is almost instant – ranging from anywhere between 0 to 5 seconds.
Ricardo Irving is a materialist yuppie who oversees the local oil refinery owned wholesale by Tricell Africa’s Resource Development Department. Working on the side for Tricell as a bioweapons smuggler/dealer, he was supposed to be cutting a business deal with an undisclosed third party inside the Kijuju mines – but word of this deal was leaked to the BSAA. Sensing that he was being hunted down and needing a contingency plan to cover his tracks, he spreads the Las Plagas 2 virus amongst the population to keep Chris pre-occupied and always a step behind. These bioweapon sales struck by Irving are meant to fill the coffers of Tricell, which is strapped for cash as it is to fund all these R&D projects into bioweapons (unlike Umbrella, there’s no wealthy British Lord with a fortune to play the part of the proverbial sugar daddy).
Irving’s Achilles heel is that he takes too many chances and wastes too many of his chess pieces in an attempt to kill his assailants (Chris and Sheva). For instance, he turns at least two valuable BOWs loose on the team (a financial loss for Tricell and Irving seeing as they didn’t get sold) – the first is a BOW bat-type creature and the second an improved version of El Gigante first seen in Resident Evil 4. When Irving is backed into a corner, Jill (hooded for the remainder of the game) comes to the rescue to pull him out of the mud. When Irving has exhausted all his options and is considering abandoning Tricell, stealing their remaining BOW and selling it off, Jill pays Irving a visit again and offers him a sample of a Las Plagas 2 Control Plaga as a form of ultimate punishment for his failure to deal with the situation.
Las Plagas 3
Tricell deliberately spreads the virus inside Africa so that the zombified hordes can engage the BSAA operatives - meanwhile observing the spectacle and counting the casualty/infection rate. The virus is meant to be taken by ingesting the fully developed parasite orally - here a hapless African is forced to swallow it.
For the followup product to Las Plagas 2, Tricell wanted to create a new standard on the bioweapons market. It felt practical from an economical point of view to continue development of Las Plagas-based viruses, given the affinity it has for human hosts.
The Ndipaya tribesmen located in the vicinity of the Tricell/Umbrella research site would serve as the cannon fodder for this improved version of the Las Plagas 2 parasite (or lab rats, if you may). First by persuasion, then by force, they were approached to take an inoculation that would protect them against some form of disease. One of the teenagers in the village would be proven right in distrusting the doctors’ intentions, as the ‘cure’ they were given was actually the virus. In his journal, he writes:
“VILLAGE YOUTH’S DIARY”
“A man who said he was the foreman of the oil plant came to visit us today. He said he wants to inoculate everyone living near the oil field against some kind of disease.
Everyone in our village is glad to receive this medicine, but I don’t want it. I don’t have a reason for not getting it, I just didn’t like the way the foreman looks, that’s all.
It then goes on to tell us the effects this experimental Las Plagas virus had on their tribe. The virus had a 0% adherence rate with women and children – they were the first to die. The men, however, had a 92% adherence rate – jumping skills were greatly improved and on some specimens their stature rose to an incredible three meters. Overall, while not achieving all of Tricell’s estimated results, in its “Type 3 Plagas Field Test” it regards it as a laudable dry run:
“TYPE 3 PLAGAS FIELD TEST”
“With this field test, we did not achieve all our initial desired results, but the test was not a complete failure. It may be possible to use the information garnered from the current tests and use them to make improvements in any future tests.”
Once again, Tricell as Umbrella reincarnated shows some cunning malicious forethought – because the Ndipaya would undoubtedly react hostile to the idea of another pharmaceutical company reactivating Umbrella’s activities on their land, top priority was given to contain the threat posed by the tribesmen. What better way than to infect them with a virus, and simultaneously being able to use them as participants in a field test? It’s like killing two birds with one stone.
Wesker’s Uroboros Project
“I was to become a god! Creating a new world, with an advanced race of human beings…however, all was lost with Raccoon City… Despite that setback, your creation still holds great significance…
Now my candle burns dimly! Ironic, isn’t it? For one who has the right to be a god! To face his own mortality…” – Ozwell E. Spencer, Resident Evil 5 [Youtube]
In The Chrysopoeia of Kleopatra, a picture of the Ouroboros (above left) is enclosed with the caption: 'All is one'. If Ouroboros represents the lifecycle of all life on the Earth, then the Uroboros virus will upset that lifecycle irreparably. Another explanation for the symbol that fits into the storyline: the circle represents the perfection of the soul, with the raw material and end product consisting of a human being. . It would thus appear that Wesker's primary goal with the Uroboros Project was to perfect that which had been left imperfect - humans - though by the end of the game he talks of 'loathsome humans' as if he were describing some sort of pest - more closely resembling an anti-humanist environmentalist in the vein of David Suzuki.
