In the wake of the Zhōngzhǐ and consequent collapse of the CCP, Soyuz was provided with a wakeup call in reviewing their military assets against a parallel threat. While ground forces were potent, there was a distinct lack of hostile infiltration capacity outside of GRU's international division and the domestic KGB. The MoD recognized that in order to combat a potentially superhuman threat, as well as to enforce control over an advantage gained by the AU with it's existing analog programme, Soyuz would need to initiate its own development of super-soldiers. The research began in 2199 CE.

While the programme spawned several offshoots, the Spider Unit was an ambitious concept with particular emphasis on stealth, brute hit-and-run tactics and getting adventurous with the growing sophistication of post-cyber revolution technology. The ironing of the creases in the theory alone took 70 years before the development stage of the Unit commenced. Despite the confidence inspired by the progress of R&D, the candidate death rate was extreme; to the point that the central government no longer saw a prospect and considered pulling the plug in 2292 CE. However, a burst of cybernetic advancements in the period led to a 'salvage' operation, where the success of the project showed concrete results by producing multiple successful procedures. By the 2300s, the Spider Unit contained small teams of agents trained to an operational standard. After multiple test missions and exposure to real combat, the Spider Unit was unquestionably retained by the MoD, despite the high cost and longevity of production, development and training per agent.

Generally, the activity of the Unit is on a highly classified, need-to-know basis - few have ever seen a Spider agent, those among them are members of high command, project scientists and corpses.

"The creation of a Spider Unit agent involves the transferral of a candidate's nervous system and vital organs to a pre-made, highly specialized body. With two legs, six arms and a faceless head covered in optical lenses (visual cortex), the nerve framework and brain undergo heavy augmentation and upgrades to allow them to cope with the massive increase of stimuli compared to what the subjects were accustomed to in their natural bodies. Vital organs are placed into a cylindrical container and suspended in high nutrient oxygen-rich liquid, located within the chest. With the brain located in the cranium, the cylinder is capable of rotation to allow the agent 360° head movement. The agent is able to use each optic, arm and leg independently at the same time, the design taking inspiration from the vision of a chameleon and movement from it's namesake, the spider. The cybernetic limbs are equipped with a network of adhesive, ferro-interactive fibers which allow a Spider agent to scale walls and ceilings with finesse. Naturally, this is such a significant change to the natural functions of the human brain that it can take between 3 - 15 years of training for an agent to achieve full control of the Spider rig. [...]" "[...] Due to the living tissue of the agents being confined to a small portion of the body, they are able to compress themselves into tight spaces by folding their limbs and contracting their chassis around the living cylinder - a feature that is also used for protection. The interest of the military lies in their sheer speed, multi-tasking and stealth abilities. Previous operations have shown that a skilled Spider agent can use all of their arms to engage up to six targets at once, as well as avoid fire by what could only be described as 'skittering' along walls and navigating ventilation shafts at blinding speed. Too fast, too many eyes. It makes my skin crawl, like a larger version of what so many were already afraid of."