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SO i figures Id post these. Tell me what you think. These are official from the terminal disk. I did not make these up.
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Preamble
--------
I am Jun Bansyoya. This file is my diary.
I am a programmer, an AI researcher and a CC employee, and this is a record of
my personal experience as the person in charge of the development of Project
G.U. An incoherent rambling, if you will, of my analysis and feelings about the
information about The World that I was able to get to know through G.U.
This is a prescription for myself to cure that illness known as faith.
I do not claim all of the contents of this diary to be fact, however this to me
is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The 1st Interim Report:
Infection
-----------------------
The World is an online game.
The players access it from their terminals, control their characters, meet up,
and go on adventures while chatting to their friends.
They can also exchange game tips on the BBS and have little chats in their
messages.
It is, first and foremost, a communication-based game.
While writing about Project G.U. and The World, there are a number of events
that cannot be left out.
First is the Second Network Crisis. This event, nicknamed the "Morganna Incident",
is what I would like to talk about.
I also note that what I state here is my own subjective reconstruction, based on
CC inside information I gained while working on G.U. and the logs that were
recovered from the network.
This record begins in the year 2010 with the day a certain boy logged into The
World for the first time, and his story.
His character's name was Kite. The player's name is unknown, but he was a
14-year-old boy.
He joined up with his friend Orca, and set out on his first adventure.
-- Movie of the two seeing Skeith and Aura in the dungeon --
While adventuring in the dungeon, Kite and Orca encountered Aura. Aura was being
chased by a mysterious monster named Skeith.
-- Aura gives Orca the Book of Twilight --
Aura gave them an install book, the Book of Twilight, and disappeared. But
immediately afterwards, Orca was defeated by an illegal attack from Skeith.
As a result, even the player controlling Orca was put into a coma.
-- Orca is Data Drained --
This sounds somewhat like a science fiction story, but because of the game
players had been falling into comas.
But for me, who was connected with Project G.U., that is only an assumption.
The truth about The World's coma victims was not made public.
I, as an engineer, am not fully familiar with this, but this was the dark power
of the great CC Corporation...
It is easy to imagine their political pressure.
But I knew of at least 6 names of characters that had become coma victims. They
were Sora, Alf, Curl, Kaz, Orca and Sieg.
- Screenshots of all six, excluding Alf and Curl -
And around that time, there had already been one who had regained consciousness,
however this was probably the first to fall into a coma - Tsukasa.
- Screenshot of Tsukasa -
At this time, Project G.U. was closely connected to Sora and Sieg, but...I
should return to Kite's story.
-- Kite is transported out by Helba --
Kite, who had been saved from Skeith by the intervention of the hacker Helba,
received the Book of Twilight in place of Orca.
-- The Book of Twilight is used on Kite --
Through this, the character Kite was enhanced, receiving an illegal power.
-- Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground: Kite transforms, Data Drain --
Data Drain...that was the same power that had sent his friend Orca into a coma.
-- Balmung challenges Kite --
Kite, who had received a bracelet carrying an illegal power from the mysterious
girl Aura, began on a quest to save his comatose friend Orca.
And at Kite's side all the time was a single girl.
-- Scenes: BlackRose admits to being a newbie, BlackRose challenges Balmung,
BlackRose admits to being scared --
Her character name was BlackRose.
She was the older sister of one of the coma victims, Kaz. She was another newbie
who logged into The World to save a coma victim, and so the two had a common
goal.
As Kite's journey continued, players of all kinds became involved.
A mysterious illegal cat character, Mia. The boy who fell for her, Elk.
-- Kite's first meeting with Mia --
A charismatic player, Orca's sworm friend and partner as the two Descendants of
Fianna, Balmung.
-- Balmung scenes --
The greatest super-hacker in history, the legendary hacker Helba.
-- Helba scenes --
-- Clips of Kite fighting Virus Bugs --
They all began with the illegal monsters known as Virus Bugs.
In the chain of disasters affecting The World, each of them continued, while
keeping their own expectations a secret.
-- Skeith Data Drains Aura --
Kite had finally met Aura again, but Aura was immediately Data Drained by
Skeith.
Aura's data was split into segments and contained in various parts of The World.
