The Project (HV)

### Role:

Experimentation on the development of powered people, through natural or artificial means

**Ouranos** **Laboratories**--better known as **the Project**--is a military-funded research company operating out of several countries. The Project as a whole is a major antagonistic force in Heroverse.

## Background

Initial studies into superhumans began in Soviet Russia during the 1960s, when the first Powered people were discovered. The public response to their existence was incredibly mixed, torn between admiration and fear. There was an immediate demand for answers. While the cause of this sudden shift in human evolution was never truly pinpointed, it quickly became apparent that there were more people with abilities than names to classify them, and as time went on, more and more of them came to light.

For this reason, the USSR set out to identify as many Powered people as possible, developing methods of capture and suppression still in use today. The original intention was to understand their natures, and to study their potential uses. At the forefront of this effort was VLAST' (from *власть*, "power"), a military-funded Soviet entity seeking to regulate and weaponize Powered people. The organization was responsible in part for the discovery and development of Chernobog, who would go on to make history for his role in their destruction. Initially viewed as harbingers of a revolutionary vision, VLAST' would go on to become a cautionary tale regarding the dangers of attempts to control superhumans.

After the fall of VLAST', government-funded research regarding superpowers came to a halt for almost a decade. Interest was renewed, however, as occurrences of superhuman activity began to fan out across Europe, proving a genetic link behind the Powered state. Among the operations that developed from the ashes of VLAST was Ouranos, who would go on to build on the existing research, expanding from the concept of control into research of causes, and possible duplication.

To date, Ouranos is concurrently the most widespread and least regulated of the subsequent research entities.

## Classification

For purposes of ability classification, the Project established the Olympian scale: a series of classes based in Greek mythology. While not all-encompassing, it groups similar powers together for ease of identification. The scale has been adopted by most government agencies for its ease of use.

* Achillean - 'endurance' related; unnatural resilience to physical harm or strain
* Delphian - 'seer' classification; all clairvoyance abilities [precognition, retrocognition, telesthesia/distant-locating, psychometry/"touch-seeing"]
* Erisian - 'chaotic' abilities affecting the surroundings [psychokinesis, magnetism, tectonic manipulation]
* Hecatean - 'unnatural' gifts, relating to states impossible to humans [teleportation, astral-projection, conjuring, elementalism]
* Herculean - 'strength' related; an unjustifiable excess of physical power [super-strength]
* Hermian - 'speed'; advanced agility or locomotion [super-speed, hyper-reflexes]
* Icarian - 'flight' related; originally a class for physical mutation (i.e. wings), extended to include psionic flight [levitation, gravity-manipulation; Hecatean subset]
* Promethean - 'regenerative' abilities beyond the norm [self-healing, "deathless" states]
* Soterian - 'protective' class; any ability that wards harm [shield-casting, warding]

In addition to these general classes, there exist a handful of extremely rare classifications of powers, often referring to singular individuals. Among them are:

* Aegletian - powers related to or derived from light or the sun [light auras, laser-focusing]. Recorded instance: Solnechnik.
* Aionean - powers related to the flow of time and movement through it. Recorded instances: Kairos [time-manipulation]; Andirion [time/dimensional travel]
* Noctian - 'dark' related; powers derived from the lack of light [dark-bending, shadow-walking]. Record instance: Chernobog.

Abilities that cannot be identified or physically proven to exist lack a classification, with most mental-based abilities such as telepathy classified as Hecatean, due to their theoretical impossibility.

## Project DEMIGOD

The study of Powered genetics goes back to the initial discovery of superhumans in 1965. The question as to how only certain people ended up with abilities sparked research into the cause of power-development. Over time, the study of these abilities was divided between two categories: changing a superhuman's powers, originally with the intention of removing them, and *giving* powers to a person who naturally had none. The former was the focus for much of the 80s, as the pushback against superhuman superiority reached a peak. The latter resulted from the research, as an effort by international military organizations to weaponize the superhuman phenomena.

### Depowering

Initially, the official intention was to "depower" those who presented with powers, in an effort to restore the "natural order." The fear was that Powered people would inevitably use them in a way that would harm the public, as evidenced by the actions of Chernobog. International authorities took a stance against the presence of superhumans, and pushed for the development of neutralization methods.

This was tricky for a number of reasons, with the primary cause being that the superhuman condition was determined to be genetic, with their gifts tied directly to their biology. Numerous attempts were made using Powered volunteers. The early process of removal was invasive and dangerous, and bore mixed results. Those who were successfully depowered were often left lobotomized; others simply died. A select few lost control of their gifts entirely, leveling the area around them before inevitably ending their own lives.