Ouroboros – the namesake of Wesker’s Uroboros Project, is an occult symbol depicting a dragon eating its own tail. Throughout history, it has been used by various secret societies – including Count Dracula’s Order Of The Dragon, the Theosophical Society and Freemasonry (also see Ouroboros in popular culture).
A possible explanation of its meaning can be found in ancient Greek alchemy. From Answers.com’s article on the subject:
“In alchemy, the tail-eating dragon represented the guardian of mystical treasure, symbolized by the sun. Alchemy was to destroy or dissolve this guardian as a stage towards knowledge of this treasure.”
The tail-eating dragon is the guardian of the mystical treasure – which in this case would be the secrets or ultimate potential of the Stairway To The Sun, the flower jealously guarded by the Ndipaya tribe. Albert Wesker plays the part of the alchemist/scientist that intends to slay this dragon in order to retrieve the treasure – the flower – and tap its viral power to its full potential.
Ouroboros is also said to represent the cycle of life and death. Wesker intends to use the Uroboros virus as a powerful tool to ’separate’ the wheat from the chaff – to him, only those with superior genes will be allowed into his ‘new world’, and invariably those people’s DNA will be able to bond with the virus and lent them greater powers. The rest (the ‘bottom tenth’ used by American eugenicists is now more like ‘the bottom ninety-five’ will simply ‘exist to be eaten’ by the leeches spawned by the Uroboros virus.
As a bioweapon / virus
The Uroboros virus requires a perfect genetic makeup (like the T-Virus and Progenitor virus before it, then) – if the virus cannot bond with the hosts’ DNA, it starts devouring its surrounding environment. Wesker and Excella blame this low compatibility rate on the hosts’ genes – Wesker says in no uncertain terms that a person’s ability to bond with Uroboros succcessfully (that is, not to turn into a formless heap of jelly but instead keep his physical body in equilibrium with the virus) demonstrates that person’s worthiness to join his ‘new world’ – for he has proven to have superior DNA[7].
“Only those with superior DNA will be chosen by Uroboros. Only those fit for survival will be allowed to carry their genes into a new age!” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5[Youtube]
But this twisted logic ultimately would come back to haunt one of its adherents. When Excella is doublecrossed by Wesker and injected with the Uroboros virus herself, she too is turned into a formless blob instead of the desired effect. “Sorry, Excella”, remarks Wesker matter-of-factly upon seeing wormlike tentacles surrounding her body, “it appears Uroboros has rejected you”. Thus, for all of Excella’s talk of certain people being more worthy than others, she too would not measure up to her own highly selective standards[8].
Jill as a test subject
Jill's disguise outfit (above left) juxtaposed with a Black Death plague doctor (above right); (below) the combined effect of the T-Virus' state of dormancy and the extraction of the antibodies inside her body has rendered Jill's skin paler and turned her hair from brunette to blonde. In her battlesuit she resembles the perfect Aryan supersoldier stereotype that seemed to be at the crux of the Wesker Plan.
After the events in Umbrella Chronicles, Jill was presumed dead despite no body ever being found by either the BSAA or Chris himself. In reality, the badly wounded Jill was dragged by Wesker to his hiding place, where he tended to her wounds and put her into a cryogenic chamber for safekeeping. Wesker intended to use her as his first test subject for the work-in-progress Uroboros virus.
What ultimately spared Jill the ill fortune of becoming the next Lisa Trevor (see Spencer Mansion – B.O.W. Development) was her unusual medical condition. Apparently a remnant of the T-Virus was still inside her body and had been suddenly reactivated while she was in cryogenic slumber. Wesker at first tried to remove the virus from her body wholesale through pharmacological means, but all this accomplished was to put the virus into a state of dormancy.
Suddenly something unexpected happened: not only did the T-Virus inside her body disappear, but in its absence it left powerful antibodies against the T-Virus and other like viruses[9].
