Russia Federation / Soviet Union

The Last Years of the Old Empire (1900–1917)

At the dawn of the 20th century, the Russian Empire stood as one of the largest nations on Earth, stretching from Eastern Europe to the frozen Pacific. Beneath its massive size, however, the empire was unstable. Poverty consumed much of the countryside, corruption infected the aristocracy, and revolutionary movements spread through factories and military barracks alike. Tsar Nicholas II attempted to preserve imperial authority through force and nationalism, but Russia entered the modern century already carrying the weight of collapse.

During the First World War, Russia suffered catastrophic losses. Millions died in trench warfare, famine spread through major cities, and military morale shattered. It was in this chaos that whispers began emerging from foreign intelligence services regarding experimental enhancement compounds being developed by the United States. Although Russia lacked the industrial capability to immediately replicate these discoveries, imperial scientists secretly began researching biological augmentation after hearing rumors of the early development of Serum-X in America.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 destroyed the old empire entirely. The Bolsheviks seized power after years of unrest, civil war erupted across the country, and the Romanov dynasty was executed. The newborn Soviet state inherited a starving, broken nation — but it also inherited ambition. Soviet leadership became obsessed with creating the “perfect socialist citizen,” believing science itself could forge humanity into something greater.

That obsession would soon collide with the greatest unexplained phenomenon in human history.

The Emergence Era (1920–1935)

In 1920, children across the world began to be born with impossible abilities.

Some displayed minor abnormalities — unnatural endurance, enhanced intelligence, unusual sensory perception. Others exhibited powers that defied all known science: telekinesis, energy projection, invulnerability, regeneration, and manipulation of matter itself. The event occurred globally and without warning. No religion, scientist, or government could explain why humanity had suddenly changed.

The Soviet Union reacted faster than most nations.

While many Western countries initially treated superpowered individuals as medical curiosities or potential celebrities, Soviet leadership viewed them as state assets. By the late 1920s, the USSR had already begun cataloguing every known superhuman birth within its borders. Entire villages disappeared into classified census records. Children suspected of possessing abilities were relocated into state institutions for “education.”

The Communist Party declared these individuals evidence of humanity evolving toward a superior collectivist future. Propaganda posters depicted glowing workers lifting tractors with bare hands while defending the revolution from capitalist enemies.

Behind the propaganda, however, conditions were brutal.

Children with unstable abilities were often experimented on or executed. Some vanished into underground laboratories operated by Soviet intelligence divisions. Others were trained from birth to become living weapons loyal only to the state.

By 1936, the Soviet government formally mandated that all registered superhumans serve the military if deemed physically capable. From that moment onward, supers in the USSR ceased being citizens first and became state property first.

The Birth of Soviet Super Soldiers (1936–1945)

The rise of Nazi Germany terrified Soviet leadership. Intelligence reports regarding Germany’s increasingly extreme super-soldier experiments convinced Joseph Stalin that the USSR needed its own enhanced army immediately.

This led to the creation of Serum-S, the Soviet Union’s first large-scale super-serum program.

Developed under Dr. Mikhail Voronin within heavily classified Red Army bioengineering facilities, Serum-S prioritized raw physical power above all else. Soviet doctrine believed overwhelming force won wars, and the serum reflected that philosophy perfectly. Subjects granted the enhancement often gained immense strength and durability, but the side effects were horrifying. Accelerated aging, psychological deterioration, seizures, and neurological collapse were common within years.

Many recipients died before reaching middle age.

The Soviet Union accepted these losses without hesitation.

During the Second World War, Soviet enhanced divisions became infamous among German troops. Stories spread of soldiers surviving artillery barrages, ripping through bunkers with bare hands, or continuing to fight after sustaining wounds that should have been fatal. German commanders responded with their own Serum-R units, creating terrifying clashes between chemically enhanced soldiers across Eastern Europe.

Entire battles were later erased from official records because the scale of destruction was considered too destabilizing for the public to know.

By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union emerged victorious but devastated. Millions were dead, entire cities were destroyed, and many of its serum soldiers were already suffering catastrophic physical decline. Yet the USSR had learned a dangerous lesson:

Superhumans could alter the course of global history.

The Cold War of Gods (1946–1978)

The Cold War was not merely an arms race between nuclear powers.

It was a hidden war between superhuman programs.

Following World War II, both the United States and the Soviet Union expanded their enhancement initiatives dramatically. The Americans refined more stable serums such as Serum-A and Serum-C, while the USSR continued experimenting through increasingly unethical methods.

Soviet superhuman divisions became integrated into nearly every branch of the military. Some operated openly during propaganda parades in Moscow, while others vanished into covert intelligence operations across the world.

