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Well, to determine the best virus in the series, I think it's essential we know why Umbrella is manufacturing these viral agents.
From Wesker's Report II:
"By then, the T-virus was becoming stable enough to be used to create Living Biological Weapons, better known as Zombies. However, the virus would never be able to modify the human gene one hundred percent - there are compatibilities between the virus and the genes because no one person's genes are exactly alike.
Ten percent of humans would make a lucky escape and not develop the disease, even though a zombie infected them with the virus. There was nothing we could do about this, no matter how hard we tried. If it had a ninety percent success rate then it was good enough to use as a biological weapon. But Spencer didn't seem to be satisfied. Our boss wanted a stand-alone weapon which could wipe out an entire population. But, what for?
Essentially, the virtue of biological weapons was the low development costs. But our Living Biological Weapon was becoming extremely expensive. Spencer would never have chosen this path if he was looking for financial rewards. If manufactured for use in conjunction with an orthodox weapon, it would have made a handsome profit. But to keep the research going to make a stand-alone, exterminatory weapon did not make business sense.
Why did he continue ignoring the costs? If his aim was to monopolise the entire war industry by changing the very concepts of war, perhaps I could agree a little bit. I still didn't know what his true intention was."
So in here we have established the two main motives of Umbrella: official and Spencer's.
The cover, from what Wesker says, is to make profit by creating weapons that can work with conventional warfare and monopolize this new type of warfare.
Then there's Spencer's goal which is also noted when Wesker wonders why the Arklay facility was chosen when if the virus ever leaked, it's reaching the surrounding wildlife would cause massive disaster.
Spencer's goal seems to be a weapon that can ultimately infect and destroy anything. For what reasons, we don't really know. Maybe he's just crazy but this isn't a Spencer topic.
So, which virus suits each of these two goals best? I feel the T-Virus suits them both best. I'll explain.
For one, as Wesker notes, it has a 90% success rate of contamination. So 90% of a populace infected become zombies or whatever. Not bad at all for a weapon you want to wipe out population centers. Especially useful for creating havoc for your enemies one would think.
Anyway, that infection rate is drastically different with other viruses. Those infected with the G-Virus can pass their embryos to anythign I guess but the usual result will be the embryo killing the host and moving on its own. The only way to get a "good" offspring is for the G-host to infect someone with similar DNA. So again, very limited not only in the people it can infect but the way it is spread.
Then there is the T-Veronica Virus which requires 15 years of incubation to work properly. Hardly a weapon suitable for warfare and if not allowed to reach its potential, the host just becomes another monster.
Now we come to that standalone weapon mentioned in the Report. It's most definitely true Gs are tough and their ability to constantly mutate and evolve is hard to beat but in the end, it's one being and the way its spread, there's not likely to be many of them. However contrast that with the T-Virus which has two ways to mass produce its ultimate weapons:
1) Vincent Goldman's Way:
"To establish a system of mass-producing Tyrants, it is absolutely necessary that during the
process of gene cultivation, a large amount of pure Beta Hetero Nonserotonin must be injected.
This material is one of the human brain's elements. It has been revealed that the material is
mainly produced by the pituitary of people at the latter period of developing their secondary
sex characteristics.
Also, medical data shows that this cerebral material is produced in response to the excessive
secretion of noradrenalin that is produced from the locus ceruleus in the brain stem.
Noradrenalin is the cerebral material secreted when people are in a state of extreme tension or
fear. As the Beta Hetero Nonserotonin only exists in active cells, you can't extract it from a
dead brain.
Thus, the best way to extract the material is to cut open the subject's skull without using
anesthesia. This will cause excessive secretion of noradrenalin. The pituitary is then ripe for
immediate extraction."
2) Sergei Vladimir's Way:
I don't have the dialogue that Sergei says to Wesker off-hand but he explains he is one of those rare people with DNA to create Tyrants. So any clone of him can be transformed into a Tyrant.
So there are two ways to get around the limitations of the Tyrant-creation issue.
So, we have T-Virus has a massive infection rate and can create powerful standalone weapons en masse. The only other major flaw to the virus was lack of intelligence. Thanks to TALOS and the idea of controlling the Tyrants with computer chips, that also is laid to rest.
I thus declare the T-Virus the perfect virus for Umbrella's needs.