Facing accusations of willful endangerment and human rights violations, the government shelved the research. Further attempts were not made until the early 2000s, when better understanding of powers and the human brain had been achieved. Focus shifted to a second option: if Powered people could not be neutralized, then powers should be made accessible to everyone.

Especially those who could pay for them.

### Alterhumans

In theory, the concept was simple: take a physically healthy but otherwise normal person and "install" psionic abilities. Extensive research was put into the causes of power development, and multiple volunteers were used to study the effects of genetic manipulation as a way of jumpstarting psionic development. Many of these experiments had fatal outcomes for the otherwise mortal volunteers, with the level of meddling necessary often causing catastrophic damage to their physiology. Transplanting powers into regular human bodies had an effect similar to an unmatched organ: the host rejected the outside influence, and began to tear itself apart.

Research into the topic took a turn in the 1980s, when the latent powers of an unknowing superhuman participant were successfully magnified, becoming fully operational. Attention moved away from the creation of artificial powers and shifted to the manipulation of *existing* ones. The result was the advent of alterhumans: people with latent powers that were scientifically "altered" to have their abilities brought to the surface. Further research went into the effort of introducing new powers into those who already had them, under the logic that having a gift to start with made the subject more likely to continue evolving.

The research was largely successful at first, with the service being offered as a method of rehabilitation for those with difficult or seemingly unusable abilities. However, the effects of prolonged chemical and biological experimentation had a long-term costs. Most volunteers became unstable, the accelerated development causing psychological problems and loss of power control. Research was officially ended in 2000, but continued on "government" volunteers (such as federal prisoners) well beyond that time.

## Project TITAN

Research into superhuman abilities was always about military use. It was only a matter of time before the concept of super-soldiers came into the picture. The goal in this project was to create "titans"--men capable of decimating troops and taking damage well beyond what even the strongest soldier could manage. The value of unkillable troops is incalculable.

### Hurdles and Discoveries

To this end, several strategies were adopted. Early experiments involved the use of government soldiers, introducing various serums meant to add strength or resilience to their already trained bodies. These trials failed, in the same way prior attempts had failed. The addition of greater strength to non-Powered humans resulted in subjects breaking bones and tearing muscles, their bodies unable to withstand the strain. Added resilience caused loss of sensation or even mobility, with hardened skin and muscles paralyzing organs and halting digestion. The entire enterprise was a disaster, its results never published.

Luckily for the Project, there existed people that already bore the features they were looking to recreate. The goal shifted to the capture and study of Herculean-class superhumans, in the interest of better understanding their powers, in order to better duplicate them. The research bore insightful fruit. It was discovered that Herculeans developed a natural buffer for their strength, a sort of personal immunity to prevent them from dismembering themselves with every gesture. This buffer was a response to the evolution of their powers, and could not be replicated. This made existing Herculeans prime targets for modification, as--by nature--they were more likely to survive. Unfortunately, while it was possible to magnify strength and even boost resilience, the process was torturous for the subjects, many of whom suffered mental collapse and either became unresponsive or simply self-terminated. The few that survived were too unstable for use in any capacity, and so were kept secured in iron restrains, under sedation, in the hopes of using them as references for future tests.

To date, the only people to survive the Titan experiments are Vova Koretsov (Atlas) and Victor Gray (Changeling), the former because the modifications he underwent rendered him nigh-indestructible, and the latter due to a then-unknown healing factor that prevented him from being permanently altered. Of the two, Atlas was considered a success, but he did not come away unscathed. The trauma of both experimentation and captivity rendered him psychotic, requiring him to be medicated *and* isolated in a secure locale to prevent him from becoming a threat to the population. He is thought to have died in the attack by Changeling on the Institute.

## Project APOLLO

When the Soviet government lost track of Solnechnik and Chernobog, their first priority became capturing lightning in a bottle: recreating their powers for use in a military capacity. Chernobog's powers were too volatile and specific to develop, with the danger involved in failure already well-documented by his case. The focus of research shifted instead to Solnechnik. In time, this exploration of possibility evolved into Project APOLLO: the recreation of Solnechnik's power-set through artificial means, with a focus on flight and light-manipulation.

Having no reference to work from, the result was largely guess-and-check, requiring dozens of attempts on multiple subjects. It became clear early on that adult subjects were ill-suited, due to prior experimentation in power implanting. For this reason, the Project sought out minors with developing or potential powers, sourced from homeless populations.