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IlluminatiFlag

The logo of the Secret Society

"When the sun sets on the Soliton Mountain, the black moon will break into seven pieces and fall on the people "Ultania". Nothing can prevent this... Death and destruction will violate the land. Misery and suffering will assault the people... Then, after 130 days of nothingness, a boy who controls the elements will come to save the people."
-From the Book of Miraha 3:11-, Gill's ending, Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact

The Secret Society (秘密結社 Himitsu Kessha?), also known as the Illuminati (イルミナティ Iruminati?)[1], is a secret organization in the Street Fighter III series, led by Gill. They also appear in Street Fighter V. Very few of the people on Earth know of their existence and workings.

The group is portrayed as a powerful organization that has manipulated many of the events throughout the world of earth to achieve their goals of world domination.

Concept[]

Gill and Illuminati (UDON crew)

Gill and several Secret Society members in the UDON comics.

The Secret Society in the Street Fighter series is based on a real-life historical organization known as the Illuminati (which it is occasionally named in western media), mostly the conspiracy theories and urban rumors that claim said organization has actually manipulated real-life events through the use of the occult and knowledge hidden from current society, in attempts for world domination, with such a rule being known as a New World Order, also the title of a book by the American Christian-Fundamentalist, Pat Roberson, from which the conspiracy originates.

Ironically, while the urban legend claims that Satanic and pagan powers are at work, the theme of its organization in Street Fighter is more Occidental and centered on Christian Eschatology, with its "world savior" meant to resemble Jesus Christ in some aspects, its members claiming its will as "mandated from the heavens", and their purpose being set around building a utopia for its "worthy" followers after the world's apocalypse.

Their workings and followings also bear resemblance to the real-life infamous Japan-based cult, Aum Shinrikyo; said cult has assassinated those that exposed its inner workings and defected. Their members purported to possess beliefs allegedly rooted in Christianity and the workings of Nostradamus (who was a famous physician and seer), are involved in criminal activity and extortion to "prepare" for the end times, and undergo physical training and fitness that was said to have given them powers. Its leaders are also said to have incredible supernatural power, with one of them, the late Shoko Asahara, oddly claimed to be the reincarnation of both the (Gautama) Buddha and Jesus Christ, later arrested and executed for his crimes. After committing the events of sarin gas attacks in Tokyo suburbs and the infamous 1996 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's metropolitan subway system, this would prompt a rise of stories within popular media like video games and anime in the late 1990s to vocalize messages against blind religious fanaticism and extreme dogmatic activity.

Perhaps in the wake of awareness and anticipation of the new millennium of the 2000s, the Secret Society acts in accord with Street Fighter III's themes of to fight for the future as an embodiment of the dark past of humanity that continues to try and seize and win over hope and ideals for a better era; this would not be unlike other fighting game series like World Heroes and Battle Arena Toshinden, where themes of secret societies and powerful villains who command over the future of mankind are prevalent. The nature of conflict and the martial arts also has ties in the historic and human nature themes the Secret Society presents, to how nations and major powers are built off of war and competition, how many of man's enterprises are built off of the labor and backs of others, and to how common supposed divine right and manifest destiny has driven major powers to justify the use of force and fear for their own gain.

Ideals, Beliefs, and Followings[]

According to many of the quotes of Urien and Gill, particularly their talk of DNA, living cells, and inferiority in regards to their fallen opponents, themes of extreme eugenics and Social Darwinism are prevalent within the organization. "Heaven"'s will and might are also spoken of, and its agenda of preparing for its own prophecy of the imminent apocalypse implies the Secret Society regards its ranks and existence as that of a higher plane, "superior" than the majority of the planet who do not know of their existence.

Naturally, despite their intentions, they are hypocritical in their methods. Stooping to kidnapping, brainwashing, extreme force, and funding themselves on criminal activity and the black market, they ultimately profit in monetary and capital gains from the misfortunes of others (orchestrated or otherwise). Furthermore, the philosophical principles they would build their New World Order on are blatantly authoritarian and borderline elitist; they hold the idea that the ends justify the means and perceive their evils, though ultimately irrevocable, as exceptional due to their "superiority".

The Secret Society's holy book is known as the Book of Miraha, and Kolin can frequently be seen reading from it.

Structure[]

Chairman

Chairman of the Secret Society

The ranks of leadership are, from highest to lowest:

  1. Emperor
  2. President
  3. Vice President
  4. Council of Elders
  5. Crisis Management Units

Their ranks are said to only hold the most elite and near paragon examples of humanity; one female presidential candidate was said to have held a PhD. in Sports Dynamics and was also an Olympic-level athlete.

