History Main / SovietSuperScience

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/AtomicHeart https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/atomic_twins_tech_8.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Welcome to the future Comrade!]]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TeslaTrooper1900x1200_8544.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[StealthPun Resistance]] [[ResistanceIsFutile Is Futile]], Capitalist Pig-Dog!]]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/Atomic Heart
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/atomic_twins_tech_8.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:301:Welcome to the future Comrade]]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TeslaTrooper1900x1200_8544.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[StealthPun Resistance]] [[ResistanceIsFutile Is Futile]], Capitalist Pig-Dog!]]

* The date is October 4, 1957. Sitting on the pad is a modified R-7 rocket, the world's first operational ICBM. But on this day, it doesn't carry a warhead -- it carries a small metal sphere, about the size of a beach ball, with four whip like antennae and a radio transmitter. It is known as PS-1 -- "Elementary Satellite 1" -- by the Russians, and soon, to the rest of the world, it would be known as "Sputnik 1". On that day, the Russians blew the United States out of the water with the massive triumph of the world's first functioning artificial satellite. Anybody who doubted the existence of the Sputnik could simply tune to a certain frequency (a bit higher than 20 MHZ, according to the Russian press) and hear its transmitter's steady beeping signal. Before this, the overwhelming idea of Russia to most Americans was a backwards country that could not compete with the US's might -- after this, it suddenly became superior in most Americans' minds, a juggernaut nation that had to be contained at all costs. American politicians gazed up at the small, visible polished sphere passing over their heads and wondered what else the Soviets could carry into space -- perhaps nuclear warheads, military spacecraft, or something worse. While it did not return much data itself, being a simple battery transmitter in space, its legacy kickstarted UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace, and led to a certain American taking the first steps on the Moon in 1969.

*** {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''Uprising'', which gives the Soviets another PoweredArmor that squirts toxic waste from the Super Reactors that can eat infantry or vehicles, a motorcycle with a mortar sidecar, and a clunky SpiderTank that spits rockets and grenades. Meanwhile, the Allies get floating artillery, freeze-gun equipped PoweredArmor, and a gunship firing a miniature version of their superweapon.

* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' is set in an AlternateHistory where the Cold War never ended and both the United States and the Soviet Union have developed [[HumongousMecha Arm Slave]] technology.

* In 1959, Soviet geneticist Belyaev started to research the genetics of foxes behavior, and noticed that foxes attitude toward humans seems to be hereditary (programmed by specific mutation of SorCS1 gene, albeit it wasn't known at that time). By years of careful selection, Soviet biologists were able to create a specific breed of human-friendly, completely domesticated foxes, who became a popular pets in Soviet Union (and now in the West also).

** The ''ComicBook/UltimateMarvel'' series "Ultimate Nightmare" takes place almost entirely in a complex dedicated to this. They worked by disassembling an alien robot found in TheTunguskaEvent, piece by piece, and grafting its parts to test subjects.

[[folder:Film]]

** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 RedAlert 3]]'' removes the nuclear aspect (in a game involving Imperial Japan...). Now their huge reactors function with chemical power, and their superweapon is now the Vacuum Imploder, which sucks up units and deals large amounts of damage.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTItans2003'' has a supporting character, the Russian superhero Red Star, who's the product of a Cold War-Era Soviet project to develop the perfect SuperSoldier only to turn him into a living, walking nuclear reactor, besides rapidly [[OlderThanTheyLook decelerating his aging]] (hence, why someone born during the Cold War could be part of the "Teen" Titans). His debut have him ''nearly'' destroying a village in order to stop a rampaging monster, and he returns in subsequent episodes as allies to the Titans.

