Characters / Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series - Factions and Characters

This page is a listing of factions and characters from the Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series.

See also:

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

---

Factions

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

FOR MOTHER RUSSIA!

The original Commie Land. The Soviet Union's expansion was facilitated by Albert Einstein's attempting to prevent the horrors of World War 2. Without Nazi Germany to keep them in check, Josef Stalin took the Soviet Union to unprecedented heights, allowing him to launch an invasion of Western Europe. The Soviet Military Doctrine revolves around the concept of superior firepower, ground superiority and reliance on highly advanced but conventionally based technologies, based primarily on heavy armor divisions, but the Soviets are known for employing cheap infantry in the role of armor support. Generally Soviet forces are either equal in speed or slower than the Allies. The slow-moving nature of the juggernaut that is the Soviet military war machine is compensated by their raw strength and durability.

---

• Action Bomb:
  • The M.A.D. Tank in Aftermath can self-destruct, creating a large shock wave that damages vehicles and structures in a large area.
  • Red Alert 2 sees the return of the Demolition Truck for the Soviets (for Libya at least), now driven by a human; as well as the Cuban Terrorist, who is a suicide bomber. Crazy Ivans can invoke this by planting bombs on friendly units. Doing this to Attack Dogs is a popular tactic online.
• The Aesthetics of Technology: Starts to become evident in Red Alert 2, which gives the USSR a blend of Diesel Punk, Stalinist, and Slavic-inspired styles. By Red Alert 3, Atom Punk touches are added to the mix, giving the Soviets a decidedly retro-futuristic atmosphere compared to the other factions.
• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • The climactic assault on Britain at the end of the Soviet campaign in Red Alert 1 has strong echoes of Operation Sea Lion, Nazi Germany's plan to invade through the English Channel.
  • The "World Socialist Alliance" in Red Alert 2, an overtly Soviet-backed coalition comprised of various rogue Latin American and Middle Eastern states (with Cuba, Libya and Iraq as playable subfactions) is both a nod to the real life Warsaw Pact and a reference to the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism during George W. Bush's administration.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: In Red Alert 3, the Soviet Super reactor will cause a massive explosion when destroyed, which can destroy most units if they're too close - despite nukes canonically not having been invented yet. (What do the plants run on? "Chemicals.") Funnier still, it sports a nuclear symbol and a small chamber from which Cherenkov radiation leaks.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Nuke trucks were introduced in Command and Conquer: Red Alert and reinstated in Red Alert 2. It's exactly what it sounds like, a truck that attacks by detonating the nuke it carries. The only problem is that it's apparently made of wood; one or two bullets are enough to set it off prematurely. In Red Alert 2, however, you can use the Iron Curtain to make them invulnerable and much more practical.
• Bears Are Bad News: The Soviets in Red Alert 3 have armored war bears. They go down in a few hits, but can instantly kill any infantry in close combat and disable them with roars. One of the Allied Spy's unit responses is "I don't like bears...", which is justified by the War Bear's ability to sniff out and maul spies. In the expansion, there's one mission where you have to deal with bears the size of Apocalypse Tanks that can maul buildings to death.
• Beneath Notice: Played With. The Soviets in Red Alert 2 manage to rebuild their military forces right under the Americans' noses. While this is mainly due to the KGB and Yuri's antics keeping most of it under wraps, it's also due to how barely anyone expected the USSR to ever be a threat to the free world again, until it was too late.
• Blood Knight: Name one character that isn't. We're hourly so happy to wait.
• Bond One-Liner: The Desolator from Red Alert 2 and the Shock Trooper from Red Alert: The Aftermath both love doing this.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The late-game tech they use is shockingly mundane in comparison to the late-game tech of other factions.
  • The most whimsical they'll get is the Tesla technology and Iron Curtain they like to use, and even then, it's still unimpressive in comparison to the Allies, whose equivalent is the infinitely more cutting-edge Prism/Spectrum technology, which uses reflection and dispersion to fire beams of pure light at their targets.
  • The way they progress through their tech tree in Red Alert 3 is also this. The Soviets stick to the old-school method of simply building specific structures to unlock their units, while the Allies and the Empire have to purchase upgrades to unlock their more advanced technology, whether by purchasing clearance from Construction Yards and/or Command Hubs as the Allies, or purchasing upgrades as the Empire for each individual production structure on top of them having to construct a Defense Bureau and Nanotech Mainframe respectively.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Soviet Conscripts in Red Alert 2 are armed with PPSh-41s even though they had access to AKs in the previous conflict. This is justified, however. Given that the nation was disarmed following its defeat in that war, it makes sense for something as outdated as that to be the only small arms they have left in abundance, which would have easily slipped under the (Allied) radar.
• Book Ends: In Red Alert 2 one of the very first things the Soviets do while America is destroying the Statue of Liberty. In Red Alert 3, this is one of the last things they do to cement victory over the Allies.
• Car Fu:
  • The Apocalypse Tank in Red Alert 3 is able to crush smaller tanks. Its secondary weapon is a Magnetic Harpoon that pulls other vehicles toward it.
  • The Soviet Grinder that was introduced in the expansion is able to crush any surface units - and it's amphibious.
  • While the Sickles mainly use their machine guns to take out infantry, they can also use their Flea Leap ability to land on and crush them. The expansion adds the Reaper, a bigger version of the Sickle that can only jump once^note Its legs break afterward and it becomes a stationary turret, but will instantly kill anything it lands on.
• Cast from Hit Points: In Red Alert 3, the Dreadnought's special ability allows it to fire twice as fast, but this damages it in the process. The Kirov can temporarily boost their speed significantly, but this also burns its health up.
• Civil Warcraft:
  • The Soviet campaigns in Red Alert 2 and 3 necessitate the elimination of another Soviet general whom the Soviet leader has declared inconvenient to keep around. Of course it's only a matter of time before they try to do the same to you.
  • The Soviet campaign in Red Alert 1 does not feature it, partly due to Stalin killing anyone he suspects of doing this, and neither does the Counterstrike expansion's Soviet missions... but the Aftermath expansion has two missions where some form of it will happen (going up against a rogue radical faction, going up against traitorous weapon dealers supported by the Allies but still with large parts of the Soviet arsenal at their disposal) and one mission where it can happen (if you disobey orders and do not commit war crimes while putting down a rebellion, Stalin's elite guard arrive to "finish the job" and are hostile to your forces).
• Colony Drop:
  • In Red Alert 3, the Soviets can drop old satellites from orbit as a form of attack. Lowest level drops Sputniks, the highest level drops the MIR space station. It's surprisingly impotent for an object that size, though.
  • An ability also allows the same Soviet satellite to magnetically pick up vehicles and add them to the satellite barrage the next time one chooses to use it. Hilariously fun if you picked up aircraft carriers and battleships beforehand and chucked them at something. It even works on infantry wearing Powered Armor. Supplementing the space station with Tesla Troopers, Rocket Angels, or (in the expansion) Cryo Legionnaires is great fun.
• Color-Coded Armies: The Soviets are red.
• Conscription: Red Alert 2 gives Soviet... Conscripts. In the two games the poor saps have appeared in, they're the cheapest basic infantry unit. Let's put it this way: The other factions have scouting units that cost more than the Conscript.
• Cool Airship: Introduced in RA2, Kirov Airships have shark decals on the front and can do a lot of damage; they can even get a two-hit kill on Construction Yards. They're also quite tough, but take a while to get anywhere.
• Day of the Jackboot:
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert depicts the Soviet Union taking over Europe in dramatic fashion. In their RA ending they occupy London and specifically Buckingham Palace.
  • In RA2, they destroy the Pentagon, bombard the Statue of Liberty into rubble, mind-control the US president, turn the Eiffel Tower into a giant tesla coil, shut down Wall Street (complete with infantry march), and start expanding into space.
  • In RA3, they have tanks rolling down the streets of Paris, destroy the Imperial Palace in Japan, and build a giant Lenin monument after bombarding the Statue of Liberty into rubble (again).
• Death from Above:
  • Having lost the bulk of its conventional air forces, the Soviets in Red Alert 2 rely on its fleet of sturdy Kirov Airships to bombard enemies into submission. Yuri's Revenge, meanwhile, adds Siege Choppers that double as anti-infantry gunships, while giving Boris the ability to call in the USSR's precious squadrons of MiG fighter-bombers for precision strikes.
  • In Red Alert 3, the Soviets can drop orbital debris ranging from satellites to space stations on their enemies, along with any vehicles they picked up with their magnetic satellites. Meanwhile, in addition to the aforementioned Kirov Airships, they also have access to Twinblade Gunships and MiG Fighters to even the score.
• Dirty Communists: The depiction of the Soviet Union, especially in the second and third game, comes straight out of a Red Scare B-movie. Even when you're playing as them they still come across as jerks:
  Premier Cherdenko: We will sign this treaty, we will come together as brothers, and then... we will crush them!
• Empathy Doll Shot: Red Alert has a cutscene showing villagers fleeing a Soviet air raid that ends with a long zoom in on an abandoned teddy bear with a bullet hole shot through it. To make this one worse, it's a Victory cutscene from a Soviet mission. The player was the one directing the air raid. Not at all helped by the fact that the Briefing, where you are given the order by none other than Josef Stalin himself, there is a slideshow of the aftermath of a chemical gas (possibly SARIN) attack. And since it was the first mission, it was an easy mission, with not much fighting back. Gives the player a warning though: If you wanted to play the good guys, put the Allied Disk in your CD drive right now!
• Energy Weapon: One Soviet mission in Yuri's Revenge puts you on the moon of all places. As the lack of a breathable atmosphere poses a problem for your infantry; you instead get jetpack-cosmonauts with laser guns.
• Establishing Character Moment: Using poison gas on civilians in the first game, destroying the Statue of Liberty in the second.
• Evil Is Easy: Played straight in the first and third games, if you discount the Soviets' sluggishness on anti-air and lack of naval power in the first game. Subverted in the second game where the Allied arsenal did some serious catching up, and manages to eclipse the Soviets', not to mention that some of the Soviet missions can be much more difficult than whatever the Allied campaign can throw at you.
• Evil Is Hammy: The cast playing the Soviet high command in all of the games (but especially 2 and 3) are very fond of over-acting.
• Expy: The Soviet Union shares the characteristics of the Brotherhood of Nod in many aspects.
  • The USSR have clashed with the Allied Nations on many decades, just like Nod have clashed with the GDI. Despite all of this, Soviet Union yet sharing the same nature of military doctrine in the formed of People's Republic of China, both the Soviet Red Army and the People's Liberation Army utilized their brute strength with heavy firepower, and both of their Technology level is almost comparable to each other, both had developed nuclear and chemical weapons that remains most destructive in their arsenals to wipe out their enemies off of the the face of the earth, and both had compensated their ground supremacy with stronger armor, and numerical superiority of cheap infantry to support that role.
  • The Soviets' over reliance on heavily armed and armored tanks such as the Rhino Heavy Tank and the Apocalypse Tank makes them comparable to GDI's own military doctrine which consists of overwhelming Nod's numbers with heavier, slower and more powerful units, especially armor, such as the ever-present Mammoth Tank, which by the way is almost identical in weapons and armor to the Soviet Apocalypse Tank.