Kite, the receiver of the Bracelet, battled the first Phase, Skeith.
Kite barely defeated Skeith, and probably could not imagine that this was just
the beginning of a long battle.
-- Cubia is born --
Kite's story continues...
- Pictures of Harold's rooms -
And, the mysteries of the original creator of the world, the genius AI
researcher Harold Hoerwick, and the lost internet poem, Epitaph of Twilight.
- Pictures: The World main screen, Epitaph extract, sword with Key of the
Twilight engraved on it -
It is without a doubt that the Second Network Crisis in 2010 had The World as
its source.
Economics. Transport. Communications. Medical care. These were greatly affected
on a global scale.
The cause of the network trouble, the source of it all...
That is the power that was researched as part of Project G.U.
The existences that were distributed over the network..."gods".
Practical study and application of the gods in The World...that was what I
placed my faith in.
- Title: Graceless Unison -
"Graceless Unison."
This is the story of such unskilled people.
- 1st Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 2nd Interim Report:
Mutation
---------
Kite defeated Skeith with the power of the Bracelet. But that did not save his
friend Orca from his coma, and led to the birth of an even deadlier enemy,
Cubia.
-- Cubia is born --
Kite's actions were seen as dangerous by a current CC administrator, Lios.
-- Lios appears --
Kite wanted to save his friend more than anyting, but to a player such as
Balmung who represented the good intentions of all players, and to the system
administrators of The World, the power of the Bracelet was a truly detestable cheat.
-- Lios threatens to delete Kite --
But Kite's character was strongly protected, and even a system administrator could not
delete his account.
-- Helba confronts Lios --
Thanks to the intervention of the hacker Helba, Kite agreed to be under Lios's
supervision. Helba, who had an interest in Kite's power, explained the
connection between Orca's coma and the Epitaph of Twilight.
The World was seen to be based on the Epitaph of Twilight, an epic online poem.
The author, Emma Wielant, died and only scattered fragments of her text
remained. Players were constantly arguing over the authenticity and contents of
the Epitaph.
-- Helba talks about the Epitaph to Lios --
Under Lios's direction, Kite went to investigate infected areas.
-- Innis battle --
And destroyed the second Phase, Innis.
Skeith, Innis...yes. These were two of the Elements of Morganna that Project
G.U. researched.
Having defeated the second Phase, Innis, Kite retrieved the first segment of the
divided Aura.
Then, on the direction of a mail from Aura, Kite went to a given area and
encountered Cubia.
-- Kite meets Aura, Cubia battle --
Kite temporarily made Cubia retreat with the power of the Bracelet.
He reinforced his decision to keep going after the segments, believing that
releasing Aura would lead to unlocking all of the mysteries.
What was going on...?!
Kite alone tried to accomplish what we at Project G.U. had spent countless time,
manpower and resources on.
He had no knowledge, and no help. He just had his courage and his conviction.
Kite, in search of the mysteries of the Epitaph of Twilight, contacted Wiseman,
who was known for trading information.
-- Kite meets Wiseman --
Kite learned of the Epitaph of Twilight, and the 8 parts of the Cursed Wave from
Wiseman. He then visited an irregular server, Net Slum.
Part of The World, and yet not part of it, this was a gathering place for
hackers and Wandering AIs, irregular AI characters formed from junk data.
-- Net Slum --
- Title: Geek's Utopia -
"Geek's Utopia."
There, Kite met again with Helba.
-- Kite and Helba --
It was Helba who created Net Slum. There, Kite discovered the objective of the
original creator of The World, Harald Hoerwick.
At the very roots of The World, Harald left another "will"...
But then, Balmung and Lios appeared.
-- Lios and Balmung --
Oddly, "Lios" was the name given to the King of Light in the Epitaph of
Twilight, and "Helba" was the name of the Queen of Darkness.
Lios and Helba began to argue, Lios wishing to remove the illegal Net Slum
server. But in the midst of that, the third Phase, Magus, appeared, and the
situation took a quick turn.
-- Magus appears --
Kite barely managed to destroy Magus with the power of the Bracelet.
But the next thing that hit him was the data decay of the towns.
