(Covers information from Anderson's universe)
Cloning is a process by which an exact duplicate is made of a person. The Umbrella Corporation made extensive use of cloning for their own purposes.
Description
At some point, the Umbrella Corporation developed the process of cloning and began utilizing it for their own purposes. All of the clones were programed to believe that they were the original and had no knowledge of their true nature. According to Ada Wong, most clones were programed with enough basic memories to elicit the correct emotional response and to do the jobs they were created for. Umbrella possessed fifty DNA templates for their clones, the "fifty basic models." However, it is possible that there were other DNA templates unassociated with the basic models, though this is unconfirmed.
Many clones were simply used as test subjects for their experimentation on the T-virus, particularly in the North American Research Facility and Umbrella Prime sites. In the former, clones of Alice, herself a clone of Alicia Marcus, were used to try to find a cure for the T-virus from their blood since Alice's body had adapted the T-virus to its own benefit rather than being changed by it. In Umbrella Prime, clones were mass-produced to enact repeated simulations of T-virus outbreaks in various simulated versions of major cities from across the globe.
Aside from research purposes, clones were utilized by Umbrella for other purposes, such as employees within the company. Clones of Rain Ocampo, Carlos Olivera and James Shade acted as security personnel for the Umbrella Prime base. All of these clones possessed no knowledge of their real selves or recognized Alice who had been allied with all of the originals in the past. A clone of Umbrella co-founder Doctor Alexander Isaacs worked as a virologist within the company, particularly after the Global T-Virus pandemic, but appeared to act in a similar manner to the other clones who were turned into simple employees as he was subservient to the Umbrella Committee and Chairman Albert Wesker rather than the other way around. A clone of co-owner Alicia Marcus was created without the deadly progeria disease that effected the original and assigned to act as a guard at the entrance to Umbrella's Hive facility. As she was a clone, she possessed no memories from before her creation, something this clone would later attribute to the events surrounding the Hive outbreak before learning the truth years later.
Umbrella appeared to be able to make clones based on their previous clones, as they extensively cloned Alice, despite Alice being a clone of Alicia herself. The clones of Alice created in the North American Research Facility possessed the same telekinetic powers Alice herself had from the T-virus at the time of Umbrella getting her DNA for the cloning process. Alice was able to utilize hundreds of these clones as her own personal army to attack Umbrella's Tokyo facility, but they were all killed by Albert Wesker with a Purge bomb. The clone of Alice most prominently seen in Umbrella Prime lacked any of Alice's superhuman abilities that the clones from the North American Research Facility displayed. Presumably, Umbrella used an earlier DNA template from before Alice was injected with the T-virus to create the Umbrella Prime clones as the corporation wasn't using them to attempt to create a cure as the clones at the North American Research Facility were created to do.
Other Umbrella clones appear to be created to effectively take the place of the original to perform a dangerous task without being aware that they are not in fact the original. In The Final Chapter, Alice encountered a clone of Doctor Alexander Isaacs who possessed all of the memories and personality of the original at the time of his creation and was programed to believe that he was the original awoken early to finish the "cleansing" of humanity. In reality, the original remained in stasis while the clone took his place without realizing his true nature. This clone's programed belief that he was the original Doctor Isaacs was shown to be so strong that he refused to believe the truth when confronted with it and even attacked his original self for attempting to convince him otherwise.
Known people cloned
50 people including:
Known clones
- Alice
- First Alexander Isaacs clone
- Alice clones
- Specimen 86
- Specimen 87
- Clone 88
- Suburban Alice
- Todd
- J Pop Girl
- Business Man
- "Good Rain"
- "Bad Rain"
- "Zombie Rain" (deleted scene)
- Carlos Olivera
- James Shade
- Becky
- Second Alexander Isaacs clone
Further Notes
- In the novelization of Retribution, Alice experiences dreams of some of her clones' lives while in Umbrella Prime, particularly Suburban Alice. Ada Wong explains that the clones share a telepathic link with the original.
- While cloning wasn't introduced until Resident Evil: Extinction, clones have been a part of every single movie since Alice is a clone.
- In the deleted "Zombie Rain" scene in Retribution, Ada reveals that all of Umbrella's troopers are in fact clones. Ada tells Alice "what could be better? The perfect soldier. Limitless in number. No questions asked and loyalty guaranteed." While this scene is deleted, parts of the dialogue about the Umbrella cloning program appear in the finished movie when Alice discovers the body of Suburban Alice and Ada explains the Umbrella cloning program to her.