Assorted Persona Topics

Artificial Persona Users

Artificial Persona Users are individuals who have had their Persona forcibly awakened through science without the assistance of a Guide or through the Ordeal of facing their Shadow and bringing its suppressed power under the ego's control.

In most cases, this is by forcing The Potential upon the psyche before it has occurred naturally. This causes an incongruence between the ego and the Shadow, bringing the two into inevitable conflict. The Shadow is not fully controlled by the Persona and on occasion may come forth to violently attack its person, representing this state of disharmony. That it would result in death for the Shadow as well matters little; human beings are full of contradictory impulses, and the self-destructive urge is part of what The Potential brings under control through the resolution to face death.

Most Artificial Persona Users are thus forced to take Suppressants, which are pharmaceutical medications made by the Kirijo Group with psychogenic effects, to temporarily quell the Shadow. Unfortunately, these medications cause gradual organ damage to the body, giving these unfortunate individuals a death sentence by choice of whether it's quick or slow. For obvious reasons, most people take the medication, but some may decide to cut out the middleman and eschew the medicine to let what happens happen.

The Kirijo Group is largely responsible for most Artificial Persona Users before the events of Ten Years Ago as a result of their research into utilizing Shadows for control over time and space. The survivors of these programs tend to naturally gravitate towards Strega, given that it was founded by three of them, but not all. Some certainly have their own agenda.

Currently, the New World Order is in the process of picking up where the Kirijo Group left off in creating new Artificial Persona Users. However, they are limited by a short supply of Evokers, a hurdle that Kotodama can't overcome. Their head of R&D, Hisataka Shinjo, promises a revolutionary new process of creating Artificial Persona Users where such limitations are no longer a problem, but it's still in the works.

The Tien Tao Lien is currently making lists for him of promising candidates and keeping them monitored.

Evoker

A piece of technology developed by the Kirijo Group to facilitate the summoning of a Persona for those individuals with The Potential.

Shaped like a handgun, an Evoker is used to simulate both the anxiety of facing death and the forcible shattering of cognitive barriers to bring forth one's Persona.

Evokers contain a Plume of Dusk, but the role this mysterious object takes in its operation is unknown to the majority of Persona Users.

OOC Minutia

• Evokers can only be obtained by SEES, Strega, and the New World Order without difficulty. Characters not associated with those organizations may have problems finding replacements. Anyone not initially applying into one of those factions will need to detail how their character got one during application. The bar isn't high! We just want to know how you imagine it happening and will let you know if it needs adjustment.

Plume of Dusk

A Plume of Dusk is a mysterious glowing crystalline object that looks similar to a feather. These objects appear 'alive' in a sense that's difficult to quantify, even by the most advanced technology.

Originally 'discovered' by the prior head of the Kirijo Group, Kouetsu Kirijo, in a Jomon era dig site, he believed them to be the key to manipulation of space and time and quickly made them the monofocus of the Group's most secret projects.

Some few understand that it is the basis of their supernatural technology. For more information on this, see Psience and Technology.

During the incident of Ten Years Ago, the majority of the technological secrets on how to utilize them have been lost. The Kirijo Group has been understandably reluctant to reopen the door on developing this technology again.

OOC Minutia

• Plumes of Dusk are not readily available to anyone! Not even SEES, outside of the rare technology the Kirijo Group outfits them with, or Strega, besides Evokers. That doesn't mean there's not a source for them. The New World Order has been provided with a few and are currently researching them. For anyone else, deals with the devil are quite possible.

• We ask at this time that no-one surround a concept around trying to place a Plume of Dusk inside of a person, that's Sho's thing, and the technology to replicate that phenomenon is currently lost.

The Potential

A term mostly utilized by the Kirijo Group, the Potential refers to the ability to awaken to a Persona without the need for guidance by a supernatural power.

Originally studied by the Kirijo Group as part of their aims to put the powers of time and space in the hands of man, it is now primarily sought out by them for the purposes of facilitating their atonement.

The Potential usually occurs in young people who are facing grief and trauma from the death of loved ones, but not always. Sometimes it just happens. Those with the Potential will awaken in [Dark Hour] and find themselves more protected from the supernatural 'allure' of this place than the average person.

Many with the Potential will awaken once they encounter a Shadow that forces them to face a situation of life or death. The resolution to fight in the face of imminent death will typically bring forth their Persona. It doesn't need to be an encounter with a Shadow, though; theoretically, any near-death situation in a supernatural space that sparks the resolve to fight will allow one to awaken.

An Evoker typically makes the process of awakening easier, but many people notably have an extreme aversion to putting a firearm to their head and pulling the trigger.

The Kirijo Group has developed a means of creating a sort of pseudo-Potential that allows normal people to experience the Dark Hour unprotected, but does not hand this technology out casually.

Furthermore, the Potential can be forced to develop in Artificial Persona Users through human experimentation, but rarely without extreme consequence to the psyche.

OOC Minutia

• Teenagers who faced the death of a loved one Ten Years Ago before the formation of their Shadow nearly always have the Potential. The reason for this is unclear. It will not always manifest until a certain life event creates a 'resolve' within them.
• Some people just have the Potential, even without facing death trauma. Why this happens is also unclear. A strong resolution to fight and face death very young can often develop by the time their Shadow forms, but even that isn't strictly necessary.
• If your character has the Potential but awakens another way through the help of a Guide, don't sweat it, it's probably fine!
• While technically the Will of Rebellion is 'a' potential, in that it's similar, nobody calls it that ICly, including the Kirijo Group. It is merely noted to be within a similar category on the Persona page for people to understand the category of awakening OOCly.

Suppressants

Suppressants, a.k.a. Persona Suppressants, are medications developed by the Kirijo Group in order to assist Artificial Persona Users with the problem of their Persona frequently coming out and trying to kill them.

These medications have extreme side effects such as nerve and organ damage, causing problems with autonomic nervous system neurotransmitter secretion as well as the endocrine system hormone regulation in individuals who utilize them, usually causing related side effects in temperature regulation.

Naturally, it hasn't been evaluated by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency for efficacy and safety, and is not on the market.

The Kirijo Group supplies these medications to Artificial Persona Users staying in their hospitals, but for good reason these people typically don't have a great deal of trust in the Kirijo Group.

Most individuals who require the medication receive it through clandestine black market deals with the few people able to create them. This is the path that Strega takes, and Takaya is tight-lipped about who his supplier might be.

The New World Order has a pharmaceutical manufacturing operation to provide the medication to its people as well, promising those who take it that they will be a part of the World Without Sin to come and that death will no longer be an issue.