The Two Timelines
A large part of the MUSH's current integration and placement hinges on the fact that Persona 2: Innocent Sin has already occurred and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is now in progress. If you're familiar with the Persona 2 duology, you know that Eternal Punishment takes place in an alternate timeline that over time threatens to blur into the original timeline of Innocent Sin.
Eternal Punishment, the second game in the Persona 2 duology, was officially released in English for the original PSX version, but not its PSP remake; Innocent Sin was later released on PSP but never on PSX. Given these patchwork official releases, we at the Velvet Room MUSH do not expect players to play the entire duology themselves, although it certainly will help.
This file is presented as an OOC good faith discussion of the duology's integration and transition from one game to another without revealing all of our hand but giving players enough information to make some decisions.
Innocent Sin
Once upon a time, ten years ago, five children met during one scorching summer at the Alaya Shrine and formed bonds that would last a lifetime. Forming the Masked Circle, they each always met while donning Phoenix Ranger Featherman masks.
Unfortunately, an innocent sin was committed. The eldest of the children announced to the others that she had to move away, and in their desperation to keep their beloved "Big Sis" from leaving them, they locked her in the Alaya Shrine. The shrine burned down that night, killing her.
Or so they all believed.
In truth, they were all being used as pawns by the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep, in order to realize his master plan to see humanity destroy itself and win his wager with his counterpart, Philemon. To that end, he made Akinari Kashihara, father of one of the members of the Masked Circle, Jun Kurosu, into one of his avatars, and raised Jun as Master Joker, the Exalted One.
Ten years later, four of the Masked Circle were reunited, wielding the powers of Persona granted to them by Philemon via the game they played with their Big Sis as children. While not remembering their shared past, they were drawn into a conflict against the 'modern' Masked Circle: King Leo, Queen Aquarius, Prince Taurus, and Lady Scorpio, led by Master Joker.
One by one, these figures fell, until the original Masked Circle all remembered the past and realized the truth. With others who joined them, they managed to save Jun Kurosu from Nyarlathotep's manipulations.
Alas, it was far too late. Through the spread of Rumors, Nyarlathotep had managed to plant an apocalyptic seed within humanity: a fake prophecy book called In La'kech, which stated most of humanity would be destroyed and the few survivors would evolve to become as gods. As parts of it were made to come true one after another, more and more people believed in it, giving it more and more momentum until even the most outlandish parts became reality.
When the Persona Users and those who joined them eventually triumphed, Nyarlathotep stole it away from them by teleporting in Maya Okamura, a woman who had been broken by his conspiracy theories while he had used the form of Akinari Kashihara, and had her stab Maya Amano, the Maia Maiden and the original Masked Circle's Big Sis, with the spear Longinus and inflict a fatal wound.
In the aftermath, the Grand Cross occurred, and the world was wholly destroyed save for Sumaru City, leaving only a woefully few members of humanity surviving. At the site of the final battle, there within the Collective Unconscious, Philemon offered a chance to rewind the hands of time and shape the new world based on a single premise, which was also its cost:
That those five had never met ten years ago. That all of them forget everything of their struggles and this world for the sake of humanity and its future, in a world that they reshape.
They agreed, all of them--except one of them, Tatsuya Suou, refused to forget.
This entire timeline is now The Other Side.
Eternal Punishment
The Eternal Punishment timeline that the MUSH currently starts on, a.k.a. This Side, is a divergent timeline, formed to remove the groundwork that Nyarlathotep laid in order to see the world destroyed. For that reason, the five members of the original Masked Circle--Maya Amano, Tatsuya Suou, Lisa Silverman, Eikichi Mishina, and Jun Kurosu--never met that day ten years ago.
They and those who fought with them had all agreed to forget for humanity's sake. And so they have; each of them are different people, shaped by different experiences from never having met each other and the various butterfly effect changes that resulted.
Except for Tatsuya Suou. After a chance encounter with Maya Amano, his Eternal Punishment self, who grew up without those memories, switched out for his Innocent Sin self that remembers everything.
