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Tricell

Tricell logo.

TRICELL Inc. (Otherwise known simply as Tricell (トライセル?)) was a multi-industrial conglomerate, prominent in the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies. It was a conglomerate of three organizations descended from Travis Enterprises. Its name was derived from the triumvirate of "cells" that formed it. In 2009, TRICELL was involved deeply with the Plaga outbreak in Kijuju, collapsing not long after their role in it had been exposed.

Structure[]

The three portions that made up Tricell were the Pharmaceutical, Natural Resources, and Shipping sectors.

Pharmaceutical

The pharmaceutical cell was founded after the medicinal herbs were collected from Africa.

Shipping

The shipping cell had foundations in the Travis family's business trade with Asia.

Natural Resources

The natural resources cell was known for its extraction of fossil fuels, operating an extensive oil facility in West Africa.

The company was one of the more prominent members of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies along with companies such as the Umbrella Corporation. Eventually, Umbrella would prove to be too troublesome to the Federation, heavily involved in the business of Bio Organic Weapons. This practice would eventually prove to be the undoing of the company.

History[]

Formation and early history[]

Tricell's foundation could be traced to Thomas Travis, an 18th Century merchant, during the Age of Exploration when he founded a trading company.[note 1] With the firm entering the 19th Century, Thomas' wealthy descendant, Henry Travis,  inspired by the likes of Sir David Livingstone, funded an expedition to the African continent. This would have a dramatic impact on the future of the trading firm.

Henry made five expeditions to the continent in all. In his thirty-four years of travels around West Africa, Henry developed an extensive, seventy-two volume encyclopedia on the region by detailing the lives and traditions of its various peoples, the local geology and ecology. Unfortunately, upon his return, his Natural History Conspectus was viewed upon by the scientific community as being largely fabricated or prone to literary license and as a result few copies are printed. Based on the tales that survived into the 21st Century, Henry's elder brother who ran the Travis firm was the cause of this disassociation with Henry's work, having intentionally questioned Henry's work in order to make sure that only the company would believe in the existence of the potential wealth that his younger brother described. Henry fell into a state of depression and died on the second year of his return, having failed to become a childhood hero like Livingstone.

At the end of the 19th Century, the firm made its first expansion by using the geological information from Henry's encyclopedia to make significant inroads in Africa's natural resource extraction by mining for precious metals, oil and gas. It was during this process that the company began obtaining samples of various African animal and plant species, intending to sell them to the naturalists within the scientific community. The medicinal qualities of some of these samples are noted by the company as a potential source of revenue, thus creating the third 'cell' of the company which was the pharmaceutical sector in the mid-20th century.[1][excerpt 1]

In the 1960s, the company went through a significant change with the three sectors by becoming the "cells" of the new company, "TRICELL".

Post-Raccoon City and the Federation (1998-2005)[]

After the Umbrella Corporation was indicted in the instigation of the Raccoon City Destruction Incident through illegally developing biological weapons, the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies (FPC) – which TRICELL's pharmaceutical division was a member of – was quickly disgraced, as people began to distrust many of the organizations that made up the federation thanks to Umbrella's own place as a senior member of the FPC. The organization's reputation was damaged further when it became apparent that Umbrella was using its fellow medical corporations as suppliers for chemicals that Umbrella used for its bio-weapons program. The FPC and TRICELL willingly handed over documents regarding their dealings to be used against Umbrella after it was agreed that they themselves would not be investigated further. After Umbrella lost the Raccoon Trials, the FPC began to restore its image by founding and funding the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA). TRICELL was soon a major funder of this organization.[2]

Despite this, TRICELL showed intimate interest in the use of bio-weapons soon after the formation of the BSAA, as they had assisted in the development of the t-Abyss Virus, which they managed to re-acquire a sample of thanks to their moles Jessica Sherawat and Raymond Vester in the BSAA and the FBC, respectively, during the Queen Zenobia incident. TRICELL also secretly worked with former U.S. Military Major General Wilson in order to create super soldiers using a modified version of the T-Virus while testing the results in the Penamstan Civil War. While the initial test went awry, they learned that the "Mad Dogs" unit had been infected and used them as test subjects for their experimental drug that could suppress the virus and mutation if taken regularly. When Wilson became the Secretary of Defense for the U.S. under the Graham administration, only Jason from the Mad Dogs was still alive due to the other members of his unit committing suicide to prevent themselves from becoming zombies. When Wilson's crimes were later exposed to the president after attempting to frame China for an attack and he had been infected by a mutated Jason, he was forced on the run and had to keep relying on TRICELL's drug to prevent himself from becoming a zombie.