And what do you all think? Maybe I overdid it a bit so sorry for that. If it's tl;dr, s'okay.
From Wesker's Report II:
"By then, the T-virus was becoming stable enough to be used to create Living Biological Weapons, better known as Zombies. However, the virus would never be able to modify the human gene one hundred percent - there are compatibilities between the virus and the genes because no one person's genes are exactly alike.
Ten percent of humans would make a lucky escape and not develop the disease, even though a zombie infected them with the virus. There was nothing we could do about this, no matter how hard we tried. If it had a ninety percent success rate then it was good enough to use as a biological weapon. But Spencer didn't seem to be satisfied. Our boss wanted a stand-alone weapon which could wipe out an entire population. But, what for?
Essentially, the virtue of biological weapons was the low development costs. But our Living Biological Weapon was becoming extremely expensive. Spencer would never have chosen this path if he was looking for financial rewards. If manufactured for use in conjunction with an orthodox weapon, it would have made a handsome profit. But to keep the research going to make a stand-alone, exterminatory weapon did not make business sense.
Why did he continue ignoring the costs? If his aim was to monopolise the entire war industry by changing the very concepts of war, perhaps I could agree a little bit. I still didn't know what his true intention was."
So in here we have established the two main motives of Umbrella: official and Spencer's.
The cover, from what Wesker says, is to make profit by creating weapons that can work with conventional warfare and monopolize this new type of warfare.
Then there's Spencer's goal which is also noted when Wesker wonders why the Arklay facility was chosen when if the virus ever leaked, it's reaching the surrounding wildlife would cause massive disaster.
Spencer's goal seems to be a weapon that can ultimately infect and destroy anything. For what reasons, we don't really know. Maybe he's just crazy but this isn't a Spencer topic.
So, which virus suits each of these two goals best? I feel the T-Virus suits them both best. I'll explain.
For one, as Wesker notes, it has a 90% success rate of contamination. So 90% of a populace infected become zombies or whatever. Not bad at all for a weapon you want to wipe out population centers. Especially useful for creating havoc for your enemies one would think.
Anyway, that infection rate is drastically different with other viruses. Those infected with the G-Virus can pass their embryos to anythign I guess but the usual result will be the embryo killing the host and moving on its own. The only way to get a "good" offspring is for the G-host to infect someone with similar DNA. So again, very limited not only in the people it can infect but the way it is spread.
Then there is the T-Veronica Virus which requires 15 years of incubation to work properly. Hardly a weapon suitable for warfare and if not allowed to reach its potential, the host just becomes another monster.
Now we come to that standalone weapon mentioned in the Report. It's most definitely true Gs are tough and their ability to constantly mutate and evolve is hard to beat but in the end, it's one being and the way its spread, there's not likely to be many of them. However contrast that with the T-Virus which has two ways to mass produce its ultimate weapons:
1) Vincent Goldman's Way:
"To establish a system of mass-producing Tyrants, it is absolutely necessary that during the
process of gene cultivation, a large amount of pure Beta Hetero Nonserotonin must be injected.
This material is one of the human brain's elements. It has been revealed that the material is
mainly produced by the pituitary of people at the latter period of developing their secondary
sex characteristics.
Also, medical data shows that this cerebral material is produced in response to the excessive
secretion of noradrenalin that is produced from the locus ceruleus in the brain stem.
Noradrenalin is the cerebral material secreted when people are in a state of extreme tension or
fear. As the Beta Hetero Nonserotonin only exists in active cells, you can't extract it from a
dead brain.
Thus, the best way to extract the material is to cut open the subject's skull without using
anesthesia. This will cause excessive secretion of noradrenalin. The pituitary is then ripe for
immediate extraction."
2) Sergei Vladimir's Way:
I don't have the dialogue that Sergei says to Wesker off-hand but he explains he is one of those rare people with DNA to create Tyrants. So any clone of him can be transformed into a Tyrant.
So there are two ways to get around the limitations of the Tyrant-creation issue.
So, we have T-Virus has a massive infection rate and can create powerful standalone weapons en masse. The only other major flaw to the virus was lack of intelligence. Thanks to TALOS and the idea of controlling the Tyrants with computer chips, that also is laid to rest.
I thus declare the T-Virus the perfect virus for Umbrella's needs.
And what do you all think? Maybe I overdid it a bit so sorry for that. If it's tl;dr, s'okay.
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