Project Schwarzwald

1. Summary

Project Schwarzwald is the clandestine research institution that built and ran the research complex of the same name deep in the Brazilian Amazon. It was founded under a secret German–Brazilian agreement in 1938 and run jointly by Brazil and the United States from 1942.

In the fiction, the public-facing Area 51 is a decoy; the Amazon facility is the true center of sensitive experimental programs, though it is not itself called "Area 51."

The complex has remained sealed and quarantined since 1999, guarded by Brazilian and American forces.

2. Organization

Schwarzwald is not an ordinary criminal compound or an isolated private facility. It involves the governments of Brazil and the United States.

2.1 Joint Administration

From 1942 the facility was under joint Brazilian-American administration, and research continued under American supervision. Since the 1960s the facility has been under the authority of the Bilateral Strategic Continuity Directorate (BSCD), a Transnational Super Directorate of the United States and Brazil. See: Factions › Bilateral Strategic Continuity Directorate. Its scientific leadership directed the research programmes; when the energy requirements of the deepening research exceeded the capabilities of the original infrastructure, it authorized the construction of an experimental fusion reactor. See: Artifacts and Technology › Fusion Reactor.

2.2 Levels and Departments

Research moved deeper as the complex grew:

• D1 for aeronautics, chemical and biological weapons and metallurgy, administrative from 1953. See: Places › D1.
• D2 for military engineering and aerospace. See: Places › D2.
• D3 for chemical, biological and medical research, with the experimental fusion energy complex beside it. See: Places › D3.
• D4 for artificial intelligence and robotics, including geopolitical prediction. See: Places › D4.
• D5 for high-containment biology and neuroscience. See: Places › D5.
• D6 for the recovered spacecraft, consciousness and memetic engineering. See: Places › D6.
• D7, an unfinished containment city that never got beyond its first tunnels. See: Places › D7.

Departments and programmes named in the records include the Fusion Energy Division; D4's geopolitical prediction and intelligence section; the Information Hazards research sector; and, in D6, the Memetic Engineering Department with its Scientific Memetic Engineering Division, the Memetic Containment Task Force, and the Experimental Memetic Resistance Program known as the Nietzsche Project. The arrival of the Skull Helmet led to specialized D6 departments dedicated to anomalous subjective experience, memetic phenomena, information hazards, and cognitive containment. The Memetic Engineering Department contained two competing methodological schools, the Memetic Purists and the Memetic Integrationists. The research of each department is described with its level. See: Places › D6.

2.3 Compartmentalization

Although the underground installation operated through strict compartmentalization, its scientific departments maintained controlled exchanges of research, equipment, and technical expertise. The Memetic Engineering Department, for example, received certain findings from D4, including information concerning Amanda. See: Characters › Amanda.

2.4 Staff

The staff changed with the institution's history. German scientists and military personnel worked at the facility until 1942. American scientific and military personnel arrived in March 1942, and German scientific specialists were later recruited through Operation Paperclip; much of D2's machinery was designed by those German engineers. Brazilian personnel also served there, among them the physician Dr. Valério and the lieutenant colonel.

The facility was not populated exclusively by caricatures of evil scientists. It also employed people who were motivated by scientific discovery, professional advancement, economic security, or the possibility of improving humanity's technological capabilities. Their relationship to the institution's crimes varied. Some were directly responsible. Some rationalized their participation. Others may have been unaware of the full extent of the experiments conducted elsewhere.

Schwarzwald's scientific personnel were not uniformly indifferent to the suffering caused by their research. Some of them opposed the animal experimentation behind the Roach Rats. See: Enemies › Roach Rat. See: In-World Documents › Roach Rat Memorandum.

Some researchers devoted decades to a single programme; one of the fusion researchers counted twenty-three years of work on the reactor by the 1999 shutdown. See: In-World Documents › Fusion Research Log.