• Faction Calculus: Powerhouse. They have overall stronger units than anyone else, although they don't have much in the way of utility units like the Allied Cryocopter; most of their unit abilities focus on killing stuff faster.
• Gatling Good: Their Sentry Gun in Red Alert 2.
• Glorious Mother Russia: In Red Alert 1, the Soviets are basically realistic, as part of the game's "What If? World War II had been fought between the Allies and Stalin?" premise. In Red Alert 2, they start picking up some... oddities, like Powered Armor with Lightning Guns, giant squid as naval units, military structures based upon Orthodox churches, and a mind-controlling Rasputin Expy, with a Tsar from the Romanov family to rule them all. In Red Alert 3, they go completely off the rails with units like War Bears, tanks equipped with tractor beams that grind up enemy vehicles, and APCs that shoot infantry out of a giant cannon, all led by Tim Curry.
• High Turnover Rate: Being Premier of the USSR is usually a death sentence (or at least an arrest warrant in the case of most Allied campaigns). In the Soviet campaigns in particular, either the Premier is a scheming asshole who ends up Out-Gambitted by his subordinates, or is the target of someone far worse. The Imperial campaign doesn't do its Premier much better; he's simply killed in action.
• Historical Villain Downgrade: The first game gives what many accounts would consider an accurate depiction of Stalin's regime, although still somewhat pretty far-fetched bunch even compared to Stalin's government of the real life 1930s and 40s, but in the next two games they mostly serve as a not-so-threatening comedy antagonist compared to a less-conventional enemy faction. This might be partially explained by the fact that between the first two games the USSR was effectively a Western puppet, which only broke free thanks to Yuri's influence and Premier Romanov's own efforts to rebuild the Soviet Union in his image. Red Alert 3, meanwhile, adds the wrinkle of Einstein's erasure radically altering Soviet history even more from real life. Out-of-universe it's just because the creators decided to emulate cheesy 1950s Dirty Communists propaganda (mind control plots, anyone?) rather than documentary material about the horrors of the early Soviet regime.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Severely downplayed, but in the first Red Alert, the Allies were genuinely at a disadvantage due to the Soviets having way more firepower than the Allies do, forcing them to rely on hit-and-run and non-conventional tactics just to stand a chance, and the Soviets themselves also had Volkov and Chitzkoi, two highly dangerous cyborgs, with the former even being a certifiable One-Man Army. By the second game, they had since licked their wounds and maintain some advantages over the Allies, such as their psychics and cloning technology, but this was then taken away from them by Yuri when he turned against them and formed his own army. By the time of Red Alert 3, they've found themselves downgraded even further, as they are no longer in possession of nuclear technology thanks to erasing Einstein from the timeline. Moreover, their units have been downgraded as well, as their Desolator has gone from using beams of nuclear energy as well as being able to generate a field of radiation to using a chemical sprayer as well as a cannon that launches globs of corrosive fluids that weaken the durability of vehicles and structures, and their Apocalypse Tank have lost their anti-air missiles as well. Despite this, they're still just as effective as they normally are.
• Hurricane of Puns: Their special infantry units like to do this.
  • The Shock Troopers from the first game's add-on pack, The Aftermath, were the first Soviet units to do this. "Extra crispy!" "Fully charged!" "Shocking!"
  • Tesla Troopers love electricity puns such as "Here is your electric bill," "No resistance," and "Why so negative?". The Tesla Tanks also do this, with lines like "No charge for extra power," "Prepare for rolling blackout," and "Wired for destruction."
  • The RA2 Desolators spout nuclear and environmental puns, such as "Here Comes The Sun!" and "It will be a silent spring." Given the nature of the Desolator and the timeframe of the game, this could even be a Historical In-Joke.
• Hypocrite: They make claims about "the evils of capitalism" despite being extremely power hungry and corrupt.
• Husky Russkie: Invoked through their use of incredibly heavyweight units, such as their Apocalypse Tanks, Dreadnoughts, and Kirovs, as well as the use of brute force unit swarms.
• In Spite of a Nail: In Red Alert 3, the Soviets still manage to develop Tesla weaponry, the Iron Curtain, and roughly similar technology to what was available in RA2...only with the notable lack of nukes and anything related to them.
• Irony: They're the equivalent of the Brotherhood of Nod, but their gameplay style, and even the design philosophy of their units, which makes use of more conventional technology and bulky, heavyweight tanks and other vehicles, makes them more in line with the GDI, whom the Allies are HEAVILY based off of, down to sharing a similar logo.
• It's Raining Men: One of the Soviet Special powers gained from the Airfield in RA1 is "Paratroopers", which drops a bunch of infantrymen at the designated spot. Not particularly useful most of the time, but it allows for some interesting possibilities in the right tactical environments, not to mention the fact that you're getting around a dozen soldiers for free every couple of minutes. This carries over somewhat into RA2, given how more than a few Soviet campaign missions involve Conscripts being airdropped directly onto the battlefield.
• Land, Sea, Sky: They represent land, as they have multiple very strong land units, and some very deadly infantry as well, such as the Apocalypse Tank and the Desolator.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The Soviets have a general penchant for exploiting myriad crises, even existential ones, in their attempts to secure victory, which include time traveling back in time themselves to change history.
• Life Drain: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the Soviets are likely the only non-magical military faction to utilize this attack. Their Main Battle Tank, the Hammer, utilizes it as part of a secondary ability, and a faction-wide upgrade called "Grinder Treads" lets the Hammer, Apocalypse and other tracked vehicles recover health by running over enemy infantry (or tanks for the Apocalypse).
• Lighter and Softer: They've become less menacing with each game.
  • In the very first game, they were a faction almost EXCLUSIVELY composed out of Hate Sinks who do nothing but commit various war-crimes throughout both campaigns, with the most sympathetic one being a drunkard general who's remorseful over said war-crimes. In Red Alert 2, there were more likeable members, with Premier Romanov shown to be genuinely humane and reasonable, treating the Soviet General kindly and with appreciation. That said, they still had some dark sides, such as Vladimir and Yuri, who are both completely and utterly despicable with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, as well as the architecture of their structure looking fairly ominous and menacing.
  • By the time of Red Alert 3.
    • They've gone full on Laughably Evil, yet they're a legitimate powerhouse as they always were, but none of their members are truly completely hateable, given that Cherdenko, the only one who can be considered completely evil, is an amusing Large Ham, while other characters are either evil, but not really despicable like Moksvin, friendly towards their comrades like Oleg, as well as Zhana, who is merely a loyal and patriotic soldier and they have abandoned the ominous and threatening looking aesthetics they had in the previous game for a significantly less threatening aesthetic, as their primary palette, aside from their signature red, consists of a cheery golden yellow and a healthy-looking earthy green.
    • They are furthermore being portrayed as completely sympathetic and heroic in their campaign in the Uprising expansion, given that their first mission starts out with them launching a rescue mission on a FutureTech facility to rescue some of their chief scientists. Moreover, all of the missions after that have them fight against the corporation, who quickly prove themselves to be as just as evil as the Soviets were in the first game, as they're seen testing out their Cryo Legionnaires by freezing innocent civilians^note Forcibly dressed like conscripts, complete with dummy rifles alive and then shattering them to pieces with their Boost Kick, and the final mission of their campaign being a mission to prevent Rupert Thornley from trying to take over the world.
• Lightning Gun: The Soviets have a lot of weaponized Tesla coils.
• Macross Missile Massacre: In Red Alert 3, Dreadnoughts can utterly spam targets with missiles—really, really huge missiles (these are full battleships after all), but at the expense of the unit's health. The Soviet Twinblade also attacks targets by unloading a ton of rockets.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Even after Stalin's demise, the Soviets are shown to not be too particular about casualties. For every dead Conscript or other fallen comrade, there are many more ready to take their place.
• Molotov Cocktail: Conscripts and Mortar Cycles both use them.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong:
  • In the first game, the Soviet infantry was vastly superior to the Allied forces in terms of sheer strength, with only the Allies' ability to field more units at a cheaper rate allowing them to keep up. They also had much stronger tanks, could defend their bases with Tesla Coils, and had a number of advantages in the air as well. Their only weak spot was in the navy, as their only ship (Submarines) is useful only against ships and sinks after only a few hits.
  • From the second game onwards, this is Zig-Zagged. On the one hand, Soviet standard infantry such as Conscripts and Flak Troopers are ridiculously expendable, with commanders encouraged to throw them at the enemy due to how cheap they are. On the other hand, they consistently maintain powerful tanks, Tesla weaponry, and intimidating bombardment units such as the Dreadnaught and Kirov Airship.
• Multinational Team: Downplayed in Red Alert 2 compared to the Allies. While still predominantly Russian, the Soviets also have the support of Libya, Iraq, and Cuba in their war effort, which is reflected in their respective unique units.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: From RA2 and RA3, many of the Soviet units. The Apocalypse Tank, Desolators, Reapers, Terror Drones...
• National Weapon: Their Apocalypse Tank and the Iron Curtain. The Kirov has similarly been immortalized by the Soviets.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Their Iron Curtain in the second and third games temporarily makes a few buildings or vehicles immune to all damage. It kills infantry, though.
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Having inadvertedly lost their nuclear arsenal due to Einstein being killed off, the Soviets find a way to bypass this in Red Alert 3 in the form of the Vacuum Imploder.
• Nuke 'em:
  • Employed by the Soviets in the Allied campaign of the first game. As the Allies turn the tide of the war and are steadily advancing across Europe into the Soviet Union, Stalin decides to destroy the primary capitals and cities of the European Allies with the nuclear weapons his scientists have recently developed, while using his own forces as a sacrificial lamb to draw attention away from the missile sites. The player has to capture and then infiltrate the facility to safely dismantle the weapons.
  • In Red Alert 2 Chicago is destroyed by a nuclear bomb after the player destroys the psychic amplifier and the USSR has no further use for the city. A technical Fission Mailed too.
  • In Red Alert 3, Soviet General Krukov and Premier Cherdenko go back in time and kill Einstein to prevent him from granting the Allies technological superiority. On their return, they find that Japan has become the Empire of the Rising Sun and is invading Leningrad. Krukov orders the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal to be used in defense of Leningrad. Nuclear what now? Oops.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: The Soviets in Uprising are reduced to a network of resistance cells and warlord cliques, all claiming the mantle of the USSR. They are, however, united in freeing their motherland, no matter the cost.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: The Soviets have become progressively sillier, cartoonier villains as the series ran its course, going from fear-inspiring Nazi counterparts in Red Alert 1 to near laughable villains by Red Alert 3 - along with the rest of the universe, though. Uprising undoes it a bit, having a bit of seriousness (particularly the Soviet campaign). In-Game, Mammoth Tanks and their counterparts have become progressively less threatening over the series - while they were always vulnerable to good micro, by RA3 they were utterly helpless against aircraft and could be disabled with a freeze ray.
