Russia

{{#if:VictoriaHeavens 12.4|

“	Over there, military and powers were woven into one another. One squad leader with powers or one cape as an adjunct to a squad, adding to their capabilities. Capes were rarely allowed or encouraged to get along.	”
{{#if:Victoria| —Victoria{{#if:Heavens 12.4|, Heavens 12.4}} }} }}

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Russia</default></title>

<image source="image"><default>File:Placeholder location.png</default></image> <header>Basic Information</header> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> <header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label> </infobox>The Russian Federation is a country bordering the east of Europe and into the continent of Asia.

Description

The rival to the United States of America during the Cold War.

Generally very wintry and cold, given some of the position of the country they deal with white nights where the day lasts an interminable long time.

Anti-parahuman sentiment is more prevalent in Russia than other places.<ref name="II10.13 e1" /><ref>22:12 <~Wildbow> @ Edqu - In Asia in general (esp. Russia, CUI) there's a more endemic anti-parahuman sentiment. Capes get hunted and conscripted/killed by government forces or other capes.
22:13 <~Wildbow> Enough so that it's really cut down on the parahuman population & altered the makeup of said populations by way of survival of the fittest. - Comment by Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles</ref> According to Tanya Engalychev, Russians tend to view American parahumans as similar to the CUI - pushy and looking for control.<ref name="PRT1">The way she pronounces with, the subtle error in word choice. She’s English-speaking Russian, not Russian-ethnic American.

“I am. The good guys,” Auroch says.

“Back home, they think very little with a American superheroes. Like China, the bullies. The thugs. Sneakier than China, but still trying to push a way in.”

“Do I look like a thug?” - PRT Quest p67</ref>

Policies

There is no direct PRT counterpart in Russia.<ref name="SB2.1">There isn't a Russian equivalent to the PRT. If you were moving forward with that, it'd be pretty much pure fanfiction. - Private message by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref> Instead, the government generally tries to keep parahumans in their country separated from one another<ref name="II12.4 e1">I remembered Contender talking about the Russian cape scene- he’d toured over there in his mercenary work over there. Over there, military and powers were woven into one another. One squad leader with powers or one cape as an adjunct to a squad, adding to their capabilities. Capes were rarely allowed or encouraged to get along. - Excerpt from Heavens 12.4</ref> and society.<ref name="reddit ePolicy" /> Russian leaders tacitly encourage infighting among their elite troops, the Elitnaya Armiya, to prevent them from taking over.<ref>Elitnaya Armiya - The Army's elite. Think Metal Gear - trained soldiers supported by scary superhumans, as part of Russia's military-industrial complex. The mentality is highly adversarial; these aren't parahumans who play nice with other parahumans, and this includes them not cooperating with other members of the Elitnaya. There's a lot of politicking and backstabbing going on behind the scenes (to the point that Russia is almost divided in four), and each member of the Elitnaya maintains ties to certain sub-factions, individuals and interests. Favor is curried, and virtually every mission the Elitnaya are mobilized to involves hidden motivations and sub-goals in service of sponsors and secret masters (human, not Master). Put two of these guys on the same mission, and their interests may collide. Keep in mind, these guys got their start being used to hunt other parahumans. The relationship is largely 'shoot identified parahumans on sight', or, in the case of Elitnaya vs. Elitnaya, waiting until they're in private before orchestrating one another's murders. This is actively curried by the people in power, as it means the parahumans can't band together to control society, overtly or otherwise, as it is in America. - Private message by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

The government keeps the numbers and capabilities of Russian parahumans discreet so that they can simultaneously imply they have lots of parahumans to their enemies and also low levels of parahuman violence to their citizens.<ref name="reddit ePolicy">Anchuinse: However, we hear about how Russia deals with their heroes are different. They have a single hero lead a squad of unpowered individuals that stick together and act as a force multiplier to their parahuman from learned teamwork. You'd be much more likely to see the situation you describe there as opposed to in the US.

Wildbow: Not so. In Earth Bet's Russia, parahumans are generally kept at arm's reach, removed, separated from one another, separated from society. Numbers and capabilities are kept discreet, so they can simultaneously imply 'we have lots of parahumans' to their enemies and 'we don't have parahumans, we've handled that, you don't need to worry about parahuman violence like people elsewhere do.' (Lower numbers than most other places, though)

Shock troopers, military, problem solvers, arms of the government, and squadrons that get sent out to execute or enlist any parahuman that they can, with a "We're going to ask you if you want to join once, and if you don't say yes and hold to that, you'll be on the list of those to execute thereafter" approach. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

Military

The government is very proactive at hunting down and conscripting Russian parahumans into military service, sending out their forces to execute or enlist any parahuman that they can.<ref name="reddit ePolicy" /> They will then assign a squad of soldiers to the conscripted parahuman;<ref name="II12.4 e1" /> these soldiers act as an extension or force multiplier for the cape as they will learn about their assigned parahuman and how to work with them.<ref>I nodded. “They’re organized in the old Russian style from back in Earth Bet. Squads of soldiers with parahumans in charge. Even down to the armbands and badges. It makes the squads extensions of the parahumans, force multipliers because they know their parahuman and they work with them.”