Staff members known by name or by their story:

• Friedrich, a scientist involved especially in the consciousness research around the Skull Device in D6. See: Characters › Friedrich.
• Dr. Hatzinger, the German physician who organized and supervised the human experiments in D3. See: Characters › Dr. Hatzinger.
• Dr. Valério, the Brazilian physician who worked under Hatzinger. See: Characters › Dr. Valério.
• The retired Brazilian Army lieutenant colonel who worked at the installation with Friedrich. See: Characters › The Lieutenant Colonel.
• Amanda, the artificial intelligence developed in D4. See: Characters › Amanda.
• The D6 researcher who locked himself in a secured room during the catastrophe. See: Characters › The D6 Researcher.
• The portal scientist still working in D4. See: Characters › The Portal Scientist.
• The scientist whose theoretical study began the 1999 breach. See: Characters › The Breach Scientist.
• An American counterintelligence liaison who wrote intelligence assessments for D6. See: In-World Documents › Document H — The Soviet Memetic Threat.

2.5 Security

The guards of each depth are described with the base. See: Places › Military Base. See: Factions › Brazilian Armed Forces. See: Factions › American Special Operations Unit. See: Enemies › Patrol Robot.

2.6 Confidentiality

Former personnel remain subject to confidentiality obligations associated with the classified project. The lieutenant colonel signed agreements that prohibit him from discussing what happened there, and those obligations never went away. Former personnel are kept under observation by Brazilian military intelligence. See: Factions › Brazilian Armed Forces.

3. History

The institution's history runs from the negotiations of 1936 to the quarantine of 1999 and its aftermath. Every date lives in the timeline. See: Timeline › Master Timeline.

3.1 German-Brazilian Foundation

Initial secret negotiations in 1936 involved representatives of Getúlio Vargas and Benito Mussolini. On August 12, 1938, a secret German-Brazilian agreement authorized the establishment of a clandestine research facility in the Amazon rainforest. Construction of D1 began on April 3, 1939, and the level became operational on November 17, 1940. See: Places › D1.

3.2 Joint Brazilian-American Era

Following Brazil's diplomatic break with the Axis powers in January 1942, a secret evacuation order was issued for the German scientists and military personnel stationed at the facility, and in March 1942 American scientific and military personnel arrived to assume joint operations with Brazilian authorities. Research continued under American supervision, becoming increasingly controversial following Operation Paperclip and the incorporation of German scientists into postwar programs.

As the scientific complex expanded, the institution moved its research into progressively deeper and more secure levels and came to depend on sealed underground transport, secrecy and compartmentalization. See: Places › Military Base.

3.3 Investigations and Acquisitions

The institution also pursued classified investigations beyond its walls.

• A classified Brazilian-American investigation associated with Operation Prato was conducted in the Brazilian Amazon in 1977. Continued investigations led to the recovery of a non-human spacecraft on June 23, 1977, and D6 was built to accommodate it. See: Artifacts and Technology › The Spacecraft.
• Late in 1979, the Skull Helmet confiscated from an Indigenous community was transported to Schwarzwald, where a dedicated research and containment sector was eventually established for it in D6. See: Factions › Indigenous Community.
• The apparent inadequacy of D6's containment systems led to the D7 Project, initiated on April 5, 1989: a level exclusively for the Skull Helmet, conceived as a self-sustaining subterranean scientific city, that never got beyond its first tunnels. See: Places › D7.
• In 1990 the classified research programs were reorganized following major international geopolitical changes.
• In 1996 the institution conducted a classified investigation into the Varginha incident, and a biological specimen associated with that event was secretly transferred to D6. See: Places › D6.
• Its researchers investigated strange lights in the night sky. See: Phenomena › The Strange Light
• Schwarzwald's scientists obtained a limited number of exceptionally expensive samples of the Indigenous preparation. See: Artifacts and Technology › Indigenous Preparation.

