Red Hand

"The Reds, industrious dudes they were, they had their own, super-soldiers, ya know? "In Soviet Russia, Science makes you!"."

- Dr. Charles Zurn

The Red Hand is a defunct origization in the M.M.O. The Secret World. The now, disbanded, secret society was once the main force behind the U.S.S.R. and collapsed around Russia's fall from communisim. The were a rival super-power to the Templars, Illuminati and The Dragon.

Influence
The Red Hand once controlled most of eastern Europe and nearly all of western Asia. The were the power behind Communism at the turn of the century. While their main headquarters were in Russia they secretly, to the general public at least, ran many countries outright such as Romania, East-Germany, Mongolia and even had influence in Greece and China. Like the three main societies, The Red Hand had it's own way of doing things in their parts of the world. Taking care of the people under their rule was minor, barely even lip-service was paid to the idea. To the Red Hand, the people were not even a resource but rather potential recruits, with those who never entered into their countries' upper echelons as being just so much resource backlog. Red Hand emphasized the people's loyalty to their country and with all country's under the Red Hand being pumped into the society as a whole, they viewed "The glory of the Motherland" mentality and personal influence as one and the same.

Goals
Where as the Templars main goal was to annihilate evil with extreme prejudice, The Illuminati's was to "work that top spot on Darwin's ladder" and The Dragon's were to become real-world engineers of fate, The Red Hand concerned itself with reaching the heights of the scientific capability. Their agents were numerous mad-scientists, black-opts teams and bio-engineered super-soldiers. They even claim to have poached Nikola Tesla from the Illuminati's potential recruitment drive, (as a result the Illuminati were forced to settle for Thomas Edison instead). Tesla's technology was not mere electrical generation. Unlike Thomas Edison's research into electricity, Tesla's created electromagnetic fields that isolated areas from video and telepathic voyeurism. With Tesla's technology the Red Hand insulated many of it's facilities from potential spies. Long after Tesla's death, his coils were used as primary electrical generation and cloaking technology in all the Red Hand's top facilities.

Years ago the Red Hand actually attempted to do what no other society had, invade Agartha. Agartha is the Hollow Earth, the world Tree, an inter-planar nexus that allows those touched-by-Gaia (awakened with super-powers like the player) to travel from one point of the globe to another. Anyone not touched by Gaia is said to go mad upon entering, which is why it's avatars "The Bees" (literal magic bees) protect it's openings, not merely to keep themselves safe but to keep mortals from going mad from premature interaction with Gaia. The three main societies all know of Gaia, as they recruit many of their agents from those awakened by Gaia and as such all have become familiar with Agartha as quick travel system from one part of the globe, to another with but a brisk walk. The Templars, Illuminati and The Dragon, all respect Gaia to a degree at least and know not to spit in the eye of one of their main resources, The Red Hand however did not share this trait, though their is indication they may not have had recruits from Gaia's awakened, like the others did. For years the Red Hand perfected their shielding against Gaia's influence, until eventually they were ready. The Red Hand deployed troops to Agartha to try to take the entire plane of reality. To call the campagain a fight would be generous, it was a slaughter. The Red Hand agents were almost all massacured. Of the thousands sent a literal hand-full returned, half dead and/or insane. Though their goal of taking the plane was shot down, the Red Hand to gain a consolation prize, a couple of Custodians, gigantic golems composed of now extinct technology from previous ages. The Custodians roam and protect Agartha and area's hidden from the general public important to Gaia, so with the few deactivated ones their agents had brought back, The Red Hand decided to rework the Custodians as their own resources. The Custodians had their central nervous-system rewired by Red Hand scientists to make them puppets. The great machines would patrol Red Hand facilities, securing them for future projects. Only two Red Hand re-branded Custodians are ever encountered in The Secret World one in Facility 9 (The Facility dungeon), a facility dedicated to inter-planar/interstellar travel and Facility 10 (The Slaughter House dungeon), a facility dedicated to developing super-soldiers.

The Facility
"The goal of the program is to create the first voyager. Not some of floats in a suit mere mind miles from the Earth, no. Someone to explore the inner-outer reaches."