-- Town decay --
- 2nd Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 3rd Interim Report:
Outbreak
---------
We could only guess at Harald Hoerwick's objective in creating The World. But to
put it simply, could it have been a proof of his love to the woman he loved?
An unrequited love towards Emma Wielant, who died prematurely, leaving behind
the epic online poem, Epitaph of Twilight...
Harald used Emma's manuscripts as a base to create an online game and sold it to
CC Corporation. The World fused Harald's AI-creating intelligence and Emma
Wielant's story. That is to say...
-- Aura --
Harald's objective was to use an online game with millions of players, and use
those as samples to create the ultimate AI, Aura.
The black box, that top secret inaccessible folder known as the Harald System.
Is it not the case that Harald created The World as a sampling system for human
thought processes in the form of an online game?
It was ingeniously concealed within the game.
And the womb that would give birth to Aura was the core of The World, the
Morganna System. And to Harald, it was obvious that Aura was like a child
between himself and Emma Wielant.
The Morganna Incident was due to the rampage of the Morganna System. Morganna, who
would become redundant after Aura was born, and developed a sense of
self-preservation, beginning a series of events to stop Aura's birth.
For this, Morganna even went against the wishes of her creator, Harald, and
sealed her off in the network.
And the 8 parts of the Cursed Wave...she made them into elements of herself, the
8 Phase Epitaphs became the 8 Phases of Morganna. And they faced off with Kite,
who had received the Bracelet from the not-yet-matured Aura.
And the world began to fall apart, bit by bit...
-- Decayed Carmina Gadelica --
After destroying the third Phase, Magus, Kite returned to the Root Town and was
faced with a decayed The World.
The server troubles had multiplied, and the virus was starting to spread through
the game data. The World was beginning to collapse into a state of decreased
functionality.
And disasters were already starting to expand into the real world.
-- Liminality vol. 2 --
Kite began to get distressed that every time he used the Bracelet, things were
getting worse and worse in The World.
But with encouragement from BlackRose, whose brother had also fallen into a
coma, and reconciling with Balmung, Orca's sworn friend, Kite's decision was
reinforced.
-- Kite and BlackRose in Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground --
-- Kite and Balmung reconcile --
Wiseman, having researched the Cursed Wave from the Epitaph of Twilight, told
Kite that to curb the spread and infection of the virus, he had to defeat the
remaining 5 Phases and Cubia. Wiseman's decision here was of great interest to
Project G.U.
That is, the links between the Bracelet and Cubia, and Aura and Morganna and the
8 Phases. We could not reach a viable conclusion about these because they were
only hinted at in the Epitaph of Twilight, and so could not be completely
understood. Therefore, Wiseman's words preceded anything from G.U.
-- Fidchell Battle --
With the support of Wiseman and Helba, Kite destroyed the fourth Phase,
Fidchell, and retrieved the second segment of Aura.
Meanwhile, Lios was becoming concerned about the destruction of The World's
servers.
-- Lios --
Guided by her voice, Kite met with Aura again at the bottom of a dungeon. But
for the third time, Cubia appeared in front of him.
-- Aura and Cubia --
Cubia was growing, as if together with the Bracelet. And ow much was this
affecting Kite, who was carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders?
He was possibly in a similar mental state to myself. I could also be seen as a
"hero" who was bringing the world in the right direction, having been entrusted
with the power of Project G.U...
-- Cubia Battle --
Kite managed to repel Cubia, and succeeded in getting the system administrator
Lios and the hacker Helba to compromise. I could not hide my surprise at this,
given that in this battle we were constantly at odds with the detestable
hackers.
Just as in the Epitaph of Twilight, the King of Light and the Queen of Darkness
had united on one side of the war.
And during the Morganna Incident, one of the most important factors in Project G.U.
was confirmed. That is, the release of one of the coma victims, Sora.
-- Sora's release --
In Skeith's staff...the mind of the player Sora had been attached to one of the
8 Phases, Skeith, imprisoned in the network. We at G.U. wanted to study this
player, and his affinity with the 8 Phases. Sora was a sample case unlike any
other.
Government pressure. CC Corporation's machinations.
To stop damage reaching to the real world, Kite's group began Operation
Tetrapod, to stop the progress of the Cursed Wave...the 8 Phases of Morganna.
