The Hive was a major location in Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil film universe. It was a giant underground laboratory complex located half a mile beneath the urban sprawl of Raccoon City where the Umbrella Corporation carried out extensive research on the T-Virus, a deadly weaponized contagion capable of bringing the dead back to life. As well as being used to conduct illicit bioweapons research, the Hive was also intended to function as a "Noah's Ark" of sorts, preserving Umbrella's leadership while the company initiated a global T-Virus outbreak intended to kill off most of the human race so that Umbrella could rebuild the world in its image.
History[]
Early history[]
The Hive was constructed some time prior to 2002 deep beneath the streets of Raccoon City. Since Umbrella possessed a great deal of political and financial influence in Raccoon, they were able to keep construction secret and assure the silence of any locals involved with the effort. The main entrance to the Hive was accessible from Umbrella's corporate office in the city, though an emergency entrance also existed on the outskirts of town, accessible from a lonely mansion in the woods. The mansion facade was inhabited by two Umbrella security operatives who posed as an eccentric married couple; they were tasked with monitoring for potential security risks within the complex, keeping locals away from the mansion and reporting to the leading staff.
At some point before the downfall of Raccoon City, Umbrella's chairman and leading scientist Dr. Alexander Isaacs had met with the other members of Umbrella High Command to discuss humanity's decline and eventual destruction. With global warming, international conflict and dwindling resources bringing the human race closer to extinction, Isaacs proposed that Umbrella end the world on their own terms by releasing the T-Virus across the planet. This would steadily kill off most of humanity save those working for Umbrella, but would leave most of humanity's infrastructure intact, allowing Umbrella's leaders to reclaim the planet at an appointed time and remake the world as they deemed fit. The plan was approved by all but one member of High Command: Alicia Marcus, co-owner of the company. Before the plan was put into action, the members of High Command were relocated to the Hive and sealed away in cryo-stasis chambers where they would wait out the apocalypse.
Beginning of the end[]
In 2002, the Hive was locked down by the Red Queen supercomputer after the T-Virus was released inside the complex by Spence Parks, one of the facility's security directors. Spence had decided to betray Umbrella and steal the T-Virus so he could sell it on the black market, but was unaware of the Red Queen's defensive measures installed in the mansion and train platform. While Spence had vacated the complex proper, he fell victim to a nerve gas released onto the train platform that rendered him unconscious. Meanwhile, the T-Virus spread throughout the Hive via the ventilation ducts and infected the entire staff. To keep the virus from escaping, the Red Queen sealed off the entire complex and used the interior defences to kill everyone inside. The staff would reanimate as Undead, but were locked inside the rooms they had died in.
Having lost contact with the Red Queen and all of the 500+ staff inside the Hive, Umbrella dispatched a Security Service team to enter the facility and determine what had happened. The team accessed the emergency entrance via the mansion where they encountered Alice - the remaining security director - and Matt Addison, an anti-Umbrella activist posing as a police officer. Alice had been exposed to the nerve gas released by the Red Queen and was suffering from memory loss, thus was unable to report on the situation in the Hive. The commando team took Alice and Matt with them as they descended into the facility, encountering Spence on the escape train, who was also suffering memory loss.
With Alice, Spence and Matt in tow, One and his team made their way towards the central chamber where the Red Queen's mainframe was located. With all of the doors in the facility locked electronically, the team encountered no Undead and had no idea of what was in store for them. When the group approached the Queen's Chamber, One and four other members became locked inside a corridor as a laser defence system was activated. Chad Kaplan, the group's techie, managed to override the system from outside the corridor, but by the time he had done so, everyone in the corridor had been killed by the lasers. Kaplan and Alice proceeded to the Queen's Chamber with a device that would forcefully shut the Red Queen down, but the AI projected a holographic avatar of herself and warned them not to shut her down as doing so would result in a loss of primary power. Ignoring the computer's pleas, Kaplan threw the switch and shut the Red Queen down, thus releasing all of the electronic locks throughout the Hive and unwittingly freeing all of the Undead staff.