• Psychic Powers: In the vanilla Red Alert 2, the Soviet agent Yuri uses his psychic abilities, amplified with Psychic Beacons, to mind-control large parts of the USA. He performed a psychic possession via TELEPHONE. In the expansion pack Yuri's Revenge, he goes rogue and uses Psychic Dominators to take over the entire world (until a bit of Set Right What Once Went Wrong takes place) and commands pyrokinetic Initiate footsoldiers and mind-controlling clones of himself as well as giant mobile brains and towers with similar abilities.
• Psycho Electro: The users of Tesla weapons. Especially the Shock Trooper from the original Red Alert, who would declaim deranged Bond One-Liner catchphrases such as "Extra crispy!", "Lights out!" and "Fully charged!". Soviet commander Moskvin from Red Alert 3 is a former Tesla Trooper, and tends to be very aggressive and erratic, with unpredictable mood swings.
• Recurring Element: Their army has a few of these that have made it into every game.
  • The Tesla Trooper first appeared in the first game's expansion pack The Aftermath. They've always been immune to getting crushed by vehicles, are a bit slow, but their Tesla weapons are consistently effective against vehicles (and sometimes Infantry). At first it's just a guy in an insulated suit shouting unique lines, but then the armor and puns just keep on growing...
  • The MiG jet appears in every game, but never serves the same purpose. It's a jet bomber in the first game, a summoned unit from the army's Hero Unit in the second, and an air superiority fighter in the third.
  • The Soviets have the anti-infiltration animal market on dominance. Attack Dogs are exclusive to the Soviets in the first game, are shared between both them and the Allies in the second (and are still given higher priority in Soviet armies thanks to Spies remaining Allied-exclusive units, as there are many other countermeasures against mind control), and the Soviets replace their Dogs with Bears, which have more health points.
  • The Soviets also make liberal use of combat submarines, which are untargettable by normal means until they surface, or an anti-submarine vessel detects them. In the first game it's basically their only naval unit, but even when they branch out into using other ships in later games, the submarine remains an indispensable part of the Soviet navy.
  • The Iron Curtain is the Soviets' signature sub-superweapon, capable of rendering vehicles and structures temporarily invulnerable. At first it's not too useful as it only targets one unit/structure at a time, and can't be used on Nuke Trucks (this just makes them explode immediately). Later games would allow it to target multiple vehicles in a small radius, giving rise to invulnerable tank rushes. Quality of life features, becoming available earlier in the tech tree, and counteracting against certain Cast from Hit Points abilities would give the Iron Curtain even more use.
  • And last, but not least, the heaviest tank in the game boasting double anti-tank barrels, always belongs to the Soviets. It's initially just a carbon copy of GDI's Mammoth Tank in the first game, but gains its own identity in the Apocalypse Tank in the second game forward.
• Recursive Ammo: The optional firing mode of V4 rockets.
  • MIGs... with Matryoshka missiles! Why the name though?
• Red Scare: They are the main villains of the series.
• Rock Beats Laser: Downplayed. They tend to use fairly conventional and realistic vehicles and weaponry, with the most advanced thing in their arsenal being the Tesla weaponry and the Iron Curtain. This makes them stand out next to the Allies, who tend to use experimental technology like lasers and freeze rays, and especially next to Yuri's Army and the Empire of Japan.
• Selective Magnetism: In Red Alert 3 they use various magnetic weapons: from magnetic harpoons to magnetic weapons that strip armor and weapons off enemy vehicles to magnets that suck units into space.
• Set Wrong What Was Once Made Right:
  • In Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, the Soviets hijack the Allied time-travel scheme not only to stop Yuri, but also to win the war by destroying Einstein's Chronosphere research before it could be deployed.
  • The reason Red Alert 3 even happens is due to a desperate USSR bankrolling its own time machine to save itself from oblivion, which Cherdenko uses to kill Einstein in 1927. While the plan initially seems to work, it winds up creating another sworn enemy in the Empire of the Rising Sun.
• Shock and Awe: A lot of their units weaponize Tesla Coils, such as the Tesla Troopers, the Tesla Tanks, the Stingray, and they also even just use Tesla Coils by themselves to defend their bases.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Their Crusher Cranes from Red Alert 3. They're relatively cheap, provide an extra construction tab, and can be used to recycle vehicles to provide extra cash, which also increases the Threat Meter whenever you recycle a unit, which can be used for things such as constantly producing Terror Drones, only to recycle them to deliberately increase the Threat Meter once that's an economically feasible option.
• Soviet Superscience: Mind-controlled squids, cloning vats, weaponized Tesla coils, six-legged amphibious boats with double Tesla coils, armored war bears, huge Zeppelins with megaton bombs, nuclear vacuum ICBMs, weapon-stealing tanks, magnetic satellites AND MORE, the Iron Curtain, and Vacuum Imploder, among others.
  • Don't forget the mancannon-equipped amphibious transports, which also function as AA support. They are quite capable of shooting the aforementioned armoured war bears. Talk about abnormal ammo...
  • A mention should also be made of the mind-control radio towers that drive the plot of Red Alert 2.
  • This is far less noticeable in the first Red Alert, without expansions, partially because it has far less superscience overall, and partly because the Allies aren't far behind in superscience. The expansions added a lot more super-science, but on both sides, setting the trend for the future games.
  • This becomes more pronounced in later entries. The Allied tech is more advanced, but far more fragile, while the Soviet technology seems to be crazier, but also far more simple and sturdy. Allies use a highly precise laser, highly-advanced power plants, and a modular Macross Missile Massacre IFV, the Soviets use giant Tesla Coils, nuclear power plants, and a flak halftrack.
  • It should be noted that the Soviets were the first to have advanced cybernetics. They had Volkov and Chitzkoi, a pair of cyborgs who are devastating when micromanaged properly. Unfortunately, the Allies capturing and sabotaging them caused the Soviets to discontinue their cyborg program. Then in Red Alert 2, they got back into cybernetics with the Terror Drone, a small robot which is pure scary for ground forces. The Allies still didn't have any form of cybernetics. It's only in Yuri's Revenge when they finally get the Robot Tank and even then it's primitive, as evident by the tank's need of a control centre to keep it functional as opposed to the independent Terror Drone (which can eat the Robot Tank inside out easily).
• Spider Tank:
  • The Sickle, the standard anti-infantry vehicle for the Soviets, and the electricity-spewing amphibious Stingray both have legs. Though, weirdly enough, the latter must be built at your naval docks. Apparently, the legs are just a bonus for the Stingray.
  • The Reaper is a failed prototype of the Sickle that was hastily put into mass-production. What it lacks in speed or the ability to jump like its smaller counterpart, it more makes up in size and firepower.
  • Red Alert 2 has the Terror Drone, which is a small machine that kills infantry in one hit, and takes down tanks in seconds. And is very bloody fast. It returns in RA3. But now it swims. And comes with a secondary attack that renders vehicles immobile from a distance.
• Steampunk: More specifically, Tesla Punk, since they don't use steam power, though they certainly do use the steampunk style. This is especially noticeable in the second and third games.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.:
  • Downplayed with the Soviet campaign in Yuri's Revenge. Sure, the Soviets hijack the Allied time machine by force in order change the outcome of the war itself. Otherwise, however, they are portrayed being genuinely sympathetic and heroic in trying to stop Yuri from taking over all of humanity. Compared to Red Alert 2, they're even willing to work with Allied remnants with some measure of civility.
  • Their campaign in 3: Uprising is notable for them being genuinely heroic and sympathetic, as their first mission has them preform a rescue mission on a facility to rescue some of their chief scientists, and the second has them attack a FutureTech base, who quickly prove themselves to be as evil as the Soviets were portrayed as in the first game, as they're shown testing out their Cryo Legionnaires by having them freeze innocent civilians solid and then shattering them with their Boost Kick ability. Their final mission also has them preventing Rupert Thornley from trying to take over the world using the Sigma Harmonizer, an even more powerful version of the Chronosphere capable of stopping time.
• Super-Soldier:
  • The Desolators of Red Alert 2 and 3: Uprising, bonus points since they are uncrushable, in Red Alert 2 they are heavy armoured elite soldiers armed with radioactive cannons which meltdown infantry and light vehicles with ease, their secondary is the ability to contaminate an entire area with nuclear radiation powerful enough to keep killing units even after the Desolators have moved out, in Uprising they are portrayed as terminally ill sadists in armored life-support suits, capable of withstanding insane amounts of damage and pain as a byproduct of their wretched physical condition, they use as weapons sprayers which look like gas dispensers that release vile jets of chemical waste capable of melting any kind of infantry, including the female heroes in a very horrific way, their secondary attack launches a corrosive core which slows units and makes vehicles and structures highly vulnerable to their primary weapons.
  • The expansions to Red Alert featured Volkov, a 1950s Soviet Cyborg and his dog, Chitzkoi. Volkov had enough firepower and durability to take on a battleship (this being one of his missions!).
• State Sec: The NKVD and KGB are shown as active in Red Alert 1 and 2 respectively. While in Red Alert 3, units such as the Twinblade are described as being used to hunt down deserters and have commissars onboard.
• Take Over the World: They want this in all three games.
• Tank Goodness: The most tank-heavy army in the series. Among other things, their main battle tank is always stronger than the Allied medium tank or the third faction's light tank.
  • The Mammoth Tank is a Soviet tank from Red Alert 1. In Red Alert 2 onward, this became the Apocalypse tank, and by Red Alert 3, the tank traded its Mammoth Tusk missiles for a magnetic harpoon and armor-eating grinder.
  • They also have had a Tesla Tank in each of the three major wars (not necessarily in every game, though). Much like their base defenses, they're all about Shock and Awe.
• Tesla Tech Timeline: The USSR's other claim to fame is their use of Nikola Tesla's research to develop weapons and various experimental projects. Not only does this manifest in stuff like Tesla Troopers and Tesla Coils, but by Red Alert 3, this extends to Dr. Zelinsky's time machine (which the Soviets use to erase Einstein) being derived from Tesla's notes.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the Brotherhood of Nod in the first game, Yuri in the second, and Premier Cherdenko in the third.
• Useless Useful Spell: In Red Alert, the Iron Curtain is somewhat useless, as it can only make a single tank or building invincible for a short period of time. You can use some creative strategies with it and a MAD tank, or use it as a defensive superweapon, but it's not very powerful overall. It got a considerable buff in Red Alert 2, where it can protect up to 9 vehicles or terror drones, or you can kill up to 27 infantry units with it, and the Dreadnoughts' Cast from Hit Points ability in Red Alert 3 gave the Iron Curtain yet another strategy.
• Villain Protagonist: Becomes this in Red Alert 3 as the Soviets kick off the plot by erasing Albert Einstein. They are also the first playable faction in the single player campaign.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Stalin in Red Alert 1 and his cronies try to pass themselves off as well-intentioned, particularly in his cronies' Starscream-esque moments. Likewise to Premier Cherdenko in Red Alert 3. They fail utterly since Cherdenko clearly only cares about himself.
  • Premier Romanov in Red Alert 2 plays it more straight, however, as upon being fully freed of Yuri's influence, is shown to genuinely believe that he's doing what is best for his people.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Their mighty Kirov, the slow-moving but devastating bomber zeppelin of the Soviets. If they're not scary enough, they gained a Nitro Boost in Red Alert 3.

