The building, all clean and white and as far from the dangerous ground as possible, is a little known institution. See, the building had stood there way up high on the roof of the towering skyscraper that made up part of the human territory safe from the trolls. Ever since the war started, the institute had two projects. The first project was to see if there was a way to have trolls under human command, the second to see if there was a way to have humans who were strong enough to fight trolls. Of course, this is already getting ahead of what would be considered crucial information, so a step back is needed to explain.

People considered, at first, trolls to be mythical and magical creatures. An usually angry gray figure with orange horns? No way such a thing was even possible. Why would someone guard places that were horrible land or talk to strange animals or even protect strange animals, all the while full of aggression and in extremely rare cases show kindness? Such an angry individual on their own wouldn't last long without food, much less in areas that usually couldn't sustain even a failing farm.

The stories of having to fight a troll to cross a bridge were quite frightening, or that of a troll attacking people who wandered off. Of course, like most things, people thought of them as stories of someone who was trying to teach lessons through stories and found them creative and entertaining. Even what seemed a mere short time ago people still found stories of some poor traveler looked in a fight with a troll in order to cross a bridge a funny fairy tale children's story. Unfortunately now such a thing would have someone awarded faces of horror as people questioned them why they wanted to risk their life fighting a troll over something so trivial and risky as crossing bridges on the ground.

Humans looking back realized that they were wrong about trolls being magical. Trolls were, in fact, humanoid aliens that took refuge on earth to avoid a demanding and dangerous society based on blood color. The strange concoctions and potions that healed people were probably just medicine, their strength was just because of their physiology, and their quick wit was because they were an advanced race. Of course, only once the war started did people realize such things. Until the war, trolls were tales, but after they were a terror to be reckoned with if you so much as came within forty feet of the ground.
There isn't much evidence pointing a solid way of how the war started. Did trolls want more land? Did those run away trolls get dragged back into the empire? Were they ever really in hiding or just in waiting? Was it the decline in nature with the rise of technology? Nothing pointed solidly in any direction, so the reason the war started is still very cloudy. It doesn't help that there wasn't much warning that this would happen, that such a formidable force sat unnoticed under humanity's nose this whole time.

The first struck was more a slaughter and less a round of war, and with good reason. Trolls were much more ready for war than humans, and even empty handed a troll could hold its own against an armed human almost equally. It was partially because trolls trained in a weapon since early childhood, and by the time they were adults they were masters of that weapon in an almost artistic way like most people would excel in ballet: graceful, fluidic, flawless, and never seeming to take a misstep or wrong move the course of the time the displayed their talent. This meant a fighting force that most stepping on the battle field for the human side couldn't seem to match up to.

Trolls had tougher skin, faster healing, stronger muscle, a taller average height, excellent night vision, bones that were a great length stronger, and sharp teeth they were not afraid to use given they lacked their weapons. Their blood was a rainbow array of colors were those closer to violet were more aggressive and those closer to red were more of the mental strength, specifically powers of the mind. They could tolerate extremes that would easily kill a human and had incredible endurance after infancy.

Infancy was interesting aspect of trolls as well. The little grubs went through challenges along with being picked by alien monsters as their sort of adopted parents. Fighting trolls by killing of little children might have been an option, although a horrible one, had it not been for the creatures the referred to as lusus. Each lusus alone was usually slightly aggressive, and uncommon cases of friendly lusi were about, but as soon as they took a troll in as one of their own a lusus was down right terrifying.

Lusi could stand ground against trolls, but instead decided to raise them. In turn, the troll they raised took a bit after them in personality, behavior, or fighting style. Lusus would even fight along side the troll the had helped raised even in adulthood in rare cases, and such events were hard to watch. If it were possible to get a lusus to become attached to a human like they would become attached to a troll it would help level the playing field a bit, but lusi did no such thing and will attack humans.

That is when a project started. Humanity was weak in comparison to the new Alternian threat at hand, and all they could do was try to bring themselves to par. The thought of how was debated until two ideas were left in the thought of options.

The first was to find a way to tame trolls and train them to obey command so they could fight the other trolls. It wasn't a well considered option, and due to the difficulties and natural aggression of trolls, the trolls in the project weren't true trolls, but rather mixes of trolls and domesticated animals so it would be easier to deal with them. It took several tries to get trolls that wouldn't turn on the scientists involved, and eventually the addition of new combinations wasn't only of species that were easily trained, but of species that were considered more docile as well as domesticated. Refusal to combine them with lusi meant that any additions that came as consequence to the experimentation in this branch were fully colored.

The second was to enhance humans so they could withstand the brute force of trolls and hold their ground in battle. It was an idea less about taming and more about strengthening. The first combinations were scrapped when the realization came across that regular human and animal combinations were still quite worthless in battle, the combinations taking a more lusi focused approach to the process not even two years in. Due to the use of lusi in their combinations, the additions the experiments in this branch of the project sported were white and only could be white since no lusi was of any color.
The project as a whole was controversial, but as many people do when there are downsides to something almost to good to be true in their eyes appear to be, everyone who knew of the project decided to turn the other cheek. The media in fact showed the project in a light that made it seem as if it was almost angelic, a way of finally winning the horrible war with the trolls but all the while somehow not giving any solid information to the public as to what actually was happening behind the closed steel doors.

The project remained in public support, the true nature of the project was only known to those working on the project and a select few officials, and funding kept up for the project. Although the project started twenty years ago, only now do some of its subjects start working to change their situation. They have been trapped in inhospitable conditions long enough that the desire of what could be found outside the steel walls and past the smells of antiseptic was almost to much to wait in hope for.