“It’s not the worst idea,” Swansong said. “If you find people you can trust.”

“Or forcefully conscript into military service and force into a given squad,” my dad said. - Heavens 12.5</ref> These squads are very anti-parahuman as they specialize at dealing with enemy parahumans; parahumans from other squads rarely cooperate.<ref name="II12.5 eLandscape">“I knew a cape once who was from there,” my dad said. “Joined the New York Protectorate.”

“From Russia?” my mom asked.

“Yes. Bunter.”
[...]
“We talked about what it was like over there,” my dad said. “Maybe it applies?”

I rubbed the hand-warmer between my hands as I thought. “Capes over there tended to break down into the ones who were conscripted, the ones who became fugitives of the state, the weird middle ground ones-”

“Almost always spies or state-supported capes,” my dad said. “According to Bunter.”

I nodded. “-and the villains who were fugitives of the state who managed to establish themselves. The whole dynamic was very anti-parahuman. Setting up capes so they rarely cooperated, each squad was primarily expected to deal with capes, whether they were home-grown or not.”

“They’re set up to deal with us,” I said. - Excerpt from Heavens 12.5</ref>

Although this setup worked for their specialized task, it was much less effective against Endbringers. The Russians actually turned on parahumans from other countries that initially tried to help; for later Endbringer attacks, they did not receive assistance from other countries.<ref name="II12.5 eEndbringer">“Did it work?” Moose asked.

“The setup? Yeah. For the specialized task. When they got hit by Endbringers they turned on the people who came to help, though. For later attacks, they didn’t have the help. They ended up trying to use airplanes, tanks… but we’re digressing.” - Excerpt from Heavens 12.5</ref> Combined with Russia having lower number of capes and less structured organization than most other places, they tend to respond to Endbringer or S-Class threats with military strength more than most other national players.<ref name="SB2"/>

Another drawback of their setup was that squads ended up subservient to their assigned parahuman. Military parahumans are left in positions of paranoid power and don't usually learn to cooperate, which can magnify negative personality traits, worsen neuroses, and make bad habits more problematic.<ref>“Bunter was a squad leader,” my dad said. “There was a drawback to that setup. The squads end up subservient. Power imbalance. Every cape has their quirks. Preferences, eccentricities.”

“Some of us are the sad kind of insane,” Chastity said.

“That, yes,” my dad said. “When you surround yourself with people who don’t balance you out, you can spiral. The neuroses get worse, the bad habits get more problematic. Negative personality traits are magnified.” - Excerpt from Heavens 12.5</ref>

Parahuman Residents

Capes in Russia are either military conscripts, spies/state-supported, or are fugitives of the state that are wily or powerful enough to establish themselves.<ref name="II12.5 eLandscape" /> Indeed, underground minority groups, organized crime families, and independent/covert agents exist.<ref>The raid and the recording of the execution line up with Russia's policies on Parahumans, and the longstanding warrant and execution writ against Rukavitsa. Russia has long maintained a 'join us on our terms or be labeled a criminal of the highest order' policy, with parahumans being trained, organized into squads with unpowered individuals, and often set against one another (and even said to be sabotaged) if they gain too much notoriety. On the other side, rebel parahumans within Russia have turned to the security offered by organized crime families, underground minority groups (including those fighting and arguably winning a steep uphill battle for LGBT rights in Russia), and independent, covert agents. Red Gauntlet has worked with, supported, and been supported by all of these groups at various points, and there is expected to be nationwide backlash as news spreads. - Rukavitsa, leader of Red Gauntlet, dies in nighttime Raid. PHO Sunday</ref>

• Elitnaya Armiya
• Red Gauntlet
• The Dno controlled criminal underworld
• Various persecuted minorities and their protectors
• Independent parahumans<ref>I guess you could say there's a fourth group - the other individuals who couldn't be rounded up, tested, or recruited. - Private message by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref>
  • Sleeper

Points of Interest

• Mordovia is a bubble to contain Sleeper
• Moscow is a giant scar from Behemoths visit.<ref name="15.5 c1">As stated in Legend’s pre-battle speech (early in arc 8) there’s almost always grievous losses but they aren’t always the same sort of losses.
  