* In the end, we cannot forget the example of Soviet Superscience that quite possibly defined the latter half of the 20th century: The plutonium-implosion bomb that detonated at 7:00 am on the 29th of August, 1949, at Semipalatinsk in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The bomb, developed five years quicker than the Anglo-US intelligence services believed possible, turned out to be 50% more destructive than the Soviet scientists had believed possible, as it destroyed one of the most elaborate nuclear test sites (a small mockup city, complete with metro system and a "garrison" of heavy military equipment and animals, was annihilated). Notably, the Soviet science teams made little use of the data they received from the Manhattan Project; their "Prince of Science", Igor Kurchatov, restricted the team to using the US designs only to check their work. The Soviet detonation had many names: RDS-1. Article 501. Joe-1. But it was the name the science teams gave to the test that will live in history: ''Первая молния, Pervaya molniya'' -- "First Lightning".

* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' this is played straight both in the main storyline and partially in the ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies Nazi Zombies]]'' mini-game. In the storyline, the Russians are able to weaponize a highly lethal toxin that has been shown to kill men in mere minutes and is not easily dispersed by wind, making it an effective area denial weapon and weapon of mass destruction. Furthermore, they have access to anachronistic weapons that wouldn't be introduced until the '70s or '80s (though the Americans showcase this too), have mastered drug-induced [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashing]] so advanced that they can program a man to do anything that they desire [[spoiler:(even make Mason and/or Oswald [[WhoKilledJFK kill John F. Kennedy]])]], and have somehow found a way to create [[UnderwaterBase a base on the ocean floor]] without it being crushed from the sheer pressure it would faced with at such depths. Somewhat {{averted|Trope}} in the ''Nazi Zombies'' storyline, as most of the technological achievements are actually achieved by Group 935, which is an international organization and have more or less equally introduced the same level of technological advancement to the Americans as they have to the Russians. However, the ''Zombies'' map "Ascension" still showcases some pretty advanced technology on the Russians' part; they have created flying platforms, genetically enhanced monkeys, the Thunder Gun (a hand-held cannon that fires high-powered waves of compressed air), which contrary to Richtofen's beliefs was not made by Dr. Maxis but rather Dr. Gersh, a Russian scientist, and Dr. Gersh also created a small device which generates a miniature '''black hole'''.

* The Soviets attempted to develop a "Badger Bomber", a plane that could also burrow. While it ''could'' take off from underground, it couldn't burrow from the air without destroying itself. [[NamesTheSame Had absolutely nothing to do with]] the conventional jet bomber with the [[ReportingNames NATO reporting name "Badger"]].

* ''VideoGame/AtomicHeart'' is a ''VideoGame/BioShock1''-like game that takes place in a Soviet research base where all the experiments have gone on a rampage.

* In ''[[TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse Sentinel Comics: The RPG]], Soviet Super Science is responsible for the villain team Perestroika. To wit:

The tendency to give those DirtyCommies technologies far beyond their Western counterparts in UsefulNotes/ColdWar or futuristic settings. (Not that the U.S. is left out, as long as both sides are in a LensmanArmsRace.) Expect lots of UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla technology and ILoveNuclearPower.

** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 RedAlert 3]]'' removes the ILoveNuclearPower aspect (in a game involving Imperial Japan...). Now their huge reactors function with chemical power, and their superweapon is now the Vacuum Imploder, which sucks up units and deals large amounts of damage.

* The Russian superhero film ''Film/Guardians2017'' has the titular four-person team be composed of representatives of four of the former Soviet republics, all of which were subjects to experimentation by Soviet scientists not long before the collapse of the USSR (a newspaper is shown with the headline "Genetics in service of the people"). The team includes a [[BearsAreBadNews werebear]], a KnifeNut [[SuperSpeed speedster]], an [[DishingOutDirt earth elemental]], and a woman who has {{invisibility}}, flexibility, temperature resistance, and doesn't need air. And the BigBad is a former Soviet superscientist, who has turned himself into a cyborg and can manipulate any technology he sees and has a clone army.

** In the novelette ''A Colder War'', set in an AlternateHistory where the Cold War was fought with the powers of the [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Great Old Ones]], the Soviets not only weaponize shoggoths and deployed them in Afghanistan, but they have an ultimate doomsday weapon called 'K-Thulu' in a giant concrete bunker in the Ukraine.

* In the ''Literature/{{Necroscope}}'' books the Soviets have an advanced Psychic intelligence service (almost as [[CreatorProvincialism advanced as the UK's one]], the US doesn't get a look in). Their attempt at a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' style DeflectorShield bubble to cover ''[[UpToEleven The Entire USSR]]'' and protect it from nuclear attack doesn't go well and in fact [[PhlebotinumOverload accidentally blows a hole in the fabric of space-time, creating a gateway to a vampire ridden hellhole]]. Erm, [[EpicFail oopsie]].

The tendency to give those DirtyCommies technologies far beyond their Western counterparts in UsefulNotes/ColdWar or futuristic settings. (Not that the US is left out, as long as both sides are in a LensmanArmsRace.) Expect lots of UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla technology and ILoveNuclearPower.

It is worth noting that historically the most recognizable disciplines of any super science -- genetics and cybernetics -- received a poor start in the USSR as the Party proclaimed those "false sciences" for being "bourgeois" (which makes as much sense as Nazis dismissing [[UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein Einsteinian relativity]] and the modern theory of the atom as "Jewish physics"). This stance wouldn't be lifted until [[UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev Khrushchev]] took power and USSR's first computer was finished in the mid-50s.

The Soviet record on science includes astounding triumphs — they [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin put the first human in space]] and contributed immensely to theoretical physics (there were several Soviet Nobel laureates in physics, including Andrei Sakharov and Lev Landau, and the Landau-Lifshitz textbooks on theoretical physics still remain among the best) — and also laughable failures, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism Lysenkoism]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union the abuse of psychiatry for "rehabilitation" purposes]]. The USSR pioneered [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_keratotomy modern corrective eye surgery]], yet fell behind in steel manufacturing, despite experimenting with it the longest. The Soviets, however, [[ILoveNuclearPower loved Nuclear Power]], the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid went online in USSR. Too bad [[{{UsefulNotes/Chernobyl}} a certain accident]] [[NeverLiveItDown ruined that reputation]]. So, this certainly has some basis in fact. Of course, the inconsistencies can be [[HandWave handwaved]] by the means of an AlternateUniverse, as ''Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'' testifies.

Historically, this trope owes itself to the Soviet Union's relative international isolation, both self-imposed and [[DirtyCommies external]], secrecy (especially about anything military, and a lot of Soviet research was fully or partly military-related) and tendency of its enemies to assume the worst with the absence of information. In the broadest sense, historians of science [[note]]distinct from the history of arts and humanities, termed the ''history of scholarship''[[/note]] have concluded that even considering the destructive consequences of Lysenkoism and obstacles to publishing research, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism dialectical materialism]] -- the philosophy that predates contemporary Marxism and serves as its scientific "foundation" -- had an overall positive influence on scientific community of the USSR and the world as a whole. ''Science'' is certainly a thing with acknowledge-able accomplishments attributed to the state, but it's a far cry from the entertaining medium of Soviet ''super''science.

StupidJetpackHitler is a SisterTrope, giving ThoseWackyNazis things like PoweredArmor and {{Cool Airship}}s, while {{Ghostapo}} could be a "cousin trope", in that it's a more mystical version of Stupid Jetpack Hitler. May be part of a TeslaTechTimeline as Tesla tech has a sufficiently different aesthetic to the capitalist pigdogs' technology. All of these are culture-specific [[SubTrope sub-disciplines]] of {{Mad Scien|tist}}ce. See also UsefulNotes/ClosedCities, which is where Soviet Superscience is created; they range from ordinary cities declared off-limits to foreigners to full-fledged [[VideoGame/HalfLife Black Mesa]] style complexes hidden in the lost mountains of Siberia.