Post by +HASEO on Jun 11, 2013 13:09:05 GMT -5
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
(note: if you are familiar with the games, you don't have to waste time reading this)
The World R:1 // Infection, Mutation, Outbreak, and Quarantine
The events portrayed in the first .hack series take place in 2010 on an alternate version of Earth. After a computer virus called "Pluto's Kiss" crashes nearly every computer in the world, access to the Internet is closed to the general public to address security concerns. After two years without the Internet and online games, a MMORPG called The World is released. It becomes the most popular online game of all time with over 20 million subscribers. Shortly before the events portrayed in the .hack games, a number of users become comatose as a result of playing The World.
The World was developed by a German programmer named Harald Hoerwick; its backstory is based on the Epitaph of Twilight, an epic poem by Emma Wielant, whose death inspired Hoerwick to create the game. Elements of the poem are coded into the game's programming. The hidden purpose of Hoerwick's game is to develop the ultimate artificial intelligence (AI), which is capable of making decisions for itself. To this end, Hoerwick inserted functions into the system which monitor and extract behavioral data from millions of the game's players to aid in the AI's learning process. After Hoerwick's death, these pieces of code became black boxes to the current developers, who cannot fathom their purpose, yet are critical to the proper functioning of the game.
At the beginning of .hack//Infection, Kite's (the main character) friend Orca invites him to play The World. In the first dungeon they visit, they encounter a girl in white being chased by a humanoid monster. The girl tries to entrust Orca with a book but the monster attacks him, crashing The World's servers. Kite discovers that Orca had fallen comatose after the attack and resolves to discover the cause. Kite meets BlackRose who takes him to a cathedral where they are attacked by a headless swordsman. The legendary player Balmung appears and defeats it but the monster revives itself as a Data Bug.
The Book of Twilight which the girl gave to Orca activates and gives Kite the Twilight Bracelet, which uses Data Drain on the swordsman allowing Balmung to kill it. Balmung accuses Kite of causing the viral infection spreading through the game, and leaves. Kite and BlackRose decide to cooperate to help the coma victims. After investigating a number of leads, Kite and BlackRose track down Skeith, the creature that put Orca into a coma. They defeat Skeith but it transforms into a larger enemy called Cubia, from which they escape.
In .hack//Mutation, the pair encounter Lios, a system administrator, who declares Kite's bracelet to be an illegal power. He tries to delete Kite's character data but fails because the data is encrypted. Helba, a hacker, intervenes and convinces Lios to watch for the time being. Lios directs them to an area where they find Innis, a monster with the same powers as Skeith. Upon defeating Innis, Kite receives an e-mail from the girl in white, who is actually an AI called Aura. They travel to an area to meet her but are confronted by Cubia, whom they repel with difficulty. Short on leads, they contact an information broker named Wiseman who is intrigued by Kite's bracelet. He suggests that Skeith and Innis are based on the Cursed Wave, an antagonistic force featured in the Epitaph of Twilight, the epic poem upon which The World is based. Wiseman helps grant them access to Net Slum, a place known as a paradise for hackers and wandering AIs. Upon arrival, another Cursed Wave monster called Magus attacks them. They defeat it and return to the Root Town, where they discover that the computer virus has spread to The World's main servers and into the real world.
In .hack//Outbreak, Balmung decides to join Kite after realizing that he cannot halt the infection on his own. BlackRose tells Kite that her brother became comatose under similar circumstances as Orca, which renews both characters' determination. Wiseman formulates a plan to combat the Cursed Wave, enlisting the help of Helba. Their teamwork destroys the Wave called Fidchell, but the aftermath causes networks in the real world to malfunction. Aura contacts Kite again, but their meeting is cut short by Cubia's reappearance. Lios, observing Cubia's power, agrees to join Kite, Helba, and the others to combat the Cursed Wave. Operation Breakwater begins as the team pools their resources to defeat another Wave called Gorre, with no repercussions in the real world.
To fix the increasingly unstable server, Helba replaces it with a copy of Net Slum at the start of .hack//Quarantine. At the bottom of a dungeon, Kite encounters Mia, a member of his party whom he discovers to be Macha, a member of the Cursed Wave whom he reluctantly defeats. Cubia continues to grow stronger and Kite's team barely fends off its latest attack. In contrast, Operation Orca is a success as they destroy Tarvos, the next Wave. Kite seeks the advice of Harald Hoerwick, the creator of the game who survives beyond death through his AI incarnations. Aura appears and advises that Cubia is the shadow of Kite's bracelet. Cubia ambushes them and destroys the AI Harald. In their final battle, Kite recalls Aura's advice and has BlackRose destroy the bracelet, causing Cubia to fade away. Without the bracelet, the final Wave member, Corbenik, attacks the party in Net Slum Root Town. With the aid of the spirits of the coma victims, Kite penetrates Corbenik's barrier. Aura sacrifices herself to end the battle, restoring the network to normal and reviving all the coma victims.
The World R:2 // GU
.hack//G.U. takes place in an alternate version of Earth in the year 2017. As depicted in the first .hack game series, the "2nd Network Crisis" was an incident that occurred seven years ago in which many computer systems across Japan malfunctioned. Through the efforts of those games' hero, Kite, the incident resulted in the birth of Aura, the ultimate artificial intelligence (AI), capable of making decisions for itself. Under the guidance of Aura, The World, the most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game at the time, flourishes and the events of .hack//Legend of the Twilight occur during this four-year period.
In late 2014, Aura disappears, resulting in the slow decay of The World and the Internet as a whole. In response, the company that administrates The World, CC Corp, sets up "Project G.U." and tasks them with remedying the problem. They come up with the "Restore Aura (RA) Plan", in which they attempt to retrieve the fragments of Morganna—an AI that served as Aura's "mother"—and seal them into player characters (PCs) of The World. In theory, this would allow the Project G.U. programmers to manipulate the Morganna program to recreate Aura. Only certain "chosen" players could control these special "Epitaph PCs".
After locating candidates to operate the Epitaph PCs, the team proceeds to test the RA Plan despite concerns over "anti-existences" that might damage the Internet. The program fails catastrophically and destroys over 80% of the data for The World. Instead of trying to salvage the data, CC Corp develops The World R:2 and releases it to a new generation of players. However, this new game is less popular than its predecessor and becomes plagued by "player killers" (PKs), players who target other players for fun and sport. The Epitaph PCs which had been lost during the RA Plan disaster resurface in the new version, attached to certain players of interest.
The rest of the history can be found in the plot, as it pertains to what takes place on this site.