When a fellow pharmaceutical giant – WP Corporation – collapsed after it was revealed that their head researcher Frederic Downing had made dealings with bioterrorists by selling the samples of the t-Virus in order to make hefty profits for the company once the t-Vaccine entered circulation, TRICELL purchased what was left of the company. During its investigation of the corporation's ruinous Air Dome Laboratory, its hazmat crews stumbled upon part of a tail believed to be from the G-Virus-infected Curtis Miller. The company proceeded to hack into the computer of US Senator Ron Davis as well as having him assassinated and completely wiping it to tie any loose ends up.

TRICELL Africa and partnership with Wesker[]

Albert Wesker, an ambitious agent with insatiable power hunger,  made sure that Umbrella toppled after betraying it on behalf of his other employer. He broke into the corporation's final stronghold in the Caucasus and stole all of its data, planning to build his own version up to lead the world into a new era. After his ordeal in Russia in 2003, Wesker contacted Tricell and decided to secretly work with them.[3]

Wesker agreed to provide Tricell with the viral samples of the Tyrant virus and the T-Veronica virus for research in exchange for capital to add to his accumulated resources salvaged from Umbrella which he initially intended to replace. However, he would soon find out that his destiny had more to come as he met with Oswell E. Spencer who was Umbrella's fugitive CEO and learned about his origins. Deciding that Spencer's vision was truly why the world needed to be repaired, Wesker killed him and decided upon a new way to remake the world that he saw as destroying itself. Thus, he continued working with Tricell by using all of his amassed research and assets.

Wesker and Excella would meet and discuss about each other's ideals. They agreed greatly upon the idea of changing Earth for the sake of humanity. They forged a partnership and Wesker motivated Excella to take the CEO position that she so craved. To quench the doubt among her superiors, Excella needed to prove the usefulness of the plan that she and Wesker proposed. Wesker provided them with a Plaga sample and perfected it by creating the Type 2 and Type 3 Plagas with the assistance from Tricell's researcher, Ricardo Irving. The parasite's success ensured the security of Excella's position as CEO of Tricell Inc., Africa. The two began the creation of the most deadly virus yet, the Uroboros virus, which was an advanced strain of the Progenitor virus.

Having all of Umbrella's data and Spencer's personal records at his disposal, Wesker managed to lead Tricell to the abandoned Umbrella Africa Research Center and began the production of Uroboros there by setting a base up with Excella. Eventually, however, Tricell's doings in Africa would be discovered by the BSAA's deployed agents, Chris Redfield, Sheva Alomar, Jill Valentine and Josh Stone. Irving was inevitably defeated, Jill was rescued from her brainwashed state, and Wesker ultimately betrayed Excella, revealing that he considered himself a god and never intended to be a "king" with Excella as his "queen." Nevertheless, he was defeated by Chris and Sheva and destroyed along with Uroboros.

End of TRICELL and legacy[]

Following Wesker's failed plans, the number of human rights violations connected with a number of Tricell's researchers and the implications of Tricell's pharmaceutical division dealing in the bioterrorism market, the rest of the company was condemned by the events following the BSAA investigation. By 2011, the stirrings about a new virus and references to Tricell came from Washington and the news hit TerraSave senior Neil Fisher who expressed his concerns regarding it toward a fellow member named Claire Redfield. However, Claire reassured him that Tricell was gone for good and there was nothing to worry about.[4]  A B.S.A.A. member named Barry Burton encountered the B.O.W.s that were created on a secluded island by Alex Wesker by using the same Uroboros virus that was conceived by her "brother", Albert Wesker and TRICELL.

Further notes[]

  • Tricell's Pharmaceutical Division was part of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies which helped fund the BSAA.[5]
  • Originally, Tricell's name was to be Seashell, referred to as "S" in Resident Evil 4. This was later changed.[6] "S" is instead merely a codename, and not a synonym as may have been originally intended.
  • Tricell's logo has been spotted in the 2009 version of "Bionic Commando" in various billboards of the destroyed city.

Bibliography[]

Sources[]

notes
  1. This group is known as "トラヴィス商会" in the Japanese script to the Tricell file.
excerpts
  1. Excerpt from Complete Guide:
    "海運、 資源開発、 製薬の3部門をメインとした複合企業体。 貿を行なっていたトラヴィス商会が社のルーツであり、 19世紀半ばに当時のトラヴィス家の末子、 ヘンリー・トラヴィスがアフリカ探検紀行 『博物総覧』 を記し、 その記録を元にアフリカでの資源開発に乗り出したことで大きく成長した。 さらに20世紀半ばには、 その資源を活用して薬品開発も推し進め、 その際に設立された製薬部門はトライセル社の主要部門となった。 トライセル社はその後も成長を続け、 後述のBSAA の主要スペンサーとなったが、 同社に都合の悪い事実を隠蔽するため圧力をかけるという行為を行なっていた。"
references
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