Organizations of Alias
The following is a list of organizations in the TV series, Alias.
Alliance of Twelve
The Alliance of Twelve is a fictional international organized crime group in the television series Alias. It is involved in the trade of intelligence and weapons as well as in blackmail. SD-6 is one of its subsidiary cells. The organization was founded by Alain Christophe, once a CIA counterintelligence officer, as well as other former agents of various other intelligence agencies and wealthy individuals investing in the spy trade after the Cold War. The Alliance of Twelve is an enemy of the United States and a rival to the CIA.Organizational structure
The Alliance is led by a board of directors, one of them being Arvin Sloane. Some members are from the private sector, but most are former intelligence officers. All of them are wealthy. The organization is divided into 12 sections, named SD-1 through SD-12. "SD" stands for Section Disparu – literally, the section which has disappeared in French, this was coined by founder Alain Christophe. These organizational cells are spread over 12 major cities of the world. The Alliance takes in recruits and tricks them to believe they are working for the CIA when in reality they are not.Objectives
The purview of the Alliance is the black market trading of weapons, military secrets, industrial intelligence, medical technology, computer advances, and political agendas. Its clients include governments, corporations, wealthy citizens, and families.The Alliance aims to eventually reach world domination through its control over organized crime and the trade of intelligence. According to Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane, the Alliance once wished to change the world when it had achieved this, and rid the world of corruption, but had become bloated and corrupt over the years, diverging from their original vision and focusing instead on profit.
Actions
According to Sydney Bristow in the episode "Q and A", the Alliance of Twelve was responsible for the carbon proxy disaster in 1992, in which an accidental methyl isocyanate leak at the manufacturer plant in Bhopal, Madhyapradesh, India killed three thousand people and injured another thousand, leaving them disabled. In 1996, near Kyoto, Japan, a bullet train accidentally switched tracks and derailed, killing a hundred and fifty people. The Alliance was also responsible for that disaster. In 2001, the Alliance caused a transport plane in Germany to suffer mechanical failures outside Munich, killing twelve people. The disasters were falsely believed to have been accidents. In truth, some were acts of revenge, others were personal favors to those who helped fund the Alliance. Some were distractions so that local resources were occupied so that SD-4 or SD-7 could infiltrate a building somewhere and retrieve sensitive data.SD-6
SD-6, headed by Arvin Sloane and based in Los Angeles, is the focus of the first two seasons of Alias. SD-6 pretends to be part of the CIA and states its objective as "retrieval and study of intelligence both military and industrial throughout the world that is critical to the superiority and survival of the United States of America." Even its own members, initially including agent Sydney Bristow, believe it is a black ops division of the CIA; and only a handful of senior staff know the truth and are complicit in the deception.In the first episode of Alias, Sydney learns from her father, Jack, about the organization's true character as a part of The Alliance of Twelve. During the course of the first season, other heads of the SD cells are eventually shown meeting. Among them was Edward Poole, head of SD-9, who manages to convince Sloane to kill fellow SD head Jean Briault to influence an upcoming vote on whether to declare war on Alexander Khasinau, who has eliminated rival groups FTL and K-Directorate. Another SD leader is identified by the first name "Ramon," but his last name and his SD cell number are unrevealed.
Paranoia and ruthlessness
Of SD-6
SD-6 branch was headquartered in the Credit Dauphine building in Los Angeles, with entry through a special elevator to the sixth sub-level of the building. Every person who entered would be biometrically scanned and visually confirmed. As a security measure, all three areas of the foundations of the building itself were rigged with C-4 explosives that would go off if the inner vault had been breached during a security lockdown or for other contingencies. Fail-safe or lockdown procedures could be carried out only by Arvin Sloane, using his right index fingerprint; presumably, other SD cells had similar contingency plans that would make it difficult to shut down.In addition, SD-6 employed an internal security group responsible for investigating and terminating individuals who even know of SD-6's existence, those believed to know about the true nature of SD-6, or those suspected to be Double agents or traitors to SD-6. Sydney's fiancée, Danny, was murdered by SD-6's internal security division in Season 1 after Sydney revealed to him that she works for SD-6, believing it to be a part of the CIA.
Of The Alliance
In addition to the cell-like nature of Section Disparu, which presumably allows the termination of entire SD cells in the event that it is wholly compromised, the Alliance of Twelve is an utterly ruthless organization that constantly suspects and conduct surveillance of even its head members.When Arvin Sloane's wife, Emily, admits to knowing of the existence of SD-6, Arvin is told to have his wife killed as a test of loyalty. Arvin was able to win a temporary reprieve because of his wife's cancer which would kill her soon; when her cancer is found to be in remission, he is again told that in order to become a "full partner" in The Alliance, he would have to kill his wife. He then faked his wife's death by drugging her wine and putting her in suspended animation.
