The Infinity Patrol calls this timeline Soviet-4. Originally dubbed Lenin-9, further investigation revealed that the local history was indeed tampered with by a yet-unmet group of inter-dimensional travelers, with a presumably very detached correlation to the local Soviet Union. Suspected to still be Soviet in origin, one can only guess as to authenticity of their own homeline, which is data is to be correct may in fact be the result of several more layers of timeline manipulation. The Schutzstaffel call it "Bolschewik Vier" and consider it to be part of the Judaeo-Bolshevik plague that taints the space-time continuum. Seeing it as the further proliferation of Slavs and Communists throughout the multiverse, there may indeed come a time where the Thousand Year Reich will call every Aryan to yet against face off against their old foes. The Conseil of Workers' Systems, while delighted that yet another timeline preaches the Dialect of Marx to all Mankind, are somewhat dejected that is must be run by the archaic Soviet system of all things. While not to be unexpected, any 'enlightenment' of this Pocket[1] will have to be shelved due to the more immediate concern of transhuman aristocrats assaulting Trueline[2]. General Secretary Corentin Marceau also made another note on this world: if any operatives from the Conseil's defeated counterpart are discovered, they are to be tried for incompetence. The Vozhd's Bureau of Intelligence merely calls this world the "Soviet Empire," and is making a concerted effort to glean as much as they can from this timeline's understanding of Psionics, to further the glory of the Immortal Vozhd with such knowledge. In Motherline, the Soviet Union had steeped into deep decline. Beaten and humiliated by the Allies during the Third Great War[3], it was discovered by KGB operatives that the method to Allied success laid in their Chronoshift technology. Indeed, it seems that by all accounts, the Soviets were posited to win that war, had it not been for the betrayal of the psychic Yuri and the meddling of time-travelers. Operation Kladenets and the Red Guard sought to undo this: by secreting knowledge of Allied Chronotech back to bases in Russia, the Soviets reverse-engineered the time machines and other devices that the Allies had developed. Eventually it proved to be successful, and the Soviets had opened Pandora's box. There were other worlds. Countless worlds. Worlds were the Soviet Union proudly emerged triumphant in the Third Great War, and worlds were the traitor Yuri dominated the minds of all sentient life[4]. Worlds where the Russian Revolution had failed, or simply never occurred, while in others the Allies had lost even the Second Great War to comrade Stalin. Curious, the Soviets delved deeper and found timelines and worlds wholly-unfamiliar to their own. A Second Great War, but where nightmarish totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and the Allies aligned against the Chinese no-less, and another where the Earth was polluted by a green crystal resource, and fought over between a world government an a world-wide religious cult. There were worlds with technological might and terrors that put the best and brightest of Motherline to shame, while other worlds had suffered the torments of nuclear holocaust and a plethora of unimaginable apocalypses. Even beyond the destructive tendencies of humans, the was a much more vast array of monstrosities and unspeakable horrors that lay within the multiverse. These discoveries terrified the Red Guard, who nearly shut down the project out of fear. How and why the Allies would so carelessly play with such technology baffled the Soviets. Perhaps, if the Allies would undo them here, then they should undo the Allies, but on a wider scale. Or perhaps more, Motherline could even benefit from a protector against the horrors of the cosmos, let alone a benefactor to seek revenge against the Allies at home and crush them hastily. For decades the Red Guard worked in secret. For their plan to succeed, the Red Guard required not only material, but technology. While what was available in the 1990s would no-doubt give their downtime comrades the edge over the would-be Allies on their Earth, the momentum might not pick up in time for such an empowered Soviet Union to return the favor. Such things ultimately required much time. Aiding another incompetent Romanov-regime may prove to be a complicated matter: there is no guarantee that the Allies may show up again and reverse good fortunes, and the traitor Yuri could jeopardize the entire mission. Foreign civilizations were out of the question, especially the Allied powers. Likewise, Russia prior to the October Revolution should be treated as a separate entity altogether. Ultimately, it was decided to aid the nascent early years of the Soviet Union, by presenting onto Lenin a worthy successor whilst eliminating adversaries with ease. This would not just be an isolated mission, but rather a stream of many, as the Red Guard hoped to proliferate the modern Soviet ideals throughout the multiverse successfully, should Motherline be compromised. Of course Russia at that time had its many problems, and above all needed to industrialize. While the Red Guard of Motherline had access to advanced Construction Yards and prefabricated building technologies, the quantities required to ascend the Union in quick time would be massive. The subjugation of one parallel Earth by seemingly alien military forces from beyond that universe confirmed to the Red Guard that time may be short. Indeed, these fearsome powers might be drawn closer to Motherline should such travels continue. Thus one single venture was planned, sort of as a test run, to chronoshift a massive technological package, agents, and modern equipment back to 1924 and the end of the Russian Civil War[5]. Following this, the agents sent back would never hear from Motherline again.

And the plan had worked, or so the Red Guard agents had believed at first.