Wesker saw an opportunity here to use these antibodies to create a more generally applicable version of the Uroboros virus – a less poisonous version increasing the chances of a human test subject surviving infection. He proceeded to experiment on her further and was successful in extracting the antibodies from her body and applying it to the Uroboros virus.
Enduring all these experiments had forced Jill’s immune system to become highly resistant to the Uroboros virus and other Progenitor-based strains, which entailed Jill would prove useless to Wesker as a future test subject for the Uroboros virus. However, rather than disposing of her after she had served her purpose, Wesker foresaw another application for Jill – a programmable supersoldier using a performance enhancing drug. This performance enhancer was a chemical developed during the days of the Progenitor and T-Virus, called P30 (Progenitor 30).
Its downside was that it had a very short duration rate and so had to be continually readministered lest the subject lose his/her extraordinary powers. To solve this administrative inconvenience, Wesker had a device attached to Jill’s chest that continually readministered doses of P30 when supply in her bloodstream ran low[10]. Keeping Jill continually drugged on what basically amounted to psychostimulants (think Ritalin rather than dope) meant Jill’s mental faculties were severely repressed; leaving her with no choice but to slavishly follow Wesker’s orders.
Jill’s hair became a light blond color due to the extraction of antibodies, and her skin became pale due to lack of sunlight exposure (after all, not only was she disguised as a 17th century plague doctor while overseeing Irving’s bioweapons deals[11], but it’s likely most of her time was spent in the Ndipaya ruins). In keeping with the Aryan supremacy ideology Spencer/Wesker seem to be pushing for, this, combined with the militaristic battlesuit, had the aesthetic side effect of turning her into a personification of the idealized Aryan supersoldier. Heinrich Himmler would have certainly approved, were it not he was only interested in men as soldiers rather than women – who belonged in the kitchen.
Self-directed evolution / Social Darwinism
“Six billion cries of agony will birth the new balance. Unfortunately, you will not live to see the dawn.” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5[Youtube]
The ‘new balance’ quoted by the villain of the game, Albert Wesker, is similar to Adolf Hitler’s ‘New Order’ as it was referenced at the time. Hitler’s eugenics program was among the most highly developed in the world[12]. Its aim: to create and maintain a superior Aryan/Nordic race while routing out all the ‘inferior’ ethnicities/subraces. If Hitler were to have succeeded, society would have looked like a global caste system very similar to that practiced in India. But these weren’t just the dangerous musings of a single madman. Major Leonard Darwin, one of Charles Darwin’s sons and notably President of the First International Congress of Eugenics, saw the need for a similar future world, which, in his own words, would be ’so rigid as to prohibit all movement between the different social strata in order to remedy the harm done by educational facilities generally”. Of course, for the average Joe there’s the problem of having to justify your existence by virtue of your genetic makeup or inheritable traits – or, on a more sociological level, tendency towards anti-social behavior. Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once told an audience that people would have to justify their existence in front of a eugenics court[14].
What these men (and the odd woman) all had in common was that they considered themselves part of a worldwide international science known as eugenics. Their argument was that humanity needed to be guided towards its next evolutionary end, and this could only be accomplished if racial intermingling between those of superior breed and inferior breed were to cease all together. The endgoal was to create an army of ’supermen’ – a superior Nordic/post-Aryan society replacing the old.
Wesker’s musings about his ‘brave new world’ is a heady mix of environmentalist doctrine mixed with age-old racial hygiene/eugenics rhetoric.
“Has it never occurred to you that this planet is overpopulated? Only a handful of humans truly matter.” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5[Youtube]
Thomas Malthus was the first who cried wolf over a diminishing food supply if the population were to grow too fast. By observing the tendency of plants and animals to produce far more offspring than they could sustain, Malthus then argued in his Essay On The Principles of Population (1798) that the same could hold true for Man – and that families should be regulated in size to combat this doomsday scenario. Charles Darwin then developed his theory on evolution from Malthus‘ work. Out of all this arose Herbert Spencer’s ’survival of the fittest’ concept – that in nature, only the fittest organisms survived.
What Malthus considered to be the destructive factor in all this were so-called charitable organizations which tended to the weak. Instead, the weak should be allowed to die off.
“Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.” – Thomas Malthus
Social planners then ran with the whole concept under the banner ‘Social Darwinism’/'eugenics’. Francis Galton, widely considered to be the father of eugenics, suggested that eugenics should be pushed as a creed, a new religion:
“It must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious, tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operate with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.” – Francis Galton, The American Journal Of Sociology, July 1904
It should be noted that the environmentalist crowd has plenty of Malthusian groups dedicated solely to the concept of overpopulation (Carrying Capacity Network, Population-Environment Balance, Optimum Population Trust).
Another Wesker quote points to a different clique that was formerly aligned with eugenics:
Only a handful of humans truly matter. Everyone else is just so much chaff. And now I have to separate this wheat from the chaff.” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5[Youtube]
Wesker has obviously been reading up on Margaret Sanger. This notorious birth control advocate openly referred to people as ‘weeds’ and was of the opinion that as much as 70% of the US population suffered from ‘feeblemindedness’ (a term heavily bantered about during the day; today, mental retardation would be a more popular term). She advocated mass sterilization and segregation to prevent the less desirable people from propagating their kind. All the while, she never refrained from using botanical terminology.
Feeblemindedness was ambigiously applied to any condition considered undesirable: poverty (commonly referred to at the time as pauperism), lewdness, prostitution, epilepsy, anti-social behavior, deformities; even the wrong looks or failing the highly flawed Stanford-Binet IQ tests could have led to you being termed as such. And in countries where compulsory sterilization laws were enacted, such as the United States and Nazi-Germany, forced sterilization would soon follow.
“Your feeble attempts only delay the inevitable. The entire world will be infected.” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5[Youtube]
This is an interesting choice of words on the part of Albert Wesker. Chris Redfield is aimlessly trying to shoot at Albert Wesker. From Wesker’s perspective, Chris is inherently inferior because he has not been injected with the virus that has lent him his superhuman powers. Thus, Wesker’s line here could be construed as Wesker declaring Chris ‘feebleminded’ in the manner the eugenicists would have approved of.
“Why can’t you understand, Chris? Do you really believe the world is worth saving? Natural selection leaves the survivors stronger and better. Humans have escaped this winnowing for far too long.” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5[Youtube]
In response to Wesker deeming that ‘the human race requires judgement!’[Youtube][14], Chris Redfield indignantly responds: “And you’re going to judge us? Do you get all your ideas from comic book villains?”.
No, Chris, he doesn’t get them from comic book villains. He gets them from the kind who are of the educated opinion human beings resemble fat maggots living in their own defecation, or judicial figures that want to limit the propagation of certain kinds of people ‘we don’t want to have too many of’. Or John Holdren, Obama science czar, proposing putting stuff in the water to sterilize the vast majority of the public, forced abortions and a ‘planetary regime’ to save ‘the planet’. The eugenics of today is not the same as it was when Francis Galton was still counting the density of ‘beautiful women/breeding stock’ in his country – today it has permeated into vast structures of our society and resulted in this confused mixture of genetic discrimination, Gaia-worshipping paganistic nature religions, and nationwide obsessions with Malthusian Five Year Plan reduction schemes. Wesker’s talk of overpopulation and ‘justify your existence’ George Bernard Shaw recitations are meant to emphasise the fact that he ‘has lost it’ – as Sheva Alomar puts it so bluntly. But in our daily reality it is not so easy to deem such people ‘nuts’, because these are more often than not men and women who represent altruism, concern for the environment, hold a doctorate position, or can claim to be a public servant pretending to represent the people’s will. Rhetoric, even of the dangerous, anti-humanist kind, can work even when flying in the face of reason.
Meaning behind words/names
| Name/word |
Meaning |
Object |
| BSAA |
Acronym for ‘Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance’, a multi-jurisdictional task force primarily funded by the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium and reformed under the Unted Nations’ jurisdiction. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine now work for the BSAA. |
Acronym/Concept |
| BOW |
Acronym for ‘Biological Organism Weapon’, the official term used throughout the series to denote a biological weapon. Usually a Frankenstein-like cross-species mutant manufactured by a pharmaceutical company or sold to terrorist organizations. |
Acronym/Concept |
| T-Virus |
The successor to the Progenitor Virus – created by ’splicing’ leech DNA with the Progenitor virus. Used in Resident Evil 1. |
Concept |
| Progenitor Virus |
The first virus developed from the Ndipaya’s Stairway To The Sun flowers – used as the base for every virus since |
Concept |
| Umbrella Corporation |
Large multinational pharmaceutical company using the development of pharmaceutical products as a cover for the research and development of deadly bioweapons |
Character/Corporation |
General observations
Aryan selection process: Nearly all the chief researchers/leaders of Umbrella’s various branches are blond-haired, blue-eyed. It’s difficult to determine whether Ozwell E. Spencer fits the Aryan stereotype as well since we only get to see him at an elderly age, but the blue eyes are there, so the smart money is on yes.