Known Members of the Secret Society[]

  • Gill (the current sovereign of the Secret Society)
  • Urien (second-in-command and Gill's right-hand man) 
  • Kolin (secretary for Gill and the Secret Society)
  • Dr. Woo (scientist for the Secret Society and the creator of Eleven and Twelve).
  • Necro (an unwilling experiment of the Secret Society. Defected from the organization alongside Effie).
  • Effie (one of the many experiments of the Secret Society. Defected from the organization alongside Necro).

They also accept not only the willing but also brainwash and coerce those they find with talents they deem worth putting to use.

Their highest ranks (Vice President, President, and Emperor/"Messiah") demand only the sheer best of the best without exception and are only attainable by worthy birth-given traits. The Secret Society believes that after the death of each Emperor, their soul is eventually reincarnated within the world; in accordance, over one thousand and twenty-four children selected throughout the world are placed within an intensive and demanding development program to find their next leader.

The children are analyzed through extensive research in their individual lineages and genetics, as well as Divination in various astrology systems (Astrology), including Ba Zi (the study of the Chinese Four Pillars of Destiny), Feng Shui, natal charting (the study of Horoscopes), and even various arcane and obscure occult methods unknown or even anachronistic and extinct to the modern eye. After acceptance, they are separated from their birth parents and paired into twos and are brought up in the society's teachings, from academics and occult philosophies, and the group's own noteworthy hand-to-hand training program.

The entire program lasts for all candidates until they are 22 years of age, at which point only one of one thousand and twenty-four children involved will be worthy of the title of Presidency. Presidents who show exceptional acumen are promoted to the rank of Emperor, a secret rank which is known only to few Presidents and the Council of Elders and is also considered the "Messiah". All high-reigning titles last until the age of 46.

Upon their deaths, the brain of the previous leader is removed and then preserved for future guidance. It is unknown how many previous leaders have been preserved in such a way, but it has been stated that such practice has existed for 2000 years since.

SS Troopers

Cammy fighting several of the Secret Society's armored troopers in the UDON comic

In the UDON comics, all of the one thousand and twenty-four candidates are to be pitted into a ceremonial tournament to the death to determine who is the President and Messiah of the Secret Society.

Later on, several heavily-armored Secret Society troopers, possibly intended to be the Crisis Management Units only seen in silhouette form in Urien's Second Impact ending, are seen defending a laboratory being investigated by Delta Blue. They are seen sporting red body armor and wielding assault rifles.

The Sixty-Six Secret Arts of the Secret Society[]

The Sixty-Six Secret Arts are a collection of powerful and extraordinary techniques available only to those of the Secret Society who have gone under the society's intensive hand-to-hand combat training program, where the ability to wield ki and elemental power is developed through such tutelage, and by genetic alterations to enhance the properties of the participants.

Training to master these techniques is said to come from mastery over specific elements by merging them into one's aura. Mastering them all is said to be impossible, as they make the use of all known elemental affinities, while the known maximum elemental capacity in a human is three.

Two of these techniques revealed throughout the series are the Aegis Reflector learned by Urien, and Resurrection, learned by Gill.

History[]

The Secret Society in the Street Fighter series has existed for thousand of years in the regions of the world often renowned for their powerful and influential civilizations (most notably Egypt and Greece), manipulating world political, social, military, and even criminal events (Shadaloo included) in order to achieve an ancient apocalyptic prophecy that would lead to a new age dominated by them.

The Prophecy and Gill as the Savior[]

The Secret Society required a living messiah because their prophecies dictated that the rapture was imminent, thus signaling the end of humanity. Their messiah would be the one who would bring salvation and create a new Eden for the worthy remainder of mankind.

Gill's ending from Street Fighter III: Second Impact provide a paragraph explaining this prophecy; the events that signify the end of the world are said to take place in 2200 AD. The "boy who controls the elements" is said to refer to Gill, and the prophecy predicts that he will act as humanity's savior.

While the prophecy would not come true for another two centuries, Gill, the current emperor, would take it upon himself to create a nation comprised of the fittest and best that humanity had to offer in order to bring about their salvation, feeling that the world's opposing forces have become unstable and imbalanced; Gill saw that the world's state of conflict and change had grown its peak before the eventual catastrophic cataclysm.

To achieve this, he set several plans into motion, all called the "G Project".

