Project Krypton

Project Krypton is a fictional DARPA human enhancement research project from the novel Ex-Heroes designed to produce elite soldiers through biological augmentation.

History Origin Project Krypton was started by the Secretary of Defense as an answer to the various super heroes that were popping up all over the place. All of which were answering to their country’s government. Almost every one of them except for the ones in the United States. The army feared a revolution when people with these kind of abilities were roaming around, taking the law into their own hands.

While the Future Force Warrior project was doing well, with them hoping to have the Cerberus Battle Armor System in the public eye in the next seven or eight months. When it comes down to it, the Vice President, the Secretary, and the Joint Chiefs wanted to see the real deal in their corner.

Project Krypton Originally based at Natick a sub-base was set up in Yuma when the recruits exceeded capacity. The project was divided into for squads Broadsword, Greyhound, Angel and Devil. Greyhound, was the control group. They were given sugar pills and shots of saline water. Squads Angel Devil were pumped full of myostatin blockers, somatotropin and other drugs designed to cause a direct change in muscular growth. Broadsword company had the biggest concentration of drugs given to them. Not only were they injected with all of the drugs given to Angel and Devil they also received marrow transplants and hormone therapy and other supplements. This upgraded their bodies own natural genes granting it several special benefits. The muscle mass of their body began increasing, allowing them to drastically increase in size and strength creating the perfect “muscular monster”.

However the soldiers of Broadsword soon began complaining of cramps as their muscle mass continued to increase. Their arms and legs got bigger stretching their skin and their veins stood out. With each day it kept getting worse. After two days their eyes were watering. Not crying, just watering bad. On the Third day private Jacobs after pressure from his fellow recruits to report his symptoms got up off his bunk, went to grab his shirt, and when he reached up his arm split open. His muscle mass had increased so drastically that his skin broke open. There was just too much muscle packed in there. It didn’t even bleed much because it was pulled so tight.

Jacobs was taken to the infirmary along with Lucas another Broadsword squad member who began showing symptoms. It turns out his skin was split as well right across the shoulders. The muscle mass increase was simply growing out of control four days after this Lucas and Jacobs couldn’t even move anymore. Their arms and legs were just big sausages of muscle. They looked fat because their abs were getting so big, and they couldn’t lay flat because their glutes and shoulders were twisting their backs up. And their skin was still splitting as it couldn’t grow as fast as the muscles were, so they were given sharkskin grafts.

On the fifth day they started screaming. Their bones were growing as well but their rate of growth simply wasn’t a match for the growth of their muscle mass. They kept getting crushed between muscles or stretched apart as the muscles kept getting bigger and thicker. For three days they were tortured by their bodies. They’d gotten so big it took huge doses of painkillers just to make them stop screaming. Jacobs, skull had been pushed off his neck by all the muscles, but it didn’t kill him because it hadn’t actually broken his spinal cord. Jacobs and Lucas died on day nine and they were given full honors. The physician over the project fled from the base and Angel and Devil companies required dialysis for a few weeks.

The Relaunch of Project Krypton With three-fourths of the recruits out of commission one way or the other and only company left. It was believed that that was it for Project Krypton. However DARPA decided to redo Krypton from the ground up. A knew physician was hired to oversee the process Doctor Emil Sorensen a University professor with doctorate degrees in Physiology, Neurology, Biochemistry and forerunner in molecular nanotechnology.

The recruits would no longer be experimented on. The project would use established procedures, using tested drugs and chemicals. While there was no guarantee of the treatment taking their was no risk of muscular explosion. The First Sergeant informed the recruits that they had done their duty and that they had carried out the requirements they’d signed up for. Even though they were keeping the number, as far as the Army was concerned this was going to be something new and the 456th was being disbanded. If they wanted out, they’d be debriefed

Out of about five hundred volunteers, one hundred and eight made the final cut, two large companies’ worth. It was discovered that the previous project failed because the head physician thought you had to force the body to achieve the performance levels the DARPA we’re hoping for. Dr. Sorensen went a different route When we were very young, we played a lot often to the point where we collapsed. We ran and lifted things and burned through a day’s worth of calories in just a few hours. We pushed our bodies to their full potential. Except we made ourselves sick, we got hurt. Maybe we even hurt one or two of our friends by accident. We learned it wasn’t always good to operate on those levels unless it was absolutely necessary and often not even then.

Everyone on Earth carries the seeds of superhuman ability within them. The human body is an amazing machine, it’s powerful and durable all on its own, without much help from drugs. We rarely see that, though, because we all learned early on not to use our bodies to their full potential. Even professional athletes who train constantly are working under a system of automatic restraint. We hold back. We don’t push ourselves to our maximum limits because we instinctively understand how dangerous it can be, to others and to ourselves. And as we got older our bodies responded, getting slower and weaker because we weren’t pushing them to be their best.

Compare it to addicts on phencyclidine—PCP—who can fight half a dozen men or punch through walls. The drug high bypasses all those self-imposed safeguards. Of course, it also disables pain receptors, so it’s not uncommon for them to come down and realize they’ve broken several bones in their hands. However the government already tried giving soldiers and it didn’t work for the reasons mentioned above and no one could ever get any definitive results. It also doesn’t solve the real problem. Project Krypton aims to make soldiers superhuman, not dependent on drugs that make them superhuman. The recipients were put through a month of injections of a compound called GW501516 paired with AICAR, which activates a metabolic change causing them to feel jittery throughout the process. The injections caused their muscle tissues to develop faster. As well as their skin and bone cells, which meant more red blood cells carrying more oxygen.

While normally this would the same drug dependency as the first project i.e if the supplements were stopped the recipients body chemistry would go back to normal in a few days. To counter this the recipient requires sixteen hours of neuro-surgery which disables the body’s safeguards. If the soldier made a serious effort they’d create new pathways and learn to keep the body in check again. For now, though, they run at those optimum performance levels. Their mind isn’t going to tell their body to hold back. This is their new normal, so to speak, and the drugs are merely a kick-start so that their bodies will change to keep up.

The recipients were required to take the drug supplements for a month after surgery in which three-quarters of the volunteers washed out leaving only thirty-eight soldiers left enough to make a solid platoon or two.