Illuminati P.O.I. Profile: John Bishop

Name: John Bishop
Known Aliases: The Unkillable
Birth Date: Unknown; estimated to be sometime in the year 1776
Nationality: United States of America
Occupation: Director of Earth Protection Force
Affiliations: E.P.F.; Department of Defense
Special Abilities:Superhuman longevity; healing factor.

John Bishop first became known to The Society in 1815 when he, then a Major of the United States Army and a veteran of the war of 1812 (Crossref: Battle of New Orleans), wrote a letter to the then-Secretary of War (William Harry Crawford, although the position belonged to James Monroe when Bishop wrote the letter) detailing his experiences as an alien abductee (Crossref: Alien Life On Earth). The letter was intercepted by Crawford’s secretary, Society Member James Roivas (34), who brought it to The Society’s attention.

After concluding that allowing the leadership of the still-young Union to become aware of alien life was not in The Society’s best interest, the upper echelons outlined a plan to neutralize Bishop, which was then carried out.  Sending out an agent to gain his confidence, The Society led Bishop to believe that the U.S. Government had taken his letter seriously and had declared him insane, committing him to one of The Society’s asylums (Crossref: Hotel Cabal), where he was held and interrogated for three years until his escape and subsequent disappearance.

The supernaturally long-lived Bishop resurfaced during the Civil War, where he became decorated for his performances in both battles of Bull Run and was promoted to the rank of Colonel*. According to several accounts, he would shrug off wounds which most people would find fatal, a feat which earned him the title of “The Unkillable”.

After the war, Bishop continued serving in the U.S. Army, and would continue there until July 1876, when he and the men under his command brought down an alien spacecraft on the fields of Southern Virginia. Now possessing the evidence he needed, he successfully made his case before President Grant, who authorized the creation of the Earth Protection Force, a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces dedicated to the prevention and cessation of further alien invasions.

Since its creation, Bishop has served as the Earth Protection Force’s sole director, a job he carries out with ruthless efficiency and considerable zeal.  Under his tenure, the agency has obtained several important successes, such as the 1947 takedown of an alien ship over Roswell, New Mexico (Crossref: Roswell Incident), and in 2004, he single-handedly negotiated a secret treaty with an intergalactic Federation (Crossref: Gen. Blanque), which proved instrumental in the defeat of the Triceratons the following year (Crossref: 2005 Triceraton Invasion).  With time, the organization has become ever more secretive and independent; while it still theoretically answers to the President, reports from our men inside (Crossref: Naveen Shah), suggests that most of the organization’s work, as well as decisions such as the hiring of Dr. Baxter Stockman is done outside the chain of command.  This behavior reached its zenith in 2006, when Bishop, Shah suggests, engineered the abduction of the P.O.T.U.S. (Crossref: Joseph Bond; October 12 , 2006 Alien Invasion) in order to stage a rescue and thus assure further funding for the E.P.F.

Captivity and experimentation by aliens: Despite intense interrogation, the specifics of Bishop’s time under alien captivity are not known, beyond the fact that he was throughoutly experimented upon, and that he was eventually released some indeterminate time after his abduction.  Whatever the details of the alien experiments performed upon him, it is clear that the results have granted a number of extra-normal abilities.  Not only has Bishop apparently ceased to age, he possesses a healing factor that allows him to recover from most injuries.  Attempts to study and replicate these abilities has so far proven unsuccessful.

Conclusions:Bishop is calculating, secretive, and strong-willed. His obsession with protecting Earth could prove troublesome for The Society should he ever come to believe that its interests clash with his, and should he ever become aware of our existence, his actions could prove problematic. While this would normally make him a prime candidate for induction into The Society, as established in our bylaws (Crossref: “To Succeed”, DocID# 333), it is this profiler’s opinion that doing so would run the same risks as inducting Oroku Saki would; allowing him access into the fold and our resources, even on a limited basis, would make him more, not less, dangerous.  This profiler would also suggest that there is little benefit to be gained from making Bishop aware of our existence, as his principles would make him even open to negotiation than Saki was.

This is not to say, however, that Bishop cannot be controlled.  Although  rarely used, the P.O.T.U.S. still theoretically wields considerable over the Earth Protection Force’s makeup and organization, and while Bishop has proven that he will rock the boat, it is also clear that he would rather not do so if possible.  Done subtly, having Bond appoint someone more aware and sympathetic to our interests to the E.P.F. in a supervisory capacity would allow The Society to have a bigger say in the way the E.P.F. is run, without riling Bishop enough to cause him to go rogue.

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* It’s worth noting that Bishop did not retain his previous rank of Major, and had in fact re-begun his military career from scratch shortly before the Civil War began.

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Last updated: July 25, 2007