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  • The fact that a Welshman seems to be in charge of the American IMF is puzzling!
    • In the series they a multi-national private espionage organization, commonly employed by the U.S. Government, so they could put anyone in charge.
      • In the series it was at least implied that they were part of the U.S. government, since their leader is called "The Secretary" (a title used for the heads of U.S. government departments) and they seemed to do a lot of things to advance U.S. interests. But yeah, you could still interpret it as a private organization.
  • One thing that's not altogether clear is why McCloy goes along with Ambrose's plan. Grabbing the Bellerophon from Nakovitch is one thing given that he ran off with it, but having no problem breaking into his building and stealing the Chimera virus in order to sell it back to him? Why the hell would he go along with that? Did his company not bother telling him that armed men attacked his building, killed scores of guards and stole a WMD?
    • Because it was McCloy's plan in the first place: he wanted to sell Bellerophon, using Chimera to boost demand. This was foiled when Nakovitch stole all the Bellerophon, and even more once Ambrose stole the last of the Chimera. Thus Ambrose is just selling McCloy his own plan, but McCloy needs both pieces from Ambrose. Now that Ambrose has both pieces, "he could sell them anywhere", and has other buyers lined up, but McCloy is easiest.
    • Whether McCloy was upset that Ambrose broke in and stole the virus doesn't matter once it was done. Ambrose has both the virus and the cure, neither of which McCloy wants being sold to anyone else.
      • Except that he offered Ambrose £37 million before that.
      • ... when Ambrose only had Bellerophon, not Chimera ("two halves of the same dollar bill"): you need both to make money.
    • About the only possible explanation is that McCloy thought that Ambrose stole both of them from Nakovitch and not just Bellerophon, which Ambrose indeed had thought he had done at the start of the film. This doesn't explain why McCloy doesn't seem interested in or aware that someone stole another sample of the virus and slaughtered countless guards in the process, but evidently if he is concerned and aware he doesn't connect the dots and realize that Ambrose never had the virus in the first place and, thus, was the culprit of the attack on his company.
      • That does seem to pretty much be what happens. Before the attack, Ambrose seemed to just be showing that he had Nekhorivich's work, which McCloy would want to pay money to get back. Afterwards, McCloy may well figure out that Ambrose had broken into the building, but since Ambrose has control of all materials, knowing this information would not be all that useful.
      • Could be that he is worried what will happen to him should he say no, I mean Ambrose is obviously quite crazy and dangerous.
      • One also wonders if McCloy really had any other viable option. Let's face it, his security system, personnel-wise, is a complete joke, and he probably knows it. And I've got the impression that Australian public and probably even government weren't exactly aware of the nature of the project, so turning to law enforcement agencies is probably ruled out. That leaves him with few possible alternatives apart from complying with Ambrose' demands.
    • Over and above all of this, Ambrose's team breaks in to the building, killing guards in the process, then by the end of the scene is reduced to about 6 men, and Ethan's escape calls on more guards (armed and wearing armored vests) rushing to the scene. How exactly did they escape with Nyah? "Oh hey, we're just some random guys not associated with your company, carrying guns, in a destroyed lab. Don't mind us, we'll show ourselves out."
  • Why does Ambrose just let Nyah go after she injects herself with the Chimera virus? I can understand that he doesn't want to be anywhere near Nyah after she's contagious, but he lets her go when there's still time for Hunt to cure her or for her to commit suicide. Doesn't that seriously jeopardize his plan?
    • Because Ambrose wants Nyah to start the epidemic, as revenge for her betrayal ("... you're going to take a lot of Aussies with you and make me a lot of money. ... In just a few hours you can be assured of going down in history as the typhoid Mary of Oz.").
    • This doesn't jeopardize Ambrose's plan because he took a pint of Nyah's blood as a backup, which he can sell, and in fact proceeds to offer it to McCloy.
      • This is explained immediately after the lab scene (Swanbeck and Ethan talk, explaining the blood draw, and then Ambrose and Nyah talk, explaining the Ambrose's plan for Nyah to start the epidemic), and the Chimera-infected blood is analyzed by McCloy at the lab building.
      • This is also implied by Nekhorvich's plan: he injects himself with the virus and has 20 hours to get to Atlanta: he's not contagious before then, and they'll take his blood on arrival.