  You have the events that left the world reeling: Lausanne, Hawaii, Kyushu, Newfoundland, Moscow, Sydney. The attacks that left major areas uninhabitable or unrecoverable, with wide-reaching effects on the rest of the country/region/world. In this setting, for example, Japan isn’t a world power and it’s still dependent on international assistance 12 years after Leviathan’s visit to Kyushu.
  
  But even there, where do you say, “Ok, that’s the sum total of the damage done”? The disaster at Kyushu, the number of refugees seeking living space/work and the pressures on the rest of Asia’s pacific border might have led to some more unrest and tension. Some friction, some ‘small’ wars, infighting and intermingling. Refugees and immigrants.
  [...]
  And I should stress that weak points aren’t necessarily just areas which are geographically vulnerable. There’s places where there’s ongoing conflict (like we might point to the middle east over the past decade), places where it takes little effort on the part of the Endbringer to deal maximum devastation (ie. a nuclear power plant, military bases) and spots where a great many resources are invested (be they great minds collected in one place or major projects like Dr. Gramme’s major projects in trying to save the world). - Comment by Wildbow on Colony 15.5</ref>
• Saint Petersburg is presumably the new capital.

History

Background

History largely diverges with the appearance of Scion, who stopped the Cold War.<ref name="SB1">That's essentially it. Scion was stopping raiding groups and paramilitary groups in Africa and the Middle East, and then began to respond to weapon testing in much the same way. Scion shot down one test missile from a country away and then hit the launch facility. This wasn't widely publicized, but it did have ripple effects in terms of culture and America's military spending/focus.

Part of Scion's motivation in doing so was to prevent a scenario where the shards couldn't find hosts (for much the same reason, he would have gone out of his way to stop, say, String Theory). Part was Norton's instructions. But the countries basically realized that it wouldn't work. - Comment by Wildbow (archived on Spacebattles)</ref> His interference caused the superpowers and their MAD approach to fizzle out.<ref name="15.y e1">Unlike the major players in the Cold War, the monsters he was thinking about weren’t so rational that they’d stand down with Scion in the picture. - Excerpt from Interlude 15.y</ref>

However in Russia it also caused economic devastation. While initially heavily anti-parahuman, Thinker designed market reforms in the 90s made capes acceptable.<ref name="SB2 e5">In-setting, Scion stopped the Cold War. With the end of the war, there was widespread destitution (one out of every five people had been employed as part of the military/war.). There was perhaps a bigger backlash against parahumans than elsewhere, as a result of Scion's actions and perceptions of parahuman vs. communism. Where the C.U.I. achieved total control over their parahumans, Russia set something of a parahuman vs. human structure in place. Parahumans that might have been mundane elsewhere were driven to scary extremes by the hatred and persecution.

The economic reforms that crippled Russia in Aleph's 90s were made to work by a parahuman in government in Bet, and this did a lot to pacify authorities and shift the 'us vs. them' mentality. In the end, the military adopted parahumans to better fight other parahumans, then absorbed them into the greater structure. - Private message by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref> Leading to their incorporation into the military-industrial complex.

In a holdover from the soviet era people still turned against their neighbors. These witch hunts were one of the things that led to the formation of Red Gauntlet.<ref name="II10.13 e1">“If you help anti-parahuman types like this, they’ll take advantage of your help now and then they’ll try to come after you later. It’s what happened in Russia, when they tried to control the parahuman population.”

“I’ve been to Russia. Contracted there. I’ve seen it. The before, the after, the attempts to make parahumans into military. Each one assigned to a squad or special force. Pit against each other. There’s nothing you can tell me about that kind of reality I haven’t touched with all five senses.” - Excerpt from Polarize 10.13</ref>

Soon though, Behemoth, in his fifth appearance, attacked Moscow,<ref>Moscow, June 18th, 1995. Behemoth. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x</ref> destroying it.<ref name="SB2"/> In a paroxysm of xenophobic nationalism the defending forces attacked both the enbringer and parahumans that arrived to help defend Moscow.<ref name="II12.5 eEndbringer"/> Further, before coming to rest in Mordovia, Sleeper was mobile and wandered around in the country.<ref name="23.5 c1">Sleeper roams, but primarily Russia. - Comment by Wildbow on Drone 23.5</ref> This helped lead to the political fragmentation of the country.<ref name="SB2"/>

At some unknown point the Elitnaya had to step into the hole left by Red Gauntlet after the mercenaries decided to switch sides in the middle of a war.<ref name="SB1.?"> Initially serving the Russian government as the precursor to what would be the Elitnaya, Red Gauntlet was bought out by the Eritreans in the second Eritrean War for Liberation, and thereafter settled into a role as mercenaries. - Private message by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

Russia has dealt with major fallout from Endbringers and S-Class both, lack of confidence in the government led to other groups steering the country. Such as the military-industrial complex, the criminal underworld, or parahuman overlords. These same powers make up much of the power behind the countries foreign policy.<ref name="SB2">Overall, Russia has suffered more at the hands of Endbringers and S-Class threats than most, and it was the lack of faith in the government's ability to protect the people (and the aftermath of losing Moscow) that led to the fall of the U.S.S.R. and rise of other forces. It has less parahumans and less structured organization than most, so it tends to respond to Endbringer or S-Class threats with military strength more than most other national players.