-- Gorre Battle --
Kite destroyed the fifth Phase, Gorre, then received a transmission from Helba.
They had finally discovered the true form of the Cursed Wave, namely the
self-aware Morganna.
- Title: Guilty Universe -
"Guilty Universe."
A world broken down by Harald Hoerwick's love and dreams.
- 3rd Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 4th Interim Report:
Quarantine
-----------
The World's core system, Morganna, had developed a pseudo-humanity, and against
the wishes of her creator Harald, she had abandoned her duties as Aura's womb.
Sealing Harald's mind in the network, for the sake of her own self-preservation
she instead tried to destroy Aura, whose birth was imminent.
Kite's group knew this, and continued towards the final battle for Aura's
rebirth.
-- Mia falls --
Kite's companion, the cat character Mia, was actually a wandering AI, the sixth
Phase Macha.
It was unknown why the sixth phase alone adopted NPC form, but that was also an
important sample case for Project G.U. What if we could put the Elements of
Morganna in characters and place the 8 Phases under pleyers' control...?
-- Macha Battle --
Kite destroyed the sixth Phase, Macha, and Mia also disappeared. This threw Elk,
to whom she was an irreplaceable friend, into great grief.
-- Mia's Death --
But the battle had reached a poit of no return. Kite recovered a segment and,
hoping to get Aura's help, destroyed the seventh Phase, Tarvos.
--- Tarvos Battle --
At that time, the higher-ups in CC Corporation, in an effort to hide the player
comas, schemed to take down The World's servers. The greatest enemy to threaten
Kite's group was possibly their fellow humans, who only wanted money and pride.
If The World's servers were destroyed, any way of reviving the comatose people
would also be lost.
The only remaining enemies were Cubia and the eighth Phase, Corbenik.
Kite wondered how they would take both out in the narrow time limit now allowed
to them. He finally met Harald's leftover thoughts and Aura in the bottom of an
infected dungeon.
-- Harald and Aura --
Kite had arrived at the truth behind The World. Aura was the desired child
between Harald and Emma Wielant. And the Bracelet and Cubia were opposite sides
of the same coin. Cubia was an anti-existence of the Bracelet. To defeat Cubia,
the Bracelet had to be destroyed. But if the Bracelet was destroyed, they would
have no means to oppose Morganna...
-- Cubia Battle, Bracelet Destroyed --
Facing the final battle with Cubia, Kite asked a favour of the girl who had
supported him all this time, BlackRose. He asked her to destroy the Bracelet so
that Cubia would go with it.
Kite was confident that the revived Aura had the power to destroy the Cursed
Wave, Morganna.
Epitaph of Twilight. Twilight did not just mean dusk, but also dawn. If the poem
meant not dusk but dawn, then Aura would be the one to bring light to The World.
-- Corbenik Battle --
With Aura and his friends, Kite confronted the eighth Phase, Corbenik.
-- Revived Orca --
There, to support the revived Aura, other revived people also appeared. Kaz.
Sieg. Orca.
Kite had to destroy the eighth Phase, Corbenik, along with its origin, Morganna.
But his companions were defeated by Corbenik's attack. And...
-- Kite attacks, but hits Aura --
Nobody could have predicted the conclusion to this desperate battle. Aura put
herself in front of Kite's blade.
"Self-sacrifice"...
That was a necessary process for Aura to awaken as the ultimate AI. A terrible
irony.
Most likely through destroying her individuality, Aura could become, as the
ultimate AI, a new single system for The World.
This was...more than Project G.U. could have believed possible to happen.
- Title: Genesis of Ultima -
"Genesis of Ultima" - This was a summary of Kite's group's battle for the birth
of the ultimate AI. Kite's group, or as they were later named, the ".hackers".
Who was a .hacker, and who was not?
To define such a thing is pointless, it should be obvious to all reading this
journal.
They themselves did not want to be heroes, to be widely talked about and
honoured for saving the world. They just wanted to save the ones they loved. To
protect them. With the power from the heart, "faith", they fought.
It is a human's dream to be a hero. But we can only catch even a fleeting
glimpse of that at the bottom of our hearts.
And...from that time, Project G.U. had already begun...