The remaining team members soon found themselves under attack by an army of walking corpses. Outnumbered by the seemingly unkillable creatures, they were forced to fall back into the Queen's Chamber where Alice decided that they needed to turn the Red Queen back on. After being reactivated, the Red Queen explained the origins of the zombie-like creatures roaming the facility and how the T-Virus had been released. Under the threat of permanent deactivation, she also opened an emergency passageway leading to the utility tunnels running beneath the complex. However, the Queen also opened other such passageways across the facility, allowing the Undead to follow the survivors. The group suffered further casualties, leaving only Alice, Spence, Matt and Rain Ocampo alive, though Rain had suffered numerous bites from the zombies and had been infected with the virus.
As the survivors progressed, Alice recovered more of her memory and realised that she had been working with Matt's sister Lisa who was undercover in the Hive attempting to dig up evidence of Umbrella's illegal activities. She remembered how she had planned to steal samples of the T-Virus and its antidote, leading the others to a flooded lab where she hoped they could find the cure and give it to Rain. While inside the lab, however, Spence recovered his memories and turned on Alice. He escaped and locked Alice, Rain and Matt inside the lab, but ultimately met his doom when he reached the train platform. He was attacked by a Licker, a bioweapon released from its containment pod following the team's first encounter with the Undead.
Alice, Matt and Rain would escape from the laboratory after Kaplan, who had supposedly been lost to the Undead in the utility tunnels, used a remote trigger to fry the Red Queen's circuit boards, knocking out the power yet again. The survivors fled to the train platform where Alice discovered an attache case containing the T-Virus and its antidote which Spence had dropped there prior to the lockdown. Alice took the case and killed the reanimated Spence by decapitating him with a fire axe. She and the other survivors then boarded the escape train and were on their way out just as the timer for the facility's blast doors was running down. However, the train was boarded by the Licker, which had mutated after feeding on Spence. It tore its way into the main carriage, killing Kaplan and wounding Matt. At this time, Rain had succumbed to the T-Virus despite being given the anti-virus and turned into a zombie. Fortunately, Matt was able to put Rain down and open a maintenance hatch in the deck of the carriage, causing the Uber-Licker to fall through it and get dragged along the train tracks at high speed. The friction from being dragged over the track at such a velocity caused the monster to catch fire and it was left to burn on the tracks as Alice and Matt were sped towards the exit.
Alice and Matt made it back to the mansion just as the blast doors shut, but Matt had been infected with the virus after the Uber-Licker had mauled his arm. As Alice hurried to administer the anti-virus, a team of Umbrella scientists in hazmat suits entered, apprehending and separating the two. Alice was taken to an Umbrella facility at Raccoon City while Matt was taken away to be entered into what the lead scientist called the "Nemesis Program". Shortly after this, the scientists reopened the Hive in order to discover what had happened down there. As a result, they released the Undead still contained within the facility and inadvertently allowed the T-Virus to spread into Raccoon City, dooming the entire town.
Restoration and destruction[]
When the T-Virus was released into Raccoon City, Umbrella destroyed the infection and all evidence of it by launching a nuclear device upon the town. The blast completely levelled the city centre and created a crater deep enough to expose the entrance of the Hive.
By 2012, the T-Virus had spread across the Earth and wiped out most of humanity. During this period, Umbrella's then-leader Albert Wesker had returned to the Hive in order to release Dr. Alexander Isaacs and Alicia Marcus from stasis and to oversee the final eradication of the remaining human population on the planet's surface. However, the Red Queen also remained active, her AI being linked across Umbrella's remaining facilities worldwide. Though unable to act directly against any Umbrella employee, she was able to make contact with Alice and informed her of Wesker's plan to complete the eradication of humanity. She also informed Alice that Umbrella had developed a new airborne anti-virus and were planning to release it after the remaining human settlements had been destroyed.
Alice made her journey from the ruins of Washington D.C. to Raccoon City in order to acquire the anti-virus. However, she was ambushed and captured by Umbrella forces working for a clone of Dr. Isaacs who had fashioned himself into a prophetical figure. Chaining her to the outside of his armoured vehicle, the Isaacs clone used Alice to lure a massive army of Undead towards the ruins of Raccoon City where a group of survivors were settled.
Alice was able to escape from her bonds and steal a motorcycle from Isaacs' convoy, accelerating ahead to Raccoon City where she met with Claire Redfield and her band of survivors. She warned them that an Undead horde was on the way and helped them to establish defensive measures. Though the battle was costly, the Undead army was wiped out and there was still time to enter the Hive and acquire the anti-virus before another Undead swarm arrived. Alice, Claire, and a handful of volunteers descended into the crater, fighting off a pack of mutated Cerberus dogs before entering the Hive.
