How GeoPharm Manufactured a Zombie Outbreak [Dead Island]

Have you ever wondered why it's always the seemingly benevolent pharmaceutical companies that are behind every zombie outbreak? Well, today we go over the events of the Dead Island games to find out why GeoPharm was responsible for this apocalyptic event. We also get into the roots of the Palm Golden Order, as well as the Consortium, to find out who was behind it all and for what reason.

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast. My name is Brett and today I wanted to talk about yet another game whose main antagonist is a pharmaceutical company that somehow got into genetic engineering and caused an outbreak of zombies. Today, that is the Dead Island series. Specifically I wanted to talk about the zombie infested Banoi Island where the games take place and how exactly it became known as the dead island.

It all started with a fellow by the name of Ronald Crown who founded a company called GeoPharm with co-founder Chase Barrister somewhere in the late 20th century. It’s not specifically mentioned when, but given the commercial success of the company along with some other dates that we will get to in a bit, I can assume that it was founded in the late 70’s, possibly the early 80’s. Ronald and Chase started GeoPharm with the noble intention of curing diseases, as they all tend to start. Together, they built their first laboratory in San Francisco before moving to the Banoi Archipelago to establish the next several labs.

The move from San Francisco to the Banoi island was likely because of their shady practices. While Ronald and Chase had initially set themselves up on a moral high ground, Ronald himself put their practice as “a means to an end, a necessary evil to cure disease” which involved plenty of unsanctioned animal testing. We know this from various animal cages being mentioned in the book as well as from the main game where West mentions that their previous lab was firebombed by animal rights activists which was a constant problem for them among their other labs. One of the survivors in Escape Dead Island, Cliff Calo, was only ever on the island to investigate the shady practices of Geopharm after he was disgraced by his family.

However, the corporation didn’t start out like that. Like I mentioned, it was a means to an end. Initially it was much more idealistic with the aims of curing the most fatal diseases around the world, including one neurological disease called “Kuru” which was widely spread among the local tribes and was believed to be ground zero for the zombie outbreak. But their idealism all changed with one discovery and a little bit of corporate greed.

When they built their offshore facility, Chase soon came to discover a major find which he called the Hewitt Kahn Enzyme Accelerator, or HKEA for short. HKEA is actually a virus that was developed to combat the Kuru virus, and is capable of being programmed to express proteins as desired similar to a modern RNA vaccine. First, they tried testing it on some anemones which were infected with the Kuru virus, and the initial test results were very positive but inconclusive as to how they would work on humans.

Since it would be unethical to request human subjects to be injected with a fatal virus, they tested it against another RNA-editing enzyme called ADAR1 which they believed would cause a safe level of mutation without being unsafe. Some of the test subjects were exposed, either accidentally or intentionally, to HKEA programmed to express the Kuru virus protein and either due to the expression of the Kuru protein, or the ADAR1, or both, the HKEA developed anomalous properties and generated bloodborne stem cells that congested along the spinal column. This development seems like it was unintentional, but it was considered promising. The research team ended up dropping the use of HKEA for treating the Kuru virus and instead started focusing on these new developments to see how they could use it. 

Shortly after they discovered the HKEA, Ronald’s son, Emory Crown, started pushing his father more and more towards wanting to take control of the business. Emory had been hanging around with a bunch of rich folks who called themselves the Palm Golden Order who had been told about the development of HKEA, and they wanted to take control of it for themselves and so they used Emory as a means to an end. Ronald found out who they were, and he did not trust them and so he tried his best to keep the HKEA out of their hands while still developing it. In trying to find a use for the production of the stem cells, Robert and Chase discovered (likely through animal testing) that the HKEA in its current state was extremely dangerous in that it was causing extreme cancerous growths on the cell tissue that it was supposed to be repairing which meant that Ronald would try to keep it closer to his chest to make sure that no one else got their hands on it.

Then, of course, the unthinkable happened when Ronald found out about an unknown, unauthorised researcher for an outside group conducted a live test using the HKEA and killed a patient as a result. Ronald and Chase were horrified by this outcome. Ronald especially because he had been trying to keep it a secret from the world after his son tried to pry it from his hands. Ronald immediately demanded a full stop in the development of the HKEA as a result, as his initial vision for the company was to help people, not kill them.

However, Emory was not happy with the idea of the production stopping, so Emory had his own father kidnapped, assaulted, and locked in his own facility. But for what purpose? To make him sign over the company to Emory and the Palm Golden Order under duress so that they could keep it going long enough to cash out on it. Before Ronald signed the company over, he was able to get a message out to his co-founder, Chase, to tell him what was happening and to find a place for himself and his son, Kevin, to hide. Unfortunately, Emory was way ahead of them both and Chase was “made an example of”. We don’t know what this means, exactly, but there’s no record of him after that point so we can assume that he was killed.