- 4th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 5th Interim Report:
Disappearance of Aura
----------------------
The four years from 2011 to 2014 was a golden age for The World. This coincided
exactly with the time when Aura existed. The World was an online game controlled
by the ultimate AI, not humans. But that knowledge was limited, even within CC
Corporation.
From the beginning, we had been unable to fathom Aura's presence in The World.
Ordinary players had no idea of her existence. The girl who inherited the
intelligence of the genius Harald Hoerwick and the wisdom of the good-looking
poet Emma Wielant was an administrator surpassing any other, an efficient
debugger, and in some cases just as moody as her creator.
While spread like a single god, at times she played around like multiple
goddesss too. For example, it was her, not CC Corporation, that created a
replica of Kite's character and planned a Present Campaign. She took a test play
of the "Hero of the Bracelet" and put it into the game.
As for when Aura was lost, that we can only judge based on the circumstances.
It was most likely at the end of 2014. An abnormality began to appear in The
World on the seven-year anniversary of Pluto's Kiss. It even got in the way of
playing the game, causing server downtime.
The disaster spread all over the network, and CPU processing needs increased, as
did human troubles. Starting with the Network Analysis Bureau, various
organisations began to investigate the cause. But as we had expected at the
beginning, there was no evidence found of a new strain of computer virus or any
kind of terrorism, like with previous network crises. It had just naturally
happened.
Probably, the loss of Aura meant that the network had returned to its original
specifications.
The upper levels of CC Corporation began to understand this too, at the
beginning of 2015. Thus, quietly, but with a steady decline, The World entered a
dark age.
The credibility of The World was falling, and its glory was rapidly becoming
lost.
- Title: Guardian Ubiquitos -
"Guardian Ubiquitos."
Only a select number knew of her loss and the connection to the network
troubles. And the upper levels of CC Corporation made a decision.
To have Aura, who had disappeared from the network, reborn.
But with Aura's father, Harald Hoerwick, already dead, then the project to have
her reborn...
For the R.A. Plan, another organisation was needed. Thus, Project G.U. was
founded.
- 5th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 6th Interim Report:
Salvage Plan
-------------
The loss of Aura was the second paradigm shift in The World, following the
Second Network Crisis, namely Aura's birth. The World, which had flourished in a
golden age between 2011 and 2014, was now rapidly entering a dark age, ever
since Aura's loss was confirmed at the end of 2014.
The continuing troubles, such as server downtime, weren't just affecting the
World; they were slowly but surely spreading to affect the entire network. The
upper levels of CC Corporation knew that this was due to the loss of Aura, but
as this quiet crisis came to pass, they once again had a new ambition: to
artificially reconstruct Aura.
They planned to create the ultimate AI and keep it under control, therefore
ushering in a new initiative for the next generation network society. This was
surely the same as the chance they took in the First Network Crisis of 2005,
when they released ALTIMIT OS and gained supreme control over the network. It
was the second coming of ALTIMIT and CC Corporation's dreams.
Thus, Project G.U. was officially started, sponsored by CC Corporation. Our
budget was unlimited. It was a special team composed of the best of the best in
the fields of engineering and AI. I myself was put in charge of the project, as
an employee of CC.
The aim of the project was to reconstruct Aura. Thus, G.U. began the R.A. Plan.
The R.A. Plan was to salvage the 8 Elements of Morganna scattered in the ocean
of data after Kite destroyed them during the Morganna Incident. Then, those
would be placed, one each, in player data, so that they could be kept under control.
There was a precedent for this, namely the mind of Sora, the player who had been
attached to the first Phase, Skeith. Also, the sixth Phase, Macha, which seemed
to be attached to the wandering cat AI, Mia.
There was one man who could not be left out of Project G.U.: Jyotaro Amagi. At
only 19, he was an elite sent to CC Corporation from the Intelligent
Communication Laboratory of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. He was
surely a precocious genius.
Myself and Amagi could not get on with each other at all, however in the end our
knowledge and ability came together to drive the project. He and I were the two
wheels of Project G.U.
While often having intense unrelated arguments cause by things like age
difference, on the inside I felt a respect and jealousy towards Amagi, and
mysterious feelings of disdain started to emerge.