The Allied Forces

The Allies, otherwise known as the Allied Forces, are a military alliance between the nations of Europe (mainly England, Germany, France, Greece, Spain and Turkey), South Korea and the United States. The Allied Military Doctrine is centered on decisive action, mobility, subterfuge, aerial dominance and technological superiority. The Allied forces are exceptionally well-trained, guided by superior intelligence and has at their disposal some of the world's most advanced weaponry.

---

• The Aesthetics of Technology: While the Allies consistently maintain a general 20 Minutes into the Future feel, this becomes especially pronounced by Red Alert 3. Many of their structures and vehicles have a mostly gunmetal paintjob, while even their fancier units are still patterned after contemporary designs.
• The Alliance: It's right there in the name, although they become increasingly American-centric in the second game. Things go back to normal in the third.
• America Saves the Day: Played With.
  • In the first game, European countries are the dominant players within the Allies, with America mostly working in the background (i.e. lending its industrial strength to make good of losses in materiel incurred by the European forces during the Soviet invasion), though it's mentioned that the US does eventually join outright during the final stages of the war, especially given how some of the grunts in the Allied ending are shown explicitly to be American. The player's superiors are in fact German and Greek.
  • In Red Alert 2, while the Americans are able to keep the Soviet invasion from fully overwhelming them, with most standard units in the campaign being US troops, it's still not enough to drive the invaders out, with the nuking of Chicago driving home how dire their predicament is. It's not until they receive help from the Allies in Europe and gain access to Albert Einstein's expertise that the tide truly turns. That doesn't stop President Dugan from claiming that they won, which is mocked in Yuri's Revenge.
  Dugan: You can't threaten us! We're the most powerful nation on Earth! We did win the war you know?!
  Yuri: Did you? Indeed... I think not...
  • The national diversity among Allied units is highlighted even more in Red Alert 3 than it was in the previous two games; each of your units come from around the world (including Hydrofoils coming from the Dominican Republic), your orders usually come from a British field marshal and a British intelligence officer and occasionally The Allied co-commanders are also from around the world. Giles is British, Lisette is French (despite lacking any accent), Warren is American (and played by Randy Couture). And the American Vice President is David Hasselhoff.
• Anti-Mutiny: The closest the Allies ever get to infighting is in Red Alert 3 and that involves stopping President Ackerman and his remaining loyalists, with Allied commanders even explicitly stating that they're only fighting them, not the United States.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier:
  • The Battle Fortress in Yuri's Revenge can hold five infantry units that can fire from it. It also has heavy armor and enough size to crush other vehicles and walls.
  • The IFV can only hold one infantry unit, but its weapon will change based on what infantry you put in; for example, if you put a Tesla Trooper in one, it becomes a mini-Tesla Tank.
  • The Riptide ACV is a...less awesome example, but it does the job nicely enough, having an anti-infantry machine gun and can fire torpedoes in the water.
  • In one mission in Red Alert 1's expansion, the Phase Transport shows up. It can only carry one infantry unit... but on the other hand, the machine gun is replaced with high-powered missile launchers, and it cloaks.
• Blood Knight: For the good guys they are rather...enthusiastic about killing the enemy, to the point where some characters would be happy to ignore peace. This becomes even more evident by Red Alert 3, where the Allies come off as being very enthusiastic about taking out the Soviets by any means.
• Boring, but Practical: The Allies tend to have the most utilitarian and grounded aesthetics among the playable factions in the games.
  • The Grizzly Tank in Red Alert 2 and Guardian Tank in Red Alert 3 are exceptionally conventional ground units by the universe's standards. Their fast speed and strong attack, however, make them a mainstay in Allied armies even in the late-game.
  • Even the Allies' fancier tech, like the Mirage Tank in both its Red Alert 2 and 3 incarnations, retains some of the same utilitarian and mundane designs, yet still gets the job done.
• Civil Warcraft: Surprisingly (at least to the players), the Allies almost never gets one. The closest that happens is when dealing with mind-controlled Allied troops in Red Alert 2 and standing up against President Ackerman in Red Alert 3.
• Color-Coded Armies: The Allies are blue.
• Cool Boat: The Allied Cruiser is one of the most powerful units in the first game. The Helicarrier of Red Alert 1 would be here, but for some reason it's just set to be available at tech level -1, thus preventing its construction, though the player is only one variable away from being able to use them.
• Cool Plane:
  • A staple of the Allied forces since Red Alert 2, with the Harrier serving as a hit and run fighter-bomber that's effective against tanks and structures, while the Korean Black Eagles are even more effective at ground attacks.
  • Red Alert 3 gives the Allies the Vindicator. Much like the Harrier it's a hit and run bomber that does more or less the same, with extra speed in its retreat as is obligatory special ability. The Advanced Aeronautics upgrade increases its stats across the board, most importantly giving it more firepower. Entire strategies have been created around this simple, yet deadly unit.
  • The Apollo Fighter is an air-superiority fighter that can shred lone aircraft with ease. It only falters against crowds of aircraft, as the Soviet MiG uses splash damage.
  • The Century Bomber is a heavier version of the Vindicator, carpet-bombing targets and can paradrop loaded infantry.
  • And for something even bigger, get a load of the Allied Harbinger gunship. It's more or less the Real Life American AC-130H Spectre given giant proton collision cannons.
• Crazy Enough to Work: In Red Alert 2, the Allies eventually settle on winning the war by deploying a strike force around Moscow itself, far behind the main European frontlines. The plan is mentioned as being incredibly risky, involving an invasion of Cuba just to set up the Chronosphere properly for the job, as well as said strike force having to deal with Premier Romanov's elite troops in the Soviet capital itself. Canonically, however, it works.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Several Allies country-unique units in Red Alert 2, such as the Sniper and Tank Destroyer, the latter being most infamous in that it literally is only good against tanks. Even against buildings, which you'd expect them to be competent against (given that all other units effective against tanks usually do well against buildings too), they will only do chicken scratches to.
  • Their hero unit, Tanya is very good against infantry and structures with her machine pistols and C4 charges. Her main weakness is an inability to effectively destroy vehicles and buildings without running up next to them.
• Day of the Jackboot: Averted until Uprising. The Allied epilogue of Red Alert 3 is already ominous, with the new US president vowing to "share" the bounties of Western capitalism and the American way of life to the defeated powers, whether their people like it or not. The actual Uprising campaigns reveal that the USSR has been turned into a glorified playpen for FutureTech's immoral experiments, while the Allied occupation forces are more content with condescendingly ruling over the Empire than actually helping their Japanese "friends" in dealing with various crises.
• Death from Above: One of the main strengths of the Allies is they have a large powerful air force (they get an indirect example in Red Alert 1, as while the Soviets have a larger variety of aircraft, they also sorely lack many mobile units that can attack air units, making the Allied Longbow helicopter a serious nuisance against Soviet armies). The Harrier from RA2 sometimes invokes this by name when ordering it to attack something.
• Deployable Cover: Allied GI units in Red Alert 2 can deploy sandbags that give them increased defenses and the ability to use their machine guns, but makes them immobile. The Guardian GI in the expansion can do the same, but using metal plates instead which makes them impervious from getting roadkilled while allowing the use of their rocket launchers. How they carry sandbags and metal plates is anybody's guess, and worse, how they set them up in less than a second.
• Do Not Go Gentle:
  • In the last Soviet mission of Red Alert 2, what's left of the Allies and US military not only make a valiant Last Stand in Alaska, but plan on using Einstein's Chronosphere to turn the war firmly in their favor.
  • In the last Soviet mission of Red Alert 3, meanwhile, US President Ackerman rallies the remaining Allied forces for one defiant standoff in New York, despite knowing that defeat was all but imminent.
• Enemy Exchange Program: Allied Spies in Red Alert 3 can outright bribe most enemy units, including Apocalypse Tanks and King Onis to join their side.
  Spy: "Come on, fight for the winning team!"
• Enemy Mine: The Allies and the Soviets join forces in Yuri's Revenge to take down Yuri, and again in Red Alert 3 to deal with the Empire.
• Energy Weapon: Their Prism and Spectrum laser technology in Red Alert 2 and 3 respectively.
• Expy: The Allied share the nature of the GDI in that both Allies and GDI were multinational military organizations created to counter a specific threat to global balance of power. However, in terms of military doctrine Allies are more akin to Brotherhood of Nod in epitomizing finesse and speed, in place of brute (but blunt) force approach of Soviets and the GDI. Come the third game they also inherit the Scrin's air superiority.
• Faction Calculus: Subversive originally, but changed to Balanced in Red Alert 3. And when it comes to air units, the Allies are very much a Powerhouse.
• The Federation: To the Rising Sun's Empire and the Soviet Union (which despite its name was also The Empire) in Red Alert 3.
• Freeze Ray: The appropriately named Cryocopters and later Cryo Legionnaires in Red Alert 3. There is also a superweapon-sized version in the form of a support power. They're mostly harmless, but frozen objects will shatter if hit with the slightest damage, and for air units (done by Cryo Legionnaires garrisoned in a multigunner turret/IFV) the result is not something to laugh at since they will immediately come crashing down when frozen.
• Harmless Freezing: What Cryocopters, the Cryoshot support powers, and Cryo Legionnaires can do. The Cryocopter's profile on the official website lampshades this:
  Frozen targets are effectively thrust into a state of suspended animation. The effects of the freezing gradually wear off and the target snaps out of the effect all at once, with no recollection of the passage of time, as though waking from slumber. In fact, a majority of test subjects reported feeling unusually relaxed after this fugue state. Although research findings concerning the long-term effects of the freezing are inconclusive as of yet, the cryobeam has provisionally been deemed "perfectly safe" by manufacturer FutureTech Corporation.
