Covenant (Alias)

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.

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 (Sydney translates it as "the section that doesn't exist" in the episode Q&A), 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.

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.

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