Having proven his loyalty to the members of The Alliance, he is welcomed as a full partner and injected in the neck with a tracking device and mini-microphone to have his movements and conversations recorded 24/7. Although Sloane was clearly privy to matters that only a handful of men and women knew about, he was clearly not yet part of an 'inner circle' within The Alliance board, suggesting that there is some sense of competition and suspicion among the SD cells and their leaders.
The end of The Alliance
The Alliance came to an end in the middle of Season 2 of Alias when Sydney stumbles upon information, with Sark's aid, that leads her and Vaughn to believe there is one master server, server 47, which could potentially have all the information the CIA would need to shut down all of the SD cells simultaneously, thus acting as a sort of 'silver bullet' to the cell-like nature of the Alliance.Although the server was located on a Boeing 747 plane that was constantly airborne as a security measure, Sydney was able to pose as an escort for the computer technicians on board during one of its landings and copy all the information from the server. When Jack attempted to go back to SD-6 headquarters to get confirmation that the information was genuine, he was apprehended by the acting head Geiger who accused him of being a CIA spy.
Knowing she could not go back herself, Sydney called her SD-6 partner Marcus Dixon to get the confirmation and tells Dixon the true nature of SD-6. With this information, the CIA was able to successfully raid all the offices of various SD cells around the world; Sydney was a part of the CIA team that infiltrated SD-6 headquarters in Los Angeles and rescued her father moments before he would be electrocuted by Geiger. It is then revealed that Sloane had planned the destruction of the Alliance, having a technician bypass the surveillance devices in his neck, and he and Sark had supplied Sydney with the information the CIA needed to remove The Alliance – after he had cleared out all Rambaldi artifacts to his own location outside of SD-6. However, one artifact escaped Sloane's attention. This artifact, the Horizon, had been sought by Prophet Five for thirty years, and was eventually retrieved by Irina Derevko, who then betrayed Prophet Five, almost four years after the fall of the Alliance.
The Covenant
The Covenant is a large, powerful, and secretive intelligence/terrorist organization.The Covenant was a "loose affiliation of Russian nationalists" composed of retired KGB and former Central Committee members, all dedicated to the new world envisioned by Milo Rambaldi. It functioned much like an organized crime family. At one point, it had six cell leaders, until Julian Sark and Lauren Reed assassinated them in a bid for power. The Covenant had secured Sark's release to gain access to his wealth as a Romanov descendant. McKenas Cole had somehow managed to secure his own release and was now the second most powerful individual in the Covenant. During season 3, it was based in St. Petersburg. Two of its front companies were the Dryden Bank and Chantre Telecom.
Following the end of season 2 and prior to the beginning of season 3, The Covenant kidnapped Sydney Bristow and attempted to brainwash her into believing she was a Covenant agent. Sydney operated as a double agent for the CIA using the alias Julia Thorne for almost two years. Eventually, Sydney left the Covenant and had her memory of that time erased in an effort to prevent the Covenant from gaining a crucial Rambaldi artifact, later revealed to be the Sphere of Life. FBI Assistant Director Kendall later told Sydney about those missing years and how she was able to escape the Covenant with his help.
At the end of season 3 Lauren Reed was killed and Sark was captured. In season 4 the Covenant has disappeared as a threat, and Sark later referred to the "implosion of the Covenant." However, the "implosion" was a ruse perpetrated by Elena Derevko, who was revealed to be the leader of the Covenant, and that Irina Derevko had actually been trying to prevent Elena's endgame. Elena's new headquarters is in Prague and was eventually raided; however, she managed to escape.
Elena's endgame, based on her interpretation of one of Rambaldi's prophecies, was an apocalypse called Il Diluvio, The Flood. Covenant operatives primed the world's water with Rambaldi substances and Elena activated an enormous Mueller device in Sovogda, Russia. The device broadcast a frequency which caused those who had consumed the tainted water to go into a mindless rage. Elena's intent was that, after the entire world's population had been affected, the Earth would be "cleansed" with very few survivors. With the help of Irina, the APO team managed to prevent The Flood, and Irina killed Elena. However, Nadia Santos had been captured and injected with the tainted water and sent out to fight her sister Sydney, as foreseen by Rambaldi. Sydney only managed to survive with the intervention of Arvin Sloane, who shot Nadia and put her in a coma.