Post by ravenwithoutcause on Feb 4, 2005 3:05:36 GMT -5
To truly understand the plot of .hack, you have to play the games and read the manga as well as see SIGN. (There is an anime version of the manga, called Udeden or DUSK or Legend of the Twilight Bracelet depeninding on who you ask, but it's not really canon. Read the manga instead.) There's also several novels out, but those are strictly in Japanese.
Spoilers like you absolutely would not believe. I've seen all of SIGN,
LIMINALITY and DUSK, and I've played the four games, and I've read the three volumes of the manga.
In the not-so-distant future, EVERYTHING is run via the Internet. All
computers are hooked up, everything is hooked up to them. And then this system
started to come apart.
It all started with the superviruses. There were viruses that put people in
advanced seizures, viruses that targeted the "M Corporation" (Microsoft.)
The coup de grace was Pluto's Kiss, a virus that was created by a 10 year old
boy. It completely brought the Internet down for a number of hours. In
terror of the damage this caused (billions and billions in dollars) caused all vulnerable
OS's to be shut down. It took 3 years (this period was known as the "Twilight
of the New Gods") to find an OS that was "invulnerable" to viruses and hacking.
ALTIMIT. During this time, most of the government control went to the UN,
and a new agency, the WNC. (The World Network Council.) This agency was so
desperate to get the computer superstructure back up and running, that it
authorized ALTIMIT as the official OS for all computers.
Despite that noone knew how ALTIMIT worked.......(original core programmers
were fired for office political reasons.)
Enter the German programmer Harald Hyueck, and Emma Weiland, poet and cerebral
biologist. They were lovers, though Harald was the one in love, and for Emma it was a
pairing of convenience. Both were working on a program that brought the
outside human mind into the computer. Emma also was the writer of "Epitaph of
the Twilight" a poem about an epic battle that heralded the end of the age of
spirits.
They both worked on creating "Fragments." a virtual reality game that to Emma,
represented the basis of the next step of human evolution of mind and society.
Harald's undertaking in it was primarily as a labor of love to Emma.
Then Emma died in a car accident. Harald continued the Fragments project,
though not even he understood it's full significance. He did understand enough
about what Emma was trying to do to decide to use their programming to create a
daughter. A virtual Artificial Intelligence, named Aura. (The Sleeping Girl.)
Aura would be the Proof of His Love for Emma.
Aura would be created from the character interactions of everyone who played
The World. Copies of their actions, their very minds, would be created, and
data extracted, to create the perfect AI.
He used Emma's programming to do it, but to his apparent surprise, the
programming gained sentience itself. It was named "Morganna.' He tried to
instill in Morganna the features of a mother. Morganna became, more or less, the Goddess of the World.
But, the way things were, if Aura awakened, then Morganna would no longer have
the powers and control she once had. Thus, Morganna rebelled. Which may of
been Emma's original intention all along. Harald tried to send a digital
version of himself into the game to communicate with Morganna, but Morganna
shot the messenger, turning the program into The Broken Man.
By this time, Fragments had been bought by CyberConnect, who knowing nothing
about the true nature of the game, marketed it out to the population at large.
They also changed the name to "The World." But the key programming that Emma
and Harald created remained. In fact, in addition to Aura, the programming
that Harald and Emma created would also herald the rise of "Wandering AIs"
Random artificial intelligences that CC Company would try desperately to
destroy. The ramifications of which apparently are important in the manga.
In addition, Morganna halted Aura's awakening. Because of her programming, she
couldn't outright destroy Aura, or delete her programming, but because she
controlled much of the functions of Aura's creation, she tied the last bit of
Aura's programming not to a copy of player data, but to a player themself. A
really screwed up teenager with the player data of Tsukasa. In real life, she
(yes, she) was someone running away from a reality where she was suffered both
physical abuse and neglect from her father. It's possible he also was ashamed
of her being a girl, and forced her to grow up as a boy, leading to gender
confusion.
This final "pairing" was programmed in since the beginning, though, and there
were things that even Morganna couldn't prevent. Such as Tsukasa receiving the
"Tablet of Twilight" an item that allowed him/her to warp anywhere in The
World.
