Umbrella Corporation

The Umbrella Corporation is a business that features in the Resident Evil universe.

History

Origin

The Umbrella Corporation was founded in the year 1968 with its foundation being made between three partners that included Ozwell Spencer, Edward Ashford and prominent virology expert D. James Marcus. Its basis came as a result of Spencer's knowledge of a legend regarding a unique flower called the Stairway to the Sun located in Kijuju Autonomous Zone that had the power to confer incredible abilities to those that consumed it. Dr. Marcus came to believe that this was the result of a unique virus that could alter the DNA of the host body with the three intending to find the flower to study it. Thus, an expedition was launched in 1966 to west Africa where they discovered the Ndipaya kingdom and staved off attacks from the natives. Ultimately, they discovered the flower and the scientific personnel confirmed Marcus's hypothesis that it contained a viral based substance that they called the Progenitor Virus. For three months, the expedition studied it and took samples of the plant back with them in order to cultivate and mass produce the Progenitor Virus. It was during this time that Spencer spoke of forming a company that looked into harnessing the virus's power. A year later in 1967, secret experiments were conducted to test the Progenitor Virus in living beings at the recently created lab facilities in the Arklay Mountains. Umbrella itself was then formally created in 1968 which served as a cover for the company's biological research experiments. In July of that year, Edward Ashford passed away and his son Alexander Ashford succeeded him as head of the Ashford family. In 1969, he designed an Antarctica based facility that was to be the site of his CODE:Veronica project.

In January 1978, Dr. Marcus came to successfully develop the T-Virus. It was noted by researcher Albert Wesker that the military potential of the T-Virus would never make up for the cost of research and production, and that the Arklay facility seemed to be deliberately placed in an area where any leak would cause an uncontrollable outbreak. However, Spencer eventually grew distrustful of Marcus and was worried that the scientist's successes in his research could endanger Ozwell's position as Umbrella's head. Thus, he arranged for Marcus's assassination at the hands of rising stars Albert Wesker and William Birkin who seemingly killed the scienitist in 1988. Birkin took over Marcus' research soon after and was credited as the inventor of the T-virus.

Secretly, Umbrella dabbles in highly illegal bioweapons experiments involving germ and chemical warfare as well as bio-organic weaponry created through gene splicing. Umbrella has been responsible for such man-made viral horrors as the T and G-Viruses, as well as a myriad of mutated monsters (some accidental, others purposefully created in their labs). Following the viral outbreak in Raccoon City, the US Government began spying on Umbrella and taking note of their illegal activities.

Decline

Umbrella's fortunes failed to improve after the Raccoon City incident. The US government was forced to take extreme measures to ensure the spread of the T-virus was stopped. "Mission: Code XX" was approved, and Raccoon City was annihilated by a nuclear missile strike (or by multiple high explosive ballistic missiles or by aerial bombing, depending upon which game ending is viewed).[1][2] Despite the apparent disastrous effects this would bring for Umbrella, Spencer used his immense wealth and assets in an attempt to cover up the catastrophe as the result of a government conspiracy.[3] Because most of the evidence of Umbrella's involvement had been destroyed by the strike, Umbrella managed to drag out the legal proceedings.

Shortly after the Raccoon City incident, the US government began a formal investigation of Umbrella's business practices. Several further disasters virtually ensured Umbrella's eventual collapse: On Sheena Island, an Umbrella senior executive, Vincent Goldman, unleashed the T-virus on its citizens in a bid to cover up his business on the island that had not been accepted by Umbrella's executive board and emerge as the sole survivor of the incident, bringing vital research data regarding the new Tyrant project—Hypnos T-Type—with him. However, an undercover investigator Ark Thompson, operating on behalf of Leon S. Kennedy, a survivor of the Raccoon City incident, succeeded in stopping Goldman's plans, resulting in his death and the loss of data regarding the new Tyrant type. Thompson emerged as a survivor of the incident along with two local children.

Shortly afterwords, Claire Redfield, sister of STARS Alpha team member Chris Redfield and also a survivor of the Raccoon City incident, broke into Umbrella's Paris facilities in search of her brother. She was captured and sent to Umbrella's facility on Rockfort Island. While there, she witnessed Wesker attack the island in search of the T-Veronica virus, another derivative of the T-virus. Escaping the island, she found herself trapped at the Antarctic Transport Terminal, another Umbrella Facility, where Edward Ashford's granddaughter, Alexia Ashford, awoke from a self-induced coma with a desire to establish a new world order. Alexia was eventually killed and the Facility destroyed by Chris and Claire Redfield.