    • Maybe storing the sample of her blood under some special conditions is enough to keep the virus alive?
      • They specifically mention later on that the blood sample contains more than enough Chimera for their purposes.
    • He likely doesn't consider that she might try and commit suicide, which can be a case of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good if it never occurs to him that she would be willing to kill herself to save everyone. (it's possible he did and considered that a Sadistic Choice and revenge on her for "betraying" him, but he does seem to believe that the release of the virus was imminent so this is unlikely). The most probable explanation though is just that he didn't think she would be able to kill herself in time, or he didn't considered that she'd jump off a cliff to do it and thought that leaving her in the centre of town limited her options to do so safely (i.e. if she, say, jumped off a building or got hit by a car, the virus might still be released from her corpse). We also don't know for certain if Nyah jumping into the ocean would guarantee the virus being destroyed or simply infect underwater life and later humanity anyway.
    • As for Ethan, that one is easier - his crew had checked her for transmitters already and she had been clean (since the one she actually had can't be detected), so he genuinely thought they had no way of tracking her down- as it happens, if their laptop wasn't needing repaired, she would have been found much earlier, but he has no way of knowing that and may have interpreted Hunt not showing up to save her earlier as further proof that he can't find her.
    • It should also be kept in mind that Nyah killing herself or Ethan saving her doesn't automatically screw up his plan all that much, just delays it, as he takes a blood sample from her and can potentially release the virus later on once he realises what happened. He would also still have bought his controlling stock in the pharmaceutical company and has others (as well as terrorists) already waiting to buy as well, none of whom presumably know he plans to unleash it himself, so he'd make a massive profit either way.
      • Yeah, I'm pretty sure releasing her was just pure sadism. Even if she manages to keep from infecting anyone, he doesn't lose anything (since he already has the samples, and can release Chimera later if he needs), and she'll either commit suicide or die painfully once the virus goes into its final stage.
  • Why are the bids in pounds? They're in Australia, and Australia has used the Australian dollar since 1966.
    • Presumably this is "because they're (basically) British, so they must use the pound", and using a dollar would be confusing with the US dollar.
  • If the virus takes 20 hours to be contagious, and the break-in occurred after 11 pm (so Nyah injected herself after this), Nyah had until 7 pm the next day to be cured (about sunset in Sydney at this time of year: late March/early April). They find her much earlier than this: it's not near sunset (early afternoon, say 2 pm), but they act as though it was close.
  • How does Nakovitch find a non-stop flight from Sydney to Atlanta?
    • There are no non-stop flights from Sydney to Atlanta (it would be 19 hours, which is longer than any regular commercial flight). The flight map shows Sydney to Atlanta, and he has three and a half hours left of 20 hours when the flight is two and a half hours away (implying a 19 hour flight time), but no flight exists.
    • ... and this implies he injected himself *at lift-off* (after security and boarding the plane).
  • Why does Nakovitch absolutely need to go to Atlanta, within 20 hours?
    • The CDC is admittedly based in Atlanta, but he just needs to get to a medical facility, presumably in the US.
    • The timing doesn't work; there are no non-stop flights: they all go via Los Angeles or Texas (Dallas or Houston). Stopping there, the timing is more feasible (14 or 15 hour flight).
    • Even on a non-stop flight, with border control, there's no way he'd get to the CDC in time.
    • Presumably the intention was for it the timing to be close, but it doesn't add up.
  • The initial bids for Bellerophon are ludicrously low; £37 million is about the cost of developing a single vaccine (before trials), much less a super cure.
    • This is because Ambrose can't monetize it otherwise, so McCloy is the only effective partner: it's only good against Chimera, so he has "half of a dollar bill", and when Ambrose also gets Chimera, he expects to earn billions (in stock value).
  • Why does Ambrose want a controlling stake in the company?
    • He's after the money; he doesn't need to run a drug company.
    • Maybe it's just sadism? Taking McCloy's company away too, adding insult to injury?
  • Who's going to write Ambrose all those options?
    • He's asking for options for 51% of Biocyte: these need to be backed by actual shares.
    • When companies issue their own options, they back them by owning a portion of their own shares, in an "option pool", so he'd need Biocyte to own more than 51% of its own shares and issue him options on them. ... which is unlikely, and requires board approval (it's assuming that McCloy effectively owns the whole company).
