#Sholar System AU

[systematicallycapricious]

[AoN] PxDN Lore Snippet: R-00 + R-01 Reactivation

Yep, I read Persona x Detective Naoto, and yep, I'm incorporating it into this story. Why? ‘Cause it’s not a bad read, and more importantly it’s got a lot of feasible world lore I can use to enrich the setting, of which I can do all sorts of fun stuff with. Also, Sousei and Sho share a lot of similarities in terms of circumstances and behaviors, so any chance for him and Sholar to cross paths has lots of fun potential as well, even if it's only once.

Anyway, this is just a little snippet from the full AoN-PxDN lore doc that I'm getting straightened-up, 'cause I'm excited about how nicely I got it to fit together. \o/

Spoilers for: Persona x Detective Naoto, Persona 3, Persona 4 Arena/Ultimax, and my fic "Apropos of Nothing" (very mildly though, otherwise I wouldn't be posting it xP)

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(For quick reference, the R-series ASSW project spanned from roughly 2006 to 2009, with Sousei's run being from 2007-2008, Ai's spanning 2008-2009, and their endings being Yūri's death and Aigis's reactivation respectively. SEES is first founded in Spring 2006 (being Mit/Aki/Shinji), and P3 happens as normal from 2009-2010. The 7th Gen ASSW project also ended with the explosion & creation of the Dark Hour on Sept 10th, 1999.)

So, several times throughout 2011, Minazuki accesses Ikutsuki's isolated server + the Ergo database server in general, with the first instance of the latter catching the ShadOps/KJG's attention. A bit spooked by the unauthorized access, everything related to Ergo (both current and old) is given a thorough security check, resulting in the discovery of 3 ASSWs sitting around in storage, among other things.

(Note: the database server access happens differently in this AU, so up until now, Minazuki had been accessing the isolated server legitimately via Ikutsuki's whitelisted computer with admin credentials, and then attempted to access the general server with an unregistered device. I still have to learn how databases work though, so I might have to adjust that in the future.)

Pretty much no one seems to know much about this mysterious 5th Gen and two R-series androids, despite there actually being a decent bit on information on-file for the latter once they decrypted it, and so, alongside a bunch of other old Ergo artifacts, the three are shipped out to the Yakushima Ergo quarantine facility for inspection and threat assessment. Some of the staff who were cited to work on the R-series are also contacted by Mitsuru to get further information.

(Note: unlike OG, the transport goes smoothly, because canon-divergence. /o/)

Mr. Tsuge Tetsuma has been employed as a researcher in the Kirijo Ergonomics Robotics Division for a long time now, but more importantly since the R-Series project was abruptly halted and its products stuffed away into storage. Now, he was nowhere near happy about having to leave Sousei and Ai in there for all this time, mind you, but he didn't have the authority nor the opportunity to get them back out of storage on his own, and so it was all he could do to stick with the company until an opportunity might arise. Getting a phone call from Mitsuru provided one such opportunity.

With the aid of Tsuge, the three ASSWs are reactivated and inspected, and once Mitsuru learns that they're not threats and are sentient beings with "hearts" of their own, they're given official rank as auxiliary members in the ShadOps to keep Public Safety from trying to confiscate them on the grounds of being "highly dangerous weapons". And… I guess I haven't figured out the specifics beyond that point yet, like if they actually help out the ShadOps or not. I feel like they might given Sousei’s determination to prove his usefulness and Ai’s desire to help out overall, but Sousei’s determination to have a combat-type Persona might also undermine that? Anyway, Tsuge is also brought into the fold as an official ShadOps researcher and tasked with being the supervisor of the Kurogamis due to his past experiences and relations with them and their creator.

(Fun fact: the reactivation order goes Ai, Sousei, Labrys because they have more information on, and familiarity with, the R-series units than the 5th Gen unit, so there's less risk involved with activating the Kurogamis than there is with Labrys. (Plus, in the event that Labrys ends up being hostile or out of control, the Kurogamis could be called in to help suppress her.) Also, Tsuge knows that Sousei will be rowdier than Ai, so as one of the chief specialists on the team, he's making the executive decision to give the team the ‘easier’ one to start with, lol.)

