Red Room

PHASE 2

Red Room
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BACKGROUND

The Red Room was created in the 1920s by Department X to fulfill the USSR’s need for covert operatives. Certain heads of the KGB heartily ascribed to this belief and were heavily involved in the development of various Red Room projects. Those projects initially focused on infiltration and integration into Western countries, subterfuge, and corporate as well as political espionage. As decades passed, the means and methods of training within the Red Room became more sophisticated. Not only were members and leaders of the KGB involved, but a great many men and women in the government began to pay more and more attention to the programs. Interest piqued when certain agents' skill sets were turned toward darker aspects of covert operations: assassinations that eliminated Mother Russia's enemies cleanly and without any repercussions for the Soviet government.

With the advent of WWII and HYDRA’s rise to prominence as well as its subsequent fall with Johann Schmidt’s death, minds within the Red Room and, indeed, the Russian government began to shift gears. The super soldier programs of the Western World had, for all intents and purposes, died with Erskine and then Schmidt. However the Soviets, along with the United States, snapped up Nazi and HYDRA scientists after the war. Those scientists were encouraged, within Russia and the Red Room, to continue their research from whatever notes they brought with them. The Red Room’s operatives during this time were sent to infiltrate various intelligence agencies in the West in the hope of finding and recruiting others.

This is how the Red Room came into contact with and ultimately began collaborating with Dr. Arnim Zola. Zola, along with the others high up in the Red Room, subscribed to the idea that one man or woman, one highly skilled individual, in the right place at the right time, could more skillfully and effectively turn the tide of world history than an army. Upon discovering that the Red Room was in possession of Sgt. James Barnes, Zola found he was better equipped and able to continue the work he’d begun in 1942. Thus, the Winter Soldier Project (Проект: Зимний Солдат) was born.

After the success of the Winter Soldier program, further attempts to create specialized covert operatives were nothing more than nebulous, black box programs. The Red Room once again began focusing its training efforts on more generalized (period typical) espionage. Why worry about creating more top tier assassins when they had literally the most effective and most feared ghost in history on ice and at their beck and call?

Those plans became less nebulous after the acquisition of Rebecca Barnes in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. She was the ideal candidate for replicating their earlier success because she was James Barnes’ daughter, which would allow whatever unique quirk of biology that let him survive his conversion to aid in hers. She also already possessed extensive knowledge of covert operations thanks to her CIA training.

The initial attempt to introduce the super soldier serum that James Barnes had survived to Rebecca Barnes’ system failed, nearly killing her. After several bouts of trial and error with lesser subjects, Zola decided that the problem lay not within Rebecca but within the formula itself. It was intended for introduction to a male’s body and male and female physiology differed significantly enough that he would need to further modify the formula so that it would be able to adequately encode itself into Rebecca’s DNA. Additionally, he advised that the Red Room heads modify the training and protocols they’d used on James Barnes so that they would be more effective on a female operative. Professor Grigor Pchelintsov was recruited to the project to assist with the various modifications and, once all of the changes were in place, the new formula was successfully introduced into Rebecca’s system, converting her into a useful operative.

After his success with the second Winter Soldier Project and spurred on by the rising tensions between the United States and the USSR during the Cold War, Professor Pchelintsov spearheaded the creation of the Black Widow Project (Проект: Черная Вдова), which would utilize and refine the data they’d acquired through their experimentation while modifying the USSR’s super soldier serum for Rebecca. Thanks to the USSR’s desire to surpass the West in all things, Pchelintsov was able to operate the program precisely as he believed it should be run, meaning without those pesky things called morals that those in the West were so often hung up on. With unprecedented access to the greatest scientific minds of the time as well as the most sophisticated equipment, facilities, and trainers, the Black Widow Program officially began operation in 1975 with a group of twenty-eight girls, aged eight.

Subsequent years of induction for new, potential Widows were 1982 (candidates were aged six), 1988 (candidates were aged four), 1995, 2002, and 2009. They found that the younger they started the girls, the greater the likelihood of success and the larger the number of operatives who survived to graduation. The generational lag allowed for evaluation of newly acquired data and the implementation of newly adjusted protocols. The success and continued operational freedom of the program continued to attract additional scientific talent over the years, including one Dr. Lyumila Kudrin.