In 2002, Morpheus D. Duvall, a former Umbrella researcher who Umbrella officially blamed for the incident at the Arklay Laboratory, stole vials of T-virus from Umbrella's Paris facility, then hijacked the Umbrella-owned cruise ship, Spencer Rain, upon which Umbrella had been trying to sell some of its latest BOWs to the highest bidder in a last ditch attempt to obtain financial resources for the company's continued survival. All passengers and crew on the ship were infected with the T-virus, and Morpheus also stole a sample of Umbrella's most powerful virus, the tG-virus, a blend of the T and G viruses. Morpheus planned to launch missiles containing the T-virus at American and Chinese cities unless the governments of both countries paid him excessive amounts of money. Due to the intervention of Anti-Umbrella agent Bruce McGivern, Morpheus was stopped and Umbrella lost the Spencer Rain and all research data and BOW specimens on it, as well as the remains of their waste disposal facility and secret underwater research laboratory on an unnamed island in the Atlantic Ocean.

Dissolved

Due to the series of disasters plaguing the company, and the ongoing legal proceedings against them, Umbrella's stock prices plummeted. By the early 21st century, the Umbrella Corporation's ruin was nearly absolute. Umbrella retained one last major stronghold located in southern Russia. Following Spencer's disappearance, this facility was placed under the leadership of Sergei Vladimir, and now housed the UMF-013, a supercomputer containing all of the company's data.

In 2003, Umbrella's stronghold came under attack by special forces troops led by Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, along with an unrelated attack by Albert Wesker. While the special forces secured the facility and destroyed the T-ALOS project, Wesker infiltrated the facility and assassinated Vladimir, stealing all the data from the UMF-013. Wesker then turned incriminating data over to the prosecutors working against Umbrella, and testified, under the guise as a friend of Ozwell. Five years after Raccoon City's destruction, Umbrella was finally found guilty on all charges of its involvement in that massacre and an international manhunt by the FBI and the FSB had started to bring Spencer to justice.

In the wake of Umbrella being dissolved, a number of other corporate interests assembled their own special forces private military groups with the intention of recovering the corporation's lost research. These companies included; Suntech Samurai Co., Suntech Ninja Co., Medvedev, Sheng-Ya Pharmaceutical, Aeolus Edge East, Aeolus Edge West, Tenenti Inc., Saurian Corporation, Akembe Chemical, and Rashid-Sahir Indus. By 2007, the U.S.A. assets of the business was returned to former employees of the original company who nominated a new chief executive that reformed the business as a PMC. They had a goal that was to atone for the crimes of their predecessors and redeem the name of Umbrella by combating bio-weapons through both military operations along with developing ant-B.O.W. weapons, tactics, technology and treatment. Thus, they reformed the Umbrella Corporation but tended to be referred to as Blue Umbrella to distinguish them from their predecessors.

Overview

In appearance, the Umbrella Corporation operated as a large scale pharmaceutical company. The company's logo was said to be the symbol of their unwavering pledge to, "Preserving the health of the people" and believed that technology was the umbrella to be used in serving that purpose. Thus, its public appearance was the creation of pharmaceuticals and other such treatments. However, in reality, the corporation was engaged in bioweapon research through the experimentation with various viral strains. The viruses themselves were the end product rather than the mutations they produced with these intended to be sold to the highest bidder.

The Corporation contained numerous branches some of which served paramilitary duties such as the Cleaners.

There were a number of branches within the company that included:

• Umbrella Science Division : a scientific branch within the Corporation that was charged with research and development. [1]
• Umbrella Security Division : a branch within the Corporation that was charged with maintaining security operations throughout Umbrella's assets. Its agents included members of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service. [2]
• Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service : the (U.B.C.S.) was a private military group that operated on behalf of Umbrella and whose mission was primarily to control disasters caused by the company's products. As a result, they were always the first on the sign during any such 'accident'. Its dangerous line of work meant that most of its members were war criminals, refugees or others recruited on the promise of being pardoned from death sentences or life imprisonment. The majority of its soldiers were from armies from communist countries and possessed a solid military background.
• Umbrella Special Forces : the elite special forces unit both owned and operated by Umbrella which reported directly to its highest-ranking officers. Unlike the U.B.C.S. that performed public visible operations such as rescuing civilians, the Special Forces unit operated in complete secrecy and in smaller numbers.
• Umbrella Information Department : a division responsible for preparing intelligence reports and presenting them to the company.
• Monitors : an internal espionage branch within the Umbrella Corporation which was tasked with watching over the activities of suspicious employees in order to lure out spies or industrial saboteuers. Its agents are well placed throughout the Corporation which maintain the image if appearing as normal employees which helps them conduct their investigations without suspicion being raised. Some of its operatives were placed within the U.B.C.S. which included Nicholai Ginovaef. The orders of Monitor agents included spying on fellow employees and destroying evidence in clean up operations with assassination being considered against witnesses. [3]
• White Umbrella : a secret branch within the Umbrella Corporation whose duties lied in ensuring that the general populace did not know of the company's dealings. [4]

Umbrella operated under a number of guidelines that encompassed three traits; Discipline, Obedience and Unity that were basic principles for all corporate employees. The strictest and most rigorous training standards were used to raise the next generation of model employees to serve the company's future. Its training was applied without regard to gender, race or creed with the focus being to produce the best candidates that were the future of Umbrella by developing leadership qualities. The corporation was governed by Internal Emergency Procedures with Article 12 authorised all equipment and personnel to be placed under the Captain of the Guard. All orders were expected to be strictly obeyed with any disobedience being punishable by death.