Some examples: James Marcus, William Birkin, Annette Birkin, Sherry Birkin (not really an Umbrella employee but the daughter of the Birkins), Albert Wesker, Alexander Ashford, Alfred Ashford, and Alexia Ashford.
Wesker’s Social Darwinist streak: Wesker’s Social Darwinist mindset is established as far back as in the first Resident Evil (the 1996 original – that would be the one with the bad acting). Right before unleashing Tyrant, he tells Jill with a certain disdain:
“Don’t be upset. All weak people exist to be eaten.” – Albert Wesker, Resident Evil (1996)[Youtube]
Inbred/decadent aristocratic family: The Ashford family’s good name is ruined by Edward Ashford’s son and legitimate heir to the Ashford family, Alexander Ashford. Dear Alexander, being as obsessed with the idea of eugenics as Spencer is, uses artificial insemination combined with the gene regulating intelligence and a strand of DNA from the family matriarch’s corpse, Veronica Ashford, to produce siblings Alexia and Ashford. Both are byproducts of Alexander’s research on the gene regulating human intelligence – as such, Alfred has only slightly above-average intelligence, but Alexia has received the lion’s share of the IQ quota. Completing university at the age of 10 and competing as an Umbrella virologist with the equally gifted but much older William Birkin meant she could never really make friends with members of her peer group, nor did she wish to. Not only were the other children of her age too childish, but their IQ was also infinitely lower and, furthermore, they knew nothing about viruses nor did they care. In cutscenes it is implied that both Ashford siblings were eventually romantically attracted to each other (a video reel shows the two at age 10 almost kissing each other as it stops filming).
Alfred and Alexia have a mutual disdain for the rest of the public, with Alexia in particular harboring thoughts of creating a structured caste society, much like the beehive or anthill. Alfred’s notes/journals seem to suggest that Alexander was sterile, so being unable to ‘contribute’ to the Ashford family, he had to resort to artificial insemination. Of course, these ‘designer siblings’ with the specific gene regulating human intelligence all happen to fit the Aryan mould as well – which you could either chalk up to Veronica Ashford fitting that mould as well, or perhaps a deeper undercurrent that permeates the series.
Footnotes
1. [^]The flower used as the base for the Progenitor virus reminds one of Soma. Soma, if you may recall, was the pharmacological product (a hallucinogenic drug) prescribed to the population in Brave New World to keep them docile, complacent and happy. For the citizens of Brave New World, it was the closest you could get to a near-religious or ecstatic experience. Aldous Huxley based this concept on a ritual drink of importance among the Aryans. From Brave New World Revisited, Chapter VIII, “Chemical Persuasion”:
“The original soma, from which I took the name of this hypothetical drug, was an unknown plant (possibly Asclepias acida) used by the ancient Aryan invaders of India in one of the most solemn of their religious rites. The intoxicating juice expressed from the stems of this plant was drunk by the priests and nobles in the course of an elaborate ceremony. In the Vedic hymns we are told that the drinkers of soma were blessed in many ways. Their bodies were strengthened, their hearts were filled with courage, joy, and enthusiasm, their minds were enlightened and in an immediate experience of eternal life they received the assurance of their immortality. But the sacred juice had its drawbacks. Soma was a dangerous drug – so dangerous that even the great sky-god, Indra, was sometimes made ill by drinking it. Ordinary mortals might even die of an overdose.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, p69
2. [^]Another interesting similarity here: the historical Lord Herbert Spencer, whom Resident Evil character Ozwell E. Spencer is (in my humble opinion) partly based on, walked a tight rope between being a staunch devotee of Lamarckism and simultaneously extolling the virtues of ‘natural selection’. Lamarckism, as opposed to Mendelism, argued that an organism could pass on characteristics to its offspring that were borne out of the environment in which it lived.
