Albert Wesker

Umbrella Career

Little is known of Wesker's childhood. It is understood he inherited advantageous genes relating to intelligence from his parents. He was, however, raised away from his parents, either as an orphan or through adoption, as part of a eugenics project led by an Umbrella researcher known only as Wesker, of whom the thirteen children assumed the surname. The Wesker Project worked for the benefit of the Umbrella Pharmaceuticals CEO, Dr. Oswell E. Spencer, who had grand ideals of indoctrinating people into his ideals prior to their infection with the Progenitor Virus, which he believed would stop allow them to use their powers for what he saw as good. These children were later scouted by Umbrella and offered jobs, and intentionally made-unaware as to Umbrella's connection with their past.

Arklay Staff

Wesker with the members of the t-Virus Project staff at the Arklay Lab.

In September 1977, at the age of 17, Wesker, likely already having a degree, was indoctrinated at Umbrella's executive training center, wherein young adults were given education on biology and virology to become senior researchers for the company upon graduation, as well as being taught skills beneficial for a company executive.[8] The class of 1978 was criticised by the Deputy Director for being lackluster, with the exception of Wesker and William Birkin, who showed a combination of talent and a ruthless character that would do well for the company. Dr. James Marcus, one of the co-founders of Umbrella Pharmaceuticals and the Director of the facility, took great interest in Wesker and Birkin, and earned his trust.[9] Following a series of company scandals that were covered-up, the training school was closed at the end of the year, with the two students being immediately offered jobs and transferred to the nearby Arklay Laboratory as senior researchers.

Wesker's involvement in the t-Virus Project began immediately after his assignment to Arklay Laboratory began. The two arrived at a time when Umbrella was considering developing Ebola-based viral weaponry officially as part of a vaccination program The two were successful in splicing genes from Ebola onto the t-Virus strain in development at the lab, creating an altered virus which kept the infected victims alive as brain-damaged mutants rather than simply killing them. This rejection of Dr. Spencer's idea of t-Virus being used specifically for killing paved the way for a wide array of future research.

Weskerflashback

Wesker and Birkin participating in Marcus' assassination.

With the t-Virus Project progressing well, but only developing B.O.W.s of decent but sub-human intelligence, Umbrella began pressuring the duo to come up with newer research. At some point this year, Dr. Spencer ordered that Dr. Marcus be assassinated and his body dumped away; both Arklay researchers attended the assassination to immediately recover ten years of research data, which he had kept for himself. The Tyrant Project, meanwhile, represented the next step in t-Virus weaponry, but due to the virus of the time only giving advantageous mutations to people with certain intelligence-regulating genes (statistically one in ten million), the project was stalled until a new t-Virus strain could be engineered which would make it easier to create Tyrant prototypes, which could then be cloned.

As a work around, the two were able to get a favour from Dr. Spencer to obtain an intelligent B.O.W. parasite engineered by Umbrella Europe; the parasite, dubbed Nemesis Alpha, could solve the problem by hijacking a B.O.W.'s body and follow complex orders from trainers. The parasite was inserted into the body of a mutant human test subject, Lisa Trevor, to observe its reactions. When the parasite was killed by Trevor's immune system, this led to the discovery of Golgotha Virus, and Dr. Birkin's transfer away from the facility to NEST. Wesker also decided to leave the laboratory behind, confused about Dr. Spencer's motives in approving and funding Golgotha, as its was already seen as worthless for bio-weapons development. He took up employment with their intelligence bureau to find answers.

Over the course of the 1990s, Wesker was able to gain new employment with other groups by officially being an ex-Umbrella employee. From around 1991 he served with the US Army, having been scouted for his usefulness in their own illegal bio-weapons project. The military was presumably unaware of his work as a mole. Around this time, Wesker entered into a sexual relationship with a Serbian woman, but lost interest soon after, unaware she was pregnant with his child.

Following his Army career, Wesker was reassigned by Umbrella in 1996 to serve in S.T.A.R.S., a private-funded police special forces unit in Raccoon City. The Special Tactics and Rescue Service was effectively Umbrella's private army, nominally raised to deal with the increasing threat of right-wing terrorism in the American heartland, and earning them a direct source within the Raccoon Police Department should an investigation linger uncomfortably close to the company. He was made Captain of the Alpha Team, and given seniority over Captain Enrico Marini.