Emory Crown is a character mentioned in Escape Dead Island. He was the CEO of GeoPharm, following his father Ronald Crown after the latter's death in 1997.
Emory was the son of Ronald and as such went with him when he set up GeoPharm in the Banoi Archipelago. When Ronald constructed a lavish villa on Narapela Island, Emory joined him and together they stayed on the island while his father continued to run GeoPharm. Emory didn't have much input or possibly even much interest in the company and how it was run for a while, bar perhaps an interest in inheriting it when Ronald came to retire. As such, he's not mentioned in many GeoPharm reports during the first half of the lab's life on Narapela.
All this changed when Emory was approached and befriended by some shady businessmen. They claimed to be "wealth-seekers" wanting to invest in the company, but Emory's father was uncomfortable and suspicious of them, as he brought Emory up well and didn't trust these new associates of his. These "businessmen" turned out to be members of the Palm Garden Order (PGO) who wanted to use Emory to take over GeoPharm for their own plans.
After befriending Emory, his new associates started taking far more interest in GeoPharm, as did Emory. His new associates started slowly and quietly pushing him towards taking over GeoPharm and replacing his father as CEO. They manipulated Emory to make him interested in running GeoPharm and filling his head with promises and the success of the company.
At this time, GeoPharm was performing tests on a substance known as HKEA, something the PGO was very interested in keeping an eye on. Likely through Emory, they managed to get some of their own researchers onto the island as employees to perform their own research, separate from GeoPharm but using their equipment and knowledge. This research came to a head when a test subject died after a live test was performed on them by one of these planted researchers.
Ronald ended up shelving the HKEA project after this, realizing it to be too dangerous to continue with it, but the PGO had already made up their mind. Issuing Emory with some muscle to assist his take over, they set up a confrontation between Emory and his father in the labs one day. One of the PGO thugs knocked Ronald out and, when he came too, Emory was in a room with him that had a table set up and a set of deeds on it. These deeds were for signing ownership of the company over to Emory, who was now firmly with the PGO and working alongside them. Under threats, Ronald signed ownership of the company over to Emory, who did the PGO's bidding when it came to research.
Working alongside Ronald was his friend and co-founder of GeoPharm Chase Barrister. He was essential to the breakthroughs made to the HKEA project while it was still active. However, just prior to when Emory took over, Ronald warned him and told him to get back to San Francisco with his young son Kevin Barrister, as Chase was similarly against Emory and his associates like Ronald was. He was too late, however, and was caught up with the sudden change in management. Under orders from the PGO, Emory "made an example" of him. It's not clear exactly what he did to Chase, whether it was simple murder or testing some sort of disease on him, he was killed by Emory and the PGO. The act caused his son Kevin to develop a hatred of GeoPharm and seek out a different global conspiracy called the Consortium with the express purpose of bringing down Emory, GeoPharm and the PGO.
After taking over the company, Emory followed the PGO's lead and stopped looking for cures. GeoPharm's original idea, when set up by Ronald and Chase, was to research cures to diseases plaguing humanity, a very noble ideal which GeoPharm stuck to up until this point. When Emory took over, instead of curing diseases, GeoPharm and started manufacturing them, as ordered by the PGO. Emory organized visits from global elites to see their research and accept funding from those who liked what they saw.
Emory died not too long before the outbreak on Narapela occurred. Exactly how he died is unclear, but it could have been an assassin, natural causes or even killed by one of the first zombies that were created on the island. After his death, there was no immediate successor to the CEO role of GeoPharm and the company was plunged into turmoil. It was soon after this that the outbreak occurred on the island chain, killing nearly all the scientists working for GeoPharm and effectively ending the company, but not the PGO as a whole.
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