The Guard arrived in Ukraine of 1924, and set about their work. Or so they thought they would. Rather than arriving in 1924, the Guard found themselves in July of the year 1941 of a different timeline. Joseph Stalin still ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist, while the nation itself was under siege by the Germany army no-less. Indeed, it looked as though the Red Army was on the verge of collapse, completely different from the Second Great War the agents were familiar with[6]. The Red Guard considered aligning with Stalin against the German aggressors, believing this incarnation of the man to be less paranoid and controlling than in Motherline, but a sloppy meeting with the Soviet dictator proved otherwise. Fortunately, the Red Gaurd had brought along a small cadre of psychics of the Soviet PSI Corps. If Stalin would not cooperate, then he would be compelled to listen now. Indeed, the Red Guard promptly dominated the minds of those unsavory types in this world's Soviet leadership, while maintaining the sanity of those that believed the Guard's origins and mission. The Red Guard then set about their work to expunge the German armies from Soviet lands, as they interfered with the original plan of modernization. While the Guard had brought along many modern weapons such as the AK-47 and Rhino Tank, they were not enough, and so the use of MiG airstrikes[7] and tesla weaponry proved to be the most radical aid to the Red Army. The Desolator Corps was established, melting and purging the Wehrmacht with radcannons, while the use of Mobile Construction Yards gave the Red Army quick mobility and easy logistics as they threw the German momentum back. Of course, the conflict may still take years by some estimations as the original technology package was used up, and so the Red Guard hatched a plan to swiftly end the war. A fleet of Kirov Airships laden with Spetsnaz and Desolators were sent to Berlin to capture the German leaders and the so-called Fuhrer. When the Nazis refused to surrender, the Red Guard demonstrated the capabilities and power of Motherline by dropping nuclear weapons on several major German cities, as well as a large pocket of Wehrmacht forces in eastern Poland. What remained of the German leadership quickly capitulated to both the Soviets, as well as evidently the Allies, dividing Europe along the river Rhine. As the Red Guard had no intention of making deals with the Allies, the Soviet border was quickly sealed off behind the "Iron Curtain," a massive series of fortifications and walls that bisected Europe.



Next began the Guard's original plans for rapid technological modernization of the USSR. Factories were produced by uptime technology, designed to replicate and spread the technology of Motherline via Mobile Construction Yards. When those became sparse, the Soviets built factories to make the technology to make the technology to make the Construction Yards to reach the level of Motherline. The Red Guard also made sure to better handle the Soviet economy by restructuring the current one to resemble the successful Romanovist system of Motherline. Incidentally, it also laid the seeds for more limited free market to trickle into the wider Soviet system. The Red Army was gradually modernized with the available AK-47s and AK-74s that the Red Guard had brought with them, among other modern weapons. Many more assault rifles were produced in factories both primitive and modern, and overnight the Red Army had become the most advanced military on the planet. Officers were re-trained in modern schools of military thought and doctrine, and all they needed for a war were the tanks and aircraft to back that up. Due to the scarcity of uptime resources, the Soviet Air Force suffered to 'get off the ground.' However, the Kirov Airship and other dirigibles from Motherline continued to prove feasible, and could be produced ahead of newer MiGs and Sukhois. Technologies seemingly esoteric to the rest of the world also made their debut. The Red Guard introduced nuclear, and, tesla reactors to power the growing cities and factories, while along the border the dreaded tesla coil was built by the thousands alongside the Iron Curtain. While the Red Guard saw this as only a temporary roadblock to their next phase of the plan - destroying the Allies - the development of nuclear weapons by a joint Anglo-American venture halted their plans. Used against the Japanese, just as the Red Army had kicked the IJA off the mainland, it became clear to the Red Guard that war with the Allies must wait for now.



Having witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare on countless parallel Earths, the Red Guard knew that atomic warfare would mean all of their plans were for naught. Thus, a Cold War began that would continue for decades as East and West fought for spheres of influence. With plans to invade the rest of Europe on hold, the Soviets sponsored communist revolutions across South America, South Asia, and Africa, destabilizing those regions. Many smaller colonial powers collapsed under the weight of Soviet interference. The Union was expanded to include countless more SSRs, from Germany to Afghanistan, while communist allies succeeded in taking over in Spain[8], the Middle East, India and Brazil, bringing them into the World Socialist Alliance. One of the original mission objectives of the Red Guard had been to expand the Soviet Dream into the stars as quickly as possible so that, if the Earth was compromised, the Soviet Union would still endure. Thus with heavy investment, the Soviets dominated the Space Race against the Allies, putting a man on the Moon by 1953, and permanent colonies by 1969. Cosmonauts reached as far away as Mars, while their American counterparts had barely entered Lunar orbit. Soviet Dreadnoughts[9] launched from Central Asia into orbit, bringing the Soviet Navy into space, and FTL was even achieved by 1991 after a round trip to Alpha Centauri. Despite the best efforts of the newly-formed KGB, Soviet technology sometimes leaked to the wider world, particularly in an incident where French agents stole Soviet designs for Iron Curtain devices[10]. When Franco-American tensions reached a boiling point after the Americans tried to curb French influence within the Allies with their own, the French left the Alliance with faith that their nuclear arsenal would be enough to deter Soviet aggression. The Soviets used this opportunity to test how to take out a nuclear power quickly, using the chaos of a Parisian riot by French socialists to insert a team of Spetsnaz and PSI Corps to secure control over the French government. The French military was ordered to stand down while Soviet forces moved over the Rhine and into France. Those that resisted were easily outclassed by Soviet military power, and in Africa the Soviets went about reorganizing the former French colonies. While the Red Guard debated expanding the PSI Corps enough so that they could replicate this against the Allies, including the building of psychic amplifiers, the threat of a potential Yuri-type figure put fears to that idea. Indeed, after the French debacle the Red Guard purged most of the PSI Corps before they became too powerful, though advancements in psionics would eventually resume after the Cold War. Soviet technology continued to remain the answer to ending the Cold War.



Eventually the Soviets had completed an ion cannon[11] in orbit. Based off of stolen blueprints belonging to the Allies of Motherline, the Soviets spend decades scrapping together the little information they possessed into a working design, with a few modifications. Whereas the Allies sought to use it to kill, the Soviet version would be used to knock out electronics in a wide-scale EMP attack. Such a blast would cripple American nuclear defense, allowing the Red Army to swiftly move in. In 2014 the Soviets utilized it on the major Allied powers, sending them back to the 19th century overnight. Soviet forces secured London, Washington and various nuclear facilities in the chaos, while Soviet "peacekeepers"[12] were sent in from Mexico to establish a new order in the American chaos. The Allies were dissolved, and in their place several new SSRs and WSA members were created. While some Allied remnants held out for a time, the Soviet Union had effectively covered the Earth. In celebration, the remaining members of the Red Guard revealed their last secrets to their successors. Schematics for Soviet Chronotechnology, the full extent of the Guard's mission, and all data on what they had witnessed and observed. They had warned the Soviets about the multitude of threats lurking across the multiverse. However, where the Guard saw danger, the Soviets saw a prime opportunity to expand. The Soviets successfully completed their own version of the project, with several facilities established on Mars and in orbit just to be safe, and sent scout teams across the multiverse, discovering what the Guard detailed and much, much more. While they never encountered Motherline-A[13], they did run into multiple timelines that were also targeted by Operation Kladenets, each with their own Soviet World-State. These quantums aligned to form a much larger Soviet Bloc that continues to expand the cause of socialism throughout the mulitverse. While Allied-tampered timelines were rarely discovered, the Soviets found a few original ones that were tampered with by similar time travel methods[14]. The most notable case was the discovery of a timeline presumably many thousands of years into the future, where Mankind dominated the galaxy, but was convulsed by endless war. When the Soviets visited each of these, they made sure to procure samples of local technology for themselves.



In Motherline-B, the Soviets continued to expand across the cosmos, "liberating" various alien civilizations from the yoke of despotism and capitalism such as the sadistic squidmen, the chitin swarms, the dolphinic league, and a multi-species alliance of zealots. In the wake of these, the Soviets discovered a green crystalline element, suiting them perfectly as an energy source, while the Soviet Army was enlarged to include alien auxiliaries and a fleet of battle mechs. The Galactic Soviet would go on to encompass many thousands of worlds under communist ideology, becoming a major player in galactic politics[15]. On Earth, the Sahara and Siberia were terraformed to become much more green, with the Soviets finalizing their projects to create artificial seas in those areas. Genetic engineering was pioneered as the gateway to True Communism, but even that eventually gave way to the proliferation of psionic powers among most of the human population. Enlightenment became a much more real thing to achieve, advancing the mind to the point of looking beyond selfish interests. Now, all would conform to the whole and good of the USSR. As the Soviet Bloc emerged as a major player in the grand showdown of multiversal powers, the so-called Infinity War, they were ready. Armed with new technologies reverse-engineered from various timelines, and backed up by several interstellar empires on different timelines, the emergence of the Soviet Bloc surprised the major players of the Infinity War. Others disregarded such rise to power; to the DSS and the Coalition, it meant no difference than with their original Conseil rivals. If they could be defeated, then surely these upstarts would prove no match for the might of Columbia. Some no-name Advisors from the Universal Union debate when they should "trim the yard" of these weeds, who are moving a little too close to home. Still, they are on the furthermost end of the furthest tendril of the Universal Union, they can afford to be lazy for a while. In Motherline-B, a "benevolent" leadership rose during the height of the psionic age, ostensibly to continue to lead the Soviet Union into the future, though in truth the masterminds behind this plot serve Nod. He who controls the past, controls the future. He who commands the future, commands the past[16].



