Timeline

Below is the official timeline for the Velvet Room MUSH. An asterisk (*) marks staff fiat decision for a birthdate and/or birth year. Please note that this is not an all-inclusive timeline as applies to real world events impacting Japan; see Wikipedia for more information. Contact staff with any questions regarding specific events not mentioned on this page.

1918:

January:

The 1918-1920 flu pandemic begins in Japan. Over the next two years, this will kill 400,000 people.

1926:

December 25th:

Emperor Taishou dies. Emperor Hirohito takes the throne. This marks the end of the Taishou period, and the start of the Showa period.

1928:

Randolph Carter explores Kadath by himself (and as himself) for the last time. He will be the last human to venture into this realm for decades. Sometime around or after this, his Trapezohedron of Emotion is stolen, and he is trapped in an inhuman form.

1941:

December 7th:

Japan enters World War 2 on the side of the Axis powers with the bombing of a U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1945:

August 6th and 9th:

The United States uses an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An estimated 150,000-246,000 people die from both bombings.

August 15th:

Japan surrenders to the United States; this marks the formal end of World War 2.

1947:

May 3rd:

The Constitution of Japan goes into effect; this marks the transition of Japan from an Empire to the State of Japan.

1954:

July 1st:

Formation of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

1970:

By this year, Japan has ascended once more to a great power in the world thanks to its booming economy. This is referred to as the 'Japanese economic miracle'.

1972:

• Ryotaro Dojima born (May 16th).
• Zenkichi Hasegawa born* (October 1st).

1977:

• Taro Namatame born (June 1st).

1980:

• Kaoru Saga (later Baofu) born (June 13th).

1981:

• Takahisa Kandori born (November 8th).

1984:

• Tatsuya Sudou is born (August 21st*).

1986:

August 12th:

JAL Flight 123 crashes into Mount Takamagahara after a major structural failure of the aircraft, killing 505 of the 509 people aboard; this is the worst single-aircraft disaster in history.

1986:

• Katsuya Suou born (December 30th).

1987:

• Tohru Adachi born (February 1st).
• Ulala Serizawa born (November 30th).

1988:

• Shiori Miyashiro born (January 14).

1989:

• Maya Amano born (July 4th).

January 7th:

Emperor Hirohito dies at the age 87. His posthumous name is Emperor Showa. Emperor Akihito ascends to the throne. The Showa period ends and the Heisei period begins.

1991:

• Yukino Mayuzumi born (April 9th).
• Maki Sonomura born (June 4th).
• Masao "Mark" Inaba born (July 11th).
• Reiji Kido born (August 18th).
• Eriko Kirishima born (September 21st).
• Kei Nanjo born (October 2nd).
• Kazuya and Naoya Toudou born (December 24th).

January 1st:

The Japanese asset price bubble has now burst, ending the economic miracle of the past decades. This begins a period of economic decline in Japan known as the 'lost decades.'

1992:

• Hidehiko Uesugi born (January 1st).
• Yuka Ayase born (March 3rd).

Various political figures, including Tatsuzou Sudou, donate money to build Honmaru Park in Sumaru City's Rengedai Ward. While being built, the mummy later known as Gozen is discovered and excavated.

1994:

• Makoto Niijima born (April 23rd).
• Mitsuru Kirijo born (May 8th).
• Goro Akechi born (June 2nd).
• Tatsuya Suou born (July 27th).
• Shinjiro Aragaki born (August 11th).
• Akihiko Sanada born (September 22nd).
• Haru Okumura born (December 5th).

1995:

• Jun Kashihara/Kurosu born (February 14th).
• Lisa Silverman born (May 4th).
• Ryuji Sakamoto born (July 3rd).
• Ren Amamiya is born (October 31st*).
• Yukari Takeba born (October 19th).
• Ann Takamaki born (November 12th).
• Eikichi Mishina born (November 15th).
• Fuuka Yamagishi born (December 22nd).
• Minato Arisato born (December 31st*).
• Miki Sanada born* (no official date).

January 17th:

Great Hanshin earthquake in Kansai. 6,434 people die, and 43,792 are injured.

March 20th:

Tokyo subway sarin attack by the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect. 100 people die and 1,000 are injured.

September 4th:

U.S. servicemen kidnap and rape an Okinawan girl; public outrage and protests ensue. This intensifies the debate over the continuing presence of U.S. bases in Japan.