3.4 The 1999 Catastrophe

The breach that began the disaster, the enforcement of the quarantine and the fate of those trapped inside are described with the phenomenon. See: Characters › The Breach Scientist. See: Phenomena › Information Hazard.

On February 19, 1999, multiple independent contamination clusters were identified across departments, and Amanda recommended comprehensive quarantine. See: Characters › Amanda.

Emergency quarantine procedures were activated on February 20, 1999, and the underground sectors entered lockdown. The severity of the informational hazard forced an immediate evacuation and quarantine, preventing the systematic removal of classified documents and experimental materials. On February 23, 1999, widespread hallucinations, suicides, homicides, and severe psychological breakdowns were reported throughout the facility. On March 1, 1999, Brazilian and American authorities ordered the complete isolation of the research complex.

The researchers of the fusion reactor were instructed to shut it down and leave their work behind. See: In-World Documents › The Reactor Shutdown Note.

On March 17, 1999, the facility was officially declared operationally lost. Automated systems remained active, with surviving personnel trapped inside.

The official cover story for the catastrophe and the memetic quarantine of the site are described with the base. See: Places › Military Base.

3.5 Institutional Quarantine

The lower regions of the installation have remained quarantined, inaccessible to ordinary military operations, and widely feared.

What the quarantine guards against. See: Places › Military Base and See: Phenomena › Information Hazard

3.6 Surviving Staff

Some of the scientists working inside D4 survived the catastrophe and the subsequent abandonment and still live in the facility, in extreme psychological deterioration. See: Enemies › Broken Survivor. The portal scientist is one of the surviving scientists. See: Characters › The Portal Scientist.

The lethal supersoldier robots of D5 killed scientists who tried to pass toward D6. See: Enemies › SQUAD Unit.

The remains of personnel who never escaped lie throughout the deeper levels.

At least one exposed scientist had already left before the lockdown. See: Characters › Friedrich.

4. Territory and Presence

Project Schwarzwald is an extensive, multi-generational military and research complex distributed across a remote region of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. It consists of a principal installation containing seven levels, D1 at ground level and D2 through D7 below it, and a geographically dispersed network of auxiliary facilities, military outposts, transportation corridors, maintenance installations, and concealed access points: the auxiliary complexes A1 to A4, the concealed heliport H1, the old aerodrome, and peripheral military infrastructure. See: Places › Military Base. See: Places › Surface.

D1 to D6 can be explored; D7 never got beyond its first tunnels, and the player has no access to it. Since 1999 the normal scientific operations have ceased, while the sophisticated automation systems that continued operating after the evacuation preserve significant portions of the infrastructure. See: Artifacts and Technology › Experimental Battery System.

5. Relationships

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5.1 Governments and Militaries

The governments of Brazil and the United States run the installation; Germany was its founding partner until 1942. The Brazilian Armed Forces guard its surface and the American Special Operations Unit its deeper levels. See: Factions › Brazilian Armed Forces. See: Factions › American Special Operations Unit.

5.2 Indigenous Community

The Skull Helmet at the centre of D6's research was taken from an Indigenous community in a massacre, and the community's survivors still try to recover it. See: Factions › Indigenous Community.

5.3 Von Veylor-Schloss Family

Friedrich worked at the installation and left before the lockdown. Twenty-two years after the catastrophe, the mission he left his children leads them to Schwarzwald. See: Factions › Von Veylor-Schloss Family. See: Characters › Friedrich.

6. Role in the Game

Schwarzwald is the destination of the mission Friedrich left and the setting of Chapters Four to Seven. Its staff are met through the documents, recordings and belongings they left behind, through Amanda, and through the surviving scientists of D4; in D3 the contrast between the achievements and the cruelty their documents reveal is part of the chapter's storytelling. See: Campaign › 4. Project Schwarzwald. See: Campaign › 6. Gates Of Hell. See: In-World Documents.

7. Open Questions

Recovery attempts over the decades. See: Canon › Open Questions