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Prime universe
(Capcom's primary storyline)

Brandon Bailey was a virologist and protégé of Dr. James Marcus, becoming one of the founding members of Umbrella Pharmaceuticals. Like many founding members, Bailey was excised from the corporation's official history on the whim of CEO Dr. Oswell E. Spencer, Earl Spencer. After which he founded The Connections crime syndicate.

Biography[]

When Bailey was born is uncertain, though it may have been shortly before or during the Second World War, estimated by him being of university age in the mid-1960s. Bailey attended a Swiss university where he studied virology under Dr. James Marcus, a well connected teacher with ties to a eugenics circle and in which he was welcomed as a member.[1] This circle included both Marcus and Lord Spencer, as well as Drs. Edward Ashford, 5th Earl Ashford and his son, Alexander, the future 6th Earl; Dr. Lord Beardsley and Dr. Lord Henry. In 1966, Bailey set off with Marcus and Spencer on a private expedition to West Africa in search of the Sonnentreppe, thought to host a retrovirus useful for eugenics. Coming into a series of caverns, they spent three months analysing the flowers in the Garden of the Sun, subjected to attacks from tribesmen until they could determine the vires existed, which the team dubbed "Progenitor" on 3 December 1966. They left for Europe the following day with samples of the virus and seeds so they could cultivate the flowers at their lab.[1]

Bailey's life began to change quickly upon returning to Europe, though for some time he took no notice. Marcus himself was ostracised by his university faculty after being accused of forging test results, forcing the entire eugenics circle to conduct their research at the private lab in Spencer's family home, with limited financing through the Spencer Foundation and under a sworn agreement not to discuss the findings to anyone else.[2] Though they confirmed Progenitor's ability to reverse lysis in cells - itself a ground-breaking discovery - they also discovered that Sonnentreppe required certain environmental conditions to trigger viral production which, until discovered, made it impossible to collect more viral samples.[1] In March 1967, Spencer made plans to form Umbrella Pharmaceuticals as a means of raising more research funds, and their eugenics circle banded together to divide the Progenitor samples between them to conduct parallel research, with Bailey working with Marcus and Alexander working with his father.

Research on Progenitor was limited for Marcus and Bailey, and by the April of the following year they made plans for another expedition to West Africa. On the advise of Spencer, they hired mercenaries to massacre the Ndipaya within the caverns and gain control of the Garden of the Sun. In August they received word they were successful, and Bailey hastily departed on the expedition on 20 August, though this time without Marcus who was being assigned to teach at the company's boarding school in the United States. What Bailey did not know at the time, however was that this was part of a plot by Spencer to deliberately separate the two and cement power for himself within the company.[3]

Managerial career[]

Bailey arrived in early September to oversee the construction of a permanent research post in the caverns which he was to be made manager of. This assignment would allow Progenitor samples to be effectively industrialised and cases shipped over to the Umbrella founders' laboratories.[4] Without Marcus, Bailey soon began to developed obsessive tendencies. Though the facility was completed in June 1969, Bailey felt it was insufficient and demanded more funding to construct even more.[3] Soon the expansion was three times the size of the initial facility, and an irrigation system had to be constructed to stop the Sonnentreppe flowers from dying from the mere effect the building had on the garden. The Ndipaya remained a threat and the mercenaries remained for some time until their eventual replacement by the Umbrella Security Service. Construction workers were fired upon completion of stages of the project and murdered to protect its secrets. These alterations were completed in 1970 at the earliest.[5]

Following construction, Bailey assembled a lab team to begin extracting Progenitor samples, with a side-project on determining the exact environmental conditions to trigger virus production. Bailey kept in touch with Marcus, who apprised him of his work on the t-Virus Project.[6] For twenty years of work, Bailey continued working, and in the late 1980s succeeded in determining how to trigger viral production.[7] It was around the same time, however that Bailey received word that Marcus had died, though was likely unaware he himself had been murdered to further cement Spencer's authority.[8] Upon receiving this news, Bailey's twenty year streak of vigorous work came to an end and he sunk into a depression. By the time orders came in to close the facility in November 1998, he was now a broken man no longer even caring he had wasted his life.[8]

In his preparations to leave, Bailey resisted the urge to simply go home and retire, and got in contact with any friends he had left. His efforts were successful, and he became the leader of The Connections, an organisation based in Munich and working against Umbrella's dominance in the bio-weapons industry. No longer caring for his fellow founders' eugenics views, Bailey's leadership saw the formation instead of a crime syndicate producing bio-weapons to be sold to other criminal enterprises. How long this career lasted, however, is presently unknown. Spencer himself made plans to execute the entire African lab team to keep Progenitor a secret, and Albert Wesker himself conducted a world search sometime prior to 2006.[7] The BSAA, in their own investigation of the group, were unable to confirm Bailey's death and as late as 2017 considered his survival a possibility.[9]

Sources[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "From Chief Researcher Brandon's Journal - No.1".
  2. BIOHAZARD Umbrella Chronicles Side A, prologue.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "From Chief Researcher Brandon's Journal - No.2".
  4. Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "Invoice Copy".
  5. Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "Construction Supervisor's Log".
  6. Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "Telegram from James Marcus".
  7. 7.0 7.1 Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "Spencer's notebook".
  8. 8.0 8.1 Resident Evil 5 (2009), file: "Research Center Director Brandon's Journal".
  9. Resident Evil Village (2021), file: "The Baker Incident Report".
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