Kevin Barrister harboured a hatred towards Emory for the disappearance of his father, and rightfully so. Kevin turned to criminal activities that made use of the computer and other technological skills that he had learned over his time working with his father at GeoPharm, working for the criminal underworld and eventually terrorist organisations under the moniker “Charon”. Charon, for those who don’t know, was the ferryman in Greek mythology that transported the dead across the river Archeron to the underworld in exchange for souls. Seeing as all of the work he did was to avenge his family, I think that it’s a clever little name if not a little too on the nose.

All of this work, however, wasn’t just to cause aimless destruction but to gain enough notoriety that eventually, Kevin would be contacted and hired by the Consortium, which was the company who oversaw the work of the Palm Golden Order, bringing his plan full circle.

But what did the Consortium and the Palm Golden order want with the HKEA and GeoPharm, and what was Kevin’s plan to overthrow them? Well, GeoPharm was made on the premise of curing diseases and ailments, but the Consortium wanted to do the reverse– create diseases that could be weaponized and sold to the highest bidder. That wasn’t their only goal, as it seems like they had their hands in just about everything, but that’s what they wanted GeoPharm for. The company didn’t technically exist, for legal purposes, but was rather an idea that was controlled by a few wealthy folks who would take interest in a company and find a way to sleuth their way into it. That’s why they couldn’t just buy out GeoPharm or have it signed over to them, but had to have the company signed over to Emory who was under their influence.

So once Emory had taken over GeoPharm, they had put a hold on vaccine production and took a hard shift into bioweapons engineering using the research that had been facilitated by Ronald and Chase. They would still work on vaccines, but only after they had created a successful bioweapon so that they could subsequently sell the vaccines to keep a good public face while making millions off of their own catastrophes. They would continue using animals and humans in their testing, despite it being a little less than legal. But because the Consortium had connections with people in high places, they never saw any repercussions except the constant attacks on their labs by activist groups. This is likely the reason that most of their labs were built either offshore or in secluded locations to keep away prying eyes and public media.

An indefinite amount of time later, Ronald Crown, the founder of GeoPharm, passed away. Once again, there’s no definite timeline of events. The only actual date that I can find is that supposedly Ronald passed away in 1997, but I can’t for the life of me find the source on that. It’s just mentioned across the character pages on the wiki. So, take that with a grain of salt because it doesn’t seem like there is anything concrete here unless I am missing something. The active theory surrounding his death being that he couldn’t stand to see what had been made of his life’s work. Seeing his research that was supposed to help people used as a means to make bioweapons for profit filled him with a deep grief, and he passed away due to a lack of will to live.

So the Consortium, in full control of GeoPharm, began reverse engineering the research on the Kuru virus to weaponize it. They eagerly began research on this project after initial polling suggested that it could have a profit margin in the billions by both selling to their employers and military organisations around the world. And this is where most of the aforementioned human testing came into play in their labs on the Banoi Archipelago. The tribespeople that had the Kuru virus went from being test subjects for a cure for their afflictions to being patient zero for a more aggressive weaponized version of their plague. And because they were a small tribe in the middle of nowhere, no one really noticed them going missing.

Eventually, the researchers discovered that the Kuru virus seemed to have mutated to a more deadly virus than they had seen before. They dubbed this Pathogen HK, which consisted of a stronger and faster variant of the Kuru virus, HIV, and other diseases combined and mutated together over the course of many years unchecked. They theorised that the disease was able to evolve to such a deadly state because of the cannibalistic nature of the tribes, which was brought upon by the original Kuru virus. Pathogen HK very quickly infected and effectively killed any humanity in the host, leaving only their most primitive functions active. The host would become highly aggressive and was prone to attacking anything in its vicinity, devouring their prey as they killed which would spread the disease further. However, they found that in certain cases, the host would be entirely asymptomatic and could transmit the disease through bodily fluids such as blood and saliva, which meant that they could easily infect a great population in a matter of minutes under the right circumstances.

The Consortium was enthralled by this idea. They could infect one or a few people, and basically kill a population in the blink of an eye. An international team was assembled to carry out experiments where they would try to isolate the stable version of the pathogen to be weaponized. This quickly became their top priority, and they created many different versions of the pathogen to be tested in what were supposed to be isolated groups for effectiveness across the archipelago. It was key that the virus stayed on the island for the time being so that the worst case scenario was that they lost control of one island instead of an entire nation. So they began introducing the pathogen into tribal groups on the island to see the ramifications on a smaller scale.