  • Literally Shattered Lives: Frozen units will shatter when hit with the slightest damage, making freezing lethal. Frozen air units (IFVs or Multigunner Turrets loaded with Cryo Legionnaires can target air units) will immediately come crashing down.
• Hegemonic Empire: The Allies in the third game are implied to be on its way to becoming this, being dominated by the United States and the FutureTech Corporation.
• Heroic Dolphin: Used by the Allies in the second and third games.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Einstein's erasure from the timeline in Red Alert 3, the Allies still manage to develop many of the same (or at least similar) technologies through FutureTech. That said, it's shown to not be enough to hold back the Soviets in the altered timeline until both the Empire's surprise attacks and the intervention of a talented commander.
• It's Raining Men: The USA subfaction in Red Alert 2 had a paratrooper ability, which meant that they could conceivably drop fourteen GIs (pretty formidable), anywhere on the map, for free, every few minutes. Red Alert 3 gives the Allies the Century Bomber, which can load a group of infantry and then drop them at a selected location.
• Irony: They're very heavily based off of the GDI, down to having a HEAVILY similar logo, but they're more similar to the Brotherhood of Nod in terms of their play style, such as their Patriot Missiles, and their successors, the Multigunner Turrets, are based off of the SAM sites that the brotherhood uses use. They also make use of stealth technology as well, such as the Gap Generators and their mobile counterparts, which are equivalents of the Stealth Generators and the Mobile Stealth Generators. The Allies also get a Stealth Tank equivalent in the form of Mirage Tanks, which differentiate themselves from their inspirations by wielding a heat ray, later replaced by a spectrum cannon instead of missiles, and disguising themselves as part of the scenery rather than simply cloaking themselves. The Allied air force also invokes a sense of aerial superiority not unlike the Scrin's spacecraft.
• La Résistance:
  • In Red Alert 1, more than a few Allied missions involve either engaging the Soviets with guerilla tactics or operating behind enemy lines.
  • A good portion of the Allied campaign in Red Alert 2 has the Americans largely thrust into this position as they fend off the Soviet invasion.
• Land, Sea, Sky: They represent the sky, as they consistently have some of the best aircraft units in the game and even have a Top Secret Protocol that upgrades their aircraft in Red Alert 3.
• The Medic: Tends to dabble in this:
  • In Red Alert 1, they have dedicated units for healing infantry and repairing vehicles.
  • In Red Alert 2, placing an Engineer in an IFV grants that vehicle a repair crane, which can repair vehicles.
  • In Red Alert 3, in addition to Engineers in IFVs, the Engineers themselves can deploy into a healing tent that heals infantry in its radius over time.
• MegaCorp:
  • In Yuri's Revenge, the Seattle-based Massivesoft is shown to have enough in resources and manpower to help fund the Allied campaign against Yuri.
  • Red Alert 3 introduces FutureTech, a powerful corporation responsible for developing many of the technologies used in the Allied arsenal.
• Multinational Team: Starting from Red Alert 2, the Allies started to distinguish themselves from the other factions by their units having a wide variety of accents to reflect how they are a coalition between multiple nations across the world. This is taken even further by Red Alert 3 where practically EVERY unit has some sort of accent, and even different regional accents in the cases of the units from America and from Britain, as the Peacekeepers and Prospectors have a more neutral accent and a thick southern accent, while the MCV and Guardian Tank have an RP accent and a cockney accent respectively.
• National Weapon: The Allies have Tanya and the Chronosphere. A few more seem to have popped up for the Allies between 2 and 3: IFVs, Aircraft Carriers, Mirage Tanks, and dolphins.
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo: The Allies lose their access to nukes in Red Alert 2 thanks to Yuri sabotaging America's missile silos. Instead, they resort to using a powerful Weather Control Device.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: Much of the Allied campaign in Red Alert 2 takes place in the United States, much of which is being occupied by the invading Soviets.
• One Nation Under Copyright: In Uprising, it's heavily implied that FutureTech is influential and powerful to the point of all but controlling at least the European Union.
• Only Sane Man: In both Red Alert 1 and Red Alert 2, the Allies generally come across as the more reasonable and level-headed faction, compared to the Soviets (and later, Yuri).
• Patriotic Fervor: In Red Alert 2, Allied units are shown to be very gung-ho and enthusiastic, with many of them being patriotic American soldiers. This attitude is not only carried over in Red Alert 3 but is even exaggerated further.
• Recurring Element: Like the Soviets, the Allies have a few consistent weapons maintained throughout the franchise:
  • The Hero Unit Tanya, who rips infantry to shreds and plants C4 on structures, destroying them instantly, much like the Commando from the Tiberium games. Later games would give her the ability to swim and plant those charges on vehicles.
  • The Destroyer vessel, which is always a basic mid-tier naval unit. It's the Allies' most reliable weapon against submerged enemies.
  • The Spy, who can disguise himself as the enemy and infiltrate buildings. He evolves from being a gimmick with limited usefulness to something that can seriously hamper the enemy base, or give the Allies some nifty upgrades. All the while invoking James Bond parodies.
  • The Chronosphere, acting as the Allies' signature sub-superweapon. Capable of teleporting vehicles to other locations. In the first game it can only teleport one vehicle, can't transport the infantry inside, and can't do this to Nuke trucks (which just detonate on the spot). Later games would allow it to transport multiple vehicles with the infantry still inside them, and can be used as a weapon against enemy vehicles by dropping them into areas where they can't normally be (such as land vehicles in the water, or ships on land).
• Revisiting the Roots: They're the only faction in Red Alert 3 to still use the old method of construction that was used in the preceding games, as the Soviets and the Empire of Japan use their own ways of building structures, namely with the former having structures built in real-time on field, while the latter use specific Nanocores to travel to the desired location that the commander wants to set the structure up in.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Harbinger Gunship is based on the Spectre Gunship in Generals (and real life for that matter). It is also a clear reference to the nuclear aircraft proposed during the Cold War.
  • The Pacifier FAV is a reference to the Siege Tank in Starcraft, made even more obvious that the title of the mission to unlock it in challenge mode is called "Ready to Roll Out", which is the Siege Tank's creation line.
  • The Cryo Legionnaire in Uprising is a reference to Mr. Freeze and the Chrono Legionnaire unit from Red Alert 2.
  • The Korean Black Eagle aircraft in RA2 is probably named on the real Black Eagle air force aerobatic team of South Korea. Too bad the real Black Eagle planes are painted white, though. [1]
  • Red Alert 2 had a shout out to the Orca Aircraft in the Tiberium series when Eva comments on the absurdity of the Attack Dolphins.
  Intelligence informed me that effective countermeasures involves specially-trained dolphins which are now at your disposal. What's next, killer whales?
  • A British commander called Giles Price
  • The Proton Collider superweapon is a clever crack at the LHC. And just in case you didn't get it the first time, the Sigma Harmonizer from Uprising is a giant particle accelerator with a similar configuration to the LHC, complete with (justified, in this case) public concerns over its actual function.
• Start of Darkness: Surprisingly, despite Red Alert 3's lighter and campier tone, the Allies seem to be undergoing a dark path morality-wise, as their campaign ending is fairly ominous in tone, as the new president of America intends to "share" the fruits of capitalism and consumerism with the now conquered Soviets and Empire, clearly intending to placate them with this so that they don't resist them, and this descent into darkness is outright confirmed in Uprising as the Soviet Campaign reveals that FutureTech, an R&D company associated with the Allies, is highly sinister and immoral, and a major member of them, Rupert Thornley, is collaborating with them to take over the world. The Imperial Campaign also reveals that they care more about ruling over the Empire rather than helping it out, as they do nothing when the Soviets start taking over the northern parts of their territory, and even try to attack them rather than come to their aid after they steal their technology to use against the Soviets.
• Take Over the World: Depending on how you interpret what the Vice President says in the Allied ending of Red Alert 3, maybe the Allies too.
• Tank Goodness: They have an analogue in the Mirage Tank, which uses Heat Cannons in RA2 and Prism Cannons in RA3—but in both games, it disguises itself as nearby objects (trees in RA2) and can fire even when disguised!
• Time Master: Thanks to the Chronosphere and assorted technology. Red Alert 2 introduces the Chrono Legionnaires, who can teleport around and erase other units from history. In the original manual, it's implied that the chronoshift teleportation is actually a case of Time Stands Still while the unit travels across the map the normal way.
• Useless Useful Spell: In Command & Conquer: Red Alert, a few missions from the end the allies acquire the ability to use the Chronosphere, a teleportation device. However, in game (more powerful in Cutscene Power to the Max), you can only teleport a single tank at once, and cannot teleport air units or APCs with people without killing the passengers, which really doesn't make sense because the tanks have to have people in them (and a known cheat can disable it). This is largely corrected in Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3, where the Chronosphere has the power to teleport up to 9 small tanks, including vehicles with people in them, as well as some air units. In fact, you're able to teleport land units into the sea and sea units onto the land, and it still kills unshielded infantry, making it somewhat of an offensive weapon too.
• Weather-Control Machine: One such example is the Allied superweapon in Red Alert 2, designed by Einstein after the US loses its nuclear capability. How it works is simple: the epicenter receives a constant, rapid-fire barrage of extremely devastating lightning bolts for as long as the storm is active while it also randomly spawns lightning clouds across the area of effect. If placed correctly, it can wear down a good two-thirds of a Construction Yard's health.