A year passes (which is what makes up a lot of Sousei's impression of "smoldering away at a lab, not yet fulfilling his mission as a suppression weapon"), and in late 2012 the National Police Agency entreats the KJG for technological aid in civilian safety and law enforcement measures. With the Kurogamis’ robotic physique and Sousei’s Past Reading in mind, this opportunity gets presented to Tsuge and the Kurogamis, of which Tsuge eventually gets Sousei on board with when he learns that they can be stationed at Yagokoro's PD, where Aoi Touko works. Ai didn't really need a ton of convincing, being content to be wherever Tsuge and Sousei are and determined to help out where she can.

(Note: part of the "last year's brutal crimes" is influenced by the Inaba kidnapping and murder cases, as it caused quite a stir across the nation, though the other part is probably more mundane, non-magical crime. Also, other technology and robotics were implemented in other PD's across Japan, but Yagokoro was the only one to make use of ASSWs specifically.)

And from there, PxDN happens more-or-less as normal, although certain events may or may not have Naoto meet the Kurogamis and/or Tsuge before PxDN occurs. It depends on if they end up staying on Yakushima for the whole time or if they go to an Ergo or ShadOps facility on mainland Japan, and furthermore if it happens to be the one Naoto visits or not. Most likely, if they do cross paths at all, it'll be brief, or else an off-handed mention of them by someone else, but I'll have to see as I solidify more of that part of the timeline. P:

Also, Tsuge’s employment with the ShadOps lets him distribute Evokers to Touko and Naoto during PxDN’s events, perhaps special models more recently designed for use outside of the Dark Hour/CoUn, because they really shouldn’t be able to summon their Personas so casually in the conscious world. It’s somewhat believable for when Naoto Awakens to Amatsu Mikaboshi and when she’s trying to save Touko, given the circumstances, but outside of that. :P

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Some Ergo Lore!

Disclaimer: I’ve been staring at both this and my cacophony of assorted AoN notes for too long, so if something doesn’t make sense in it, just let me know and I’ll do my best to clarify it.

(Additionally, stuff like the metaphysical aspects of how Evokers work and more on how they’re used for research are still in the works, so I’ll likely be including those in different lore docs later on. /o/)

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Misc. doodles from the past few months!

...I honestly didn’t realize Labrys was making similar expressions until I just put them together in this post. I drew those like 2 months apart. >_>;

‘Fantasy cat-hybrid’ Sho is about as random (and as fluffy) as he looks, haha. I’m also torn between him painting the X on his face to look cooler and it being a consequence of whatever resulted in his third eye (and, presumably, subsequently Minazuki), which would probably be something magic-related given its odd coloration.

Also yes, his shirt is half off in the lineart one. It’s actually just because I needed more skin and shadows to test out colors in the new medium I was trying. xD (Which isn’t pictured here because it came out.. kind of a mess. qvq; )

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Misc. collective doodles round 2!

The top 2 are from an expressions practice thing I was doing for SholarAU, which is why the scar patterning is a bit different than the one shown in the Ultimax manga. (Albeit I haven’t really settled on a set scar patterning for this Sho yet, so these are just kind of random placeholders for now. :P)

The middle two are just random late night doodles if I recall, and aren’t really from anything in specific. Just random thoughts getting intertangled while I work on other things, hehe.

Tsukis! Also from SholarAU, and also more idle expressions doodling (because I haven’t really had the focus to do more involved art lately. <_<; ), with a small guest appearance from another character. He isn’t technically supposed to have a cloak, but I had ‘Tsuki the Persona’ and not ‘Tsuki the character design that I’d made before’ pulled-up for reference, so don’t mind that too much. >w>;

And lastly Izayoi! ...of which the art is actually from like last March but I only got around to finishing coloring a couple days ago. Anyways, Izayoi’s an AU Sho and Minazuki from a non-fandom species of mine. Summarily, the species has a special connection to the life energy that threads throughout the multiverse that both allows and compels them to travel between various worlds, thanks to a patron deity of sorts with domains over stuff like life, travelers, and etc. Akatsuki and Akari got those names instead of “Minazuki” and “Sho” because multiversal divergence. :P

Izayoi Fun facts:

They’re both twin flames and biological twins.