When attempting to cultivate the flower outside Africa, the DNA-altering characteristics of the flower failed to arise. This can be read in one of the journals scattered throughout the game. Specifically, in chapter 5.1 – Underground Garden:
“FROM CHIEF RESEARCHER BRANDON’S JOURNAL – NO. 1″
“1967 Feb. 12
We’ve hit a metaphorical brick wall. We brought the Progenitor flower back from Africa and attempted to cultivate it here [the United Kingdom, the US, etc]. The initial culture samples of the Progenitor virus have not shown DNA-altering characteristics.
We cultivated the flower to mass-produce the Progenitor virus.
At first, everything proceeded smoothly. The plants were strong, and grew quickly. In a short amount of time they flowered. But here is where a major problem surfaced! The flowers did not contain the Progenitor virus! Perhaps the environment in which they’re grown triggers the development of the virus. This matter must be investigated further.”
This would prove Lamarckists right in asserting that it’s the environment that shapes inheritable traits.
3. [^]In Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Wesker reveals the slogan Umbrella ran under for years: “Preserving the health of the people” (in a Google-esque ‘don’t be evil’ with a wink, then).
4. [^]In a class-action lawsuit in Australia against Merck for its unsafe Vioxx drug (its effects can be read elsewhere), information has surfaced that the company developed a “hit” list of doctors who were critical of the drug. Quoting from the article:
“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff.
…
“It gives you the dark side of the use of key opinion leaders and thought leaders … if (they) say things you don’t like to hear, you have to neutralise them,” he said. “It does suggest a certain culture within the organisation about how to deal with your opponents and those who disagree with you.”
Link: – http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25272600-2702,00.html (The Australian – Vioxx maker Merck and Co drew up doctor hit list)
5. [^]Ozwell Spencer’s plan mirrors that of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler’s positive eugenics program Lebensborn. All over Germany and later in the occupied countries, the Nazis would set up orphanages and relocation homes for children. It was a breeding programme aimed at creating a “superior” breed of blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans. Thousands of Polish children who were at least considered to be halfway suitable for the program were kidnapped from their parents and subjected to Germanisation. (though the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials found no direct involvement of the Lebensborn organisation in these matters, it is not that unthinkable that they could have relied on a third party to grab the children from their parents. And anyway, since the Nazis were successful in burning a lot of pertinent records relating to the program, there is no way of knowing for sure).
It shouldn’t go amiss that Albert Wesker is blond-haired, blue-eyed as well, fitting the characteristics of the Aryan so highly sought after by the Nazis.
Also see the Czechian movie ‘The Spring Of Life’ (Czechian title: Pramen zivota) for an overall impression of the Lebensborn program.
Link: – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6117744.stm (BBC: Nazi ‘master race’ children meet)
Link: – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230652/ (Pramen zivota/The Spring of Life | 2000)
6. [^]Charles Galton Darwin, the grandson of Charles Darwin, thought alongside similar lines when writing his book The Next Million Years. Specifically, the idea of a human society modelling itself on the beehive is promulgated, as is the master race/superior breed of humans concept that Spencer seems to be aiming for.
Link: – http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/RECV/chapter26.html (Let’s Play Resident Evil Code: Veronica X – Episode 26)
Link: – http://www.scribd.com/doc/405285/The-Next-Million-Years-by-Charles-Galton-Darwin-1953- (Charles Galton Darwin: The Next Million Years)
7. [^]Blaming the victim is commoncourse when it comes to vaccine injuries. The article linked to below from the Scientific American, ‘Vaccine Injury Case Offers a Clue to the Causes of Autism‘ for instance, argues that a (purportedly) small proportion of children who contract autism from a vaccine ultimately have their parents to blame for an inheritable condition passed from the mother to the child known as ‘mitochondrial disorders’. It argues that this disorder caused the mitochondria inside her body to ’short-circuit’ (mitochondria is basically the power unit of a living cell) and cause brain disease in the process. The article even goes so far as to argue that, although the mother does not show any symptoms of being autistic (even though the doctor argues this should be the case), this would still point to a genetic defect in the mother’s nuclear DNA, separate from the mitochondrial variety. To make a long story short, the article goes to argue the mother should not have deserved compensation based on her case presented to the judge (this all is of course deeply steeped in the mitochondrial Eve theory – which is the subject of a few Square RPG videogames, such as Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve).