Fall:

Kazuya Toudou (age 4) dies after being hit by a truck while out shopping with his mother.

1996:

• Minako Arisato born (January 1st*).
• Junpei Iori born (January 16th).
• Yusuke Kitagawa born (January 28th).

1997:

• Futaba Sakura born (February 19th).
• Kasumi Yoshizawa born (March 25th).
• Yosuke Hanamura born (June 22nd).
• Chie Satonaka born (July 30th).
• Yukiko Amagi born (December 8th).
• Yu Narukami born (no official date).

1998:

• Rise Kujikawa born (June 1st).
• Naoto Shirogane born (December 27th).

Akihiko and Miki Sanada come to live in the orphanage and meet Shinjiro Aragaki.

Kouetsu Kirijo reorders the Kirijo Group to focus their experimentation on the supernatural. The Ergonomics Research Institute on Yakushima is restructured based on this mandate.

1999:

• Kanji Tatsumi born (January 19th).

2001:

• Ken Amada born (June 24th).

2002:

February:

Aigis is manufactured.

March 6th:

The Moonlight Bridge opening ceremony is held.

April 20th:

Labrys is activated as #031, eventually dubbed Labrys. Eventually, after a series of tests designed to bring out her Persona involving her fighting and destroying several of her fellow units, Labrys attempts to escape after hearing that the scientists plan to delete some of her memories. She gets as far as the pier in Yakushima before she's caught and shut down, then put into storage.

May:

Aigis' initial activation; after some initial missions her memory is wiped and she is put on standby.

July-August:

Innocent Sin:

Arson attacks throughout the city occur.

Maya meets Tatsuya, Lisa, Eikichi and Jun, and they form the Masked Circle together. She teaches them the Persona Game, which Tatsuya later plays with his older brother.

However, she tells them one day that she's moving away, and Lisa, Eikichi and Jun lock her in the Alaya shrine to keep her from leaving. Tatsuya is locked in there as well after he protested this. Unfortunately, the arsonist targets the shrine. Tatsuya is able to escape but runs into the arsonist, who attacks and wounds him. He awakens to his Persona and burns out the arsonist's eye. Maya is able to escape the shrine but is burned.

Traumatized, the kids collectively forget about their time together and Maya.

Eventually, Suou's father pinpoints the likely suspect, but before he can do anything, he is charged with accepting bribery and arrested. His partner, Togashi, had sold him out after accepting a bribe from Tatsuzou Sudou to hide that it was his son, Tatsuya Sudou, behind the arsons.

Eternal Punishment:

Homicides and violent attacks take place throughout the city (and a few arsons, as a treat).

Maya, Tatsuya, Lisa, Eikichi, and Jun never meet each other.

A fire breaks out in the orphanage where Goro, Shinjiro, Akihiko, and Miki are living. Miki (age 6) dies in the fire, but the others survive. Unbeknownst to anyone, the fire is arson, committed by Tatsuya Sudou as he's driven to "correct an error" from the Other Side by the Voices.

One of his victims is Shiori Miyashiro's brother, Takuya. As with the other timeline, Suou's father identifies a likely suspect but is instead charged with accepting bribery and arrested. The reason is the same as in IS's timeline -- betrayal, bribery to hide what Tatsuya Sudou has done. This is the last straw for his father, who knows that his son is behind the event.

Tatsuya Sudou is placed into a mental institution by his father in both timelines.

September 10th:

The Kirijo experiment into initiating the Fall goes awry when Eiichiro Takeba interrupts the procedure. This causes the facility to explode, killing everyone present.

Death is unleashed and wanders the city. Aigis is reactivated in response. Aigis catches up to Death and defeats it. During the battle, the Arisato parents die on the Moonlight Bridge. Unable to destroy Death, Aigis seals it into their child.

The first Dark Hour. Tartarus appears on the ruins of the lab.

Gekkoukan High is eventually built over the site once cleared.

Fall:

Perception of Gozen is changed from a normal mummy to the spiritually powerful mummy of Kiyotada Sumaru. The New World Order is founded by Tatsuzou Sudou based on this. Because of the perception change, members believe that the founding took place in 1992, when Gozen was first discovered.

2004:

October 23rd:

Chuuetsu earthquake kills 68 people, with more than 4,805 injured.

2007:

• Nanako Dojima born (October 4th).

