B.O.W's are flawed. Concept of biological super soldier doomed.

The one quality of B.O.W's that sets them as an attractive asset for warfare is there superior survivability. Slugs, shells, and HE are not very effective in bringing them down. But all B.O.W's share one common flaw in there makeup. They are all made up of biological matter. And the one weapon that all biological matter is susceptible to is micro-organic self-replicating infectious agents. A single strain of an Ebola virus is caught by a person. Then within a few days an entire population is wiped out. Why couldn't a group of researchers produce a biological weapon in the form of a super virus that destroy the organic matter of a type T-103 from the inside by doing what viruses do best. Destroy living cells and tissue.

I don't understand this grand scheme that Umbrella has with B.O.W's when if introduced into a modern war zone would simply give the opposing side a premise to develop and use biological weapons of there own (infectious agents) to counter a rather easily counter-able threat.

In fact all advanced biological matter posses vital organic systems. Any number of agents can be used to damage critical parts of these systems to shut them down. Take neurotoxins for example.

Many of these weapons are in use today and are being produced in mass quantities. But they are prohibited from use and entities like the UN are keen on regulating there production. Using B.O.W's in the battlefield would just give an enemy the excuse to use these weapons and effectively shut down the threat posed by them.

Umbrella is misguided.

Your logic only applies if the objective of warfare was utter destruction. Admittedly, destruction and countless victims were definitely the consequences of unwanted outbreaks in RE history, but that wasn't Umbrella's intention. Their ultimate objective were soldiers that, with enhanced strength and resistence, were able to, yes, kill, but also efficiently execute at times complex orders, all the time being throroughly controllable.
Unleashing perfectioned BOWs, results of viral engineering, onto a battlefield is one thing. But haphazardly diffusing the very virus onto the world wouldn't necessarily serve anyone's interests, except maybe those of the virus itself.

Umbrella should have stuck to chemical warfare. *troll face*

Trichos wrote:

Your logic only applies if the objective of warfare was utter destruction. Admittedly, destruction and countless victims were definitely the consequences of unwanted outbreaks in RE history, but that wasn't Umbrella's intention. Their ultimate objective were soldiers that, with enhanced strength and resistence, were able to, yes, kill, but also efficiently execute at times complex orders, all the time being throroughly controllable.
Unleashing perfectioned BOWs, results of viral engineering, onto a battlefield is one thing. But haphazardly diffusing the very virus onto the world wouldn't necessarily serve anyone's interests, except maybe those of the virus itself.

Only applies if the objective of warfare was utter destruction? Why is it that my logic of a counter-able threat posed by say a division of B.O.W's only applied if there objective was the complete annihilation of a faction? I don't quite understand what your saying, its a bit to implied. Can you be more explicit?

sofiane12 wrote:

Trichos wrote:

Your logic only applies if the objective of warfare was utter destruction. Admittedly, destruction and countless victims were definitely the consequences of unwanted outbreaks in RE history, but that wasn't Umbrella's intention. Their ultimate objective were soldiers that, with enhanced strength and resistence, were able to, yes, kill, but also efficiently execute at times complex orders, all the time being throroughly controllable.
Unleashing perfectioned BOWs, results of viral engineering, onto a battlefield is one thing. But haphazardly diffusing the very virus onto the world wouldn't necessarily serve anyone's interests, except maybe those of the virus itself.

Only applies if the objective of warfare was utter destruction? Why is it that my logic of a counter-able threat posed by say a division of B.O.W's only applied if there objective was the complete annihilation of a faction? I don't quite understand what your saying, its a bit to implied. Can you be more explicit?

As far as I understood, you recommend developing viruses which would decompose and destroy organic matter. In response to this I wanted to point out that this logic of "Umbrella is mistaken in developing BOW soldiers and should focus on developing such viruses" was only valid if their overall objective was merely to wipe out organic matter (a.k.a. living beings).
Now, I won't rule out that someone at Umbrella could in fact have developed an interest in pursuing that path, but as BOWs like Hunters and Tyrants (especially Nemesis) show, Umbrella's intention wasn't simply to create a BOW whose release would result in the most deaths, but to create something that would follow its respective owners orders while being intelligent enough to pursue its targets, not only on a battlefield in war, but also to e.g. infiltrate facilities and secure and/or destroy information or a specific target.