The G Project[]

The G Project is a compilation of various activity overseen by Gill to ensure the Secret Society's act of world's salvation. One revolved around an organized fighting tournament to seek out the "worthy", and another included the conduction of illegal genetic experiments to create a race of super soldiers, giving way to the prototype Necro, who would eventually escape and go rogue, and the soldier Twelve the finished product, who was tasked with hunting Necro down. A scientist known as Dr. Woo who was kidnapped by the Secret Society is one of the major figures involved with the G Project.

The G File is a collective documentation of this plan. Although it appears like a scrapbook of various events throughout human history, all events entailed within were orchestrated to ensure the Secret Society's ultimate goal. Ibuki was given a part of the G File containing documents entailing only the first stage of the Project, which were now already within motion. The entire G File consists of over 20,000 volumes of step-by-step instructions for enacting the G Project.

Aspects and World Influence[]

Having existed since the early ages of human civilization, the Secret Society has control over nearly every field of society, with their influence reaching to the upper ranks and hierarchies of governments, corporations, and even the criminal underworld to carry out their bidding.

They are shown to manipulate events and politics throughout the world, and are also seemingly in control of the flow and access of information and knowledge in the world, being shown to hold access to technological and scientific innovations at least generations ahead of what is known to humanity in their current period (e.g. cryogenics and cranial preservation). In addition, they possess knowledge - and proof of existence - of the occult and metaphysical, such as the utilization of ki, chakra, elemental manipulation and harmonizing, and to a lesser extent, magic; they have also created and developed extremely powerful techniques unique only to its members.

According to Gill's conversation with Elena in 2nd Impact, his view of martial arts is seen as a means of power and opposition that "serve solely to assert one's dominance over another", implying that fighting is undeniably valued as a dimension of the Secret Society's greatest aptitudes for showcasing their members' perfection.

The Fall of the "Black Moons"[]

Though having stayed in the shadows for a long period of time, the Secret Society are shown to have a growing role of involvement by the times of Street Fighter V. As Shadaloo experiences rises and falls in power throughout its management under M.Bison, their act of Project C.H.A.I.N.S. is of such a level of immense threat that Urien is forced to intervene with the cartel that the Secret Society helped start. However, it is ultimately unknown what the direction of the Secret Society had in mind for those bleak times; Urien's goals were to stop the commencement of the superweapons from ever being deployed and activated, while Gill and Kolin seemingly desired the end results of Shadaloo's possibly greatest act of terrorism committed. Nevertheless, the crisis was averted thanks to the help of fighters summoned and deployed by the Kanzuki Zaibatsu.

The Reveal of Gill[]

After the Black Moons Incident, Gill unveils himself to the world through the use of live streaming and internet video platforms, specifically akin to G, the self proclaimed "president of Earth". Showcasing his strength in a street fight against G, they exchange a conversation that details Gill's role as "the one who shall truly lead the world".

The Fourth World Warrior Tournament[]

Sometime later, with the aid of his secretary Kolin, Gill organized the Fourth World Warrior Tournament, desiring to learn which of the world's strongest fighters were deemed worthy of survival. Due to their sponsorship however, word leaks out of the rumor of the organization's existence and attracts the attention of many, including Masters Hotel tycoon head and US Martial Arts champion Ken Masters, and even to the reclusive but legendary hermit Oro, to pursue more evidence of the organization's existence. In his Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike ending, Gill collects the most powerful fighters in the world, parts the ocean by sheer force of will, and leads them to his perfect promised land, where they would be safe from the world's destruction.

Gill described this destruction to Yun as two opposing forces of the world becoming imbalanced. Gill's power lies in his own perfect balance of forces, so complete that it is evident in his own body, with the opposing forces of fire and ice separated in perfect symmetry. Gill appears to be able to inflict this balance on others, as demonstrated on Alex in Gill's 3rd Strike ending. This ending also displays him doing the same to the entire island where the promised land exists.

Fate[]

The fate of the Secret Society after the events in 3rd Strike is currently unknown.

Opposition[]