An attempt to investigate money laundering between the Minister of Justice and the Tien Tao Lien in Taiwan goes awry; an assassination attempt is made on Kaoru Saga and his assistant Miki Asai as Tatsuzou Sudou becomes wise to what's going on. He survives due to awakening to his Persona, but Miki Asai does not.

He vanishes after this and may well have been presumed dead; he takes on the name and persona of Baofu after this. He goes on to learn Qi Gong, starts learning hacking, wiretapping, and other illegal methods of surveillance, and begins work as a 'sweeper' for bugs (he plants his own). He kills several members of the Tien Tao Lien. Following the Tien Tao Lien back to Japan, he starts the website Dark Side.

His goals are ultimately to kill Tatsuzou Sudou and the rest of the Tien Tao Lien in revenge for Miki's death.

2008:

Japan is hit by the 2008 Great Recession.

Suguru Kamoshida's volleyball team takes home the gold in the summer Olympics.

2009:

January, the Mikage-cho Incident:

Following years of implementation and setup, Takahisa Kandori initializes the DEVA System, of which the ill girl Maki Sonomura is a key component. Naoya and his friends, who have come to the hospital to visit their ill classmate Maki Sonomura, find themselves under attack by demons suddenly after their visit. Nanjo's butler Yamaoka dies at the hands of some demons. Awakening to their Personas, Naoya and the rest are able to fight back.

They find Maki's mother, Setsuko Sonomura, who has been wounded. She explains what's going on and it becomes clear that SEBEC is behind what's happened to the town. However, this isn't the only issue they're facing down.

The students split up; some of them (including Naoya) go back to the high school to check how things are. There, they meet up with their teacher Saeko Takami who puts on the rumored-to-be-cursed Snow Queen mask and suddenly becomes possessed. Freezing everywhere beyond the bounds of the school, the group re-creates the demon mirror by challenging the mysterious towers Snow Queen Saeko summons.

The group uses this to save Saeko from her possession. As it turns out, Saeko was possessed by the spirit of her childhood friend who had died, Tomomi Fujimori. After doing battle with the Night Queen, which had once been Tomomi's Persona, they are able to save the world from being cloaked in endless night.

Those who go to deal with SEBEC's role in current events meet up with Maki, who is to their surprise healthy and with no memory of ever being hospitalized. She also claims her mother is dead. Naoya eventually catches up to them after resolving the matter at their school. Together, they infiltrate the SEBEC building and confront Kandori inside the DEVA System.

Here, a young girl in black called Aki retaliates against them and they find themselves in an idealized version of Mikage-cho. Catching up with Kandori again, they fight him and he is possessed by his Persona, Nyarlathotep. Takahisa Kandori dies, but before dying, reveals that the Maki traveling with her friends is not the Maki they knew: she, and the girls Aki and Mai, are all fragments of Maki, and she is the idealized version of Maki.

After rescuing Maki's true self from the Collective Unconsciousness afterwards, the group confronts Pandora, an aspect of Maki that wants to destroy everything. Upon Pandora's defeat, Maki again becomes whole and the effects on the town are reversed. Maki, who has also been healed of her illness, soon returns to school with her friends afterwards.

2010:

Chisato Dojima dies (due to a hit and run).

August 21st:

Wakaba Isshiki dies (targeted assassination by the Black Mask at another's orders).

October 4th:

Ken Amada's mother is killed (accident caused by the rampaging Persona Castor). The police determine it was a drunk driver crashing into the Amada's home after an investigation.

2011:

March 11th:

The Touhoku earthquake, followed by a tsunami and nuclear disaster at Fukushima. 20,000 people die as a result of these catastrophes.

2012:

April:

Tokyo metro subway derailment injures 80 people.

Suguru Kamoshida, after a public apology, is arrested (as a consequence of his Treasure being stolen from his Palace) soon after a calling card sent by the "Phantom Thieves of Hearts" claiming to target him is posted at Shujin Academy.

May 2nd:

The Grand Cross, a celestial phenomenon wherein all the planets in the solar system align, takes place. Nothing of note happens.

May:

A museum in Tokyo hosts a popular art exhibit featuring the works of world-renowned artist Ichiryusai Madarame. During the exhibit's run, another calling card is posted all over the museum, this time targeting Madarame. Soon after, he makes a public apology in the vein of Kamoshida and is arrested. Rumors about the Phantom Thieves gain traction.

Principal Hanya of Seven Sisters High School is murdered by the Joker Killer, the latest in their serial killing spree.

June 1st:

Game start.