This is the kind of reasoning that betrays genetics’ roots in eugenics – that of certain people being inherently genetically superior to others. Back in eugenics’ heydays, for instance, it was argued that poverty was an inheritable disorder carried from one’s mother or father to the child – and there were plenty to choose from in the current Depression-era of the early ’30s and ’40s to accuse guilty of carrying this disease.
Link: – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vaccine-injury-case-offer (Scientific American: Vaccine Injury Case Offers a Clue to the Causes of Autism)
Link: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
8. [^]The notorious Harry Laughlin, who made it his personal mission to track down every defective in the United States that would not live up to his eugenic definition of human perfection, ironically died of epilepsy shortly after he was fired from the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory (the headquarters of the Eugenics Records Office). As director of the Eugenics Record Office, Harry Laughlin had pushed aggressively for compulsory sterilization and segregation of epileptics, paupers, the blind and immigrants.
Hitler, too, held no illusions as to how he would have fared under his instigated eugenic laws. Quoting from ‘War Against The Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign To Create a Master Race‘, p276:
“Moreover, as Hitler’s knowledge of American pedigree techniques broadened, he came to realize that even he might have been eugenically excluded. In later years, he conceded at a dinner engagement, “I was shown a questionnaire drawn up by the Ministry of the Interior, which it was proposed to put to people whom it was deemed desirable to sterilize. At least three-quarters of the questions asked would have defeated my own good mother. If this system had been introduced before my birth, I am pretty sure I should never have been born at all!” – Journal Of Heredity, April 1942 – On The Breeding Of Aryans
Link: – http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/33/4/141 (Oxford Journals – Journal Of Heredity, April 1942 – On The Breeding Of Aryans)
9. [^]This concept, of a virus proving to be a cure against another virus, or in the context of the game’s storyline, Jill’s T-Virus producing antibodies against the Progenitor virus strains – resembles the use of bacteriophages. These are viruses taken out of the local sewage which can then be used on patients to combat antibiotics-resistant bacteria, such as salmonella, meningitis, laryingitis, etc.
These phages have proven to be almost 100% effective in treating serious diseases in former Soviet Union satellite country Georgia since at least the 1940s, but have never been embraced by the western pharmaceutical industry because their inherent nature (for every bacteria there is an opposite bacteriophage that combats it) doesn’t lend itself well to mass production, since every case/bacteria is unique for every treatment.
Compounding the lack of knowledge on the subject outside of Russia is that a propaganda campaign was launched by the big pharmaceutical companies in the 1930s to try and discredit bacteriophagic therapy as a viable solution against bacteria. That, and all the available literature was written in Russian – the scientific community in the West has this unspoken rule that if you don’t publish your literature in English, it therefore doesn’t exist or is bereft of any merit.
Listed below is a ’90s BBC documentary (‘Phage: The Virus That Cures‘) that will no doubt prove illuminating.
Link: – http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227054.500-viruses-could-kill-superbugs-that-antibiotics-cant.html” (Viruses could kill superbugs that antibiotics can’t)
Link: – http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8887931967515748990&ei=SdlTSoX3KaXqrALzvexF&q=phage&hl=en&dur=3″ (BBC – Phage – The Virus That Cures)
The P30 flowing in Jill's veins saps her of free will while not impairing the 'ghost in the machine' (the soul, the consciousness - even though she is programmed to follow orders, she is fully aware what she's doing). Wesker gets to control the inflow of P30 through a nifty remote control function.
10. [^]This contraption bears some similarities to José Delgado’s work on electrically stimulating certain regions in the brain; effectively being able to control his test subjects by remote control. (similarity: Wesker is able to control the inflow of P30 in Jill’s bloodstream by remote control with the device – in one cutscene he can be seen giving Jill an overdose of P30 by remote control with his cellphone)
To accomplish this, José Delgado would attach a device called a ’stimoceiver’ to the brain. By way of remote control, he could then stop and start the subject’s aggressive tendencies at will. There is a video where José Delgado controls a bull inside the arena. He effectively has complete remote control over the bull and even has him running in circles against its will.
What this effectively amounted to was mind control, and José Delgado’s work is considered an early forerunner to brain chips. Of course, in the videogame’s case, the ’stimoceiver’ merely administers new doses of the drug to the patient which, in addition to altering her mood and deductive skills, enhances her physical prowess – whereas the ’stimoceiver’ from Delgado would electrically stimulate certain regions in the brain for mind control purposes. Jill is put under mind control through pharmacological means, Brave New World-style.