In tandem with the bioweapon, they needed to make sure that they had a vaccine in their back pocket before sending it out into the world. They would slowly try to introduce a vaccine into their test groups and learned that a small group of individuals, all with 0 Negative blood type, seemed to be immune to the virus and deemed that the key to developing a vaccine. Then in typical Bond villain style, they used their immense resources to scan a multi-national blood drive under a variety of monikers to find unwitting testing subjects that they would invite to a resort on the island.

Nine people in total were ultimately selected and contacted by way of inviting them for a free, all-inclusive two week stay on the island that they won in a random sweepstakes draw. They were chosen not just because they had the right blood type but because they had a history of healthy, resistant immune systems and fit the demographic of being young, healthy and physically fit. This was so that the subjects would likely be able to fight back against the infected and follow the trail by the Consortium and their agents back to the labs on the island.

The owner of the resort, Kenneth Ballard, often used his resort for illegal activities (assumedly trafficking drugs and the like) and so the Consortium was able to pay him out to receive the test subjects and make it feel like they really won a free trip. One of the agents that the Consortium hired was none other than Kevin “Charon” Bannister, who had recently come under their employ as a tech wiz and hacker. They also had a GeoPharm scientist by the name of Dr. Robert West who would be planted at the lab and would lure the subjects there so that he could gather their blood and use it to develop a vaccine.

Now, here’s where I have a major complaint. And, yes, there have been plenty of things wrong with this story up to this point, but here’s my tipping point; the Consortium is large enough to have dealing with governments, militaries, and PMC groups, but for some reason they felt the need to make this huge song and dance routine to get blood from nine people in the hopes of creating a vaccine. I feel like with the depth of their influence, they could have had these people abducted in their homes or roofied at a nightclub in order to get their blood, but no– they had to fly them out to an island where they would be potentially killed by a bunch of ravenous diseased tribespeople so that they could give their blood willingly to a lab rat under the assumption that they even get to the lab in the first place. I said that this is Bond villain behaviour before, and that wasn’t just a turn of phrase. This is actually the most roundabout dance that I could think of. But I digress.

With Kevin, or Charon, in their employ, they figured that they would have complete surveillance on the island and a way to lure the subjects to the lab with his skills. Little did they know, Kevin had his own plans to release the disease into the world as a sort of twisted plan to get revenge for his father’s death at the hands of the Palm Golden Order, as mentioned before. His plan was that he would find a way to incapacitate or hold the subjects hostage and, once he had destroyed those who were responsible for his father’s death with the bioweapon, he would auction them off to the highest bidder for them to create a vaccine. That way he would have a mass of wealth and the satisfaction that his family had been avenged. Speaking of Bond villains… yeesh. At this point, I’m going to just refer to Kevin as Charon, because he clearly wasn’t himself past this. He was in his villain era, full stop.

By the time that the test subjects were on route to the resort, the island was already essentially lost. Whether it was by design or not, I think that what they had intended had gone a little out of control. It was no longer just the tribes that were infected on the island, but thousands of tourists, resort employees, and other island residents had been essentially turned into zombies. Most people who were still alive resorted to vandalism, taking out the authorities while becoming scum of the earth raiders, stealing everything they could get their hands on and killing anyone who got in their way. This is where the first Dead Island game starts.

The island was basically set on fire, and that did not go unnoticed. Remember that just because the Consortium and GeoPharm have plenty of going-ons on the island doesn’t mean that they own it. The Banoi Island Defense Force was a military force on the island that acted as an extension of the police force, but… obviously a little more extreme. Their leader was Colonel Ryder White, who made the events of the island known on a global scale, instilling fear and panic about a zombie outbreak worldwide. Ryder called for a nuclear strike on Banoi if the situation continued to worsen. Whether or not he was the one in control of the nuclear weapons… I really don’t know.

Of course, the Consortium couldn’t just have all of their research wiped away in a blaze of glory before they could sell the virus to the world, so they had their agents investigate Ryder and attempting to blackmail him in a live interview, using photos of island residents and asking if he would be willing to personally execute them by way of a nuclear strike. One of the photos that was presented to him was of his wife, and they saw that he had a moment of weakness where they knew that he would not call a strike if it meant killing his wife. In the meantime, they had a plan to infect his wife so that they would be able to stall and have reason to finish the bioweapon along with the vaccine so that if he did blow up the island, they would still have their research. Ultimately, it worked. Ryder did everything that he could to make sure that the vaccine got developed once he learned that his wife had been turned.