Morganna capitalized on Tsukasa's mental instability, and using a heavily
modified version of the information retrieval process called "Data Drain"
pulled Tsukasa's very consciousness into The World. Since Tsukasa was tied
directly to Aura, as long as Tsukasa's mind was enclosed and fleeing from
reality, Aura would never wake up. And if Tsukasa's mind were completely shut
down, then the possibility of Aura awakening would never occur. With the help
of a "servant" AI named Maha, she attempted to set Tsukasa up so that s/he
would become completely disassociated.
Morganna failed, due to the efforts of a party of characters, especially the 3
characters of Mimiru, Bear and Subaru, who offered Tsukasa the promise of a
loving family. Father, sister, and 'friend.' (or perhaps more) respectively.
Because Tsukasa had a place to go, she chose to face her own life, and in doing
so, Aura received the final piece of "will" required and awoke. Tsukasa awoke
as well, and left The World.
But the War was just starting. With Aura's awakening, Emma's programming
started to kick in. Morganna's programming became entrenched into 8 Avatars
called the Phases, based on Emma's Poem of the Final War of the Spirits. Each
were capable of tearing apart minds. Each Phase would exist only one at a
time. But it was impossible for any normal player to damage their programming,
and they had the capability of Data Draining anyone.
A deadly game of tag occured over the next 6 months after Tsukasa left The
World, in which Aura fled from Skeith, the First Phase. She bore the one
weapon that could fight back. The Twilight Bracelet, but it could only be used
by a player. Any champion that was a possibility of choosing, Skeith got to
first, and Data Drained them, sending them into coma's in the real world.
Finally, Aura came across the Legendary Player Orca, and his friend Kite, who
was playing The World for the first time. Aura managed to actually give the
installation program of the Twilight Bracelet to Orca, but before he could
understand how to use it, he was struck down and Data Drained by Skeith. The
program went to Kite. Before Kite suffered the same fate, he was saved by the
hacker named Helba.
In a bid to wake Orca up from his coma, Kite decided to master the Twilight
Bracelet, and take the fight to the Phases. But with each Phase he defeated,
Emma's programming kicked in which tied that Phase to the ALTIMIT OS itself,
the OS that ran the real world. All the protection that ALTIMIT provided,
that humanity knew nothing about, was slowly being stripped away, and the
technology that ran civilization itself began to be ripped apart.
Spoilers like you absolutely would not believe. I've seen all of SIGN,
LIMINALITY and DUSK, and I've played the four games, and I've read the three volumes of the manga.
In the not-so-distant future, EVERYTHING is run via the Internet. All
computers are hooked up, everything is hooked up to them. And then this system
started to come apart.
It all started with the superviruses. There were viruses that put people in
advanced seizures, viruses that targeted the "M Corporation" (Microsoft.)
The coup de grace was Pluto's Kiss, a virus that was created by a 10 year old
boy. It completely brought the Internet down for a number of hours. In
terror of the damage this caused (billions and billions in dollars) caused all vulnerable
OS's to be shut down. It took 3 years (this period was known as the "Twilight
of the New Gods") to find an OS that was "invulnerable" to viruses and hacking.
ALTIMIT. During this time, most of the government control went to the UN,
and a new agency, the WNC. (The World Network Council.) This agency was so
desperate to get the computer superstructure back up and running, that it
authorized ALTIMIT as the official OS for all computers.
Despite that noone knew how ALTIMIT worked.......(original core programmers
were fired for office political reasons.)
Enter the German programmer Harald Hyueck, and Emma Weiland, poet and cerebral
biologist. They were lovers, though Harald was the one in love, and for Emma it was a
pairing of convenience. Both were working on a program that brought the
outside human mind into the computer. Emma also was the writer of "Epitaph of
the Twilight" a poem about an epic battle that heralded the end of the age of
spirits.
They both worked on creating "Fragments." a virtual reality game that to Emma,
represented the basis of the next step of human evolution of mind and society.
Harald's undertaking in it was primarily as a labor of love to Emma.
Then Emma died in a car accident. Harald continued the Fragments project,
though not even he understood it's full significance. He did understand enough
about what Emma was trying to do to decide to use their programming to create a
daughter. A virtual Artificial Intelligence, named Aura. (The Sleeping Girl.)