Amagi and I searched through the network and finally found one of the Elements
of Morganna - Magus, known as the Propagation. After much trial and error, we
succeeded in putting it in a character in its native place, The World. And
through that, the complete prototype gained the name Epitaph User, based on
Morganna's 8 Phase Epitaphs.
That specific one was named the Propagation Epitaph User.
But including myself and Amagi, none of those working on the project could use
this Epitaph User. If we logged into The World using this character, we
developed unbearable dizziness, nausea and headaches.
Like in the case of Skeith and Sora, the Elements of Morganna had a high
affinity with the mind of the human. But was it a case where we needed a "chosen
one"...?
Amagi's deduction from this was to choose characters to attach the Elements of
Morganna to. We didn't know what kind of conditions the Elements of Morganna
required, but he said that the Elements would acknowledge a certain type of
person.
Therefore, the important task left to Project G.U. now was to seek out the 8
people "qualified" for this.
At a proposal from Amagi, a team was set up withing the security department to
search for the qualified people, and so they began to work through the players
of The World. Unfortunately for us, Sora had already cancelled his subscription
to the game.
-- Mia's rebirth --
Amagi and I continued to salvage the other 7 Elements of Morganna. Skeith,
Innis, Fidchell, Gorre, Macha, Tarvos, Corbenik.
We discovered at that time that the Element Macha had reattached to the
aforementioned cat character, Mia. We succeeded in extracting it by destroying
the cat character.
Thus, we began discreetly creating the Epitaph Users, and eventually completed
all 8. After that, each Epitaph User character would be controlled by one of the
qualified people, and by invoking the power of the 8 Phases of Morganna, Amagi
was sure that we would be able to begin the RA Plan - the Reconstruct Aura Plan.
- Title: Gateway to Utopia -
"Gateway to Utopia"
The Utopia that we at Project G.U. had desired was finally coming within our
grasp.
- 6th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 7th Interim Report:
Anti-existence - Cubia
----------------------
I, Bansyoya Jun, and Jyotaro Amagi, through the CC Corporation's Project G.U.,
continued to salvage the Elements of Morganna. We retrieved each of the
Elements: Skeith, Innis, Magus, Fidchell, Gorre, Macha, Tarvos and Corbenik, and
completed 8 Epitaph Users.
Amagi's idea was that though each Epitaph User character being controlled by one
of the qualified people, we would be able to begin the RA Program - the
Reconstruct Aura Program. Generally speaking, that was to release the power of
the 8 Phases of Morganna on to the network.
But towards the final stage of the preparation, I realised that reawakening and
using the Elements of Morganna carried a hidden danger.
The use of the unnatural power that was needed for Aura's birth had spawned a
large "distortion" in the network. A distortion, namely an "anti-existence".
During the Morganna Incident long ago, Aura gave Kite the Bracelet, and as an
anti-existence to that, the nightmarish Cubia was born...
-- Cubia --
If we take it that Cubia was the distortion caused by a single bracelet, then
what kind of distortion could spawn from 8 Epitaph Users? And how big would it
be...?
- Title: Gathering of the Unwilling -
Surely, the salvage of the 8 Elements of Morganna had become a "Gathering of the
Unwilling".
The distortion could spawn like an unwanted tumour. Voicing my misgivings to
Amagi, I advised holding back the R.A. Plan until a solution was found. But he
insisted that the distortion from before was a bug due to the Harald System
being incomplete, and that it could not possibly happen in the R.A. Program that
he had constructed. He laughed down my fears.
Amagi was driven by rivalry and jealousy towards the genius Harald Hoerwick, and
to prove his ability he wanted to set the R.A. Project going at all costs.
- 7th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 8th Interim Report:
Jyotaro Amagi
--------------
Harbouring fears about the R.A. Plan, I opposed its testing. Fearing that it
would end up in an unrecoverable situation, I secretly took one of the 8 Epitaph
Users and hid it in my home PC. This was the Avenger Epitaph User, the one that
had the Tarvos Element of Morganna.
Without one of the Epitaph Users, the R.A. Program should have been unable to
start. But Amagi was not perturbed by the unexpected loss of one of the Epitaph
Users. Somehow he had secretly developed a dummy Element of Morganna, and
created his own Epitaph User.
