Los Iluminados



Los Iluminados (from Spanish, meaning "The Enlightened Ones") was a religion existing for centuries in an unknown rural region in Spain. Its core belief was that a parasitic organism known as the Plaga (Spanish: Las Plagas) were of some divine significance, and that the surrender of body and soul to the creatures was key to spiritual devotion.

Early history
Los Iluminados existed in Europe for an indeterminite length of time, though had a presense in Spain for several centuries. The first Castellan of the region, in fierce opposition to the religion's teachings, launched a violent repression on its activities.

Release
Eventually under the rule of the 8th Castellan, Los Iluminados - now under the rule of Osmund Saddler - was allowed to mine the area, for that was how Salazar felt he should atone for the sins of his ancestors, who sealed Plaga away from humanity, effectively occupying his castle which acted as a base for the cult under Saddler.

When Ramon Salazar released the Plagas seal no one thought they could bring them back to life. However, Plaga remains were found to be fossilized. Although they appeared fossilized, they were able to survive the long years by lying in a dormant state at cellular level remaining in a spore-like form. These were found to be what first infected the miners, becoming full fledged Plagas after many years of development. Likely using these first Plagas, Saddler perfected the ability to reproduce the organism and took to implanting Plagas eggs into new hosts.

The cult's followers were soon implanted with Plagas along with much of the local population who had joined the cult. Saddler himself was implanted with a dominant-strain Plaga and as such has direct control over the others, using lieutenants with similarly augmented Plagas to monitor and direct the Ganados on the ground.

The villagers then returned to life as normal as they could, farming, attending cult services at the local church, acting as guards for Salazar's castle or working the mines while the cult zealots engaged in dark rituals and sacrifices in the name of Saddler.

The plan
Some time before Autumn 2004, American agent Jack Krauser, while secretly working for Albert Wesker, arrived at the village in search of the parasite. He was later used to kidnap Ashley Graham, daughter of U.S. President Graham, as part of an Iluminados plot to do no less than take over the entire world by infecting Ashley and returning her to her father in order to influence the United States' executive branch. Saddler noted, however, that in order to take over the US, the parasites would need to spread to those with influence over the President's decisions - Congress; the Department of Justice; military government agencies and large private companies.

Plan B was to use Saddler's paramilitary militia to infiltrate the United States and sow discord from within, likely gaining converts to Los Iluminados as they went. Ada Wong, an agent for "the 3rd Organization" and subordinate to Wesker, destabilized "Plan B" when she sank the militia's warship docked within the island.

Los Iluminados is believed to have been destroyed with the death of Saddler and the dominant-strain Plaga.