Aura would be the Proof of His Love for Emma.
Aura would be created from the character interactions of everyone who played
The World. Copies of their actions, their very minds, would be created, and
data extracted, to create the perfect AI.
He used Emma's programming to do it, but to his apparent surprise, the
programming gained sentience itself. It was named "Morganna.' He tried to
instill in Morganna the features of a mother. Morganna became, more or less, the Goddess of the World.
But, the way things were, if Aura awakened, then Morganna would no longer have
the powers and control she once had. Thus, Morganna rebelled. Which may of
been Emma's original intention all along. Harald tried to send a digital
version of himself into the game to communicate with Morganna, but Morganna
shot the messenger, turning the program into The Broken Man.
By this time, Fragments had been bought by CyberConnect, who knowing nothing
about the true nature of the game, marketed it out to the population at large.
They also changed the name to "The World." But the key programming that Emma
and Harald created remained. In fact, in addition to Aura, the programming
that Harald and Emma created would also herald the rise of "Wandering AIs"
Random artificial intelligences that CC Company would try desperately to
destroy. The ramifications of which apparently are important in the manga.
In addition, Morganna halted Aura's awakening. Because of her programming, she
couldn't outright destroy Aura, or delete her programming, but because she
controlled much of the functions of Aura's creation, she tied the last bit of
Aura's programming not to a copy of player data, but to a player themself. A
really screwed up teenager with the player data of Tsukasa. In real life, she
(yes, she) was someone running away from a reality where she was suffered both
physical abuse and neglect from her father. It's possible he also was ashamed
of her being a girl, and forced her to grow up as a boy, leading to gender
confusion.
This final "pairing" was programmed in since the beginning, though, and there
were things that even Morganna couldn't prevent. Such as Tsukasa receiving the
"Tablet of Twilight" an item that allowed him/her to warp anywhere in The
World.
Morganna capitalized on Tsukasa's mental instability, and using a heavily
modified version of the information retrieval process called "Data Drain"
pulled Tsukasa's very consciousness into The World. Since Tsukasa was tied
directly to Aura, as long as Tsukasa's mind was enclosed and fleeing from
reality, Aura would never wake up. And if Tsukasa's mind were completely shut
down, then the possibility of Aura awakening would never occur. With the help
of a "servant" AI named Maha, she attempted to set Tsukasa up so that s/he
would become completely disassociated.
Morganna failed, due to the efforts of a party of characters, especially the 3
characters of Mimiru, Bear and Subaru, who offered Tsukasa the promise of a
loving family. Father, sister, and 'friend.' (or perhaps more) respectively.
Because Tsukasa had a place to go, she chose to face her own life, and in doing
so, Aura received the final piece of "will" required and awoke. Tsukasa awoke
as well, and left The World.
But the War was just starting. With Aura's awakening, Emma's programming
started to kick in. Morganna's programming became entrenched into 8 Avatars
called the Phases, based on Emma's Poem of the Final War of the Spirits. Each
were capable of tearing apart minds. Each Phase would exist only one at a
time. But it was impossible for any normal player to damage their programming,
and they had the capability of Data Draining anyone.
A deadly game of tag occured over the next 6 months after Tsukasa left The
World, in which Aura fled from Skeith, the First Phase. She bore the one
weapon that could fight back. The Twilight Bracelet, but it could only be used
by a player. Any champion that was a possibility of choosing, Skeith got to
first, and Data Drained them, sending them into coma's in the real world.
Finally, Aura came across the Legendary Player Orca, and his friend Kite, who
was playing The World for the first time. Aura managed to actually give the
installation program of the Twilight Bracelet to Orca, but before he could
understand how to use it, he was struck down and Data Drained by Skeith. The
program went to Kite. Before Kite suffered the same fate, he was saved by the
hacker named Helba.
In a bid to wake Orca up from his coma, Kite decided to master the Twilight
Bracelet, and take the fight to the Phases. But with each Phase he defeated,
Emma's programming kicked in which tied that Phase to the ALTIMIT OS itself,
the OS that ran the real world. All the protection that ALTIMIT provided,
that humanity knew nothing about, was slowly being stripped away, and the
technology that ran civilization itself began to be ripped apart.