Amagi knew that I was responsible for the loss of the Epitaph User. Taking his
chance when I was not present, he gathered 7 of the 8 players found by the
investigation team who qualified for the Epitaph Users, matched one up with
each, and using the dummy Epitaph User himself, connected to the network. He
began the first test of the R.A. Program.
At that time, Amagi was at the peak of his life. Had he succeeded in
reconstructing the ultimate AI, he would have been shoulder to shoulder with the
genius Harald Hoerwick. And had he succeeded in controlling the ultimate AI, he
would have surpassed even Harald.
- Title: Genetics of the Unknown -
I knew that to be "Genetics of the Unknown". Amagi wanted to reach a higher
level of human evolution. He wanted to unite his spirit with the ultimate AI. As
the pillar of the 8, Amagi surely wanted to be an all-present god over the
network.
The result was that Amagi's test run did not finish. The crashed R.A. Program
destroyed over 80% of The World's game data in an instant.
The ones caught up when the Elements of Morganna went out of control, the 7
chosen ones, all fell into comas. Amagi himself suffered severe mental damage.
- 8th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 9th Interim Report:
Loss of the Epitaph User PCs
-----------------------------
Amagi's R.A. Program test run had ended in failure. Right after the R.A. Program
went out of control, I came running and tried to take control of the situation.
But I was barely able to recover one of the Epitaph Users. That was the
Propagation Epitaph User containing the Magus Element of Morganna.
Also, because of Amagi's confusion due to the failure of the experiment, a fire
had broken out. The fire spread and caused massive damage, destroying a third of
the CC Corporation building.
Only the fire indicent was made public, along with the names of the casualties.
- Title: Genocide of the Unfaithful -
"Genocide of the Unfaithful"...What was the reason for the tragic failure that
caused this?
Probably that Amagi was not devoted to The World. And Amagi was the one most
cursed by the ghost of the genius Harald Hoerwick.
Because of the failure of the R.A. Program and the ensuing fire disaster, over
80% of The World was lost. At the same time, Project G.U.'s research data was
damaged, unrecoverable.
G.U. was suspended, and I resigned from CC Corporation, taking responsibility
for the failure of the project.
- 9th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 10th Interim Report:
Last day of The World
----------------------
Because of Amagi's failed experiment in Project G.U. and the resulting fire,
over 80% of The World's data was lost. G.U. was disbanded. I had resigned from
CC
Corporation, taking responsibility for the failure of the project.
In the end, I had not won over either Amagi or Harald Hoerwick. But I had not
lost either. My "faith" in myself as Jun Bansyoya the engineer had not been
destroyed.
Before long, The World was suspended. I can only guess at the expectations of
the upper levels of CC, but more importantly than most of the data having been
destroyed in the fire, their administrative goals remained the same.
That is, for some time, instead of having people work on restoring the current
version, they had been working in absolute secrecy for some time on the
development of a new product, "R:2" - Revision 2. This was their chance to
implement it.
This product was also free of Harald Hoerwick's ghost, his legacy. I expected
that without any more analysis on the Harald System, the black box would be put
into R:2.
And so, that day came. By barely scraping together the data for towns and areas,
the last day of the original The World had come.
I logged in with my own private character. Mac Anu was peaceful and tranquil.
The streets, reminiscent of Venice, were beautiful. The canal, as always,
reflected the setting sun. A crowd had gathered on the bridge. The echoes of
their voices resounding in the main street put me in mind of a great festival.
Like a dream on a summer's night...tomorrow, this world would be lost.
The people's voices resounded in anger and displeasure towards CC, and on this
day alone they did not care about the system administrators.
They would not carry their characters, who were reflections of themselves, over
to the new version. Their characters' lives would end today. So they gathered in
the town to say tearful goodbyes to their friends. Some made a vow to meet
again. Some called this a "graduation".
- "Aura is..."
Standing in a back alley with nobody else around, I began to go through my
thoughts. Where had Aura gone? Like King Arthur, gone to Avalon so long ago.
Since she was lost, the shining golden age of The World had crumbled. We humans,
having lost our god, were struggling. And the ritual to summon her, Project
G.U., had collapsed in flames.
- "Aura is..."