Unfortunately, Charon didn’t want the vaccine to be developed before he could unleash the virus on the world, so he did a number of impersonations of Ryder to guide the surviving test subjects to the GeoPharm lab where they would meet with Dr. West to work on a vaccine and bioweapon simultaneously. While the survivors had unknowingly helped them finish work on the mutagen with the use of Pathogen HK’s patient zero, Yerema, Charon unlocked some infected test subject’s cages to kill Dr. West and his associates before they could create the vaccine.

Charon then, still impersonating Ryder, led the survivors to the mutagen lab where they would obtain the virus, but lied and told them that it was the vaccine instead. They were to grab the bioweapon and deliver it right to him and escape the island together.

There’s a lot that happens here so I’m going to do my best to TL;DR it. Ryder found out that Charon had been impersonating him and had locked Charon in a room and taken what he assumed was the vaccine from him. Not knowing that it was actually the bioweapon, not the vaccine, he used it on himself in an attempt to save his own life after being bitten by his infected wife. The virus caused Ryder to become a super zombie, and it was up to the survivors to kill him and escape the island with Charon who managed to free himself and the patient zero, Yerema. So the bioweapon had been used up on Ryder, but Charon now had Yerema, the source of the virus, to attempt to create another version which he could use on a global level.

The Consortium had witnessed all of this, and was powerless to stop it. However, they saw how Ryder had basically been turned into a superhuman with the use of the manufactured virus. They recognized the faults in this being used, because they wouldn’t be able to control someone who was infected with the virus, but they also saw this as a means to an end and knew that if they could refine it, their hopes and dreams could still come true. This is where the events of Dead Island: Riptide happen.

Another summary here is necessary because I don’t think that the entire plot it’s important to what’s happening with GeoPharm and the Consortium, but here’s what is important: Yerema had been taken to the Consortium headquarters by Charon, who was still under the guise of working for them. They kind of came to the understanding that Charon might have other plans that didn’t necessarily align with their own, but they decided to let it slide because he was still an important piece of the puzzle for them. Plus, their ideals did meet somewhere in the middle, they just diverged from that point and the Consortium was content with working with him until that point.

They found out that the nearby island of Palanai was likely the origin of the Kuru virus, brought over to the Banoi by island raiders. It also turns out that during WWII, the Japanese found out about it and had done some experiments of their own similarly to the Consortium. So they were able to use some of their research to better develop the Kuru virus into a bioweapon. So in testing their new information, they caused another outbreak on Palanai because it worked out so well for them the first time. The resulting mutations were consistent with the research previously done by Dr. West on Banoi while the vaccine testing all resulted in horrific deaths which strengthened their need for the Banoi survivors once again to be guinea pigs for the vaccine.

Long story short, they forcibly tested one of their more stable mutagens on researcher Harlow Jordan, who helped engineer it. Harlow went into a superhuman rage and killed all of the researchers before she was ultimately killed by the survivors after they injected themselves with the same mutagen, giving them the strength to be able to deal with her and then escaped the island by boat.

Ultimately, this was the last known act by the Consortium to create bioweapons, but it’s assumed that they tried to pick up the pieces again. It was later revealed in the second game that the Consortium was actually also a pawn of a larger company, the Eschanton, and so this rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. It turns out that their goal was to research something called the Autophage, which was something built into every human’s DNA and was essentially a doomsday clock that, when it hit zero, would turn every human into a zombie. And all this time, the Palm Golden Order, The Consortium, and the Eschanton was trying to jumpstart the process with the HK virus so that they could find a way to cure the Autophage when it struck.

So… they’re actually the good guys?

Eventually another prototype called the HK1 Virus was used to cause a much larger outbreak in Los Angeles to eventually find the ultimate cure that would save everyone on Earth from turning into a zombie. Basically, kill a few million to save a few billion.

In the end, Emory died before the events of the Escape Dead Island game. When? No one knows. Charon, as far as we know, is still alive and working for the Consortium. He hasn’t gotten revenge yet, so he’s still hanging on.

And, well, that’s about it. So ultimately it became much more than just GeoPharm, and turned into a whole conspiracy about how it was all for the greater good, but it all has its roots with GeoPharm, having come up with the original HK Virus. So we can all just blame them and call it a day, I think.

But, what do you think? Do you think that if Emory wasn’t such a piece of human garbage that GeoPharm would have been able to do some good in the world, or do you think that the Palm Golden Order and the Consortium would have found a way to exploit them regardless?

You can find us online @loredtodeath on your favourite social media or podcast websites. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please send me a message wherever you can find me, or at loredtodeath@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

Just remember, if someone is offering you fame and fortune for selling out your family, they probably aren’t your friends. A few billion dollars can get you a lot, but it can’t get you the secret meatloaf family recipe that your Grandma is holding. I’ll lore you to death in the next one. C’ya.