There were those who wished to utilize and perfect the data acquired during James Barnes’ conversion to the Winter Soldier, specifically on male candidates. Those scientists and analysts were transferred to a different project, still under the auspices of the Red Room, dubbed the Wolf Spider Project (Проект: Волк паук). However, it met with little success and was eventually mothballed.

In 1988, when it became apparent that the USSR’s dissolution was inevitable, the Red Room’s various projects disappeared from all previously official records and became, on the surface, privately funded. However, they continued to receive covert funding from various government officials with the assurance that those officials would have access to the Red Room’s operatives.

SELECTION

Orphan girls were the ideal candidates for the program, since they had no strong attachments and were thus untethered from wider society. No one would miss them. The hope was that they would form strong bonds, if not truly familial ones, with their handlers and trainers

Initially, given the first group of twenty-eight girls was old enough to potentially remember the circumstances of their recruitment, the Red Room dangled the promise of a better life in service to their country before them. In later generations, the girls were taken too young to have strong memories of the lives they left behind. However, even with the younger intake age, their selection was still a data intensive process to ensure the best candidates were chosen.

Another facet of the Red Room’s rationale became the idea that women would constantly be underestimated, allowing them to more easily carry out operations. A woman could distract her target and pretend to be far weaker than she actually was without arousing suspicion.

TRAINING

Already chosen for their limited footprint on the outside world, the program served to further isolate the girls, indoctrinating them with the belief that the Western world was decadent and determined to destroy/supplant the way of life the girls were being groomed to protect. The hope was to instill in them an innate belief in the superiority of Mother Russia and that their duties to her were almost of a sacred nature. They weren't out to protect the interests of their handlers, but those of their country and the people within it. A noble cause that warranted their utmost dedication and devotion.

In addition to the traditional educational curriculum, Red Room candidates also subscribed to a rigorous training regime to prepare them for their future as operatives. A wide variety of languages was taught to facilitate their effectiveness in any part of the world. But language is only one piece of the societal puzzle so cultural assimilation followed, with repeated viewings of popular media from the target country along with intensive, interactive immersion scenarios that sometimes lasted weeks. This was combined with an extensively researched historical background that the girls would be expected to draw upon at any moment. Training in infiltration, integration, assessment, and improvisation were other aspects of situational preparation that the girls became well versed in.

The girls were trained in the Russian martial art Systema, which is intended primarily for combat and self-defense. It involves, but is not limited to, hand-to-hand combat, grappling, knife fighting, and firearms training. It has a focus on breathing, relaxation, fluidity of movement, and using an attacker’s momentum against him to control the six body levers through pressure point application, striking, and weapon applications. This was a necessity and essential skill the Black Widows would need to have at hand because the situations and opponents they would face could easily overwhelm them. While Systema was the first martial art they were trained in, it wasn't the last. They were also trained in a wide variety of other styles to develop a well rounded operative and to ensure they could handle anything thrown their way. Their handlers picked the various advanced martial arts each girl would learn based on their strengths and weaknesses, customizing their physical lessons once they reached the age of twelve.

Interrogation has two sides and the girls were trained in both. While the Red Room wanted the Black Widow to be just as much a myth and ghost as the Winter Soldier, they still prepared for the unlikely situation when one of their operatives was captured. The girls were also subjected to urban and wilderness survival training where extended duration excursions were the norm. An operative is useless if they’re unable to return with the information they've obtained or unable to escape without detection from a successfully completed mission.

Those that exhibited a skill affinity were given advanced training with other Red Room assets. However, they were still expected to exhibit at least an above average ability in all the skills they were taught. This was essential to the mythos the Red Room hoped to build around the codename Black Widow.

While each generation of Black Widows started with twenty-eight, the expectation was that only a few would make it to graduation. Competition within the program was heavily encouraged and as a result each training session had the possibility to end with one’s elimination, usually at the hands of one of the other Widows. This was so the girls would strive to be the very best and to ensure their own survival if nothing else. The Widows could have no weaknesses and an attachment to others was an inherent weakness. This survival of the fittest simply reinforced that tenet of the Red Room. It was a mantra that the girls were introduced to young and one that was continually reinforced. This was to ensure they only had their loyalty to Mother Russia, and by extension their handlers, and their loyalty to their mission. Everything else was a weakness.

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Introduced by: Zippit