Inside the Hive, Alice and the others were forced to contend with Wesker who controlled of the facility's interior defences. One after the other, Alice's friends were killed off, whether by the defence systems or the bioweapons still remaining in the lab facilities. As Alice and Claire neared their goal, they discovered the vast stasis facility where Umbrella's command staff were all being held in suspended animation, planting explosive charges within. They then proceeded to the lowest level where they encountered Wesker, the Red Queen, and the real Dr. Isaacs who had recently been released from stasis. Isaacs taunted Alice by brandishing the canister containing the antivirus, threatening to drop it there and then if Alice didn't surrender. However, Isaacs wasn't the only member of Umbrella's High Command to have been awoken from stasis: Alicia Marcus, Umbrella's true owner, had also been awakened, just so that Isaacs could gloat over her while he reshaped the world in his image. This was a grave error on Isaacs' part as Alicia used her authority to fire Wesker. With Wesker immediately stricken from the company's personnel, the Red Queen was allowed to act against him and slammed a blast door on him, severing his arm and leaving him bleeding to death.
While Claire escaped from the Hive, Alice fought against Dr. Isaacs who had been augmented in some fashion. Alice was able to overpower Isaacs and take the antivirus from him, escaping to the surface just as the explosives went off, destroying the Hive and killing all of the Umbrella staff in stasis.
Architecture[]
The Hive was built half a mile underground and served as both the workplace and residence for over 500 Umbrella employees. The complex had been built in a similar shape to a beehive, consisting of different layers dedicated to different purposes. The residential and office spaces were designed to feature false windows with a view of a fake cityscape as a means of maintaining employee morale and productivity. The lowest levels of the facility were where Umbrella's most sensitive and illicit research occurred and was also where Umbrella's High Command members were stored in cryogenic stasis.
Below is a list of recognisable areas of the Hive that have been featured on-screen.
- Train Platform - The outermost area of the Hive consists of a passenger platform and loading dock to receive new personnel and supplies from the outside. An Alexi-500 train carriage transports these resources between the platform and the mansion entrance. The main complex can be accessed from the platform via a set of heavy blast doors which are programmed to seal shut in the event of a biohazardous outbreak.
- Offices - The first section of the Hive accessible from the loading dock. Here, Umbrella staff carry out more legitimate corporate activities.
- Research Level - This section consists of various laboratory blocks where experiments with the T-Virus were carried out. When the Hive was initially sealed off, these labs were locked and then flooded by the fire sprinkler system.
- Dining Hall - Despite the name, the Dining Hall was not a recreational or dining area for the Hive staff. This section was a storage facility that contained numerous bioweapons engineered in the lower laboratories, sealed inside metal box-shaped tanks where they were intravenously supplied with nutrients and sedatives to keep them docile.
- Red Queen's Chamber - The system core of the Red Queen was located here, accessible from the Dining Hall through a corridor lined with laser emitters.
- Cryogenic Storage - A vast, multi-leveled space where thousands of cryogenic capsules were contained. It was here that Umbrella's command staff were sealed during the global pandemic waiting for the apocalypse to run its course.
- Kennels - An area of the Hive where numerous Doberman hounds were caged. It is unknown if the dogs kept here were supposed to be used for security or research purposes.
- Utility Tunnels - These passageways ran around and beneath the Hive providing water, gas and power lines for the entire complex. Maintenance staff would use these to get around the facility in the event the elevators were unavailable and could be used to escape from closed off sections in the event of an emergency.
Creatures[]
The following is a list of creatures that were encountered within the Hive.
- Undead - The Umbrella staff that lived and worked in the Hive were infected by the T-Virus, turning them all into mindless, ravenous zombies.
- Cerberus - Dogs infected with the T-Virus would mutate into undead monsters, becoming hostile towards anything that crossed their path.
- Lickers - A type of bioweapon engineered in the Hive laboratories. These mutants could cling to walls and ceilings with their long claws and their tongues could extend several feet. Upon feeding on living tissue, Lickers would mutate into stronger, faster forms.
- Bloodshot - A humanoid bioweapon that lacked any skin tissue, exposing its glistening musculature.