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The Ether Biotech Corporation, often shortened to Ether, is an international pharmaceutical company based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Background[]

A subsidiary of the Carlisle Group and secretly one of Providence's main assets, the Ether Biotech Corporation is one of the world's most famous pharmaceutical companies. As a Providence asset, they acquired Dr. Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer's estate, after he was killed by his creation, Agent 47.

Sometime before 2019, the Ether corporation secretly started the "Samael project", DNA Specific Virus, underneath the Caruso mansion in Sapienza, after its owner, Silvio Caruso, gratefully accepted the offer. In 2019, the Shadow Client anonymously disclosed the existence of the virus to one of Ether's major stockholders, prompting her to hire the ICA and Agent 47 to stop the project on ethical grounds by eliminating the two scientists in charge, Silvio Caruso and Francesca De Santis, in addition to destroying the virus itself.

After the project's undoing, Hajun, a Providence Herald, is sent to Italy to investigate and determines that the Ether board had been largely unaware of the project, surmising that it was leaked by someone from the lab. In the aftermath, Ether lost billions of dollars due to the failed project, resulting in their stock completely plummeting.

By 2019, they had developed an antidote to Dr. Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer's amnesia-inducing serum.

In 2020, a sample of this antidote was stolen by Lucas Grey during a raid on their Johannesburg headquarters, also resulting in the kidnapping of their CEO, Neleis De Waal. With the destruction of their headquarters in Johannesburg, and the death of their CEO, Ether's stock once again fell to the bottom.

Following Grey's disbandment of his militia, several rogue members had joined forces with Southeast Asian pirates to raid a tanker covertly shipping Ether's Satellite Uplink Control Unit abroad in the hopes of ransoming the company's "off-world" client data back to the company; as part of its cloud storage network, Ether backed up its client data--in addition to the blueprint for the since-destroyed Caruso virus prototype--to one of several orbiting satellites, or "nodes," within its network.

Ether also offered genome-mapping and high-security DNA storage to its clientele, essentially keeping the genetic code of the global elite "on ice" in the hopes of future immortality. Their off-world storage network was an added benefit to this service.

After terrorist Orson Mills was caught robbing a money transport in Belgium, he was interrogated by the authorities; a team from Ether was sent to chemically extract any information they could from him regarding the whereabouts of his former boss.

Ether was one of several companies that agreed to join Arthur Edwards' supra-national corporate conglomerate, "Destiny Group" as part of his reformed Providence.

In 2021, Ether retro-fitted a Soviet-era military train called The Mortar to use as a mobile field lab in the wake of the destruction of their R&D facility in Johannesburg. Agent 47 was kept here for experimentation until his transport to a CICADA facility in Mongolia but managed to escape.

Members:[]

Names Roles Status
Neleis De Waal CEO Deceased
Unnamed CEO CEO Alive
Klaus Liebleid Head Researcher Deceased
Francesca De Santis Bio-Engineer Deceased
Silvio Caruso Bio-Engineer Deceased
Oscar Wong Bio-Chemist Alive

Assets:[]

Names Organization Occupation Roles Status
Hajun Providence Providence Herald Messenger Deceased
Robert Knox Employer Deceased
Sierra Knox Kronstadt Industries -
  • CFO
  • Racer
Racer Deceased
Ken Morgan Morgan, Yates & Kohn
  • Lawyer
  • Fxer
  • Lawyer
  • Fixer
Deceased
Gary Lunn
  • England Royal Military
  • CICADA -

The Sarajevo Six (Formerly)

The Sarajevo Six Marksman

Security Deceased
Dr. Oscar Lafayette N/A Therapist Therapist Determinant

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Some medical appliances in the GAMA hospital in Hokkaido were produced by Ether.
    • In a conversation with GAMA's director, Yuki Yamazaki confirms that Providence wanted Ether and Kronstadt to work in tandem to create cutting edge technology--such as life-extending products--solely for Providence clients, with GAMA being an example.
    • Additionally, the morgue Curator's brain-implanted chip is designed by Ether.
  • The infiltration of Ether's Johannesburg headquarters is foreshadowed during Freedom Fighters by Sean Rose, though whether the target was Wong, de Waal, or the antidote is unknown.
  • All the poisons Agent 47 can use for his contracts were created by Ether.
  • They own an arcology complex in Shanghai, China.
  • According to two Heralds in The Farewell mission of HITMAN™ III, Ether had developed a popular genome-mapping service, which granted Providence access to the DNA of the global elite "on ice". This is retroactively confirmed in pamphlets and intel found on Ambrose Island in the mission Shadows in the Water.
    • This may likely be related to the Ark Society's DNA Vault Initiative, which planned to freeze its members' DNA to preserve in the event of future collapse. At the time of the Ark Society gathering, the initiative was not popular, but by the events of The Farewell in Mendoza, it had become popular.
  • Intel images in World of Tomorrow show that Ether was originally called Etha. This change appears to have been made early in development, as all textures and dialogue in the level use Ether.
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