- Halina Ilyushin

Facility 9 was built as part of the U.S.S.R.'s ambitions in The Space Race with the U.S., and thus with their rivalry with the Illuminati during the era. A young girl Halina Ilyushin was taken as a ward of the state at an early age and used as a test subject for anima infusion. Halina was injected with anima, the life force of the planet, which imbue Gaia's chosen with power. The Red Hand were using Halina to manufacture their own demigods. But with such hard to gain resources Halina was not merely a super-soldier, she was set to be the "first voyager". At first the Halina believed she was being trained as the first cosmonaut and that may well have been the original intent of the program, but when the U.s. won the space race, the Red Hand pushed Halina to a different goal - inter-dimensional travel.

When the Red Hand fell, the facility was kept operative in Romania by the Contact Core, an A.I. created to supervise the facility. Which no one to issue it new resources or orders, the Contact Core simply maintained Facility 9 as it was programed to do. But with no Red Hand to issue orders the Facility became an isolation chamber for Halina, who had no contact with the previous moderators. The Core states Halina was injected with the life and blood of the cosmos. Upon setting foot into the inner chambers it is clear that the metaphors were for anima, as "the life" and The Filth as "the blood". Halina had become corrupted by The Filth, driven to obsession and madness by the whispers of The Dreamers who had influenced her with during the isolation. The Red Hand had blasted gaping open windows into Agartha and The Dreamer's prison and were using the channels to empower Halina with both anima and Filth bursts at once. The Anima is the only thing that keeps Halina lucid, but internally she is lost to the Dreamers, consumed by the visions instilled in her to explore the cosmos.

The Slaughter-House
"Comrades welcome to Facility 10. Know that the Red Hand appreciates your continued support in the Party. Yes, the Presidium concerns over what they call our "slaughterhouse". But you will see, we are making great advances in the hybrid soldier program."

- Slaughter House Recording

Facility 10, nicknamed Slaughter House by it's own people's internal critics, was set up to produce super-soldiers for The Red Hand. Upon discovering the existence of vampires, the Red Hand sent research materials to Facility 10 to make the most of mass-production of the vampiric strains. The Red Hand contacted the vampire, Mara, in Romania. Mara is the celebrated queen of vampires and she supplied them with her bloodslaves and research data from her creator, Lilith, mother of all monsters. The Red Hand Scientists sought to vat grow their own vampires and set up a genetic farm to use as a controlled application of vampirism to it's soldiers. The program went through many metamorphoses, from infected soldiers with vampirism, infusing normal soldiers with the super-human traits of vampires, to creating super-solider vampires by combining the strains with steroids to eventually growing their own vampires without needing to rely on Mara for a stead supply of vampires. It is unknown what Mara was initially promised as payment but whatever it was was clearly not what she actually associated with the Red Hand for...

When The Red Hand fell, Mara's vampires, fell upon the facility. Long since cut off from the Red Hand, Mara's vampires broke out the test-subjects and killed or converted the scientists still holed up inside. The supposed inmates were then running the asylum. The vampires re-purposed the entire facility as an enhancement program for their kind. Though there were deeper areas even the vampires did not dare march into due to the uncontrollable nature of some of their bastardized brethren developed by The Red Hand.

Fall
The Red Hand have fallen prior to the start of the game and fell around the time Communism fell and the U.S.S.R. was broken up. The remnants of the society are found all around Transylvania as relics of a by-gone age, to be appropriated on various missions in the region for the player's faction. The other societies were opposed to the Red Hand because it did not adhere to any of the treaties they did. Breaking into Agartha or experimenting with Filth were both things that Big Three had all agreed were best avoided for the good of the human race as a whole. Aside from humanitarian concerns was also the fact that none of the three liked a single society claiming resources and countries as it's own. A campaign was started to take down the Red Hand.

The Templars fought them for a century to drive back their influence, much like in real life, the Russians were well isolated from outside threats. The Templar ground forces were always only ever enough to hold The Red Hand back, not actually proceed inward to take them down at the source. The Dragon attacked with moral and disinformation campaigns to sabotage the internal workings of Red Hand governments. The people began crying out for reform from their own governments eventually, this put much strain on the Red Hand, affecting them more than the Templars, but ultimately it is not what broke it apart. It was the Illuminati who finally won out over the Red Hand. Where the Templars had attacked with troops and the Dragon attacked with revolution, the Illuminati attacked with capitalism. The pros of a free trade society and the promised of wealth to those with ambitious over loyalty to the Party eventually won out over The U.S.S.R. and the empire of the Red Hand collapsed in on itself and they remaining scientists and populations fleeing the ruins of the society were assimilated into the Illuminati in exchange for leniency. And so the Red Hand was finally destroyed, not with armies or with revolution, but with fast-food and rock-and-roll.