Shortly after C-Consciousness was successfully created by the fusion of seven human minds through a computer interface, the Soviet Union collapsed. In the years that followed, some of the research labs were abandoned, and the C-Consciousness entity took greater control over the few facilities that remained in full operation. With its enhanced cognitive abilities, C-Consciousness was able to perceive and eventually to directly alter the "noosphere" (the collective "environment" of all thought, just as the "biosphere" refers to the sum total of all biological matter and its myriad interactions).