Entire KGB departments were established solely to monitor enhanced individuals.

Many Soviet supers fought in proxy conflicts across Africa, Asia, and South America. Officially, these soldiers did not exist. Entire villages destroyed during covert battles were blamed on bombings, chemical accidents, or insurgencies.

The USSR also became increasingly paranoid regarding naturally born supers. Unlike serum soldiers, natural supers were unpredictable. Their abilities could surpass military planning entirely. Soviet doctrine demanded control above all else, leading to massive surveillance systems targeting enhanced citizens.

Some supers became loyal defenders of the Soviet state.

Others disappeared into prisons.

Others rebelled and were hunted relentlessly across the frozen wilderness of Siberia.

During the 1960s and 1970s, rumors spread throughout Soviet intelligence circles regarding occult phenomena connected to certain supers. Files described individuals hearing voices from “beneath the Earth,” unexplained dimensional anomalies, and entities that appeared during high-energy experiments.

Most officials dismissed these reports as psychological instability caused by serum exposure.

They were wrong.

The Underworld Incident (1979–1989)

In 1979, the Soviet Union launched one of the most secretive engineering projects in human history.

Officially, it was presented as an ambitious geological operation intended to study the Earth’s crust at unprecedented depth. In reality, classified records reveal the operation had multiple objectives: mineral extraction research, geothermal experimentation, and the investigation of unexplained energy signatures detected deep beneath northern Siberia.

The drilling site was established at the location later associated with the Soviet Borehole project.

The shaft itself was enormous — large enough for industrial elevators capable of transporting ten personnel at a time deep underground. Thousands of workers, engineers, scientists, soldiers, and enhanced operatives participated in the project over the next decade.

Then the drilling team found something impossible.

Far beneath the crust, the operation breached an enormous subterranean expanse unlike anything ever recorded. Reports described vast caverns illuminated by unnatural red light, structures resembling ruined civilizations, and atmospheric conditions inconsistent with normal geology.

Personnel began referring to it by a single name:

The Underworld.

Early exploration teams vanished entirely.

Others returned psychologically shattered, describing humanoid entities moving within the darkness below. Several supers assigned to exploration missions reportedly suffered violent mental collapse after exposure to the environment.

According to leaked Russian documents, at least three containment failures occurred during the early 1980s. Soviet military forces deployed underground allegedly engaged hostile entities emerging from the breach. Casualties remain unknown.

Terrified by the implications, Soviet authorities sealed the entrance behind reinforced layers of concrete, steel, and experimental containment systems. The project continued in secrecy for several more years, but by 1989 it was abandoned completely as the Soviet Union itself neared collapse.

The existence of the Underworld remained hidden from the public until 2001.

That year, the legendary detective known only as “D” infiltrated Russian government databases and leaked thousands of classified files onto obscure online forums. The leak spread rapidly across the internet, exposing the Soviet Underworld project to the entire world.

Most governments publicly dismissed the documents as fabricated conspiracy material.

Privately, intelligence agencies panicked.

The Afghan Disaster and the 1981 Invasion Plan (1979–1989)

The Soviet–Afghan War became one of the greatest military disasters in Soviet history.

Enhanced Soviet soldiers were deployed heavily throughout the conflict, with commanders believing superhuman operatives could quickly crush resistance forces. Instead, Afghanistan became a graveyard for Soviet ambition.

Mountain warfare, guerrilla tactics, and constant attrition devastated Soviet superhuman units. By the mid-1980s, at least 23 serum-enhanced Soviet heroes had been killed in combat — an unprecedented loss rate that shattered the illusion of superhuman invincibility.

Some were reportedly torn apart by experimental weapons supplied through foreign intelligence operations. Others disappeared entirely in remote regions under mysterious circumstances.

The losses deeply frightened Soviet generals.

In 2004, after the partial declassification of Cold War archives, Russia released documents regarding a classified 1981 contingency plan for a direct invasion of NATO territory.

The operation proposed using Soviet supers in coordinated strikes against Western infrastructure before nuclear retaliation could occur. Teams of enhanced operatives were assigned targets across Europe and North America, including missile silos, radar installations, communications centers, and strategic command facilities.

The objective was terrifyingly simple:

Cripple NATO’s nuclear response long enough for conventional Soviet forces to overwhelm Europe.

The invasion never happened.

Senior military officials ultimately argued the plan would almost certainly spiral into global nuclear annihilation. The catastrophic losses already suffered in Afghanistan further convinced leadership that even enhanced soldiers were not unstoppable.