The Empire of the Rising Sun

The Empire of the Rising Sun is the Imperial regime of Japan, led by the Emperor and the Shogunate, that seek its "divine destiny" to subjugate mankind to serve the Emperor and create a world under their rule - a world minus capitalism and communism. Influenced by nationalism, militarism and imperialism, the Empire has adopted aggressive policies, viewing the Allies and Soviets nothing more than "barbaric oppressors". The Imperial military is a unique blend of Japanese tradition and technology. The Empire maintains its well known discipline and loyalty through the philosophy of bushido and reverence for the ancient samurai. The Imperial order of battle includes high tech, highly versatile transforming units, more traditional ones and a living weapon - namely a young female commando with psychic powers, Yuriko Omega.

Pretty much, the entire faction is a Shout-Out to what nerds love about Japan.

---

• Action Bomb: Their Yari Minisubs can kamikaze into other ships and Burst Drones that attach to enemy vehicles and explode. The Empire has the Honorable Discharge Top Secret Protocol which makes units explode when destroyed. The Empire also has the Final Squadron (X/Omega) Protocols that call in planes to kamikaze targets.
• The Aesthetics of Technology: The Empire combines sleek, streamlined designs and futuristic-looking weaponry with traditional elements. Compared to the other factions, this is meant to reflect how both technologically advanced and rooted in tradition the Japanese are.
• Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: They are human, but they're the only faction in Red Alert 3 to not have an aerial transport or the means to transport land vehicles across water, as the Soviets have the Twinblades and the Allies have the Century Bomber and the Chronosphere, in spite of being the most technologically advanced out of all of them.
• Amazon Brigade: Rocket Angels, Archer Maidens, and Yuriko.
  Rocket Angel: Nothing a girl can't handle!
• Animeland: Their military units include psychic Magical Girls in Sailor Fuku and Humongous Mecha. Their superweapon is a psychic explosion, and the engineer is a salaryman. The Emperor's video briefings help tick any other boxes in the Big Book Of Japanese Clichés: his son wears a kind of samurai armour, he's seen practising sword forms, contemplating a bonsai tree, practising calligraphy, taking tea a lot, mentions a revival of Bushido, tells you to slice through the enemy "like the blade of a katana" and finally declares you "Supreme Shogun".
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Even with all the advanced technology at its disposal, the Empire still finds a way to incorporate traditional Japanese weapons like the katana and naginata, albeit with some upgrades.
• Base on Wheels: The Empire's base building is completely based on this - each building comes as a "nanocore" vehicle and unpacks at a designated position into a building.
• Beehive Barrier: Their Nanoswarm superweapon, which fades away towards the top, but is still present. It functions as a sort of domed room with no exit, with stuff going in but not coming out until it dissipates. Great for waiting out a Soviet superweapon attack.
• Beneath Notice: Apparently, the Empire's rise to prominence was ignored by the other world powers prior to its declaration of war, as neither the Allies nor Soviets expected an Asian island nation to have the tenacity to challenge all of them at once.
• Blood Knight: To the point where Yuriko who is driven by completely justified revenge appears as the sanest of the lot.
• Call-Back: Their method of construction is a variation of how structures were made in Command & Conquer: Generals, as instead of having structures produced instantaneously, they instead make Worker Units that create structures instead.
• Civil Warcraft: Red Alert 3: Uprising has former Crown Prince of Japan Tatsu, now cooperating with the victorious Allies, going against the Japanese generals. And once you've got rid of the rogue Japanese generals, he then goes and betrays you and uses all the stuff stolen from those generals to attack you!
• Color-Coded Armies: The Empire of The Rising Sun (Japan) is orange (red and white were already handed out).
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Yuri's Army. Like his faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun prefers bizarre, cutting-edge technology and many of their units are flat-out bizarre next to the Allies and Soviets, who prefer more conventional technology. They also make use of cloning and psychic technology, as well as being fanatically devoted to their leader. Unlike Yuri's Army, however, the Empire sincerely believes in Japan's ideals of loyalty and honor, and is far less vile and cruel in comparison to Yuri's faction, as they prefer using exotic energy weapons rather than biological or chemical warfare.
• Day of the Jackboot: The Empire seeks to destroy symbols of both Western capitalism and Soviet pride, in an attempt to demoralize both powers into surrendering. Meanwhile, cities directly occupied by Imperial forces like Vladivostok are shown being transformed into mirror-images of Japanese ones, whether the locals like it or not.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: The Empire did this in the Allies and Soviet campaigns.
• The Empire: To The Federation that is the Allies.
• Expy:
  • The Empire of the Rising Sun resembles the Brotherhood of Nod in many aspects: both factions are obsessed with ruling the world, are devoted to their charismatic leader, use egregious propaganda and outlandish military tactics to defeat their enemies, and deploy rocket weaponry and experimental weapon systems such as futuristic lasers as well as Humongous Mechas. The Empire's fanaticism, suicide attacks and willingness to commit inhumane atrocities is comparable to Nod, as well as to the Global Liberation Army terrorist faction in Generals.
    • Speaking of the Global Liberation Army, the Empire of Japan also counts as this to them, given that they lack an air production facility (but not an air force unlike the GLA) and they rely on defenseless Worker Units for building structures, with the exception being that their nanocores all build one specific structure, while the GLA workers could build any sort of structure.
  • The Empire's technological level is superior to the Allies and the Soviets with the same way as the Scrin had extremely advanced technology compared to the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod. The Empire's sudden appearance to the War of the Three Powers reflects how the Scrin arrived to Earth during the Third Tiberium War: the Allies and the Soviets are shocked to find themselves opposed by a belligerent superpower with the same way as GDI and Nod were invaded by a hostile alien species. Both the unexpected emerge of the Empire and the Scrin were caused by human error: the Empire came to existence via time travel (caused by Anatoly Cherdenko who deliberately disrupted space-time continuum by killing Albert Einstein in the past without considering the consequences of his actions) and the Scrin harvesting fleet was awakened by a cataclysmic Liquid Tiberium explosion (caused by Redmond Boyle's order of using the ion cannon to decimate Temple Prime in Sarajevo, albeit the incident was masterminded by Kane). Coincidentally, both are major themes of their respective series.
  • To a lesser extent, Yuri's faction, as they both have a secondary color as their primary faction color (purple and orange, respectively), their commando unit, Yuriko Omega, is another psychic whose name is based off of Yuri himself, and a good majority of their units being anime references in some way (i.e. the Steel Ronin blatantly being a Gunman, the Jet Tengu being the Variable Fighter in Gerwalk mode) is quite similar to the sci-fi B movie theme of the units of Yuri's army (The Flying Disc being a UFO, the Mastermind looking like something straight out of a B-Movie.). The Wave-Force artillery is also an energy-based artillery unit much like the Magnetron, although the Wave-Force artillery focuses solely on dealing damage and has a manual fire trigger, making it much better at dealing with enemy units.
• Historical Villain Downgrade: They are clearly modeled after Imperial Japan, which in real life was infamous for its war crimes, including pointless mass murder by the hundreds of thousands, enslavement of tens of thousands of women as sex slaves, and performing medical experiments on prisoners from their colonies that killed thousands of people. Even the whole honor aspect that's presented as a joke in the game was a scary thing in real life; they considered surrender dishonorable and would execute or enslave surrendering enemies, and fed their civilians propaganda about the Allies that drove them to commit suicide by the tens of thousands when America invaded the Japanese home islands. All of these thing are of course never brought up in the game and the Empire is simply presented as an over-the-top comedic organization. This could be partially explained by how the timeline shenanigans leading to RA3 resulted in a different chain of events compared to the actual Second World War.
• Humongous Mecha: The official website data for the King Oni does some Lampshade Hanging on the concept, noting that it "flies in the face of decades of conventional mechanized warfare". They also have the Shogun Executioner, which has three legs, three torsos, 6 arms, three heads, 3 lightning katanas, and heals itself when attacked with Tesla weaponry.
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: The King Oni, Mecha Tengu, Striker-VX, and Shogun Executioner.
• Jack of All Stats: Unlike Guerilla/Technical Allies and Spammer/Brute Force Soviets, the Empire has many versatile mecha units, well-armored tanks, various infantry, the best navy of the game and overall good expansion abilities to back them up. Do note Red Alert 3 is gimmick-heavy so you still need to use their abilities often to win.
• Land, Sea, Sky: They represent sea, due to having some of the strongest naval units in the game, and even their armor units, such as the Tsunami Tank and the Mecha Tengu, are capable of transversing over water. Also, like the Allied Forces, they have a naval equivalent for their Advanced Aeronautics upgrade in the form of their Fortified Fleet upgade.
• Light Is Not Good: They're a villainous faction in RA3, despite the rising sun on their flags.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Rocket Angels and Striker/Chopper-VXs en masse can produce this. There's even an upgrade to make missile-firing units spam even more. The Naginata cruisers fires many torpedoes at once in their special attack. The Giga Fortress from Uprising is a floating battleship that mounts four photon rocket launchers, each equivalent to a Rocket Angel in firepower, plus four beam-cannon batteries.
• Me's a Crowd: Clones of Yuriko are used to power their superweapon, the Psionic Decimator. Also, if you are facing multiple Rising Sun commanders in a mission, expect to see a handful of Yurikos.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: The Empire's soldiers and commanders are as willing to fight (and die) for their country as their Emperor is, no matter what objections or criticisms they have. This is more downplayed in Uprising, with Tatsu and the various rival warlords still claiming to be fighting for their country's honor out of either genuine nationalism or self-serving reasons, while even Yuriko is shown not to hate her country so much as the people who directly made her into a psionic weapon.
• National Stereotypes: Aside from...well everything about them, really, the fact that they are THE most technologically advanced faction in the series is a clear riff on Japan's reputation as a technologically advanced wonderland.
• Nanomachines: Through their Nanocores, this forms the crux of all Empire structures and mechanical units.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Shinzo, Kenji, and Naomi in Skirmish Mode. Shinzo's the nice one, as none of the lines he makes when the player spots him are insulting or threatening, and he'll even take his defeat with dignity, sincerely thanking the player for teaching him a lesson in humility, while Kenji's the mean one, as he'll always mock the commander when spotted, and takes his defeat the worst out of all of them, and Naomi is the In-Between, as she'll be condescending and snarky, but she'll sometimes begrudgingly respect the player for defeating her.
• Only Sane Man: They're the only faction that doesn't find themselves doing any form of in-fighting in their campaign, thanks to their strict loyalty to their emperor. At least until Uprising, which sees various Imperial warlords pop up following the emperor's death, fighting both each other and the Allied occupation forces. It's revealed that Tatsu was manipulating the Allies to achieve dominance over the remains of the Empire and planning to take them out once they've gotten rid of any opposition to his rule, and even then, it's unknown which of the campaigns in Uprising is canonical.
• Psychic Powers: Their hero unit, Yuriko Omega, can lift up ground objects like soldiers and tanks, destroy buildings by ripping them apart, pull aircraft out of the sky and send a shockwave to kill infantry around her. In the expansion's campaign for her, she learns psychic possession, how to throw enemies at each other and energy shielding. Clones of her are used to power the Empire's superweapon.
• Ramming Always Works: The Shogun Battleship and King Oni can do this, often result in an instant kill. The smaller Yari Minisubs are also capable, but they won't survive doing so. "BANZAIII!"
• Rising Empire: The Empire of the Rising Sun is this, in contrast to the well-established superpowers (the Allies and the Soviets) who were already at each other's throats, all of them vying for control of the world.
• Robo Speak: Nanocores, being robots, naturally do this.
• Roboteching: Rocket Angels and Striker/Chopper-VXs both fire missiles with a curved trajectory.
• Shout-Out: Name an anime trope, and the Empire probably uses it.
  • Yuriko Omega (a disturbed psychokinetic Person of Mass Destruction who wears Sailor Fuku for some reason), as well as the Empire's superweapon (the Psionic Decimator), may well be a specific Shout-Out to AKIRA.
  • There's Wave Motion Guns, Salaryman engineer units, Humongous Mecha, and ninjas.
  • The King Oni resembles a cross between Iron Man and a Gundam. Further driving the point home, the Emperor has the original prototype, which is red with gold accents (which are normally white, but are gold colored due to the Empire's units normally being orange). You can even see the Iron Man-like interface as he declares your imminent doom.
  • Then, there are the Rocket Angels. Very much like other female mecha anime such as Sky Girls and Strike Witches.
• Slow Laser: Technically, they use particle accelerators and superheated slugs, but it looks like they use lasers.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Subverted. While the Empire had traditionally maintained strict gender norms, this had already begun changing prior to the war, with Prince Tatsu even personally making the case for welcoming women to serve in the Imperial military.
• Super Prototype: The Empire not only is known for pushing the limits in terms of experimental weapons, but as Uprising shows, is also fond of deploying overpowered prototypes to help even the odds against myriad foes.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Downplayed with the Empire campaign in Uprising. While it doesn't really hide Prince Tatsu's true plans to reassert the Empire's rightful place under his leadership, the Japanese are nonetheless shown to be genuine in wanting to be free of Allied occupation and generally left alone.
• Transforming Mecha: Anti-ground helicopters become anti-air missile walkers, anti-infantry mechas become air-to-air jet fighters, submarine Sea-Wings become flying Sky Wings, the Giga Fortress in the expansion can switch between air and sea modes... Even their basic tanks are amphibious; "flexibility" is the main focus of their gameplay.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Their artillery in Red Alert 3. They're even flat-out simply called Wave Force Cannons, and their floating fortresses use tri-barreled versions.

Yuri's Army

"My life for Yuri!"

Yuri is the leader of a very versatile and efficient army. Yuri and his mad scientists conducted secret research which resulted in great scientific advances, which Yuri exploited to the full. Yuri's army relies on mind-control, cloning, advanced magnetic weapons, and laser technology, as well as speed, maneuverability and flexibility to bring him victory on the battlefield.