Maybe I just lack fantasy here, but I can't imagine how you can employ viruses with some sort of precision on a battlefield – I would think that even Umbrella would have had to much worries about the consequences if they just released a virus that could easy spin out of control upon uncontrolled evolution, especially one potent enough to target any organic matter. For this reason, I also think that such a virus as countermeasure against Umbrella BOWs would only be released by lunatics.

Trichos is right. So say Umbrella did send out a battalion of BOWs and the opposing side let this virus loose on them. What now? Now the virus is running rampant and you have a biohazard catastrophe. You can't just program a virus to kill one exact type of thing, which seems to be what you are implying. So this virus will not only kill the BOWs, it will kill everything else as well, including civilians. I mean, if BOWs are easy to counter, why can't the USA just make a virus that will kill only Al Qaeda members? Because it isn't possible. At least not with our current technology.

Ah now I understand.

Well let me just say that was not what I was saying actually. I suggested that umbrella's goal was to develop biological specimens and use them as weapons on the battlefield. I then went on to point out that such specimens could be easily countered in a modern battlefield if a rival faction, be it country or organization, was compelled to utilize the biggest known threat to biological systems. A super virus. I gave further details explaining why I thought it was unfeasible for umbrella to continue this line of development given the fairly easy counter measures that could be produced against B.O.W's. The relatively high cost and production upkeep for producing B.O.W's would far outweigh the production of there smaller and more deadly countermeasure. War of attrition would set in and the whole bio super soldier agenda fall on its face.

Of course this might not happen that way in the event of a war. Say with an enemy that unwittingly resorts to "burning it with cole and fire" method. So against conventional weapons B.O.W's are great. There nearly indestructible. Introduced to cheap anti-personal chemical warfare, and strains of super virus's that could destroy a biological system within minutes, there overpriced glass cannons.

NiteKrawler wrote:

Trichos is right. So say Umbrella did send out a battalion of BOWs and the opposing side let this virus loose on them. What now? Now the virus is running rampant and you have a biohazard catastrophe. You can't just program a virus to kill one exact type of thing, which seems to be what you are implying. So this virus will not only kill the BOWs, it will kill everything else as well, including civilians. I mean, if BOWs are easy to counter, why can't the USA just make a virus that will kill only Al Qaeda members? Because it isn't possible. At least not with our current technology.

I don't think they would be able to do that (with Al-Qaeda) because there of the same species. But you could produce a unique virus to target only certain genetic codes. Viruses are actually more prone to evolving traits that can only effect certain species. The TRIM5-CYP fusion protein in human cells protects against infection so that, for example, feline immunodeficiency virus doesn’t effectively infect us. Certain viruses are produced to eliminate particular plant life in a cultured crop. So in regards to the question can viruses be engineered? The Answer is yes.

As for killing everything else. Even if the virus was harmful to all species it is highly unlikely that it would ever spread on the level required to infect the entire planet. There are already viruses out there that are super deadly to us (Ebola) propagating freely, but does not immediately threaten us. The only way to achieve that level of infection is to have a delivery system with the means to do that. But I would like to assume that whatever country is combating the B.O.W's is prudent enough to devise a delivery system capable of isolating its payload.

The USSR once deployed Spetsnaz in a covert mission to assassinate a descender with a pellet fused with a dose of ricin shot from an improvised umbrella. They succeeded. Mind you a substance like ricin is one of the most deadliest poisons known to man. A single spec the size of a bread crumb coming in contact with your skin is enough to kill you. The deadliest substance known to man though is Botulinum. Its produced by a bacteria and a single teaspoon is enough to kill 1.2 billion people, that is, advanced organic lifeforms. So with the idea that organic species are extremely vulnerable, human or B.O.W, just imagine the possibilities.