With all the attention that is being directed towards the Resident Evil franchise of late, from the announcement of Resident Evil 3, to the addition of a new RE3 Easter egg in Resident Evil 2, to the re-release of the RE2 demo complete with a 'Nemesis-themed' Easter egg. I've got to thinking about all of the lore of the Resident Evil universe as I understand it. I find these games to be a fascinating series chock full of secrets and questions that have never been officially answered, and that is perfect fodder for the active imagination. Seeing as how I'm intending to start playing the Resident Evil games and analyzing them in minute detail, I feel that it's high time that I get one particular Lore-related issue of my chest in regards to this franchise. (Cue the Jerry Seinfeld voice) What's the deal with Umbrella's BOWs? (Warning: Major spoilers for the first 3 Resident Evil games.)
Before I get into anything, I should preface this blog by saying that this is quiet unlike anything I've done before on this blog. Rather than focus on hard cold mechanics, I'm delving into narrative and lore in order to point out a funny little thing that I've noticed regarding the way that the first 3 Resident Evil games play out. Therefore I will do my best to explain things for those who aren't as familiar with the lore as I am, whilst simultaneously pointing out that I'm not exactly an expert of everything Resident Evil myself, so there may be some factual inaccuracies here. (In my defence, I've fact checked everything that I can.)
Let's start at the beginning; The Umbrella corporation, formerly known as 'Umbrella Pharmaceuticals', is the fictional company that is at the heart of most, if not all, of the paranormal going-ons in the Resident Evil franchise. After being founded in 1967 by a trio of 'experimental' doctors, Umbrella quickly rose to become a prominent player on the national field of pharmaceuticals, earning them the title of, In the words of a 19 yr old, "the area's biggest taxpayer". (That is literally the only thing that Rebecca tells you about Umbrella in Resident Evil 1. She doesn't even mention that they're a company. For all you know it could just be some oddly named rich Samaritan with a penchant for developing gauze.)
Unfortunately, widespread market domination and, presumably, considerable profits weren't enough to satisfy the big wigs at Umbrella, and soon they started putting funds behind the research of, easily the most insane of their founders, Oswell E Spencer. Spencey Boy was quite the sucker for agriculture in his youth, you see, and whilst on a flower picking trip in deep Africa, Ozzy came across an incredibly special flower which... You know I can't exactly remember. (This is why I need to play through these games again.) Look, long story short they could inflict serious change to an individual's cellular structure and, naturally, this led to the Umbrella team immediately seeking a way to monetize on it.
To this end, Umbrella founded their 'BOW' program (Bio Organic Weapon) in order to grow super soldiers that would then be sold illegally on the black market, or to the US government. (Management never could quite nail down that part.) There were a few problems with their 'super soldier formula' however, most pressingly how it was a parasitic virus that only seemed able to work it's magic on dead flesh. That, mixed with the fact that the resulting 'Zombies' were lacking the mental acuity to respond to orders, made the marketability of these 'Zombies' rather lame. Luckily the team got to working around the clock to rectify this and they ended up coming to an ingenious solution, they'll create artificial hosts for the virus to take over. Thus the BOW program kicked off in earnest as the team got together to make a deadly organic weapon that would be the envy of any black market weapons deal.
To this end, Umbrella created hundred of useless cannon fodder and a scant few truly marketable super soldiers through with which they could terrorize the world. This prototype was assigned the codename 'Tyrant' and grown underneath the mansion of their founders, in the hills of the Arklay mountains. (A location picked for having the perfect conditions for regrowing the necessary plant. Or being the only place that grew said plants in the first place. The lore tends to conflict with itself on that point.) Umbrella were right on track to create their super soldier and make, in the words of the TMNT movie, "Stupid money" which, let's not misremember things, is their ultimate goal. Umbrella originally had no goals of world domination or to 'cure the world of death' (Okay, that might have been Spencer's goal but no one liked him anyway. He was ousted from the company is a very 'definitive' fashion. Let's say he was 'pushed' to leave his position.) Umbrella only cared about money to begin with, and therefore it only makes sense that every single one of their early decisions should be in aid of that vague goal.