---

• Amazon Brigade: Yuri's Virus is a group of an all female unit of mercenary snipers.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Yuri's superweapons
  • They sound really dangerous on paper: the Psychic Dominator mind-controls multiple units and destroys buildings, and the Genetic Mutator turns infantry over an area into brutes that the Yuri player can use. Problem is that their effectiveness is based entirely on how clustered together enemy units are, and the Genetic Mutator doesn't work on garrisoned infantry. A smart human player can easily counter the Psychic Dominator by spreading their units out and keeping them away from buildings, and can render the Genetic Mutator harmless by keeping all of their infantry inside buildings or APCs.
  • The main use for the Genetic Mutator seems to be on your own units - Yuri's ore miners automatically generate slaves to use as miners for free, so moving a group of them into the same area and then hitting them with the mutator can generate a lot of Brutes very fast for free.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Yuri's forces aren't afraid to use slave labor, mind control hapless civilians to "recycle" as grinder fodder, or commit war crimes which even Stalin would consider excessive. They just don't care, so long as Yuri's goals are accomplished.
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: Pretty much the entire premise of Yuri and his faction, which ups the somewhat ridiculous RA arsenal with the addition of genetically mutated Hulk look-a-likes, psychically powered infantry, UFOs, and so on. Then there's the expansion campaign, which features such gems as weaponized Moai statues, bases in Antarctica and on the moon, and a gothic Transylvanian mansion headquarters. Regardless of which campaign, all of Yuri's plans end up failing spectacularly and then Yuri himself is eventually submitted to some humiliating fate.
• Color-Coded Armies: Yuri's Army was purple-colored. His structures were decidedly ambitious about incorporating gold, however.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Like how Yuri is one to Kane, Yuri's Army is one to the Brotherhood of Nod, but without any of the characteristics that serve to make it seem less evil, such as its Villain with Good Publicity and Bread and Circuses tendencies:
  • Yuri's Army is completely and utterly inhumane in a way that Nod would consider too extreme, as its arsenal consists of pyrokinetics who immolate their opponents to death, snipers with bullets laced with a highly contagious, highly lethal virus that causes people to messily explode into a cloud of the stuff, and literal slave labor. This should be specified as coming in the form of absolutely filthy and stuffy looking vehicles helmed by absolute scumbags who keep the slaves in line by threatening to kill them with a machine-gun that's been mounted to said vehicles. Those slaves are also only given shovels for mining ore and are clad in nothing but a pair of pants, not even having shoes, or even being allowed to take bathroom breaks or even have regular meals.
  • Yuri's forces aren't afraid, either to have normal people irreversibly transformed into mentally retarded, child-like musclebound giants that are unquestionably loyal to Yuri to the point where they don't have any free will, in contrast to Nod's most diehard adherents, from the fanatical Black Hand to the cyberized Marked of Kane, following their Messiah's word willingly, whether through brainwashing or genuinely.
  • This is also reflected in how Yuri's Army has a half-baked Propaganda Machine, which though meant solely as a means for Yuri to brainwash the masses through subliminal messages, is otherwise just competent enough to produce bad dinosaur movies, at best. This stands in contrast to Nod's well-oiled apparatus, which by Tiberium Wars has allowed it to sway a sizable portion of Earth's surviving populace squarely on the Brotherhood's side without overt brainwashing.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Unlike Allied and Soviet units, each of Yuri's units are good at one thing and one thing only. He can't just send an army solely composed of Battle Fortresses or Apocalypses and roll over the opposition, a combined-arms tactic is essential. Lasher Tanks are the most vanilla of his units. Gatling Tanks will shred infantries and aircrafts, but will have trouble taking down armors. Magnetrons have superior range to be a great siege unit, but it will die to the most basic infantry units. Flying Discs will shut down the enemy base, but not as good as actually demolishing it. Masterminds can mind-control an unlimited number of units, but can easily be overwhelmed to the point of exploding.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: The Psychic Dominators shown in the opening cutscene are able to mind control entire sections of continents. To prevent it from being an enormous Game-Breaker by giving Yuri's faction the ability to instantly control every unit and structure on the map if one is activated even once, in the game it can take over 9 units at most and cause a lot of base damage. Justified in the campaigns as they take place in the past, and the Psychic Dominators are still far from being at full power - furthermore, they are sabotaged by Albert Einstein in the Allied campaign.
• Day of the Jackboot: Not counting the Near-Villain Victory in which the Psychic Dominators work as intended, towns and cities occupied by Yuri's Army have throngs of mind-controlled civilians and slaves being thrown to the grinder, sometimes literally. While those who aren't brainwashed, such as Einstein in Egypt and the Massivesoft engineers in Seattle, are forced at gunpoint to fulfill Yuri's plans.
• Dirty Coward: Yuri's gatling tanks and Magnetrons: they certainly like to dish out punishment at long range but flee at the first whiff of a counterattack.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Unlike every other faction in the series, let alone the Command and Conquer franchise, Yuri's Army is only ever referred to as such. It is mentioned, however, that it had been known as the Soviet Psi-Corps before Yuri went rogue.
• Expy: Yuri's Army in many respects bears a strong resemblance to the Brotherhood of Nod in its more esoteric and secretive aspects. An almost cultish force united by loyalty (and mind control) to one man, it's reliant on highly experimental and ethically dubious weapons to win the day.
• Flawed Prototype: Unlike the beginning of Yuri's Revenge, wherein the Psychic Dominators are already fully-powered and ready to use, the ones seen for much for the campaign are considerably weaker. This is likely due to Yuri being forced to put them into action ahead of schedule to fight off the Allies and Soviets.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Literally; Yuri's "Genetic Mutator" superweapon instantly converts a bunch of people into massive musclemen.
• Human Resources:
  • Bio-Reactors. They don't generate much power on their own, but "garrison" infantry in them and they become some of the best power plants in the game.
  • Yuri's grinders take this literally; any unit can be sent in and "recycled" for their bio-matter, which for the sake of simplicity is converted directly into credits, your main resource.
• Keystone Army: As the name suggests, Yuri's Army is very dependent on the survival of Yuri himself. The moment he's out of the picture, his forces cease being a threat.
• The Minion Master: Yuri faction counts by proxy through Mind Control. The Yuri clone can control one enemy unit at a time, the Psychic Tower can control three, the Mastermind can control an infinite number of enemies (but takes damage after four), and both of its Superweapons are designed to take the enemy's units and add them to your own. They also get the Cloning Vats, doubling every trained infantry unit.
• More Dakka: Yuri's Army comes equipped with Gatling turrets and tank that spin faster the longer they fire.
• N.G.O. Superpower: While they seemingly became one practically overnight by the start of Yuri's Revenge, it's strongly suggested that Yuri had been secretly building them right up under the Soviets' nose in the preceding years.
• Only in It for the Money: Some of Yuri's forces are mercenaries who couldn't care less about his insane plans, so long as they get paid.
• Playing with Fire: Yuri's Initiates are psychics who attack by burning things with their powers.
• Psychic Powers: Yuri is capable of mind control. Yuri pulls a psychic possession over a telephone at the beginning of Red Alert 2, and over a video link in the Allied campaign of the expansion. With the aid of a special building, he can mind control an entire hemisphere!
• Psychic Radar: Thanks to Yuri, you too can employ psychics to monitor your battlefield and predict the movement of enemy troops!
• Purple Is Powerful: Even before the debut of Yuri's Revenge, his private vanguard protecting him in the Kremlin at the climax of the base game's Soviet Campaign is colored purple. His army proper are colored in various shades of purple, and in both in-universe and in-game, is quite powerful.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: Downplayed. Yuri's Army still retains some elements of its origins as the Soviet Psi-Corps, from elements of its architecture, to the use of "comrade" and Yuri himself still using his old uniform.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: It's shown that Yuri's Army isn't above having literal (unwilling) slave labor kept at gunpoint, and mindless ones whose sole existence is to die for their master. Taking out a Slave Miner, however, will cause those still-sentient laborers to rise up and join the side that freed them.
• Soviet Superscience: Given its origins, the faction utilizes some pieces of experimental Soviet tech that were either stolen or originally overseen by Yuri when he went rogue, most notably the cloning vats and the Psychic Dominator.
• Supervillain Lair:
  • In Yuri's Revenge, Yuri has a secret island, a family castle in Transylvania, and even a moonbase.
  • Lampshaded with Yuri's castle when Premier Romanov makes fun of it briefly ("He is like monster from movies") before he gave the Soviet commander the order to destroy it.
• Useless Useful Spell: The Genetic Mutator (Yuri's secondary superweapon) sounds good on paper, turning all infantry on a large area into brutes at your command, but since it's rare your enemy will ever have a large collection of infantry in one spot, the only use it can ever be is to turn your own or other players' slaves into usable soldiers, since slaves are free. When you figured out the secret, the Mutator was possibly the best superweapon in the game. Use it with the grinder and Yuri has potentially infinite cash, especially useful in a long game where the ore has run out.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Yuri's faction has the Grinder, which you can send your obedient soldiers (or hypnotized enemies/civilians) into to be shredded into valuable scrap bits. One Allied mission sees you trying to destroy a network of such devices Yuri's built in Los Angeles. There's no time limit on the mission, though, so you're free to watch brainwashed civilians walk into them for as long as you like while you build up your forces.
• Weaksauce Weakness:
  • Units that are immune to mind control. On its own, Yuri's army is rather weak, with only garrisoned Initiates, Gattling Tanks and Floating Discs proving to be superior to equivalent units of other factions (and Viruses being comparable to Snipers), and it even lacks anti-armor base defenses outside of Lasher Tanks in bunkers; however, the vast array of mind-controlling units allows Yuri to tip the balance in his favor. Then, if you throw units such as Robot Tanks, Commandos such as Tanya or Boris or units that are under the effect of a Psychic Dominator, Yuri is in serious trouble.
  • Zerg Rush. There is an enormous difference between one of Yuri's Psychic Towers mind-controlling three Apocalypse Tanks and it mind-controlling three Conscripts. It also works wonders against a Mastermind to overload it easily - its heavy armor means it can waltz right into a group of hard-hitting units and mind-control them all.
• You Have Out Lived Your Usefulness: Much like how Yuri tries to eliminate those nominally on his side including Premier Romanov and the Soviet commander once they're no longer deemed useful, Yuri's forces won't hesitate to kill those they have at gunpoint, be it Einstein in Egypt or the Massivesoft staff in Seattle, once they're through doing his bidding.

Characters appearing in all games

Professor Albert Einstein

Professor Albert Einstein

Played by: John Milford (Red Alert); Larry Gellman (Red Alert 2); Smokey Miles (Red Alert 3)

Affiliation: Allies
Rank: N/A
Role: Scientist

"Time will tell... sooner or later, time will tell."

Shortly after the close of World War II, Professor Einstein began working on a way to change history so the terrible conflict would not occur. He began researching time travel and in 1946 completed a machine that allowed him to travel back to 1924 where he found Adolf Hitler and eliminated him. Returning to his own time, he reflected that the true ramifications of his actions would only be seen with time. Rather than preventing the war, he had merely changed the sides. Soviet Russia, now without Hitler between him and Western Europe, became the belligerent. Realizing he had failed in his ultimate objective, he offered his services to Allied Command to help produce new technologies for the war effort.

