Playing Dead Space 2, I come to these conclusions....

1. The marker in Dead Space was built and placed on Aegis VII to see what would happen. The necromorph outbreak was the result. They somehow suppressed it, buried the marker, and put the whole planet as "off limits" to everyone. Granted, Unitologists may or may not have had something to do with CEC illegally starting a mining operation on Aegis VII, but in any case, we know how it ends. Necromorphs get on an shuttle and crash onto the Ishimura...spreading the "plague." Marker is destroyed. Necromorphs contained/destroyed with it.

2. Earthgov gets Issac Clarke and uses the codes in his head from exposure to the marker to build another one. The goal...study and understand it for whatever secrets they can gain. Okay, they tried that before Dead Space and Aegis VII showed what could go wrong. It's safe to presume that in Dead Space 2, it wasn't until the Ishimura was brought to Titan station that the "goo" on board was reanimated into Necromorphs by the newly built maker...starting the outbreak there.

So. How stupid are these people? They know what the marker can produce and that it has always ended in disaster. They know that it would be best to do any testing in an isolated place they could scuttle with nukes with the press of a button rather than risk contamination of a major population center. The Isumura should have been flown into a star, not salvaged (like they'd get all of that goo off the ship). You would think knowing the threat the marker poses by itself and the danger Unitologists pose because of their fanatical obsession with the marker(s), Earthgov would be a lot smarter in how they go about studying them.

They were stupid enough to realize that the second game had to include necromorphs. They weren't stupid enough to put them on some random planet or something where there would have been less carnage, you know, because who wants less carnage? So they sacrificed the Titan Station so that we could enjoy watching them die.

Thing is, earthgov is pretty much all unitologists. If I had to guess, I'd say about 80% of it is unitologist while the other 20% is frothing at the mouth over a new, possible, super weapon.

There religious freaks, and worship the marker like a god. But we can't discuss such matters on these forums..

As far as I know, they built twelve markers. One was originally on Earth, the other twelve were man-made. Two different forms of the marker; Black and Red, yadda yadda. EarthGov needs the Markers, and the power they bring, so they make more markers to spread their influence. Maybe the salvaged the Ishumira hoping the marker was still on-board? Or they wanted to examine the research the team on-board had made?

Who knows. :shrug:

Its not like every marker has created necromorph outbreaks; Just the recent ones. I'm not sure why.. Maybe color. Maybe they used a different code. Dunno'. But thats why they used Issac to build another; They lost one marker, they needed another one.

Did you watch the movies?
They show how dumb they actually really are.

Ishimura was salvaged because it was in orbit around Aegis VII. Aegis VII was privy to front row seats for the destruction of the red marker. The red marker wasn't totally destroyed as shards of it have been found all over the area that Aegis VII used to inhabit. Some of the shards found their way onto the Ishimura, as seen in the graphic novel Dead Space: Salvage (a graphic novel with absolutely beautiful artwork.)

It's all explained in that novel but to sum it up:
-Space pirates/prospectors/slavagers/whatever find ishimura.
-They board the ship thinking "Sweet! Big ol' paycheck coming our way!"
-Message broadcasted to earthgov regarding this event by them.
-Turns out, there are people higher up than earthgov. We'll call them oracles since they make an appearance in Dead Space 2: Severed. (Great DLC by the way. Even if it was only two chapters, it added a lot to the lore.)
-Oracles say "Let's go tend to this."
-[censored] go's down. (Not trying to ruin the ending.)

The surface of the marker contains the information needed to create the necromorph contagion. The markers have the capability to produce a number of signals and emissions, including a dementia-inducing signal that Isaac was a victim of, a dead space field, (deactivates necromorph tissues) and an animating signal that causes necromorph tissues to return to functionality. (when the red marker was destroyed, all necromorphs on the ishimura were turned into organic sludge. This organic sludge reconstituted itself in the presence of a marker signal) In cases where there is a marker, but not an outbreak, the simple answer is that the necromorph contagion isn't present to infect and transform corpses, or, there aren't any corpses yet.

As for earthgov, it seems that their dementia-preventing tech doesn't work as effectively as marketed, and they were in fact being influenced by the markers.