Initiative

The Initiative is a fictional secret government organization in the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Origins

The Initiative program seems to be established during or before the 1940s, when it employed Angel's talents to liberate a sunken captured German submarine during World War II. It was originally known as the "Demon Research Initiative." The Angel episode "Why We Fight" explained that the Third Reich had a similar program and investigated the possible use of vampires in the war effort with three vampire captives -- Spike, Nostroyev and the so-called Prince of Lies. The Nazis had lured the trio to a supposed virgin-blood party in Madrid. This revelation seems to cast the Initiative in the same light as other WWII era projects, such as the nuclear weapons of the Manhattan Project.

Sunnydale

In 1999, the research center of 'the Initiative' is located underground, beneath the University of California campus in Sunnydale. It is commanded by Maggie Walsh, also a psychology professor at the school. Under her direction, military commandos captured vampires, demons and other supernatural creatures to be studied by scientists for the covert U.S. government operation. The Initiative is able to experiment on these creatures by denying them food until the point of near-starvation, and then providing them with drugged meals; once the creature is unconscious, the soldiers can safely begin their experimentation. A primary goal of the project is to negate the threat that "hostile sub-terrestrial" (demon) entities pose to human beings. However, a more sinister and ultra-classified goal is to hybridize superpowered soldiers. The Initiative's captives have (at various points) included the werewolf Oz and the vampire Spike, the latter of whom was implanted with a chip that caused him to experience extreme pain whenever he attacked (or intended to attack) a human being.

Buffy's boyfriend Riley Finn is initially a member of the Initiative, as are other soldiers posing as UC Sunnydale students, including Forrest and Graham. Riley is unaware that Professor Walsh has also been experimenting on him and the other soldiers, enhancing their performance through methods that threaten their lives (a metaphor for steroid use).

Professor Walsh's secret project eventually results in the creation of Adam, a humanoid creature consisting of machinery, human and demon parts. The project goes horribly awry when Adam kills several members of Initiative (who are re-animated as zombies) and escapes. Adam possesses a strong capacity for strategy, as well as physical strength that is far superior to Buffy's, and only through a spell cast by Willow, Xander and Giles was she able to defeat him.

In the season one episode Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Marcie Ross, an invisible girl, is taken in by the United States government to be trained as an assassin along with other invisible people. It is implied, though not stated, that this organization is the Initiative.

Closure

After his zombified Initiative members and plans for an army of cyber-demonoids are destroyed, along with Adam himself, the Initiative's operations are deemed a failure by a panel of government overseers and are officially closed down. The final word on the secret installation is, "Burn it down and salt the earth", stating in not-so obvious words that this failure is to be forgotten, a typical government cover-up. The Army however, still maintains operations in hunting demons (specifically noting that they are "military" as opposed to "government") and incorporates many of the trained Initiative soldiers, including Riley Finn. They hunt down demon nests in the United States, as well as foreign countries.

Brief Reopening

During the Season 7 episode, "The Killer in Me", Buffy and Spike break into the Initiative to find medicine to dampen the slowly fatal effect of his degenerating chip. While in the abandoned complex, they are attacked by a demon who has managed to survive for over three years. After defeating the demon, they run across operatives sent by Riley Finn who remove Spike's chip.

See also

• List of minor Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters