History NightmareFuel / CommandAndConquer

* Coming from the initial concept for Command & Conquer 3, known as ''Command & Conquer 3: Incursion'', are the units used by CABAL. They [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:CABAL_Trooper.jpg range]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Squid_trooper.jpg from]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:CNCI_Puppet_Master_concept.jpg being]] severe examples of BodyHorror [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Cyborg_Trex.jpg to]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Diplomat.jpg just]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Buzzsaw_droid.png straight]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Tib_Inc-Roach.jpg up]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Flying_Wasp.jpg actual]] [[MechanicalAbomination Mechanical Abominations]].

** Shi Tao makes his base in a dilapidated nuclear testing facility, a place so irradiated patches of visible radiation crop up randomly in the village between his structures and the players starting area. He also ''loves'' nukes, and his tanks come equipped with the nuclear power plant upgrade, but have to be further upgraded to not explode violently. Fighting him he'll also take China's focus on WeHaveReserves UpToEleven by sending unprotected soldiers through this hellscape, often arriving at the player's base with slivers of health left.

* Coming from the initial concept for Command & Conquer 3, known as ''Command & Conquer 3: Incursion'', are the units used by CABAL. They [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:CABAL_Trooper.jpg range]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Squid_trooper.jpg from]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:CNCI_Puppet_Master_concept.jpg being]] severe examples of BodyHorror [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Cyborg_Trex.jpg to]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Diplomat.jpg just]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Tt-025.jpg [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Buzzsaw_droid.png straight]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Tib_Inc-Roach.jpg up]] [[https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/File:Flying_Wasp.jpg actual]] [[MechanicalAbomination Mechanical Abominations]].

* Volkov and Chitzkoi's creation is nothing short of horrifying either. Both of them some how have metal endoskeletons. Not Metal-plated, full on ''metal skeletons''. Volkov also has part of his skeleton modified to have a grenade launcher built into it. And this was done with [=WW2=]-era soviet surgical knowledge. No wonder there was only one "successful" prototype.

Although the series is generally quite campy, It does have its '''many''' moments of scary things that will put you off from playing a game or two for some time. Most of these comes from the [[FridgeHorror sudden realization]] about the various mumbo-jumbo in each series and imagining yourself to be caught up in one of these.

** Tiberium is horrifying once you learn of exactly ''why'' it has its properties. It's more or less a terraforming agent. However it leeches valuable minerals from the soil into a concentrated amount, growing crystals that can be easily harvested. The gas is toxic to most lifeforms and generally devolves them as well, but is easily contained. Bordering on Fridge Horror, you realise that this thing is made to capitalize on ''greed''. Every single society will fight tooth and nail for control of this stuff, as there is literally no better way of extracting valuables. They will also purposely cultivate fields of the stuff, because it's far more easier to plop a crystal in the ground than digging through a quarry. But it leeches away nutrients for growing food and degenerates (and poisons) local fauna. This ensures that whatever species left when the Scrin arrives is completely crippled, with but pockets of unmutated stock left and mostly worn out from war and starvation. And Nod keeps wanting to spread this stuff over the planet, and starting in Tiberian Sun they practically have a religion based on it, which Tiberium Wars takes to an extreme with stain-glassed window paintings depicting Tiberium mutations. It's not till Tiberium Twilight where this interest DOESN'T make them come off as insane.

** Speaking of the Scrin, lets look at Cult of Reaper 17. The Cult of Reaper is stated to be set of armies that are supposed to forcibly subdue any planets that offer resistance to the Scrin, and Reaper 17 is described as being bloodthirsty even for an army meant to strong arm planets, and are described as using Tiberium like an addict overdosing on drugs.

** The above is the result of coming into contact with ''Tiberium Wars'' era Tiberium, due to its self-replicating proton-lattice nature. The effects of Tiberium before that point can be just as terrifying as it's highly mutagenic. Extreme exposure can cause the victim's body to completely breakdown into the aptly-named Visceroid, an amorphous mass of blood, tissue, and muscle. In the original graphics for ''Tiberian Dawn'', there appears to be what look like ''eyeballs'' on the unit sprite but ''Remastered'' changes them to white pustules, [[SarcasmMode lovely]]!

* Visceroids in ''Command And Conquer''. They're disgusting enough in the RTS games, but the Renegade FPS gives them a whole new level of scary, seeing as you can see how disgusting they are up close and personal.

* The Yellow Zones and Red Zones of Tiberium Wars are horrifying to behold. Yellow zones are an all-to-close reminder of some of the poorer 3rd world countries that exist in our time; decrepit infrastructure housing billions of starving, desperate people while global superpowers war just over their heads, and running water and food is considered a luxury. On top of all that, they have to deal with the very real possibility of Tiberium contamination as they go about their daily struggle for survival. And then there's the Red Zones; an apocalyptic wasteland where the earth itself has been gutted by tiberium. Giant "glaciers" of tiberium run so high and deep that it's impossible to harvest them with conventional means, while any man not thoroughly protected from the air itself will find himself either dying an agonizing death or horrifyingly mutating into a visceroid. Within ''minutes''. Anything that managed to survive in this environment has been mutated beyond recognition; your soldiers will occasionally remark how it feels like an alien planet and they're right; tiberium has mutated the place so much that it ''is an alien world''.

* The Chronosphere technology proposed by Einstein in this series has a horrifying side effect that is only seen in the first Red Alert: Every so often, the abuse of Chrono technology will cause a Chrono Vortex to form. An enigmatic swirling distortion in the fabric of reality itself, the Vortex will tear apart any troops, vehicles, and buildings that happen to be in its path as it meanders around the map. This unstable Chrono Technology also exhibits the side effect of killing all passengers inside any APC transports when you teleport them, in a parallel to the mysterious deaths attributed to the urban legends of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment Philadelphia Experiment]] that were the inspiration for the Chronosphere.
** Later "stable" versions of the Chronosphere seen in Red Alert 2 have an offensive bent that will terrify enemy commanders: Besides allowing a canny commander to teleport vehicles around, you can also use the Chronosphere to pick up ''enemy'' vehicles and send them whereever you please - it is entirely possible to drown tanks and shatter ships upon dry land with this technology wielded as a weapon. Furthermore, the effect of the 'stable' Chronosphere is deadly to infantry not in the safety of a vehicle.
** Modified versions of Chrono technology as wielded by Chrono Legionnaires and the IFV with a Legionnaire passenger allow them to invoke the power of {{Retgone}} upon enemies, erasing them from time in the same fashion as how Einstein accidentally started the Red Alert timeline in his all-too-successful attempt to eliminate Hitler. The ParanoiaFuel invoked by a white-armored teleporting figure who erases things from existence could potentially cause some real freakouts.
** One of the penultimate Soviet missions in the Counterstrike expansion, ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHKMev498PA Paradox Equation]]'', has you being assigned to capture a Chronosphere in a region badly warped by the effects of experimentation with it. How badly are we talking here? Try having every unit's weapons being altered into something completely different, like tanks with Tesla and Flame cannons, Artillery pieces firing oversized rounds, and V2 launchers suddenly finding their payloads boosted to near-nuclear levels. The mission briefing itself adds to the surreal horror:
-->TO: Field Commander S7\\
FROM: Soviet Command\\
PRIORITY ONE\\
We received this garbled transmission from a scout group sent into a suspected Allied test site:\\
<TRANSMISSION BEGINS>\\
All... te.t area di..overed! Chronos... test g... crazy! Weapons... effected by... air units inop... Area unst.able! Ch...osphere must be affect...\\
<TRANSMISSION LOST>\\
You are to investigate this. If the Chronosphere is indeed behind it, this is a perfect opportunity to capture it. See that it happens.
--->- Mission briefing
* Soviet [[SpiderTank Terror Drones]]. They could make instant mincemeat of most infantry, are annoyingly fast, and ''can burrow into vehicles to mutilate their crews''. The fact that the latter is [[NothingIsScarier only shown on screen as said vehicle rocking only makes it worse...]]
** Terror Drones are actually dismantling the vehicles, the crew just dies from the resulting explosion (that's why you have to repair them to get the drones off). However, note that the Drones were designed with Dismantling Vehicles in mind and was only ''suppose to do that''. The butchering of infantry was when the Soviets realised the same tools used to cut through metal and sever cables can be used to do the same to human flesh and limb.
---> '''Yuri:''' ''[[FauxAffablyEvil Terror Drones are such]]'' '''[[ImmuneToMindControl mindless beasts.]]''' ''[[SchmuckBait Why don't you train]]'' ''[[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs some engineers instead?]]''
* Attack dogs and war bears. Imagine trying to fire your weapon like crazy at them before they lunge for your neck.
* Soviet Desolators would be a horror to face in battle. No soldier is safe from the lethal radiation beam cannons they wield, and the Red Alert 2 incarnations of these deathbringers can slam their cannons into the ground and make a large patch of land so toxic infantry die rapidly. Their sadism and the sickly-green glow makes them seem even more inhuman.
* Yuri's MindControl is rather frighting, considering the tactics of mind controlling enemies, civilians and what else to send them into a grinder or to increase power to your bio-reactors. Could cross into AndIMustScream when you think if they're completely aware of being mind controlled before being turned into a LivingBattery or ground up for spare cash.
** A lot of Yuri's ideas for units are downright cruel and unusual along with exploding into a virus cloud, going berserk and killing your allies, being mind controlled, having your vehicle pulled to your imminent doom/mind enslavement, irreversible mutation into a muscular brute or just outright being enslaved to dig up ore and gems from the ground until hopefully some capitalist/communist comes along and destroys the miner you're enslaved to.
* The Red Alert 1's portrayal of Soviets in general and UsefulNotes/JosephStalin in particular. The very first thing you see in the Soviet campaign is the aftermath of a Sarin gas test, with Stalin and his attaches going over the results. The first '''mission''' they give you involves burning a Polish village to the ground and killing everyone and everything inside. It '''only''' gets worse from there.
** Another example of his unpredictable nature comes about during the mission he instructs you to capture the Chronosphere. When you do finally capture it, there is a cutscene showing it going unstable and then exploding. Cue Stalin angrily ordering that you be be executed, until the secretary informs him that one of the other officers gave you incomplete/faulty intel, whereupon he personally strangles the man.
** During the Allied campaign, there is a tense series of missions whereupon you are tasked to rescue an officer who wished to defect from Stalin's regime, whereupon he confirms Stalin's plan to launch nukes at the Allies. It's the desperation in which he begs you to stop his former Premier that will unsettle you.
** The worst part of the portrayals are when you realize that, unlike Red Alert 2 and 3, these were rather accurate and, more importantly, ''realistic''.
* Yuri in [=RA2=]. He's not as scary as Stalin, he's still a huge KnightOfCerebus amongst amongst a bunch silly villains. He's extremely stoic, controls people's minds, and his voice alone just screams "this guy is evil, don't trust him you idiot." Of course, by the time you heard his voice trusting and obeing him is no longer up to you... Probably the worst in the [=RA2=] vanilla soviet ending is when we see him with his calm attitude when reduced to a BrainInAJar. His faction has some of this with his Grinders, they break stuff down into material components...Including people.
** One of his threats in the "Brain Wash" mission of Yuri's Revenge is particularly [[NothingIsScarier chilling]]. Knowing who Yuri is and what he can do, it's not an idle one.
--> ''"Last chance Commander, leave the Dominator alone, [[AndIMustScream or you'll beg]] [[FateWorseThanDeath for your death]]!"''
* General Vladimir, in the Allied mission "Last Chance", addresses the player with a [[TranquilFury chilling]] speech as he [[NukeEm destroys Chicago]].
-->''"Hear me, you foul American phantom, wherever you are. You can work your armies like a puppeteer all you want, '''but this is my play!''' Here is the city that you have saved, without the Psychic Amplifier, which you so rashly destroyed, I no longer have much use for it. Behold. The power. '''OF MOTHER RUSSIA!!!'''"''
* [[http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Yuriko_Omega Yuriko Omega]], she's a PersonOfMassDestruction whose dialogue points to her not being completely mentally stable. It was recorded that amongst her personal kill-counts includes an entire Allied company including a mix of infantry, vehicles, attack helicopters, ''ships'', and a school of Allied-trained recon dolphins.
** One of the reasons for there being multiple Yuriko operatives in the Imperial Army's forces is that the original was held in Shiro Sanitarium, where other female psychics were transformed into virtual copies of her via horrific treatments. Clones of her were also produced, as recon images of the Psionic Decimator reveal that Yuriko clones are stuffed in its pods.
** After the main campaigns of the RA3 story comes Yuriko's personal quest, Uprising. At the end of the main campaigns, the original Yuriko is taken prisoner by the Allied forces until she receives a telepathic message from her sister, who was also held in the Shiro facility, which engages in a variety of dehumanizing and brutal procedures to produce and train psychic commandos like Yuriko herself and her clones. She escapes from the Allies, and fights her way back through the facility, where she ''does'' succeed in freeing her sister. However, they have a falling-out, and Yuriko is forced to kill her sister in self-defense. About the only thing good that happens of this incident is that Yuriko destroys the facility that made her into a mentally-unstable psychic commmando, preventing more clones of herself (and more psychic commandos) from being produced.
* The effects of the freeze beam and shrink beam. Imagine getting frozen alive, and can only watch in horror as a man with a shotgun comes up to finish you off. Or imagine you're in an apocalypse tank, crushing Capitalist pig-dogs, when all of a sudden you're shrunk to the size of a kitten, and see guardian tanks coming up relentlessly as your shells ping off their armor harmlessly.

* The Red Alert 1's portrail of Soviets in general and UsefulNotes/JosephStalin in particular. The very first thing you see in the Soviet campaign is the aftermath of a Sarin gas test, with Stalin and his attaches going over the results. The first *mission* they give you involves burning a Polish city to the ground and killing everyone and everything inside. It *only* gets worse from there.

** A lot of Yuri's ideas for units are downright cruel and unusal along with exploding into a virus cloud, going berserk and killing your allies, being mind controlled, having your vehicle pulled to your imminent doom/mind enslavement, irreversible mutation into a muscular brute or just outright being enslaved to dig up ore and gems from the ground until hopefully some capitalist/communist comes along and destroys the miner you're enslaved to.

* Yuriko Omega, she's a PersonOfMassDestruction whose dialogue points to her not being completely mentally stable.

---> '''Yuri:''' ''[[FauxAffablyEvil Terror Drones are such]]'' '''[[ImmuneToMindControl mindless beasts.]]''' ''[[SchmuckBait Why don't you]]'' ''[[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs train some engineers instead?]]''

---> '''Yuri:''' ''[[FauxAffablyEvil Terror Drones are such]]'' '''[[ImmuneToMindControl mindless beasts.]]''' ''[[SchmuckBait Why don't you train some engineers instead?]]''

---> '''Yuri:''' ''[[FauxAffablyEvil Terror Drones are such]]'' '''[[ImmuneToMindControl mindless beasts.]]'''

* The Chronosphere technology proposed by Einstein in this series has a horrifying side effect that is only seen in the first Red Alert: Every so often, the abuse of Chrono technology will cause a Chrono Vortex to form. An enigmatic swirling distortion in the fabric of reality itself, the Vortex will tear apart any troops, vehicles, and buildings that happen to be in its path as it meanders around the map. This unstable Chrono Technology also exhibits the side effect of killing all passengers inside any APC transports when you teleport them, in a parallel to the mysterious deaths attributed to the urban legends of the Philadelphia Experiment that were the inspiration for the Chronosphere.

---> '''Yuri:''' ''[[FauxAffablyEvil Terror Drones are such]]'' [[ImmuneToMindControl mindless beasts.]]

* Soviet Terror Drones. They could make instant mincemeat of most infantry, are annoyingly fast, and ''can burrow into vehicles to mutilate their crews''. The fact that the latter is only shown on screen as said vehicle rocking only makes it worse...