Cue a terrible disaster that isn't worth going into in this blog, and Umbrella's laboratory in the Spencer mansion goes dark. Somehow the virus leaked and infected most of the staff in and around that facility, resulting in incalculable losses for Umbrella R&D, whilst also locking the team out of direct access to their finished prototype: Tyrant. This would be a situation that would require incredible levels of tact and planning on the company's part to ensure that they could contain the situation and retrieve their assets without authorities becoming aware of anything bad, or if that cannot be accomplished, than at least without knowledge of the company's direct involvement. There's only one nagging issue...
The nearby populace of Raccoon City boasts a specialized division of their police force called S.T.A.R.S.; Special Tactics and Rescue Service. (Sigh. You're not supposed to include the 'and' in your acronym, guys.) These guys end up sending their B-team to investigate a distress call nearby which ended up leading directly to the Spencer Mansion. (Whoops.) Luckily that B-Team promptly went dark, (Probably because the team was comprised of several people with no guns and a 19 year old.) unfortunately, there is an A-Team ready to pick up that trail. Cue panic mode for Umbrella, their secret is about to leak out to the Authorities! What can they do? Good thing then, that their captain, Albert Wesker, is actually an Umbrella scientist working as a plant! All he needs to do is call off the investigation, bribe a few folk, and the anonymity of Umbrella is secured. Or he could lead that A-team in a mission to investigate the Spencer mansion... that's proactive, I guess.
Once S.T.A.R.S. land in Spencer Mansion, Albert's goal should be frighteningly obvious, he needs to get his entire team killed off as quickly as possible. And yet the first thing he does is save Chris Redfield's life from Zombie dogs and lead everyone to safety inside of the relative safety of the Spencer Mansion. (Not too clear on your plan here, Al.) Wesker then allows the team to go their separate ways whilst he disappears to... I dunno... destroy evidence hopefully. Somewhere along the way, however, he realizes that he cannot pull this off alone and thus enlists the help of resident S.T.A.R.S. moron, Barry Burton, to help him betray the team. I'd imagine the conversation went a little bit like this:Albert: Barry, I need your help to betray S.T.A.R.S.
Barry: What? No way. Why would I do that?
Albert: I dunno. Name something that you really care about.
Barry: My Family?
Albert: Yeah, them. I've got them hostage so you better do as I say.
Barry: Oh god. You've lied about everything else I thought I knew about you, but I instantly believe you on this and will do absolutely nothing to fact-check that incredibly bold statement.
At this point Albert practically disappears from the story whilst the rest of the team slowly begin to pick apart the truth behind the mansion. Only in the final act do we find out that he has spent his entire time down in his personal labs with his Tyrant test tube. God knows what he spent all his time doing there, but I'll guess it was mostly trying to figure out the logistics of escorting a 9 foot pale monstrosity out the building and to Umbrella (Who's nearest facility would be the NEST underneath Raccoon City) without being spotted. (You should've bought a van along or something.) Cue the confrontation scene which either ends with Barry learning that Albert didn't kidnap his family (Meaning that Barry murdered on S.T.A.R.S member and tried to murder another for literally no reason) and shooting Wesker or the Tyrant merely waking up from inside it's test tube and choosing to skewer his creator. Either way things end badly for Wesker and, incidentally, the Tyrant, as in the canonical ending the monster is blown to pieces with a rocket launcher. And then again when the entire mansion explodes.
This leaves Umbrella with a huge potential breach of information, as there is an entire squadron of living S.T.A.R.S. who now know their secret, and a lot of money lost in damages. Luckily for them, another convenient tragedy should strike less than 1 week later as the town of Raccoon city is felled by a zombie virus outbreak. (Unfortunately, this virus outbreak also signalled the destruction of Umbrella's substantial NEST facility, providing another potential leak of information.) It is from this point on that I seriously wonder what the heck Umbrella were doing in the aftermath of this mess and just who was in charge the whole time. Let me explain why.
At this point, Umbrella has 3 key problems that they need to solve: They need to ensure that the S.T.A.R.S. members are silenced. (The zombie virus outbreak isn't enough, they need to make sure.) Secondly, their data drives from the NEST need to be erased/retrieved. (Unless the team wants to risk potential exposure from rescue services after the fact) And Thirdly, they need to erase all evidence of their involvement with the 'Spencer Mansion Incident' and 'The Raccoon city incident'. (And, if it's possible, prevent widespread knowledge of zombies hitting the main stream news broadcasts. Remember, this game takes place in 1998 and Raccoon City is relatively secluded so that was still possible.)