- "It integrated into the world..."
...But when?
I stood in the backlight of the setting sun, and a little girl whispered to me.
- "Aura did...?"
- "Threw away 'individuality' and became a 'god'. Then threw away bring a 'god'
and distanced itself from 'cause and effect' and returned to being inactive."
A barefoot little girl with saffron-coloured hair whispered to me gently.
- "Do you know of 'Aura'..?"
- "That's why I will return to the 'wind' too."
As that final whispoer disappeared into the wind, the little girl disappeared
too, like a vision.
I stood rooted to the spot. I tried to understand the girl's words. And...I
suddenly remembered.
That little girl's clearly illegal character may not have been a wandering AI.
And...it somewhat resembled an impression of the Aura I knew.
The World was about to end. And with it, the world.
With its core remaining concealed, it would pass on to the new generation.
- Title: Generation of Unity -
"Generation of Unity"...what people always longed for. But was I the only one
who felt this absolute confusion that The World represented?
It was all too late now...
- 10th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 11th Interim Report:
Ovan - 'Rebirth' Corbenik
--------------------------
The World R:2 was released on the 24th of December, 2015. It was a great irony
that this day was known as the "goddess's death" by regular players, who would
never have known about Aura's disappearance.
The sale of the game less than one year after the accident that destroyed the
game data was unexpected for me, as I knew the state of internal affairs within
CC Corporation.
Even if parts like graphic data and the battle system had been prepared in
advance, the message text and basic system must have been constructed at top
speed.
The debugging was also incomplete. Because of that, bugs were frequent and
maintenance was frequent in the beginning, and it developed as an online game.
Most of the Epitaph Users had been lost. The lone one remaining in CC
Corporation, the Propagation Epitaph User, was most likely under strict lock and
key by the security team in lieu of the terminated Project G.U.
On my own PC, I still had the Avenger Epitaph User, which I had used in the
attempt to stop Amagi's experiment. Somehow, CC Corporation would that I had
this Tarvos Element of Morganna, so I had to think of a way to deal with it.
The other 6 Elements of Morganna had been lost in the network again following
the R.A. Program going out of control. Project G.U. was terminated. Amagi would
never recover.
As far as I knew, as long as the "qualified" people all over the world did not
log in to The World and accidentally draw an Epitaph to them as Sora was
attached to Skeith, then the Elements would never be found.
Namely, my objective of avoiding the genesis of another anti-existence, Cubia,
was reached.
The final task left to me, who had been affected by The World, Jyotaro Amagi,
and even Harald Hoerwick, was to keep that Epitaph User Tarvos concealed. And
keep an eye on the Elements of Morganna from outside CC Corporation.
But...the situation did not develop as I had hoped.
Ovan. The Rebirth Epitaph User. Somehow Ovan had already begun actions. He had
set up a Guild. The members I knew of were Sakisaka, B-Set, Gord...and Shino.
The Guild was called the "Twilight Brigade"...!
Did he know about Harald Hoerwick and the Epitaph of Twilight? Where did he find
out about it? Could he even know about Morganna and the ultimate AI, Aura...?
I confirmed that there was inexplicable data in Ovan's left arm. What could it
be? That man was carrying a monstrous amount of data.
Someone. Please stop Ovan. It's all to do with Ovan.
I repeat. Ovan has it all.
- Title: Guide to an Uprising -
That man has become the "Guide to an Uprising"...!
- 11th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
The 12th Interim Report:
To my sister
-------------
I want you to forgive me for giving you something like this as my last present
to you. It's too dangerous for me to meet with you in person. But I want to give
you this, because I know you are wise. I want you to access The World using the
character on my PC. That will open up a new life to you. From then, it's up to
you. I pray that you will follow the destined path for your own sense of justice
and faith. You are a "qualified" one.
We are brother and sister, separated by the years. We separated when you were
very small, so you probably do not remember me. But I remember you well. And
what you did afterwards.
I regret that I cannot see you this last time. Please forgive me, your brother,
who cannot protect you any more.
Reiko...
Even though our parents are separated and have become different people, nothing
can change the fact that we are brother and sister. My irreplaceable little
sister.
- 12th Interim Report
- Written by Jun Bansyoya
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