Arthur Koestler, José Delgado and Aldous Huxley were all of the opinion that mass drugging of the masses in order to get rid of ’stress’ or ‘anger’ would one day be desirable both from the masses’ perspective and the ruling oligarchs that control the democracies. After all, what’s wrong with being happy? Why should one worry his pretty little head about all the wrongdoings in the world? “Don’t worry, be happy” would be all that would be required of the taxpaying vote fodder.
The quote below sums it up:
“The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain.” – José Delgado, Yale University Medical School Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974
Link: – http://www.scribd.com/doc/3479889/Jose-Delgado- (An Incomplete Copy of José Delgado’s “Physical Control Of the Mind”
Link: – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPT4Pptrrbs (Video: José Delgado And His Bull Story – Humans Are Next In Line (For the Brain Implants))
11. [^]According to this article from Pravda, “A person dressed as the Plague Doctor was an unmistakable sign of imminent death”. Which is why, when things are starting to go sour for Irving, it’s fitting that Jill, dressed as a plague doctor, comes to pay Irving (the bioweapons smuggler/dealer) a last visit and hands him the control Plaga. Irving, registering a certain shock on his face when confronted with the item, is well aware what the implications would be of taking it – he will lose his physical form permanently in the ensuing rapid mutation. This is why he refrains from using it until the very last minute as an absolute last resort when he has exhausted all other options of dealing with Chris and Sheva – even going so far as to blow up a chemical plant.
In the first cutscene of the game, Jill (dressed as the plague doctor) watches by mercilessly as an African is infected with the Uroboros virus and leeches manifest all over his body. So one could say she really lives up to the archetypal role she is intended to portray by donning a Plague Doctor’s costume – everyone she comes into contact with instantly recognizes he/she is inevitably going to die soon, if not imminently.
Link: – http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/09-02-2009/107080-nostradamus_black_death-0 (Pravda.ru – Nostradamus was most famous Plague Doctor during Black Death years)
12. [^]In fact, American eugenicists were so jealous of their German cohorts’ progress in the field of racial hygiene that one scientist at one point quipped enviously, “Hitler is beating us at our own game”, suggesting the American eugenicists should up their game to keep up with Hitler’s progress in the areas of positive eugenics (Lebensborn) and negative eugenics (mass sterilization of the unfit, concentration camps and orderly disposal of racially inferior people such as Jews and gypsies; the gas chambers first suggested by George Bernard Shaw at a Royal Eugenics Society meeting in 1910[13] were put to use by Adolf Hitler decades later).
13. [^]From the book ‘War Against The Weak: Eugenics And America’s Campaign To Create A Master Race‘, p248:
“A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence, simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them.” – George Bernard Shaw, Eugenics Education Society, 1910
He also proposed the development of Zyklon B:
“I appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. Deadly by all means, but humane, not cruel.” – George Bernard Shaw, Listener, February 7, 1934
In retrospect, then, it’s clear where Hitler got his ideas from.
14. [^]In this extract from the documentary The Soviet Story, he [George Bernard Shaw] can be heard saying:
“You must all know half a dozen people at least who are of no use in this world, who are more trouble than they are worth. Just put them there and say, ‘Sir (or madam), now, will you be kind enough to justify your existence?’ If you cannot justify your existence, if you’re not pulling your weight, …if you are not producing as much as you consume, then clearly, we cannot use the big organization of our societies for the purpose of keeping you alive. Because your life does not benefit us, and you can’t be of much use to yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
Link: – http://www.sovietstory.com/ (The Soviet Story – Homepage)
*. For more information on the Platonic roots behind the Lebensborn program, read this article.
Link: – http://www.socialjusticespeaks.org/id29.html (Social Justice Speaks: Lebensborn – Adoption Nazi-style)
Link: – http://www.friesian.com/plato.htm (Plato’s Republic)
**.
Link: – http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/stalins-deranged-vision-human-ape-super-race/1257 (Environmental Graffiti: Stalin’s Deranged Vision of a Human-Ape Super Race)
Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stalins-space-monkeys-808978.html (The Independent: Stalin’s space monkeys)
Links
Link: – GameFAQs: Resident Evil 5 Transcript Guide
Link: – Wikia – Resident Evil Wiki