The scientists currently in the NEST, likely desperately trying to keep the whole place running as the virus tears through it all, makes the first dumb move to try and control the situation. Word comes to them that the bulk of survivors are hiding out at the police station, so they decide to play dress up with their own Tyrant prototype, Mr.X. (presumably the only other one in existence) and set this expensive piece of proprietary organic-technology loose on the Police station to ensure there are no survivors left to tell tales about the zombies. Somehow this team thinks that their 9 foot pale skinned monster wouldn't attract suspicion if they just stuck it in a trenchcoat and put a top hat on it, and they didn't spare a thought about how they might retrieve their Tyrant after the face. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" they likely said as they reveled in the fact that their quick thinking might have saved them their jobs.
Unfortunately, an outside division of Umbrella has a similar idea with a different end goal in mind. Knowing that the biggest potential info leak comes from the S.T.A.R.S. operatives, seeing as how they are in possession of documents that can tie Umbrella to illegal experimentation, this team decided that they should be the chief target. Therefore, this team decides to deploy their very own prototype BOW; Nemesis, with sole orders to wipe out S.T.A.R.S. Now, you know this was a big screw up, as Nemesis is probably more valuable than Mr.X, (Seeing as how he can follow orders, utter rudimentary phrases and operate large weaponry) so sticking him in the line of fire is exceedingly reckless. (I can only imagine that it was after deploying him that the external Umbrella team called the NEST in order to tell them that they had everything covered. That must have been an awkward conversation...)
So we currently have two incredibly expensive assets active in the same area with mildly conflicting goals, already a gigantic recipe for disaster but hey, at least the job in question will get done. Except there is another variable in this equation as Umbrella's head office preempted the potential issues of S.T.A.R.S and worked a way to clean it up days ago. You see, Chris Redfield, Rebecca Chambers and Barry Burton were immediately reassigned upon coming back from their adventure and sent all over the world. This is because Umbrella happened to have the Chief of police in their pocket and so could ensure that none of the S.T.A.R.S. members had the chance to spread their story. (Especially as the 'reassignments' in question resulted in the members becoming trapped or incarcerated) Only Jill Valentine was exempt from this treatment, and they were likely cooking something up for her when the second outbreak hit Raccoon city.
This means that Nemesis has had the majority of his potential usefulness invalidated as most of the crew are already around the world, making his deployment a waste of time and money. Umbrella high brass also sent 2 (3 if we accept the story of the now non-canonical 'Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City') separate agents to collect information/samples from the NEST so that the entire site doesn't become a completely write-off for corporate. Which further shows how confused everyone was when running this mess as no one took the time to communicate their plans.
Do you want to know the cherry on top of all of this? Atop of the millions of dollars worth of asset that are already invested in covering up this colossal screw-up, the top guys over at Umbrella were already hard at work on a solution to all this that would render all over efforts entirely moot. You see, Umbrella had the kind of contacts under their belt that could mobilize the military if they pull the right strings. Now, this could be used to set up a perimeter around the city or any number of boring solutions, but the guys had a better idea in mind; if they wanted everything gone why not just blow the whole city up in hellfire. This plan was put into place likely under the impression that they were doing the best thing possible for the situation and with no idea that there were 2 high level BOWs, one mercenary and one hometrained agent active in the city at the time. (Since when did Shepherd ever care about danger close?)
As far as Snafus go, that's a big one. I wouldn't want to be the poor lackey who ends up drawing the short straw and thus has to go before Mr Spencer to explain why it is that their past 40 odd years of innovation has to be flushed down the drain. Without the hard work of their mercenary, this screw up alone might have been enough to bankrupt the entire company. (Which means we have a certain seductress to blame for the future Resident Evil games. Surely, that makes her the ultimate bad guy.) Still, at least this whole affair will have likely led to the adoption of 'conference calls' into the Umbrella corporate culture. (Ever improving!)
What Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3 presents us with is a perfect cluster of a situation that is hilarious to look at in hindsight. Just like with any real organization, Umbrella ended up costing itself millions (maybe billions) in resources and lost research time all because there was no vertical or lateral communication going on between teams. At the first scent of trouble, everyone rushed to put out the fire not realizing that their various methods ended up making things worse. I love how this messy story convention is the unintended side effect of Capcom setting so many of their games within the same 2 week scenario, and really enjoyed pointing it out today. Perhaps this style of blog isn't quite like what I usually put out, but I hope to settle into more 'Lore discussion' topics like this in the future.
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