The company produced a number of products that included:

• Adravil :
• Safsprin :
• Aqua Cure :
• VT-J98 : a liquid chemical that was used to cultivate the NE-α Type parasite.
• P-Epsilon : a gas that was proven to be capable of incapacitating all known B.O.W.s. by weakening their cellular functions and thus made it an emergency tool in case of possible escapes. It was advised against making prolonged exposure of the gas as it would result in the creation of adaptive anti-bodies to the agent the subject. Furthermore, certain viral mutations were shown to be able to absorb the gas a source of nutrition and use the toxins extracted as a weapon against threats. There as also reports of the potential for negative side effects as a result of use of P-Epsilon.
• DEVIL : a vaccine designed to inoculate a person from G-Virus infection.
• Linear Launcher : an anti-B.O.W. shoulder mounted weapon that fired a powerful blast of plasma to eliminate a target.
• Charged Particle Rifle : an anti-life form weapon that accelerated and fired highly charged particles.

The Umbrella Corporation was also involved in Project W that was a eugenics plan in creating 13 perfect subjects that were to be the start of a new breed of humanity.

The main goal of the company was dictated in its origin with it aiming to create new 'starter' viruses by recombining genes. To produce biological weapons from these viruses, Umbrella began to look into viral mutations in order to strength the basic viruses that they had created with these being part of the initial T-Virus experiments. RNA-based starter viruses were easily capable of being mutated and through such mutations it was possible to strength their traits.

Umbrella maintained a pair of highly advanced artificial intelligence programs that were used in research operations with these being the RED QUEEN and its counterpart the WHITE QUEEN. The RED QUEEN contained the collected research of the company and maintained the Umbrella Archives. It had a number of directives that included oversight and protection of Umbrella assets along with protecting the lives of Umbrella officers. The Umbrella Archives that contained all the information contained by the corporation was maintained in the U.M.F.-013 computer core.

It maintained a number of installations and facilities across the world. A key facility was the Arklay Research Laboratory that was situated deep within the Raccoon Forest underneath the secluded two-story Spencer Mansion that served as a cover for the lab. On the outskirts of Raccoon City was also a large subterranean laboratory known as NEST that was used as a research facility for viral experiments. Another research facility was NEST 2 that was tasked with real-world use cases that arose from new bio-weapons that were created or introduced to the world. They were responsible for the new of vaccines and new weaponry capable of supressing bio-weapons. Umbrella Europe was a branch that operated on the European continent and maintained a number of laboratories. The company's Russian branch was a research lab located in the Caucasus region in the south that on the surface appeared as a government-operated chemical processing plant which was used to perform viral and B.O.W. research.

Employees

• Oswell E. Spencer :
• James Marcus :
• Edward Ashford :
• William Birkin :
• Albert Wesker :
• Sergei Vladimir :
• Vincent Goldman :
• Morpheus D. Duvall :
• Alexia Ashford :
• Logan Carlisle : a male scientist and employee who was responsible for developing the Hunter Gamma project.
• Nathaniel Bard : a male scientist who was part of Umbrella USA where he was part of the NEST 2 facility and publicly appeared to be in charge of the Spencer Memorial Hospital in Raccoon City.

Notes

• The Umbrella Corporation were introduced as antagonists in the Resident Evil games.
• GameInformer ranked the Umbrella Corporation first in the magazine's list of the “Top Ten Evil Corporations,” declaring that since "the revelation of Umbrella’s bio-weapon engineering research facility hidden beneath Raccoon City, the company has been exposed, infiltrated, and exploded more than a few times. These are but minor setbacks for Umbrella, as it always ends up playing a role in the latest zombie-related mishap. Constant infighting among key Umbrella figures established the company’s rocky foundation, and Umbrella’s tenacity in bio-weapons research ended up being its own undoing. Apparently, routinely zombifying your employees cuts down productivity."

In other media

Films

• In Resident Evil, the Umbrella Corporation appeared as antagonists in the live-action film. They were an international corporation based in Raccoon City. To the world at large, Umbrella is a medical research company that specializes in ordinary pharmaceutical products. Secretly, Umbrella dabbles in highly illegal bioweapons experiments; Umbrella was responsible for such man-made horrors as the T-Virus and Nemesis. They also have substantial political clout; when Raccoon City was overrun by zombies, they ordered a nuclear strike on the city themselves.
• In Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the Umbrella Corporation appeared as antagonists in the live-action film. It was shown to had been founded by Dr. James Marcus and Alexander Isaac after the former discovered the T-Virus.

Appearances

• Resident Evil:
• Resident Evil 2:
• Resident Evil 3:

External Link

• Resident Evil Wiki Entry