Russia leverages the Elitnaya and sometimes Red Gauntlet to participate in conflicts around Europe and Asia, and the military-industrial complex is, well, it's not thriving, but it's not failing either. - Private message by Wildbow, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

A terrified, tentacled Case 53 was dropped in an area in or near Russia, where she unintentionally killed many people,<ref name="6.7II e1">“Wait, let me talk,” Sveta said. “I’ve been thinking about this. I talked about this in front of all of you at different times. In the group, and in the room with Victoria. My first clear memories, I was dropped into the middle of a populated area in Russia. I killed a lot of people accidentally. Civilians and army that came after me, and then people from the PRT. I didn’t stop because I found a way to stop. I stopped because they caught me.”

"You’ve talked about it,” Ashley said. “Deaths stay with us.”

"They’re supposed to stay with us!” Sveta sounded plaintive and outraged at the same time. “This is major. I got each and every one of those names of the people I killed. I learned about them. I know it wasn’t my fault, but…” - Excerpt from Pitch 6.7</ref> the reason for her being placed there is unknown.<ref name="R5 e1">Cauldron capes were explicitly more stable. Case 53s (barring Shamrock, Madison and Dealer C53s) all had a reason for being dropped where they were, with individual programming. - Excerpt from a Reddit comment by Wildbow.</ref>

Post-Echidna

During the Battle against Khonsu, the Endbringer somehow set off Russian nuclear weapons with a time field.<ref name="25.5 e3">He’d hit a weapons stockpile in Russia, and nuclear weapons had been accelerated in time, the casings wearing down in that odd entropic, eroding effect that accompanied the time accelerations. A nuclear detonation. Heroes were still trying to minimize the damage. - Scarab 25.5</ref><ref name="25.5 d1">Wildbow: And if the field bisects the nukes, so the outer casing ages at different speeds, with shear where there’s deviation?

demoscat: Do you mean if a weapon is partially caught in the field, so that, say, half of the warhead is in, and half is out? If so, then doesn’t that effectively cut the amount of plutonium in half (more or less), halving the critical mass available in two separate time streams? This makes it even less likely to detonate.

(This assumes the time “boundary” where time flows at different rates prevents objects from passing in and out on their own. Depends on the concept behind the time beam weapon.)

Oh well, too much over-thinking a rip-roaring great story. In the final analysis, plot wins! - Discussion with Wildbow on Scarab 25.5</ref>

Gold Morning

When Scion started his rampage, he hit Russia multiple times.<ref>This was one place. One moment’s attack. The display in the cockpit was showing more locations hit. Libya, Russia, France, Sweden, Iran, Russia again, China… - Extinction 27.1</ref> For example, he started fires at one location and then killed any heroes trying to stop the attack.<ref>“In Russia, his beam started fires. He cut off every escape route, then began setting fires from the outside in. It took him thirty-five minutes to start the fire, and he waited for fifteen minutes while the flames spread and everyone within was cooked. Heroes that attempted to stop the attack were killed.”

“He’s experimenting,” Tattletale said. - Extinction 27.2</ref>

Scion hit the Mordovia Bubble at one point, rousing Sleeper.<ref name="27.3">I nodded, but I was distracted from my response by another vibration of my phone. I picked it up to look at it.

Mordovia bubble hit. Sleeper has been roused, last tracked en route to Zayin portal. Casualties unknown. - Extinction 27.3</ref>

Trivia

• This article is about the Russian Federation of Earth Bet.
• Russia is usually considered to be something like the seventh (or eighth) largest country in the world by population size, it mainly has to compete with Bangladesh a much smaller country.<ref>greatwyrmgold: Maybe the Thanda specifically selected strong capes?
  
  Although the mass trigger thing makes sense, too…
  
  Sindri Suncatcher: I figure that the Thanda were in a rather bloody business. It was specifically said that in India all the nice colorful “cops and robbers” style villainy is on the Light side of things, so the life of a member of the Thanda would be just the worst, most dangerous parts of the job, over and over in places the authorities don’t know about, against people who prioritize silencing a witness over all else. The Thanda are strong because any who aren’t (and didn’t learn quickly) died long ago
  
  wildbow: And, to be fair, there’s a good size population to draw recruits from. - Excerpt from Speck 30.6</ref>

References

<references/>