He's the only person that remembers.
Unfortunately, this act of attachment invited Nyarlathotep back into this world, and he's been doing damage ever since. The MUSH begins with a Joker Killer, the former King Leo from Innocent Sin, suffering from the Voices of Nyarlathotep whispering to him for the past ten years, telling him that this world is a mistake and must be corrected.
What does it mean to correct the mistake?
To erase this timeline, and return everything back to the one where the world ended.
Meanwhile, with his effort at In La'kech and the Grand Cross thwarted, Nyarlathotep prevents putting all his eggs in one basket with the formation of the New World Order, a fascist movement that would see this world destroyed to create one without sin, through rumors.
Velvet Room MUSH: A Discussion
The staff of the Velvet Room MUSH will be as transparent as we can about the changes in the world and our intentions while still keeping certain aspects of integration secret.
Sumaru City is Different. The locations of many businesses have changed. Some have moved due to Wang Long fortune-telling indicating they should; others have relocated for more mundane reasons. An entire ward called Narumi Ward exists when it did not previously.
The Grand Cross Did Not Destroy the World. Despite the apocalyptic rumor being spread, it was nowhere near as strong due to the lack of In La'kech and other strong rumors behind it. It took place on May 2, 2012, on VRM, but nothing happened.
Ten Years Ago, Tatsuya Suou, Maya Amano, Lisa Silverman, Eikichi Mishina and Jun Kurosu (now Jun Kashihara) never met or became friends. They have all been living their lives otherwise, and largely for the better. Without the presence of Nyarlathotep manipulating them and their families, each has lived largely more fulfilled lives, and many do not have the same complexes as they had in Innocent Sin.
The Will of Rebellion and whether it existed or not on the Other Side is ICly a mystery. OOCly, no player characters or known NPCs in the Innocent Sin timeline utilized the Will of Rebellion, period. This means the Persona 5 plot did not happen on the Other Side. Among other things, Wakaba Isshiki was never murdered; Masayoshi Shido never set his conspiracy in motion; and Ren Amamiya never came to Tokyo.
We Will Never Travel to the Innocent Sin Timeline En Masse, period. End of Story. The Entire MUSH will never ever go there, and we have no intention of examining in detail what life is like there for the few people who are left. We will eventually do a storyline examining what our characters were like in the past of that timeline once more secrets are revealed. Because of that...
Do Not Depict The Innocent Sin Timeline Right Now! As players, we understand the temptation. Please don't! There are certain things that can be alluded to, such as déjà vu moments and sensations, and there's questions on the app that encourage players to think of some of the broad strokes. However, don't work out the specific details or play them out on the MUSH yet. When we're ready for you to do that, staff will make a big announcement.
The Last Battalion never existed the way they did in Innocent Sin canon. There were no Nazis, and the staff of the Velvet Room MUSH, despite our willingness to examine fascism within the New World Order, have made the conscious decision that a different rumor was utilized. With the state of the world right now, we have no desire to depict Nazis or treat them lightly. Please respect this. When it comes time, we will reveal the exact form they took instead.
Innocent Sin Memory Restoration is not and should not be anyone's OOC goal for their characters. There is a very narrow set of characters for whom it might be available, and only at great cost. Please do not apply for this or ask staff for it. We will one day reveal why this cannot and should not be a goal.
This World Is Distorted is a major theme of the current MUSH. Things are not quite how they should be. Some characters may have a nagging sense of this which relates to how they may awaken to the Will of Rebellion. In general save for the Innocent Sin cast, people on This Side have their lives subtly altered or changed in ways that are debatably worse than their lives on the Other Side. Often this is due to the thematic conceits on this MUSH. Perhaps the rise of the New World Order is the cause, or an individual who is 'Distorted' has played a role in your backstory, making it necessary for your character to awaken. The distortion of the world is responsible for many of the challenges our characters face in the setting, and should be kept in mind when considering their 'Other Self'.