Mentally, Akatsuki is agender, while Akari is male. Physically, they’re both masculine.

Their face “scar” is actually a marking, not a scar, though Akari probably does have a couple scars elsewhere on his body.

Akatsuki has affinities to ice and darkness, while Akari has affinities to fire and kinetic energy.

The two of them got separated at a young age thanks to Akari wandering through a spacetime rift while Akatsuki wasn’t looking. The two do eventually reunite, but it takes them quite a long while to happen to cross paths with one another. (The multiverse is a very big place, after all.)

Beyond their innate instincts to travel, the two of them have this sort of strange yearning that they can’t really make sense of. Like there’s somewhere they’re meant to go in specific, though they have no idea what or why that is. It’s actually just them vaguely sensing one another through the life energy of the multiverse, albeit not strongly enough to actually be able to discern where one another are.

“Akari” isn’t actually Akari’s birth name. Originally, he and Akatsuki were supposed to be “Izayoi” when they were one soul, but when they diverged into two, their patron gave them the additional names of “Akatsuki” and “Aketomo” to reflect that. “Akari” came from Akatsuki insisting on calling Aketomo that when they were still really young, and ended up sticking in Aketomo’s mind once he wandered off, to the point that he remembered that over “Aketomo” as his name. Neither of them remember that happening though, given they weren’t yet old enough to form memories that complex.

Akatsuki’s favorite type of place to visit is “a quiet reprieve in the middle of a bustling area”. So like for (a not particularly great) example... a cafe on a big city main street with a big window looking out onto that street.

Akari’s an adrenaline junkie, so he tends to like exploring more dangerous places. (Dangerous places with a good view are especially places he likes.)

Akatsuki has a sixth sense that Akari doesn't, which at times leads to them sensing the energy of Akari's emotions through their souls' bond. Conversely, their own emotions can affect Akari, but Akari generally can't tell that those foreign emotions are present; though if they're particularly strong, he can recognize their existence (as it's kind of slapping him in the face), they just feel like they're coming from himself and not someone else.

Both as a little kid and as an adult, Akari has the habit of trying to climb over Akatsuki if Akatsuki is in the way of something he’s trying to get to or somewhere he’s trying to go. Even while they’re like weirdly familiar strangers to one another after they first meet again. Akatsuki eventually learns to just let him do his thing, because trying to get out of his way only makes him climb on you more, for whatever reason.

The scales and horns were originally going to be white and black, like Tsukiyomi, but it looked weird so I changed it to red instead. P: (Also I wholly apologize if that scales texture looks awful. I don’t have the time to try and figure out how to fix it right now because that requires learning a whole new graphics program with a hefty learning curve. T-T)

Something more like Sho’s manga epilogue attire would probably be more fitting for Akari’s attire than Sho’s iconic Ultimax garb, but I didn’t yet know about the manga when I drew this, so. <_<;

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What a strange man... He seems to make that child happy, at least.

I seriously look forwards to the day I can apply this to the project it stems from. But in the meantime I shall post it here, as for the greater Sho Minazuki fandom, it should basically serve as a concept for a humanized-Tsukiyomi design, even if a few details are tweaked to be more in line with the AU. ^^;

(Also, Sho’s hairstyle isn’t in his iconic style nor the one the Ultimax manga substituted here because... well, AU plot reasons, but also because it’s fun to think of what other hairstyles he might’ve had when he was younger. xP)

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Is this truly post-quality worthy? I don’t really know because I’m a tad sleep deprived at the moment. I should probably fix it up and paint it properly later or something. >>; However, I do kinda like the concept as it presently stands, so, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ?

Beyond that, the song that inspired the idle doodle I found incidentally through [this] playlist someone evidently made for Sho and Minazuki at some point. In specific, it’s called “To Die For” by The Birthday Massacre, and it’s gotten very stuck in my head.