---

• Absent-Minded Professor: His portrayal is that of a brilliant but scatterbrained man, especially in the second game. For instance, he keeps annoying Eva by asking her what all the buttons at her control station are for.
• Alternate History: Two involving him: the first one that he creates himself by eliminating Hitler, and the second created when Soviets travel back in time to eliminate him.
• Alternate Self: According to Word of God, the Einstein who appears in the intro of Red Alert and the one we see throughout the rest of the series are different people. This is because Our Time Travel Is Different; while Einstein's visit to 1924 resulted in the Alternate Timeline seen in the games, his future self was not affected by this change.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: This becomes pronounced by Red Alert 2, wherein he's shown to be absentminded and prone to babbling in his old age.
• The Dog Bites Back: Einstein, quite possibly the most famous and well-known Jewish person in the world kills Adolf Hitler by eradicating him from time itself, thereby avenging every last Jew who died in the Holocaust by proxy. While in Yuri's Revenge, despite being kidnapped by Yuri to work on the Psychic Dominator project, Einstein not only manages to sabotage those plans before being rescued, but even rigs it so that the Allied commander could use it once on Yuri's forces.
• Distressed Dude: Is captured twice in the series, due to his brilliance and key role behind the Allies' their technological edge. The Soviets eventually decide to erase him from the timeline upon developing the means to do so.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: It's hinted at that he doesn't really take pride in the Weather-Control Machine superweapon he invented (only doing so because of the Soviet threat), and advices the Allied commander to treat it accordingly.
  Einstein: "These are God's toys, commander... use them wisely, ja?"
• Flanderization: He's portrayed as a fairly normal person outside of his genius in the first game, even poking fun at his own reputation when he's introduced to the Allied commander. By the sequel, however, he's become a full-blown Absent-Minded Professor.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Despite Einstein viewing war as not his profession, he nonetheless considers the threat posed by the Soviets, whether it's Stalin in Red Alert 1 or Romanov and Yuri in Red Alert 2, to be enough for him to give the Allies the technological edge they need to win.
  Einstein: You know of course, that war is not my vocation. I am only a scientist. But Soviet Premier Romanov and his generals, they will stop at nothing, to rule the minds and the bodies of everyone on the planet, when they have the psychic technology to do this.
• Historical Domain Character: He's one of the only three characters in the entire Command & Conquer franchise, alongside Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler in the first Red Alert game, to be a real-life individual.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: Albert Einstein was a genius who came up with many a theory that rocketed technological advancement to light speeds in real life, but his portrayal in Red Alert has him practically being a comic book superhero whose responsible for the development of many of the Allies technology, which includes real, actual invisibility generators, weather manipulating machines, and even portable time travel devices that you can wear to teleport around which can also be weaponized to use to erase enemies from existence.
• Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Provides a perfect example of why there is such a thing by kickstarting the entire franchise's plot. Einstein's own death at the hands of time-traveling Soviets, coincidentally, is what kickstarts the plot of Red Alert 3.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His invention of the Chronosphere to erase Hitler from time is later used by the Soviet leadership to erase him in the same manner.
• Humble Hero: Despite his credentials and reputation, Einstein consistently remains subdued about it all, simply calling himself as "only a scientist."
• I Did What I Had to Do: The intro of Red Alert 1 reveals that while Einstein succeeds in erasing Adolf Hitler, and by extension Nazi Germany, from history, he doesn't feel any catharsis for what had to be done.
  Einstein: Hitler is...out of the way.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By killing off Hitler (see above), he allows the Soviet Union the opportunity it needs to invade Europe. This is coincidentally lampshaded by the original timeline's Einstein upon coming back, uncertain of whether his gamble even worked:
  Einstein: "Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell..."
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In Yuri's Revenge, it's shown that the otherwise pacifistic Einstein considers Yuri so much of a menace to mankind that after being rescued, he willingly gives the Allied commander access to the sabotaged Psychic Dominator to wipe out his former captors indiscriminately.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
  • The original Einstein tried to stop World War II from happening by eliminating Hitler the moment he left Landsberg Prison in Germany. This backfires horribly, resulting in the events of Red Alert 1 taking place.
  • In Yuri's Revenge, Einstein manages to finish work on a modified Chronosphere that could properly travel through time, just as Yuri is on the verge of global domination. The remaining Allied forces, however, ultimately and canonically succeed.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: His role in the game seems rather similar to Ignatio Mobius in Tiberian Dawn.
• Technical Pacifist: Einstein would rather not make weapons or involve himself with matters of war, but the threat posed by the Soviets leaves him with little choice but to give his expertise to the Allies and entrust Allied commanders to do the right thing.
• Time Travel: His time machine is central to the plots of the first game and Yuri's Revenge.
• Tracking Device: When he's captured by the Soviets in Red Alert they plant a tracking device on him and allow the Allies to rescue him to track him to their base.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His meddling with time was intended to spare the world of the horrors that Hitler and the Nazis unleashed. While a part of him was uncertain of what would happen, it instead opened up a whole other can of worms that he never anticipated.

Tanya Adams

Tanya Adams

Played by: Lynne Litteer (Red Alert), Kari Wührer (Red Alert 2), Jenny McCarthy (Red Alert 3)

Affiliation: Allies
Rank: N/A
Role: Commando

"Shake it, baby!"

When Professor Albert Einstein was captured by Soviet forces, General Von Esling called for a specialist. Tanya Adams was flown in for the purpose of extracting Einstein, and continued to serve through the remainder of the war. She (or other women who shared her name and role) also served in the other conflicts between the Allies and the Soviets.

---

• Achilles' Heel: The original Tanya's lack of auto-targeting made her extremely vulnerable to the fast-moving, instantly lethal Soviet attack dogs. Unsurprisingly, missions where Tanya mustn't die tended to be crawling with dogs. Her later incarnations didn't have this problem because she would kill Attack Dogs and War Bears before they could get close to her, but mechanical equivalents like the Soviet Terror Drones took over that niche quickly.
• Action Girl: She can annihilate whole armies of infantry using nothing but a pair of handguns.
• Awesome, but Impractical: At least in the first game. She didn't automatically attack enemies, forcing you to manually order her. She was also vulnerable to dogs, which could instantly kill her, and couldn't swim and instantly kill infantry like she was able to in later installments of the series. Averted in the sequels, where she gained buffs in the form of instantly killing infantry, on top of being able to swim and demolish structures and boats alike with her C4 charges. By Red Alert 3, her C4 is now used on land vehicles, while being capable of hiding herself inside the structures and vehicles she blew up with them.
• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed. She isn't a foaming-at-the-mouth maniac but a LOT of her quotes make it clear that she's extremely violent and enjoys killing other people, and one of her lines in Red Alert 2 is just her laughing maniacally, and also remarks that the Soviet War Bears are cute as they die in Red Alert 3. Just imagine her as Revy from Black Lagoon, but as a military commando, without any tattoos, and not a Straw Nihilist.
• Badass in Distress: One of the missions in the first game is rescuing her from Soviet forces. You have to get a spy into the prison, then she destroys it and shoots her way out.
• Betty and Veronica: In RA3, she is the Veronica to Eva's Betty for Commander's Archie.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The various Tanyas go through this cycle with the first being a brunette, the second a redhead, and the third a blonde.
• Blood Knight: She gets very enthusiastic if ordered to attack an enemy.
• Boom, Headshot!: One of her unit quotes.
• Chainmail Bikini: An armored bra.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Tanya's absolutely devastating to infantry and can instantly destroy any building she gets close to, but was utterly useless against vehicles. Yuri's Revenge averted this by giving her the ability to blow up vehicles as well, an ability she kept in Red Alert 3, but she still had to get close enough to plant charges, whereas they moved faster and could usually fire while moving.
• Establishing Character Moment: Barging in unannounced in a top secret military meeting.
• Expy: In terms of gameplay, Tanya started out as the Red Alert equivalent to the Tiberian Dawn Commando, able to massacre entire infantry divisions and detonate structures, but being ineffective against everything else. Later games would give Tanya some Divergent Character Evolution by granting her the ability to swim, detonate ships and vehicles, and go back in time.
• Fanservice Pack: She gets skimpier and more dolled up with each game.
• Guns Akimbo: She dual-wields Colt M1911 handguns in the first game. The second Tanya uses a pair of SiG Sauer P226 pistols, and the third carries a pair of Desert Eagles.
• Hero Must Survive: In the first two games, she must survive most missions in which she appears.
• Hero Unit: While Tanya appears as both a character in the story and a trainable unit in skirmish in all three games, this trope only applies in Yuri's Revenge and Red Alert 3, in which she is limited to one per player at any time and can one-shot most enemy infantry and take down buildings, ships and vehicles at close range with a single C4 charge (in contrast, in Red Alert and Red Alert 2, she simply acts as an elite infantry unit that a player can train an unlimited number of).
• Hired Guns: In the first game, Van Esling introduces Tanya as a "professional volunteer" and Stavros expresses concern over the fact that she's a civilian and not military. She's never directly referred to as a mercenary, but that's clearly what she is.
• Immune to Mind Control: Specific to Yuri's Revenge, as Tanya's upgrade to Hero Unit in the RA 2 expansion added this trait as a buff and made her immune to Yuri's mind control attacks. Note that this isn't true in the original game — indeed, a Non-Standard Game Over cutscene occurs in the eighth Allied campaign mission if the strike team led by Tanya to take out the Psychic Beacon in St. Louis doesn't do so before time runs out, where Tanya has a Face–Heel Turn and bids the player "dasvidaniya" before leaving with Soviet troops.
• "Instant Death" Radius: Once RA2 gave her the same auto-targeting ability that all other units always had, any infantry unit that enters her firing range is shot dead instantly. She also shoots extremely fast, so no matter how many troops you send against her, they won't get a single shot off even when attacking from all directions simultaneously. The only infantry types she has to look out for are the few that either fly or outrange her.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: One of the RA3 cutscenes shows her interrogating a Soviet soldier. She herself is also on the receiving end of one in the first game.
• Legacy Character: The original Tanya was an American mercenary employed by the Allies during the Second Great War. The Red Alert 2 version just seems to be coincidentally named Tanya. By the third game, it's clear that the name "Tanya" is now a codename for all of the badass female commandos under the employ of the Allies.
• Little Black Dress: At the end of the Allied campaigns of Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, and Red Alert 3.
• Military Maverick: Is known for her disobedience and talking smack to her superiors. The higher ups only tolerate her due to her superb skills in combat; to the point that Carville joked that she gets a much better relationship with the enemy than with the Allied Commander.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Downplayed in Red Alert 1. While she's all but stated to be a mercenary working for the Allies and is more concerned for her paycheck, her hatred of the Soviets is genuine.
• One-Hit Kill: Averted for the original Tanya who needed two or three (very quick) shots to kill even basic infantry, but her later incarnations take down anything organic with a single pistol shot each, and any building or vehicle with one application of C4.
• One-Man Army: Though in Red Alert 1 she can only blow up buildings and kill infantry, and only if you specifically order her to kill that infantry, in Red Alert 2, she automatically fires on advancing infantry (with pistols, but long before she's in range of their assault rifles), she can swim even in nearly frozen rivers, and use C4 on ships, buildings, and vehicles (in RA2, as with many games, tanks have no machine guns, making them weak against infantry). The only thing that can stop her besides air power and overwhelming force are base defenses like sentry guns and Tesla coils. There are several missions where she takes out entire bases with little backup.
• Punch-Packing Pistol: Zigzagged. Tanya's handguns can wipe out infantry in a single shot, far more efficiently than the assault rifles used by basic riflemen, but are useless against anything else.
• Sociopathic Hero: She's one of the good guys... who happens to take pleasure at gunning down her opponents complete with an Evil Laugh. One of her lines before killing an opponent is simply quip a nonchalant "another loser".
• Stripperiffic: Not so much in the first game, but in Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3 she definitely seems to favor outfits that are sexy rather than practical for combat. In the first game Tanya wore a tactical vest and a combat fatigue pants. In the second and third games, the tactical vest has been replaced by a tight, midriff-baring tank top. Cutscenes show that she does have the good sense to wear a wetsuit for swimming operations and a heavy coat for cold-weather conditions, but her sprite doesn't reflect this.
• Super Swimming Skills: In RA2 and RA3 she can swim across any sized body of water without slowing down to sink a dreadnought with C4.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the original Red Alert, she was basically Awesome, but Impractical, as she could only attack when ordered to and was vulnerable to being instantly killed by dogs and ran over by vehicles, but in Red Alert 2, she gained the ability to swim and immunity to dogs and being crushed, as well as being able to use her C4 charges on naval vessels. Come Red Alert 3, she can now use her C4 explosives on land vehicles as well and has the ability to travel a few seconds back in time, which also slightly heals her in the process.

---