Wishes And Your Character: The Application
Our application section in both 3c and 9b has you discuss the prior timeline, while simultaneously being unable to understand all of the conceits of the game in regards to that. In an effort to be more forward-facing and lay some of our cards upon the table, this section is to talk about this more in-depth.
The Wishes of Persona Users who were alive at the end of the Innocent Sin timeline shaped the Eternal Punishment timeline. This means that the chief lynchpins were a) Persona Users who b) survived to the very end. This is important to reiterate because most of the world died when Xibalba rose, leaving only the citizens of Sumaru City alive, and more Persona Users died while fighting the final battles at the end of the Innocent Sin Timeline. Not every Persona User was alive at the very end, and no civilians were present when the keystone wishes were made.
However, this does not mean that dead Persona Users or even non-powered people are excluded from having made wishes that affected the new timeline. If your character (Persona User or not) had a strong bond with a surviving Persona User, whether or not they themselves were alive at the end of the timeline, your character is capable of having made a wish to shape the new world.
For example, if powered Shinjiro Aragaki and non-powered Akinari Kamiki each expressed a heartfelt wish to their close friend Minato Arisato before their respective deaths, then Minato could have passed them on at the end of the timeline on Akinari and Shinjiro's behalf.
However, if your character was not a Persona User who survived to the end of the IS timeline and they did not have a strong bond with a Persona User, they cannot have made a wish to affect the new timeline. These heartfelt final wishes have consequences, some quite good, some neutral, and some exceptionally bad. This MUSH will attempt to explore the consequences of a world shaped by those who fought for it in that timeline.
Note: We recommend you consider framing the wishes of your characters as having the best intentions, with their hopes for the new world.
However, there is another facet to these wishes that we've decided to make clear at the start of the game.
Some characters only exist within the Eternal Punishment timeline, and did not exist during Innocent Sin at all.
There are multiple reasons why this might occur. Some are direct results of the specific wishes of Persona Users. Some are more indirect results by a number of Persona Users or the collective, and some occurred for, how shall we put this... a not so nice reason, so to speak, that is the consequence of the world state from Innocent Sin becoming Eternal Punishment.
This option for your character to have only existed in Eternal Punishment is available for all original characters, and some, but not all, feature characters. Feature characters from Persona 2: Innocent Sin are wholly unavailable for this option. Persona 1 and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment feature characters are unlikely to be approved for this without a very compelling reason. Feature characters from Persona 3, Persona 5, and Persona 5 Tactica have this option available on a limited basis, at staff discretion.
If you feel during the application that you don't have enough information to decide whether you'd like to explore this or not decide on the state of the character in Innocent Sin, then it is quite valid to state 'I'll decide later' or 'I don't know' and have this status of the character be left ambiguous during application. If this is the case, then please allow do not participate in déjà vu moments as discussed in This Side.
When the time comes for reveals in game and for you to lock it in, we'll provide a means for undecided people to update these questions to the staff in a more informed manner.
However, if one does desire to play with this, and you wish to coordinate with others, a 'wish for family' so to speak being why someone exists is quite valid. So too are more general or vague wishes about the hopes for the new world resulting in someone existing that becomes a part of someone else's life. If you have other wishes in mind, you can run them past staff as part of your application.
The Velvet Room staff recommends that not everyone choose this option for their character. Our dynamic relies on having a good balance of characters who were a part of Innocent Sin as both Persona Users and civilians, both alive and dead, at the end of the timeline. Just as valid is that your character was a civilian without powers during Innocent Sin that has now awakened in Eternal Punishment, or a Persona User who died fighting the Order of the Reunion, or a victim of the machinations of Nyarlathotep that now has a fresh start.
Each option has interesting implications in narrative scope, and consequences that we cannot discuss at this time. When those consequences come home to collect, players will be given various options depending on what they've decided, or even the option to change their decision so long as it doesn't heavily require retcons to their established play.