    • If he wants to buy them on the open market, he needs a bank (or fund) to let him make a huge gamble ... and then pay him his winnings, rather than e.g. refusing to make good, on suspicion of market manipulation.
    • For the options to be useful, they need to be honored (instead of the seller/writer of the option just declaring bankruptcy), so he needs a bank that's going to buy $2.4 billion of shares (48 million at $50 strike price) and deliver them to him. (The bank would actually buy these shares on the way up, but that's still likely over $1 billion of outlay.)
    • Call options on 51% of a company is extraordinarily high (more than the rest of the market together, even on a speculative company), so it's impossible to buy that volume: no-one will sell it.
      • Traders sell call options (right to buy) with the expectation that they can buy the underlying stock if needed to "hedge" their position (so they have a share to deliver). This is easy if it's a small quantity (so they can buy immediately if it increases in price), but difficult if it's a large position.
      • For example, with that level, the existing holders of 50% of the shares could refuse to sell theirs, driving the price ever upwards: a short squeeze. Thus it's highly unlike a trader will take this risk.
  • How would Biocyte distribute Bellerophon, in case of an epidemic?
    • Given how contagious and fatal the disease is, they'd need to have it already manufactured and distributed around the world before the outbreak happened, otherwise everyone would die before they could be cured. As we've seen with COVID vaccines, this takes a long time.
    • Especially with Nyah loose, if she started an epidemic, they'd need to have massive production by the next day. (Ambrose says 3 million in Sydney, 17 million in Australia within days.)
  • The plan for the disease and its cure developed over the movie.
    • McCloy's plan was originally as follows: he had Nakovitch develop a super flu, Chimera, to drive demand so that he can sell its cure, Bellerophon. He tested it out on Bruny island, accidentally killing five hundred people.
    • Nakovitch originally thought he was working on a universal flu cure (in developing Chimera), but realized McCloy's plan and tried to foil it by taking all the Bellerophon with him, and injecting himself with Chimera, which can then be drawn out at the CDC in Atlanta.
      • At this point McCloy has Chimera but no Bellerophon, and Nakovitch has both Chimera and Bellerophon.
      • Presumably he takes all the Bellerophon so that McCloy can no longer release Chimera (since he has no cure to sell).
      • He doesn't destroy the Chimera, as that would be too visible (it's alarmed) ... though presumably the Bellerophon would also be alarmed?
      • It would obviously be safer to bring infected blood (as Ambrose has later on), and he's already transporting suspicious vials of Bellerophon. Perhaps there's no time to culture it before leaving, though he could inject himself before the flight, then draw his blood and cure himself at a lay-over.
    • Ambrose steals the Bellerophon but kills Nakovitch, so he doesn't have Chimera. At this point Ambrose has all the Bellerophon, and McCloy has all the Chimera.
    • The cure is only valuable in combination with the disease (Chimera) ("two halves of the same dollar bill"), so McCloy makes the top offer of £37 million (which is absurdly low for an effective drug, but Ambrose has no other buyers).
    • Rather than accept this, Ambrose realizes that he can steal the virus himself, so he has both the virus and the cure, and can sell it to anyone, negotiating a much higher price.
    • Ethan's plan is to destroy all the Chimera, so there's no more threat, and Ambrose's cure is no longer valuable.
    • Ethan almost succeeds, destroying all the virus except one injection gun.
    • ... which Nyah then injects into herself, and is recaptured by Ambrose.
    • Ambrose now has all the Bellerophon (in vials) and all the Chimera (in Nyah).
    • Ambrose draws blood from Nyah, so he has a supply of Chimera, and lets Nyah loose to start the epidemic anyways.
    • Swanbeck wants both Bellerophon and Chimera.
    • Ambrose then negotiates with McCloy to instead get a majority stake in Biocyte, expected to be worth almost 10 billion ... pounds (?) (options for 48 million shares, at over 200 pounds (?) each, is 9.6 billion).
      • He needs Biocyte to produce and distribute Bellerophon: any large drug company would do, but McCloy is already a known evil and has the facilities.
    • Ethan then recovers all the Bellerophon and all Nyah's Chimera-filled blood (in the canister), and then Nyah herself ... and cures Nyah and burns the canister, destroying both the Chimera and the Bellerophon, so none of either are left. (Disobeying Swanbeck; Ethan states Bellerophon was only useful against Chimera.)

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