The plan was abandoned, hidden for decades beneath layers of Soviet secrecy.

Collapse of the USSR and the Dark Transition (1989–1999)

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

For ordinary citizens, the collapse meant economic ruin, political chaos, and the rise of organized crime. For Soviet supers, it was even worse.

Thousands of enhanced operatives suddenly found themselves without a nation. Some attempted to sell their abilities to criminal organizations or foreign governments. Others became mercenaries. Many disappeared.

The Russian Federation feared that former Soviet supers could destabilize the fragile new state entirely.

In response, the government dismantled the old Soviet superhuman command structure and created the Russian Supers Agency (R.S.A.) — Russian Supers Agency — in 1992.

The transition was violent.

Numerous Soviet-era supers were executed, imprisoned, or forced into permanent retirement over fears of divided loyalties. Secret prisons throughout Siberia reportedly housed enhanced individuals deemed too dangerous to release.

At the same time, Russia attempted to rebuild its serum program after many Soviet research archives had been lost, destroyed, or stolen during the collapse.

The results were horrific.

Early RSA experiments frequently ended in grotesque mutations, organ failure, insanity, or death. By 1995, international outrage exploded after revelations surfaced that civilians were being kidnapped and tortured during attempts to engineer new “perfect soldiers.”

The United Nations condemned the program heavily, forcing Russia to officially halt many of its most extreme experiments.

But the research never truly disappeared.

It simply became harder to find.

The Age of Oblivion (1996–Present)

No superhuman in modern history has terrified Russia more than Oblivion.

Originally an American super-soldier created through the experimental Project Eclipse nanotech serum, Oblivion became one of the deadliest beings on Earth after a catastrophic mission in 1996 altered his mind completely. Entire cities across Europe and North America were devastated during his rampage. More than 137 heroes reportedly died attempting to stop him.

For three years, the world hunted him unsuccessfully.

Then, in 1999, Russia captured him.

The operation remains one of the most classified military actions in modern history. Official details are almost nonexistent, though leaked accounts suggest dozens of RSA operatives died during the containment effort.

Today, Oblivion is imprisoned within the Siberian Isolation Complex — a fortified prison facility located on a remote island deep in the Arctic north of Siberia.

The prison is considered one of the most secure locations on Earth.

Oblivion is housed beneath layers of reinforced anti-energy plating inside a cryo-regulated containment chamber designed to suppress his nanite-enhanced abilities. Automated turrets monitor him constantly. Drone patrols circle the island day and night. Naval mines surround nearby waters, while hidden failsafe systems reportedly include tactical nuclear safeguards intended to prevent escape under any circumstance.

The existence of Oblivion transformed Russia’s geopolitical position overnight.

Possessing custody over the world’s most dangerous superhuman granted Russia enormous leverage internationally. Some nations accused Moscow of using Oblivion as a deterrent comparable to nuclear weapons. Others feared the Russian government was secretly studying him in hopes of reproducing Project Eclipse technology.

Russian officials deny those accusations completely.

Oblivion himself reportedly speaks rarely to guards or visitors. But when he does, he repeats the same phrase over and over:

“You can’t hold me here forever.”

Modern Russia (2000–Present)

The year 2000 marked the formal international ban on new super-serum creation. After nearly a century of catastrophic experiments, unstable heroes, and mass casualties, the world agreed that engineered superhumans had become too dangerous.

Russia officially signed the agreement.

Unofficially, many intelligence agencies suspect research continued in isolated black sites throughout Siberia and the Arctic.

Modern Russia remains one of the world’s most militarized superhuman states. The RSA continues operating across Russian territory and allied nations, participating directly in foreign conflicts when requested by the Kremlin. Funding for the agency increased significantly during the war in Ukraine, where superhuman operations became strategically valuable amid mounting conventional losses.

The agency’s reputation remains deeply controversial.

Supporters portray the RSA as a disciplined defensive force protecting Russian sovereignty in an increasingly unstable world. Critics accuse it of corruption, human rights abuses, political assassinations, and covert experimentation.

The 2023 bombing of RSA headquarters in Moscow — which killed 53 personnel and contractors — further intensified fears that the world may be entering another era of superhuman instability.

Meanwhile, stories surrounding the abandoned Soviet Underworld site continue spreading online. Conspiracy communities claim seismic activity near the old borehole has increased in recent years. Some former Russian personnel insist strange radio signals still emerge from beneath the sealed shaft.

The Russian government denies all such claims.

But within classified intelligence circles across the globe, one fear persists above all others:

That the Soviet Union did not discover Hell beneath Siberia.

That it merely opened a door to something far worse.