Does this actually have any context in Sholar AU? Uhhh... I think it was supposed to initially but then it turned out a little too differently so now it doesn’t so much? Take that as you wish, but this Tsuki design is too fun to draw regardless. xP

[systematicallycapricious]

Ask the Sholar System and AoN cast!

[Temporarily closed while I’m doing some lore and story reworking. Will reopen once I have something coherent to respond to asks with.]

Yep! It's basically as it sounds. You can ask the characters directly themselves or ask me about various AoN related things! Though there's not a lot to work off of for now, I'll be keeping this open as the story progresses, so people can send in asks at any point.

I'll be opening my blog's ask box exclusively for this purpose, so if I get any unrelated asks, I'll be ignoring them. Aside from that, if anyone is reading this and doesn't have or want to make a Tumblr account but is curious about something, you can ask it in AoN's comments section directly, and I'll post the answer up here! (Just keep in mind that I'll likely screenshot it to include with the post for context. Also, some sort of indicator that you intend to mean your comment or segment of a comment for this would be appreciated! I may not realize that you wish for it to be answered in this fashion otherwise... ^^;)

I suppose you could leave a comment on this post as well to the same ends as using the ask feature? I'm not sure which feature is easier to keep track of on Tumblr though, as I haven't really used either before now. ^^;

As for how answers will work; if you're asking in-character, I'll likely write or draw an in-character response, though on occasion I may have to answer it out of character. If you ask OOC, then I'll probably answer OOC, but if I get an idea for how to have a character respond to it, then I might include such a thing as well. Any responses given will also include content up to the latest point in currently posted timeline unless otherwise specified by the ask, so for characters that means that'll be the extent of their knowledge and experiences to draw upon, and for me that means I'll only talk about stuff relevant to anything that's happened up until that point.

Beyond that, there are a few things to keep in mind about this!

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Like AoN itself, I'll be doing it for as long as I have inspiration and answers for it, and the timing might be fast or slow depending on what I'm currently doing, what parts of my brain are currently accessible, etc. If I ever see that I'm not going to be getting back to AoN/Sholar things for a while, I'll do my best to make a note about it so people know.

Please keep in mind that these are not drawing requests! If I happen to draw a response for one I will, but it will be of my own volition if I do. ^^;

You're free to ask to or about basically anyone you see show up in the fic. :3 (Using a character's traits instead of name as an address for, or target in, your query is viable too!)

As well, if you want to try your hand at impersonating characters from the story itself to ask other characters (or me I guess) things, then by all means.

Queries about technical things, like general AU lore or even technical writing choices, I’m 100% down for answering. Though I’ll answer that kind of stuff in comments too; this format is mostly just if I need additional medias or space to explain something. <_<;

No sexual content please! I don't intend to cover such subjects in this story, therefore I have no such answers to give in regards to its characters. Gorier stuff (like mentions of physical injury related to the story) and heavy psychological topics, on the other hand? Keep it respectful and you can totally send it.

For the sake of actually being able to answer in-character questions, there's a certain degree of canon I'm going to be ignoring here. For example... Asking kid-Sholar things would classify as 'contact with a non-lab person' if I were to treat it purely as a canon-typical response, which would pretty much derail any queries with reactions to that fact. So stuff like that will be ignored in favor of giving an applicable response to the given query. Overall however, I'll try to limit that only to necessary interferences.

Regarding the relation of these to the AU’s continuity, I'm going to be considering anything I answer here as second-degree canon... I think was the term? Basically I mean that it’s possibly canon until the fic itself confirms or denies it, as I might tweak things for the fic after answering asks if I later realize that something else would make more sense, or else I outright state on the response that it's not a canon thing. Also that most of the responses might not actually happen in the canon timeline of events, but may reflect thoughts or feelings that the characters would canonically possess at the time of being asked about.

And that’s it! I’m not really expecting this to be a super-popular thing or anything, but it’s here if anyone wishes to use it. uvu