  • Yun and Yang - Out to halt them, as the Secret Society plans to take over the twins' hometown of Hong Kong through underworld influences.
  • Alex - Out for vengeance, as Emperor Gill personally gave his father figure and mentor, Tom, a brutal beating, and also plans to make Alex his disciple.
  • Chun-Li - The President of the Secret Society, Urien, kidnaps a young girl under Chun-Li's care to subject her to genetic modifications. Chun-Li defeats Urien and saves the child.
  • Necro - Mutated human created by failed genetic experiments of the Secret Society. Throughout the Street Fighter III series, he is on the run with his girlfriend, Effie.
  • Ibuki - Tasked to recover the G-Project files from the Secret Society by her village elders.
  • Dudley - Wants to recover his late father's priceless Jaguar sports car, which is also a family heirloom, from Gill.
  • Hugo - Wants to make Gill his tag team partner.
  • Ryu - Aware of Gill's evil intentions and seeks to defeat him.
  • Akuma - Wants to test the strength of the Emperor, Gill. He eventually kills Gill with the Raging Demon, though the Emperor simply remedies this via Resurrection.
  • Urien - Has tried to take over the Secret Society and hopes to take revenge on his Emperor and Brother, Gill.
  • Cammy - According to her, Delta Red maintains an extremely large information database and high prerogative level of monitoring on the Secret Society, which they have not yet been able to act upon due to their inactivity and importance of other active organizations and matters that must be investigated.

Trivia[]

  • The third installment of the Street Fighter III series was coincidentally released during the rise of contemporary music in the mid 1990s featuring themes and references to the Illuminati; notably, one of Tupac Shakur's last albums was that of The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, and shed light on the less than glamorous and totalitarian aspects of the modern day music industry.
  • Most coincidentally, the Street Fighter III series games were also released during the time a small stable in WCW quickly risen to the top, who eventually became the infamous NWO (New World Order, named after the same concept), an unsanctioned, street gang themed faction who wanted to take over and control WCW. Similar to how Urien betrayed the Illuminati, one of the NWO's co-founders Kevin Nash left after growing tensions between the other co-founders Hulk Hogan and Scott Hall, and also found a rival stable named NWO Wolfpac with other like-minded members who had questionable opposite agendas (temporarily, as the later reunited under the name NWO 'Elite'). Subsequently, the original NWO became NWO Hollywood, to separate itself from its defectors.
    • The more mystical elements related to the Illuminati would end up being the motif of WWF/E's Ministry of Darkness, who was formed after the NWO. Much like the secret society in this series, they both have the following similarities:
      • Both the Ministry of Darkness and the Illuminati had a leader (The Undertaker and Gill) who deemed themselves "the savior" to the world while taking responsibility from a higher power (heavens mandate, according to Gill).
      • Both have used eldritch methods to meet their own means (ironically the Ministry used pseudo-Satanic methods while the secret society has a more occidental-Christian approach.) Both groups also have resorted to brainwashing people into joining their ranks.
      • Both leaders have had the presence of an opposite element-themed sibling betrayal (the darkness-themed Undertaker's brother being the fire-themed Kane, for murdering their parents and scarring the latter after burning down their family funeral parlor, whereas Urien's motive was out of the denial of his birthrights) and the ire of a "common man" (Alex and in The Undertaker's case, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, as the "higher power" that Undertaker was following had repeatedly made Austin's life and career as difficult as possible and Undertaker himself for kidnapping Austin's boss's daughter in the hopes of marrying and sacrificing her in a ceremony).
        • Coincidentally, all six named figures mentioned use a form of wrestling as their main fighting style (Gill and Urien with the ancient-styled pankration, Undertaker and Kane with the close-grappling styled pro wrestling, Alex incorporating Kickboxing elements, and Austin being brawler-styled).
  • Their appearance in the series seems to continue a running theme within Capcom games, where the main antagonistic force is a secret society or organization that has controlled civilization's events from behind the scenes for centuries; examples include The Family from Resident Evil 6, and the Genma from the Onimusha series.
  • The organization shares their name with the shared named antagonistic group from the 3D weapon-based fighting game series Battle Arena Toshinden.
  • One of the Secret Society's main hideouts resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy; alternately, the hideout bears resemblance to Renaissance art depictions of the Tower of Babel, and the Te-Men-Ni-Gru of Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening.
  • Alternately, the transcribing of the Prophecy of Miraha from Japanese has a different translation, though shares the same context [2]:
"Upon the summit of the Soliton's Mount, as the sun shall sink into the horizon, the Black Moon shall sunder into seven upon the crown of the people "Altania" and their lavish visage will it descend unto. Neither the highest priest's prayers nor the farmer's simple wisdom shall prevent this. Far and wide, the landscape shall bear witness of a world where wild beasts, raptor and behemoth reign again, a savage world once more where agony and futility are one. After 130 days of silence, a child with golden hair shall appear, bearing power over heat and cold. Compassionate and pure hearted, he shall lead the people and fulfill their prayers as their savior."
—The Prophecy of Miraha - Verse 3:11
  • The verse in this case comes to sound like the coming of Death of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the bible's Book of Revelation:
"When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth. "
—Revelation 6:7-8

Sprite[]

Gill and his followers

References[]

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